A labor of love

At just 5 foot 2 inches and 125 pounds, Birmingham photojournalist Spider Martin’s small stature directly opposed the immense impact he had on the world. In 1965, he claimed national attention with his documentation of the civil rights movement in Selma. His iconic photographs were published in The Birmingham News and later picked up by Time, Life and The Saturday Evening Post, among other publications.

While Martin will always be remembered for his pivotal role in the civil rights movement (Martin Luther King Jr. credited him with helping the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965), each November, Birmingham remembers him for a different reason. 

On Nov. 2, 2003, less than 100 people gathered at Bare Hands Gallery under twinkling lights in the company of brightly painted papier-mache skeletons. They had come to honor Spider Martin in a Day of the Dead-inspired art memorial, which his daughter, Tracy, had created for him. The small gathering became Bare Hands' first Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, festival. 

This year’s festival at Cahaba Brewing on Nov. 2 will be the 14th installment. 

 ‘From the heart’

Former Bare Hands Gallery owner Wendy Jarvis said the timing of the first festival was bittersweet. Six months before his sudden death in April 2003, Martin had expressed a desire to hold an arts and cultural event acknowledging Day of the Dead. 

For the art memorial event, Tracy Martin constructed a large altar to honor her father. No one was asked to, but Jarvis said four people brought tiny trinkets, sort of mini altars, to accompany Tracy Martin’s and honor their own loved ones. It was at this point, Jarvis said, she realized how much bigger the event could be for Birmingham.

“Tracy and I were talking about what a lovely event it was, and I said, ‘I think your dad is going to get his wish,’” Jarvis said.

To prepare for their first official Day of the Dead event, Jarvis and other event planners reached out to their friends of Mexican descent. They realized the irony in two women without ties to Mexican culture hosting a Day of the Dead celebration, and they wanted to represent the culture of the holiday as honorably and authentically as possible. One of the first friends they sought out was restaurant owner Guillermo Castro, whose family is from Guadalajara, Mexico. 

Castro loved the idea and volunteered to bring food from his restaurants Cantina and Sol y Luna. Since their original partnership with Castro, Bare Hands has continued to reach out to Hispanic organizations such as HICA and Fiesta for their advice and support. 

In 2005, the festival, though still small, began to take on the structure it would keep for the next 10 years. Festival organizers decided to incorporate remembrance traditions from other cultures, including the Creole tradition of the jazz funeral procession and the American traditions of Decoration Day, a precursor to Memorial Day. 

The New Orleans jazz funeral procession was adapted into a Day of the Dead parade complete with a marching jazz band in sugar skull makeup. They also carried out the Mexican tradition of having attendees create altars to represent lost loved ones. In accordance with tradition, family and friends bring offerings of food and drink to the altars as ways to guide the spirits of their loved ones back to Earth. 

“We thought it would be a beautiful idea,” she said. “We hoped it would be a coming together of people from all races, backgrounds and walks of life to remember lost loved ones and pay homage to Dia de los Muertos.”

From 2006 until 2015, the festival was in the alleyway behind Bare Hands Gallery, as well as in an adjoining fenced-in parking lot on First Avenue South between Richard Arrington Boulevard and 22nd Street. Each year, attendance grew significantly, reaching its highest at about 6,000 people, but for Jarvis, it was the festival’s quieter moments that spelled success — moments like Castro’s first festival in 2005. 

“I walked up to him and asked him what he thought [of the festival],” she said. “And this big, beautiful man had tears in his eyes and he said, ‘This is corazon — this is from the heart. It’s just like my hometown.’ And that moment for me was really profound.” 

Castro died in 2011, but his legacy lives on in the festival through his family. His son, Marcus, recently moved back to Birmingham after attending the University of Alabama, and he now serves as the president of the festival’s junior board. Since he started attending as a kid, Marcus Castro has only missed three or four years. 

“I’ve always loved it, but when my dad passed away, it gave me a different perspective and a different love for it, too,” he said. “It’s almost like my time of the year where I can cry, be happy and celebrate all at one time.”

‘Part of the city’

Over the past 13 years, Bare Hands Gallery’s Day of the Dead festival has been a mainstay for Birmingham residents who want to honor their lost friends and family. Though the festival has survived, the gallery that created it did not — at least not in its original state. In 2004, Jarvis and a group of artists started the process of transitioning Bare Hands Gallery into a non-profit. The gallery space closed in 2010, but Bare Hands continues its work through two major projects each year: the Day of the Dead festival and an art camp for kids moving from homelessness to transitional housing through the YWCA of Central Alabama.   

The festival is still run almost entirely by about 150 to 200 volunteers who help with everything from sugar skull and puppet making to selling items in the Mercado and prepping public altar spaces. This past year, Jarvis stepped down as the Dia de los Muertos executive director and passed the role to Robert Hernandez, who previously served as the festival’s marketing director. 

With the shift in leadership at the end of 2015 came another big change for the festival. The completion of the Rotary Trail meant the festival could no longer be in its home on First Avenue South. Hernandez said the board considered using 2016 as an off year to raise funds and prepare for future festivals but was convinced otherwise after outcry from regular attendees.

“It’s pretty much a part of the city,” he said. “It was here before the revitalization happened. There’s no reason why each year it can’t be bigger and better.”

The festival adapted, and it is set to be at Cahaba Brewing on Nov. 2. Though the location has changed, Hernandez said, the festivities will not. There will still be a large area where attendees can display their altars. Face painting, live music, traditional Mexican food, sugar skull decorating and a Mexican style Mercado will all return. Admission is $10 for adults, $3 for kids 7-12 and free for those younger than 7. 

During the first half of the festival, the mood remains more somber and subdued. Attendees visit each other’s altars and pay their respects to the dead. The atmosphere shifts after the roll-call ceremony, where the names of guests’ lost loved ones are read aloud for the public. Those who submitted names are encouraged to say “here” when the name they submitted is called.  

Once all names have been recognized, the party portion of the evening kicks off as Frida Kahlo, the longstanding patron artist of the Birmingham event, rises from her coffin shouting “Viva la vida,” or “Live the life!”

‘A daughter’s love’

Though the festival has grown to be much bigger than Jarvis could have imagined, she said she’s proud that it has remained true to its original purpose. “At its core, it is a daughter’s love for her father, so that origin story is moving and relatable to most people,” she said. “To see that touched so many people, and so profoundly in some cases, to have been even a tiny part of that, is such an honor.”

Over the years, Jarvis has seen Dia de los Muertos help the community both cope with loss and celebrate culture. 

She was there when Ferah Tatum came to her first festival in 2007 with her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Grant. That year she shared an ofrenda with Grant, but in the years to come, she would construct an entirely different type of ofrenda. Each year, Tatum erects an ofrenda in the form of a baby’s crib in order to honor the lives of the two children she lost due to miscarriages. 

“I never had a place for my miscarriages,” she said. “All you’re left with is empty arms, and I never had anywhere I could celebrate their lives, so this provided a place and a space to acknowledge their existence and say I love them.” 

For the festival’s former director, Jarvis, and new director, Hernandez, stories like Tatum’s, where she is able to provide some comfort for others in spite of death, are what Dia de los Muertos has always been about. 

“Everyone is going to die eventually, but it’s a beautiful thing to know that we’re all sharing the same moment,” Hernandez said.