STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

The calendar said late October, but Mesoamerican art historian Fonda Portales approached the table in The Hunger Coalition with what looked to be wrapped Christmas presents in her arms.

She began stacking them, creating what looked like a pyramid or a mountain. Then she draped a grey Mexican blanket over the mound of boxes.

Others joined in, adding family portraits, candles, food and marigolds to the display.

“The altar is a visual image of the universe in which we live, a symbolic recreation of the place where our ancestors walked,” said Portales, curator of University Art at Boise State University. “The temples were built to look like mountains; the homes were like caves. With the altars, you’re rebuilding that universe.”

Portales offered the altar building workshop as part of the Sun Valley Museum of Arts’ annual Dia de los Muertos celebration at The Hunger Coalition in Bellevue. The day featured Mexican food, music by an all-female mariachi band from Nampa and a performance by Dirce Flores’ Mexican Folk Dance students.

“In the past, we’ve had various community groups and families build altars. We though it would be fun if the whole community was able to contribute to an altar,” said Courtney Gilbert, curator of Visual Arts at SVMoA.

The altar, or ofrenda, is the center of the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration that takes place in Mexico and other cultures on Nov. 1 and 2.

Like the temples in the Aztec Empire, they mirror the mountains at the center of the world. Cut paper is hung to resemble air or wind. Water is placed on the table to symbolize the rain, which purifies and grows healthy crops of corn. And earth represents the foundation for food and home.

“It’s a time to celebrate ancestors through contemporary religious; the altars often feature skulls and other objects rooted in Mesoamerican and colonial narratives and rituals,” Portales said. “We place portraits to remember our ancestors and favorite objects of theirs, such as a bottle of beer to beckon them. These allow us to remember our family stories, where we come from and how we are to live.”

Building altars or ofrendas to honor ancestors is not something Portales grew up with. A third-generation Mexican-American who grew up in Denver, she grew up in a Protestant church where icons were frowned upon.

But she became interested in the Dia de los Muertos altars while studying at Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa and at California State University-Los Angeles where she earned a master’s degree in Art History.

“Catholics are dripping with imagery. I attended a Dia de los Muertos celebration in Oaxaca, Mexico. There, it is a major celebration with dancing and music everywhere. They play music in the cemetery; there are spontaneous groups of youth playing in the streets. Some homes spread marigold flowers from the door out into the streets.to help ancestors find their way home.”

It’s all about celebrating family, added Portales, who also has taught a class on alter building at the Idaho Historical Museum in Boise.

“As they build these altars, they share stories, laugh about the time Grandpa did such and such. People of all cultures remember the dead. It’s part of the human endeavor, although our culture wants to run away from death, try to stave it off with things like plastic surgery.”