"Write as you like, use the rhythms that come out, try different instruments, sit at the piano, destroy the metric, shout instead of singing, blow your guitar, and ring the horn. Hate mathematics and love eddies. Creation is a bird without a flight plan, that will never fly in a straight line" - Violeta Parra.
I remember various Sundays' afternoons, gathering with my family to share some time together, and to prepare delicious traditional meals while listening to Chilean folk music or to the inspiring Violeta Parra. Now I look back on time and bring back those memories when cooking with my granny and feeling the pleasing aroma coming from the oven, spreading throughout the house. I remember ourselves humming the song "Gracias a la Vida" - one of Violeta's most famous lyrics.
Violeta Parra was born in San Carlos (Chile) on October 4th, 1917, in the cradle of a family of other well-known artists. She was one of the main "folk singers" in South America, who dedicated her life to the popular music and culture of her country. Songwriter, painter, sculptor, embroiderer, and ceramist, she was not only a multidisciplinary artist but also combined in her works the melancholy and idiosyncrasy of a country enclosed between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
Her very essence gives me deep inspiration since she was considered a woman ahead of her time: a woman with determination, with enormous courage, and perseverance when facing adversity. Her beginnings were very humble, yet in a self-taught way, she managed to get ahead and be recognized by Latin Americans as one of the immortal jewels of the New Chilean Song.
I feel I have even a stronger bond with her since she spent most of her childhood in the South of Chile - between Lautaro and Chillan (my hometown), where she learned to play traditional instruments that would allow her to help her family survive. Besides, some years ago, while talking to my great-aunt who grew up in a rural area, she told me that once Violeta Parra was visiting nearby with the aim of finding inspiration. She then ended up playing the guitar and composing music with many other women she found there - including my great-grandmother.
These were the beginnings of Violeta, an artist that soon became an influential folklorist both nationally and internationally. During her lifetime, she composed more than three thousand songs, and by the 1950s, she was already a prolific performer of Latin American popular music. She became a well-known artist writing both against social pressures and the injustices in her country.
Besides, it would be in 1964 that she would accomplish a "historic mark" by becoming the first Latin American to be exhibited individually at the Palais du Louvre in Paris. This was the first time that Chilean culture and tradition had come so far.1
Even though this very influential artist witnessed several successful events along with her life, in the end, she started experiencing serious personal issues and the lack of support from the Chilean public. Her farewell had been anticipated in one of her most famous songs named "Gracias a la Vida" (Thanks to life), and few realized that it was a long-gone goodbye. Violeta took her own life at age 49, 1967,1 leaving the Chilean folkloric movement in a long duel, and leading to the end of an era that would be continued with the beginning of the country's dictatorship, only six years later.
Despite all the years that have passed since her death, Violeta persists in the collective memory of thousands of Chileans and people around the world who were able to learn, from a more poetic perspective, the harsh reality that the country was facing as well as about the political and social injustices in Latin America.
Violeta Parra was more than just a Chilean-folklorist that filled my childhood with her revealing song lyrics, but she also greatly influenced the lives of thousands of other people. Her life, her experiences, and all her visits to rural areas along Chile were the source of inspiration for most of her unique creations. Violeta had the unique gift of transforming everything that she observed and perceived around her into different forms of art, which represents her enormous sacrifice, perseverance, and hard work that lead her to become the outstanding artist that has transcended time.
Bibliography:
https://aldianews.com/articles/culture/who-was-violeta-parra/50156