Chile singular. Apuntes de viaje

H U M B E R S T O N E A N D S A N T A L A U R A . S A L T P E T E R WO R K S O F T H E D E S E R T These notes hold the memory of two trips that took me through the abandoned nitrate mines of Humberstone and Santa Laura in the desert of the north of Chile. They were made on-site, always after finding some shade under which to sit and draw. There isn’t much left standing in these places but what remains loudly tells its story. While drawing, I felt there was something mysterious connecting all these sketches, passing through them, uniting and breaking them. After the visits, when I had finished applying color, I discovered that this something is absence: the absence of people who give meaning to each place. The absence of individuals who, through their actions, demonstrated the use of so many empty portals, stripped sunshades, abandoned loading platforms, silent rooms, empty corners, doors without handles, and windows without eyes that contemplate the distant desert horizon. The drawings were made in a small Moleskine notebook and were completed with color in a cafe on Baquedano Street, and in a hotel facing the coast of Iquique. They reflect a personal perspective that can be understood and interpreted in many ways. Undoubtedly , I could have captured more images with a camera, but I wouldn’t have observed many things that were only achieved through drawing. Because, when you draw you store in memory and make the place and the moment your own so as not to forget what you have lived and observed, to bring back something that cannot be bought in stores but is even better and more important than that. In the end or at the beginning of it all, drawing for the pure pleasure of doing it, and to learn with paper and pencil to ask questions and be amazed by what you see, time and time again. I QU I QU E , 1 9 98 - 20 1 2 . 10