Scar and Imprint

Lo Que Aparece 

              foto by J.Lopez

Getting ready for Las Gallas exhibit "Lo Que Aparece y Desaparece" opening 

Friday, April 9, 2010

at Taller Puertorriqueno, Inc. 

for the Philagrafika International Quadrennial of Printmaking in Philadelphia.

I have spent a lot of time with images of Mami, Papi, and an abuelo I never met. Spending hours and hours with these images and reimagine-ing a story; stories that she told me, that he withheld and a story that I never got to hear. All have left an imprint; one that you can see on my skin and another that is buried within. This play is one that is almost done. I wrote "Graciela" to pay tribute to Mami's struggle as a single mother, as an immigrant, and as a woman who survived domestic abuse. She defended herself from all these trials by creating a world that left a bundle of scars in her abdomen, scars that lined her uterus and electrified her brain cells. Text from "Graciela" will be incorporated in the prints that are being produced for the exhibit. Mami is forever. It is my intention to acknowledge the value of the imprint and the impact it has had on my way of seeing the world and being in the world. This circle ends. The next celebrates the wonder of this struggle I call Life.