Week 10 Reflection

I had no idea what this class was going to entail when I first signed up. I assumed it would be more of a survey and history of Chicana artists, almost like an art history class. I had taken several art history classes in the past so I wasn't too worried about how this class would play out. However, when I realized it was an actual art class, I panicked a little considering the fact that I hadn't ever taken an art class before. I felt a little out of my element, especially since my background isn't in the arts as a biology major. But this class has been one of my favorite art classes thus far. I loved learning about different Chicana and Latina artists and getting to look at the wide variety of art that they have created. I learned so much during these past couple of weeks and I'm glad that I was given the opportunity to see all of this amazing art. I did find the art projects to be a little difficult as I have not done any work with drawing or painting in the past at all, my only experience with art is photography. However, I tried my best in the sketchbook assignments even though they didn't come out as nice as some of my classmate's drawings, but I suppose it's the effort that matters! I'm glad that I decided to enroll in this course and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in this class. Thank you to Professor Lopez and my classmates for making this such a fun quarter.

Week 9 - Star Montana

One of the artists that stood out to me during our class presentations was Star Montana. Montana is a photographer based in Los Angeles. She was born in 1987 in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, which informs much of her work. Her imagery deals with class, social environment, and identity, especially within the context of her own lived experiences and the experiences of her family and friends. Through her photography, she tried to give visibility to those who are not often represented in art and are much less given access to art institutions. She chooses to capture images of her hometown in order to have people "understand the narrative of Boyle Heights." Not only does she photograph the people from these communities, but she makes sure to engage them in conversation and try to understand them in order to truly give these images, these people, these communities, the honor and dedication that they deserve. She makes sure to include le
ngthy descriptions with all of her work. After hearing about her in class, I looked up more of her work and completely fell in love with her work. Montana's use of film photography works to capture these images of Los Angeles with an air of nostalgia. I love the aesthetic choices she makes and I appreciate the effort that she puts into her photographs. I included some of my favorite pieces but I love everything she has on her website, she does an amazing job at honoring her community and the experiences of Chicanos in Boyle Heights.

Week 8 - Lady Pink

One of the artists that caught my attention during our class presentations was Lady Pink. She is an Ecuadorian-American graffiti and mural artist. I had heard of her work before but I hadn't ever known that much about her or her legacy. Sandra Fabara was born in Ecuador but grew up in Queens, New York after she immigrated there at the age of seven. She was a prominent artist during the 1980's graffiti era in New York City. She focused her career on empowering women, especially since the graffiti scene during the '80s was very male dominated. In 1980, she created the all-female graffiti crew called Ladies of the Arts. She worked closely with various graffiti crews, including The Cool 5 and The Public Animals. She was given her name by another artist, Seen, from the TC5 crew. The name "Pink" was deliberate, Seen wanted to honor the fact that she was one of the first women to be active in the scene by using a very feminine color to represent Sandra. Much of her art was painted on the New York City subway trains but she was also a prominent muralist. One of my favorite images of her is one where she is wearing a white tank top with the words "ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE" in collaboration with another one of my favorite artists, Jenny Holzer. My favorite work by her is a train graffiti piece called Welcome to Heaven (1982) which was a tribute for Caine1, a fellow graffiti artist who was accidentally murdered by a neighbor who mistook him for a burglar.

Week 7 - Ana Mendieta

The artist that I chose to focus on is Ana Mendieta. She is a Cuban-American sculptor, painter, photographer and performance artist. Mendieta was born in 1948 in Havana, Cuba and was sent to the US in her adolescence as a refugee. Much of her work stems from her experiences of that displacement. Her experiences as an adolescent and young adult informed her political ideals that bled into her work, usually quite literally. Early on in her career she began experimenting with her own body and blood as mediums for her art and began incorporating aspects of live ritual from religions like Santeria into her work. During her time in college, she focused on themes including feminism, domestic violence, death, and identity.
One of the series that I will be focusing on for my presentation is her Siluetas Series, which totaled about 200 different photographs over the span of roughly seven years (1973-1980). In this series, she centers her work on the body; specifically the use of simplified body silhouettes. Mendieta combines the body with land, often installing her work directly into her environment. Each piece consisted of Mendieta either physically laying on the ground and merging with the surrounding elements such as leaves and twigs, or using her body to make an imprint in the ground and then photographing the ensuing outline absent of her form. Much her work in this time was used to create a dialogue between the landscape and the female body and allow her to her to reconnect with nature and feel rooted in place to the land. This series was a way for Mendieta to gain some closure from the trauma of experiencing her formative years in a place that was not her home.

Week 6 - Stencil

For my sketchbook cover, I'm making a stencil of one of my favorite musician's emblems. This symbol, which is comprised of a crescent moon, an eye, and a tear drop, was created for Chelsea Wolfe's album, Abyss. Chelsea Wolfe is an American singer-songwriter and musician, her music is considered a mix of gothic rock, doom metal, and folk music. She was raised in Northern California and released her first album in 2010. She is one of my absolute favorite musicians and I resonate with her music so much. She perfectly blends together the hard elements of goth and doom while still having more gentle elements with her folk influences. She's such a well rounded musician and she's extremely down to earth and soft spoken outside of her performances and music. I love her aesthetic as well and I take a lot of inspiration from her in terms of the way I'd like to dress and present myself.
This was also the very first symbol I saw when I went to see her in concert for the first time. It was projected onto the stage and it's one of the only pictures I have from that show. It stuck with me all of this time and I think it looks so cool. It's definitely the type of image I'd love to get tattooed, it's so minimal and esoteric-esque. But overall, I just really like Chelsea Wolfe and her music and I want to represent that on the cover of my sketchbook.

Week 5 - Ofelia Esparza

Last Friday, Ofelia Esparza came to visit our class and speak to us about her work. Esparza is a Mexican-American altarista from East Los Angeles. Esparza has been doing work in and about her community and culture for most of her life, participating in the artistic traditions that have been passed down to her by the strong line of matriarchs in her life. I really enjoyed hearing her talk about her work and where her ideas and stylistic choices stem from. She seemed very much in tune with her familial roots as well as her connection with her own community, especially since she hasn't left East Los and still current lives and creates there. I really liked hearing her speak about how her family has influenced her work and how they actively participate in helping her create her work, from making the flowers that are found in her altars to creating pieces of papel picado to adorn her altars. She has a wide breadth of work, but she is especially known for her work in alter making and knowledge of Dia de los Muertos rituals and traditions. I liked that despite being a National Endowment of the Arts National Heritage Fellow, she remains very grounded and humble. My favorite piece of hers is the large Los Angeles themed altar that is found in the Natural History Museum, especially because I had seen it in person a while ago and I remember it has stayed with me even months after I had first seen it.

Week 4 - Rasquachismo & Domesticana

I really enjoyed the way Tomas Ybarra-Frausto described rasquachismo. The way it's "neither an idea nor a style but more of an attitude or taste" and "a funky, irreverent stance that debunks convention and spoofs protocol" that "subverts and turns ruling paradigms upside down." Ybarra-Frausto talks about rasquachismo with respect but also makes sure to let the reader know that it is still considered to be an "underclass" sensibility. It is a reaction to lived experiences, not an aesthetic that one actively cultivates, but rather the result of living in certain conditions and dealing with those on a daily basis. It is the beans in the butter container in your fridge, the flowers blooming in the cafe bustelo tin can, the brightly painted houses in the barrio. I appreciate the way in which rasquachismo is fleshed out in this piece, especially since this kind of sensibility is looked down upon when in reality is it just the way people, especially people of color and latinos, have learned to survive.

I also really liked the way Amalia Mesa-Bains described the nuances of rasquachismo. Especially when she stated "One can say that kitsch is appropriate, while rasquachismo is acclaimed or affirmed." I like the mention of the altars that are often found within Chicana homes, the found object style of their organization. In the same ways that Chicano rasquachismo defied the dominant paradigms of the time, so does Chicana rasquachismo (domesticana) but twofold: defying both the Anglo world and the male-dominated Chicano world.

Yolanda M. Lopez's "Madre Mestiza"

One of my favorite pieces from Yolanda M. Lopez's repertoire is her mixed-media collage entitled Madre Mestiza from 1978. This collage depicts the image of a Mayan woman breastfeeding a young child superimposed on the traditional image of La Virgen de Guadalupe. There is something so poignant about having an indigenous mother depicted as the Virgen, especially given the indigenous roots of this icon. Her gaze is averted just like the traditional Virgen but instead of being bowed in prayer, she is focused on the face of her child. Not only that, but her huipil can be seen lifted to expose her breast to the child, which is in sharp contrast to the fully covered dress of the Virgen. It brings the symbol of the Virgen, the Radiant Mother, into the world of ordinary motherhood. It is important to note that an actual child is being depicted, as opposed to a metaphorical idea of motherhood. It is visceral and real, flesh and blood and not some lofty idea of motherhood. There's something comforting and grounding about seeing a mother, like anyone else's mother, be depicted as the contemporary version of the Virgen. It is a powerful form of representation and reclamation of space and existence that is very different from the ways in which the Virgen is usually depicted in the majority of work found throughout the Chicano Art Movement. Madre Mestiza is not meant to be a symbol for religious or spiritual worship. Nor is it meant to be a vessel for the ideals of the Chicano movement; but rather a representation of ordinary mothers for ordinary mothers.

Ana Mendieta

I want to do my presentation on Ana Mendieta and her work because I was absolutely floored when I first stumbled upon her Siluetas series online. I've also seen a few other pieces of her work, specifically her performance art pieces, such as her Untitled Self Portrait with Blood and Untitled (Glass on Face) series. I've always wanted to learn more about her work and her personal life so I want to take this opportunity to do so.

I thoroughly enjoyed the reading Out of the House, the Halo, and the Whore's Mask which explored the CARA exhibit and its relation to the representation of Chicana artists. While the exhibit itself seemed to garner lots of praise for creating a space which highlighted the works of Chicano/a/x artists, this article looked critically at the actual composition of the exhibit itself and the artists it placed in the spotlight. Despite the attempts at equity, the CARA exhibit still seemed to perpetuate the same tropes they assigned to women in the movement (the virgin, the mother, the revolutionary, the whore) instead of using the space to highlight the issues that were most important to Chicana artists. It's interesting to see how the tension in the intersection of existing in the world as a Chicana and as a woman manifested in the portrayal of Chicana art in this exhibition. A question I have for Professor Alicia Gaspar de Alba, how would you imagine this exhibit being different if it would have been put on by Chicana artists? In which ways would it be similar?

Gonzalez, Melissa (Mel)

Hi y'all! My name is Melissa Gonzalez, but I usually go by Mel. My pronouns are she/they. I'm a fourth year Biology major, LGBTQ Studies minor. I'm a first generation college student from the Central Valley, specifically Bakersfield. Despite growing up in a predominately Latinx area of town, Bakersfield lacked the kind of rich, vibrant visual Latinx/Chicanx cultural influence that is often seen in cities like Los Angeles. I remember constantly worrying about how well I was assimilating into the predominantly white population of the town, plagued by shame and internalized racism. The public schools in my city didn't offer any kind of ethnic studies classes and the general history courses completely glossed over any mention of Chicanismo. Living in a conservative county deprived me of the knowledge that was so vital to my understanding of my place in the world. As I got older, I actively sought out more information on Latinx culture and the significance of that culture--I joined my high school's folklorico dance group which helped me undo much of the negative connotations I had subconsciously attached to my own identity. I didn't even know the word Chicano/a/x existed until I was in the later years of my high school career and I didn't fully understand it until I was a first year at UCLA. I jump at every chance I get to learn more about Chicanismo and Latinx culture in general, especially given the depth and breadth of these. I am super excited to learn more about Chicana art and artists in this class and I look forward to discussing it with you all!