Altar - Abby Hecko

My altar is titled: Death is Not The End of One's Story. I named it this because of how the lives of those who have passed live on forever through photographs, oral tradition, and altars. My altar is dedicated to the over three hundred and fifty women who were murdered and assaulted in Juarez Mexico. In my altar I have glasses of water, paper banners, candles, flowers and photographs. The water glasses each have a name of a women who was murdered or disappeared. In my dream altar there would be a glass for every single young woman who disappeared. This expresses the element of water. The paper banners represent wind and I want them to be all of the young women's favorite colors. The candles represent fire and are on the bottom level which represents the underworld. The flowers I picked in my garden and I found the beauty of the flowers to parallel the beauty of these lost women. The photographs are photographs of a few of the women who's lives were taken too early. I tried to put the candles on the lowest level to represent the underworld. The water glasses are on the second level to represent earth and to refresh the spirits when they see their altar. Finally I put the photo of the young woman on the top level to represent sky and moving on to greater things.

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