Studio Update • 03/11/2024

I am changing everyday...

I am changing everyday...

Sometimes nothing changes, and that’s okay.

Studio Update:

This week was not eventful in the studio. I am preparing to finish applications for a few different residencies, and in turn that means finishing up bodies of work and getting documentation in. I have one painting that has been in the works for a few weeks now. It’s at such a hard spot for me and I cannot figure out what it is that will complete it. I believe the figures face has to go back to being gesso and starting from the ground up. I’m uncomfortable with starting over, but why is that? I spent my Friday in class speaking to other students about the fact that I don’t toss things out if they prove to not provide me anything, but I am now debating this when it comes to this painting. I have attachment issues to things that I spend time with and I recognize that even when it comes to my artwork. How can I make it still work for me? What did I learn?

On top of working on the painting I am finishing out my glycerin soap dogs. I’m currently at 42 dogs and I am aiming for 44, but also should think more about the intentions behind this number. The other number im thinking of tentatively is the number 36 (the age my great grandmother crossed the border — this makes my grandmother 7 years old when she crosses). There is a lot up in the air and I only have two hands to catch it all — it feels impossible almost. I have to write my next (final) section of my thesis this week. I’m not sure it’s going well, but I am at least meeting deadlines so it’s something.

Thoughts/Dreams/Other:

I’m trying to keep it all together with everything in flux. There is a part of me that wants to return home. Home as in Indiana, but I felt as if I grew out of that place. I want to live and feel — I want to feel fulfilled and at peace. Money and working and all that other stuff isn’t a worry. It is a state of peace in my mind and with my decisions. A lot of the things that got me to this place in terms of my own decisions have been met with me wanting to change what they were at some point or anoother. I want the next decision to be void of that. I want to feel like I did what was right for me. It’s hard to know — Which I don’t think I can know ahead of time that the decision I make will be the right one. That’s life. Tough — unknowing as always.

Studio Update • 03/03/2024

Whisps in the (h)air

Whisps in the (h)air

Hairs spun between fingers — Weaving a net to cast out into the ocean

I’m sorry future self and you out there. I missed a weekend, but it was needed to recharge.

Studio update:

In the last two weeks, my thesis and classes took precedence over most things. I also got to a point in my current painting that feels like i’m stuck. I’m not sure how to resolve it so I’m allowing it to take its time to exist. Maybe it’ll start to change on its own (wouldn’t that be cool?). I am enjoying the format in which my thesis “paper” is taking shape. Here is a little excerpt from my writing that has really been on my mind…

"I’m dreaming of a little girl being brought to the US and when she arrived she was allowed access to everything she dreamt of. The stories of a better place with opportunity and freedom opened itself to her with warmth. She had access to language, education, and representation from others like her. That little girl was reminded every day that living was an act of survival and importance to her family and her future. She then grew up to be my grandmother and would instill those reminders in me. That I now, would be unwavering in who I am and where I come from. I would be filled with knowledge of all of the ways of our past and reminded that we didn’t run away from who we were, but instead, we brought it here. 

I’m waking up from the dream.”

I’m using autofiction more liberally as I find comfort and confidence in my voice. Understanding that I have the right to change narratives as I see fit and constructing (auto)fictional stories to better understand my existence.

Moving forward in the production of work I have been finalizing objects of hair and glycerin soap. A while back I made a silicone mold of the point at the top of the iron-wrought security window at my apartment. Before dreaming of a physical existence I had been drawing these objects as organic flowing iron. As I imagined a way to bring it into space I thought of the hair I had collected the last time I shaved my head and wanted to spin it into string. I am using string (my hair) now as a stand-in for bending iron. People have found this “gross” and I don’t know how that makes me feel. It’s hair and we all have it. My hair holds my memory why is it gross… I have one completed and a second is in its early stages.

Thoughts/Dreams/Other:

As all of this new work and thesis writing/recording continues I’m left thinking of what happens after school. I haven’t been able to experience a life without school. The downside of continuing straight from Undergrad into Grad school is this, and I’m finding myself worried. I have an idea for future work following school, but affording time for the future seems wrong when I have so much going on in the present. How do I give time for the present self and the future self? This image I took I posted on my Instagram and put text on it that said “hiding places”. I was smoking a cigarette on my back patio and one glimpse of light was there and it was this moment.

I want to move forward in my life feeling like this moment. A glimpse of light in the dark.

Does that make sense? Can I?

Studio Update • 02/18/2024

The act of carrying...

The act of carrying...

Pushing myself forward + holding myself back

Hi, you out there, or hello to me in the future. A week of advocation, affirmation, and awareness. Think of yourself now and how far you’ve come.

Studio work:

I left last week asking you a question and claiming I had my answer to it. I think it has shifted already. I believe I can relive someone else’s memory through the way they have given me access to it. If I have context for the memory/setting/people within that memory, then I too can experience it. That moment now becomes mine since I am the filter in which it becomes a shared reality.

Why is this important? Well, the painting I showed in progress last week has made drastic changes quickly in a long session within my studio. I couldn’t find comfort in knowing that I was changing my process of approaching my composition. I wanted to challenge myself to evoke the same emotion in a familiar composition using the underpainting as a reference. Dog + me + piercing.

The painting is now resting in my studio. I’m allowing it to soak up my being and I it’s. A new direction I may be going in is bringing iron-wrought patterns into the paintings to live as focal points within the background. I am unsure if I am happy with the warm brown that is currently activating the negative space. Going forward I will have to be more thorough in planning colors as it is still a new world for me.

Along with my painting this week I continued to pour dogs into molds I made in the wintertime. I accidentally melted my measuring cup in the microwave (oops…). I have been using glycerin as the material to form the dogs. I have written a few times about these in recent reflections and they are currently talismans that are protecting my memories. Using the dog has been liberating as I continue researching their meanings personally and historically. Something that resonated with me tremendously from Mexicolore.com, “’ And it was said that a white dog and a black one... could not carry one across to the place of the dead. It was said that the white one said: “I have just washed myself.” And the one which was black said: “I have just stained myself [black].” Only the yellow one could carry one across.” (par. 4). It was serendipitous to find out that the “yellow” dog carried the dead across the river. I never had a real intention for the yellow/amber color that my dogs were taking but I knew it resonated within me. To find this during research was a moment that was gratifying as I hope that in some ways these cultural memories are being passed down to me.

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Thoughts/Dreams/Other:

This week I have been thinking about — the act of carrying (things, people, emotion, etc.), representation (for myself and others), dogs, my hands, shadows, light, tenderness, restraint, memory, autonomy, the future, my grandfather(s), McAllen, Tx, and hair.

This week was hard — the long pauses in between conversations and the pauses within myself — I wonder how did I make it so far and yet feel so shortcoming. I’m sharing personal moments with my family, my peers, and now with you who reads this. I am the frightened rabbit in the yard, but also the animal that chases it. The work I’m putting in now is for you in the future. Don’t forget that.

Studio Update • 02/11/2024

What is your favorite dream?

Who were you then?

What is your favorite dream? Who were you then?

A week of (in)taking everything all at once

Hi, you out there, or hello to me in the future. Another week has gone by and it went quickly, and what has changed in seven days?

Studio work:

I finished a painting + started a new painting this week. I am at odds with myself on how to determine when paintings are done. Of course, as they say, a piece of artwork is never complete, but at some point, there is this feeling inside my belly + heart + mind that tells me to stop. This week I had that moment when looking at the green dog staring back at me in my painting. I haven’t come up with a title for it yet, but something along the lines of Washed in the Blood of Dog or Los Perros Me Dijeron Algo (The Dogs Told Me Something).

The new painting is in its early stages, and I’m not sure if I’m too happy with it. As I am new(ish) to this painting thing, I’m uncertain as to what my visual language is. The current shape these paintings rest in are large figures and dogs taking up the composition of the work. In this new work, the underpainting is more open, and the figures are not as much the focal point anymore, but I’m more interested in capturing a specific moment. It’s based on a memory of my mother’s, but a question I have for you to think about is how is it different to relive someone else’s moment/memory. Is it different than revisiting/remembering/reviving your own memory? If you want to know my answer, in short, it is. I’m hoping to make drastic progress on it this week and will continue to revisit this question, and maybe by next week, my answer will change.

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Thoughts/Dreams/Other:

This week I have been thinking about — family, my mother, dogs, my spine, the act of cradling, shadows, cyclical patterns, birds, shared struggle, hands, blurring, and overlapping objects.

I’d like to recount a dream for you. I was on my grandmother’s porch it is cement with 3 steps that leads to a walkway. Across the street is a very small factory (if that) and they have a parking lot that has a fence. In my dream, there was a dog behind the shiny silver fence and it was gnashing. I couldn’t figure out what it was upset about and then I saw a hawk swoop in and it stood in front of the fence. The dog somehow phased through the fence and attacked the hawk, and phased back through the fence where it was enclosed. I collected the hawk and held it close and quickly it recovered. I was sure it was dead, but it returned to the fence where this time I had noticed that the dog was protecting its child (a puppy). The puppy escaped and the hawk killed it and then following killed the mother/father. The hawk proceeded to turn its gaze to me and attacked me. The dream was overexposed and sunny I hadn’t seen my grandmother’s yard so bright before.

I’ve been trying to figure out what it means but I want it to come to me when it is ready.

Studio Update • 02/04/2024

my practice is everchanging

♡

my practice is everchanging ♡

My current studio practice… (where, what, and why)

Where?: Currently, my studio practice is everchanging in its location. Most times if I am working on an art piece on paper, canvas, or other it exists in the KSE building. Other times it exists within me as I exist out in the world which is more active when I am dreaming, ideating, and writing.

Entering my final semester of graduate school the questions of WHAT and WHY are constantly surrounding me and I realize the more I try to expand my answer to be elaborate the answer always returns to constant truths (in my life).

WHAT: My current studio practice is one of storytelling. One of honoring and acknowledging. One of dealing with the hard realities of these truths and outcomes. One of attempting to change the past. It has taken me time to know that the history within me and within those I come from deserves to be acknowledged for what it is but also given the freedom to be imagined differently.

Why?: My artist practice is reliant on my family’s history, my history, and the history of my ancestors that I don’t know (unknown because of issues such as the lack of understanding that our histories ARE enough to even be recorded). This past weekend I was able to engage with my mother in conversation about her history, where it overlaps with my lived experience, and how my artwork ties back into this overlapping of identities. Following this now as it is still so fresh, I am realizing that a component of the“Why?” is to document and to solidify that WE exist(ed) and that these lived moments/memories, some hard and some easy, truly have happened.