Charleen Gagliardi takes a dreamwalk through life in these gorgeous xerographs and poems that move from whimsical to weighty-ingenious to wise, celebratory to poignant, maidenhood to cronehood-with an otherworldly ease.
Eulalia
put them there when she was twelve.
Five sun bleached sea shells,
like clean fingernails,
line out Santiago doorway.
Barefoot
miles away on mama's dirt floor
tortilla dough flaps deft in her hands;
over and over
left/right, fantasy/reality, child/adult.
Eulalia
put them there when she was fifteen;
two babies line mama's doorway-
their unlamented papa
under a sun-bleached wreath.
Mama
fated, raises her babies, their babies and goats.
She treadles her sewing machine
to the thread-bare pulse of an old pink radio....
and waits.
Eulalia
thumbs north... shorn hair,
bleached-white scar, red fingernails;
no post mark....
Bio: CHARLEEN GAGLIARDI was involved in the visual arts community of Las Vegas, Nevada for over thirty years, and her large scale xerographs and assemblage pieces have been exhibited at the McCarran International Airport Gallery. Currently, she and her musician husband divide their time between the towns of Rockwall, Texas and Mazanillo, Mexico.
