Esperanza
Pencil on paper, 18" x 20"

This pencil drawing is one of my earliest works, dating to 1983. It is my own personal interpretation of one of a handful of stories about the Mexican Revolution handed down through the generations; from my great grandmother to my grandmother to my mother and lastly to me. This story (reported as fact by all parties) is of the hardships that the people endured during the war, particularly the women.

Wives accompanied their men to war to carry ammunition, cook, wash, and tend to the injured. All went hungry but more so the women. Nursing infants and those born in the battlefields formed part of the camp. At nighttime, if enemy troops were near, it was imperative for the survival of all that hungry babies be kept quiet. When breasts ran dry, desperate mothers stuck stones,clods of dirt, and even bullets in the wailing child’s mouth. Some inconsolable babies had to be smothered. The magnitude of this short tale imprinted in my mind as a child and I tell it in this pencil drawing.