HOLDING SPACE

Scripture’s mural memorializes a young artist we lost too soon

IN FRONT OF THE NEW PLANT BASE CAFE, spanning the length of a whole stucco wall there is a heartfelt mural painstakingly done, literally and figuratively, as it was painted in winter mornings, by Scripture. It is a significant piece of art that pays tribute to Deanna Autumn Leaf Suazo and meditates on the emotional challenges of grief and cultural responsibility.

For a town that prides itself as an art community, there’s a lack of murals and public forms of art. For this mural he’s foregone the political messaging of his canvas works and embraced a more positive, healing energy approach. Plenty of thought has gone into the work commissioned by restaurant owner Frankie V, and with approval from members of Taos Pueblo. The work is a service to friends and family that requested a fitting artistic ode. Jacob Concha worked with Scripture as a consultant on proper use of symbolism and imagery. That blessing is instrumental to Scripture, “I don’t like the idea of painting something without a blessing when it comes to something like this.”

The term Scripture uses for the overall theme of the work is “holding space”. A phrase somewhat akin to, holding it down, but with more intergenerational implications. To hold it is also to share it with others. To share it with others is to travel through space and time with loved ones, in a circle of relations. Much the same way Prometheus stole fire from the gods so that we may reap the benefits of a glowing flame. In this case it’s more so retaining strength and composure in the wake of losing someone like Autumn Leaf.

The details of the criminal case are still pending but what is not questionable is the severity of such a loss to the community. It’s like losing a person destined to become a griot, a repository of oral traditions, of customs and manners, the exact colorful minutiae of a people. As she said herself she deals with “traditional Pueblo and Navajo garb with Pueblo and Navajo iconography, anime stylized figures, and graffiti aesthetics.” Another one of her artistic intentions was “to inform [her] audience about Indigenous resilience.” Which is what this mural offers.

On the left lower corner of the mural Autumn Leaf is seen framed by the only elements that can remedy such loss, a starry spirit realm with sky-scraping Indian Paintbrushes. She is portrayed in the stylized anime and manga manner of the paintings she was known for. She blows a kiss towards the east which sends fall

time foliage floating across the mural. On that same gentle current flies a northern flicker to provide a healing love medicine throughout the land. “If you don’t have love you’ve got nothing.” The bird with the fiery red moustachial stripe at the base of its beak, is generally associated with positive things such as friendship, happiness, rebirth, perseverance, and strength.

All fitting forms of symbolism. You can’t discuss art or heavy topics with Scripture without eventually running into a relevant verse. The verse that comes to mind is Matthew 10:29, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your father.” From this writer’s non denominational perspective: Everything is accounted for and balanced out in the next life. One can only hope, once detached from our mortal coil.

On the opposite end of the mural a tilted giant Tiwa clay pitcher creates a river big enough to support the growth of corn but small enough to not drown out the multi-storied adobe buildings in the background. The leaves that Autumn Leaf blew from the west have now traveled onto this side of the painting and upon touching the water turn green. It’s not shown in the painting but the water trickles into Blue Lake. As big and infinite as the stream of water may seem, Scripture reminds me that it is most certainly not. This essential life force is finite and we have to respect it.

So far we’ve got elements of ether, the recently deceased, birds of flight. Then we’ve got the religious implications of clay. Clay, in various forms of religions and folklore, from the Epic Of Gilgamesh to the creator deity Viracocha of the Incas, is the lifeforming matter we are molded from.

On site it’s a lot to take in visually. We took a pause to dissect the composition and talk about methods. He started with the process, “what I’ll do is I’ll do a sketch and then I’ll do a projection and I’ll get my outline. Then when I start, I start with the background. The first thing I started on was the water then the sky then the Pueblo then the mountains then the corn” And then he took note of what he likes about the painting, “I see no grocery stores, no roads, no billboards, no antennas.” Places and objects that are symbols of a modern but not necessarily better way of life. Things that lack the longevity of the Pueblo, the grounding structure of sand and clay and water set into bricks.

In the foreground, front and center, a grand wizened matriarch robed in a purple hood, holds the sun and the moon on her fingertips, while she holds your gaze; behind her are prominent ears of blue corn. She, Rose Concha, Scripture’s “spiritual grandmother” from the Pueblo, is the bridge, the conduit of yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows. As someone who’s experienced that unholy horror of outliving a son — Vilomah is a Sanskrit word for parents who lose a child, a word that signifies such a loss goes against a natural order, one should be laying the elders to rest not the other way around — because of this, she is resilience personified. She is “holding space” for us, the same way Atlas must endure and hold up the celestial spheres on his shoulders.