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A weave of voids designed to hold
but a few selected things.

Most miss its joints and flow away.
Those held we will consume.



1.10 Fire Hands

Estefania Puerta




We Begin in Humility

If I were to tell you that wind sits between slits of your ribs, you would tell me that the sand was then made of the marrow beneath my feet. The marrow beneath my feet is made of sand. Sand makes marrow feet.


I know that the breeze has a lot to do with both of these transgressions.


How Am I Not Myself is a constant material investigation into knowing exactly How I Feel Without The Other.


Yes, it is a world filled with sorrow.

I cannot read the news anymore.

I cry before thinking.

My throat feels like a trap.

My trap feels like a throat.

Feel like a throat trap.

Trap the throat that feels.


I don’t know how to put into words the weight we cannot capture in cloth. There is a small distance between the leaping figure and the steady earth, are they flying away or running away? Are they holding or being held? Is it ok to be simple in gestures towards the wind? Why can’t I simply say the words that tell you how weight cannot be captured in cloth? How much can I hold in my empty hands?


Sin peso que es la ternura de carne besando aire?


I know that skin is stretched and tethered but I also know that that history is fraught with terror. I am sick to my stomach these days in knowing the weight of skin.


I am sick to my stomach in knowing

The weight of sand

Weight of wind

Weight of distance

Weight of empty hands

Weight of gesture

Weight of tears

Weight of arms stretched out toward a blue sky

Weight of words


La enferma te cuenta sin saber el cuento


Is the figure unfurling towards a hungry mother or fleeing from an angry flock?

Does the figure lick their wounds in heavy quivers or expel spastic shouts to their drunken livers?

Is despair a worthy object to hold? To look at it through metaphor and playful salutation? Can we make a parachute out of its weight? Carve new worlds that destroy the state?


How long do we have to wait?



No te puedo decir como sufrir solo que tengas un hueso hacia la luna


We End in Marrow Winds



+Process

Process:
I received a photograph as my communication transmission. In some ways, [my process] felt more like a channeling of a sentiment rather than an interpretation of the image itself. I wanted the piece to weave in and out of a direct correspondence and contemplation of the image, with form falling apart and allowing other thoughts and emotions to seep through. The world feels heavy right now and so it felt only right to think of weight in all these ways.
—Estefania Puerta


+Bio

Estefania Puerta's work delves into organic and inorganic materials to form new poetics of transformation and translation. She is interested in what is gained and lost in the process of making and the new worlds that can emerge from fickle metaphors. Her insistence on examining the folly of translation stems from her need to explore world making, border crossing, bodies that do not fit into societies/societies that do not fit into bodies, and creating a new language for those that have never felt like they could speak. Puerta works in various mediums such as sculpture, painting, writing, and performance and is deeply invested in the web created through working in multiple forms that does not have a fixed center or hierarchy. Estefania studied at the University of Vermont and received her MFA from Yale School of Art. She was born in Colombia and raised in Boston. She currently lives and works in Vermont.
Website
@thisestepuerta
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