Dusty Details

oil on paper, 2008

I moved into a museum of family history and an altered universe when I set up studio in my 93 year-old grandmother’s house. Carmen Adolfina Carrión Coronel’s life in Ecuador has been a world away from mine in Northeastern Massachusetts—in distance, time, experiences and prerogative.

In examining the dusty details of her past life I have reconstructed experiences that she can’t remember she had. I’ve poured through albums and albums of photos that she can neither see nor remember. I’ve recorded hours of her stories. To ask whether they be fact or fiction would be irrelevant. One of my favorites include her selling the Virgin Mary a cup of honey while running away to a mountain town called Yungilla.

Carnaval in Baños and Ambato

Ambato and Baños were filled with espuma and fun. Everyone gets sprayed by this silly string stuff called kareoka. At least it's better than what happens in Cuenca. In Cuenca everyone throws water balloons at unsuspecting anyones. It is chaos. So we hightailed it to Ambato, the land of fruit and flowers. They had a huuuuge parade with floats just covered in fruit and flowers, murals of jesus in flower petals...and yet no fruit to eat... so i settled for pork because he was cooked with an apple in his mouth.

Speaking of killing animals, we went to a bull fight and Amy, a fellow teacher, cried. We probably should have just stuck to the chocolate fair and the art exposition, the parades and the kareoka, but we wanted the real experience.

Last picture is of the four of us. Amy, my cousins Maria Fernanda, Valeria, and then there's me.