Solidarity and care of the planet. These are the two main messages that this year includes the great tapestry of the Plaza del Municipality of La Orotavamade with natural colored sand from the Teide National Park to which a new material is incorporated: 200 kilos of ash from the La Palma volcano, which the Artenara team, responsible for its preparation, went to look for after the eruption and which was used for the pieces and strokes of black color.
It is not the only nod to Isla Bonita. Its silhouette is represented in the central tapestry as part of the offering to the Blessed Sacrament, so that it is with all the clappers, and in the borders, interspersed with a heart, to transfer the feelings of all the Canarians with La Palma.
Likewise, you can see the Arcos de Mazo, as another form of ephemeral religious art for Corpus Christi, with which the director of the great tapestry, Domingo González Expósito, wanted to symbolize the unity of all Canarians with La Palma.
Solidarity also extends to the Ukrainian people and the desire to end the war is expressed with four life-size figures placed around the central tapestry.
Sustainability and care for the planet are incorporated for the first time into the design of the rug, both in the side rugs and in the two small ones that are inside circles in which you can see a baby penguin trapped in the remains of fishing nets. fishing, and a turtle swimming among the remains of plastic spills and of all kinds.
With this, the aim was to convey a message of awareness to the new generations, who receive a complex legacy in terms of the environment with floods, droughts and snowfalls, for which they will have to learn to take care of it. How could it be otherwise, faith is also present in this expression of ephemeral art and the scene chosen this year is that of Jesus with his disciples talking and eating, which could well represent a fragment of the Last Supper or a detail of the disciples of Emmaus. The intention is to transfer the human part of the son of God, a close person in difficult times. Likewise, the figure of San Isidro appears for the first time in the tapestry, since the 400th anniversary of the saint’s canonization is being celebrated.
Desires, illusion and feelings
Domingo Expósito described the carpet of 2022 as “the one of desires, feelings and illusion”. An illusion for having returned to normality and, therefore, the parties in the street, symbolized by the fretwork where seven-meter-diameter flowers rest, and by the red border for the magician’s vest and the carnations and the spikes of wizard wands. An illusion that began days ago and that yesterday could be seen early in the morning with hundreds of people of all ages, including many tourists, enjoying this ephemeral beauty, the hallmark of La Orotavawhich has more than a century of creativity and dedication to Corpus Christi, which today will procession through the carpeted route until it reaches the Plaza Consistorial.
wine harvest
In the afternoon, the municipality was packed with people. The desire to see the great tapestry finished was joined by the presentation of the 2021 wine harvest of the Valle de La Orotava Denomination of Origin on Avenida Mercedes Pinto. In recent years this act has become one of the most popular, as it is the prelude to Corpus Christi Thursday, and yesterday was no exception. In this edition, there were 12 wineries and 11 gastronomic spaces, which offered the attendees (the capacity was 5,000 people) half a hundred dry, fruity, barrel-aged whites, rosés, carbonic maceration reds, as well as traditional and original caps.
The return to normality after the pandemic has joined the devotion of thousands of villeros and villeras, who are anxiously waiting to celebrate the big days of the patron saint festivities in the coming days, which begin today with the Thursday of the carpets, the day on which the streets of the historic center of La Orotava are filled with tapestries and corridors of flowers, a tradition that dates back to 1847 and is maintained with the same fervour.
