CELESTE CONTRERAS
Tlazocamati Abuelas, For Your Medicines, digital drawing, 12”x12”, 2020
In Nahuatl language we say, Tlazocamati to say Thank you.
To this, I thank my Grandmothers who rose up and helped me begin to heal. I thank them for finding and using their voices to help heal generations of trauma through song, through stories, through art, and through remembering that we are not alone and for allowing us to grow, rise, towards the sun and moon to stand in our power; to stand in our light.
Braiding Hair, digital drawing, 9”x11.5”, 2018
A tradition that spans across the world, hair braiding has connected generations upon populations of cultures through weaving time. In those ceremonial parts of daily life, braiding is a time for prayer, for reflection and for connecting. It might seem like a simple and small part of life, but in those moments, that is were connection, tradition and ceremony hold power.
Remember to Write Our Stories, digital drawing, 8”x11”, 2021
Book is the intersection between the living and the dead; it’s where I meet with my ancestors.
Book is an event, a place, a space, a time, a thing, a thought that you can walk into, and book is my focus in this body of work. A book is something that signifies the beginning of recorded history. From the beginning of recorded history, books have been evidence into humanity documenting their truths. From stone tablets in Mesopotamia, to bark paper of the Maya, books have been a platform for humans to use for documenting an event, a place, a space, a time, a thing. Book is the one object, to me, that is the perfect form. Its capacity holds worlds, universes of information, potentials and can all be held in our hands. Book, the space between the mind and the material world.
Moon Dance, digital drawing, 14”x14”, 2018
Grandmother Moon guides the creative path for her followers of the light.
The moon in my eyes brings great pleasure, the fire in my spirit will invoke new dreams,
I invoke your image as my calling, Grandmother Moon guides us through the twilight.
Even though my feet are bleeding, my heart is full, I will continue dancing and singing.
We Are Never Really Alone, digital drawing, 12”x9”, 2019
When I feel lonely, I close my eyes, I feel my flesh, my breathe and I remember them: the ancestors. In deep corners of my mind, where I find who I am, they are there. When I walk into a room and I feel alone, they are there. When I lost my voice, they were there. When I lost my way, they were there.
We Are The Bookmakers: Tlacuilo, 2022, digital drawing, 8”x11”
Tlacuilo [tlaa-kwee-loo], is the Nahuatl word that means painter, scribe or bookmaker. As I make books, from seed to paper to ink, to folding, exposing, and to capturing, the repetition of making is the ceremony I create. The ceremony I am sharing with the viewer in this work is the Bookmaker’s Ceremony. So much was lost during the attempted erasure of the Indigenous people of the Americas, during the conquest and colonization, destroying languages, tribes, and genocide, I am attempting to fill that cavity with the stories that were lost in the codices. Book, the space between the mind and the material world is also used as the space between my ancestors and I, between pre-Conquest and post-Conquest, between savage and ceremony, between sacred and mundane, between pen and paper, between heart and hand.
Paper Ceremonies, 2022, digital drawing, 9”x12”
On my maternal side, we have used paper for thousands of years, made from bark, animal skin, pounded, folded and cut into books, prints or papel picado. On my paternal side, we have also used paper, and cut paper called wycinanki [wee-shin-naa-kee]. In this piece I am placing them together in one composition. Weaving together my Mexican and my Polish roots from my ancestral map.
Why Water Street?
Having my drawings at Water Street Health Center is profoundly one of the best things of 2023 and my art career in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Having witnessed gente in my comunidad express how my art has helped them during challenging moments in their life is why I applied to PPWI’s Water Street call for art. I also applied because PPWI has been there for me throughout my challenges.
Together, with PPWI, if we can help someone feel a bit more at ease with uncertainties, struggles and overall health care, then art does have more than a purpose. Nurses can sew a wound, therapists can heal a brain, but art and only art can heal the soul/mind/heart. Thank you PPWI for being a light in so many of our lives.
More about the artist:
I see my art-making process through the lens of ceremony, and to me ceremony starts with time and place; creating an identity of who we are. My work is a reflection of my identity. I have walked through the process of ceremony in many ways. I walked across the border to my ancestral land, from Milwaukee to California to Mexico. It was a ceremony. That transformation from here to there, all connected to one line on the Earth mapped my past to the present.
From rites of passage, to my spiritual journey, to the ancestral land in Mexico, and being named by my tribal elders following ancient tradition, to performing spiritual ceremonies held within community with the guidance of my elders, I can heal.
In art, I’ve found ceremony to be common practice in dance, theater, and creative writing. As people learn the steps and processes, they first witness and then repeat. We do this when learning to draw, too. Through this practice I have formed the identity of being an artist or someone who can draw. Drawing has helped me heal.
