Rachael Padilla

Milling the Grain

Added 2024-03-10 17:59:29 +0000 UTC

This is, "Milling the Grain". A performative video piece.

This piece began as an exercise in heritage. A celebration of the special treat that my grandmother would make for an Easter celebration: a pudding called panocha.

In the process of re-creating the pudding, I realized the work and magnitude of the task.

The first step being sprouting the wheat, then drying the sprouted wheat, and ultimately grinding it. All that work and time, and still not having the finished pudding.

This type of pudding is specific to the region of New Mexico where I grew up. Going through the process necessary for just one ingredient made me wonder how some traditions survive at all. It is so much work. It would have been just as much work for the women before me: my grandmother , her mother, her mother's mother. How far back does it go?

But the greater question in my mind is: how much farther can it go?

My hope is that the sprouting, the drying, and the grinding will continue long into the future, to further generations. Making this on ever continuing process and tradition. Never ending.