About the Mural in La Cueva

THE IDEA OF A MURAL AT LA CUEVA

PETER KING and Hugh Hamilton offered an Architectural Mural workshop in the Summer of 2011 at Hue’s beautiful Art Studio near Kemptville, Ontario. 

I felt, -this is for me! That is what I wish to do in our new home in Colombia. When the time came last Summer, however,  we were away and did not make it to the Workshop, but after Hanne showed me many photos of the process, told me all about it and together with Bruce and Ricardo, the four of us went to visit our friends Hugh and Susan, see the finished work at the Studio door and talk about it.

This is what I wish to do, again I said to myself as I got home that evening. How could it be? Where, how to do it for our new home?. And started sketching. “We are the people of corn”, remembering Miguel Angel Asturias. And we are the people of guadua, a strong variety of bamboo for construction, used in most of our Latin-American countries in so many creative ways, architectural, traditional, contemporary, structural, artistic and decorative. These are my roots, this is what I must do and express as homage to our culture. The sketches started to take shape of long canes, both bamboo and corn have the same plant structure, monocots, hollow stalks with long pointy leaves. The design became a maquette I made and fired and saw it would work. I showed it to Hanne, and invited her to come to our small town in the Mountains, Villa de Leyva, stay with us and we would both do it. So we did.

Bruce and Hanne came to Colombia for a month, February 2012. After a long and adventurous trip, they arrived at the bus terminal in Villa de Leyva, where we picked them up and went to our home still under construction 5 K North of town.

PREPARATIONS, SETTING UP.

During the previous month, January,  Ricardo and I were quite busy: finishing construction of our house and setting up the Art Studio. We brought a truck full of old self dug clay from the 90’s, as it had been sitting in bags at our old cottage where I had my art studio, both rented for the last 10 years while we lived in Canada.

Photos of the mural process  click here...  and here is the story:

I found the dried up terracotta clay and knew it is a treasure. 

It had different types and colors and I start to revive it in water, then select groggy clay and hand wedge some 20 bags, (200 Kg) enough to start our project. We also brought in a small truck my gas kiln, put away for over 10 years. So I had maintenance done by a technician and did a test firing, a failure, it did not work at all. By now, February 4^th, Hanne and Bruce have arrived and we start our mural. The first chore is to set up the Art Studio and have the kiln work!. Tables made by mi carpenter sister and her Carlos, organize boards and tools.  But we had Ricardo and Bruce’s help. Also by phone,  Jorge, the kiln constructor’s advise. (http:/materialesceramicos.com). We made some modifications to the gas installations and we were ready to start. The kiln worked.

DESIGN

First thing to do, from my sketch, was to measure and make the design life size on paper 3m high by 2m wide of two corn stalks at the left and three bamboo branches at the right, joined at the top with a bamboo shut. Birds have been present in my work symbolizing peace, so they are included and I add some small wild animals form the region, a turtle, a hare, a bee, a small alligator, mice and frogs.

I draw tree bamboo shuts at the right, two corn plants with the flower at the end and some corn cobs and rocks as a base. Huge glaciation rocks are found everywhere in the region. At last I felt I am honoring our culture, nature and life in these mountains with the corn, bamboo and some of our native animals and rocks.

MURAL WORK PROCESS

We start making slabs for the canes and leaves. We have a few tools but lack sponges and boards. Could not find any in the small town, had to order plywood to the construction guys for from the city of Tunja. At the Saturday town’s market we find cotton for sheets to cover the work area and boards. We find left over PVC tube cuttings for supports and work really starts. Daily, with Hanne’s discipline, excellent  and careful work, my creativity and speed we make a team. I must divide my time between the studio and work in the garden and the construction, but Hanne dedicates all her energy and time to the mural. Slowly canes start to line up, different shape leaves, knots for the joints, animals, rocks. Following the detailed design, two weeks are gone. Now it’s time for drying and to decide between the two of us on how to finish. We get red iron oxide, special tile cement and a tan color grout. Have the entire wall painted raw terracotta color, matching the shade of the house and borrow scaffold from the construction site.

First firing with the text “La Cueva” and tests with the different terracotta clays. It all goes well.

Finishing touches, fitting pieces of bamboo, corn and leaves, finishing edges, measurements and all is set to dry. We take a break, go to the mountains, Hanne and Bruce hike the highest mountain of Iguaque, visit the Goddess at over 4000 m. high in her sacred lake where the founding myths take place.   We go back to work, firing the pieces. It all goes well finally with the kiln, after Ricardo and Bruce change the spring of the gas regulator.

Three firings and the mural is ready  to be cemented to the wall. Hanne’s fear is the cement, will it work, will it keep the pieces up, will they not fall down during the night?

FINISHING THE MURAL. Set up the scaffold, bring out the numbered pieces in order, apply cement and hold with masking tape till the following day, apply grog, retouch the wall and the day before the two of them travel back to Canada via Bogota, we finish. It’s up, it’s done, it is beautiful. We laugh and hug and toast, it must be up for years to come and many people will see it and join us in this homage to our culture, our roots: corn and bamboo.  

My work now, 2010 Installation: Labyrinth of Life

The past two years have been difficult, but a good mixture of joy and tears, the death of Claudia (January 2008 in Seattle) and the birth our sixth grandson, Gabriel (Septiember 13 2008). We have traveled to Clombia twice, what joy to be with family and friends, sharing the stories, food, fruit and walking in the mountains of villa de Leyva in Boyacá. Now our son Ricardo now is inviting us to his wedding next Summer (July 4th 2010) with Mary Forster, an Angel that came as a gift from Heaven thi past year of extreme experiences; his family has doubled, from 4 to 7 now: Camila (19), Tomás (13), Mateo (12), Reid (11) and Isabelle (6). After surgery of Thyroid Cancer, twice a year ago and again two surgeries in two days a couple of weeks ago again, the same spot, he same sacr the same fear, I am back home. Back.

Being back means back to my Studio.

When I was down low I said to myself, it is time to start again, start again. a new project, a new vision of life from my Studio. This is the way I heal. So It came to me after reading two books, THE RED TENT, and CHAOS. Reading and observing, looking at what is going on in this crazy world during these same two years, I got a flash! I must go back to work. Questions have come with my reading and events in Middle East, Africa and Central Asia and looking for an answer to one of the questions, -Why do women dress as they do in these countries? other questions appear: What is behind the way we dress? Who is behind it all, is it culture, religion, tradition? Is it a political issue? or is a man behind it, ¨ËL¨ as women refer to their husband or companion in my country, EL, without a name... ¨El¨ is authority, fashon, sex, film? who is ¨el¨ that governs our body? To whom do we expose, show, undress, how much, how far? When? I kept on looking, looking at what is behind all this. When I was in Bogotá I mentioned the idea of answeing some of these questions through Art, that is my language. And friends and artists gave me more ideas, suppot, even garments to start to work with. Martha Combariza, my ¨Maestra¨ gave me names of women artists that are working with garments, embroidery, our bodies, the relationship of culture East-West, man-woman, on Islam and women. I have been awaken by my own questions into the looking, how do we dress. How do we walk, move, expose, protect, serve. How are our roles related to garments, as a doctor or a nurse´s choice of color and style, as a cook covering the hair and clothes, a woman breastfeeding, half covering her breast, a pregnant woman showing her belly with her two piece bathing suit in the pool, African and Asian women walking in the street with their saris and traditional clothes and their had covered. Why do women have covered their head? In the Catholic Churches I have visited in Europe, Latin America and hereall women Saints have a veil, a scarf or some sort of embroderied garment covering their head. Why did nuns keep their medieval habits and dresses until recently, after Vatcan II in the sixties? why do some of the muslim women wear black, wear or not the shdor, a burka, another head covering? On and on, the questins. And friends also have started to have more of the same. Yesterday a friend emailed me: I have become aware after your ideas for the Installation, Why do we cover? At the pool, we all held a towel half covering our bodies after swimming, why do we do it? There are just women... do we think our body is not good enough... too much weight, too old or what???  YES. This is my theme. I am working in an Instalation with the question, ¨why do w cover our bodies?¨
So I have started to work.
Where, how?
And slowly life has been giving me the hands and support I have needed. You may see the process in my blog just for the Installation.  /http://labyrinthinstallation.blogspot.com/

It will be a Mixed Media Art Installation, I am mixing four artistic elements: The first one, sculptres I am calling ¨Empty Bodies¨. the second, a ¨sacred path¨ for I invite visitors to walk alongside with women  in a Labyrinth made with women´s old, worn shoes. The third artistic element is photos of women from different cultures and times, ages and social background. I have been gathering photos from family and friends along with my own to insist on the question: -Why do we cover our bodies? And the fourth one, the CORE question, at the centre of the Labyrinth, my ceramic work with some Angels covering their ¨bodies¨ and a great big seed, my seed, your seed, your core. The final questions...
¨Who am I?¨
¨What does all this have to do with me?¨
¨What am I doing here?¨

Sculpture, Empty body. A Capulana from mozambique and a blouse from India, copper wire.

2008 in my Studio, starting again

My Studio is my temple. Each time I go in, I start again. Whatever. There are tree spaces in my studio: a fireplace makes a cozy corner for reading, sitting and being in silence. In front of the window is the second space for work in the computer. the third one is my work studio, my temple. Here there is no time, the only thing there is, is to be here. It is where I sit and work. And when lost, I start again. I play with photos, send them and keep contact with family and friends through the most wonderful technological invention ever: email. And here I work with clay, glass, rods, copper wire, wax. Whatever material to be transformed into living forms.

My temple is silence, solitude, peace. Taking each work at a time.

Glass on porcelain, more tests, more of the same

Fusing glass is great fun. I have fused broken window panes, shattered pieces, mirrors, constructions, wine glasses, glass plates and jars from the dollas stores, beads. anything goes.

Then I made moulds and started to make constructions with glass...

and have moved to what I wish to learn, how to fuse glass on a ceramic or porcelain dish or sculpture.

Should it be fired before or not... ???

Glazed or not... ???

what kind of glaze, from what temperature, color, texture, form ???

This is a porcelain dish, fired at Cone 06. Then a frog drawing with underglazes on satin white glaze, again fired at cone 5. then the test, fused clear glass over, fired at Cone 015, slow cooling of kiln.

I have tried most of the possibilities and now I have a large garbage container filled of broken, useless pieces... something will be done with them out in a garden sculpture in the Summer.

But a few success pieces have come out, so I am thrilled.

Slowly I am learning how not to, how to do it.