Laura Aguilar (WHOA!)

Learning about Chicana artist Laura Aguilar was revolutionary to my own Chicano artvisist identity. As a fat and queer Chicano the image that I have of myself has been consrtructed through dialogue in the domestic spaces in my family, queer spaces, academic spaces, in grade school, in my abuelita's kitchen, by the boy I hooked up with once, and the list goes on. Thus, listening to Laura speak on her body as vast unexplored land, as she massaged her big beautiful body-- I FELT SO EMPOWERED AND HUMBLED in ways I didn't know were possible for my own body. The way she touched herself made me realize how beautifully imperfect my own body is. I often go around the whole day pinching my fat, playing with my skin, and squeezing it as if it was something that was bothering my own existence. Seeing her to otherwise was recolutionary in that I knew I had to touch myself by caressing everything that I am because that is everything I will ever be.