Artist Irma Sofia Poeter at her house and studio in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico. Mount Cuchama and the U.S.-Mexico border in the background.
Living and creating on the border…
“Living and creating on the border can be very precarious. It always feels much safer to be in the middle, surrounded by familiar and recognizable places, people and things. But living on the border, being in the physical, spiritual or intellectual realm is another manner. It can feel fragile, unstable, hazardous and even dangerous because we are so far away from the middle, so far away from the mainstream. Maybe that is why art flourishes on the border.
I live in a place where all these three realms coexist. From my window I can clearly see the border between both Tecates, Tecate, Baja California, Mexico and Tecate, California, U.S.A. My home-studio is on the skirts of Mount Cuchama (Cuchuma, in Spanish), considered to be one of Earth’s holiest mountains not only by the Kumiai, the indigenous people of this area, but by erudite scholars like W. Y. Evans-Wentz Buddhist translator of such now familiar works as the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation. This spiritual border allows the access to a domain that opens, expands and enriches our consciousness and spiritual evolution. And on the intellectual aspect, being so close to a physical barrier, so close to the other, allows the understanding not only our own voice but the voice of the one beside us; the understanding of the struggles and dreams beyond oneself that resonate and complete our integral understanding of humanity.
Living and creating at the border has taken me to the beginning of things. Chaos surrounds us constantly, we have lost our way and we have to start a new. I have to start a new by creating new infrastructures, new ways of looking at things and new ways of existing and enjoying the world we share. This happens beautifully and organically at the border.
Nature is my greatest inspiration. Spirit is my greatest influence and Human connection is my greatest motivator. Living and creating at the border gives me the platform to jump into the unknown, to places to be discovered and places to be created…
Irma Sofia Poeter
June 11, 2016
All photos 2016 © Stefan Falke www.stefanfalke.com
LA FRONTERA: Artists along the U.S.- Mexico Border 
Wow!!!! Gran gran artista y sobre todo excelente ser humano!!! Orgullo👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
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