Week 8 Border Arte

 

To be honest I'm not sure where to begin. I've been making art for most of my life and have always struggled to find a language that helps explain the work, my creative process but mostly myself. I've talk about the in between and moving through dimensions as an artist and spiritual person with friends, in artist statements, statements of purpose, the list can go on. Now I have a word "Nepantla"! How beautiful it sounds in my mouth. I feel it's vibration, leading me to another layer of consciousness and another layer of understanding. 

I have highlighted so many lines in Border Arte. Some of my favorite statements: 

"Nepantla...an in-between state, that uncertain terrain one crosses when moving from one place to another, when changing from one class, race, or sexual position to another, when traveling from present identity into a new identity." (344)

"Each artist locates her/himself in this border "lugar," and tears apart and rebuilds the "place" itself." (342)

"If one looks beyond the obvious, one sees a connection to the spirit world, to the underworld, and to other realities."(344)

Border Arte made me think about the last time I was in Tejuana. It was the last leg of a two month trip through the Americás. I hadn't been to TJ since I was a kid with my family. It felt like the city was ready to explode. The caravan of migrants were being moved to a larger area, many Haitians had started their own businesses and communities, all the tourists trying to haggle and me.