This year’s midweek Halloween has festivity schedules in a tizzy, but when you’re talking about the Day of the Dead and paying tribute to those who’ve passed on to the eternal forever, what’s a week anyway?
Few do Dia de los Muertos like Studio &, and the Main Avenue arts collective will begin its memorial tribute tonight with “Play of the Dead: A Ritual of Remembering.” An altar to people – and things – gone is on display in the front window.
“The idea behind the altar is to pay homage to those things gone on, be that as literal as a loved one or be that something more abstract as an idea, a failed relationship, bad tendency, or even some part of your life that have moved on or that you want to move on to,” said Tim Kapustka, a member of & and proprietor of Cabbage Creative graphic design. “The idea is not to hide from these things. It is to bring them out, honor them, and then put them away and move forward.”
The altar is open for all to leave a remembrance.
Also on display will be artwork on the theme by 18 local (and regional) artists: Kapustka, Vanessa Boyd, Amy Felker, Bill Grimes, Stevie Stevenson, Chet Haring, Megan Schaeffer, Mervin Stilson, Annie & Jacob Brooks, Skye Dowell, Lassen Griggs, Dan Groth, Shay Lopez, Scott Dye, Minna Jain, Elizabeth Kinahan, Janelle Doubet (Farmington) and Bronwyn Strickland (Dolores).
Lopez, an & veteran and Day of the Dead aficionado if ever there was one, put his own interpretation on paper: “Our annual Day of the Dead art show is a chance to honor the people, events, places, pets, victories and failures, loves and losses that make us who we are, to call the past present and celebrate its impact on our lives. In remembering, we revive those parts of our past, while through our processes and rituals of creation we give those memories life. We dance alongside those recollections, sing their songs, drink their drink and play in the revelry. But we must ultimately put them back to rest in their place of the past. Then thank them for their annual visit.”
ted@durangoherald.com
