Conde, Daniela - Week 5

When looking at Carmen Lomas Garza’s paintings, it is as if you caught a glimpse at a moment in time in a mundane but beautiful environment. There is so much happening in every corner of the paintings, the smallest of details are both heartwarming and lovely to see. There is familiarity and intimacy to her paintings, even in the ones with so many people in them. I decided to choose one that focuses on just two people but portrays just as much warmth as the collective gatherings. The painting that caught my attention was “Cleaning Nopalitos” (1989) which is a piece made with gouache on cotton paper.

“Cleaning Nopalitos” depicts two beautiful Brown people, one male figure and a young girl, the male figure potentially an Abuelito because of the white hairs indicating age is sitting down on a wooden blue chair focused on removing cactus spines with a knife. The little girl is in a red dress with small black slip-on shoes, she has short black hair and is leaning her head on her palm while resting her elbow on a small daffodil-yellow table. The Abuelito wearing jean overalls with a white shirt has a wood crate of freshly picked nopalitos on one side and has a forest-green bucket under the nopalito to catch the espinas he is taking off of the nopalitos. Both seem in deep contemplation and focus, one on the activity of peeling nopalitos and the young girl watching the Abuelito in action, perhaps wanting to do it herself but potentially knowing that both the cactus espinas and the knife itself warrant her Abuelito saying no to her helping out. There are three nopalitos on the table that are ready to be cooked. Both of them are on a screened white porch with abundant red flowers and a majestic tree in the background.

To me, this is a beautiful intimate and mundane moment between two generations: an Abuelito and a granddaughter. One of which is familiar to me, both from my own childhood and watching my sisters interact with my abuelitos in México. “Cleaning Nopalitos” by Carmen Lomas Garza reminded me of the time my two sisters ages 10 and 16 were helping my abuelito clean the corn he had harvested from his own cosecha. All my sisters were born in the United States so this was the first time they met my Abuelitos. They were all sitting outside, talking, laughing and cleaning corn together. It was a beautiful sight to see, I think I took a photo of them. This is what I remembered the most from México and my childhood there, the small tender moments with elders, ones that connected me to the land and to my people. I suppose something different from this painting and my sister's moment with my Abuelito is that they were all learning by helping him (albeit they were potentially older than the girl in the painting), they were all in casual clothes, my Abuelito con sus huaraches and my sisters in jeans and hoodies, and just basking in the beautiful sun outdoors. I asked one of my sisters how she felt and she responded, “I felt like I was getting closer to Abuelito.”