Leticia Vazquez-Smith has vivid childhood memories of celebrating Día de los Muertos – Day of the Dead – at home with her family in her native Mexico. She remembers helping to make the traditional offering (ofrenda) of food, drink and flowers in memory of her ancestors, and she fondly recalls gathering with family to reminisce about loved ones who had passed on.
“It was very important for us to set up the offering at home,” Vazquez-Smith said. “You can set up ofrenda and then nobody can touch it. But then you have a separate table where you can sit and eat and talk, and it was very interesting to me. And also the food was delicious.”
Day of the Dead has been an important observance for generations of people worldwide, especially in Mexico, where some of the world’s largest Day of the Dead community celebrations take place. Vazquez-Smith launched a Day of the Dead community event in Columbus in 2005. Since then, she has continued to bring the festivities to Columbus each year, in her joint roles as director and founder of Day of the Dead Columbus and president of Latino Arts for Humanity.
In addition to live music, poetry readings, Aztec dancers and special activities for children, the one-day Day of the Dead Columbus festival on Oct. 7 featured artwork by Columbus visual artists. Many of those artworks are now on display in the exhibition Art from the Day of the Dead Festival, in the Loft Gallery of the Columbus Cultural Arts Center through Saturday, Nov. 11.
Selected from a pool of artworks entered in response to a call for submissions, the pieces in the exhibition represent a range of mediums and artistic experience.
“Day of the Dead Columbus has been a platform for artists, so we have all kinds of mediums and all kinds of levels,” Vazquez-Smith said. “We welcome them.”
The artworks’ subjects run the gamut from representational pieces depicting the life cycle in nature to abstract works embodying ideas about life and death. But if you’re expecting to see the vibrantly painted calavera, or skulls, typically associated with the Day of the Dead, you might be surprised.
“When we did the call for artists, we explained to the artists that Day of the Dead is not only about skulls. The whole idea is living and dying,” Vazquez-Smith said. So we don’t have only skulls. We have abstracts. We have also ceramics and mixed media. Everything is about living and dying, and it’s not only about the human.”
And because life and death are universal experiences, Vazquez-Smith says the Day of the Dead tradition should be shared with everyone in the community.
“There are a lot of (Latinx) people that were actually born in Columbus, and for some reason they don’t go to Mexico, and this (festival) is the closest thing that they can see, and it’s very important,” Vazquez-Smith said. “So the whole thing is to also allow those generations to learn about their culture and to feel proud about their roots and to share that with the Columbus community.”
Art from the Day of the Dead Festival is an exhibition of artwork by Columbus artists created for the 2023 Day of the Dead Columbus Festival. The exhibition will be on display through Nov. 11 at the Columbus Cultural Arts Center.
