Week 10 Reflection

Throughout my time in this course a lecture that really stuck with me was the one about the professor talking about her personal relationship with La Virgen de Guadalupe. It intrigued me because whenever I thought about religion growing up it just made me think that it was formal and you must be respectful. So, when the professor was telling us how she and La Virgen were “tight like that,” it shocked me but also made a lot of sense. Religion is a very personal and spiritual experience so saints and how you experience religion should be based on how you view them and how your own relationship with them. More so, when the Professor was telling us about how people were upset over her pieces they should have been able to understand that religion is subjective so, although the professor depicted La Virgen in that way that is her experience with La Virgen and she was just expressing it through her art. 

Another part of the course that I found interesting was how the growth in my drawing of my hands came along. At first the when we did the “draw your hand but do not look at the paper” technique I thought it was the silliest thing I heard of because how was it supposed to look like a hand if I never looked down? Though those drawings where I was not supposed to look at my hand did not come out good (or even looked like a hand) it made me realize how important it is to pay attention to the little details of the hand such as the fine lines and creases our hands have. I really enjoyed making water painting drawings of my hands because when I would use the water to paint it made it look more put together and “arts;” even my roommates agreed.

Week 9: Cristina Cardenas

           An artist that stood out to me last week during presentations was Cristina Cardenas. I really liked her vibrant colors and how lively her pieces were. It was not until I started to write this discussion post I realized this is the artist I was originally going to do on my presentation and final paper on until I realized another classmate had already chosen her. However, while listening to the presentation I realized that this artist is very similar to the artist I presented and wrote my paper on (Julie Zarate) because they both empower women while mixing in their Mexican roots into their pieces. 

            The piece that specifically stood out to me while during the presentation was a mural of a mix of all sorts of Mexican culture such as folklorico dancers, a piñata, paying homage to field workers, and even touching on Aztec culture. Something I really liked about this piece is that there are a lot of special little details you would not normally notice at first glance. This made me appreciate the piece more because it made me want to keep looking into it to see what other parts I could pick up on. Another interesting thing about this mural is that it is put together by tiles instead of just being painted on the wall. This makes me really admire the work because I feel like it would be harder and more intricate to create. It also reminds me of stained glass like how fancy doors sometimes have it designed. 

 

Week 8

An artist that stood out to me during class presentations last week was Monica Kim Garza. She stood out to me because her art was so explicit and different than everything I had ever seen before. Within Latino culture most of the younger generation come from very conservative and traditional parents so nudity, sexualization, and self-expression becomes very hard to express. Monica Kim Garza’s art breaks all of these barriers and norms. Which is something that I appreciate and enjoyed seeing. 

More so, within her art, the women she depicts are different than what is seen in typical high-end classical art. These women are voluptuous and have darker/tanner skin that break the Eurocentric beauty standards of being skinny and white. The bodies she depicts are of more realistic looking women because, as mentioned in the presentation, these women are the type of women she was used to seeing when growing up.  

The painting that I enjoyed the most was (I cannot find the name anywhere online) the one where a woman is laying on a bed with her back arched watching something on her laptop with her phone next to her and with La Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall. I liked this one because of the different textures she used like velvet and glitter. Additionally, this picture is something that I can picture myself doing like laying down in a weird position watching tv on a Friday night and La Virgen in the back with my cat in the room. This picture is also powerful though because it breaks the gender norm of how women should be (calm, boring, modest) where in reality they can do whatever they want. 

                            

Week 7- Julie Zarate, Como La Flor (2010)

The artist I will be presenting is Julie Zarate and one of the pieces I will be specifically talking about is Como La Flor (2010). I chose to talk more in depth about this piece because it really stood out to me how Selena was painted like a saint with the rays on the back of her head perhaps to show respect to her as she rests in peace. Selena is painted with a pout and her head held high with pride. When looking closely, we can see that there are golden roses at the top corners of the piece. When looking more into roses and Selena, I found out that white roses were her favorite flowers so perhaps this is why Zarate painted these flowers. The piece of Selena she has created is based on the cover art of Selena’s album Amor Prohibido and with the rays glowing behind her head, maybe this album is sacred to Zarate or perhaps, as aforementioned, this is Zarate’s way of paying her respects to Selena. 

More so, Zarate’s overall art focuses heavily on popular culture and the empowerment of women, so in regards to this piece I feel that Selena plays a role in this because she was one of the first Latin American artists to become popular in the United States winning a Grammy and having seven number one Latin Hits. For Latinx’s this is remarkable because few have done this before and for a woman to do this is empowering because it proves that women are capable of achieving large things outside of our limiting gender norms.

Week 6 Stencil

Week 6

I decided to make a drawing of my car, my cover because my car means a lot to me. I have had to work to buy the parts to make it run and it is through this that I have also grown. My car taught me to be independent and learn how to maintain myself without having to ask my mother. Though I know she would be willing to help me, I also know she has enough stuff to worry about and pay for. 

Additionally, growing up my brothers were always occupied with cars and I hated it because that meant they were more occupied with cars instead of hanging out with me. Until one day one of their friends came in a car that actually caught my attention, a 5^th Generation Honda Prelude. This car seemed so cool to me because it was a Honda but I had never seen one like this before so as I grew up it was my goal to obtain a car like this and my brothers were very supportive of this goal. They helped me save up and look up listings online to see if there were any good deals on these cars. During my first year they found one that was really cheap and it had a clean body. I knew it was going to need an engine and transmission later on but I did not care, I was willing to invest in new parts to make it run like new because this was my goal for so long. This car means a lot to me because my family was very involved and excited when I got this car. My brothers thought I was cool when I got this car and even my mother was excited because she saw how hard I worked to save up for this car. More so, throughout my undergraduate experience I have gone through many memories (good and bad) in this car so my car has experienced this journey as a first generation college student with me, too. 

Week 5: Ofelia Esparza’s Presentation

During Ofelia Esparza’s presentation she discussed her altars and how she began to create her art. I thought it was very interesting that she was born and raised in Los Angeles and still lives here because she is a true Los Angelino. In fact, in her altar, el Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Ángeles (2018), she actually dedicated it to Los Angeles; her hometown. She made the San Gabriel Mountains, the mountains that surround Los Angeles, look like an angel, most likely because Los Angeles translates to the Angels in English so she made the mountains actually be angels that watch over her city. It is a beautiful concept to me because in her art she expresses that she wants her beloved city to be protected and because it is an altar it fits the theme since it is an offering. 

In her presentation, it fascinated me that she only barely started to really express her art later in her life.  She told us it began when she was a child and her mother would make altars for Dia De Los Muertos, and her mother would add whatever she like or thought was beautiful. In a sense, creating altars like this is almost like a mosaic where there are a bunch of pieces that apart are just little small things but when you zoom out and look at what has been created, it comes together and creates something beautiful. Although my family personally does not celebrate Dia De Los Muertos, my mother always makes an altar for Christmas for to present the nativity scene and when Esparza’s talked about how her mother would let her add her toys to the altar it reminded me of when my mom would let me try and decorate the altar growing up. 

Rasquachismo and Domesticana

In the Rasquachismo section from the Chicano and Chicana Art: A Critical Anthology, they discuss this style of living and the art produced from it. This lifestyle is a product of generations of oppression and poverty and because of this lack of resources, Latinos had to “work with what they had.” An example of rasquachismo I experienced in my life would be how growing up my family and I had very little money, so whenever my mother went out for an iced coffee at Starbucks (which was rare), after she finished her coffee she would wash the plastic cup she received the coffee in and before going out to work, make her own iced coffee in the same cup to “flex” on her coworkers. Though this is not an example of art, this is an example of how Latinos work with they have to make the most of their living situations. This is the art of Rasquachismo. 

 Rasquachismo goes hand in hand with domesticana because domesticana is Latina rasquachismo. By this I mean, it is still the same rasquachismo I mentioned previously but with domesticana it is intertwined with the machismo and hierarchal gender roles of men over females that females have to live through. Despite the oppression women must live through, with domesticana style art they channel these emotions with decorative altars, home embellishments, healing traditions, etc. From my personal experiences, I know during Christmas my mother and other tias get very creative and artsy when decorating their nativity altars with ribbons, flowers, pictures of family members, candles and colorful tinsel. 

Walking Guadalupe (1978)

An image of Yolanda M. Lopez’s artwork that caught my attention was Walking Guadalupe (1978). In this image, La Virgen De Guadalupe from the waist up is the same as you and I probably remember, in regards to how she is looking down and praying. However, what differs in this image is that La Virgen is looking to the right instead of the left and the glowing rays behind her are missing, she only has a white background. Additionally, she is not stepping on an angel. What really makes this image different is that La Virgen’s dress is cut shorter and you can see her calves and feet, she is wearing sandaled heels.  

I really liked this piece because it was very simple yet powerful. It is simple in the sense that it is essentially the same image we remember from our childhood but with a minor twist. La Virgen has mobility. This is important to note because La Virgen De Guadalupe that we remember is stepping on an angel but she is not moving. I believe that symbolizes the idea of domestic life and the gender roles enforced by Latino culture where a woman is only good to be a wife, bear children, and maintain the home. By the La Virgen De Guadalupe having mobility, she is able to do as she pleases and reach her goals. This image to me is important for the Chicana Feminist Movement because it combines the goals of the movement (the rejection of patriarchy, liberation from virgin/whore dichotomy, etc.) and combines it with a vital Catholic figure; a figure Latinx’s all look up to. 

Zarate, Julie

Cardenas, Cristina (2020)

Hello Classmates, for my presentation I am choosing to do Cristina Cardenas because I find her work to be very inspiring and something I would love to learn more about. I do not know a lot about artists but I found her work to be something to reflect on my own experiences. 

In this week’s reading the reading that stood out the most to me was Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask by Alicia Gaspar de Alba. I found this paper to really explain well to me how The Chicano Movement, as empowering as it was, to be very machismo. For instance, women’s main role was to “support and comfort” men more than actually fighting in the cause. I was upset reading this because women can do so much more than this but they are stuck being dehumanized and seen as the “wife” or “mother” than a “fighter” in the cause. This made me admire Chicanx art more because women are expressing the feelings of being trapped in the gender roles through their art. Their art, such as Pregnant Women in a Ball of Yarn by Barbra Carrasco, expressed a woman literally being trapped in the tasks of “the mother” being unable to escape. It is a powerful piece because it demonstrates to us the side of domestic life of women and how their purpose of reproductive being their sole and main purpose in their lives. We see how this side of domestic life traps women because they essentially lose their “wings” and are told they are unable to attain more than a domestic life. 

Jurado, Eliana (Eliana)

Hello all, my name is Eliana Jurado and I am a fourth year Sociology and Chicana/Chicano Studies major. My preferred pronouns are she/her/hers. I am currently a research assistant at UCLA Ties for Families and within this research lab we focus on the long-term impact adoption has on children’s development and on later adult lives. My research interests are child development, cognition, social, and educational development within the first five years of a child’s life. My interest is within this field because I find that children’s development is often a very underrepresented field given that most believe that it is not a crucial developmental stage since they will receive all the help and skills they will need in school; but this is not the case. 

            Within this week’s reading I noticed a common trend of how there are no “great genius” artists that are Latina, let alone just women in general, and it made me think why is this the case? While reading “Conditions for Producing Chicana Art,” by Sybil Venegas they discussed a very key reason as to why Latina women have not been able to participate in become “genius” artists. Due to machismo, gender roles, and women having to tend for their families they have been set back from being able to achieve their goals. Additionally, another reason I thought Latina women have been set back from being able to become “great genius artists” is because in most Latino culture, parents always try to push their children to become doctors or engineers instead of chasing their passions. In most Latino culture, I have noticed they do not consider the arts as a real career, which I believe is probably why more Latina women have been hesitant from chasing a passion of become artists.