Las palabras se gastan

Toward the end of his teaching career, Xavier Aballí incorporated a seemingly simple ritual: in his drawing classes, after the initial greetings, the high school seniors would not draw a single line on the paper until a conversation had taken place. The starting point: two newspaper clippings, one with a photograph, the other with a brief text.

Everyone could see how these clippings piled up on the teacher’s desk, in two separate stacks that would never give rise to a predetermined sequence. In each session, a random image and a random text were selected, so that chance alone determined their pairing. That arbitrary connection was enough to spark an exchange of ideas.

Sometimes the conversation would last the entire class, and it’s wonderful to think that such speculations took place during the hours set aside for drawing.

Following this same premise, and as if it were an illuminated manuscript, Las palabras se gastan comes into our hands with a purpose similar to that of medieval books of hours: to lift our thoughts, even if we may not quite see where they’re headed.