Welcome Baby, Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving in my family is never much of a big deal. Since everyone has the day off we usually just make food and spend the evening watching movies. This year however, it was special because we have a new member in our family. All of our family members who live close enough to visit came to meet my nephew baby Adam. At first my sister was nervous because she was scared she would feel judged for being a teen mom, but once everyone was there and fell in love with baby Adam everything was perfect! It has brought our family so much closer so we are grateful to have him in our lives! I used acrylic paint to make a little painting of the visit. It has been a while since I've used acrylic so it was kind of difficult for me, especially trying to add the amount of detail Carmen Lomas Garza does in such a small space. I love the way Carmen Lomas Garza incorporates a lot of people in her paintings to show family and community, so I tried to paint in all of our relatives who visited but it was pretty difficult so I just painted a few. The people on the chairs are my parents, baby Adam is on the blanket and I included my cat, Shan, as well. The rest of the people are my different cousins and the girl in the pink/orange dress is supposed to be myself and the girl in the purple is my sister.

The piece from this week's presentations that stood out to me was Ester Hernandez's Wanted piece. I found it humorous yet still full of deeper meaning that is relevant to society. The artwork is a wanted sign looking for La Virgen de Guadalupe, which is the hilarious part of this piece, because La Virgen is a divine being loved and revered by many all over the world. The poster reads “Should be considered powerful and dangerous”, which just adds a little more to the humour because how can someone so benevolent be dangerous? When we start to ask these questions is when we realize why exactly she is threatening and to whom she is considered dangerous.

Her occupation on the poster reads “Cult leader, Human trafficking, Terrorist” because she is beloved by millions of people, and because she is a symbol of hope for many people who immigrate into the U.S. So we can see that she threatening a hegemonic society. Everything that are staples of her are listed, the glow around her, her shawl, the angel below her are mentioned in this poster in a satirical way. Hernandez is satirizing the people who do not want immigrants in this country because La Virgen is such an important symbol to Mexicans and many other immigrants from all over the world. I thought this piece was a very powerful political statement about our society.

One of the artists whose work I found most interesting were the photographs of Laura Aguilar. Her work focuses marginalized people of color and people of bigger sizes, particularly women. What I like most about her photographs is the way bodies are shown in nature. They seem to be part of the landscape she is photographing. Her photographs remind us that our bodies are all natural, and there is not one way to be. She is representing bodies that are normally stigmatized because of their color and size and doing it in a way which is empowering to the model and people viewing the photograph.

Laura’s photographs include a lot of self-portraits, which are her way of dealing with the stigmatization of her own body which has led to depression. The video we watched on Laura was very insightful and honest the way she spoke about her art helping her heal. We don’t typically see brown, big bodies fully nude because we are brainwashed into believing they should be hidden and that European features are the epitome of beauty. Her photographs are political like many of the other Chicana Artists we have read about but they are also for personal healing. Her work is taking a stand against those who believe there is only one way to be beautiful and feel comfortable with yourself.

I chose the image of a marigold to make a stencil for my sketchbook. About five years ago I started becoming interested in gardening, around the same time a local non-profit was turning an empty lot into a community garden. I was so excited to have the chance to work with them and be able to have my own little plot. Most of the other gardeners are older and know so much more about gardening because they grew up on farms all over Mexico and South/Central America and they are always willing to give me

gardening advice and trade veggies. Even though it is a tiny plot compared to the immense fields on which the food we buy is grown, being able to grow something and know where exactly it came from has been an incredible experience.
About two years ago I was also able to work with other community members to help start a Day of the Dead celebration in our local park. This year is the 3rd annual Day of the Dead celebration in Lennox, so I decided I wanted to grow my own marigolds to use for my altar. Unfortunately, I started growing them a little bit too late into the season and do not have as many marigolds as I’d like. It's definitely been a learning experience and next year I hope to use the flowers I've grown.   

Laura Alvarez

Laura Alvarez's artwork incorporates a lot of who she is and her identity. She has been working with her Double Agent Sirvienta character for about 10 years now, and through her artwork we can see how she has evolved and been inspired by many aspects of Alvarez's life. Growing up in Newport Beach, she imagined stories about spies and imagined she was a spy herself. This would then inspire her to create DAS. Her mother worked as a housekeeper and this is how Double Agent Sirvienta came to be a sirvienta, because Alvarez would notice how these people would be practically invisible to the people they worked for, so they had a lot of access to information even if they were not aware of it.

I chose her painting I’m With my Nanny because it connects with what Blake writes about. She states “Chicana artists’ labor metonymically by the hand that paints or writes (and the tongue that speaks) into contemporary images that refigure patriarchal portrayals of women” (25). I’m With my Nanny is a painting that I see portraying women in a different way that they typically would be. We see a running Nanny who is on a mission and she looks powerful and determined. Not only is she “refiguring” women but also the women who have professions such as being a nanny.

I think that Alvarez’s use of identity and hidden identities is really interesting especially the notion of things not always being the way they seem or people being more than what they appear or beyond what they are/do. She takes occupations like sirvientas and jardineros, jobs usually looked down upon and complicates the characters more. She makes us realize that there are many layers to people and what we see is not the entire story. Her artwork is also empowering and acknowledges the power and agency that people who do these professions have.

Linda Lucia Santana

  

I will be doing my presentation on Linda Lucia Santana. This is the first time I have heard of her and I am very interested in learning about the inspiration behind her artwork. 

Elsa Fraire

My name is Elsa Fraire, I'm a 3rd year Philosophy and Political Science double major. I am originally from Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico but have lived most of my life in Lennox, California (a tiny unincorporated city right by LAX).

I commute from Lennox and the fact that it is an unincorporated city is one of the main reasons I became interested in politics and community organizing, because I wanted to know why it was that a working class, majority Latino population like ours had little to no access to our local government.

I took this class because I want to learn about more about the Chicana artists that have inspired me and learn about more Chicana artists I haven't heard about. I am also interested in the way art is used for social and political activism and challenging norms and stereotypes. 

I really enjoy documentary and street photography. I also draw, paint and recently became interested in filmmaking. Many of my friends back home and I always felt like we had to travel outside of home to East LA/ downtown area to find a place that was more supportive of the arts, so about a year ago we formed a collective of artists interested in using art to start conversations about the issues we see ignored in our community, and to also highlight the positive. I hope to attend graduate school and eventually open up a community space/arts center in Lennox.

La Virgen de Guadalupe has always had a space in my family's home. I always noticed my parent's, especially my moms, love and devotion for her, but I was never too familiar with her story until now.