AH-Marfa '09 begins in front of the El Paso Airport, where the city has erected a 34-foot statue made of 18 tons of bronze. Four of the five students for this inaugural session have flown into the airport from Chicago, Providence, Los Angeles and New York City. The fifth is driving her uncle's truck from New Mexico.
The airport is formally calling this sculpture "The Equestrian." However, it was commissioned as and is referred to in the airport literature as a depiction of Don Juan Onate, a 17th century Spanish Conquistador, husband of the illegitimate granddaughter of Monteczuma, and first governor of New Mexico.
In October of 1598, a skirmish erupted when the occupying Spanish military demanded supplies essential to the Acoma people surviving the winter. The Acoma resisted; thirteen Spaniards were killed, and amongst them Don Juan Onate's nephew. In 1599, Onate retaliated; his soldiers killed 800 villagers. The remaining 500 women and children were enslaved, and by Don Juan's decree, the left foot of every surviving Acoma man over the age of twenty-five was amputated.
Eighty left feet were separated from the leg.
The left? Why the left?
Stacked or strewn?
In Espanola, New Mexico, at the Onate Monument and Visitor Center, the right foot of another Don Onate statue was removed with an electric saw. The thin scar of the repairing weld is barely detectable- the foot, starfish-like, appears regenerated. The events that set the cut and weld in motion occurred over 400 years ago, but like a wake, these incidents reverberate, pulsing towards the shore of the Present.
Photograph by Julia Sherman (AH-Marfa '09)
