MARIA MOTHER

HANDSMATTER

MARIA MADRE – an experience of collective creativity COLEGIO PUREZA DE MARIA –
Sant Cugat del Vallès – Barcelona, December 2, 2015

Invited by the Sisters of the PUREZA DE MARIA Congregation, Guido Dettoni proposes a HANDMATTER experience, to be called MARIA MOTHER, addressed to sixteen pupils, between 16 and 17 years old, in the second high school year.

After receiving a hand-sized amount of malleable wax, the pupils were blindfolded by the sisters, and they all sat on the floor in a circle.

Then the hands began to shape the wax without any intention of doing anything specific, but rather let themselves be carried away by the vision of Mary the mother and the feelings she evokes. This way led them to reach a spontaneous and unintended expression with the matter.

The shape that appears, when the hands stop, is that and not another. Each one contains and holds what its author has experienced.

The hands cease to see when we begin to look in order to interpret with the intellect, fed by memory and making use of the word.

With eyes open, every one finds his shape by recognizing it in the bucket of cold water that hardened it.

Then it begins the process of sharing the interpretations that the shape suggests to its maker and to other people.

This “interpretative storm” was recorded. Here are the interpretations given to each shape by their makers: Bowl, Half Egg, Lake, Poppy, Shells, Bones, Swan, Heart, Affection, Mountain, Drops, Splashes, Cells, Face, Brain, Wind Waves, Butterflies, Fish, Ear, Worm, Snake, Sea, Face, Body, Freedom, Mary Mother, Baby Jesus, Tenderness, Rock, Mother, Embrace, Energy.

The pupils’ interpretations and their comments thus become another wax, neither seen nor touched: a wax made of emotions, feelings, inner visions and moods.

Guido Dettoni shaped this other wax, to weave together all the interpretations and compose in Spanish the text “MOTHER” which is part of the audio of the video, then translated into English and Italian.

MOTHER
The “storm” in the LAKE caught us protected in a BOWL, almost a HALF EGG that eventually became a POPPY. In the bottom of the lake appeared SHELLS and BONES, while nearby floated a SWAN.
On the horizon then appeared a HEART, raised in the hand. It was offered for us to perceive the AFFECTION we could feel with our fingers to find life in its footprints. And so affection led us to the MOTHER.
The lake and the bowl are now far away. We walk with effort looking for the best path, laden with memories we leave one after another and stop when, perhaps exhausted, we reach the MOUNTAIN…and we look at it, outline it with our fingers and remember…it is as if our whole path is by her contained.
In the plain, a few DROPS, SPALSHES forming CELLS and…. turning everything upside down…a FACE appears that leads us to her interior, to the BRAIN to make us enter the prison of thought that centralizes everything with its ruthless goals and…turning again everything upside down …beyond the brain and the face, we discover WAVES of WIND that lead us to FREEDOM by revealing BUTTERFLIES and FISHES.
Someone just listens and tells us by showing us an EAR, while rising from the earth a WORM, almost a SNAKE, which is the mirror half of something that combined with its origin reveals the drawn outline of a heart, and perhaps more. We realize then that we do not know what we have done….
Crossing now a SEA that contains a FACE, BODY and FREEDOM, we meet with MARY MOTHER.
In the gesture that repeatedly places matter inward, we touch and see the CHILD JESUS who from her protection rises again after each movement. TENDERNESS and…turning everything upside down…there appears a ROCK, motionless, everlasting. MOTHER, nourished by memories of tenderness in an EMBRACE that reveals to us how in her are contained all the ENERGY of the moment.
In the end, we sail back into the bowl carrying all the shapes with us to preserve, in the silence of the cold, the mystery of each that only their authors can reveal.

MADRE
La “tempestad” en el LAGO nos sorprendió estando amparados en un CUENCO, casi un MEDIO HUEVO que acabó convirtiéndose en una AMAPOLA. En el fondo del lago aparecieron CARACOLAS y HUESOS, mientras cerca flotaba un CISNE.
En el horizonte apareció entonces un CORAZÓN elevado en la mano. Nos era ofrecido para hacernos percibir el CARIÑO que hubiéramos podido sentir con nuestros dedos para encontrar la vida en sus huellas. Y así el cariño nos condujo a la MADRE.
El lago y el cuenco ya quedan lejos. Caminamos con esfuerzo buscando el mejor sendero, cargamos con recuerdos que vamos dejando uno tras otro y nos paramos cuando, quizás exhaustos, llegamos a la MONTAÑA…y la miramos, la contorneamos con los dedos y recordamos…es como si todo nuestro andar estuviera metido en ella.
En la llanura unas GOTAS, unas SALPICADURAS que forman CÉLULAS y…dándole la vuelta…aparece una CARA que nos conduce a su interior, al CEREBRO para que entremos en la prisión del pensamiento que lo centra todo con sus despiadados objetivos y… dándole de nuevo la vuelta… más allá del cerebro y de la cara, descubrimos OLAS de VIENTO que nos llevan a la libertad revelándose MARIPOSAS y PECES.
Alguien, tan sólo escucha y nos lo dice mostrándonos una OREJA, mientras surge de la tierra un GUSANO, casi una SERPIENTE que es la mitad especular de algo que unido a su origen revela ser el perfil dibujado de un corazón y más cosas quizás. Nos damos entonces cuenta de que no sabemos lo que hemos hecho…
Atravesando ahora un MAR que contiene ROSTRO, CUERPO y LIBERTAD nos encontramos con MARIA MADRE. En el gesto que vuelve a meter, una y otra vez, la materia para dentro, tocamos y vemos al NIÑO JESÚS que desde su amparo resurge después de cada movimiento. TERNURA y… dándole la vuelta…aparece una ROCA, inamovible, perenne. MADRE, alimentada de recuerdos de TERNURA en un ABRAZO que nos revela cómo en ella están contenidas todas las ENERGÍAS del momento.
Al final, volvemos a navegar en el CUENCO llevándonos todas las formas para guardar, en el silencio del frío, el misterio de cada una de ellas que sólo sus autores pueden revelar.