Week 10

There is much to reflect as this class comes to an end. I would never have thought that I would be able to draw hands and actually have them look like hands. I was also surprised on how proud and influential some of the Chicana artist mentioned in the class were for me. Carmen Lomas Garza was by far my favorite Chicana artist and it was very interesting reading a book over her life and artwork. At the beginning of the quarter, I could not name one Chicana artist. Frida Kahlo was the first artist that popped into my mind during the activity and I learned that day that Frida was not considered a Chicana artist, but she was a Mexican artist. Now, some of the artist that I can recall that have been most interesting to me are Yolanda Lopez, Judy Baca, Sonya Fe, Camille Rose Garcia, Isis Rodriguez, Laura Alvarez, Annie Lopez, Margarate Garcia, Alma Gomez, Laura Aguilar, Favianna Rodriguez,  and, of course, our instructor Alma Lopez. It was definitely amazing having this subject taught to us by a Chicana artist, which I would never have the chance to have had this experience in my old community college. Chicana art can not be specifically classified to be recognizable to one thing but is comprised of many things and aspects. There is no “norm” when it comes to Chicana art.

Week 9

The drawing I made is a depiction of how my family and I spent Thanksgiving together. My immediate family is colored in because I remember what they were wearing, my cousins and aunts are not colored in because I did not pay much attention to there clothing. To the left of the image, the living area is filled with my two sisters, two little nieces, and as we wait to have our picture taken by my cousin Tony. As we are patiently waiting, to the right of the image, in the dining area shows my parents, cousins, and aunts. I decided to draw an image that accurately portrays my family. My older sister loves to take pictures and keep memories so we are constantly taking pictures, especially on events such as Thanksgiving. My parents, cousins, and aunts are depicted in the dining area because the table was too small to fit all of us so we let the older adults eat first and once they were finished they would leave their seat and open it up to one of us. On Thanksgiving Day my dad would not stop talking. My dad is the life of party and jokester. He was making everyone laugh as usual and it was only right for me to draw only him with his mouth wide open shouting out jokes over everyone’s laughter.

Post 8

The piece I decided to pick for my blog post was Sonia Romero’s Bee Fantasy on acrylic and block painting. The image displays an unclothed woman lying down with an unemotional face daydreaming. I believe that the woman is thinking or reflecting upon some aspect of life or trying to solve this major break through problem. The woman does not seem to be overtly sexualized or in a position implying sexual intentions, but the background is red, which implies passion or blood. Perhaps the image is displaying how simple things humans can do in everyday situations that could be viewed by some as a sexual signal or simply bloodshed. The artist states in an interview “my piece in the exhibition is an appreciation of honey bees in light of the recent environmental phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder. The disappearance of our pollinators is a national disaster.” The woman in the painting also has different colors of bees drawn onto some parts of her body. I believe that the bees drawn onto her body symbolize that bees are so crucial and important to all aspects of life and that human beings are one of the things that depend heavily on bees to survive.

Week 7 Presentations

I chose Judy Baca’s public art mural “Memoria De Nuestra Tierra” 2001 on metallic coated substrate. The images landscape depicts the Colorado four-corners areas, which are Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. In the image, you see three people, a family, crossing a road. This family is describing the dangerous immigration that many families traveled from Mexico to the United States in the early 1900’s. The right of the image is an old photo of Judy’s grandfather around the time he had immigrated to the US. To the far right corner is a picture of what I believe to be a train and the railroad workers. During the 1920-1930’s there were many Asian and Mexican immigrants granted work permits for railroad jobs in the southwest of the united states so many Mexican workers took this opportunity of work and some stayed in the country after their services were completed. I found this to be very interesting because Judy Baca is incorporating the history of Mexican Americans. The artist incorporates images of 1920’s railroad Mexican workers, at least what I believe she is trying to state in this artwork, to proof that Mexican people have very well been present in the Unites States, was built by Mexicans, and originally owned by Mexico.

week 6

I chose to do my post on one of Carmen Lomas Garza panting’s called “Pachuca With a Razor Blade.” The painting depicts three young teenage women getting ready to go out to an event. The paintings medium is Gouache on cotton paper and was created in 1989. The three girls are safe and happy in this protective area free to be comfortable in their own skin as they get ready for their day out. The women are completely stress-free and relaxed in their safe space. Once these women step out of this protective space they must navigate and deal with not only racial negative attitudes towards being Latina but also sexist comments from the outside. The painting means a lot to me because it is a feeling that I can relate to. Being a woman of color, I feel that we not only have to deal with the outside world commenting on our skin color but also our gender.

Pachuca’s are female Latina women that wore zoot suit like apparel during World War Two. These women defied social and cultural taboos by wearing pants and suits out in public when it was not allowed for women to dress in that manner. Pachuca’s wore very heavy makeup and had their hair pinned up big. Mexican descent young adults living in the United States mainly used the Pachuco and Pachuca type of style. The Pachuco and Pachuca were often associated to crime and gangsters and were heavily targeted by police.

Week five

The image I decided to use for my stencil is a simple lotus flower. The lotus flower is my favorite type of flower because I love to swim and so anything aquatic has always interested me. The water lily and the lotus are often confused from one another since both flowers are found in water. An interesting fact about lotus flowers is that they can live for an incredibly long time. A seed from a lotus was recently germinated, the progress of a seed to grow into the plant, and shown to be roughly 1,300 years old. I first saw a lotus flower while on a museum trip to the Huntington Library three years ago. The flower was so beautiful and pink gracefully floating on the water that I began to grow an interest in this type of aquatic flower that I had never seen before. The flower is native to Asian countries, Australia, and Egypt. The meaning of the flower varies through different religions. In the Hindu religion, the flower represents beauty and fertility. In Buddhism, the flower means rebirth and purity of the mind, body, and spirit. For me, the flower represents peace of mind and spiritual cleansing. I am a swimmer, I have been swimming ever since I was four, and so whenever I go into water I feel a peace of mind and a cleansing energy occur.

Blog 4: Laura Alvarez

I choose to write about “Clean Up at the Monsanto House of the Future” because I like the concept of a maid looking fashionably put together as a very strong and bold statement by the artist. In Laura Alvarez painting, there is a futuristic architecturally designed house with a family to the middle-right, and the maid to the middle left. The maid, or better yet Double Agent Sirvienta, is sweeping golden leaves and accumulating them into a big pile of gold. Double Agent Sirvienta is dressed in a chic and upscale dress while her hair is nicely put up with a flower to the side of her head. The black and white with hints of gold truly make the piece stand out and gives the artwork personality. The artist depicts her mother and herself as both being strong and beautiful women. I love her whole concept of making the stereotypical Mexican lady a nanny/maid and flipping it into a 180 degree to make this character a symbol of honor and gracefulness. I believe all women have the ability to take pride and honor in their work, despite all the negative views others have.

In the book “Chicana Sexuality and Gender” by Debra J. Blake, the writer mentions the effects of the Virgin of Guadalupe on Mexican-American second-generation women. Blake states “for many women, Guadalupe represents both Mexican culture and a valued woman: ‘Our Lady of Guadalupe provides them with a spiritual form of resistance to the sociopolitical negotiation of Mexican-American women.” I believe that Laura Alvarez is encompassing the whole concept of La Virgin de Guadalupe is to Mexican American women through her painting/artwork of maids.  The image of La Virgin and Laura’s painting display powerful fearless women as role models to a Mexican American audience.

Post week 3

In the essay “The Iconography of Self Determination” by author Shifra Goldman, the author states historical events from as far back as the Mexican American war till the Chicano movement in the 1970’s. Anglos, as explained in the essay, used race, as a way to oppress the indigenous and black people in order to reap certain beneficial opportunities. Goldman states that “in the 1930s one American schoolteacher claimed that the ‘inferiority of the Mexicans is both biological and class.’" The racial attitudes that this 1930s schoolteacher states bothered me because his statement is scientifically incorrect. Race is socially constructed. Biologically there is only one human race. The ignorance of the statement bothered me even more knowing that a schoolteacher had said it. The author then describes the difference between nationality and ethnicity. Nationality is defined in the essay as the “virtue of birth in a certain place and time.” Ethnicity is defined as the “needs to be mentioned/an embattled posture/to separate by years or generations” and as a mixture of many other things that construct an identity.

In Yolanda Lopez’s installation named “Things I Never Told my Son about Being a Mexican” the artist expresses her Chicana ethnicity and identity by showing the viewer that the images upon the installment are actually not Mexican. What I got out of the installment is that the artist is encompassing these stereotypes and throwing it right back at the audience and cleverly stating that theses are incorrect images to associate being a Mexican.