Carmen Lomas Garza

I really enjoyed reading about Carmen Lomas Garza! Having written the paper on Yolanda Lopez a couple of weeks ago, it is amazing to see how people go through similar experiences while internalizing them in different ways. Garza's art seems to focus on the act of merging. The book describes her briefly as braiding memories together, while also alluding to the idea that Garza also must separate as often as she merges to make art.

One of my favorite pieces from the book was Enlightenment #2. I couldn't find a photo of it online, but it is in the form of a book. The purpose of this piece is, like mentioned above, to unbraid the connection of a sign to its meaning and a symbol to the social world. The book tells a storyboard-style story that is structured like a joke, which she found the best medium for expressing the idea that what one finds must be passed down. What most find is a crack at the state of the economy, the brown bodies that are constantly sacrificed either through war or through labor in a supply/demand economy. These bodies that have been sacrificed for the sake of the economy should not be forgotten, should forever be passed down in the same way that we read storybooks to our children.