CASA TLACUACHE
bringing our land to life,
and life to our land through
art, ecology & leyendas
un proyecto de
Ricardo Alberto Ramirez Garcia-Rojas y
Marcelo Alejandro Ramirez Garcia-Rojas
Dimensions: 12” x 12” x 6” house + 18" x 18" x 6" burrow
Materials: Rio Grande Valley Harvested Clay
Techniques: Native clay isolation, slab, ecology.
CASA TLACUACHE
ARTIST STATEMENT
The Wixárika people are indegenous people of Mexico and the United States, originally inhabiting the Sierra Madre Occidental, across modern day Jalisco, Zacatecas, Nayarit, Durango, California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. With Wixárika blood in their veins, brothers Ricardo Alberto and Marcelo Alejandro Ramírez García-Rojas hope to bring back to light the lessons held in legends of this land.
In Wixárika folklore, the reason why the Tlacuache (Opossum) has a bald tail is that Tlacuache loved humans very deeply.
One day Tlacuache saw how the humans suffered in the cold. Tlacuache saw the humans huddled together for warmth, shivering, and even saw death come for humans who lost the fight with the cold.
That day, lightning struck from the stars and hit a tree causing fire. The Quinamentin (giants) of the mountains saw the fire, and made an army led by el Tigre (tiger) to guard and feed the fire. When the humans saw the warmth created by the fire, they asked the Quinamentin for fire, but were violently rejected in their request, having thousands of arrows rain on them.
El Venado (deer), el Armadillo, y el Tlacuache met and decided that they must gift the humans the precious element of fire to end human’s suffering. The question remaining was how.
Tlacuache volunteered bravely. Everyone laughed at Tlacuache. How was a creature so small going to obtain such a powerful element from the powerful Quinamentin?
Tlacuache warned them: “No se burlen, más vale maña que fuerza” (do not mock me, skill is worth more than strength).
Night came and Tlacuache snuck into the Quinamentin camp moving quietly in the darkness, playing dead for up to days when guards passed by. He noticed that in the darkness of the morning, only el Tigre was awake while all the Quinamentin guards slept.
Tlacuaches knew this was his moment to strike. This legend happened back when Tlacuache had a big beautiful bushy tail, so when Tlacuache finally reached the big fire of the Quinamentin, Tlacuache put his tail in the fire, and ran with his tail on fire as fast as Tlacuache could to the humans. Tlacuache gave the humans fire, but by the time the humans had put out the fire on Tlacuache’s tail, all his beautiful bushy tail had burnt up.
However, Tlacuache was happy to sacrifice his beautiful tail to see the humans warm with his gift of fire.
Tlacuaches are the only marsupial in the Americas. They eat ticks, bugs, their blood has been used to make snake antivenom, and are a vital part of a healthy ecosystem. However, because of their appearance, Tlacuaches are usually the victims of violence. We want to teach people that hurting Tlacuaches hurts the ecosystem and ultimately ourselves. On the other hand, giving love to Tlacuaches is giving love to our ecosystem and ultimately taking care of ourselves.
To achieve this goal, we want to create Casa Tlacuaches using clay isolated from native Rio Grande Valley soil, fired in pit ovens inside our own earth. Casa Tlacuaches are circular tiny clay houses that will go on top of hand dug burrows that will serve as nesting habitat for Tlacuaches in public parks across the Rio Grande Valley.
Each Casa Tlacuache will be accompanied by a plaque with a section of the legend of Tlacuache, a QR code linking people to a website with the full legend of Tlacuache, as well as scientific facts about the ecosystem services and benefits of having Tlacuaches in the community.
The purpose of this project is to create nesting habitat for Tlacuaches, to teach our community the lessons of love, sacrifice, and tenacity that the legends of our ancestors teach us (especially since our Anglo-biased education system do not expose us to the legends of our people), to educate people about the ecosystem services provided by Tlacuaches, and to combat fear and violence towards Tlacuaches. We want to return to Tlacuaches the legendary love that that Tlacuache gave humans by making many Casa Tlacuaches throughout the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
Brothers Ricardo and Marcelo are an artist-scientist team combining mediums that make an impact, with techniques that illuminate the utility and beauty of the medium, and stories that give depth to the medium. For Casa Tlacuache, our own Texas earth is our medium, our purpose is to foster life and caring using the legends that have echoed on this Texas earth for generations before us, keeping the legends in the light, so that they may echo for generations after us.