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Art Work

This piece was created to be shown at my first exhibit with 44.4 the Mother Artist Collective at the Centre d’exposition Art-Image.

The name of the exhibition is NOW I KNOW WHAT NOTHING IS. A show inspired by a photograph published in Patti Smith’s A Book Of Days, a book containing 366 images from Smith’s life. In this image, Smith sits in a chair, chin in the heel of her hand. She is lost in thought, a distinct heaviness to her gaze. The caption accompanying the photo reads:
This is just thinking of nothing. I remember my mother sitting like this. And I would ask, what is it Mommy? And she would say, Oh nothing. And now I know what nothing is.’
This show is all about the mental load and all the invisible labour that mothers do. The thinking, the worrying, the planning, the pivoting, the remembering, the organizing, the sizing, the foreseeing. Because “Nothing” is in fact everything, and everything is exhausting and overwhelming.
My piece (like all my work) is named after a song. “Te regalo” (I gift you) is a song written by Carla Morrison that talks about unconditional love and giving all you have and all you are so the other person is Ok.

“Let me take care of you,
let me hug you,
let me show you
everything I have to make you very happy

I gift you my legs,
rest your head on them
I gift you my strengths,
use them when you have none

I gift you the pieces
that make up my soul,
may you never ever lack anything
I will love you until I die”

This song perfectly explains the unconditional love I have for my daughter. The “why” behind every decision and every sacrifice I’ve made since she was conceived.

My piece is a paper sculpture of one whole brain and half of a bigger brain that hugs the smaller one. The smaller brain represents my daughter’s brain and the bigger one represents mine.

My two-year-old's brain is divided into four lobes and each one of them is filled with things she loves depending on the function of each lobe. The frontal lobe is in charge of listening and music, rhythm and drawing so I had her draw on the paper and then used it to wrap that area and on top of it put symbols of all of her favourite songs. The parietal lobe is in charge of reading so I made her favourite characters from her favourite books. The occipital lobe is in charge of the sight so I put all of the things she loves to watch, flowers, the moon, stars, dogs, bubbles! And finally the temporal lobe that has a lot to do with speech, so I wrote down all of those cute words that she mispronounces and that I love! My favourite one is “Te mano” instead of “Te amo”(I love you). Overall, her brain is a happy perfect little world filled with colour and life. Which is what I wish I can provide for her throughout her life.

In contrast, my brain was made with one single colour, and covered with a net of tangled questions where you can read all of the things I’ve googled since she was born. You would not believe how many times I searched: “Early waking solutions”

You can find more information about the show and my fellow artists at 44.4 website.

Te regalo

Lady Bloom was a big collaboration directed by the extremely talented Wicho Franco. We were once at a coffee shop chatting when he pitched the idea of making a human flower bouquet. I immediately said yes. He put all the pieces together reuniting all the creative parts needed and we all showed up to shoot. For this project I created a white paper "wrapping" that sat at the model's shoulders and grew from her neck up, surrounding her face with curved pleats and filled with locally grown Dahlias.

Lady Bloom

This piece is inspired by the Xiuhpohualli ("year count") the 365-day solar calendar used by the Aztecs and other Nahua peoples in ancient Mexico, tracking agricultural cycles and seasons, comprising 18 months of 20 days each, plus a final 5 unlucky days (Nemontemi). It is also a clock marking 12 hours, and it tells us a story of how time is a construct with the clock hands intertwined, a reminder that nothing stays the same and everything changes.

Xiuhpohualli

Did you know that a group of butterflies is called a Kaleidoscope? Just like the kaleidoscope toy that we’ve all looked through, a cluster of butterflies in flight is a mass of swirling colors, constantly shaping new and mesmerizing patterns.

Monarch butterflies travel up to 3000 miles from South-East Canada to central Mexico each fall. They can only complete this trip with the help and wisdom from their ancestors, since no butterfly migrates more than once in their life. It is still a mystery how this knowledge is passed down from generation to generation, but it is a fact that they help each other to find the way. This piece represents the bond between travelers, the sense of belonging they can find in more than one place and the trust they have in each other to build a home, a kaleidoscope.

Kaleidoscope

Árbol de la vida was inspired by the pre-Hispanic Mexican craft made with clay, a symbol of fertility and abundance. A piece that portrayed my own journey through pregnancy.

Arbol de la vida

What if I make a couple of dresses completely out of recycled shopping bags? Recycled Consumerism was a very fun collaboration to raise awareness on excessive shopping.

Recycled consumerism

Wicho called and said he wanted to photograph a huge paper hat. So that's what I did. His direction and editing, the perfect spring day and blue sky were the elements that tied the concept together.

The sun and her flowers

This was my first ever piece that was exhibited. Since I moved from Mexico to Canada I've identified myself with the monarch butterflies a lot, they travel from Ontario to the center of Mexico every winter and both those countries are home.

De aquí y de allá

This heart lived in my brain for two years. It was the first fine art piece that I created for selling. It was an illustration and combination of all the things I absorbed in m trip to Chiapas and Oaxaca. The idea was to represent what my heart is made of: Lots of life, light, colour and that little monarch butterfly symbolizes my migration to Canada. I presented this piece in real life a the Art in the park festival in Ottawa and got so much amazing feedback, and Janet, the woman who ended up buying it made me realize that it was never my heart, it was her husband's. And she also opened my eyes to another world, I understood that I was able to connect with people through my creation way more deeply than I ever thought.

Corazón de Melón

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