Week 10: Reflection

Having studied art for four years at UCLA and never having taken an Chicanas Art and Artist class, I only hoped to be surrounded by others who embrace art while wanting to learn more about the Chicana and Latinx communities. Never having taken a Chicano class, I was worried the information would be hard and too dense for me to keep up and retain what I learned. Surprisingly, having to draw while the lecture is happening made me feel more involved in the class discussion and allowed me to look back and remember details about what was discussed. The subject matter seemed like a class on me and my history. Having been born to a father who faces discrimination because of his nationality, skin tone, and construction occupation, I connected with the information on the evolution of southern California and jobs. In addition, I also connected with the discussions on latinos in academia and the United Farm Workers union during the time my mother was a child picking California oranges and participating in her high school’s walkout. For the first time in my life, I sat in a class where my history was being taught to me. Each lecture filled in details about my parents and grandparents that made my life more than an a progressive Latino skit for Netflix and more of a true uncut moment in history that has always and continues to affect me and my community.

Week 9: Artist Presentations

Laura Aguilar's work is one of the artists that I connect with the most because it takes a sense of comfort and familiarity with one’s body to properly execute a photographic style like hers. The artist is a large Mexican American woman who photographs her unique shape and body configurations into the environment around her. Many would say her body does not fit the traditional standards of beauty, however, that is the artists counterpoint in all her works. Aguilar’s body could be described as  “apples shaped” meaning her torso is round and significantly out of proportion with her thin arms and legs. Going against the norm, Aguilar does not cower and keep to herself, instead the photographer centers herself in environments where her natural nude female form compliments the environment as if to say she is and beautiful as nature itself. Although she may disrupt society's perspective on beauty, all of her images show a lack of disruption within wildlife environments traditionally disrupted by mankind. In many images Aguilar photographs her backside in fetal position to accentuate her round shape and organic curvature. For a large brown woman of color, her style of self portraiture helped pioneer the road for marginalized communities who are constantly made to feel inferior. The piece Self - Portrait #2 (1996) from her Show and Tell Series shows the epitome of her work, in my opinion. I gravitated to her work instantly after witnessing a unique confidence that I don’t usually see in a woman of her stature being compared to beautiful landscapes and embracing her body in natural space not intended for editorial magazines.

Week 7: Anna Serrano

I chose Mexican American artist Ana Serrano to present on because of how relatable her work is, how highly recognizable it is for non-latinos as well. Serrano comes from East Los Angeles and uses her work to describe her cross-culture identities. Knowing Latinos have a distinct way of making their homes colorful and unique, Serrano brings light to individual styles, techniques , and characteristics that embody the Latinx environment. The artist works as a sculpture using cardboard and paper, making life size neighborhoods, advanced character pinatas, and 3D images. One work in particular that stands out to me is her 2011 piece “Salon of Beauty” which encompassed an almost life-sized small neighborhood of a marginalized latino community. Each building was made framed by wood and covered completely from cardboard before being painted and decorated with cardboard props and details. No human was shown as a printed or cardboard figure, however, the entire piece resembles actual buildings owned by minority members of my Latino Los Angeles community. Some of the buildings included bakeries, nail salons, and front patios. Each structure was vibrant and distinctively latino, however, the people that went to the view and experienced the work were Texas-based locals who were completely disconnected with East LA. Through Salon of Beauty, the latino community was looked at and idolized as high art which is of constant importance to Ana Serrano as a Latinx artist.

Week 6: Sketchbook Cover

My papel picado design is of a mariachi skeleton playing a guitar. I have always found how Latino culture views death in a more romantic or comical way where as some other cultures view it as something to not make light of. By making something so obviously latino, I find it not only a cliche but also a way to embrace my obvious musical and fun background. 

Originally, I was conflicted with my skeleton design and wanted to make a piece inspired by La Loteria, the Mexican bingo game, specifically with the  “El Borracho” character. The game itself is a reflection on my time in my first Chicano Arts class as a Latina. Seeing engaged students who are interested and excited about the topic in front of them and participate reminds me of playing Loteria. Because the game revolves around knowing basic Spanish words, it's easy for first to third generation Mexicans to participate and unite everyone together. However, I really enjoyed the mariachi skeleton  playing a guitar and wanted to use this project as a chance to make a funny piece.

Week 5: Chicana Printmakers

While reading Holly Barnet-Sanchez’s “Where are the Chicana Printmakers?” I was able to gain insight on the presence of Chicana artists during the Chicano Movement and how vital their presence was and how they were being overlooked even amongst their Chicano communities. As Sanchez stated, Chicana artists had a more challenging time establishing themselves as serious artists due to how their male counterparts who were the ones receiving recognition for their depiction of Latinas. The Chicanos throughout history books are always understood to be the ones who make it into being remembered, however, the author notes that it was the Chicanas’ use of absence in what was not depicted in the Chicanas’ works that often told a more honest and believable perspective of the portrayal of Latin women. 

Sanchez goes on to say how even though Chicana artists during the movimiento were not seen to be “in the front lines” it was their works that allowed the rest of the movement to be heard. Thanks to the Chicana printmakers and various organizations during the 1970s, Chicanos were able to spread the word, connect, and march on with the current happenings in their communities. Due to the movimiento being such a pinnacle moment in Latino American culture in the United States, prints during that time became archived, collected, and displayed in museums- allowing for the study and research of Chicana printmakers and artists to become more apparent.

Week 4: Rasquachismo + Domesticana

When looking at the Chicanx community, there is a particular group that is commonly looked at as the lowest sub-tier within that demographic - Chicanas. When it comes to making art, many criticize the level and quality that comes from the women in commonly domestic spaces. While reading and understanding the origins of the terms “rasquachismo” and “domesticana”, I began to understand how it connects on works produced by females of latin American backgrounds. As it is described in the reading, rasquachismo is an attitude or taste of art that, by many, is seen as “low class” or work created by “the-have-nots”. In other words, rasquachismo is an attitude taken into making art that comes from the harsh environment many Chicanx live in while recognizing the Mexican culture they come from. 

Domesticana is also illustrated as a descriptive style in the book as a way for female Chicanas to express their art. As mentioned in class, it is one thing for Chicanos to make art, but it is a completely different thing for women in that same community to have a space, resources, and permission to have their art accepted in the art world. Domesticana works as a way for Chicanas to make art that represents a female environment and labor. Chicano and Chicana Art elaborated on the use of alters inside the home. For many, alters are a classic symbol of connection with ancestral backgrounds and a sense of peace commonly found in homes where a Chicanas have control of. Due to the typically understanding that men’s work is outside the home, where women's is inside, the colorful creation of alters goes beyond having a function but also becomes a symbol for Chicana artistic control. 

Yolanda Lopez "Mexican Chair" (1986)

Chicana artist and feminist, Yolanda Lopez, constructed a mixed media piece titled “Mexican Chair” in 1986.

Yolanda M. Lopez Mexican Chair (1986)

The chair has an image of the famous sleeping mexican, resting against the cactus, and the seat of the chair is made to emulate a cactus with sharp thorns - making the seat cushion unusable. The piece was part of the installation Things I Never Told My Son about Being Mexican (1985). Although not very discussed, Mexican Chair resonated with me the most. Being a Mexican American woman, I have connected with cactus before white American- yoga hippies thought it was just a trendy look. Cactuses are the sole plant I have been able to connect myself outside of my urban environment. Personally the cactus is a symbol for hardship, beauty, resources, and members of my native and indigenous communities. The skin of the cactus as depicted on Lopez’s chair, shows a lack of opportunity for rest. The sleeping image of the Mexican is a harsh stereotype that Mexicans are lazy. The two areas of the chair contrast each other. However, by titling the piece “Mexican Chair” I found it a playful and clever way to illustrate the chair is in fact Mexican, however, no rest will be taken on it- not for the Mexican and not for those watching. 

I too am a cactus-making artist that has social-political work on the Mexican stereotype. In a current exhibition titled Migration at UCLA’s New White Gallery, I fabricated Opuntia.

Carisse Zepeda, Opuntia (2020)

Opuntia is a ten foot tall cactus with a cactus alter where individuals can pick up an ipad, raise it to a monarch butterfly, and through augmented reality users can see the faces of those who have grown alongside the cactus on its native land. I instantly gravitated to Lopez’s Chicana work, because I too share a sense of what it means to be stereotyped with the desert plant.

Ana Serrano

I choose Ana Serrano, as my Chicana artist to do my presentation on.

2020 Zepeda, Carisse

Hi everyone! My name is Carisse but I go by CJ. I'm a fourth year Design Media Arts major and film minor. A lot of my work revolves around marginalized communities, and personal Latina experiences. My specialty is working in extended realities (augmented reality, virtual, mixed, ect.). I transferred from Riverside City College and am now looking at my last 2 quarters at UCLA before leaving to Mexico City, then graduate school (hopefully in California). I’m still waiting to hear back from NYU, Columbia, UCLA, USC but I will find out soon. 

I never got a chance to study abroad so I’m using the short summer after graduation to be a college student in Mexico City around UNAM. I’m also looking forward to have the best food in the world for a few months because no tortillas beat the ones that come from DF and I can’t find pulque anywhere around Los Angeles. 

Not aware upon applying to UCLA, was I expecting to be enrolled into the most problematic non-diverse major on campus. It’s been frustrating to not have faculty with relatable backgrounds that can connect or push my work in a way members of minority communities could resonate with. I’ve signed up to join clubs on campus, but none of them met this year, so enrolled myself in this class in hopes to reconnect again with my community and learn about the social environment my parents experienced after arriving into the United States.