Invitation to my Installation

Walking With Women along the Labyrinth of Life
Mixed Media Installation
Rosario Umaña
Ottawa, Canada
rosario.umana@yahoo.com

Vernisage: Monday March 8h 2010, 6pm.

Felipe Gutierrez Gallery (UNAM/ESECA,
55 Promenade du Portege, Gatineau)
Vernisage: Monday March 8h at 6pm.
Exhibition: Tuesday to Thursday
9 -10 -11 March 2010, from 9am to 9 pm and Friday 12th to 3pm.

Walking a Labyrinth is a spiritual, awakening experience. In this Installation you may walk alongside with women's old, worn shoes and also enjoy my "Empty Bodies Sculptures" by looking at the way and reasons why we cover , expose, protect, live our body, ending at the centre, the core, yours and mine.

I invite you see my work:
Walking with Women along the Labyrinth of Life
Mixed Media Installation
Felipe Gutierrez Gallery (UNAM/ESECA,
55 Promenade du Portege, Gatineau)
Vernisage: Monday March 8h at 6pm.
Exhibition: Tuesday to Thursday March 9 until the 19th 2010 from 9am to 9 pm and Friday from 9am  to 3pm.

Walking with Women Along the Labyrinth of Life
Mixed Media Installation
Rosario Umaña

rosario.umana@yahoo.com

rosario.ottawapottery.com

http://labyrinthinstallation.blogspot.com/

Mixed-Media and personal Blog at  http://rosario-umana.blogspot.com/
Selection of Photos of women covering their bodies and wearing diverse garments at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosario

Ricardo has always been the first and best suport. Here he is making the wire structure for the top part of the seed... I have managed to damage two of them in clay already. This one will be made in papier mache... there it is, finished hebind Alejo below.  

Alejo is always there to give me a hand. Now we are disigning the Invitation to the Exhibition... it will come to the Blog when we succeed... it seems far, but there is only a bit more than a month to work!  It gives me the chills.  

My sculptures are almost finished for the Installation. Here are the Burka, a beautiful dress from Indonesia and the wedding dress from the '60 Lina found at a Second hand Store. She wore it, pleased her parents who came from Colombia for the wedding and lent it to me for the Installation when I was looking like mad for a wedding dress... All has come from people's support. Now, the two embroidered curtains (behind us) were used in the Check Rapublic when it was Bohemia by my frind Barbora's grandmother. They were hung at the corner of the room where a woman was giving birth, her bed behind it so no one could see her.

Great help! Hanne, Libby, Ricardo and Bruce looking at the sculptures of "Empty bodies" and the center piece of the Installation in front, a big seed... our seed, our core.

Catastrophy

The center of the Installation is a seed. The core. When you walk the sacred path of any labyrinth, the centre is to go within, stay contemplating, letting the questions flow and be there...  My seed is made in porcelain, in two pieces. The bottom one dried very slowly and was fired twice successfully.

Then the top part, with lots of work did not make it. Catastrophe in the kiln... how could this happen to the seed I cried! Start again. And for a second time, it cracked while drying. By the sugestion of my dear friend hanne, I will make it for a third time, but not with clay but with papier mache.

This is the sequence of the seed...

Flickr: Your Flickr Web Address

Flickr: Your Flickr Web Address

Labyrinth and knitting

I love knitting, always have a thread to make knots and stitches with.

During the Christmas Holidays I knitted a long string for the labyrinth, to tie the old, worn women's shoes with.
Why knitted? Because we have always done it...
Remember Penelope? She un did what she had knitted during the day waiting for Ulises to come... Now even my grandson has asked me to teach him how to knit... And quite a few girls, like Camila, and Julieta, and Emilia and Luisa... and Marcela, and Maria and Laura del Mar...  that I remember of here in Ottawa. Oh, In Colombia I knitted with the group fron "La Asociacion de Mujeres de las Veredas de La Calera"  and other groups. We all have learned how to knit.
I tell the girls, /When you need it. you will remember. The important thing now is to learn how to make some stitches...
And why purple?  remember that poem... " When I am an old woman I shall wear purple"... That is the color for us.
So here is my knitted string that ties the pieces of the installation together.

Getting help

It has been such support to get all this help. The garments, worn shoes, curtains and materials for the Installation from so many people... family, friends and friends of friends.
Photos shared from travels, albums even Ame´s wedding photos.
But even more, those that have come to give me a hand, spend the afternoon working, discussing diverse possibilities for the Installation.
Hanne is a great potter. she has been technical, artistic and fun support during the process of the Installation. But today, Bruce, (Hanne´s husband), who is helping with translation of my work came all the way from Manotick Ontario to get a new copy of the File in Power Point he is working with. As he was working, IT became corrupted. Why does that happen??? We tried to fix it by email. Too big to be sent by Internet. Could not figure out how to do it, so he drove, we had coffee, talked and he went back home with a new copy in a CD in the heavy afternoon traffic, leaving me in AWE... what gift friends are!
Thank you, each for the gift of your time, comments, support and frienship.
It´s Christmas... may it be Joy...

Making the first Sculptures

Maria's embroidered mantilla. It belonged to her grandmother. Women always wore a hat, cap, veil or a mantilla to go to church. Always covered...

Top, a Capulana from Mozambique, from María Isabel Casas' collecton.

With cotton blouse from India that my sister Pilar gave me, bought in the "San Andresito" of Valledupar, Colombia.  

Barbora Balabam lent me this hand painted silk dress done by her friend from Chekoslovaquia.

Lysanne really wore this XXL T shirt in her teens. She is a size 6.

A light Baby doll...and a cotton blouse with a lace bra under cover.

Below: Paula´s wool shawl

Marcela´s shawl made from her Graduation velvet dress with an African cotton wrap'around skirt.

 Libby´s  macrame shawl.

Allyson´s long night skirt with a leather jacket

She wore this lace neck during the wedding with my son Ricardo, 15 years ago. The black veil is what widows wear on their head and the small cap is from the ¨Cancer marathon run¨ in Seattle, June 2008.

This sculpture is ¨Honoring Claudia¨. She died of Ovarian Cancer in January 2008

Allyson´s corduroy jacket with a gold pashmina

Fashion in the ´70´s

Jeans, cotton tops and a handmade belt from Guatemala