Week 10: Something I Learned/Suprised/Found Interesting

I enjoyed many things about this course. Some of the most valuable is the amount of Chicana artists we learned about. I found the amount of artists and variety of artwork to be extremely surprising. When I initially signed up for the course I thought I would learn in depth about a few Chicana artists, and learn more about a Chicana/o aesthetic. After viewing all the individual artists what stands out is that there is no one Chicana/o aesthetic, yet most of the artists demonstrated some kind of personal engagement with society. Even Carlee Fernandez, although she doesn't primarily focus on Chicana identity, had the self-portrait of her father. Artists like Patssi Valdez or Judithe Hernandez who were involved in artist collectives during the Chicano movement, later developed their own style of artwork that branched out.
The section of the course I enjoyed the most was the readings assigned. Especially with the bell hooks and Amalia Mesa-Bains text, we got to hear a perspective that is rarely listened to or acknowledged in an academic setting. I found the other texts to be surprising as well because Chicana/o artists are so rarely talked about in art history courses, despite being part of "American" art history. With more familiarity of Chicana/o artists, the artwork will hopefully become more a part of mainstream culture and media to the American public. Hopefully, one day names like Yolanda Lopez or Carmen Lomas Garza will be as recognizable as Andy Warhol or Jasper Johns.

Week 7: Letter to Judithe Hernandez

Dear Ms. Hernandez,

I'm writing to you in interest about your Adam and Eve series from 2010. I found the way you re-envisioned the biblical story to be visually stunning, as well as extremely relevant to current politics on female bodies.
The use of color made the figures stand out to me, not just for their structure, but because of the off-putting hues used as skin or hair. The color made the scenes discomforting feeling come alive to tell the more realistic story of Adam and Eve, especially Eve's role. I'm also interested in your frequent motifs of luchadora masks, snakes, and antlers. The image of the mask on a female face adds to the feeling that Eve (or the other women you draw) is silenced.
I found the imagery also reflects the news about rape or female birth control that has been present so often in the media. The government creates policies that either control what women put into their bodies, or make it difficult for women to feel safe in their everyday settings (such as universities), and I thought the women in the series seem to evoke that frustration and lack of control. They bring out the narrative to a common story that sets a historical precedent for women being blamed for violent experiences, while relating to the current issues that still reflect that Adam and Eve mentality. I have learned that many of your works reinvent classical renaissance figures, but I'm curious if you entered this series as a commentary on rape or female-blame.
I found the series, along with your other work extremely thought-provoking and look forward to seeing more in your future productions.

Sincerely,
Lilia Taboada

Week 9 Post: Chicana Printmaking

The article "Where Are The Chicana Printmakers?: Presence and Absence in the Work of Chicana Artists of the Movimiento," by Holly Barnet-Sanchez, brought some intriguing comments to light about Chicana printmaking from the 1960s to the 1990s. I found the analysis of Patssi Valdez' print, Scattered, to be particularly interesting within the article's discussion of images focusing on the female body. The article describes the image as a self-portrait, yet one that is fragmented and shows a blank expression from Valdez. I agree with this read by Barnet-Sanchez, yet I think despite the blank expression, the image conveys emotion through the fragmented pattern. The fragmentation can read as a response from Valdez to her body being the focus of many performance works within ASCO. The image of a cracked mirror also brings with it the connotation of self-destruction or self-loathing, especially when women present themselves this way. Female value often revolves around how beautiful women are. When growing up, little girls are more likely to be congratulated on being "pretty" or "nice", then being "strong" or "intelligent." I see Valdez' work as a commentary on this societal obsession with beauty, perhaps in response to her direct experience as a physical object in other artworks, or as a more personal reflection. Either way, the work draws the viewer in, but also serves within the article as a print that reflects on female experience, but does not limit itself to a Chicana reading.

Week 8: Carmen Lomas Garza, Tito's Gig on the Moon

  One work of Carmen Lomas Garza that I love is Tito's Gig on the Moon. Although the image appears in the text assigned in class, I first saw this image at an open artist's studio event in San Francisco. She told me and my family about how she created the work in memory of Tito Puente after he died. The work transfers the club where he often played onto the moon so he can keep performing even when he is no longer around. The gold archways demonstrate the indoor space. I found that even in this work, that may not be specifically about her family and traditions, Lomas Garza achieves a feeling of happy nostalgia, that my classmate, Renata Herrera mentioned in her post this week as well. The sense of a story so present in Lomas Garza's En Mi Familia series is visible here in the detail of the setting and characters.
  Another detail Lomas Garza shared is that the musical notes coming from the musician's instruments become the pattern in each dancer's clothing. The musician's notes become the dance moves and character of the partners. This detail seems so whimsical to me, and brings a liveliness that so few artists present and still stand as "respected" in the art world. Lomas Garza is an example of an artist that thrives on humor, and character, yet does so through a formal use of color and pattern. This work specifically shows it, but throughout her body of prints and paintings, she uses pattern so exquisitely to demonstrate that sense of home. In many of her works, the patterns seem as though from an old blouse, tablecloth, or papel picado, and add to the familial feeling in her images. Seeing the work in person helps bring those details out, but even in the text, Tito's Gig on the Moon stands out because of the bright color, and lively scene she depicts.

Week 6 Post in Reference to Saul Quintero's post on Margarita Cabrera

I enjoyed Saul's discussion of the connotation of Margarita Cabrera's work. Adding another work by her to show the cohesive use of domestic appliances in her work helped me understand her work better even though I too discussed her work that week on the blog. I found it interesting that the color stood out to him as a representation of gender roles through comercial tools. I read the use of domestic appliances as a celebration of female labor, and yet for him it represented the marketization of household items towards women, perhaps to even urge women to remain working in the home. It's interesting to see how artwork relates to such a wide variety of experiences, but brings out a different memory or idea even beyond what the artist hoped for. Saul's post also brought another reading of Cabrera's work as a series, something there is not always time to explore in class. I think as we view the different Chicana artist's work throughout the rest of the quarter, its important to keep in mind that while sometimes a work doesn't speak as loudly during class, when viewed in a collection or series in a museum or gallery, larger themes arise from the body of work. Focusing on the specific artist's helps understand a wide variety of Chicana artwork, but looking more in depth into each artist's work later on in the blogs helps to reinforce the artist's intent and aesthetic.

Week 5: Camille Rose Garcia

I found the presentation this week about the artist Camille Rose Garcia very interesting. The way she brought various influences from punk rock and Disney into her alternative cartoons created a really unique body of work. I thought it was surprising to see artwork from a Chicana artist that didn't have an overtly political message based on the previous artist's work we had seen so far in class. One work with the bird and dragon, specifically stood out to me. The way she layers so many different images and textures within her painting is fantastic. The small details also stood out, for example, viewing the work on my own, I noticed the small luchador masks on the butterfly-like figures. Luchador masks are such a distinct Mexican/Chicano image, yet here they enhance the cartoon, low-brow imagery. I think this adds to the narrative present in the painting. While we know she is interested in reinterpreting Disney stories, she brings in a small aspect of Chicana/o identity, and the bird and dragon could also be read like the serpent and eagle in the Mexican flag. These are speculations, but the more time spent with the work, the more the details appear to bring some remnants of her identity with them. I'm excited to hear about other artists that struggle with the labeling of Chicana identity in the contemporary art world and perhaps see how their artwork may reflect more of their identity than just at first glance.

Week 4: Margarita Cabrera

During last week's presentations, one artist discussed was particularly interesting to me, Margarita Cabrera. Her print, Iron Will, was my favorite work shown. I found the use of multimedia really interesting as well in the choice of vinyl to create the iron image. The work interests me most, in the use of the icon of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the use of the iron. The Virgin image brings up the history of Chicana artists with this icon, like Yolanda Lopez and Ester Hernandez' previous renditions. The work is especially reminiscent of Yolanda Lopez' work of her grandmother, sewing. For me, the image evoked the female labor of Latina women along the border in the production of clothing and other clothwork. The title, Iron Will, seemed to relate to the strength of these women as they work to send money back to their families in other locations.
Upon reading the description on Margarita Cabrera's website, I found that the image does connect to the strength of Latino communities through unjust working conditions and the violence of life along the border region. However, I thought it was interesting that the work doesn't relate more to Latinas, as much as the whole community. From studying the Virgin icon in past artworks, it evokes a narrative and tradition of female power that one would think Cabrera would continue. Also in relation to the birds coming out of the iron, one could read the multitude of disappearing birds as a reference to the disappearing women in Juarez, a city close to Texas where Cabrera works. However, reading other blog posts, it is interesting to see how others read the work as well, and how readings differ across different experiences of my classmates. I enjoyed learning about this artist in class, and having the chance to learn more later on.

Week 3: Stencil

For my stencil I choose the image of a lily plant. My American family typically calls me Lily, or lily flower as a nickname. My Mexican family calls me Lilia Rocio, which also has a root in lily, or translates to morning dew in Spanish. Either language, my name has to do with plants and lily flowers. I have often used the image of a lily to sign my name, or within art projects as a motif of myself. I usually incorporate some type of natural imagery into artwork I make, whether in flowers (lilies), or cacti. The two tattoos I have are of a lily and of a succulent plant as well, so I thought it would be appropriate to place them on my book project.

I was originally going to create my own stencil image, but upon practicing, I found the process was much more difficult than I initially thought. It was interesting to see the different ways you have to modify line and drawing for an image to transfer to a more graphic image. There is also an element of planning in the design process because of the requirements of connections between the carved sections so the design doesn't fall apart. I think with more practice, designing more complex images would become easier and I hope to use this skill in other artwork.

Week 2

I found Professor Gaspar de Alba's lecture extremely interesting. Not only did she talk about more specific Chicana artists, but her work in relation to the CARA exhibition provided a recent understanding of public representations of Chicanas. I liked how she explained the trajectory of "Chican" exhibitions since then, and the how the idea of "post-Chicano" has become a thing. I think discussing the pros and cons of that idea and the associations of the word Chicana/o, is very useful to understand how art and artists fall under the term or identity of "Chicana/o". Does an artist choose to be labeled as Chicana/o and does categorization come from identity or content?

In my family, the Virgen of Guadalupe was more a cultural icon than a religious one. When I would see objects or images of the Virgen,  was reminded of Mexican culture more than religious affiliation. The image is such a strong part of Mexican identity, that despite the story behind the Virgen, she stands for a much larger part of Mexican family culture than just the Church. To my family, it was also a reminder of place, when arriving somewhere the image is on everyday objects, or street murals, or curbside altars, it feels as though we are in an area with Latinos, or a reminder that we are in Mexico. The Virgen wasn't an image in my neighborhood, but was in my grandmother's neighborhood in Southern California, and my aunt and uncles neighborhood in Mexico.

As a child, because the religious meaning affiliated with the Virgen was not something taught to me, I didn't notice her gendered role as much as perhaps my female cousins did. I think others in my family may have felt the pressure to be Virgen "perfect" more so, yet despite that, the feminist reinterpertations are valid because they represent the personal connection people experience with the Virgen. Questioning her manmade role is just as fair of a personal expression as believing the legend as well.

Taboada, Lilia

My name is Lilia Taboada, I'm a third-year World Arts and Cultures major. I am also planning a minor in Chicana/o Studies and Art History.

In the essay, "Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask: the Mirror of Malinchismo," I found that the exhibition at CARA was a particularly interesting example of the prolonged influence of the gender division during the Chicana/o Movement. I enjoyed the way Alicia Gaspar de Alba presented the amount of male to female artists in each room, initially through a qualitative perspective, and then went into detail about specific works that supported her plea that Chicanas were not represented equivalently through the metonymy of the exhibition. I especially enjoyed the discussion of Frida Kahlo within the Cultural Icon section. Gaspar de Alba explained how despite Kahlo appearing in Chicana artwork, and being an emblem of feminine struggle in a male-centric society, only one work within the section was produced by a Chicana artist. I found myself thinking how Kahlo is still extremely present in Chicana/o artistic production, but has the gender inequality changed? Perhaps Gaspar de Alba may know if recent exhibitions have become more equal? Do exhibitions on Chicano art in encyclopedic museums typically focus on equal gender representation now more so than during the era of the CARA exhibition?

In the essay, "There's No Place Like Aztlan: Embodied Aesthetics in Chicana Art", Gaspar de Alba separates an essay focused on the power of place within artistic production into art. I particularly enjoyed how she contrasted the power of Aztlan in the Chicana/o aesthetic with the Euro-American vision of the West as a wild frontier. While the image of the wild west preceded the major time of production of Chicana/o art, it seems like Chicana/o artists would have had to combat a nationwide image of the West and Southwest as an area for colonizing and controlling. Conquest and control contrast the sacred and familiar space it is portrayed as in Chicana/o art. Although we focus on Chicana/o artists in the course, I found myself wondering how the image of landscape differs in other immigrant minority groups. Does Gaspar de Alba's use of landscape as a "cultural currency" function in Asian-American artwork, or immigrants from the middle-east? How would she explain Chicana/o artistic production within a larger genre of artwork focused on landscapes of migrants?

Artist for Presentation: Judithe Hernandez

Hi there, I will be doing my presentation on the Chicana artist, Judithe Hernandez.