The woman in López’s photograph poses arms akimbo, head tilted. Her face stares straightforwardly out, unsmiling lips expressing ‘what are you looking at?’ confidence.
Some viewers were looking outragedly at the figure’s floral bikini. Then the naked breasts of the putto at la Virgen’s feet. All Hell broke loose, propelling López to well-earned prominence among American artists, as well as enduring scorn from nattering whatevers.
At the time, López likened the scourging to a 21st century inquisition, cites Alicia Gaspar de Alba, in her introduction to her co-edited collection Our Lady of Controversy. Alma López’s Irreverent Apparition.
The eleven chapters include essays by López and Gaspar de Alba, as well as Tey Marianna Nunn, Kathleen Fitzcallaghan Jones, Deena J. González, Luz Calvo, Clara Román-Odio, Emma Pérez, Cristina Serna, Catrióna Rueda Esquibel.
Our Lady of Controversy is a useful book for scholars and arts aficionadas aficionados. In addition to insight and history set forth, there’s fun for all in the chapter titles. There’s “Death Comes for the Archbishop” and “Do U Think I’m a Nasty Girl?”
It takes a rare editor to allow such liberties, but then Gaspar de Alba’s introduction, “Our Lady of Controversy: A Subject That Needs No Introduction”, kicks off the collection with understated aplomb. Chapter 2, Nunn’s “It’s Not about the Art in the Folk, It’s about the Folks in the Art: A Curator’s Tale.” Chapters 7 and 8, gender / nation, life / virgins, López’s final essay santa / fe feature the same figure, chiasmus.
It’s humor, gente. With a point. Ever the English professor, Alicia Gaspar de Alba prefaces a long explanation of the device to illustrate her motive behind the motif:
By focusing on one controversial piece of art in one small exhibition in Santa Fe, the chapters show the complex intersectionality of cultural politics, historical memory, and gender dynamics that informs exhibition practices and public reception…they also use Our Lady as a case study for examing the different chiasmi—or opposing ideas—that took center stage in the controversy.
She could as readily pointed to Clara Román-Odio’s subtitle in chapter 6, “Queering the Sacred: Love as Oppositional Consciousness in Alma López’s Visual Art” for an explanation. Oppositional consciousness, a gem of a phrase so explicitly accounts the demands chiasmus places upon readers. I suppose if one has to explain a joke it’s not that funny. This table of contents, however is the exception. Most cool, editors.
Bound with the book comes a DVD, “I (heart) Lupe” that is a “conversation with Ester Hernandez, Yolanda M. López, and Alma López.” Viceroy Butterfly Productions. As I am reading the book I purchased for my wife’s Mothers Day gift, the disc remains sealed. For an idea of the DVD contents, see the promo at the artist’s website.
Affordable in paperback, a collector’s gem in hardback, buyers will appreciate the publisher University of Texas Press’ superb reproduction quality in color plates and adequate b&w detail.
I do not know why some protestors hate the Virgin but there they go again, up in Oakland. From the author's website:
America Needs Fatima is protesting "Our Lady" print at the Oakland Museum of California. They have received thousands of emails requesting to remove the print from the exhibition Contemporary Coda. They have also planned a protest on May 21 at the museum. Please send them an email of support, and cc me at almaloveslupe@gmail.com.
America Needs Fatima is also protesting the Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lopez's "Irreverent Apparition" edited by Alicia Gaspar de Alba and myself on amazon.com. They are writing horrible reviews. Please log on to amazon.com and write a review here.
Author Book signing at Ave50 Studio
Alma López defines a duality in fusing her chicana impressions with Mexico’s Virgen de Gualdalupe image.
Alma López tells the packed gallery she did not intend to brew controversy when she agreed to hang her photograph of a floral-bikini’d Virgen de Guadalupe floating above a bare-breasted angelita with butterfly wings. The house smiles delightedly learning the symbolism infused in the butterfly species involving lepidoptery, immigration, mimicry, regeneration, change.
Alicia Gaspar de Alba places López's Lupe in a context sweeping across time from the legendary cloak to a series of chicana images including López's. The DVD features three of the artists.
The signing line paced leisurely as each person enjoyed passing conversations with the panelists.
Gaspar de Alba signed and kept hash marks on a handwritten chart. Beautifully printed serigraphs, magnets, and books. Dozens of books. She confesses to losing count, relying on subtraction to calculate the pair's evening sales.
Artists who'd profit from showing and selling at the show should contact Erica, the organizer immediately for the Application. Drop-Off day is May 12.On-Line Floricanto Anniversary Edition
When Arizona legislators declared war on non-whites last year, proponents expressed ugly pent up rage that crossed over from vitriolic bravado to murder. Federal judges prevent enacting the state's punitive legislation, but there is no way to dispel Arizona's clear message: this State's government encourages hate.
On May 10, 2011, we will be celebrating the first anniversary of "On-Line Floricanto," the collective poetry selections that are posted on every Tueday issue of LA BLOGA under the coordination of Michael Sedano. The selections are done from poems posted on the Facebook page "Poets Responding SB 1070" by the Moderators and Administrators of that FB page: Francisco X. Alarcón, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Carmen Calatayud, Elena Díaz Bjorkquist, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Andrea Hernandez Holm, Abel Salas, Hedy Trevino, and Meg Withers.
We appreciate very much Michael Sedano's support, encouragement, and dedication, and thank all the poets whose poems have made "On-Line Floricanto" an important outlet for poetic expressions in solidarity for human rights against the xenophobic and anti-immigrant Arizona law SB 1070 and other similar state laws. Our goal remains "For a humane comprehensive immigration reform and for civil rights for all."
These are the poems written by current and former Moderators and Administrators of "Poets Responding to SB 1070" to celebrate the first anniversary of "On-Line Floricanto" at LA BLOGA:
1. "Floricanto Digital / On-Line Floricanto" by Francisco X. Alarcón
2. "An Offering of Strength" by Carmen Calatayud
3. "Ghost Riders Road" by Antoinette Nora Claypoole
4. "From the Frontlines of SB 1070 by by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
5. "Poem 25 ~ Giving Voice" by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
6. "dedicated to the poets responding to sb 1070 - part uno" by israel azul f haros lopez
7. "Poets Responding /Poetas Respondiendo" by Andrea Hernandez Holm (Spanish translation by Francisco X. Alarcón)
8. "Cries of a Deported American" by Edith Morris-Vasquez
9. "Keep Hope Alive" by Hedy Trevino
10. "Dear World, Dear Earth, Dear Angel of Despair And Joy – January 6, 2011" by Alma Luz Villanueva
11. "One Spoke / Hablamos" by Meg Withers
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
AN OFFERING OF STRENGTH
For All Who Cross the Border to Survive,
and All Who Stand Up to Racist Laws
By Carmen Calatayud
The marrow I suck spills out of my
mouth and into a dark room where
the floor is covered with black grass
and dying trees that have a story to tell.
This is the sorrow I couldn’t share before:
The wounds of this world slip inside of
me and I am just a vehicle
for the United States of Pain.
But please don’t be afraid, Nogales.
Dear Phoenix, don’t cry too hard.
Ciudad Juarez, cup your hands.
I am with you 24/7.
My heart is the news cycle that never sleeps.
My palms beat the drums that support your bones.
My throat sings the chants that blaze your prayers.
Mariposas raise the roofs of the suffering ones
who long for freedom and love.
The transformation tastes like ether but the
anesthesia fades, and the hour of breaking open
appears as clearly as a milky moon
on an early November night.
The ancestors have arrived and they say
drink to the soul in the sky.
Your time is now. Your rights asserted.
Your voice is pure and deserving.
You are one in a long line of spirits
with blood that blesses us all.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Celebrating one year of Poets Respond!
GHOST RIDERS ROADS
for Warriors of All Nations
by Antoinette Nora Claypoole
"But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone.
As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together."
---Leslie Marmon Silko, from Ceremony
1.
There is this palace where queens of love and beauty live.
Where White Shell Woman and her sister Turquoise want to be.
This place where when you have given man all you can and he asks for more this place you create for him to make. West wind in our faces. Travelling back from the Land after four days and four nights of will the U.S. Army come in shooting.
2.
Her fingers kissed and pressed as rose inside pages of her baby-making days, her fingers press into his lips and with his he does the same. All this while she counts as inches marked on back of door quietly closed to show night an unlaced face.
With full mouth he kissed her silken flesh.
These are kisses etched as petroglyphs inside the cave of many worlds.
And it is said inside their place of flame an ancient story's told.
In this way they live the legend of lover never slain.
Years earlier, in the back alley of someone else's ripped and yellowed, fading loves me not reality, it is said, that as eagle over arbor she harbored houseboats filled with feather beds inside her heart for him. For him she drifted restless port to port looking for the sister of the dreamtime, snagging sights of late night lover as though they were all the source of Mediterranean Pacific place.
Back then he wore these very baggy linen cream colored old fashioned trousers, suspendered slightly and striped and leather hitches buttoned to some Mother of a Pearl. And she was most truly white shell oyster place. She the jewel born of dragon flies and beaded breast open yes they were as pages blown in summer Wind of flicker's flight.
But still. She cut her hair. Like we do when family dies.
Yet only enough to buy him words he longed to be and when
he first touched garnet of her quiet place her face became his heart.
Her eyes etched his flesh as some queen's china cups
to drink the heat of their access across the seas of fate.
In this way he did not burn.
And in this way she did not die.
He saved her many times.
She saved him many times.
For it is said in many other days she birthed him to this world.
And it is in this way they will always be related.
It is in this way she remembers.
How as ink in pen, as sandstone on the rock, his skin became her words.
Sadly, their stories are never truly spoken.
Yet, their stories have never been forgotten.
Today she lives as they.
Today he lives as she.
For once they slept on grass of spruce and black blanket of a mountain.
With cotton embroidered sleeves in streets of bonnet laced around her waist
in some other time the Roman White Shell fountain became their sacred hearth.
Theirs was the wish all others toss away.
But this was all long before today.
And this is her today.
She writes him moving past her window in the Wind.
He is the floating motion of a distant fallen Sun.
She is distant floating motion of the Warm Springs To' sido rising.
That song, their touch, are like that canyon on the western slope beyond
the sacred mountains.
Like that Oak Creek where Apache once could be, she is not afraid.
She is sacred milk of life.
She has all ways been like this.
Kissing fingers pressed into their lips.
She shows him all of this.
He is blue like night Sky.
She is family on the other side.
Meteors of lapis sparkle on her flesh.
Heathered sage and juniper collect a scent guided by destiny's a mystery.
3.
She remembers him feather painting in Red Rock way.
He remembers her washing deep his wounds.
Their words in Air and stone remain.
"We will survive. This cannot be denied."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
FROM THE FRONTLINES OF SB 1070
Dedicated to all poets who have submitted
to Poets Responding to SB 1070 in the past year
by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
SB 1070 shocked me, dismayed me.
We Chicanos had come too far
In Arizona to be set back even further.
I wanted to leave my birth state.
Move back to California?
No longer possible.
Move to Texas?
Not an option.
Move to New Mexico?
Maybe.
Life here no longer comfortable,
I felt downright scared.
I was no longer physically prepared
To picket,
To protest.
Reason set in
Why should I run?
Abandon the life,
The nicho I’d created
For myself by returning
To the land of my birth?
Not long after
I met Francisco X. Alarcón
At a Floricanto at my cousin’s house
And knew my pen could be
My weapon.
My passion could be
My salvation.
Francisco invited me to help
Moderate Poets Responding
to SB 1070 on Facebook.
I joined the conscientious group
Of moderators/poets and knew
My decision was righteous.
We gave other poets a platform
To use their pens
To protest.
Reading hundreds of poems
Gave me animo,
Encouragement to
Live on the frontlines
Of SB 1070,
To write my own poems,
To sing in my own voice
The history of my people,
The stories of the wrongs
Perpetuated by laws like
SB 1070,
Animo to fight for what
Is right.
Animo to fight for what
Is just.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
POEM 25 ~ GIVING VOICE
Dedicated to La Bloga and
all Poets Responding to SB 1070
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
no choice
but to speak out -
loud about injustice
those who must hide have no voice, just
slashed tongues
they hide
while being used
by people who speak lies.
they work, live silently in fear
waiting
who then
will speak for us
when others turn away
who joins in solidarity ~
speaks up
unearth
muted voices
teach them new songs to sing
dedicate them poems for peace ~
flowers
flor y canto
poder ~ [power]
sweet medicine to heal
fear, hatred and yes, to demand
justice
© 2011 Odilia Galván Rodríguez
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
POETS RESPONDING
by Andrea Hernandez Holm
They carry me
Wrapped securely
Upon their backs
Bound bone to bone
upon their backs
They carry me
When I think
I can not think
Anymore
Or hurt
Anymore
Or dream
Anymore
They carry me
Use their words
As shields
Use their words
As salve
Use their words
To carry me
POETAS RESPONDIENDO
por Andrea Hernandez Holm
Me cargan
Envuelta y asegurada
Sobre sus espaldas
Soldando hueso con hueso
Sobre sus espaldas
Me cargan
Cuando pienso
Que no puedo pensar
Ya nada más
O doler
Ya nada más
O soñar
ya nada más
Me cargan
Usan sus palabras
Como escudos
Usan sus palabras
Como ungüento
Usan sus palabras
Para cargarme
Traducción al español por Francisco X. Alarcón.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
dedicated to the poets responding to sb 1070 - part uno
by israel azul f haros lopez
1
to the authors of dreams
the catchers of words
you have birthed me
shown me how to break
and bend inside worths
2
to crawl underneath
la frontera
and carve out the bones
and palm the red water
of those forgotten
3
you tell me to scream again
you write me the silence
of my dignity y paz
despite this war
along picketed fences
4
who are they
so afraid
of inside these laws
you
the one
who writes
with the laws
of the wind
tonantzin
tonatiuh
y toda la magia
de tus aguas
y tu fuego
5
i will die with you
write words
over and over
prayers to the women
prayers to the men
prayers to the children
whose homes
have been ripped
from the inside
since 1492
6
these homes
we built with palabra
this justice
y humandad
que nace de nuevo
con cada vibración
que conectas
tlacuilo
desde el corazón
del cielo
haste el corazón
de los ojos
donde caen tantas
aguas
donde nutres
el camino
con raíces
y luz para
el pueblo
escrito por
israel azul f. haros lopez
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
CRIES OF A DEPORTED AMERICAN
by Edith Morris-Vasquez
American made of origins, Sea,
I think of you now, a destination
for my ancestors who my ancestors
gave a place to live and to seek freedom
of worship, you say? Then why do we Stay?
Let’s go back to Ireland and Wales,
and for those mixed blood who’d choose to remain,
count me in, Grandmother Wind, abuela,
my hero who gave birth to fourteen lives:
I invoke your Harp, your hardened furrows,
Wrinkled, suffering, swallowing her cries,
lines of a deported American,
sung in a language she once knew, English
which she refused to speak ever again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
KEEP HOPE ALIVE
by Hedy Garcia Trevino
When love is obscured
by the shadow of fear
I will fan the embers and
keep hope alive
When the dreams
of our children are shattered
and tossed to the wind
I will call on the song of the eagle
When the mountain I climb
is covered in thorns
I will seek out
the softness of stones
When the river
is blocked
by rancid intolerance
I will launch into flight
When the doors and windows
are shuttered tight
I will search for
the key in the rubble
When the wind roars at my back
and tears at my flesh
I will chant the song
of forgiveness
When the song
of the mountain is silenced
When the double rainbow fades
I will return with Grandfather
to that sacred place
to beat the drums of hope
and whittle magic flutes
from river willows
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Dear World, Dear Earth, Dear Angel of Despair And Joy – January 6, 2011
by Alma Luz Villanueva
Early morning, as we land in Mexico
City, I see the immense angel, I
blink my eyes, I stare and
stare, it doesn't disappear, it
remains firm, hovering at the
edge of Mexico City's sprawl,
Cloud Angel, Spirit Angel, Angel
Of Despair And Joy, Begging Angel,
Starving Angel, Murdered Angel,
Tortured Angel, Child Prostitute
Angel, Angel Of The Well Fed Loved
Child, Angel Of Loving Parents,
Angel Of Those Who Feed The Hungry,
Angel Of Those Who Give To Beggars,
Angel Of Those Who House The Beaten
Human body, Angel Of Those Who
Weep For Mercy Compassion Harvest,
Angel Of Those Who Rage For Poverty's
People, Angel Of The Unashamed
Who Bellow, Angel Of The
Shamed Who Whimper, Angel of
Our Humanity, Angel Present Alive
Every Where, Angel At The Edge Of
Mexico City, I didn't know you
were there until this morning,
December 9, 2011, if I flew
city to city, country to country,
continent to continent, I would
see you firm, hovering, your
immense wings folded softly,
fiercely, your speed of light
eyes balancing the terror,
the wonder, of being
human, you temper our
blindness, give us sight,
Angel Of Diamond Light
Eyes, watching, weeping, gazing,
our strange, stubborn, human
beauty, we persist because of
you, Angel Of Despair
And Joy, at the edge of
Mexico City, every city, town,
village, every Turtle Island,
our Earth.
(To the city of Tucson, the nine-year-old
angel, Christina Green, killed on January 8, 2011.
May the Circle Of Angels Of Despair And Joy unfurl
their soft, fierce wings, tip to tip, around Tucson at this time.)
* * * *
Los Angeles, The Angels, at noon,
Angel Of Illegal Immigrants, Spanish,
Vietnamese, Chinese, Cambodian spoken
on the streets, many more, do you
sing in every human language,
Turtle Islands once the massive
Tortoise emerging from primal,
cellular swirling sea, from
space blue blue blue womb
water, I hear you singing on
the streets of Los Angeles, your
sweet clear voice pierces my
stubborn, persistent, will-to-live
human heart...Angel Of Dreaming
Immigrants, Angel Of Native People
Of This Continent (their drums, their
voices, their rattles, dance, song,
keeping us alive, ancient prophecy
coming home, coming home to the
streets of Los Angeles, The Angels, the
Earth, coming home), Angel Of The
Ancient Trade Routes, Angel Of
Shimmering Shifting Borders,
Angel Of The Dispossessed,
Angel Of the Possessive,
Angel Of Diamond Light Eyes,
I hear your sweet clear voice
piercing even the concrete, flowing
over the Pacific, her still fertile,
swelling waves, piercing every
stubborn human heart, our
Angel Of Despair And Joy,
I hear you singing in every
language, I don't know
the words, what I hear/feel,
your harsh, persistent healing.
* * * *
Santa Cruz, Holy Cross, ancient
symbol of healing (not crucifix),
night, oh Angel Of Scattered
Families, oh Angel Of Gathered
Families, how do we stand to feel
so much, I wonder, these gathered
memories from sheltered womb to
open door, the delicious, terrifying,
lush, killing, O beauty, O horror,
this human world,
this perfect Earth,
O Angel Of Diamond Light Eyes,
O Angel Of Terror And Wonder,
O Angel Of Despair And Joy,
O Angel Of Scattered, Gathered
Families, the families we're
born to, birth to,
the families we create,
O Angel Of Endless Weeping,
O Angel Of Endless Laughter,
we heard your harsh, persistent
voice, healing, and we danced,
oh we danced to your song,
terror, oh the wonder,
at the edge of Santa Cruz,
at the edge of Los Angeles,
at the edge of Mexico City,
at the edge of every floating,
rooted Turtle Island continent,
at the very edge of our Cosmos,
O Angel Of Diamond Light Eyes,
keep watch as the ancient prophecies,
the ancient trade routes, come
home, keep singing your harsh,
persistent, healing song, every language,
O Angel of Despair And Such
Joy.
* * * *
Watsonville, Califas, a few miles south of Santa Cruz-
My granddaughter works with the
Farm Workers, their children born
two fingers to each hand, im
perfect (as my four children
were born perfect, spraying
of the fields, their parents
with cancers, dying to
pick the food of millions,
fresh cheap food at the supermarkets,
ICE separating illegal parents from
their legal children- we marched
the streets with Chavez, La Huerta,
over thirty years ago, still they
spray the fields (every where, this
Turtle Island), two fingers to each
hand, the im perfect children, to
their parents perfect- my youngest
son works with the families of the
dispossessed, the hungry, no
food or refrigerator to hold it, no
place to sleep (bed, mattress), no
place to sit (couch, chairs), no
table to gather (food food), the
country of wealth, abundance,
one in four children are hungry,
Martin Luther King, "The worst violence
is poverty," O Angel Of The Farm
Workers, O Angel Of Toxic Food,
Angel Of The Im Perfect,
Angel Of The Perfect,
Angels Of Violence,
Angels Of Healing,
surround each field, unfurl
your wings, tip to tip,
O Angel Of Diamond Light Eyes,
the terror, and always
the wonder.
*To my youngest son, Jules...and to my granddaughter, Ashley.
To all the daily human angels, wing tip to wing tip, every
Turtle Island, into the Sixth World.
Alma Luz Villanueva
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Always crossing the ancient trade routes, Kokpelli's song.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ONE SPOKE / HABLAMOS
by Meg Withers
Unvoiced - nothing
No incluso eco
We voice ourselves
Armados con palabras
We whisper or shout
Somos somos
One spoke
Ahora hablamos
We cannot
Volver al silencio
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
BIOS
2. "An Offering of Strength" by Carmen Calatayud
3. "Ghost Riders Road" by Antoinette Nora Claypoole
4. "From the Frontlines of SB 1070 by by Elena Díaz Bjorkquist
5. "Poem 25 ~ Giving Voice" by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
6. "dedicated to the poets responding to sb 1070 - part uno" by israel azul f haros lopez
7. "Poets Responding /Poetas Respondiendo" by Andrea Hernandez Holm (Spanish translation by Francisco X. Alarcón)
8. "Cries of a Deported American" by Edith Morris-Vasquez
9. "Keep Hope Alive" by Hedy Trevino
10. "Dear World, Dear Earth, Dear Angel of Despair And Joy – January 6, 2011" by Alma Luz Villanueva
11. "One Spoke / Hablamos" by Meg Withers
Francisco X. Alarcón
Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, is author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), and Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992) His latest book is Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun (Swan Scythe Press 2010). His book of bilingual poetry for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú (Children‚s Book Press 2008), was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award. He has been a finalist nominated for Poet Laureate of California in two occasions. He teaches at the University of California, Davis. He is the creator of the Facebook page POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 that you can visit here.
Carmen Calatayud
Carmen Calatayud is a poet and psychotherapist in Washington, DC. Born to a Spanish father and Irish mother in the U.S., her poetry has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. She won a 2003 Larry Neal Poetry Award. Calatayud’s poetry manuscript Cave Walk was a runner up for the 2010 Walt Whitman Award. She lived and wrote in Tucson in the 1990s, where she worked as a literacy advocate. She is a poet moderator for the Poets Responding to SB 1070 Facebook group.
My work as a writer spans 20 years and is informed, most extensively, by my years of working and living within Indian Country. That is--after a move from the East (born in Rochester, N.Y.) to the West in 1980--I met and began helping members of the American Indian Movement. Because of my ability to write news clips, press releases and network with organizations that published accounts of struggles within various tribes, my writing life is a textured landscape of freelance journalism (The Sentient Times, Ojibway News, hEyOka magazine), poetry published in literary reviews of the North and Southwest (The West Wind Review, Salt River Review, Voices of New Mexico) and a full-length book Who Would Unbraid her Hair: the legend of annie mae (Anam Cara Press, dist. Clear Light Books, Santa Fe, N.M.) a tribute to M’ik M’aq Anna Mae Aquash (1945-1975/6), a title recently acquired by the Smithsonian Instiitute Library in Washington, D.C.
Elena Díaz Björkquist, a writer, historian, and artist from Tucson, writes about Morenci, Arizona where she was born. She is the author of two books, Suffer Smoke and Water from the Moon. Elena has been on the Arizona Humanities Council (AHC) Speakers Bureau for ten years performing as Teresa Urrea in a Chautauqua living history presentation, and doing presentations about Morenci, Arizona and also the 1880’s Schoolhouse in Tubac.
Israel Francisco Haros Lopez is both a visual artist and performance artist. His work is an attempt to search for personal truths and personal histories inside of american cosmology. The american cosmology and symbolism that he is drawing from is one that involves both northern and southern america that was here before columbus. The work both written and that which is painted is attempting to mark and remark historical points in the americas and the world.The mark making attempts to speak to the undeniable presence of a native america that will continue to flourish for generations to come.The understanding which he is drawing from is not conceptual but fact and points to the importance of honoring and remembering ancestral ways of living as a means of maintaining healthy relations with all humans,the winged, all those that crawl on this Earth, all Life, the Water, the Sacred Fire, Tonanztin, Tonatiuh,the Sacred Cardinal Points,everything inbetween, above and below and at the center of self and all things in the universe. Currently the visual motifs are drawn from both a pre-columbian america that had far far less physical, mental or spiritual borders . Recent works are exploring Xenophobia in laws such as "SB 1070" both in written and visual format. Israel considers himself an environmentalist poet seeking to awakening those harming our first mother Tonantzin.He also draws inspriation from the contemporary styles of inner city youth who use public space by any means necessary as their method of artistic expression. Israel also draws much of his inspiration from his peers and contemporaries who constantly show him innovative ways to approach cultural and political dilemnas. The written words cannot be without the painted image. The painted image cannot be without words. Neither the written work or visual work can be without sound without vibration, as all things on this earth carry vibration. As such his written and oral work is constantly shifting as it is performed or recording. The same poem,story,monologue or abstract diatribe shifts within the space it is performed taking into consideration audience and the theatrics and vibration of the moment.
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