Eve Rivera
Chicago-native artist and educator Eve Rivera has a background in literary, performance and visual arts. In her childhood she toured as a dancer in countless productions. During Rivera's teenage years she began working in multiple libraries and delved into poetry, collage work, drawing, and painting. As she grew an appreciation for art she began a collection of inspiration in postcards, magazines, and books, which she then altered into her own pieces of Art.
Rivera's appreciation for beauty and the struggle of life continued to inspire her art. Creating highly textured and conceptual work, themes of space, journey, theology, religion, and design can be observed in each individual piece. She explores emotion in its most honest forms reflecting a simplistic and timeless quality with a focus on texture and small details. Her work has been displayed in exhibitions throughout Chicago, including Englewood, Hyde Park, Pilsen, River North, Lincoln Park, and Lakeview areas. Currently Rivera lives in San Diego with her children where she teaches special education while freelancing as a documentary/portraiture photographer and a mixed media artist.
goodbye isolation,
I write this letter of departure with ease in my heart while it rests in the
pit of my stomach. I am so ever thankful to you for many reasons, but recently
discovered, yet again, that space is needed.
Your hands are thick with comfort, your arms long with heaviness, your eyes
happy with quiet, but too much of you is hindering. You cannot rob me of life,
you cannot keep me to yourself any longer.
In this break up of sorts I will offer the promise of my friendship. I will
visit regularly, we will have our alone time. We will make art, ponder on the
world events, laugh about ridiculous-ness and even cry. But you have to share
me with the world. You have to let me grow in other places too.
You have been the biggest witness of my life. Nothing can take that away. You
and I, dear isolation, have conquered so much together. What a team! But it has
left me hurt, hurting, and lonely.
I am thankful for our lessons and what you have made me. They have led me to
now, the time for me to use them in the real world. It is time for me to learn
how to fly without you, to communicate and create with others like we do
together. I promise to come back and tell you all about it.
Goodbye my love, my dear isolation. We will be friends, but no longer
everything to each other. You are a pattern I will break, and I apologize for
the pain and uncomfortable position that puts us in. But you are a pattern that
has to leave in order for me to grow.
I am choosing myself, I am choosing to have witnesses. I am choosing the health
of my being and soul.
Goodbye, with much love,
you
hello you,
what is it to see yourself age
looking for a witness to your differences
any witness to your motherhood
your hair gray
your body deform/reform
being your own witness
your own storyteller
your own documentation
pieces of you in the evidence
of struggle
in children
in homes
looking for value
looking to be seen
to the one who gives shape to
my being, my life, my isolation, my coping
to the one who gives death,
bestows life,
allows regret
what is it to see yourself truly
as you are
no attachment
to family, life, or commitment
with all the attachments
that tell your body’s story
that sings your soul’s song
the life story written
on your face
on your hands
in your aching joints
in your tired feet
your slumped arched back
to see yourself honestly
all the lives with no lies
the truest view of self
where the breath says all
hello to goodbye