Week #5

Carman Lomas Garza is a very inspirational artist because a lot of her work was made to reflect her childhood and families culture. I believed she does a great job of demonstrating the different traditions her family had when she was a kid from doing tamales, to birthday parties, and many other. In addition, she is not only giving us a glimpse of her childhood but of my own childhood experience. I was able to relate to many of her work because I also grew up in a hispanic household and we had many similar traditions. It was nice to see someone who is as well known as Garza do work that relates to someone like myself. The artwork that I related to the most was the Sandia because Garza talks about her connection with her family through the piece of watermelon. Garza describes how the core of the watermelon is the sweetest part and her family would tell her that she was taking a piece of their heart with them. I related to this picture because when I left to college, leaving my parents was something very challenging for me but I knew that I would have my parents support and love wherever I would go. Watermelon being something that my mom would cut on the weekends and we would all sit down by the pool and have some during summer, it made me feel like I was back home with them. Garza made her artwork family oriented and easy to understand and relate to. This is the first time I see my families traditions and childhood so well represented in someone art and that was amazing to see.