Three Sisters Collective
Autumn Dawn Gomez
I Am Life, Creator of Worlds
Panel Discussion
1:00 pm, Sunday, November 3rd
with
Autumn Dawn Gomez
Myrriah Gómez, PhD
Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez, M.A.
moderated by
Christina M. Castro, PhD
listen to the conversation here
Donations to support the Three Sister Collective mural are welcome:
https://give.accomplis.org/give/617841/#!/donation/checkout
This project is supported in part by generous donations of paint from
Three Sisters Collective https://threesisterscollective.org/ is an Oga Pogeh (Santa Fe) based Pueblo/Indigenous women-led grassroots organization.
Christina Castro, Phd. (Taos Pueblo/Jemez Pueblo/Chicana) https://www.christinamcastro.com/ is the lead coordinator and Autumn Dawn Gomez (Taos Pueblo) is the lead artist for a new mural that will soon be installed at The Lena Wall (www.thelenawall.com).
The temporary mural will be installed in the late summer and Autumn of 2024 on the Lena Wall building at 1805 Second Street, at the corner of Second St. and Lena St, to the left (north) of the new wheatpated mural just installed on the building by Chip Thomas (jetsonorama).
The design is made to be in conversation with the Chip Thomas artwork. The new mural references and inverts Oppenheimer’s famous quote that he made referencing the Bhagavad Gita “I am become death, destroyer of worlds.” The mural inverts this as: I am Life, Creator of Worlds.
The new mural honors and prioritizes local Pueblo/Indigenous culture and values, and elucidates the differences between these and the settler colonial nuclear bomb production happening now and soon increasing in Los Alamos as well as the ever expanding nuclear industry, i.e. nuclear corridor in southeastern NM, as source of job creation and economic stability for New Mexicans.
The right-center depicts a pregnant Pueblo woman, with her energy radiating outward and animating the world around her, illuminating the original lifegivers and caretakers of this area, who bear the brunt of the environmental degradation these industries cause. We are the land, the land is us. There is no differentiation.
The three Grandmothers on the left represent Pueblo elders who have been advocating for Mother Earth for decades:
-Marian Naranjo (Santa Clara (Kha’po Owinge)- Founder and Director of Honoring Our Pueblo Elders (H.O.P.E.) at Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico and member of Flowering Tree Permaculture. https://shuffle.do/@MarianNaranjo
-Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez (San Ildefonso) founding member of Tewa Women United : https://tewawomenunited.org/2020/02/get-to-know-twu-staff-elder-kathy-sanchez
-Henrietta Gomez (Taos Pueblo): https://www.taosnews.com/magazines/taos-woman/eight-women-of-impact-henrietta-gomez/article_205f0554-a3bd-11ec-82c6-b3fa76bbd273.html
Also depicted are sacred symbols reflective of Pueblo cosmology: the four directions with the four colors of corn, corn plants, clouds, water, mountains, etc.
The entirety of the piece is about rematriation, the return to the connection with our original mother, Mother Earth and the wisdom she provides that has been overshadowed by almost a century of nuclear colonialism’s devasting impact on the land and bodies of the original peoples of New Mexico and all inhabitants. Here the mother(s), are both archetypal and embodied beings, encompassing the cycles of life, including traditional agriculture that is the core of Pueblo culture that has been compromised due to the contamination of local lands and waterways by Los Alamos National Laboratories.
The words “I am life, creator of worlds” will be written large as part of the mural. That phrase is a direct reference to Los Alamos- referencing Oppenheimer’s regret and critique of the invention and production of the nuclear bomb.
---------------------------------
Contact Matthew Chase-Daniel, director, The Lena Wall
(505) 670-5854
---------------------------------
Donate to support this project: https://give.accomplis.org/give/617841/#!/donation/checkout
Gratitude for all who volunteered their time and artistry to work on this mural:
Three Sisters Collective: Alesandra Candelaria, Dr. Christina M. Castro, Naya Anllo-Valdo, Took O’Neill
Three Sisters Collective Resident Artists: Neebinnaukzhik Southall, Nicole Martin, Nigel Padilla, Yucca Buzzuto
Students from UNM’s Atomic Bomb & Feminism class and members of Demand Nuclear Abolition: Edyth Seymour, Josiah Carabajal, Joel Lorimer, Elizabeth Beecher, Brendan Shaughnessy, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Billy Von Raven, Spencer Fischer
Monica Duran, Anika, Myrriah Gómez, Amanda Cortes, Kathy Sanchez, Ana Malinalli X Gutierrez Sisneros, Gilbert Abel Sanchez, Cosmo Sanchez, Mary D. Martinez, Joni Arends, Chrissie Orr, Xenia Purce, Pilar Anllo, MaryAnn, Abby Shepard, Aquila Chase-Daniel, Matthew Chase-Daniel, Rhonda Roberts, Cole Martin