When my younger son was 5 years old, he asked me, “What are you mom?” at that moment, I answered, “I am an artist.” And he affirmed, “Yes, you are good at that.”
I was born and grew up in Buenos Aires, and there my artistic abilities were nurtured. Between the formation of a family, three maternity leaves and helping my husband in his growth as a mechanical engineer, I was able to finish my fine arts studies and my teacher training, as well as having extensive experience in visual arts education.
One day my husband came with a great job opportunity in Indonesia. I was in my maternity leave of my younger child and we left our country for a while. From that point we started our story as a moving family with very young children changing schools, friends and houses many times. A lot of tools and and artist stuff was moving with me. The more we travelled, the more I collected images as a strange mobile drawing journal.
Sault Sainte Marie was another of those places. My husband came to work at the opening of the tube mill in 2001, a few months after, all of us. So, I postponed again my return to the teaching job in my country, and we started another temporary move.
Our children were growing up very fast. More established relationships and plans for them were necessary. At that time, I quit my position in education in my country, finishing my MA in interdisciplinary humanities at Laurentian University, and my husband quit his job in a company in order to start his own business. Then our life as immigrants in Canada started.
My husband’s case was easier. In my case, I had invested years in studying English, taking English proficiencies test, long hours trying to bring all my credentials and teaching experiences, looking for equivalencies, extra courses in education, sometimes with very low hope of finding a job.
But I never left behind my internal and external artistic space, almost dragging it through new spaces and new habitats. It took me more than 10 years. Last September, finally, I got a job as a technician, what required experienced artist with a body of work and able to demonstrate those abilities. It is so specific, that it seems created for me. That part of me that was natural, like my eyes or my hands, my natural abilities to work in arts, opened the door.