Invitation to "Caminando con Mujeres el Laberinto de la Vida"

So this has been the challenge. 

You are cordilly invited...

I have worked as stubborn as a mule, or as a goat, after all I am Aries.

Support.

First of all, from Ricardo. As always, as ever. Patient and loving.

Then Alejo, patient and loving...

Support from UNAM. And from OAC, Ontario Arts Council, a grant to set up.

Friends from OGP and Art Petch with his web page ottawapottery, advise and patience again!

Our Consul at the Embassy of Colombia, Monica Beltran also gave me support, the wine for the opening. A beautiful personal gesture from her.  

The Gallery is beautiful. I would not find any better. The people, the light, the space.

Perfect.

Then support from dear friends, like Hanne and Bruce, Chandler and Mike, Chema, Olga, Pilar, Jane. 

From my family, Maria and from Ricardo in the distance. Family. Friends. To each, Gracias. 

Now the second challenge is during the next two weeks. Vernissage Monday, March 8th, the exhibit until the 19th. It is there. The work is there, on it's own. It will develop it's own language, it's meaning and questions... 

I am grateful for Art has moved me. Other Artists, friends and from Internet, as Sugare Hara, Ghada Amer from Egypt and Sharin Neshat from Iran. Their work is with women, with what we live and do. With our conscience and awareness. They have kept me awake and going. Salud!   

http://labyrinthinstallation.blogspot.com/

2001 Woman-flower Flower-woman, Installation, Bogota

Woman-flower Flower-woman... each flower is beautiful, fertile, colorful, unique. No matter her color, shape or size... This is the statement for the Installation at Centro Colombo Americano, Bogota (May-June 2001) (More on this installation in this blog in May 2001) I played with the metaphor: flower'woman flower'shadow shadow´woman woman´flower woman´shadow... on and on, one illuminating the other... High fired clay flowers on copper rods

March 2005, Installation at UNAM, Gatineau

1 En la Galeria, atras se ve el "banner" que enmarca la Instalacion... 2 Entrevista con la CBC sobre el tema de la Instalacion: "Wombangels" o sea, "una palabra acerca de la violencia contra la mujer" 3 en la Galeria Felipe Gutierrez de la UNAM-ESECA 1 RU with "Prayer for Peace" sculpture; and at the back, the banner, framing the Installation 2 Interview with CBC View of the Felipe Gutierrez Gallery at UNAM-ESECA

2003 Diefenbunker Museum, Carp, Ontario

Inside the Diefenbunker, 3 floors down under

Rosario with Ricardo, Maria & Alejo;

my daughter and sons.

They have given support strength and love

needed for this show, all shows The Diefenbunker is now a Museum. An underground bunker constructed during the "Cold War", (as if there are hot and cold wars). It is a 4 storey building, millions of bags of reinforced concrete. it now shows art work. The entrance to the Diefenbunker Museum

is through a tunnel.

Corridors and design belong to the fifties.

Since it was designed as a bunker in case of war

its spaces are very... -original, unique.

But just like the Fortified Walls in Cartagena,

to keep the pirates out in XV and XVI

it was never used.

Now, a museum full of little rooms and corridors in Carp, Ontario.

2006 Art and Garden Tour

The TOP neighbourhood: Tweedsmere on the Park in Kanata! A group of neighbours organize an open visit to our gardens and art studios during Labor Day. Here, the door of our home. Some sculptures live joyfully in the garden all year, as the birds in a flight for peace. Since they are high fired, may stay out in the garden doing their prayers for peace during the Winter. Making tiles, sculptures, flower pots for the garden is a joy. I even learned with how to make garden cement tiles! I use old windows for sculptures, working the wood, the original glass -if possible- and adding fused-glass figures and porcelain sculptures.

2006 Silleteros, sculptures

The Spaniards had the idea back in 1500: They tied a chair to the back of an Indian, to sit on. To travel. They became the "silleteros" or chair carriers. About 50 years ago, the tradition of silleteros was transformed into an artistic, beautiful flower parade, "el Desfile de los Silleteros" in Medellin, Colombia. Farmers or "campesinos" carry on chairs tied to their backs their beautiful, tropical flowers to the city. Here is an archive photo from the Newspaper El Colombiano, in Medellin. I also found a Blog with a visit to Medellin, during el Festival de los Silleteros These are the real silleteros; I borrowed their dresses to make my sculptures mixing the tropical flowers with Ottawa's tulips during the Spring. I exhibited two of these sculptures during the 2006 Tulip Festival at the Ottawa Guild of Potters Juried Exhibition.

These are the Sculptures I made inspired on the flower parade and Ottawa's Tulip Festival: Silletera. After two or three firings at different temperatures, joining and adding fused glass, copper wire (to hold some of the flowers, others are glued) here she is: a silletera. Ready to be out, in public! High fired Porcelain, glazes, underglazes, oxides, fused glass, copper wire. 28cm x18cm These two "silleteros" made it to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa thanks to the Ottawa Guild of Potters 2006 Spring Juried Exhibition

2006 Art in the Park, Central Park in Ottawa

At Central Park in the the traditional neighbourhood of The Glebe in Ottawa, about 150 artists show and sell their work during the first weekend of June. This year I show something new in my work, besides other sculptures and pots: work with glass. Recycling old wooden windows, they become garden sculptures, as these here. I was assigned in a very beautiful spot, next to the Rideau Canal, under an enormous weeping willow, which I loved.

2006 Ottawa Guld of Potters Juried Spring Exhibition

I submitted two of the "silleteros" at the OGP Juried Exhibition in 2006. They were accepted, they were supposed to be shown together, as a couple. But the Juror decided to give him (the male sculpture) an award, "best decorated". So they are shown each on its own. I was so pleased to see them up there in the podium! 5 of the selected pieces of the show. My "silletera" is separated from her partner (photo above) but enjoys the company of Chandler Swain's sculpture "Eve" with tulips, Carolynne Pynn-Trudeau's vase with yellow tulips, a teapot and a platter.

"WOMBANGELS INSTALLATION" UNAM-ESECA, Gatineau, Quebec

Wombangels.

A Wombangel flies, she is a bird.

She prays, she is an angel;

sensitive, humble and wise, she is a woman.

murdered somewhere in the world, this world of war, conflict, this enormous mad-house we have made, she is a Wombangel.

"Mario y Elsa"

2 porcelain Sculptures honoring Mario Calderon, Elsa Alvarado and Carlos, her father.

Murdered in their apartment,

Bogota, May 19, 1996

25 and 28 cm x 10 x 13

Porcelain slabs oxides, engobes, fired in oxidation, Cone 6

"Displaced Women"

15 photographs of women, men and children living in the streets of Bogota, Colombia

Copies of 10 Stories I wrote were available. Read in Spanish, French and English during the Inauguration, celebrating International Women's Day.

2006 A new idea: Silleteros

End of march. End of Winter. Gloominess, the snow in not good for sports, Spring seems far away. Kirstin, at the OGP meeting proposes the Guild's members to participate in the City of Ottawa Tulip Festival with a pottery exhibit. As I drive back home I get a flash, it just comes: -"this is what I need! Spring. Flowers, color, life reborn. I think of Claudia, she will also live a New Spring. -YES! I will make flowers..." How? What? Next day I remember: in Medellin, Antioquia, our beautiful mountain region: the Silleteros, the parade of the flowers, the city of Eternal Spring... YES! I will make Silleteros, fusing our beautiful tropical flowers, honoring Antioquia and it's flowers and the tulips from Ottawa. Yes!!! "Silleteros". Sculptures start to flow. here, bisqueware, more work, more colors, more fireings.

2004 Wombangels and birds in "flight for peace"

Here, each Angel is a woman... each bird is a young girl... a murdered woman who now flies free... she lived in Latin America, in Irak, Russia, the Middle East, China, Africa, North America, anywhere, North, South, East West everywhere in the workd, violence against women. Here, each wombangel has a name, a real name. This work started when I heard about the murdered women in Ciudad Juarez, in SMexico. I wanted to honor them. and this moved me into another chapter, a shout against violence towards women. Search it in the Web; or visit any of the following pages: http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/juarez/ There are many pages on Mujeres Asesinadas en Ciudad Juarez in all laguages, such as http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/ciudad_juarez/index.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_homicides_in_Ciudad_Juárez http://libertadlatina.org/Crisis_Lat_Mexico_Juarez_Femicide.htm http://www.google.com/Top/Regional/North_America/Mexico/States/Chihuahua/Localities/Ciudad_Juarez/Society_and_Culture/Murdered_Women/ http://news.amnesty.org/index/ENGAMR410302005 http://www.lavc.edu/Library/bib-women_of_c._juarez.htm http://www.lepetitjournal.com/content/view/2408/310/ http://www.frauenrechte.de/filmfest/uebersicht-engl.html http://www.ffq.qc.ca/actions/ciudad-juares.html http://www.bibliojuridica.org/libros/libro.htm?l=1072 Individually made porcelain sculptures, high fired (Cone 6) with underglazes, glazes, oxides and oil paint; mounted on steel rods.

Preyer for Peace, places where it has been shown

" PRAYER FOR PEACE "

While the birds in this sculpture fly in "Art in the Park" (Ottawa, Summer 2003), it is invited to participate in the collective show Waging for Peace and Hope at the Diefenbunker Museum in Carp, Ontario in the Fall. After, it is accepted to pray during the Spring Juried Exhibition of the Ottawa Guild of Potters OGP

After being in the centre of the "Wombangels Installation" it now nests more birds for peace while flying in a permanent exhibition at the entrance of UNAM-ESECA Library, in Gatineau, Quebec. The sculpture is 2.40m x 2m x 1m; has 21 porcelain flying birds on iron rods, mounted on a railroad tie.

UNAM Installation Inauguration Night

During the evenig of March 8th, International Women¨s Day, at the UNAM Gallery.