make us human again, i say
creator said to me, put your mouth to the ground the earth tastes like flesh, i say and my tongue turns to clay my hands crumble and become the ground i panic as i try to gasp for air i try to say something else when i realize my breath has become the wind and as i try to cry my head began to rain upon my shoulders that became the mountains my stomach became the soil and from the clay of my tongue we emerged again, new and ancient this time we had nothing to say nothing to ask, we sat upon my old shoulders and allowed my old tears from above to give us life again, again we wondered if this life would last forever but knew that we would have to become again once more, once more. |
My art is mostly work with pen and paper–– line drawings rendered digitally. I also write poetry, build installations, experimented with videos, and performances. Stay tuned for more work to come in the near future...
Lunáticxs Meeting at the River
A work in progress, this poster's original vision was about to show unity at the imaginary "border" placed upon the Río Grande. Enrique Madrid, Jumano Ndé historian, is recorded in many writings as saying, "The river will never divide us, the river will always bring us together." Rivers have always been places of life; in much of the recorded and remembered hxstory, ancestral places along the Río Grande (from Paquimé, La Junta, and other places) have been major trading locations that bridged places in the south and places in the north. The region united people, it did not create division.
About the border, Gloria Anzaldúa says,
“The U.S-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country — a border culture.
Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.
This image is a vision to change the worldview of "us" vs "them;" we are the same.
About the border, Gloria Anzaldúa says,
“The U.S-Mexican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merging to form a third country — a border culture.
Borders are set up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line, a narrow strip along a steep edge. A borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are its inhabitants.
This image is a vision to change the worldview of "us" vs "them;" we are the same.
Protect the Big Bend
& La Junta Regions of West Texas
My offering in sharing a prayer for the high alert sparked by the movement to protect the Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
In Summer and Fall of 2016, Energy Transfer Partners also began to take large leaps in building a pipeline in my maternal grandmother's birthplace, homeland for the Jumano Ndé and other Native relations, in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, cutting from Marfa to Presdio, into Chihuahua, México.
Image in back is a photo I took in Shafter, Texas in June of 2012, the drawing intermixes different symbolism related to the area: the joining of the Río Grande and Río Conchos, the Marfa Lights, and others.
& La Junta Regions of West Texas
My offering in sharing a prayer for the high alert sparked by the movement to protect the Missouri River from the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
In Summer and Fall of 2016, Energy Transfer Partners also began to take large leaps in building a pipeline in my maternal grandmother's birthplace, homeland for the Jumano Ndé and other Native relations, in the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas, cutting from Marfa to Presdio, into Chihuahua, México.
Image in back is a photo I took in Shafter, Texas in June of 2012, the drawing intermixes different symbolism related to the area: the joining of the Río Grande and Río Conchos, the Marfa Lights, and others.
Installations
Nana Who Are We?: Matrilineal Remembrances West Texas to East LA (2015)
Inter-media installation piece with pen and color pencil drawings, wooden picture frames, tissue paper flowers and yarn. Piece for Indigenous Flux: A Native Art Exhibition in Hayward (Bay Area). Exploring the little stories I've received of where we came from and how we've come to be. From hearing how adobe houses are built, to the Marfa Lights and their relationships to histories of settler/colonial violence, to moving to California as farm workers, and becoming Xicanxs in East LA. In the middle is the Lady in Blue who appeared to the Jumano in the 1600s. |
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Drawings
Codex Americana: The Beginning/End of Time (2016)
Videos
HierbaReflections (2016)
An personal oral hxstory project with my Nana & Papa about their relationships to herbal medicine–– what they know, remember, have learned, and seen. In this video-interview-project I explored the idea of "memory" and remembering to know what we think we don't know. An assignment of finding "remedios caseros" within our communities done with the first round of Hood Herbalism students facilitated by Berenice Dimas of Cantos de la Tierra in the LA area. For more information about related projects and herbal work visit: www.berenicedimas.com/ |
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Paper Flowers (2014)
My Tía Xhita taught me and my cousins how to make flowers out of tissue paper, which we’d make for Día de los muertos. During the performance I made 5 flowers, representing the 5 generations within my family that is shown in the video projected in the background. I mimic the storytelling that takes place during the creative process that happens when being taught a cultural skill. I make them in homage of her teaching us many things about our family's story and ch/xican@ art in our community. Exploration piece, that is leading to other projects about intergenerational memory, responsibility to and teaching of the next generation. Performance piece done in Video & Performance Class, UCB Fall 2014. |
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Marfa Lights (2014)
A inter-media (recorded video/drawings/animation) interpretive storytelling of the Marfa Lights in Presidio County, Texas. Also an exploration of my relationship to my maternal ancestors' homeland. Video out of UC Berkeley's Multicultural Community Center's Creation Stories project Spring 2014. |
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