Reflection Post

When I enrolled in this class, I had thought we were only going to be learning about Chicana artists from the past and how they revolutionized art. And then, I quickly realized that Chicana artists are still around, they've always been around, creating art that represents a part of who they are. Not only that, but I have come to appreciate the art that they create! It's been really cool to learn techniques that Chicana artists use in their own art. For example, learning how to draw hands by contour drawing, shading, and using shapes! At first I felt like I didn't really know how to draw hands. I mean, I knew that hands are basically the hardest parts of the body to draw,  and I've tried it before but it never came out right. After practicing some of the techniques that Professor Lopez gave to us, I feel like I've gotten better. I didn't know that I could trust myself by drawing my hand without looking at the paper! Also, I enjoyed how we learned that most muralists paint in blue or brown while also using grids as they begin sketching their pieces on walls. Overall, I believe I have become a more confident artist after taking this class, and I want to thank Professor Lopez for that.  I feel like Professor Lopez created a very welcoming environment for all of us to learn in and it wasn't like a regular art class where everybody is trying to show each other up.

Finally, I want to thank all the Chicanx artists who have come before me, and who are still out there, for continuing to represent our culture, struggles, and triumphs for what they really are. Let's not wait for other people to write/ paint our hxstory for us, but let's show them who we are with resilience en la frente. 

Artist Presentations Week 8: Lili Bernard

The presentation on Lili Bernard stood out to me the most because of how she uses art to stand up to the traumas in her personal life. I also enjoyed learning about her because afro latinas are often erased in Latinx narratives. From the three paintings that were shown in class, I liked the one that included her self-portrait where she paints herself in a straight jacket. The presenter mentioned how Lili was put in a straight jacket after having a panic attack when another male patient was being creepy and triggered her back to her assault from Bill Cosby.

Self-Portrait in Straight Jacket Surrounded by 7 Potencias Africanas with Kathleen Cleaver as La Virgen de La Candelaria and Assata Shakur as La Orisha Oya-Yansa 2017. Oil on canvas

I notice from all her work, the center of the paintings are women in the forms of goddesses, and I think it's really empowering how the women she paints are also lactating. In this painting, Assata Shakur is in the image of the Orisha Oya Yansa, goddess of the winds in the Yoruba and Santeria religion. I like how through this piece, Bernard is emphasizing intersectional feminism by calling out the men of Civil Rights Movements who are rapists and abusers, like the husband of Kathleen Cleaver. Cleaver is shown in this painting as La Virgen de La Candelaria, "The Black Madonna" of the Canary Islands.  In all of Bernard's work, I feel like she isn't afraid to show the truth, and that's what stood out to me the most. 

Presentation: Monica Kim Garza

After numerous presentations of artists who were trained classically in art and who are now showcasing their art in galleries, I felt like Monica Kim Garza was super relatable because she uses social media as a platform to promote her art and resist the prevalent fatphobia within our society. Now, in the time that we live in, it has become really easy to connect with other artists of color and I really like how Armando Berumen was able to find Kim Garza by word of mouth and social media. It's like, a reflection of how young POC connect with each other now to find community. And now, Armando was able to share his knowledge of an artist resisting fatphobia! I find that super dope...

Toward Kim Garza's work, I find that she resists fatphobia and erasure of fat womxn by painting nude/semi-nude portraits of fat woman in active and sexual positions. For example, surfing, swimming, and hiking, in which she displays women often in groups doing these activities. I feel like she includes multiple women together in her paintings because she shows how women empower each other by being in a collective especially when society continues to bring us down by dividing and conquering us.

In this specific painting that I provided here,  Kim Garza depicts multiple nude women playing basketball while fashioning headbands and the focus of the painting is this badass mujer who's dunking on them backward. I chose this image because I felt like it was dope how she painted multiple women of different skin colors who are unified in a game of basketball, which is a sport that focuses mostly on the big, muscular men in the NBA. I hope to find more artists like Kim Garza on social media in the future.

Judy Baca's Killed By A Placa

As I looked through and read about Judy Baca's artwork and career, her 1974 wood stain on paper really stood out to me. For one, the painting felt very familiar and I realized it was because the artwork was drawn from Baca's study of Siqueiros work with his past students. There are similarities in the way that the young man who is stretched out onto the floor appears to be reaching out into the audience, almost 3D like, and how Siqueiros always had the figures of his murals distorted into looking 3D. There are also similarities in the colors that Baca uses in this piece, with browns and dark reds that make the painting look more solemn. In addition, both this piece and Siqueiros's most famous works discuss themes surrounding death and violence inflicted upon by the government.

For me, this artwork calls upon more than just gang violence, as many of my other classmates have discussed. As I see the image of a young artist's body laying on the floor with a bullet in his stomach, and his young age printed next to him, I also think about the boys I grew up with and how many of them were lured into gang violence or even killed. Now, I often think about how many of my classmates would say that gangs offered them protection and community and even family. I think about why gangs were created in the first place, especially in LA, where men of color weren't allowed to be in those fancy community clubs. Why is it that we criminalize men of color, particularly black and brown men and how does this affect the outcome of their lives?

Carmen Lomas-Garza: Sandia/Watermelon

Carmen Lomas-Garza's 1986 Gouache on cotton paper is a piece I distinctly remember from my childhood when my mom would read me Lomas Garza's "Family Portraits" book, and how I would relate to the feeling of family closeness in this particular picture. I remember having family parties in the warm summers when my family would come to visit and how we would share space in our backyard by eating and telling stories about my dad and my uncle's childhoods. We would also talk about my grandfather a lot because he passed years before my cousins and I were born, and I feel like that goes to show how connected communities of color are to their ancestors and those that came before them. Moreover, when I look at this picture, I see how important the creation of community is.

Adding on to what Evelyn Arroyo commented about Lomas-Garza's projection of community cultural wealth in her image on Earache Treatment, where communities of color share knowledge and wisdom outside of the sphere of formal education because of our lack of access to it, I feel like this image represents that as well as we see the entire family sharing space with each other and taking up space in conservative Texas outside of their home on their porch. On the porch of their home, generations of family members are seen coming together to share food and words. In the corner of the image, Carmen's little sister is explicitly pictured sharing her food with her grandmother as they both extend their hand.

Yolanda M. Lopez: Your Vote Has Power

I feel like the work of Yolanda Lopez is important in how she often challenges the misconception that knowledge and power are only produced and absorbed in a traditional classroom setting. She does so by addressing and challenging issues like heteropatriarchy, nationalism, white supremacy and classism, even more than they lecture in a college classroom. As Davalos explains herself, “Activism became the training ground for [Lopez’s] artistic vision and identity; it would supplant her formal education in this respect,” showcasing how Lopez’s art meant more than a hobby because they each held a message for activism (24).

For me, the most important work she did was surrounding Chicana and Mexicana feminism as showcased in her work, Your Vote Has Power, which was a part of her “Women’s Work Is Never Done” series in 1997.  For this piece, Davalos explains that Lopez wanted to frighten the then-governor Pete Wilson who supported California Proposition 187, that was supposed to prohibit undocumented folks from getting healthcare or access to education, with an image of a “fertile Latina who votes” (56). 

Gaspar de Alba's Critique of CARA Exhibition

La Fulana by Cesar Martinez

When I was younger I believed any and all representation of brown muxeres to be positive. When I saw the inclusion of a handful (or less, if any) of Chicanas/ Latinas in a movie production, as featured artists in a gallery, or participating in anything a part of American society that's valued, I admired it. For me, I was like "yay, at least there's somebody representing who I am and where I come from!" I was okay with only learning about one Mexicana artist and hundreds of European male artists throughout my entire life. I was proud of learning of the great Mexican-O muralists who challenged capitalist society in their careers, content with not asking about the Mexicanas and Chicanas who challenged society too.

Certainly, during my first year here at UCLA as a Chicanx Major, I've learned to critique the patriarchal structures within Mexican culture and recognize the intersections between those oppressions and white supremacy. However, after reading Gaspar de Alba's critique on the CARA Exhibition, I've realized how spaces meant to honor "Feminist Visions" and WOC artistry are still very problematic because of how the folks who dictate and organize those spaces are not NOT women of color themselves. As a result, in CARA, all of the Chicana artists are put together in one category, and the pieces by men that are supposed to "honor women" actually just reinforce the controlling binaries of "mother" or "whore". For instance, the portrait of "La Fulana", or the "Other Woman" by Cesar Martinez in the exhibition, or the piece that pictured a bride and her mother.

This opened my eyes because I saw how I myself reinforce these perceptions in my paintings, and how others only value women based on their ability to create life, which is obviously not their only abilities as human beings.

Chicana Sexuality and Gender

I found it really interesting how in Chicana Sexuality and Gender, Debra Blake deconstructs the violence that the stories of "La Malinche" and "La Llorona" perpetuate by how they label each woman a traitor and a murderer. I had never really thought of how La Llorona would be a product of toxic masculinity in the way that her identity is used to warn children. Yes, she might have murdered her children, but from Blake's findings, she was believed to be an indigenous woman left by her no-good upper-class husband.

Through Blake's interviews of semi-professional to professional Chicanas, Blake asserts “ If women are rendered as tools of the ruling male elite in these accounts… they are also conceived as powerful figures that ennoble dynasties, inaugurate ideas…,” meaning that they should be asserted as more than the men who used them (15). For example, Blake talks about how Malintzin should be thought of as a unifier between indigenous and Spanish culture in Mexican history (16). In addition, La Llorona is a spiritual being who takes space in rural areas and uses her voice “disrupting silence and colonial authority through her wailing” (16). Although La Llorona is thought to be an angry and sinful woman like Malintzin, her existence is actually the product of emotional abuse set on by her husband who abandoned her. La Llorona and Malintzin’s stories have been survived through Mexican folklore meant to warn others of deviant women, but it is through the counter-memory of Chicanas and Mexicanas that they become women of prestige and power in Mexican history.

Presentation: Angelica Becerra

I've become really interested in Angelica Becerra's work in watercolor and printmaking. I have known of her since I first met her Fall Quarter of this year when she was a TA for Chicano 10A, and we discussed our different work in watercolor painting. I also listen to her podcasts, Anzalduing It, and hearing her speak about her experiences as a Graduate student and an artist interests me as to how she balances both of those jobs on top of other jobs.

Her art also speaks to me because she does portrait work of influential muxeres throughout history, and that is something I have always been inspired by in my own painting. I wish to understand more of what inspires her and how she came to work with watercolor as a self-identified queer femme Chicana who has multiple oppressions fighting against her.

Moreno, Alma (Isa)

Hi everyone, my name is Isa Moreno and my pronouns are she/her and hers. I’m from Watsonville, California which is around seven hours north of LA. My mom is from Bell/Southgate though so I’m spiritually a South Central Local.
I’m a first year, and I’m majoring in Chicanx Studies. I had originally wanted to earn a BFA throughout high school because I’ve been in love with painting and drawing all of my life. However, I figured that along the way that focusing on my Chicana identity would create a deeper impact on my art and its message as I would be able to extend my lived experiences into my paintings. Since I’m only a freshman, I haven’t done any formal research, but I’m interested in understanding how queer & trans folks reclaim space in higher academia through their self-expression and style. 

            I found Chicana Sexuality and Gender relatable in the way that Debra Blake explained how strong female characters, especially females and femmes, in Mexican culture are continuously erased or labeled as deviant in our history. This is shown in the stories of La Malinche and La Llorona, both indigenous women who took agency by “disrupting and unifying Spanish and indigenous cultures” through their sexuality and resistance to Spanish rule, respectively, and how they are both labeled as traitors and evil in our culture today as a result. Although I’ve heard these bad things about these mujeres throughout my life, I find it powerful to think about the ways in which Chicana artists, like Professor Lopez and the way in which she depicts La Virgen as a lesbian, refigure images of mujeres categorized a certain way in Mexican history into their own positive interpretations. It’s important, for me as a Chicana artist, to be able to imagine myself in the place of the female symbols Blake talks about and identify with their oppression.