Del Rivero uses this marvelous and quotidian material to convey both lightness and force. In her works, paper shows us its internal strength and capacity to bear witness to the passage of time. It records its wounds while it transcends them. Femininity, the experience of feelings, time, absence, love, marriage, motherhood, scars, and skin constitute the cosmology of the work that del Rivero has produced on paper, her principal medium for the past 15 years.
In 1992, del Rivero initiated her Letters to the Mother, the beginning of a series she has broadened over the years like the unfurling of a "correspondence." Others have included: Letter to the Other (1994), Letters from the Bride (1996-97), Letter to God (1997), Unfinished Letter (Letter to a Young Daughter) (1998), Echo of an Unfinished Letter (Letter to a Young Daughter) (1999), up to her recent Nine Broken Letters (2002-04) and Broken Letters (2004). While archetypal, these works have autobiographical connotations and make literary reference to Letter to the Father by Franz Kafka, Letters to the Daughter by Madame de Sévigné, the letters of Abelard and Heloïse, La Perfecta Casada by Fray Luis de León, and the letters of Marina Tsvetaeva. Elena del Rivero: At Hand reviewed by victòria rabal elena del rivero "A mano: Trabajos sobre papel" (At Hand: Works on Paper)
IVAM (Valencia Institute of Modern Art), Valencia, Spain September 9-December 10, 2006 Museo Patio Herreriano de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid, Spain March 28-June 5,2007 elena del rivero, a mano: trabajos sobre papel Elizabeth Finch, with additional essays by Olga Fernández López, Mina Takahashi, Maria-Josep Balsach, and Linda Yablonsky. Valencia, Spain: IVAM, 2006. 365 pages, 8 1/2 x 6 3/4 x 1 1/2 inches (hardcover), 157 color plates. Spanish with English and Valenciano translations. €50.00. Available through Ras Bookstore in Barcelona, tel/fax 34-93-412-7199, ras@oike.com; or through Urban Center Books in New York, tel 212-935-3595.
They are letters that invoke the Other. They are not to be sent; they are the unspeakable. Usually the enabler of communication, here, paper does not convey, it contains. It makes possible an intimate dialogue, continually being revealed to itself during the process of "writing," page after page, stitch upon stitch, like a psalmody. But they are also letters that use their femininity to denounce-sometimes ironically-the oppression and confinement to which women have been submitted historically in private life.
Del Rivero's conceptual approach requires a methodical and detailed practice with an emphasis on process. The work evolves as a document of the duration of its creation. Del Rivero works with perseverance, numbering the sheets of her letters, documenting, registering the materials used, and transcribing the development of projects in journals with titles such as The Book of Numbers, The Book of Expenditures, Calendar, and The Book of Routines. But del Rivero also commented: "When I work, I don't think. I've done the thinking before...[so] what functions is instinct...I don't believe in inspiration. The work and the steps that went before bring me new surprises, and if I am attentive, the more connections I make, the more alone I am, the more I make. Everything is very easy. I'm only a vehicle, that's when the work gets sweet, it's what goes before that's painful."1
In the production of her work, del Rivero enjoys handwork, and places great importance on working in a team. Many of her projects require a tremendous amount of manual labor which she conducts in The Paraclete, her current home/studio named after Heloïse's abbey-a place of quiet contemplation, withdrawal, and security.
On the sheets of papers, words are written by machine and by hand, in rectilinear strokes, or painted, embroidered, drawn in pencil, sewn, adorned with pearls. Everything becomes drawing on paper. Drawing is the most direct expression between the hand and the mind of the artist. "The hands are very agile if you let them do and say what's in the head," explained del Rivero. "You only have to give them freedom."2
Del Rivero uses both machine-made paper (inexpensive, accessible) and handmade paper since her contact with Dieu Donné Papermill in 1993. Handmade paper has had a definitive impact on her works on paper by increasing the range of textures, enhancing opacity and translucency, and permitting her to choose a specific format, weight, and tone. She mainly uses linen and abaca, in white or light bone color. Using white paper plays to paper's traditional supporting role for writing and printing, but at the same time it is a reference to a veil. The natural color of abaca approaches the texture and color of skin. Since 1999, del Rivero has developed ambitious projects with handmade abaca paper, often including a watermark of her name in the sheets, and exploring the skin- or parchment-like qualities of long-beaten abaca. Heridas (Wounds) from 2001 resembles skin with scars that are unerasable marks of life. More than physical injuries they are scars of the soul.
She also chose abaca to produce 60 x 40 inch(152 x 102 cm) large-scale paper for the series, Elle sort beaucoup (She goes out a lot) (1999). Over a two-week period, these sheets were placed on the floor of her studio, on her bed, on the dining table, and in the street. The sheets of abaca paper, in spite of their great resistance, suffered stains ,marks, and tears. As if she were mending skin, del Rivero repaired the delicate drawings with needle and thread, inspired by a curious thirteenth-century technique of restoring vellum manuscripts.
For [Swi:t] Home (2000-2001), del Rivero subjected the abaca sheets to a much longer duration. They remained on the floor, rotating from room to room of her home/studio, for more than six months. The marks and tears were the manifestation of reviews the duration of the process, where work and life were fused. In her early artist training, del Rivero learned from Óscar Manesi to consider mistakes as opportunities, to value what the I Ching speaks of as "the work in what is discarded." After months of absorbing daily life, the [Swi:t] Home abaca sheets were brought to Dieu Donné for restoration (soaking and pressing). The objective was not to restore them to their original state, but to return them to a certain balance, without eliminating the signs of the accidents. Afterwards ,the tears were repaired with "sutures," reintegrated and reinforced with linen cloth patches. Finally, del Rivero and her group of assistants assembled the sheets in fours, creating five giant Dishcloths, 120 x 80 inches(304 x 204 cm) each, embroidering them with stripes of colored thread to resemble kitchen towels. Among her latest series of letters on large-format abaca paper, Nine Broken Letters (2002-2004) stands out. It is a work of great formal simplicity with moving texts, calligraphed by hand. It speaks of loss and wandering. Del Rivero brings voice to the paper/skin by adding a sound component of herself reading the letters in English and in Spanish.
Detail of Elle sort beaucoup (The Bed), 1999, 591/2 x 39 inches (detail: 15 x 10 inches), embroidery stitching and relief printing on soiled and torn handmade abaca paper with artist's name in watermark. Photo: Cathy Carver. Heridas, 2001, 85.5 x 63.5 cm (33 3/4 x 25inches), thread and ink on handmade abaca paper. Photo: Joaquín Cortés. All photos courtesy of the artist. opposite: Unfinished Letter (Letter to a Young Daughter), 1998, as installed at IVAM, September 2006, 600 sheets, each 17.8 x22.9 cm (7 x 9 inches), thread and crayon on etched paper. Photo: Juan García Rosell.
As a result of the attacks on September 11,2001, Elena del Rivero's home/studio was buried under a thick layer of dust, asbestos, and other materials. In the aftermath, del Rivero gathered more than 3,000 documents that landed in her loft from the towers. In a work that took five years to complete, del Rivero cleaned and numbered the documents, erasing all personal names to protect the dignity of the disappeared. The artist and her assistants sewed the documents onto cotton tarlatan and hung the cascading work in the museum in the form of Christ Descending from the Cross. This elegiac installation titled [Swi:t] Home: A Chant (2001-06) included a sound piece by Butch Morris and video images of the cleanup of Ground Zero projected on monitors that were placed on the floor in and around the paper sculpture. In The Book of Dust (2006), del Rivero reminds us that "whether born of pain, joy, or displacement, it is by means of non-specific references that one can experience transcendence." The author wishes to acknowledge Richard Schweid who translated the original text from Spanish which can be accessed on our website at www.handpapermaking.org/magazine.
__________ notes 1. Elena del Rivero, e-mail message to the author, December 11, 2006. 2. Ibid. [Swi:t] Home (Dishcloths),2000-01, as installed at the Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid in April 2007,292 x 381 cm (9 feet 7 inches x 6 feet) each, embroidery stitching on joined sheets of soiled handmade abaca paper with artist's name in watermark. Photo: Germán Sinova. Courtesy of Museo Patio Herreriano, Valladolid, Spain.
