Art at Pearl: Daniela Oliver de Portillo on Memory, Marigolds, and a Calavera for Her Brother

When Pearl invited Daniela Oliver de Portillo to create a calavera, she wasn’t sure where to begin. In the true spirit of Día de los Muertos, she made an emotional decision to tap into her family’s deep loss and transform it into beauty. We met with her to talk about her piece, Eres la tristeza de nuestros ojos, pero la alegría de nuestros corazones, which translates as, “You are the sadness of our eyes, but the joy of our hearts.”

A Lightning Bolt of an Idea

When first presented with the blank canvas of a skull, Daniela thought about visuals. She thought about representing her culture. Maybe something about miracles. She considered using papel picado, a traditional Mexican folk art made by cutting intricate designs into colorful sheets of paper.

Then the lightning bolt struck. When Daniela was just four years old, her family suffered the loss of her nine-year-old brother, Jorgito. She would use the calavera as both a memorial for Jorgito and a testament to the strength her parents showed in navigating their grief. 

The Voice on the Ribbon

She kept the design secret at first. She went to her parents’ house to gather moments from the family photo album. Then, bringing in her papel picado idea, she began recreating the pictures she saw, fashioning them into vignettes from Jorgito’s childhood.

She also reached out to her family group chat, asking about the words or phrases each of them recalled young Jorgito saying. For example, once he was stung by a bee and instead said, “I was bitten by a fly.”

Daniela strung the phrases into a ribbon of words for her calavera. “It's the things he said that became part of the collective memory of my family.”

The Reveal

On the day she finished the calavera, her sons, Rodrigo and Emiliano, and her niece, Carolina, were the first to arrive at Pearl. They came to where Daniela had been working outside, next to the other artists, and helped her decorate. Together, they added little golden dots, like dots of light.

She then covered the skull in fabric to hide it. She invited her parents to meet her at Pearl for lunch, where she made a speech about what she had created and why. The kids pulled apart the fabric, revealing the work.

To passers-by, the papel picado scenes could have been from anyone’s childhood. But to her parents, they were instantly familiar. "They were able to say, oh, that's the day that we did this, that's the day that we did that,” Daniela says. “It was so beautiful to be able to give this gift to my parents and to Jorgito, wherever he is, because he is still with me.”

And then, one final surprise: she invited her mother, Carmen, who is also an artist, to help her add the finishing touches. They painted marigold petals, which symbolize remembrance and are traditionally believed to help guide spirits back home.

Grief, Spoken Aloud

Día de los Muertos feels special to Daniela because it brings back memories of the altars her family created for Jorgito. She marvels at how her parents carried on after their tragedy. She says her calavera “turns a very personal experience of my parents having lost someone to a very universal experience of the resilience that we as humans have.”

She also appreciates the beauty of being open about death, even though she knows others may not always understand it. “[It’s] the ability that we have as a culture to approach grief in this way and to say, we're going to do this little ofrenda, we're going to talk about this, we're going to acknowledge you, and we're going to thank you,” she says, “whether you were in our lives for 100 years, like my grandmother, or only nine, like Jorgito.”

Keep Showing Up

Daniela enjoyed interacting with the public and the other artists as they painted their calaveras on Pearl’s campus, even though much of the time was spent “zoned in,” getting the details just so.

Admiring the finished skulls, she notes “how amazing it is that five different people get the same assignment, and you have five such different results, and you can admire and love each one of those for what it is.”

She shares one final word of advice for young people who have their own dreams of creating art like this someday. She understands the doubt that creeps in but says, “You don't have to have yourself all figured out. It’s just about working a little bit every day.”

The 2026 Calavera Collection is on view across Pearl through November 3, 2026 just after Día de los Muertos. Learn more about other featured artists.

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