Final Post Reflection

During this course, I was also taking and an introduction to Chicano Chicana studies class and learning about Chicana artists in this class added much more depth and complexity to the history I was studying. While we were learning about the art and their creators, we also learned much about the background and lives of a diverse group of artists who identify as living a Chicana experience. I was excited to see the breadth of art that Chicana artists can, could, and do create. Their work varied widely from pigeonholed and stereotypical ideals of what Chicana art looks like. It was amazing to see the issues they drew inspiration and material from that ranged from sexuality, sexism, machismo, religion, childhood, materialism, and much more. Lots of it is closely tied with the Chicano experience in America but was communicated in vastly different ways and mediums. There was traditional folk art, classical art and contemporary modern works. All of these things lent clarity to the modern Chicano/a experience in a way that my introduction class simply didn’t provide me. It was a pleasant surprise but all at once totally understandable that my class about Chicana art gave me more relevant insight and knowledge to this complex and important subject. Altogether, this class was different than any other I have taken at UCLA, and I highly value that. 

Week 9: Chicana Print makers

In the essay Chicana Printmakers Holly Barnet-Sanchez supplies a counter narrative to a political movement devoid of recognition of the powerful role both Chicana artists and specifically Chicana printmakers played in the Chicano revolution of the 1960's. These Chicana printmakers were significant in the sense that their work provided accessible mediums to communicate and support cultural pride and the movement. They also utilized this to display their own stories and histories as a subgroup within the overarching Chicano movement, and Barnet-Sanchez righteously laces these together. 

In Yreina Cervatez's 1985 print, Camino Largo, she shows progressive Chicana thinking as well as origin story narratives for Mexican Americans. She uses strong symbolism and traditional Mexican heritage practices such as Milagros, masks, ofrenda like imagery, candles, and a jaguar. The print is supposed to represent the northern migration forced by the Mexican revolution, a huge influence on the Mexican American world. It also shows Cervatez's grandmother with a shotgun, which highlights Chicana independence and strength. The entire piece focuses on history, art and culture. All of these elements of her screen print communicate the same ideals as the Chicano movement, and would have played a valuable role if given recognition during that time. 

Week 8

As a child my father read me Carmen Lomas Garza's children's books. My favorites were the ones with her beautifully painted images, En mi Familia and Cuadros de Familia. In each of these books several images stood out and really resonated with me, Barbacoa para Cumpleanos, Tamalada, Cascarones, Hormigas, Para la cena, and La Llorona. Each of these were special for their particularly close connection to my playful, familial, and food-centered upbringing. I would like to discuss La Llorona specifically because we never went over this work in much detail. This image presents a very rich tradition of story telling within Chicano and Mexican American culture. I know that while I was growing up I was told the story of la Llorona to keep me from staying out and up all night as a young kid. Garza shows the significance of this precious time, with a motherly figure telling this story, passing on the tradition of story telling and spoken histories to young kids gathered around taking a break from playing outside. Llorona wanders far off in the spooky background of this image. This image is one that speaks of intimate familial moments. 

Week 7: Dear Laura Aguilar

Dear Laura Aguilar, 

Your work is radical. It is art that is unique, wild, calming and inspiring. I love contemporary modern art and I have never quite seen work as vulnerable and empowering as yours. The body and woman body is a fragile topic, constantly critiqued, objectified, labeled and controlled. I can see that in the images of yourself, nude, and placed delicately and comfortably within nature is a challenge to this boxing and confining of the female body. Woman face the pressure of idealized woman figures every single day, it is all around us. Self hate and body image issues are serious and it amazing to see how you cope with it and even fight back. You say, my body is beautiful, my body is mine. The way in which you do so within nature, and its wild abandon translates so well into the natural state of your human body. What you are doing is powerful, and does make a huge impact on girls and woman who experience the immense serenity of your photographs. This can also impact men who are just as internalized to perpetuate oppressive views of woman. 

So I guess I am saying thank you. Thank you for going on a journey to find love for yourself and for sharing that extremely intimate process. It does make a difference. It does influence people like me. 

WEEK 6 BLOG POST RESPONSE

I would like to write about ideas brought up in Nina Freidman's November fifth blog post on Laura Aguilar. She discusses issues of identity and perceived norms associated with these identities and groups. I completely agree with her. Nina writes that "identity can function as alienating and oppressive in a way that titles tend to pigeonhole us," and that this works for both self-proclaimed or not identities. Laura Aguilar's art deals with this concept and relationship of self and identity in a larger social context. Much of her work ruminates upon womanhood and notions of identity and characteristics associated with being a woman in an oppressive and labeling society. With Aguilar's striking nude in nature photographs of herself, someone who doesn’t conform to mainstream concepts of beauty and body image, she complicates this definition by showing her commitment to accepting and celebrating a body not done so by the world we live in. Her focus on this connects to the idea of identifying with certain groups and adding complexity to master narrative definitions of these by breaking the norm. She expresses her own identity as a woman, a Chicana, and person to be valued and of importance, and an artist through the power in these unique images. Aguilar refuses to be pigeonholed. Nina did a very enlightening examination of Laura Aguilar's work and values, and enabled me to think more critically about these ideas of identity and assumed characteristics. 

WEEK 5 Carlee Fernandez artist review

The presentation on Carlee Fernandez struck a close chord with my own Chicana identity. When viewing her work, one can see she is fully into contemporary modern art and ranges far from stereotypical Chicano or Chicana art aesthetics and style. Not only does her art drastically differ, but also that is the reason in which she does not identify as a Chicana artist. Her reasoning is that she doesn't identify closely and have a strong relationship with the parent of Latino descent. The reason why this resonates with me is similar and different to her story. My father's father was from New Mexico and was Mexican, but his mother left his father when he was a baby and they moved to Hawaii. There my father's mother remarried and had two more sons, my uncles. It wasn’t until my father was eighteen or so that he sought out his biological father. My dad was brought up out of touch with his Latino roots, and therefore had to work to understand his heritage. He relearned what he could, and I was raised with just that, and am still filling in spots for myself. Carlee Fernandez's confused feelings and little understanding of her Chicano side led her to be questioning of it. When faced with the overwhelmingly pigeon holed representation of what Chicana art is supposed to be, Carlee rejected it. In total, Chicana and Chicano culture must push to communicate its complexity, and encourage people like Carlee to embrace the label of a Chicana artist in order to display its depth and breadth.