martes, 27 de diciembre de 2005

Mi madre y su juego de jackies

Por Letty Bassart

Leo con mi sobrina sobre la magia del alfabeto...le doy forma a la palabra jacks....una palabra con la que los labios apenas se mueven... que reverbera en la garganta. Enseguida se me llena el pecho de agua recordando a un breve momento en cual mi madre se sentó conmigo para enseñarme como jugar. Recuerdo los colores metálicos rojos, azules, plateados, descascarándose. Yo, manos de hierro, no jugaba con ellos de manera tradicional, por lo que las puntitas habían ido perdiendo las bolitas, tornando los pedacitos de metal inofensivos en peligrosos. Más aún cuando aparecían debajo de pies descalzos o manos cansadas. Entonces, con mi sobrina sobre mis piernas, sus manitos sobre la "j" en el libro de cartón, se me ocurrió algo acerca de mi madre: Mi madre es una experta jugadora de jackies. Habilidosa en el proceso ese de regar los jackies, encontrar jackies regados, tirar orgullosamente la pelota e irlos recogiendo con más o menos esfuerzo, con más o menos fuerza....individualmente, en pares, en tres, y después cuatro...cada vez uno más. Mi madre aguantaba todos los jackies en su pequeña mano...tirando la pelota, sacándose la espada entre sus dientes, luchando, seguramente, dolorosamente... cogiendo más y más, uno más cada vez sin soltar los demás. De niña siempre supe que su carga era demasiado; la sentía aunque no sabía ayudarla. Me quedé corta; no le abrí la mano, no le quité jackies de encima, ni supe pedirle ayuda o ayudarla. Supongo que hubo momentos en cuales el dolor de los jackies en su mano era insoportable. Imagino que el peso de su extrema responsabilidad, su soledad, hizo que se agarrara a la pelota. Ahora que se han ido desvaneciendo los jackies que le hincaban las coyunturas del corazón, abrazo a mi madre y me quedo sorprendida de su belleza. Me encargo, cuidadosamente, de que sus manos queden abiertas, cuajadas de ternura extraordinaria y paz.

26 comentarios:

  1. No hay comentarios???
    esto anda decadente

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  2. Los de los ochenta, se acuerdan de Raul Speek?:

    RAUL SPEEK, London, UK

    I was born in Guantanamo, Cuba on 30th November 1958

    In 1989 my life took an unexpected twist when I was introduced to a crew from BBC Arena’s music and art series. They interviewed me as part of their documentary called ‘ Havana ’ which was broadcast in April 1990. It was about the politically aware artists, poets and musicians of the time and resulted in me being offered a solo exhibition at Holland Park Gallery in 1990. I was invited to the UK for this but could not get an exit visa from Cuba . I didn’t want to come out illegally because Cuba had been good to me.

    Whilst I waited for my exit visa I participated in the Encuentro International de Terracotta in Santiago de Cuba and in Encuentro de Artistas Primitivos at Mella. By the middle of 1990 my paperwork was on a slow journey through officialdom. One of my chief mentors was concerned for me for I spoke clearly about my beliefs and was often hauled off to the police station. He was for ever rescuing me. On a return visit to Cuba in 1999 this person told Heather that I just got out in time and I realised then that he must have been more worried than I knew.

    In 1991 I flew to London to stay. It was strange at first: there was so much choice everywhere - early trips to a large supermarket gave me a violent headache and a good deal of confusion. Initially I travelled around a good deal: Argentina , Brazil , Spain etc but the UK always drew me back.

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  3. Ana Flores is a sculptor, environmentalist and community arts advocate who lives in southern Rhode Island and Nova Scotia, Canada. Her first landscape was her native Cuba and her work shows a rich sense of form, color and fascination with water that was imprinted during her childhood in the tropics.

    Her work is shown internationally and is in private, corporate and institutional collections throughout the United States. Flores has also been very active doing public art projects engaging diverse communities since 1986. She has been awarded numerous grants and fellowships, her most recent awards include a millennium grant from Rhode Island 2000 to build a public sculpture for the town of Westerly, the Visual Arts Sea Grant to create a series of sculptures based on her life by the sea in Cuba, New England and Nova Scotia and in 1998 she was selected as the Rhode Island Artist to be exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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  4. Peter Henry Emerson
    [Cuban-born English Photographer, 1856-1936]

    Quien sabe algo de este hombre?

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  5. Peter Henry Emerson was born May 3, 1856, in LaPalma, Cuba. His father, Henry Ezekial Emerson was American, descending from the ancestral families of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Samuel F.B. Morse and William Howard Taft. His mother, Jane Harris Billing, was English. Emerson spent his early years on a sugar plantation in Cuba. He also spent some time in Wilmington, Delaware during the Civil War and in England after his father's death. He was educated at Cranleigh, a private boy's school, where he excelled as both a scholar and an athlete. He earned a medical degree in 1880. In 1881 he wrote his first book and married Miss Edith Amy Ainsworth. Together they had five children.

    Emerson continued his involvement in photography; he began writing the history of artistic photography in 1924. He completed the manuscript just before his death at Falmouth on May 12, 1936, one day before his eightieth birthday. He was inducted into the Photography Hall of Fame in 1979.

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  6. Oye, machetico, basta de descarga!!!
    LA LOCA

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  7. Un parrafo perdido en un site de Belize me habla de mi amigo extraviado:

    On the right two rows of huge canvases beckoned; I moved in for a closer look and to identify the artist among the small group nearby. The paintings of Cuban born artist, Manuel Gonzalez Daca, depicted the faces of men. His subjects reminded me of the guys I pass on the street, near the foot of the bridge or at the market.

    Seguire buscandolo. Gracias Internet.

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  8. Al fin abrieron TUMIAMI!!!! digan lo que quieran pero me costaba mucho trabjo entra r a escribir. bueno enetrar entro siempre. boniatillo eL leal BLOGUERILLO

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  9. Que hay de la Torre de la Libertad? Habra museo finalmente? Es hora de aportarles ideas a los de los pesos y centavos. Los sabios de Tumiami tienen muchas y excelentes ideas.

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  10. y que tiene que ver toda esa descarga informativa con el escrito de Letty sobre los jackies??/ aca andan ustedes locos o que?

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  11. Ya dejen de comer mierda, escuchenmme niños... el arte ya no es lo que era.. estamos cambiando hacia otra cosa y pobre de aquellos que se queden en la verborrea seudo-intelectual sin buscar alternativas presentes para su obra. alla de aquellos o aquellas que tienen la mujer o el marido que corra con las necesidades de la casa para que ellos "pinten" cuando les viene la inspiracion, (bullshit) o se conformen con vivir de cualquier manera mediocre como si estubiesemos en las buhardillas de los años 30. y los cuentos de el conceptualismo? ya esta pasado tambien... va a llegar el tiempo en que si no se es artista de verdad, con una capacidad de reinvencion propia y un discurso individual contundente, se queda el sin pena ni gloria ni para el mismo....este pais requiere trabajo y no cuento.Y Cuba?, los que estamos aca mejor que nos acostumbremos de que ya somos americanos (aunque no nos guste a veces, fue lo que escogimos)... Cuba ahorita es de los chinos, y pa' alla de vuelta ni modo.

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  12. Born in Cuba and raised in Spain, Enrique Martinez Celaya began to make art as a Ph.D. student in physics at the University of California-Berkeley. Intrigued with the concrete and ephemeral aspects of art making, Martinez Celaya has committed himself to using art to explore the philosophical problems of meaning, identity and communication. Celaya's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently in a three-venue exhibition focusing on his work from 1992-2000 and organized by The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu. His sculptures, paintings and subtle watercolor drawings utilize a personal iconology that explores philosophical problems through the veil of fragmentation, alienation and nostalgia.

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  13. Joaquin Ferrera Balanquet

    Born in Havana, Cuba in 1958. MFA, Multimedia and Video Art Department,
    University of Iowa, 1992. Interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator
    and scholar. Consider as one of the key figure in the Mariel
    Generation, Ferrera-Balanquet has exhibited his work at major
    galleries, art centers and museum around the world, including the
    Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Image and Sound in Sao
    Paulo, Brazil, Randolph Street Gallery-Chicago, Brisbane Powerhouse Art
    center, Australia, Video IN-Vancouver, Canada, Museo de Arte Actual,
    Bogotá, Colombia, Galeria Fort-Barcelona, Spain, Museum of Contemporary
    Art in Chicago, Centro de Cultura Contemporanea, Barcelona, Spain and
    Museum of Contemporary Art (MACAY), Merida, Mexico.

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  14. Tristana la contenta,
    Practica la yoga para encontrar amor y paz en el 2006. Cuidate la salud, concentrate en tu presion y corazon, mantengas la dieta, y toma tilo por las noches. Tristana, olvidate de encontrar a tu Isolde, habre tiempo para eso a finales del 2006. Encontaras tu felicidad cuando dejas las riñas y las batallas perdidas. La luna entra en peligro en enero, debido de Venus. Signo de tu amor y felicidad, $.

    Walter Superaercado

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  15. Letty: Linda vivencia que me trae recuerdos de mi vieja.

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  16. A ver si compran anos para regalarse el fin del arte.

    Cain Oviz

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  17. Tristana, pajarona.
    Contentico

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  18. Fernando expuso en el MACAY.
    Bocoy

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  19. Echense este:

    When Taiza's designer, Osmany Rodriguez Laffita, was ten years old, his mother brought his sketch of a cocktail dress to a salon to have it made and began to wear the dress everywhere. Laffita knew from that moment that he would be a designer. In 1987, shortly after graduating from the prestigious San Alejandro art academy in his native Cuba, Laffita moved to Prague where he worked for such established houses as Versace and Kenzo. In 1999, he started his own atelier — the only house shown on the satellite Fashion TV channel that can boast a "made in the Czech Republic" label — and named it Taiza. The elegance of Prague's architecture continues to inspire Laffita, who says, "I often walk around the city, drinking everything in, carefully looking around me." The bold colors and sensuality of his Cuban roots also serve as an influence. Vogue awarded Laffita and Taiza the 2002 Designers Choice Award.

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  20. Suenalos duro Machetico. Maltatuey

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  21. Vivencia que me trae recuerdos de mi Letty.
    Vieja Linda

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  22. Jorge Pardo

    Smithsonian American Art Museum Lucelia Award
    The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation

    Born in Havana, Cuba, 1963.
    Lives and works in Los

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  23. Dame un beso,

    Hermanos grimm

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  24. Ayy! Que bueno, ya puedo entrar en blogolandia. Esto se puso como Cuba, y yo sin la loteria. Que silencio hay aqui! Debe de ser por el Profesor Beltran, con sus clases de corta y pega! Amigos y amigas, ya nos dejan jugar aqui! HAPI NU YEARRR PA' TODOS!!!

    Pluma Gay

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