In early 2003, just prior to Carnaval, I was offered the great honor to have my 'Pointiflet' art creation of 'Califia, Queen of California', used by San Francisco's Carnaval as one of the central themes and graphics display used on the lead page of their website. For years, to be sure I had heard of this organization, was aware they had something to do with the yearly parade held in the Mission district of the city, but beyond that had only a vague awareness of why it was there. No clue whatesoever. It is huge, huge and global; the sprawling website affords you every opportunity to lose yourself and everywhere, or almost everywhere, in every city, or almost every city, there is ample and enthusiastic coverage of the events of the Carnaval and the many cultural areas they are concerned with. The amazon queen is one of their strong concerns and is an example of their efforts to help restore the true and proper credit to the dark peoples of the globe. Chris Collins, the San Francisco publisher and director of the Carnaval and its many endeavors contacted and introduced himself to me by email and the rest is, well, a remarkable flight of realistic fantasy. My thanks to him for affording me one of my most profound experiences.
As a bit of amusement, and for me a thrill every time I visit the gallery there is a page where the site keeps track of some of the favored images and how many times they are visited by web surfers from around the world. Proudly, for me, 'Califia' is one of them, and kind of sneakily, I download a copy of each day's changing results and one day I will chart and keep them for my memoirs. Take a look and help me by pumping up the totals, I would appreaciate that and, once again, thanks, Chris. What a ride!     TW