Week 10: Final Post

Chicana Art and Artists with Lopez-Gaspar exposed me to a variety of different concepts that I was not familiar with before. I learned about how many Chicana artists reveal the struggle of oppressed women living in a patriarchal, heterosexist and discriminatory, racist society through their art. Many of the artists we explored reclaimed Mexicana cultural figures to end entrenched ideologies of gender roles and unjust power dynamics. I enjoyed learning about the investigation around the reconstructions of La Virgen de Guadalupe, La Llorona and La Malinche. My favorite part of the class, however, was when we had the opportunity to draw in our sketchbooks. Growing up, I always believed that I was never going to learn how to draw or paint. In this class, I was able to call myself an artist after long hours of practice and drawing hands. I thought it was very impressive how we were all able to name various Chicana artists in our last class meting in comparison to the first day of class. I really enjoyed the student presentations because we all were able to learn about more talented artists. Overall, I felt many that the experiences that Chicana artists experienced were similar to many of our experiences as students of color.