What do you See?
I facilitated a program at El Museo del Barrio last week for Arts & Minds, an organization that offer art experiences for people living with dementia and their caregivers. One of the works we looked at was La Cama, 1987 (Collection: El Museo del Barrio, Latino art museum), by Puerto Rican artist Pepón Osorio. At first glance what you see is…well, there is so much to see that it’s anyone’s guess what you see at first glance, but the first thing I, and other participants, noticed was the bedspread.
What are the lacy things on the bed?
The breathtaking bedspread is made up of hundreds of hand-stitched capias, Puerto Rican souvenirs given to guests during special celebrations like weddings, bridal showers, baby showers,baptisms, etc. The capia is made with a thin satin ribbon with the name(s) of the person (s) being celebrated, the event on one side and the event date on the other side. The ribbon is placed on lace or other material with a decorative piece on top. A pin is included so that the honored person can pin on guests. These capias are truly a labor of love. My mom made all of mine for my bridal shower!
After the bedspread, what do you see now? Take your pick! Where do your eyes land? It’s like a plastic chucheria (knick knacks) wonderland from rubber babies to lacy dolls to plastic figurines that seem to represent various stages in life.”A joyous affair!” is what most participants said they noticed but then one participant saw the snake… This is definitely a work of contrasts.
About the Artwork
La Cama, by Afro Boricua, Pepón Osorio, is an elaborately decorated poster bed containing childhood photos of the artist and his wife adorning the headboard, lace bed cover, kewpie dolls, plastic animals and figurines, mini devotional saint pieces, baubles, and four music boxes atop the bedpost, and more! The Boricua artist is known to say that more is more! All of the bed’s adornments – create a cycle of life, encompassing the sacred and secular, acknowledging the artist’s past and present existence.
What is the meaning behind “La Cama”?
La Cama pays tribute to Juana Hernandez, the woman whom Osorio considers his second mother. An orphan who came to live with the Osorio family before his birth, Juana cared for the artist as a child, and served as a housekeeper. After Juana died in 1982, Osorio began to recreate her lonely, difficult life, and offered her the material opulence she never enjoyed through La Cama’s exuberant color and texture.
About the Artist
Pepón Osorio is a sculptor and installation artist, born in 1955 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In 1975, Osorio moved to the South Bronx in New York City, where he enrolled at Lehman College and earned a degree in sociology. Following his graduation, he worked in the child abuse prevention unit of the Human Resources Administration, working primarily with the Latino community. Being privy to the things that people kept in their homes during visits infomed Osorio’s work which is always rooted in community. Osorio claims that the impulse to embellish, tamper with, improve and, ultimately, to transform reality, is his legacy from the popular culture of his native Puerto Rico. “You reinvent what’s there. You never accept anything as it is given to you,” he states.
Reflection
There is so much we can say about La Cama. For me I was intrigued by the artistry of it all. So much of Latino cultural life is intertwined with craft. There is no segmentation between the two; art making is beautifully intertwined in our cultural traditions, you see this with the capias.
The density of accumulated memories in La Cama gives me hope that maybe the piles of stuff in our lived-in spaces, can become a tribute to something more. La Cama, a mixed media art piece, has also been labeled installation art, a term in which the actual space is considered the work of art, not just the object that occupies it. Can our most intimate spaces be called art? Can our homes be a sanctuary of lived experiences when nothing seems sacred anymore?