Kathy Vargas

This installation happened 8 months after my mother’s death and is a remembrance of her death but also a remembrance of life. Broken Column: Mother is the central piece in this work. The angels on either side of her cross are there because, as my mother lay dying, she saw and named her angels, sure they were there to take her home.
The “Miracle Lives” series is about the miracles, large and small, that we’ve all had in our lives and that have made us grateful, happy people. The series is in triptych form. On one side is a ‘portrait’ of the subject in motion and deliberately blurred, in this case my friend Diana, after having survived both her divorce and shortly after, cancer. In the center is a ‘shrine’ to commemorate the miracle, her hair, which she cut after being divorced then lost during chemo. On the other side is a milagro heart, which holds each subject’s proof of miracle, in Diana’s case represented by a snake, the evil of her life, leaving her heart. There are objects along with the photos. Small and large boxes which hold thorns, representing the pain and sorrow which come into every life. But these are also a representation of the pain we’ve overcome.