Transforming Tragedy into Art

A year into the installation, the sculptures are fading and becoming more desecrated with each day.

Freshly sealed with natural resin and beeswax.

The mothers are weeping.

Here we begin to see changes occurring on the surface of the sculptures. The blue denim Madre has lost her gloss, the sun is beginning to bleach out the color and the surface appears distressed.

Though “The Mothers; Las Madres” is in large part, a memorial to the loved and the lost, it is also a Monument to Hope. “Make no mistake about it, in this world prayers are powerful and mothers are strong.” — Valarie James, creator of “The Mothers; Las Madres

The Demold Crew

TUCSON (By Carol St. John, CarolStJohn.com) March 22, 2007 — The drama of the US – Mexican Border is on-going. I see it with my own eyes everyday.

It pulsates in the whir of helicopter wings and the race of young men running from border police along the highway. It hurts in the sight of their hunched trapped shoulders and downcast eyes when they are caught.

Like it or not, tragedy is fodder for great art. Didn’t it give us Michaelangelo’s vision of the dead Christ draped across his mother’s lap? Wasn’t Les Misérables all about the struggle of the poor? Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath was summoned by The Great Depression and Picasso’s Guernica a reaction to the Spanish Civil War. Who can forget Edvard Munch’s The Scream with its expression of anxiety and despair?

Obviously, Art has never depended upon beauty for its origins. It grows out of an intensity of awareness and challenge. It emerges where explanations or definitions are inaccessible or inadequate.

A present day and local example of such art exists in the little village of Amado, Arizona, where Valarie James has been deeply moved by the plight of those fleeing despair. Her work evolved out of the evidence that showed up in the arroyos and grasslands of her neighborhood. It may be called trash by some, but she saw in it the hunger and drive, the pain of humanity and stuff of dreams that crosses Santa Cruz County daily. Her mind could not and cannot dismiss the stories she has found. It chooses instead to transform these fragments of people’s lives into art forms that not only record but illuminate the missing who, too often, become mere statistics in the political arena.

A shrine in her yard displays muddied prayer books, frayed and fading photographs, carefully wrapped water bottles, assorted sizes of gloves, and a panoply of items revealing the lives of those on the run. Shoes, from the dearest of baby booties to a little boy’s holey sneaker, a woman’s Sunday pump, and men’s worn dress shoes, stand piled high as reminders of the faceless people diminished by their circumstances. These shoes were left or lost by those trying to find a better life, those willing to face frigid nights and burning days in their quest for prosperity.

They carry testimonies of God’s power, miracle stories on tiny hand painted tin pallets. A letter found in a frayed pocket is pinned to a wall. In it, a child asks, Where are you Daddy? Nearby, beautiful tablattas from wives and mothers are spread, cloths that once wrapped food for loved ones and speak with embroidered messages of undying love. Large numbers of brightly colored small backpacks tell how the children have carried their own burdens. The pages of a Spanish version of Hamlet, the scene where he confronts his own mortality, is displayed. It might have gone unnoticed as mere insulation for a shoe, but sensitive eyes saw its implications. Just as they saw meaning behind the packets of birth control pills females must carry to prevent pregnancy in the event of almost certain rape.

The artist, Valarie James, a noted sculptor, could not ignore what came to her uninvited on the highways and by-ways of her neighborhood. She could not remain unaffected or mute and so she began to make the assemblages of her findings and placed others in a building on her property.. She found so much denim and burlap she decided to find a way to reduce them to a hardy pulp that she could turn into shapes that would honor those they represented. Cooking down the materials and re-cycling them into a heavy duty paper-maché, she then sculpted female forms and dipped the cloth in a glue of natural resins and beeswax to cover and seal them. The results are powerful, almost haunting figures of women.

Presently, you can see Las Madres in the fields behind Pima Community College, in Tucson, where three women stand apart and together, each representing a thousand lost souls on their quest for a better life. Beware, the figures have begun to weep. The unspeakable is now spoken and the ongoing tragedies turned into to art.

The Mothers; Las Madres,
No Mas Lagrimas; No More Tears

The sculptural installation ”The Mothers; Las Madres” standing vigil is an artist’s response to the human suffering and ongoing death of migrants coming across the Mexican/American border in search of work in El Norte. Each Mother figure represents over 1000 men, women and children who have lost their lives crossing the desert. The sculptures are made from discarded migrant clothing reclaimed from the desert and then blended with Sonoran plant material. The sculpture's distressed surfaces speak to the physical and psychological experience of the arduous journey and its effect on the people. The organic nature of the materials used to sculpt The Mothers; Las Madres also reflects the impact of this historical migration on the fragile surface of the desert environment itself.

Until Las Madres was installed, there was no Memorial in the area to the estimated 3000+ people who have died crossing the desert in the last decade, no public altar to visit to pay our respects, no way to acknowledge thousands of people who have no voice. As artists, we hope that “Las Madres, No Mas Lagrimas” Project can address this need and help fill the void.

Countless mothers wait behind, praying ceaselessly for safe passage for their husbands, sons & daughters as they make their perilous trek through the desert, mothers who know that many of their children won’t make it and will literally die trying. The Mothers; Las Madres also calls to our attention to the growing wave of undocumented female immigrants traversing the Mexican border into the United States, an untold number of mujeres many of whom are madres crossing the desert with families in tow. Embracing them is the divine feminine spirit of the earth itself that gathers the prayers of the sick and dying and bears the endless tears of these Mothers.

The Mothers; Las Madres takes the issue of immigration out of the realm of politics and brings it back into the heart, reminding us of our common humanity, that we are all familia with shared concerns. Seen enmasse, The Mothers; Las Madres have a powerful impact on the viewer. The Mother figures personify the wrenching exodus of the people from their native lands, and the archetypal quest for a better life for one’s family.

Making Las Madres

The larger than life size sculptures, each figure a high relief made from cast cotton rag, was wholly invented by trial and error, and entails over 20 separate processes in the construction. Materials used to build Las Madres include discarded Denim and khaki jeans, found burlap, bast fiber from Yucca plants, Sonoran desert grasses, Nopales Prickly Pear mucilage (as a binder), wire & steel, plaster, natural resins and beeswax, and sand from the wash.

The sculptures were created in artistic collaboration with Arivaca sculptor Antonia Gallegos, Amado sculptor Cesar Lopez &Tucson mixed media artist Deborah McCullough.

“Las Madres; No Mas Lagrimas” is a highly experimental work. As far as we know, no one has used non-traditional materials like these in the creation of sculpture for an outdoor installation.

It takes a village to complete a project of this nature and included almost everyone in the immediate neighborhood and the artist’s circle of friends and family. Special thanks go to volunteer artist-participants including papermaker Catherine Nash, mask maker Lauren Raine, Sculptor and painter Charles Spillar, curator Thelma Smith and her husband Sam, Deborah’s family especially her husband Ed… all of whom volunteered their time and talent when many hands were needed. Neighbors included the entire Rodriguez family, Jim, Kenny, furniture maker Chris Bleek and contractor extraordinaire Mike Hanlon. Friends visiting from Northern California; Linda Schoppert, Pam King, Judy and Eileen pitched in at the outset.

Inspired in large part by the growing amount of clothing and other personal items belonging to men, women and children left behind in the desert, "Every thread that embodies the figure(s) came from jeans the artist and colleagues have collected primarily from washes in desert lands between Amado and Arivaca - the same jeans that migrants have left behind. " Tucson Citizen, 9/05, the Mothers Project was conceived in August 2004 and installed on campus in November 2005.

"The Mothers; Las Madres Project; No Mas Lagrimas; No More tears," has been documented from its inception to completion. If you are a public artist, a sculptor, fiber artist or a supporter of the arts for social and spiritual change and would like to know more about the mythic origins of Las Madres, the collaborative process, and the materials employed in the making of The Mothers, email info@lasmadresproject.organd let us know of your interest.

Time & the Elements;
The changing nature of Las Madres

One of the most dramatic aspects of The Mothers; Las Madres project is witnessing the sculptures break down over time in the elements. Made from poor clothing migrants have worn in the desert and then shed along the way, clothing that carries the blood, sweat, and tears of the wearer, The Mothers; Las Madres will exhibit naturally occurring chemical changes like our own fragile bodies when exposed to the sun, the wind and the rain. The inner armature made from steel rebar and plaster will hold up to the elements while the surface of the figures; the ephemeral “skin” will crack, fissure and shred before deteriorating entirely.

In keeping with our commitment to the use of natural found fiber in making the sculptures, the figures were sealed with an encaustic plant based resin and beeswax varnish. The dynamic relationship between the sculptures and the surrounding environment is amazing to behold.

Pima Community College

Las Madres is part of Pima Community College’s award winning Sculpture on Campus Program and has been extended through 2007. The public is welcome to visit Las Madres at Pima Community college’s main (east side) campus at 8181 East Irvington Road (east of Pantano) in Tucson.