Marcela Diaz

Had the good fortune of meeting Marcela Diaz in Merida.

She started sculpting ten years ago,

after the premature death of her husband.

A conversation at a party lead to a

generous offer to tour her home and studio. 

Her stunning modern casa filled with art 

was like visiting a private museum.

Magical outdoor courtyards and pathways lead to her studio

where she weaves her passionate creations

from bolts of hand dyed local sisal.

"A lone woman stands at the edge, looking down into the abyss that is her life. The night is confidential, with only the stars to bear witness. She carefully opens the box of matches that she has been worrying in her hands for the last several hours. She takes one last sip of the wine that has been both her companion and her fortification on this dark and still night. She strikes the match and watches as her world is engulfed in flame."

"Like a sentinel, the woman stands guard as flames lay waste to her life’s blood, to her grief. Sweat and tears and hundreds of days of solitude are now a funeral pyre of anger and self-loathing. She breathes in the acrid smell of the burning henequen, feeling no remorse over what she has done. This is her penance, her cross to bear. Her beloved no longer walks the earth and it is the burning pit that will release her from her mantle of shame."

"The woman stands at the edge of the smouldering fire, watching as the remnants of her work hang themselves in the sky like stardust. Her body becomes a divining rod, returning to the source of her anguish as if to say, “This too, is the source of your awakening.” With a clarity she has never known, the woman understands this is not the end of her life’s work, this is just the beginning. And it is her beloved who has set her free."