RO-LAN-DO Statement

Artist Statement

MFA Rolando Palacio

I remember his guitar playing.  The strings some how were being held on with rusty nuts and sometimes when he would get to much into a song he would strum the chords to hard that they would fall from in-between the wedges made to hold them in place.  I first heard about him from a couple young guys that I befriended and were on the move to find the next drug pushing deal.  He was the person that kept everybody entertained and made them forget about all their misfortunes.  That was how he would make his money and how he was able to survive the streets after you couldn’t get anymore free meals from the comedore that would feed you two meals a day for up to a week if you got in really good with the priest running the place.  I just sat with him and I told him how I loved music.  I used to play music when I was young.  That’s what saved my life.  It got me into art and made me feel like I could control something.  Like I could mold something without having something or someone control everything.  We just sat there and he started to talk to me about his love for music.  He talked to me about how he grew up in the states but was born in Mexico.  He was one of those unfortunate people that never got a green card but made a life from a very young age in the states.  He was in his mid 40’s now with a wife and children in the states.  I sat there and talked to him and it felt like I was talking to my best friend from Texas.  Just two music freaks connecting over an old beat up guitar.  He told me about how he was going to head out that same night.  He was going to sell his guitar to get some money to pay for the guide and for the tax the mafia enforces when crossing the border.  He looked at me and he asked me for a huge favor.  He asked if I would call his wife in Tucson and tell her the he was going to be on-line singing and playing his guitar.  As he finished his sentence his words ended with “ I don’t think I’m going to make it this time.”

We sat there as the sun cut across our faces and I wondered how hard each space seemed to be and how it changed constantly.  One moment you were feeling good while playing a song about your good old confidence and the next your crawling for life as the sun cuts your life so short.  The shadows separate the ones that want to be viewed from the ones that try to hide but there faces fade everyday.  For some they never show up again.  The desert seems to do that to you.  It makes you think that it’s really easy to just walk across the next hill and the city must just be there.  That isn’t the story old man, you have to watch your back 24/7.  Money is what where chasing, just trying to make that pocket fat, trying to make it easier and trying to hide from what’s in those shadows that are constantly chasing me.  Sometimes you don’t know what in the other side but when you cross it there’s another gamble and you constantly have to think of that damn sun.  It’s always looking at you, always burning you back and every damn inch of your body.  These shadows are like barriers constantly separating you and me from each other.  I really want YOU to tell ME how dreams are made cause everybody hear has a damn dream.  But those dreams are sometimes a little do dark for me if you know what I mean.  You gotta keep chasing that mirage cabron.  It will somehow show up.  I know it will.  Hahahahaha, you’ll see.