Week 10: Reflection

When I learned that there was a course titled "Chicana Art & Artists" I knew it had my name written all over it. When I learned Profe Lopez was teaching it, I geeked out some more. As we approach the end of this course, I can wholeheartedly say that this class completely lived up to my expectations. As both a Xicana artist and arts administrator in the field of Chicana/o art, I've had a unique experience of being exposed to many of the artists we had the privilege of learning about. However, I've never had the opportunity to learn about all the artists we covered and the readings assigned in higher education and this has been such a beautiful experience. Especially as a nontraditional student, it's been transformative to be exposed to so much research, theory, and literature on Chicana/o art. All of these learnings will continue to inform both my own practice and the way I see others' work. One of my favorite aspects of this class has definitely been the sketchbook project. And it's been my favorite in a surprising way, it's helped me feel more inspired, it's pushed me to actually be in the practice of creating, and it's forced me out of my comfort zone. This has been one of the few classes since I've arrived at UCLA that has really inspired me to continue my journey in higher education after obtaining my B.A. For that, I'm eternally grateful. It's shown me that I don't have to choose between my commitment to art or academia, rather I can bridge the two and pursue research in what I'm passionate about: archiving the legacies of Chicana lesbian and queer artists. It's also really exciting to think back on one of the first activities we did where everyone had to write names on the board of men, non-binary, and women artists. While that list was abundant with mujeres, it's powerful to know now that it has grown tenfold.

WK 8: Consuelo Jimenez Underwood

One of the artists whose work I was fascinated by and learned about through my peers' presentation is Consuelo Jimenez Underwood. Jimenez Underwood is a Chicana artist born in Sacramento and currently based in Cupertino, CA. In the 80s, Jimenez Underwood obtained her BA in Art from SDSU, followed by her MA in Art at SDSU, and then her MFA at SJSU. Her work is largely textile-based and challenged the notions of craft vs. art, crafting her own authentic voice. One of the main issues her work addresses is border relations and migration. This specific piece I was called to is a rebozo. The rebozo is usually an item used to provide warmth and wrap someone up, but in this case, it's constructed from materials and subject matter that produce jarring feelings and present the stark reality of migration. Printed all over the rebozo is the emblematic caution sign that warns of migrants crossing, it is stitched together by safety pins, and hung from barbed wire. In this reimagining of the rebozo, Jimenez Underwood learned to actually weave rebozos, this was important to her as an Indigenous woman of the Americas. The color palette of the rebozos from this series also lend themselves to the landscape of border crossings, they resemble the colors of the desert and the night sky. These rebozos are part of Jimenez Underwood's larger caution series, as she often produces work that fits into series such as "Borderlines", "Flags", "America". She takes on these terms that at a surface level can be apolitical and crafts work from an Indigenous perspective and affirmation of communities that are negatively impacted by these "borderlines", "flags", and "America". 

WK 7: Tamara Santibañez

The artist I've selected is Tamara Santibañez, a queer Chicana multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. The selected image above details four tattoo works from her body of work. Tamara stands out to be, especially as a tattoo artist, as she brings her community organizing background to her practice. She views tattooing as trauma-informed liberation work and is currently working on a guide as she gathers research, interviews, and is crafting her own writing to ensure tattooing is an intention safe space for everyone. Her work, despite being raised in Georgia and now based in New York, embodies a fierce femme centric West-coast Chicano style. Her black and gray fine line tattoo work illustrates empowered women and oftentimes, kink imagery. Santibañez identifies as a leather fetishist and is registered as a kink and BDSM friendly tattoo artist, making her a high-demand artist for many. From left to right: the first image details a mujer with payasa style face paint looking over shoulder. She's adorned with hoop earrings, hair styled reminiscent of pachucas, with a rose in her hair. The second image details a Santibañez iconic punk nopal, as she mixes Chicano iconography with punk symbols, here the thorns of the nopal being replaced with spikes. The third image is a large scale portrait of a fierce mujer making eye contact with the viewer, think eyebrows raised, she too is adorned and holds up a rose. Lastly, there is a traditional Virgen de Guadalupe tattoo. Santibañez continues to challenge notions of fine art and the ways in which folks disregard Chicano prison style work in the ways she practices it in her unique way.

Week 5

Being able to learn from Maestra Ofelia Esparza felt like a true honor. I only learned about her work a few years ago, but I've been a fan of her work ever since I first laid eyes on it. On the day she joined our Chicana Art and Artists class, Gregg started us off with a PowerPoint introduction. As Ofelia is his tia, it felt extra special to have him introduce her to our class. Gregg talked about her roots in Los Angeles, her matrilineal line of influence in her work, and showed many examples of her art across various mediums. I appreciated the fact that she incorporates her family into her work both as subject matter/inspiration and as creators. As inspiration, she seems to constantly either be channeling the energy of her mother and abuelas or directly portraying their image. She also is constantly working in collaboration with her children, extended family, and friends as they collectively install altares. I appreciated her spirit and knowledge she shared with all of us. Towards the end of her platica, she shared that she is still pushing her boundaries at her age and finding new ways to create. For example, she's starting to test the waters with virtual reality production. Maestra Ofelia also shared so much joy about being an integral part of the Disney film Coco and that actually gave me a newfound appreciation for the movie. It was also really exciting to learn that Ofelia and her family have their own studio open to the public in their neighborhood, Tonalli Studio. I wasn't aware of this space and can't wait to visit!

WK 6: Sketchbook stencil

For the cover of my sketchbook, I'll be creating a stencil of one of my plantitas. Most likely a ruby ficus elastica or a monstera adansonii. I've chosen to focus on a plant stencil because I have a deep love for plants. I'm a pretty big nerd when it comes to house plants and have a gorgeous collection. It's really been within the last two years or so of my life that I've dedicated so much energy and time to tend to my plants, it's also a way of caring for myself. However, I actually never really would draw elements of nature such as plants or trees up until this class. I've been trying to build my muscle more of sketching from life, so naturally, I've been drawn to sketching when I'm surrounded by nature. As an ode to that shift, I'll be developing a stencil of either a single plant or different variations of foliage.

I've attached a photo with one of my ruby ficus elastica and another of one of my monstera adansonii.

Wk 4: Rasquachismo y Domesticana

Tomas Ybarra Frausto posits rasquachismo as first being an attitude and a taste, both coming together
as a counter sensibility that does not abide by the eurocentric and classist parameters of “good taste”.
Rasquachismo does not concern itself with “lo que diran”, as it’s rooted in resourcefulness and
ultimately creates magic out of what’s at hand (85). It is a sensibility that is born out of working-class
realities, a resourcefulness many of us are familiar with. Frausto highlights the way the Chicano
Movement lived rasquachismo simply in reclaiming the word “Chicano”, mending and reinventing
their identity with a word that was once used against them (88). Dr. Amalia Mesa-Bains builds on
rasquachismo, theorizing domesticana, giving a name to the distinct and inventive artistry of
Chicanas that was often full of domestic space and objects. Mesa-Bains felt an urge to draw these
distinctions at a time when the work of Chicanas was being dismissed as kitsch, negating the ways
in which their artistry was rooted in a “shared barrio sensibility” of the working-class (92). One of the
most notable examples of domesticana is the home altar, according to Mesa-Bains. She argues that
the home altar has been a space for mujeres to establish a counterpoint space to the often patriarchal
rituals of Catholicism (93). This example further illustrates how domesticana is not only counterculture
to the dominant Anglo set parameters of aesthetics and good taste, but it’s also resistance within
Chicano and Mexicano culture (94). Domesticana centers the multifaceted experiences of
working-class women that make magic with what they have at their disposal. 

Yolanda M. Lopez

Yolanda M. López's Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim? (1978) speaks to me as this was one of the first works by Yolanda I was introduced to and then became a part of my collection. In this offset lithograph, we see López's "deliberate play" shine through in the mix of Western and Indigenous iconography. (21) Not only is politic central to Lopez’s work, but her personality also shines through.
Larger than the frame itself we see an Indigenous man, likely of Aztec descent, most notably seen in his regalia as he's flipping the narrative of legality and claiming an ancestral connection to the land when so many Chicana/os and Mexicana/os were told they needed to "go back to México". Not only is there a dignified stance being taken on, but the audience is forced to reflect on the historically accurate positionality of those who violently displaced the Native people of this continent. The figure is also crumpling then-President Jimmy Carter's "immigration plans", reflecting the unjust laws impacting the Mexican and Chicana/o community. One of the reasons I was also originally drawn to this work is because it isn't inherently feminine and without knowledge of who the artist is, some may assume it has been created by a man. I appreciate this aspect of Yolanda's work because she's challenging long-held notions of what a woman's artwork is supposed to embody or the aesthetic parameters it should fit within. It's also interesting to reflect on the ways this work that was created in 1978 remains, unfortunately, completely relevant in today's political landscape and cognitive dissonance about who's land we are on.

Yolanda M. López, Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?, 1978. Offset lithograph, 22 x 17 1/2 inches.

CARA Exhibition Reflection

Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s interdisciplinary study of the CARA exhibition, “Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore’s Mask: The Mirror of Malinchismo” provides a critical framework that encompasses what the CARA exhibition missed, or better yet, excluded: an intersectional analysis with an emphasis on the sexual politics of the Chicano Art Movement. Gaspar de Alba details each room of the exhibition and puts the staggering numbers of who was represented into perspective, Chicanas often times being the only one featured in a room full of male artists. Gaspar de Alba writes, “...approximately a hundred more Chicano artists than Chiacanas were represented… Of the fourteen pieces in the ‘Cultural Icons’ room, one was done by a woman; of the ten in in ‘Civil Liberties’ one was done by a woman; of the ten in ‘Urban Images,’ you guessed correctly, one by a woman” (120). Delegating the women’s representation to a single section of ‘Feminist Visions’ serving as a transition between ‘Reclaiming the Past’ and ‘Redefining American Art’, while disappointing, highlights the misogynistic and homophobic ideals of the Chicano Art World and larger Chicano community. As a proud Xicana dyke, where I feel the most visibility regarding the CARA exhibition is in Cherrie Moraga and Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s words. It’s in their critiques that they speak to the narratives of countless Chicanas who are kept in the margins for not fitting the mold of the "ideal Chicana" that Chicanos set forth of what we’re supposed to be.

Tamara Santibanez

Blancas, Elizabeth (Lizzy)

Hello all, my name is Elizabeth Blancas. I go by Lizzy and my pronouns are she/her/hers. I am a third-year Chicana/o/x and Central American Studies major with an Art History minor, working on obtaining my bachelor’s degree. As a transfer student from community college, this is my second quarter studying at UCLA. I am excited for this course as I am a Xicana visual artist and have a deep appreciation for the generations of Chicana visual artists that have paved the way and continue to create in ways that go beyond aesthetically beautiful work, but create dialogue and shift narratives about the complexities of Chicana identity. At this time, I am not involved in research, but I am interested in finding ways to merge my practice as a visual artist and scholarly work as I focus on my many areas of interest. After only one full quarter at UCLA, I am feeling a call to continue in my journey of higher education after obtaining my B.A. as I’ve been moved by the research and work of my peers and professors. 

In Alma Lopez’s chapter It’s Not about the Santa in My Fe, but the Santa Fe in My Santa, I found myself continuously moved by the ways in which Lopez ‘re-membered’ la Guadalupana. Growing up as a Xicana in a Catholic household in the Bay Area, I too, found myself not only surrounded by La Virgen de Guadalupe in my house but in my larger community as well. My relationship with La Virgen has evolved and more so grown distant in the most recent years of my life, as I rejected Catholicism. However, it’s been on my journey of unlearning and learning that I’ve found myself again reconciling my relationship to La Guadalupana. It’s been through the works of mujeres like Alma Lopez, Yolanda Lopez, Ester Hernandez, amongst others, where I’ve seen myself reflected in her. However, I hadn’t yet come across written work that challenged my relationship with and perception of La Guadalupana prior to this reading. As an artivist, I was exhilarated to read about Lopez’s detailed research and interpretation of La Guadalupana, especially her creation being a result of years of organizing, painting, and oral tradition amongst collaborating community members in order to serve as an avenue for indigenous survival and resistance (258). I’m excited to continue learning about La Guadalupana from this lense and have already felt inspired to create new imagery thanks to this reading.