Blow, misfortune, catastrophe, gone
Corpus Christi is a big celebration in Sitges, like many other festivities linked to the Catholic church, this is a favourite for many as it’s engaging and exciting as there’s a tempo. All the Sitges associations, schools and entities can join the celebration. For the event, we have to design a pattern that we draw on the street, and then, meticulously, this design will be filled in with flowers, or petals, or rice hulls, or grass. The importance of every element is its colour, brown, green, red, white, yellow or pink carnations or any other flower or even coffee that gives that very dark brown hint. Coffee has to be scarce as it’s not a natural element. The materials have to be natural, soft, pure, no tree branches nor hard items because in the evening there’s a religious procession and the priest will walk over these carpets in the evening. One does not want to be remembered for such a mishap.
In the past, there weren’t such beautiful carpets of flowers, if you check the painting we display at the Maricel Museum de Sitges, by Mas i Fontdevila, Corpus celebration involved flowers but no carpets. Nowadays, we have carpets all over the old town. Every year, one of the entities is chosen to be in charge of the Altar in the centre square, where the priest will offer the evening blessing during the procession.
In June 2018 it was the turn of the Museums of Sitges, our turn, we celebrated the Centenary of the Maricel Palace. It was a challenging task to think and create something so special for that occasion, the main attraction of the day, we wanted the most beautiful Altar, we had the marvellous idea to recreate somehow the Maricel Palace. And so we did, and it turned out beautifully. The striking colours of the emblem of the Maricel Palace, the red, blue and white created a superb contrast. The images we have from that day are stunning.
The weather wasn’t clear, and the pressure felt heavy, we didn’t know if it was going to rain, but determined as we were that it was going to be started and finished. In Sitges, we fight to celebrate traditions. The creators of our Altar were Pep and Montse. At the crack of dawn, the van delivered the grass, rice hull, the carnations. All through the morning, the museum staff was at the Cap de la Vila painting the pattern on the floor of the square and started assembling the pieces that were for the Altar.
Meanwhile, the other part of the staff like myself, we were up and down, started separating the petals from the stem, the petals give the colour, and stems are not needed for this particular task of prettiness. At some point, we decide to give it a go. We start to fill in the sketch with the different materials, the petals, hull, grass. Passers-by joined us, and as we know each other, it was a laugh. Joan Roca came, Pere’s brother, he always cheers me up. We also had the help of Lluïsa Saltó, a woman that also loves her traditions and the museums. Maria came too, but she had problems walking; still, she gave her best as she loves traditions. As it is, hours passed by, and we were on the floor, with the grass and the flowers. I remember that we had a pizza, Vinyet treated us to the restaurant, not out from a box but at the Pizzeria. We took turns; I was on the first turn. Then back to the floor, red, red, red, green hull, white, white, white, just kept going.
We worked against time; we wanted to finish and go home to grab some sleep. We made it. Challenge accomplished, and it came up beautifully, to tell the truth, it was as if a bit of the Palace in a different place. The tiles had been copied and printed; it looked great. We took a photo, and nearly all of us went home to bed, Amelia, Sara and Vinyet still had the strength for a G&T.
The sky was shaky, we could feel it; the tension in the atmosphere was unnerving. Honestly, it was stressful. Was it going to rain or not, and if so, will there be much damage?
The next morning, at first, we just started taking the parts that we didn’t want to get wet, like the cloth for the Altar or anything that the water could damage.
To our dismay, it was not the end of it, but only the beginning. We didn’t know at the time, but the most striking image was yet to come. It was buckets of water, a flood, torrential rain that made the carpet vanish with the water in a river of flowers, a frustrating disaster. Let me confess, we thought in fear that it was going to be a bad omen, and looking back, perhaps it was only a warning that the Museums were going to change.
Nothing left of our creation. The procession got cancelled, all for nothing. Nature decided to clean up our carpet, what a dramatic ending, speechless.
This year’s weather is also uncertain, but this time we are better prepared, we are going to stay indoors to see what the rain sweeps this time.
Photo Credits
© Arxiu Susana Preston Raga, Sitges
Susana Preston, guide and visitors attention for Sitges Museums
Deixa un comentari