Despite the winter cold in NY, the hands of the Spanish Vanesa Alvarez they do not tremble when holding the brushes with which he paints a mural in a Brooklyn neighborhood, in which he decided to capture a nostalgic and hopeful message: “We will hug again”.
“The possibility of painting this mural arose to give a little more hope to the neighborhood, with this hard year we have been going through,” says this artist during a brief break from her work, which began last Tuesday and hopes to finish it this weekend. , because the cold and the few hours of light slow down the brushstrokes.
As soon as he puts down his work tools, he takes off the thin rubber gloves with which he paints, to put on woolen ones and “warm up a bit.” It’s seven degrees, but the feeling is five, and on the edge of the sidewalk where he is doing his work there are still remnants of the snowstorm that last week covered New York in white.
A hopeful message
The painting, in which pastel tones predominate, is commissioned by a nearby pop art gallery, The Bobblehaus House, where two small groups of artists from the Williamsburg area converge.
A couple hug next to a large sign that in capital letters seems to scream what pretends to be a premonition: “We will hug again” (We will hug again).
“We will embrace each other again, because I hope that in spring we can, little by little, embrace again and that is why I also decided to use these colors that go more with winter,” says Álvarez before explaining that the work is also designed as something ephemeral, because the building where his imprint comes to life is scheduled to be demolished for next March.
For this reason, he continues, although he tends to use brighter colors, this time he opted for shades “a little duller, more wintry, because the wall may only last until spring.”
Hard times for artists
On March 13, it was decreed in Nueva york the closure of theaters, concerts and public events at a time when the city was becoming the eye of the covid-19 in United States.
Broadway turned off the lights of its shows, the golden mile of museums (MoMa, Met and Guggenheim) closed its doors and the entire vibrant art scene of the city has languished since then, even as museums and art galleries began to recover. partly its activity during the summer.
“This pandemic, as for all, for the art world has been an almost dry stop, a jug of cold water,” he says Alvarez that “he had an exhibition in an art gallery in Manhattan in the summer that could not happen”, and some projects abroad, in addition to the classes he gave in the neighborhood of The Bronx on “public art” that were “paralyzed when he closed the schools”.
So “I stayed, like all artists, at home trying to do as much as possible online”, a time in which he took the opportunity to “finish an illustration book for children in the Galician language”.
“But it has been very hard and as you imagine, being a Galician living here, with many doubts about returning home or not,” she adds.
Union make force
The blow that the pandemic has caused to the world of culture, which for Alvarez It has been greater for people who, like her, live “between education and art”; however, it has served to reinforce connections with other artists in a world that already feeds on support networks.
“Artists form connections, we tend to collectivize ourselves because all artists, but especially those of us who have such a social message, those of us who like to work with people, collaborative murals or work with the community, we tend to become collective, because it is the form “, he says after explaining that he is now in contact with various people through the La Casa de Bobblehaus gallery, the artistic residence where he lives or the” Project Art “collective.
Parties in New York
Alvarez she just had a child, just three months ago, with her partner, the poet from Vigo Marcos de la Fuente; and although their intention was to travel to their native Vigo for the holidays, they decided to stay in the cold city of skyscrapers.
“We are very sorry, because we wanted to introduce our son to the whole family, but it seems to us the most responsible thing to stay here and avoid the spread, he will have to wait a bit to visit Spain,” he says with the mask covering his nose and mouth.
Therefore, in addition to an attempt to revive the spirits of Williamsburg residents, to show that the flame of the “art street” she is still alive in New York despite the times and sending a cry of hope, the mural, she confesses, “is also a small personal message to my family and friends in Spain, in Galicia, because we are also going to embrace again I hope so soon. “
FS
– .
