Week 10 Reflections

A Yesenia Alvarado. Devil Ranfla (Shot Set), 2020. Stoneware, Gold, Glaze, Pencil. 5.5 X 7 X 4 In. Image From The Pit La

I learned a lot from this class; my favorite artists I got to study are: Marion C. Martinez, Carmen Lomas Garza and Diana Yesenia Alvarado. I love these artists material sensibility. In Martinez's case I love the way she thinks about all things as being intrinsically spiritual, life is spiritual; therefore anything you encounter in life in spiritual even debris. In her case, she revitalizes discarded technological waste. She adopts this waste then renews its worth by rearranging it into an art object. In Garzas case, I especially like her papel picado art work in which she take a mundane or 'craft" form and elevates it just by changing the context. Then fin later projects she by changes the material to make her cutouts more permanent. I think the Wiki project is such a cool idea and has never had the opportunity to write a wikipedia page before. I really appreciate when class projects feel like they exist outside of the classroom. My favorite terms I learned are: Domesticana/Rasquachismo (which I am still practicing pronouncing). Making with whats at hand, being resourceful, is a skill that more people, outside of lower class communities, need to learn.

Chicana Futurist Art of Marion C. Martinez

Marion Martínez, Oratorio a la Virgencita

Marion C. Martinez is a Chicana artist living in New Mexico.  Martinez makes art that is "Chicanofuturism" as defined by, Catherine S. Ramírez, as based on Nelson's Afrofuturism definition, is "chicano cultural production that attends to cultural transformations resulting from new and everyday technologies... that excavate, create and alter narratives of identity, technology, and the future; that interrogates the promises of science and technology; and redefines humanism and the human." While reading I was thinking of Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto; especially when Ramírez speaks about Laura E Perez's definition of the spiritual, which aligns with the way Martinez views, as "the perception, belief, concept, and experience 'that there is an essential spiritual nature, and thus an interconnectedness, of all beings, human and non-human.'" And when Ramírez discusses the idea of the big bang in which an entire universe was made out of nothing. This aligns with the way I view all things, as intrinsically linked, interdependent, sharing an existence and breathing together.

Week 8 !Printing the Revolution! From Black and Brown Solidarity to Afro-Latinidad (Favianna Rodriguez)

 

Migration is Beautiful 
Favianna Rodriguez

I was not able to attend the "!Printing the Revolution! Virtual Conversation Series: From Black and Brown Solidarity to Afro-Latinidad" due to work conflicts luckily a generous classmate uploaded most of the talk in the form of a voice memo on the groupme page. I was very grateful for this but I wish I could have seen a recorded version. The accessibility of events is something to consider for assignments in the future.

That being said I very much enjoyed the talk. The participants include Malaquias Montoya, Moses Ros-Suárez and Favianna Rodriguez. I especially liked Favianna Rodriguez's talk. She discussed growing up in Oakland Ca. during the war on drugs. Her family is from Peru and her father is Afro-Peruvian. Black and Brown communities were drastically shaped by the war on drug narrative that was created. She saw police brutality, gangs, pollution and the neglect of her, among other communities. However, she also saw how these communities responded with culture such as the birth of hip hop. This helped her realize that the stories that we tell ourselves shape politics and reality and grounded in her the belief that her art could help share/ project a different story. She was inspired by posters she saw and artists like Emory Douglas. Based off this inspiration she started making works on paper. In 2012 a poster at the Democratic National Convention. The poster was a form of protest against Obama's record breaking deportation record. She wanted to make work about the world and her "yeses" rather than focusing on "nos." Meaning she aimed to envision a future and world we want as opposed to the work she was making when she first started, which was about what she didn't want. The Migration is Beautiful work features a butterfly and is meant to elicit the idea that migration is beautiful just like nature, all living things move. Challenging the colonial idea that the artificial lines made by the Government are going to stop the movement of people or animals. The two faces represent how people move for love of each other or love of themselves. Rodriguez is an environmentalist; she is vocal about the climate crisis disproportionately affect ingBlack and Brown communities. Her work moves towards a different world view and aims to de-colonizing ways of thinking, reconnect humans to nature and fight the fossil fuel industry. She also mentions that her feminism is influenced by Audre Lorde and Gloria Anzaldúa. Growing up being told as a female to not have sex, look at anyone, or get pregnant really affected her. Having a platform now she openly talks about the abortions she has had in an effort to change the conversation. Feeling and confronting what the patriarchy has done to us is also represented in some of her work. She discusses feeling with the whole body, sexual liberation and sexual joy. Her work currently includes the mediums of wood block linoleum block, digitally combo of analog and digital and she is currently working on a large scale sculptural print.

Week 7: Graffiti Is Art

 

Chaz Bojórquez, Por Dios y Oro (detail)

Language and voice are identity; they define who we are. Art expresses a vision of our world. Graffiti is often stereotyped as vandalism and lacking control. Tagging and graffiti will never die. In the 1940s the Latino Zooters had their own prominent culture that influenced graffiti. They spoke their own language, Caló, which is Half-English half Spanish rhythms. They also have their own tag names and graffiti language. In Los Angeles, gang wall writing is called Placas. It is a pledge of allegiance to one’s neighborhood. The style of this graffiti features black, uppercase letters with a letter-face that  is always called “Old English.” Font is meant to signify formality, as is the contemporary high advertising-type format which is comparable to the US Constitution or ancient Sumerian clay tablets. Cholo gang graffiti is by the neighborhood for the neighborhood. Whereas with hip-hop graffiti the emphasis is on “getting up”(p4) one’s individual tag in a wide variety of places.Hip hop style typeface is more personalized with upper- and lowercase letters. This art seeks respect and validation. Advertising and Graffiti can be compared in the way they both bring up issues about who “owns” space and what is a “violation” of a space. The Graffiti movement is evolving as early artists age and new artists, many of whom have traditional art training, flood the scene. These new artists self validate. They believe Graffiti is born from “our contemporary fast-paced urban American lifestyle, and it reflects the ‘cable ready’ mindset of a rebellious generation.”(p5)

Week 6: Rasquachismo/Domesticana

I had not heard the term Rasquachismo until last year. I had not heard the term Domesticana until this class. I appreciate both terms. Domesticana is described as the "Chicana Rasquachismo." The Rasquachismo sensibility is the "underdog perspective." An "unfettered and unrestrained" attitude of resourcefulness acquired through lived experience. making the most from the least. Domesticana is geared towards the same but with special regard for female forms of making (ie. craft).

Growing up with nature as a teacher, I learned to make things and games from the elements bestowed upon me by the earth. I would use bamboo to make huts, dig deep holes to find clay like dirt and use my knife to carve wood. I love creating something from nothing. I grew up trying to fit in with friends who had things that were better or more beautiful than the things I had. When I could use my hands to make things that were considered beautiful or coveted it gave me a great feeling of pride. By my teens I could sew, embroider, use power tools, paint and draw. I made my middle school graduation dress (with some help from one of my dads clients). My family had a slight hoarding habit so there was always plenty of material to work with. Now up-cycling and resourcefulness are major parts of my artistic practice. I often use old clothes and sheets in my paintings or to sew/mend clothes or refurbish furniture. 

Attached are two photos. One of these photos is a poppy plushy I made for my mom for mother's day. This is made out of three old t-shirts and stuffing (used for storing art) that one of my past bosses had given me. The other photo is of a set of chairs and table that I bought from an estate sale for 65$ and reupholstered, which was a very ambitious just for fun project, but totally paid off.

Blog Post 5: knowledge/experiences with the Virgin of Guadalupe.

 

I remember, when driving on the coast of Baja California to Ensenada a few years ago, I took a picture of a giant Virgin of Guadalupe statue on the hillside. After spending about 40 minutes looking for this photo I was incredibly disappointed to find that my memory failed me; it was really a statue of Jesus Christ.

As a non-Chicanx/Latinx or Catholic person, I have had few impactful experiences with the Virgin of Guadalupe and until taking this class had very little knowledge about her, other than that she was a Virgin Mary figure of the Latino community. I would often see her in restaurants, homes, shops, gas stations and cars. She was often in paintings, on candles, keychains and apparel.

I had originally seen Yolanda M. Lopez’s, The Guadalupe Series when looking through art archives of Mexican and Chicana artists online. I was looking for art to show some young (predominantly Latinx) students; Yolanda Lopez’s work was perfect. I love the way that she used this figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe to frame the beauty and importance of females in her (mundane) life. Additionally, I like the subversive use of the Virgin figure in the artworks by Alma Lopez. Growing up in a Christian household, born out of wedlock, my mother fostered a distaste for the hypocrisy of religion. She rejected the church. Thinking about it with the perspective of the whore/madonna dichotomy it makes sense why she would feel so strongly about this. Alma Lopez’s Our Lady reclaims the figure by giving her a different narrative- a narrative in which she is an uncovered queer body.

Week 4: ¡Printing the Revolution! Exhibition Preview

I found the introduction to be off putting. The introduced a historical foundation in which the Smithsonian Museum exists was obviously well intended; Yet, the Native people of the land which the museum stands were referred to as "the native people" never their actual names(from some additional research it seems of of which tribes is the Piscataway). This and the information that the Smithsonian was built using slave labor was all said by a white woman as she grinned ear to ear. 

Then E. Carmen Ramos introduced the exhibition she discussed the reclaiming of the word "chicano," forms of urgent images: screen-print, lithography installation, interactive, public interventions and how the collective effort of chicano artists to show the value of everyday chicano culture and identity has lasted 5 decades. 

E. Carmen Ramos then introduces Claudia Zapata (Curator) who introduces Juan Fuentes, Esther Hernandez, and Zeke Péna. Fuentes discusses raising his social conscious commitment to teaching and community. Hernandez, a critical Chicana feminist figure, was lead to focus on queer communities and women's lives in her artwork for lots of reasons. She highlights the united farm workers historic march to Sacramento in the 60's. Zeke multi media narrative approaches to interpreting the US borderlands of the Southwest (specifically El Paseo Juarez borderlands). He blends traditional drawing and digital technology (which plays a role in the production, distribution and viewing of his works with augmented reality).

These are some of the subversive ways Chincanx artists inserted their work into the public sphere. 

Blog3: Diana Yesenia Alvarado (artist of choice)

MEZKALITA, 2020 

Diana Yesenia Alvarado

b. 1992

https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Diana-Yesenia-Alvarado/B96A96552C2E95D8/Biography

https://www.galleriesnow.net/shows/diana-yesenia-alvarado/

https://www.artland.com/exhibitions/turn-back-turn-back

http://www.the-pit.la/diana-yesenia-alvarado

https://joseph-burgos562.tumblr.com/post/188782859689/artist-diana-alvarado-exhibition-magic

https://mpalarea.tumblr.com/post/188791363144/artist-diana-yesenia-alvarado-exhibition-magic

http://www.clubpro.la/shapeshifter

Chicanx Graphics in the Digital Age, (blog2) EdwardsLouisa

Nonny de la Péna,
Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story

Nonny de la Péna,
Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story

AR/VR provides new ways to engage viewers in ulterior lives or supplemented realities, with “subjective vision”; Is the chance for perspective, to live a day in the live of someone who is for example undocumented and queer, via VR allow better empathy, and better allyship/co-conspiracy with this community?

Nonny de la Péna would answer yes. In the Project, Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story, you can physically feel a person's vulnerability? Do you think there are some experiences/things that should not be made into AR or VR? Like police violence on Black, Brown or Trans people? Is it more important in these cases to preserve the memory of these individuals such as in Oree Originol’s Justice For our Lives and prevent further trauma. Is using another person's trauma to further or inform a cause justifiable and important? Should the guidelines be that the work must not only be used as a form of political action but also honor the deceased? 

AR/VR could, similarly to the way violence in video games does not much affect a person's level of violence, have limits to affecting action. Due to the mental separation between the real world and the fantastical world. Yet again, VR is more immersive than video games. Playing video games is a voyeuristic experience. So is watching films yet, I find (effective) films to be a strong appeal to pathos. 

Perhaps Lev Manovich would argue that by borrowing a role or persona other than one's own and living, in a sense, through it there would be heightened ability for self reflection. In the case of Glass House by Jacalyn Lopez Garcia this is more of the video game setup. The “visitor” is just that, a visitor, a voyeur. Though they have some autonomy in choosing what order and which items and spaces to interact with, the scope of interaction is already paved by the artist. Does the knowledge of this being about a real person eliminate the video game disassociation affect? My guess would be yes.

Edwards, Louisa

Hello, my name is Louisa Edwards (she/her). This is me and my favorite chicken (rooster) Cleopatra; Sadly, he lives with my family and I miss him. I live in Los Angeles and am a fourth year transfer student; I am an Art major and an Art education minor. This year, I am doing a research project (through the URSP which I would highly recommend any/everyone looking into) investigating the sky, how information, including binaries, are permeable and ideas about systems of organizing time and space as directly affected by the cyclicality of nature and the linear structure of human life.

I am interested in this course because Chicanx/Latinx/Mexican/Hispanic peoples, as a minority-majority, are a large part of the U.S. population; however, the narratives and artworks of these peoples are not highlighted enough in much of the canonical history and art history I have received via the educational institution. As a co-conspirer and educator I wish to deepen my understanding of the history and current theory and practice of Chicanx/Latinx artists. This year, I have been teaching supplemental art classes for the LAUSD ABC program for recent migrant families; I would like to become more knowledgeable about artists and artworks created by people who look like and have a similar culture to the students I teach. When I first began studying art, learning about female artists formed pride, inertia, heightened interest and engagement. I am also interested in collective, collaboration and employing work to be more than an art object.

While reading, I was thinking about the contrast between the activism aesthetic of El Movimiento artworks in comparison to a new internet activism aesthetic such as used on the instagram page "so you want to talk about". El Movimiento's aesthetic features emboldened figures with bold lettering and colors namely, black white and red. The activism aesthetic of instagram features soft pastel colors, lettering in fonts like sans serif with little to no imagery. Is this an appropriate and honest way to disseminate information? Does the softness aid in gaining support or does it propagate a culture that views information as a collectable currency for personal gain? Of the vast index of artworks in Ramos Carmen's essay I especially liked Carmen Lomas' La Curandera, It's Simple Steve (artist unknown), Oree Originol's Justice For Our Lives, and Sandra C. Fernandez's Mourning and Dreaming High, con mucha fé.