Conversations with VIrgn Mary
I needed to sit to receive this news from my brother, he told me that my mom’s money is barely enough. We need to send more.
My mother is weaker and most of the time she’s using a wheelchair, she rarely uses her walker anymore.
The situation with my former sister is not cooperating, she’s the only one of my mom’s family in Guadalajara but she’s sick. It’s time to take control of the situation, hiring a housekeeper, have report of expenses but nobody wants to do that job.
Maybe it’s time to think about a nursing home but my mom is still reluctant to that idea, my brother wants to bring her to Canada temporarily and sell her house. Look for something smaller and adapted for elderly care.
It’s clear that we need to sit together and make something.
My mom is good and aware of the situation but she’s afraid of traveling abroad and her passport just expired.
It seems that bookkeeping is a simple task, but when I asked for information about the expenses, nobody knows anything. There are no registers, nobody is taking care of having a notebook keeping track of the expenses. It’s going to take more time that what I expected. I need to sit with whoever is in charge of my mom’s bank account.
Good news is that my job is in a quiet season, not too much demanding so I could have some spare time for this.
But referring to art submissions is more difficult, now it’s the busiest time of the year, all the galleries are preparing for the fall events, their sales season. So, there’s a lot of open calls with deadlines within the next two weeks, I have been busy updating my portfolio and submitting artworks, but I have very little time to sit and do artwork.
In the good news I received a letter from the Latcham Art Center, and they told me that my work “Urn” a disposable gardening Paper Bag was selected as inspiration for an Ekphrastic poem and they want me to show my work during the reading of the poems in September.
I don’t have any idea of what Ekphrastic means so I Google it.
I learned that Ekphrastic poetry is a description of an artwork in the form of a poem”.
So, basically, a poet art critic. I’m really curious about it. I will try to have my piece ready for the reading, but I have submitted that piece for three open calls in the UK, I have to let the organizers know about this possibility. It would be great to grab a chair and sit and be a viewer instead of the artist in front of the crowd.
I folded Urn under my arm and went to tell Jorge, who had the kind of patience for my enthusiasms that I’d stopped expecting from most people.
That afternoon Jorge prepared “mate”, an Argentinian caffeinated infusion with yerba mate leaves.
“Are you bringing me a garbage bag for my leaves?” he said joking.
I explained him about the Ekphrastic event where my work was selected.
“I titled “Urn (The never-ending story of Penelope, weaving by day and unweaving by night, waiting)” it’s inspired on the old Greek clay urns that were decorated with paintings and scenes from epic stories, but instead of using a clay vessel I’m using a garbage bag, I’m using modern materials, the same way that the ancient Greeks used what was available in their urns.”
He saw the work and turn it around, as if he was trying to find something behind, something missing. He was curious but also out of place, he didn’t know what to do with the paper bag.
“It’s difficult to have this in your house, is it supposed to be hanged or should I put it on a column? And then you need to wait for an explanation and artworks relations and theory about art”.
He looked disoriented, he sat, and then he stood up and put the bag on a chair but still he couldn’t express any sentence about the work. “What I have in my house is simpler, look at this poster from the National Gallery in London, Van Gogh’s chair. I don’t have to think deep. They’re just for solitary contemplation. But what you are showed me has layers and layers of meaning and theories behind. You should be more basic.”
I laugh at his poster of a chair. “You must be kidding me, it’s a poster of a chair, Van Gogh was a master on fast painting, he did 200 paints in his last year, two hundred! He was so prolific he painted whatever was in front of him.”
Jorge looked at me and said, “Now it’s my turn. I don’t know if that chair was important to Van Gogh or it was just a simple chair, I’m not historian but I know that every object here means something to me. Here’s the story of that chair: In our honeymoon we went to London and visited the National Gallery, and we saw the Van Gogh gallery there, years later I returned to London for a conference about rubber and went back to the Gallery, I bought the poster there, it reminded me my honeymoon, love, passion. It’s not a chair, it is loaded with meaning, even if you cannot see it.
Let me check what Virgin Mary has to tell you about my chair, I should have something here”. He opened his folders with Virgin Mary Letters and handed one to me.
Friday, March 11th
You can be a chair. I mean, really.
Please be seated.
Can you describe what you are sitting on?
I’m pretty sure it’s a chair. One of the most ancient objects made by human hands.
A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat, and a backrest. It may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in various colors and fabrics.
The chair looks simple. Perhaps that is why it is so difficult. Even skilled designers have failed to create the perfect chair.
Proportions are important, if your seat is too small you won’t fit but if it’s too large you get lost in your own chair. The same with the backrest. Angles are important too, you want to seat straight and have a comfortable back rest a bad angle in the seat can make you fall or slip.
Chair comes from the early 13th-century English word chaere, from Old French chaiere (“chair, seat, throne”), from Latin cathedra and ultimately Greek καθέδρα kathedra (“seat, throne”).
Yes, a throne is also a chair, a chair with symbolic power, it’s destined to a high-ranking person, usually a king.
Chair is also an authority position, chair of the house, chairman, CEO and CFO.
You can be a chair, I mean it.
Your task will be very simple this time.
I’m going to ask you to sit on a chair. When you sit, you should be aware of your chair, be present while you are seated.
Don’t have a chair? You can borrow one from me. Just ask and I will give you one.
After this exercise I will send you a messenger, wait for it seated.
“This is one of the most cryptic messages that I have read. I don’t understand what she means.” I started to complain. “Borrowing a chair, sounds fascinating, how can I borrow a chair from Virgin Mary?” I asked in an ironic way.
Jorge looked at me with incredulity, then took the letter and browse it again. He took a sip to his mate and then as if he was enlightened, he spoke.
“Ask and it will be given to you. It’s that simple, I think it’s in one of the Gospels, And it’s one of the more repeated phrases in the self-help books and those new age books about abundance. Why don’t you believe on that?”
“I mean, seriously, should I write her a letter or just open my arms at the sky and order it from a heaven catalog?” I think it was clear my frustration, but Jorge didn’t end there. He started to talk again.
“You failed in your task, and you don’t even realize. There’s a premise that you haven’t understood. She is telling you that if you don’t have a chair, you can borrow one from her, but you are seated in a chair right now, for me it’s clear that you don’t need to borrow a chair.” He talked with authority, with the authority of the chair of the house. “Your only task was to be aware of your chair, and you failed. You are trying to challenge everything; you have problems with the authority. You should accept where you are seated and enjoy the landscape. Even before you ask, your wishes were granted.”
I remain silent, he was right, I was trying to laugh at the letter and at the end the laugh fell on me.
At that point I sat straight and started to notice the chair, I looked around, I also see Van Gogh’s chair with other eyes, with meaning, and something else happened, I started to notice myself, my thoughts, my muscles, it was like a meditation, but I wasn’t bored or in the verge of falling asleep, I was totally present.
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