The perfume of marigolds, some fresh and others in the first blush of decay, wafts around the ofrendas in the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts Día de los Muertos installation. It is the 22nd year the WPCA has been hosting this event, continuing the centuries-old tradition of honoring the dead at this time of the year.
The ofrendas are altars that honor a deceased person, usually a family member or friend. Their purpose characterizes them more as memorials than art installations; to view them simply as art would be akin to reviewing a Catholic mass as a theatrical performance. However, there are some works that borrow traditional Day of the Dead motifs as metaphorical foundations.
Jamie Bilgo Bruchman’s Rose Garden is an elegantly decorated shelf hung with white lace, red roses and small, pale skulls, an overt allusion to mortality. Printed pictures and souvenir cards call out the reminder, “Don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.” JoAnn Jensen also uses the traditional calavera, or skull, as a departure point for her work. A large skull is decorated with a mosaic in green, purple and fuchsia, and a radiant halo constructed with pull tabs offers the directive, “Pull here.” Jensen notes that this signals to her the necessity of keeping an open mind.
While these installations offer sound advice on the practice of living, the ofrendas are really about the dead. Some altars are dedicated to ancestral family members, others to recently deceased relatives and friends. One of the most poignant is A Tribute to Abby Goldberg. It follows in the traditions of other ofrendas, filled with bright tissue paper banners and offerings of treats, including a slice of pizza. But it is different, as the stuffed animals and youthful pictures attest. Abby was a teenage kid who succumbed to an unnamed illness; her altar honors her spirit while acknowledging the brevity of life.
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Despite this somberness, Día de los Muertos is ultimately a celebration. In the face of inevitable, unknowable death, it is within the power of the living to keep spirit and memory alive.
The “2014 Día de los Muertos Exhibition” continues through Nov. 22 at the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, 839 S. Fifth St.
