I want to thank Valdemar for helping me to share my piece last week. Some things are hard to say because we don't want to seem over-dramatic or self-indulging, even though you want people to know and to understand.
I have had those bullet shells for over a year. I shot them myself, my first time shooting a gun. I found them scarily beautiful, and the act of shooting even more frighteningly so. I liked it. I have been wanting to make something with them for a while and so they have lived in a cigar box with a lot of other tid-bits I have gathered and kept for unknown futures. It was obvious to me, after seeing the other end of the gun leveled at my gut, that it was time to engage with them again, perhaps even necessary. And the words for the week also seemed to fit.....fiesta.....tristeza.....a party and a sadness. I can't think of a better way to describe a spent bullet.
And I still wanted them to be beautiful, to dance, to glitter, to chime. The bottle was first for the noise and then the light and fragility. I only decided to fill it the day of class, and not least because I wanted to feel what it would be like to drink from it....
Thank you for the confidence, Brooke.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in the classroom, I could not stop seeing your piece: the fragility of the bottle handling by the wall, the vulnerability for the bullet shells around it, and the wine as blood transcending all that environment of menace and violence.
I have never shot a fire gun. Only air rifles "for kids" (!) when I was a child, with my closest friend of that time. His father warned us: "No le tiren a otros escuincles o me los madreo cabrones" (you do not want to know what does it mean, the idea was not to shoot to other kids)"Y si matan un pájaro o una lagartija o le que sea, se la tragan hijos de la chingada" (again, there is not the case to make a translation, the idea was no to kill any being). His father was (is) a man of word, so we acquired some expertise hitting pebbles, cans, and broken toys. We also learnt something about respect to the others. Then we grew up and everybody took his own path...