The Furious Spinner

In times of old, The Furies protected Mother Right. If a mother (or any woman) was harmed, The Furies swooped down and took their vengeance. They were one of the last vestiges of a world that existed before the patriarchy. When we feel righteous anger, it is The Furies who are calling out to us to make what is wrong right again.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Found

Valarie James and her colleagues Antonia Gallegos, Cesar Lopez, and Deborah McCullough took pieces of discarded clothing found in the Arizona desert, most of it probably dropped by passing migrants, pulped these pieces, and blended the pulp with Sonoran Desert plants to create Las Madres.

Each figure stands in vigil, each Mother "represents over 1000 men, women and children who have lost their lives crossing the desert." If you look at my photographs and the photographs on the website, you'll see that the figures are changing, are breaking down, just as Valarie James expected and intended.

They are beautiful and moving. I first heard about them at the Border Issues Fair I attended on Saturday. I told Valarie later, in an e-mail, that I was stunned to see these figures, particularly after writing Church of the Old Mermaids, which deals with migrants lost in the desert. Myla and her friends create community at the sanctuary where she takes the migrant by transforming what they find, what has been discarded, into art and stories.