Why Art?

The most impressive thing I discovered when I began as a sculptor, was the number of personalities that came out of my hands. Standing in front of that “resemblance” staring directly into his eyes trying to find an answer in vain… Who are you? Where have I brought you from? Where and since when have you and I been looking at each other this way? The extreme stillness of the clay was the answer. Slightly I understood that the Memory of Father Time remains inside of us waiting to be brought to light.

The archaic cultures “lived” art as a simple every day expression always well disposed to express the desire, the necessity, the gratitude, or the mere domestic servility. They were not so eloquent or demanding. They flowed according to the needs of the moment, not looking for future or glory and, nevertheless they remained as cause of the irrelevant humility. Somewhere the Venus of Valdivia is testifying her time. Somewhere else rest stiff bowls bearing ancient flavors. Here the fumes of ancient Sacred Pipes haunt. From the stillness of age mysterious looks protect our footprints not to be lost along the Path.

When art loses its cloak and sword, it becomes what it really is, Munay (feeling) and in that condition, acquire the necessary Power to cut, bind and recover Memory. Ukhu Pacha (generations that trod this Earth, where the Mallkis are, our Ancestors, seed and procreation), Kay Pacha (this Time) and Hanan Pacha (the Future Time), weave and unweave for us to get where we have to arrive and it is, from that visceral convincement, that I have become an accomplice attempting to help my People in the long process of Remembering.

I see with pleasure how women begin to talk about what was narrated to them or, about what was not narrated but still remains in the ancestral collective female memory. The doll with two heads that I have seen, with no doubt resembles the Couple of Ancestral Mothers, that immemorial trace which must be the image that comes to those women from Yarapa community, so distant from anthropology books or art studies.

One day, a student of our school shaped in clay a burial full of bowls, flowers and small spheres simulating stones; surprised, I asked him if that was the way his community adored their dead. He answered smiling: “No teacher, the dead are not buried this way”. Even more surprised I continued with questions: “Then why did you think the dead would need all these bowls, if they already passed away?” The student started laughing: “When they return, they may feel hungry, so they can find something to eat!”. Our student is 10 years old, he hardly knows how to write his name… Who, if it is not Memory, is the one that works silently until it is expressed?

In the Occidental world, people merely whisper about our Sacred Plants, the stigma that persecutes them has turned them into something “forbidden”. Nevertheless, in the Jungle, the profane has a place at the Wiseman’s table, it takes its place again and, in the word of the most Innocent people, it returns to its Sacredness to be renamed as Medicine.

Why Art? Because art and health are Twins. It is through Art that we attempt to heal, leaving beauty where there was pain. While Ukhu Pacha shows us the Path, Hanan Pacha illuminates it for the Kay Pacha’s harmony. There is no Memory that can resist any Art expression. That our women sing, dance, draw and write because they are the ones carrying the flame of Transmission. Let us return to the Mamamanta* or to the Matria of the Mexican poet José Tlatlepas. A Mamamanta keeping the memory and enlightenment for the children of each Community to which we arrive, so they can remember, heal and share all they have received with many more children. A Mamamanta governed by artists and not by politicians. This is the commitment I have acquired with my Ancestors.


*Mamamanta: From the mother and For the mother, this reminds us about the spiral of life in the Andes, that is the mythical millenary and the contemporary (contribution of Maria Estelina Quinatoa, Curator of the Archaeological Reserve of the Central Bank of Ecuador. Born in Otavalo).

I am very grateful to my Sisters Katia Gibaja and Maria Estelina Quinatoa for their contributions in the Quechua language. It is necessary that we re-encounter with our origin languages because they are the only keys to have access to the profound subtleness of our Knowledge.