La Tusa
A celebration of Honduran folk traditions which inspire creation in today’s Ozarks.
by Azalia Molina
Azalia Molina is an artist who uses a variety of mediums, including clay, printmaking, and painting, to reveal the culture, traditions, and social problems of her home country, Honduras.
Her work is characterized by being detailed and full of brilliant, saturated colors reminiscent of the folk art found in artisan markets. Molina is based in Rogers, AR, where she continues her creative career through commissioned artwork and leading her own Marketing Agency, Clever. In the near future, she hopes to run an outreach center in her native country, providing skills and art programs for children and youth at social risk as an initiative to reduce engagement in delinquency and other problem behaviors.
ABOUT THE QUILTER
Azalia Molina invites viewers to experience La Tusa, a playful folk dance from her home country of Honduras. The quilt panels display an aerial view of the dance during which men offer their partner a corn husk, a joke that upsets the women until they place a wheat flower in their hair, enchanting them again. Molina’s fine art practice often incorporates Honduran folk craft and traditions into her paintings, ceramic works, and murals created here in Northwest Arkansas.
The layout refers to folk dancing, which reflects the life of the people of a particular country to a region, this one from Honduras, but a very traditional practice across Latin America. Growing up, Molina was part of a folk dance group. This unique geometric quilt pattern depicts a dance called "La Tusa. " The dance takes its name from the corn cob wrapper, which the dancers offer to their partner, a joke that upsets their partner until they place an ear of corn or cornflower on her hair.
When seen from the street, the viewer is looking at the aerial view of a group dancing La Tusa. The blue/red/yellow concentric shapes are the ladies with their extended dresses, and the white/beige are the men with their traditional peasant hats. The central corn cobs, referencing the dance title, remind viewers of the plant’s fundamental role in Mesoamerican culture, diet, world-view, and way of life for the region’s inhabitants before Western European colonial arrival.