Blog #7 Felicia Montes

Monica Hurtado did a great presentation on Felicia Montes last week. Montes is a writer, performer, organizer, designer, poet and cultural activist. Felicia Montes is a Chicana Indigenous artist working in the Los Angeles area. She is a co founder of Mujeres de Maiz, which is a non-profit organization that does work in the East Los Angeles area. Montes creates work based on social and spiritual change as she works on the front lines of activism and organizing. Known throughout the Los Angeles area as an established Chicana cultural worker of a new generation, she has worked with most of the key arts and cultural centers and social service agencies in the greater East Los Angeles area including Self Help Graphics, Proyecto Pastoral and the United Farm Workers. I am currently an intern working with Promesa Boyle Heights, which is a non-profit organization that works to support the community of Boyle Heights. We work closely with Mujeres de Maiz and I had no idea that Felicia Montes was part of the organization as well. I was delighted to hear that such a revolutionary artist was giving back to the community in so many ways.

There was one particular art piece that caught my attention during Monica’s presentation. I selected one of her works that portrays her as La Virgen de Guadalupe. Monica explained, that Montes created this piece for the purpose of glorification of one self. Many of us need to be reminded that we need to take the time to appreciate our selves and to put self-love into practice. Especially going to an institution like UCLA can often be stressful and apprehensive. Most of us come from cultures and societies that do not promote, or even support, self-love, and we often feel judged if we love ourselves, value ourselves, or put ourselves first. Society has a created a “perfect” image that is ideal and how we should live, therefore self-praise and self-love is a revolutionary act in itself. Her art is similar to many artists' revolutionary work including artist Alma Lopez, Laura Aguilar, Barbara Carrasco and Laura Alvarez.