EVERYTHING depends on water

We’re staying in our casa in San Miguel de Allende this month. San Miguel is a beautiful colonial mountain town, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the state of Guanajuato in the very center of Mexico.

In the summer the area is lush with the rains, but when we stay, it is dry. At 6000 feet altitude it is called the Mexican Highlands and is considered semi-arid desert.

When we fell in love with San Miguel, something gringos do quite easily it seems, we were concerned about buying real estate in a place where water was so scarce that it was expected to last only another twenty years. Over margaritas in our favorite rooftop bar it seemed quite reasonable for me to say, “Then we’ll sell in fifteen!”

Our casa, like the majority of those built here, is equipped with a huge cistern hidden underground so that if the city runs out of water before the next rainy season, we would still have enough. We have yet to have to put it to use, but it is comforting to know it is there. We added a water purification system so we wouldn’t have to always be buying bottles of water and remembering not to drink from the tap.

Yesterday my wife mentioned the water didn’t taste as good as usual. So we checked the system, and sure enough, the ultra-violet light on the filtration system was out. Someone will come today to replace it, but it puts us in a temporary condition that forces us to face the reality of the state of water here and in much of the world.

We who live in the United States, a country of long showers, bubble baths, swimming pools and large lawns, are hard pressed to imagine how it would be to have to choose not to wash in order to drink and in order to irrigate enough to grow a little food to sustain us. These are not choices being made here in San Miguel, but they could be. And they are certainly being made in many parts of the world.

Water is scarce. Water is precious. EVERYTHING depends on water. When there is no water, life becomes much more dangerous. Disease thrives on the lack of hygiene. Starvation is often caused by drought and the inability to grow food. Water becomes a precious commodity over which wars are fought. People die not just from thirst but from many other conditions brought on by the scarcity of water.

I remember some art blogger writing up a clever piece making fun of pretentious artists’ statements. And of course there’s a lot of pomposity and romanticism when artists start talking about their work. The blogger decided to use a few sentences of my statement as an example. Fair game, but what he poked fun at was the idea that I considered water a precious resource. He seemed to be oblivious to the precarious state of fresh drinking water in the world, how easily it can become undrinkable through pollution and how many tens of thousands of people are dying every day from thirst and starvation due to lack of water.

This made me aware that the biggest part of the problem is our blindness to the existence of a problem. When I decided to have a blog, it was in part to continue bringing attention not just through my art but through my words to the vital importance of doing everything we can to assure that we have ample potable water for all life.

Mami Wata

With such rich cultural and political imagery within the African American community, why would I, a black artist, focus solely on the subject of water? Well, perhaps the answer is in the current show at the Cantor Museum at Stanford University titled Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas. 

Zoumana Sane, Mami Wata, 1987. Pigment, glass. Collection of Herbert M. and Shelley Cole. Photo by Don Cole

Most viewers would be hard pressed to see any relationship between my ultra-realistic paintings of water and this tribal collection of sculpture and images. But both my wife and I felt a strong response and sense of recognition. We were reminded of a time in the mid-eighties when we were snorkeling in Hawaii. I am not a strong swimmer but I felt reasonably confident snorkeling above the reefs. Either my absorption with the tropical fish – all that rich color and pattern – or perhaps tidal drift carried me out beyond my ability to touch the ocean floor, and I panicked. I was way out beyond where anyone else was swimming. Off in the distance, very small, I could see my children playing on the beach. There was no way anyone would hear me if I called for help. I was sure I was going to drown, and surrendered to the inevitable.

Just then, out of nowhere, a large native Hawaiian woman was suddenly beside me, telling me to relax and float on my back. Her words immediately calmed me and I did what she said. I turned to thank her but she was gone.
How did she just appear and then disappear? How fortuitous that she showed up at my side exactly when I needed her. Was she a real woman, a goddess, a spirit? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me. She saved my life, and I have always been grateful.
But when my wife and I walked into the Mami Wata exhibit, we looked at each other and had a simultaneous ‘aha!’ moment. Mami Wata, the spirit honored by my ancestors, saved me that day. Perhaps she spoke through a real woman or as Hiʻiaka, the Hawaiian water goddess; but however she did it, she was there.
Suddenly the past decades of my painting fell into place. Without questioning why, I have devoted myself to painting water. Now I can see this intense focus as an expression of gratitude to Mami Wata for giving me back my life.