Final Post (Week 10)

It’s crazy to consider how many Chicana artists we covered in so little time. When we first listed all those names on the board only a handful of those were Chicanas. That being said, I thought we only came up with so few because there weren’t many Chicana artists, then to our surprise there turned out to be several of them. One thing I definitely took away from this course was the role that art could play within society. As evidenced from class presentations and readings about Carmen Lomas Garza and especially Yolanda Lopez, art can redefine people’s history while bringing people together. Prior to taking this course I didn’t consider art, especially Chicana art, to be an important aspect that was worth noting. I, however, was completely wrong and thanks to Professor Alma Lopez I finally realized that art, much like any book, informs us about different events that have taken place.

Besides reading and learning about different artists, I also greatly enjoyed being able to learn how to draw. From when I was in elementary school I’ve always hated drawing because I was never good at it. However, thanks to this class and Professor Lopez I was finally able to improve on my artistic qualities that I never knew I had. I enjoyed drawing my hands because it allowed me to work on both shading but also paying attention to detail. When I went home for Thanksgiving I showed my mom the sketchbook I was working on and even she was surprised to see how much had improved in such a short amount of time. I really did enjoy this course because I got the chance to draw while at the same time learning more about the role that art played within the Chicano Movement.