"Mother Memory" (Art Exhibit Series, 10/10)
Toti O’Brien
The following is the final installment of the Mother Memory art exhibit series, a pairing of literature with art curated by the exhibitor, Toti O’Brien. Oyster River Pages has been pleased to present this series in weekly installments.
Katia Hage, a versatile multidisciplinary artist, contributes to Mother Memory as a musician. A virtuoso of the kanun, the main string instrument of the Arabic tradition, Hage creates on it the aural landscape that accompanies the performance of artist Cindy Rinne, Sound Shadows. I have decided, though, to include her poetry in this series, knowing well that her words are rooted in the same tonal sensibility making her into a rare interpret/improviser. This particular poem explores her connection with a single tree (amplifying it with multiple echoes)—a bond that takes on a distinct meaning when evoked by a migrant, displaced, expatriated voice. The tree represents the self whose roots remain steady—hence, is able to anchor the wandering self, which drifts, and fears to get lost. The tree also establishes continuity in the course of a human life. Its quiet permanence, the cycles it faithfully reproduces, allow scattered shards of time to realign and make sense. As the years and decades go by, coming back to towns metamorphosed, to urban landscapes more and more alien, is a normal occurrence. The natural world is potentially more dependable, and the tree stands among its more loyal, reassuring, trustworthy features. It often symbolizes as well a specific, circumscribed geography, of which it becomes the embodiment, the memento, the soul—the palms of the Tropics, the desert cacti, the sweet cypresses of the Mediterranean.
to a cypress
by Katia Hage
i have touched your rugged skin
with my warm bosom
telling you secrets
hidden in the depth of my soul
as i ran up the hill
you saw my shadow
drew in my scent
leaning your face
to caress my hair
tightly pressed on my head
whispered in wonder
where my curls disappeared
you did not mind
the beads of sweat
trickling through my light shirt
showing the woman
i will be one day
carrying children
on hips
swinging to the sound of the wind
rustle of leaves
you knew what was to come
how will i shed my skins
through dark nights
and bright moons
how i will not know you
till the distances grew far
and farther away
until the day i ran up the hill
to find you
waiting with an infinite longing
for my eyes to remember
my soul to connect
again
to the child that ran
jumped
was swept away
by the incense of your holiness
droplets of gold
oozing from your loving heart
to the fingers of Taita (grandma)
who picked each one
reverently
made glue in a pan
books from torn papers
stories from broken lives
mended the sadness
with a joy overflowing
in silent whispers
from the hills
the flowers
the vegetables
all different in shapes and colors
slowly ripening under her care
as i was
slowly learning
from her wrinkles
of the long enduring battles
the reverence of solitude
the silent conversations of being
present
in the sun’s rays
ever lining the spider’s web
perfectly knit
on your limbs
where i reached
to cover you with kisses
searing tears
for it has been long
since i ran up that hill
to fall happily
in your shadows
J Michael Walker | Anita Lets Her Feeling Show | Digital photomontage | 12”x12” | 2019
Many of J Michael Walker’s artworks are re-writings of an erroneous history, unfair toward the represented (rather, misrepresented, betrayed) subjects. He replaces the official narrative with the real one, way more articulate, complex, and especially faithful to the point of view of the protagonists. The image that I chose is part of a long series—Blackwoods Dreamtime—which proposes, Walker explains, “an empathic reading of dozens of discarded late 19th (and early 20th) century photographs of African-Americans I have found.” He observed them until a theme, a dream, a shard of memory emerged from each portrait, then he layered on the figures disparate visual elements, often nature inspired. The décor of flowers, landscapes and colors that frame faces and bodies inevitably evoke religious imagery, the iconography of saints and divine representations, as well as the habit of immortalizing aristocracy and the upper class—those gilded ovals, lining the halls and corridors of castles and palaces. But such grand depictions find in Walker’s delicate palimpsests a mocking remake and a subtle, yet razor-sharp, parody. What there shines like tinsel, here casts an internal light. What there is a chalky facade, here pulses with lymph. The fanfare transforms into chant, song, vibrant silence. The grandeur becomes grace.
Katia Aoun Hage, born in Cameroun, raised in Lebanon and living in Southern California is a multidisciplinary artist comfortable with a pen, a brush and her traditional musical instrument, the kanun. She currently is a music agent at Elissa Music Agency. @katkutati
J Michael Walker is a Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary artist working in painting, drawing, photography, and digital media. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, under segregation’s awful reign, raised during the Civil Rights Era, equity and inclusion have always guided both his life and his art. Walker is a recipient of fellowships from Instituto Sacatar and Art Matters, as well as the 2006 COLA Fellowship, of eight grants from Los Angeles Cultural Affairs and from the California Council for the Humanities, three artist residencies from the California Arts Council. He has had numerous solo shows at, among others, the Autry Museum, the Mexican Cultural Institute, Harvard University’s Rockefeller Center, and the Museo de Culturas y Artes of Mexico City, and has participated in over 120 group exhibitions in the U.S., Mexico, and South Korea. His work is included in several public collections in the US, Mexico, and Senegal. All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the Soul of LA on Its Streets (Heyday Books, 2008), the book that he wrote and illustrated, won awards for best art book and best non-fiction about the Pacific West, in 2009. https://www.jmichaelwalker.com/
