On Preparing “All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun”
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun.
Creating a concept for a show is daunting for me. This is only my second solo exhibition, and I still feel green as an artist. My ideas tend to scatter...I either have too many or I’m trying to say too much. Simplifying has never come easy for me.
Photos of my grandparents, my mamá, and her 9 sisters across the years.
One day, I was driving my daughter to Round Top — the halfway point between my home in Elgin and my parents’ place in Houston. I did the usual handoff with my mom, who was watching her for the long weekend so I could focus on the exhibition, and started the drive back. Driving is one of my forms of meditation. Sometimes there’s music, sometimes silence. I breathe, I look, I let my mind settle into the landscape like it’s a film playing out in front of me.
I knew I needed to get to work as soon as I got home, but I felt stuck. If I’m honest, I was avoiding the grief of losing my grandmother. It felt lodged again...too heavy to touch. Somewhere along that drive, I prayed. I asked for direction & guidance. Then I got quiet enough to listen.
As I looked out over the sky and the expanse along 290, I saw a vision: a spider, a web...weaving, unfurling. At the center was my grandmother, surrounded by women I didn’t immediately recognize but understood as ancestors. The web extended outward, catching light, forming something...a constellation. At its edges were my mamá and her 9 sisters — my tías — all of them, and then their children, my cousins, and their children, and so on. It was our lineage, mapped out. Alive.
I remembered that my grief is sacred. It didn’t have to shut me down. It could move through me, become something. My grandmother showed me that death wasn’t an end, but a continuation. That her presence still lives through all of us. I remembered her saying to me, “tu corazón es mi corazón” (your heart is my heart).
I pulled over and cried.
In that same moment, more images came: A large room. A central force — the sun, the source, the matriarchal core. My grandmother holding out her embroidered textiles, the ones she gifted me over the years. An alcatraz (calla lily), like the ones my Papa’Ñiel (grandfather) grew for her every Spring. The web again, holding everything together — past, present, and future. And then my mom and my tías, their spirit made in an explosion of colors, how I hold them in memory. Their essence.
That was it. I knew what the work needed to be.
I got back to the studio hyper-focused. I pulled out Mama'Índa’s embroideries, rolled out slabs, and got to work. For the next 3 months, that’s where I was.
During that time, an incense-making workshop opened up at a local apothecary in Austin called The Medicine Bag. I remember getting a tingling sensation behind my ears and neck — I knew I needed to create a companion scent for the opening. Leighla Molina of Corazón Verde Yerbas led the class, guiding us through the history of incense and the importance of harvesting materials with respect. My friend Emi and I paired up and created a blend to recall our grandmothers: sandalwood, rose, cinnamon, and jasmine. I rolled a few in cempasúchil.
Following the class, we spent time in the shop, and a joy elixir and a cempasúchil agua sagrada — both by Corazón Verde Yerbas — called to me. They became part of my daily ritual in the studio. I would also mist the cempasúchil water over the kiln as an offering before each firing.
Back at the studio, I made a copalero to burn the incense in. A week later, when the cones were ready, I lit one. The air filled slowly — layer by layer, it blossomed — familiar, warm. I was back in the posadas, sipping té de canela. I could smell the flowers from my grandparents’ garden, the oil I rubbed on my grandmother’s temples, hands & feet in her final days. The sandalwood was thinning the veil. It was exactly right.
As I was finishing the final pieces, a book came back into my orbit: Women Who Run With the Wolves. I had saved it on my shelf and audiobooks list for years (thanks to Angeliska Polacheck), and ended up listening to it 3 times in the studio. The way it speaks to instinct, to ancestral knowing, to the wildness and depth of women — it echoed so much of what I was already moving through in the work. It helped me trust what I had seen, what I was feeling. It reminded me that these stories, these images, don’t come from nowhere. They’re carried.
Creating this body of work was a deeply inward process. I learned a lot. Not just technically, but in how I listen and observe. I became more instinctive. A stronger, more dynamic painter. I found clarity. I felt guided by my ancestors and spirit guides in a way I can’t fully explain, only recognize. Day by day, I’m remembering how to (re)connect: to them, to the land, to something that’s always been there.
Acknowledgments:
Special thanks to my husband and daughter, Bencho y Paloma, for your patience, love, and support over these months of preparing for the show. To Chatita and Gigi for helping with childcare, meals, and care. To my (step)dad, Rolando “Tata,” for always being willing to jump in and help with anything I needed. He hand-cut and shaped the wood backing for each tablet into its organic form, and together we sanded and assembled every piece for the exhibition — it was no easy task. Lo quiero mucho, Apá.
Thanks to Nicolas, ETI Gallerist & Curator, for believing in me and making this experience run so smoothly and professionally. To Courtenay, for being the best cheerleader. To my entire familia for being my inspiration, and to my friends and supporters for your encouragement and the way you’ve shown up for me — it means more than you know.
All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun is on view at Every Time Institute in Taylor, Texas through Sunday, May 10th (Mother’s Day), or available to view online.