Constance Cortes explores the
connections between the artwork and communal customs of Chicana artist Carmen
Lomas Garza, in the book, Carmen Lomas
Garza. Cortes focuses on the themes
that are a part of every day practices in Garza’s Mexican-American community in
South Texas. In the text, the author
explains the significance behind customs, family history, and communal
gatherings that Garza shows in her work.
She often paints from her memories of day-to-day activities with her
family, and folk heroes within her community.
By focusing on these themes in her work, Garza has faced controversy
within the modern, American, art community. Whether her paintings show her
large family making tamales together in a vibrant kitchen, or a memory from an
afternoon in her grandmother’s room, they exhibit the politics of memory in
her artwork.
Garza painted Una Tarde/One Summer Afternoon several in 1993. In this painting, she shows the viewer the moment she realized that her friend came to her grandmother’s house so often to see the boy next door. While the grandmother watches over the teenagers flirting with one another through the windowsill, she knits in her chair quietly kitting in the corner. Meanwhile, Garza (shown as a young girl) sits braiding the bed fringe near the nightstand. We see a cat feeding her kittens, and religious, familial, and cultural symbols on the bedroom wall such as a cross, a small shrine to La Virgen de Guadalupe, and black and white photos of old family members. Garza may be braiding to distract herself from her revelation about her friend, but this scene also offers Garza’s perspective of herself as an artist, within the realm of Chicano social, religious, and romantic expectations under patriarchal authority.
This piece stood out to me because I related to Garza's position the situation in the painting. I remember times when my friends' main focus was a person they had a crush on, and I would rather isolate myself than involve myself in something that seemed so silly at the time. I like the way she shows her lack of connection to to the situation, as she braids the bed skirt. I can think of many other times I isolated myself in similar ways as a child when I just wanted to do my own thing.
Garza painted Una Tarde/One Summer Afternoon several in 1993. In this painting, she shows the viewer the moment she realized that her friend came to her grandmother’s house so often to see the boy next door. While the grandmother watches over the teenagers flirting with one another through the windowsill, she knits in her chair quietly kitting in the corner. Meanwhile, Garza (shown as a young girl) sits braiding the bed fringe near the nightstand. We see a cat feeding her kittens, and religious, familial, and cultural symbols on the bedroom wall such as a cross, a small shrine to La Virgen de Guadalupe, and black and white photos of old family members. Garza may be braiding to distract herself from her revelation about her friend, but this scene also offers Garza’s perspective of herself as an artist, within the realm of Chicano social, religious, and romantic expectations under patriarchal authority.
This piece stood out to me because I related to Garza's position the situation in the painting. I remember times when my friends' main focus was a person they had a crush on, and I would rather isolate myself than involve myself in something that seemed so silly at the time. I like the way she shows her lack of connection to to the situation, as she braids the bed skirt. I can think of many other times I isolated myself in similar ways as a child when I just wanted to do my own thing.
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