Karina Puente: Pulse, Pintura, and Passion

Olga García Echeverría

 

My current muse is a brave woman, unafraid of challenge and patient with process. She is an ancestor...made of black charcoal and salt water. 

–Karina Puente

www.karinapuentearts.com

 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about attending the 2013 AROHO Writing Retreat in Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, where I met many amazing women writers and artists from around the country. One of those women is pintora-extraordinaire Karina Puente, who grew up in Santa Ynez Valley, California and graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. Currently, Puente resides and paints at her East Coast studio and works with the City of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program as a teaching artist. Her work, collected privately around the world, has been featured in museums such as the Corcoran National Gallery, the Miami MoCA, and the Elverhoj Museum of History and Art.

Women Who Sit Final Layered Drawing

As AROHO's 2013 Artist-in-Residence, Puente not only made a lasting impression on many of us at the retreat, she made a lasting impression of us. Aside from the daily watercolor classes that she facilitated, her retreat project, Women Who Sit, was a visual morphing wonder. She shares, "For the AROHO Writers Retreat Project, I drew 15 writers' portraits on a single piece of paper and used stop-motion animation to document the drawing as it changed, resulting in only one woman’s face with many stories beneath it." 

This is a picture of the final Women Who Sit drawing, which is layered with the caras of 15 mujeres. It's difficult to articulate exactly how the layering occurred, but you can check out a cool, short video of the process here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhlpoztxMI



When asked what inspired Women who Sit, Karina said, "I came up with this idea after envisioning a work that could excite me and would drive me to connect with other creative, powerful women. A beautiful component of site-specific work is to imagine how others will interact and be affected by the art. I wanted to make a project that was ambitious and yet simple."

Those of us who posed for Women Who Sit got to see Karina's genius up close and in action. Think Mad Scientist. Between quick charcoal strokes, Karina repeatedly stepped back and forth in front of a larger-than-life paper canvas. She seemed to be dancing to her own internal music as she drew, her hands constantly marking, smudging, erasing. As her eyes leapt from subject to paper and paper to subject, she seemed to be capturing more than physical features; she was eliciting each Sitting Woman's inner essence, our energía, miradas, moods. There was something electric about Karina as she worked. The words that kept running through my head as I watched her charcoal me into existence were Pulse, Pintura, Passion.

Charcoal Version of a 

Serious Me

Invoked Mama

"Art can arouse emotion," says Karina, "If a piece of art directs a person to create more, become excited, or dream, the work has done its job." The sketch that Karina did of me definitely aroused emotion. When I looked into it, it evoked my own layered reality; I saw a past version of my mother staring back at me through time and space.

Pau: Oil Paint on Panel

Aside from charcoal, there is plenty of color and shifting light in Puente's art. Like a quartz crystal in the sunlight, her work flickers. Reflections and movement are common motifs. It's not surprising that her favorite times of the day are The Golden Hour and 4:00 AM, or that she loves the rain and is inspired by water in all its forms. Even her oil paintings, like the one featured here, seem to embody an agua essence. "I’ve always looked to the ocean for answers," says Puente, "Once, in a dream, whales beached themselves to bring me slides of paintings in their baleen. That is something that stays with me when I paint."

One of the elements I find most alluring about Karina's paintings is  how subjects and shapes constantly shift and morph. Karina says about this, "Morphing in my work symbolizes transformation and touching the unseen; it grows with me and continuously reveals information about where I am in my life emotionally and intellectually." 

For fun and out of curiosity, I asked Karina to envision a collective art piece where she could work with a visual artist, a writer, and a musician of her choice, living or deceased. These were her choices:

 

Visual artist of choice:  

British-born-Mexican surrealist painter and novelist, Leonora Carrington, who depicts science, alchemy, and personal narrative in her work.  

Writer of choice:  
Bhanu Kapil, a visionary in her writing and in person.

Musician:  

Tori Amos because she is a musical genius who has persevered.  

What exactly would these four amazing artists be creating? Leonora Carrington and Karina would be painting a large-scale mural guided by Bhanu Kapil and painted to the music of Tori Amos.

My Watercolors.
Believe it or not, these are all
of the same view!

And because I am an enthusiastic neophyte in the visual arts (think Kindergarten--I have mastered stick figures and random blotches of color on the page), I could not help but ask Karina her professional opinion on the drawings I created in her watercolor classes last summer. Karina, be honest, is there any watercolor hope for me? There was a long, awkward silence, a few coughs to clear her throat, and then from the depths of her artistic humanity, Karina answered: 

"There is a vibrancy alive in your color choice and in the playful way you concentrate on mark-making. Something so valuable I see in you is that you shine after you make something. Often, people who haven't found their inner-structure bend at the site of their brush stokes and cower at their attempts. It takes real awareness to look at something you’ve painted –no matter what it is- and to be pleased. Good job!"

She is too kind. Thank you Karina for sharing a bit about yourself with La Bloga. To learn more about Karina Puente and to view more of her amazing work, visit:  www.karinapuentearts.com

Cristina Acosta: Luminous Work, Lasting Art

Cristina Acosta

Guadalupe with Crown, the World is Her Heart

La Conquistadora/The Corn Maiden/Dine Spider Woman

Exhibit: Reshaping the Divine - Contemporary Hispanic Retablos Exploring the Divine Feminine

When: Summer 2009

Where: El Museo Cultural, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Click here to see this series of Hispanic Retablos.

This is quintessentially female, strong, sinous, visual art. It is a contemporary re-visioning of traditional retablo, hinting at the aesthetic of popular commercial artists like Laurel Burch, but containing a depth of spirit. There is a certain richness, an evanescence emanating from the figures portrayed.

Acosta has an ability to make a heart connection with the observer beyond the demands and trends of the marketplace, or the prevailing winds of "fine" art communities and critics. I find Acosta's work to be completely accessible, capitalizing and re-visioning icons from a metizo heritage, as well as feminist ideas of the female God-force.

She's also creative in the use of precious and mundane material in the creation of these retablos. In an in depth look at her site, piece after piece reveals she is truly a renaissance woman balancing comerciality with content and succeeding admirably.

Take a look at what Cristina herself has to say about her work:


Over the past twenty years, my series of Madonna retablos came to me in ebbs and flows via a series of powerful dreams. The dreams started during my pregnancy with my daughter. For the entire pregnancy I dreamt of being a woman on a journey north across dusty plains and through arroyos as I mostly walked behind an oxcart. The dreams ended in a room lit by a wooden candelabra filled with tallow candles and the birth of my daughter, Isabella Pilar in 1993.

I called these dreams my Maria Dreams because in the dreams, I/she was named Maria. Seeking the meaning of those dreams over the years brought me down a path I could never have imagined and deepened my understanding of my cultural heritage. Searching for the meaning of my Maria Dreams eventually lead me back to New Mexico, the land of my Ortiz ancestors.

My paternal grandmother, Catalina Maria Ortiz Acosta, born in 1904, was the daughter of J. Nestor Ortiz and Maria Elena Salazar, descendents of the original Spanish settlers founding the cities and villages throughout New Mexico. Researching my family genealogy (my grandmother spoke vaguely about her ancestors), I discovered that my direct ancestors had participated in the initial 16th and 17th century migrations of the Spanish, traveling North from Mexico City into the region that is now the State of New Mexico. I read books about the era and became fascinated by the types of experiences my female ancestors must have had while living on the New Mexican frontier for generations. With this research nurturing my experience of my personal history, my calling to paint Madonna’s began to take shape.

Born in Los Angeles to an Anglo mother and Hispanic father, early on I was aware of cultural concepts because of the differences between the two sides of my family. Despite their differences, Catholicism was the central theme for my parents. Celebrating their devotion resulted in religious images from the Americas and Europe scattered throughout our home and those of our relatives. Images of Mary the Mother of God as the Guadalupe, Conquistadora and many other versions were always present. Along with those images were displayed American Indian items from the Ortiz ranch.

The artifacts from the Ortiz family ranch consumed my imagination from as far back as I can remember. Handmade Indian blankets and pots, and even a gold menorah (referred to as a “candelabra” by my grandmother) made by Ortiz ancestors generations past (some of the men were renowned filigree gold smiths). Those as well as the chili ristras hanging in my grandmother’s kitchen hinted at another world far from the Southern California beach scene of my childhood home. For reasons I can’t sufficiently articulate, the mix of these images and experiences coalesced into my calling to visually explore and create new images of the Madonna as an expression of the feminine divine.

Each of the retablos I paint results in a new vision of the sacred. For example, painting La Conquistadora opened the door to re-balancing the dominant patriarchal and European view of the divine with the North American native and feminine. In La Conquistadora I layer symbols of the Dine Spider woman and the Puebloan Corn Maiden, seeking to blend the indigenous ancient female images and concepts harmoniously with the Catholic image of Mary. The result is a Madonna that hints of ancient goddesses many thousands of years old at the same time she conveys the current blend of cultures in the Southwest.

I create my work in the traditions of the Spanish/Mexican retablo to reinforce my expression of reverence and convey the intimate experience of sacredness. I find antique, reclaimed timbers for the substrate. I mix gold, silver and copper metals into my oil paintings to both embellish the image and in homage to the gifts my ancestors created for me with their existence. The vintage gold glazed ceramic tiles come from a tile company that operated near my childhood home in Southern California during the 1950’s and 60’s. When I finish a retablo, I write a blessing on the backside of the retablo to convey love to all who view the images.

My Maria Dreams from over a decade ago continue to influence this series of work. May you find your own meanings and blessings within these images.

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And from none other than our own recently published Rudy G,

Win a book!
Midnight, Friday, June 26 is the deadline to enter to win a copy of the just-released Needles & Bones anthology, featuring a fantastical story by La Bloga contributor Rudy Ch. Garcia.
Click here for details.

Lisa Alvarado

Art for Your Head

The latest project by Juan and Ricardo Compean

The “Immigration Cup 2008” is a customized foosball table, which takes a humorous approach on the current immigration debate in America. It is on exhibit as part of the “Declaration Of Immigration” art show at the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) in Chicago, IL.

In addition to seeing a first class art exhibit featuring the works of over 70 artists, the fine people at the NMMA are allowing visitors to PLAY the “Immigration Cup 2008” foosball table during museum hours!!

Please visit www.13por13.com to see images and read more about the “Immigration Cup 2008” project.

The exhibit, which runs from July 4h 2008 to September 7th 2008, will launch the Museum’s 3-year commitment to immigrant centered programs.

For museum information please visit NMMA at: http://www.nationalmuseumofmexicanart.org/

If you are interested in seeing images from the show please go to:

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/6PPuCX6Ti-S/Immigration+
Themed+Art+Exhibit+Opens+Chicago/MRIIHdfCk63

The museum exhibit is also mentioned in articles found using the following links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2008/07/08/AR2008070802728.html

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/travel/29next.html?scp=1&sq=
chicago%20latino%20neighborhood&st=cse

Lisa Alvarado

DeLaTorre Art Studio News

From Luis DeLa Torre: Come join us at this great exhibit and enjoy the  great view of lake Michigan! Reforming US: Immigration through Art A national juried competition  June 1 - July 13, 2008 Co-jurors: Sandra C. Fernandez & Theresa J. Parker Opening Reception: Saturday, June 7, 2-5 pm Crown Center Gallery 1001 W. Loyola Ave, 2nd fl Chicago, IL And the blog goes on - http://www.delatorrearts.blogspot.com Coming Soon! Bridgeport Art Walk, Columbia Explorer Mural Unveiling and More! EAST BANK ARTISTS LOFT  Ogilvie/Pertl Group Exhibit Friday, June 13th, 5:30-8:30 p.m. 435 East Illinois Street  Chicago, Illinois 60611 312.321.0750 Friday the 13th is a lucky day to meet and mingle with Ogilvie/Pertle artists at this special group exhibit featuring Artists Luis DeLaTorre, Judith Hernandez and many more.  De La Torre Art Studio 200 W. 35th Street -- 3rd Floor Chicago, IL 60608 773 927-7030

Amelia Jones, Body Art and the Body of Knowledge

"The significance of Amelia Jones's Body Art/Performing the Subject cannot be overstated. Body Art is a book that is long overdue, and one that I suspect will drastically change the field of feminist art history, particularly as it concerns the performative art production of seventies artists." —Performing Arts Journal

"If art history traditionally has been a male-dominated enterprise, O'Dell and Jones renegotiate its gender. The stories these two writers tell, and the images they reproduce, suggest that their revisionary critical practices are not justified but revelatory." —Henry Sayre in Art Journal

"Insightfully self-reflexive and critical re-reading of modernism and postmodernism." —Saul Ostrow, Bomb

"In her latest book, Body Art/Performing the Subject, Amelia Jones locates her critical project with particular reference to the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler, and thus joins the increasing number of feminist philosophers, film theorists and art historians exploring notions of performativity, embodied subjectivity, situated knowledges and the phenemenological intersubjectivity of the interpretive act. Jones's book represents a particularly powerful enunciation of the reconception of the subjectivity of the artist and the historian calling into question both the production and interpretation of art as moments of active negotiation of 'body/self' boundaries and limits." —Art History

This book is a scholarly exploration of the use of the body in performance art. Although the author’s style was incredibly dry, the work profiled was fascinating. The most compelling and representative essay for me was, ‘The Rhetoric of Pose: Hannah Wilke.' In this essay, Jones profiles an artist who explores physicality, identity, and decay. Wilke kept a photo diary of her battle with cancer, and in a series of photos, she details all the aspects of chemotherapy, including the loss of her hair.

In a photo entitled Brush Strokes, the viewer sees clumps of hair arranged as objets d’art. I found this last image particularly evocative and moving. So much of popular ideas of female beauty and femaleness itself, is associated with hair. Wilke deftly suggests loss, mortality and devastation with the scattering of a few items. It triggered for me ways in which I might want to tight shot of my own body parts in a photo collage about aging. It also resonated with others ideas I've encountered of artists claiming sexuality beyond airbrushed ideas of femaleness and "perfection."

On a critical note, despite the book's tremendous strengths, Jones’ essays are limited in their global appeal due to a very dense, almost inaccessible style of writing. I realize that this is an ongoing criticism of mine, but it’s one that, sadly, I’m forced to make time and time again. Form and style continue to be a major way in which those who nominally control the art community exclude the general public. Class and cultural biases continue segregate artists of color and working class artists by exactly the language used in the book and the audience the author assumes is reading it. This is a self-defeating practice on the part of those who claim to be progressive artists, more understandable coming from the old guard which art critics like Jones claim to be reacting against.

Lastly, there is very little to be found in the way of emotional content in the book. I kept wanting to ask: “But how did viewing this piece make you feel?”

Still, Jones provides the reader a provocative opportunity to explore the work of artists pushing the envelope, who use their bodies to explore identity, culture, gender and race. I was challenged to think how I can continue use my body sparely and truthfully to look at the same themes.

DeLaTorre and a Chicago Feast for the Eyes

Artist Luis DeLaTorre and Francisco Toledo in Oaxaca

Luis DeLaTorre is an artist in constant motion translating through the language of colors, shapes and shadows his experience of being Mexican-American in the 21st century and the dualities of living between these two worlds. Luis DeLaTorre was born in McAllen, TX 1969 and raised in the states of Jalisco and Nayarít, Mexico. His mother migrated with Luis and his two older brothers to the Bridgeport neighborhood in Chicago.

DeLaTorre began using art as a coping mechanism to understand his new surroundings and fill the void of having been transplanted from the place that he had always known as home. The art work will later took on a life of it’s own incorporating elements of time, history, geography creating universal themes affecting us all such as war, spiraling economies and the commercialization of humanity.

While in high school DeLaTorre was inspired by the paintings of artists such as Salvador Dali, David Alfaro Siqueiros and comic book illustrators Alan Lee and Bill Sienkiewicz. It was then that he decided to pursue an education in art. After developing his art skills he enrolled at the American Academy of Art where he had the opportunity to study under Master Watercolorist Irving Shapiro and earn his degree in Fine Art.

DeLaTorre’s art is exhibited frequently in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe. He recently received a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. This fall he has been commissioned to do two murals one at Spry Elementary School and one at Columbia Explorers Elementary School. He will also be participating in two group shows one at Neleh Gallery in Chicago and the Owings -Dewey Fine Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His artwork is currently in museum and private collections.

A huge part of his creative process is experimentation and constantly learning new things. DeLaTorre enjoys collaborating with artists of all genres. In the fall of 2006 DeLaTorre created visual elements for a Teatro Vista production and in 2005 included an enormous backdrop mural commissioned by Luna Negra Dance Theatre for a performance at the Harris Theatre for Music and Dance. His work has also been displayed at the Día De Los Muertos exhibit at The National Museum of Mexican Art. DeLaTorre has been involved in gilding restoration work at the historic Auditorium Theatre, the Illinois and Iowa State Capital Buildings and participated in the Frank Lloyd Wright House “Wing Spread” restoration project in Racine, WI.

DeLaTorre is committed to art in schools engaging kids to focus their energy on their own creativity. He is an advocate of artistic projects that enrich them and keep their creativity focused. He frequently participates as a guest speaker in Chicago Public Schools to encourage the exploration of the arts. In 2005 he also did a mosaic mural created for the Columbia Explorer Elementary School. The mural was done with children from the Yollocalli Youth Museum (a initiative of the MFACM).

DeLaTorre has also implemented an artist apprentice program in conjunction with the Big Picture H.S. in Chicago that includes the participation of two students a year. In the future he plans to create a scholarship program for young artists, and help implement more arts programs into inner-city schools. Check out DeLaTorre's new blog you can keep up with whats happing at the studio and read about the process the artist goes through in creating the paintings.

SAVE THE DATES! Come Celebrate Chicago Artist Month!

October 5, 2007
Opening Reception
6pm to 10pm

Looking for a way to CELEBRATE Chicago Artist Month? Celebrate with us! You can come and mingle with art lovers, meet the artists and learn about the INCREDIBLE work being produced in the Bridgeport neighborhood. There will be a variety of incredible work hanging on walls and easels. EXCITING NEW works featured by DeLaTorre, Cleeland, Gama, Noyes, Brasch, Ingold and Wyzensagel. DeLaTorre’s Oil paintings on richly prepared wood panels and watercolor portraits will have you spell bound. Runs thru Oct. 31 by appointment.

Eastbank Artist Group Exhibit
DeLaTorre Fine Art Studio
1200 W 35th Street – 3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60609
773-927-7030
http://www.DeLaTorreArts.blogspot.com


Saturday, October 6, 2007
Opening Reception
Time: 6 to 9pm

Abstract Global Communities brings together four artists from differing backgrounds whose creative talents collectively represent our world community. The collective creativity of these artists represents the global concept of art without borders or boundaries. Come to this delightful gallery housed in a Frank Lloyd Wright gem in the Bronzeville neighborhood and Indulge your art craving with the rich layers and succulent colors of DeLaTorre’s newest work. You can be one of the first to see the unveiling of his painting “An Ode To Hillary” oil on canvas.

Abstract Global Communities/Neleh Galleries International
Chicago Artist Month Group Show
Opening Reception
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Time: 6 to 9pm
3219 S. Calumet Avenue
Chicago, IL 60616
http://www.nelehgalleries.com

Friday, October, 26 2007
Día de los Muertos Group Exhibit DeLaTorre’s art is on the move! If you happen to be in Santa Fe stop in and check out this fabulous exhibit at the Owings-Dewey Fine Art gallery. This exhibit will feature DeLaTorre’s take on this traditional Día de los Muertos holiday. Over the past twenty years the gallery has exhibited thousands of accomplished works by many of America's finest painters and exploring a variety of historical and contemporary themes.

Día de los Muertos Group Exhibit Owings-Dewey Fine Art / North 120 East Marcy Street Friday, October, 26 2007 Santa Fe, NM 87501 http://owingsdewey.com

Thursday, November 1, 2007 Opening Reception
This year, DeLaTorre dedicates his ofrenda to the U.S. Constitution raising questions on the contemporary and historical role of this country. The work emerges from subconscious inspired images painted on panels drenched in thick hand-made gesso resulting in glazes and paint integral to the artwork.

Thursday, November 1, Opening Reception Dia de Los Muertos Group Exhibit Latino Arts, UCC 1028 S. 9th Street Milwaukee, WI 53204 latinoartsinc.org New Mural Commission! Columbia Explorer Elementary

DeLaTorre will be creating a mural that will be 168” X 288” and will have three layers and images relating to hope and the ability to rise above faceless crowds and imagine the endless possibilities through the arts and education. Unveiling TBA.

DeLaTorre Arts Studio
1200 West 35th Street - 3rd Floor
Chicago, IL 60608

Tel: 773-927-7030

or e-mail us at:
luis@delatorrearts.com
or
dpando@delatorrearts.com

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More about our friends

The El Paso Times ran a profile of Gustavo Arellano written by EPT's book editor:

http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_7105135

Also, Rigoberto Gonzalez reviewed Javier O. Huerta's new book, "Some Clarifications y Otros Poemas" (Arte Público Press, $10.95 paperback):

http://www.elpasotimes.com/living/ci_7105139

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More Raúl Niño news:

After a long hiatus, it looks like Bloga friend, poet Raúl Niño will be very busy promoting Book of Mornings. Here's what's on tap in October here in Chicago. Raúl sent me a couple of quotes in his press release, and they are too good not to list.

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

W. H. Auden

For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.
Joseph Brodsky

October 17, Wednesday, at the Book Cellar, 4736-38 North Lincoln Avenue, at 7PM

On this evening of a "Local Author Night" -- it's reading with recently published writers Josh P. McClary, Lawrence Santoro, Renee Rosen and Mary Kinzie. This is a wonderful independent book shop, located in Lincoln Square, one well worth supporting. After all they serve wine by the glass, how many book stores can claim to do that?

October 23, Tuesday, at the Lincoln Park Branch Library, 1150 West Fullerton Avenue, at 7PM

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More News

First Macho feature at PROYECTO LATINA

Monday, Oct. 15 @ Tianguis Bookstore, 2003 S. Damen (across from the Blue line stop),
7:00 p.m. Free admission.

In honor of Teatro Luna's new Machos production, Proyecto Latina will present their first ever male feature, the wonderful Paul Martinez Pompa. The fabulous Diana Pando steps up as mistress of ceremonies for the evening. As always there will be Chisme box and open-mic.

Paul Martinez Pompa studied at the University of Chicago and at Indiana University, where he served as a poetry editor for Indiana Review. His chapbook, Pepper Spray, was published by Momotombo Press in 2006. His work has also appeared in the journals Borderlands and Barrow Street and the anthologies The Wind Shifts and Telling Tongues. Currently, he teaches at Triton College in River Grove, Illinois.

(Paul was the great poet who read at the inaugural Palabra Pura in 2006).

AND

The 17th Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Conference on Black Literature and Creative Writing

Fine Fury: Celebrating Gwendolyn Brooks at 90
October 17-20 2007 Chicago State University

As for that other kind of kindness,
if there is milk it must be mindful.
The milkofhumankindness must be mindful
as wily wines.
Must be fine fury.
Must be mega, must be main.

-- from Young Afrikans (of the furious) by Gwendolyn Brooks

Featuring:
Sonia Sanchez
Martin Espada
Ed Roberson
Tayari Jones
Donda West
Cheryl Clarke
Julius E. Thompson
Haki R. Madhubuti
Sterling Plumpp
Angela Jackson
Sandra Jackson-Opoku
Margo Crawford
Camille Dungy
Jacqueline Jones LaMon
Evie Shockley
Adrian Matejka
Gregory Pardlo
Randall HortonM
Kelly Norman Ellis
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu
Bayo Ojikutu
Kalisha Buchanon

Workshops by Martin Espada and others. For registration information visit www.csu.edu/gwendolynbrooks or call 773-995-3750.

AND

PALABRA PURA: PETER RAMOS and BERNARDO NAVIA

Wednesday, October 17
California Clipper, 1002 N. California
(corner of California and Augusta), Chicago
Doors open 8:00 p.m. Reading begins 8:30 p.m
Free admission. 21 and over show. (Don't forget your i.d.)

PETER RAMOS's poems appear in Indiana Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Verse, and Poet Lore. In 2000, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The author of several chapbooks, including Short Waves (White Eagle Coffee Store Press 2003), Ramos is an assistant professor of English at Buffalo State College where he teaches courses in American literature.

BERNARDO NAVIA was born in Chile. As the oldest of four brothers in a Protestant missionary family, he had the opportunity to live and travel in many cities in Chile, as well as throughout diverse countries in Latin America. He has published essays, poems and stories in numerous journals and periodicals in Chile, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Columbia, and Chicago, especially in the periodical, contratiempo. In 2000, a book of his poetry was published, Doce muertes para una resaca (Madrid: Betania 2000), and he is presently in negotiations for the publication of a novel. Bernardo Navia is an assistant professor at DePaul University.

Palabra Pura is supported by The Joyce Foundation, Letras Latinas at the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the Rafael Cintron Ortiz Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Lisa Alvarado

Where Is Ana Mendieta?

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban performance artist who lived in New York in the 1970’s. The title Where Is Ana Mendieta, not only refers to the suspicious circumstances of her death, but to the nonexistent presence of the work of women artists in mainstream exhibitions, to the absence of work that portrays the aesthetic rooted in Latino cultural identity.

Mendieta boldly explored women’s identity, sexuality, and spirituality in pieces that were deceptively simple. Her work was constructed from the elements themselves, dirt, water, and light in their most basic forms; her themes revolved around the ideas of burial, rebirth, submersion in the natural world. From a perspective beyond the dominant culture's construct of nation, a construct of governments, the hegemony of conquerors, Mendieta's work reverberates with a older, indigenous idea of nation. It challenges the viewer to envision an idea of nation and identity based on a direct relation to the Earth itself.

In a series entitled Tree of Life, Mendieta flattened herself against a large oak tree. She is naked, covered with gesso and paint to simulate tree bark. Where does the tree stop and Medieta begin? Where do we stop and our connection with nature begin? Simply done and deeply resonant. I immediately saw a connection between this piece and a Mexican/Chicano idea of rootedness to place that is not hemmed by borders, but by history and ancestral links to land, to nature itself.

In another, untitled series, Mendieta is shown in a series of photos. Again, she is naked, this time in an isolated field. Next to her is a skeleton. The photos show her climbing onto the skeleton, embracing it. She creates a powerful image of the life/death cycle, as well as a quintessential Latino commentary on mortality. At the heart of existence, life and death are united in an eternal embrace. In the midst of life, its fullness, its lushness, its sensuality, Death is constant companion. While modern, European-based culture constantly seeks to avoid aging and mortality, there are traditions that accept its centrality. Mendieta brilliantly illustrates that death is both the beginning and endpoint of all things.

Mendieta worked closely with a variety of feminist artists, but did not label herself as feminist, and I understand the reticence in using the label. The women's artistic community did not offer a truly supportive relationship, and while she had meaningful connections with individual artists, her work was not be adequately appreciated by feminist and post-feminist critics. In a nutshell, Mendieta did not invent a new relationship to body and Earth, she reclaimed an ancient one, but was never embraced by the 'larger' artistic community.

I was profoundly moved by her work. The work is poetry, visual poetry, poetry made flesh. These are clear, visceral, and direct images that I hope to use as a touchstone in my writing and performing, particularly in performing. I want to tell a personal and universal story with my body, and Mendieta has created a standard for me, as well as strengthening and deepening a physical lexicon.

Blocker’s writing is dry and extremely formal, making this difficult going as a reader, but don't be dissuaded by that. I wonder if some of the density of language was more an expression of Blocker's own inability to grasp and express the power and simplicity of Mendieta. However, the book sings when Blocker allows the work to speak for itself.

ISBN-10: 0822323249
ISBN-13: 978-0822323242

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Jane Blocker is a specialist in contemporary art and critical theory. She offers courses such as Art Since 1945, Contemporary Art, Alternative Media: Video, Performance, and Digital Art, as well as courses on gender and sexuality, and 20th century theory and criticism.

Her research has focused primarily on performance art as it developed concurrently with postmodern, feminist, and constructionist theories. Her first book, Where is Ana Mendieta? Identity, Performativity and Exile (Duke University Press, 1999), considers the artist's work in relation to the performative production of identity. What the Body Cost: Desire, History, and Performance. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004), her second book, critically examines the historiography of mid-twentieth century performance. Her current book, called Seeing Witness: Essays on Contemporary Art and Testimony, examines the witness as a privileged subject position by analyzing installations, performances, photographs, and films by such artists as Alfredo Jaar, James Luna, Eduardo Kac, Christine Borland, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and Ann Hamilton.

In addition, she has published the following essays: "This Being You Must Create: Transgenic Art and Seeing the Invisible," Cultural Studies 17, no. 2 (2003): 192-209; "A Cemetery of Images: Meditations on the Burial of Photographs," Visual Resources XX, no. 2 (May 2004) ; "Binding to Another s Wound: Of Weddings and Witness," in After Criticism: New Responses to Contemporary Art, edited by Gavin Butt. (London: Blackwell, 2005); "Failures of Self-Seeing: James Luna Remembers Dino," Performing Arts Journal XXIII, #1 (January 2001):18-32; "The Art of Renters," in From Your House to Our House, exhibition catalogue (Atlanta: Nexus Contemporary Art Center, 1999); "Woman-House: Architecture, Gender and Hybridity in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?," in Camera Obscura 39 (November 1998):126-150; "Ana Mendieta and the Politics of the Venus Negra," in Farquhar, et al, eds. (Un)fixing Representation, special issue of Cultural Studies 12, #1 (January 1998):31-50; "The Bed Took Up Most of the Room," in Peggy Phelan and Jill Lane, eds., The End(s) of Performance (New York: N.Y.U. Press, 1997); and Nancy Spero/Leon Golub: Contemporaries, exhibition catalogue (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University, Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, 1997).

Lisa Alvarado

Alias Olympia

Mind you, gente, there can be no substitute for a Daniel Olivas post, but he's getting a little well-deserved R & R, so consider this a humble placeholder. -- LA

Alias Olympia
by Eunice Lipton

In French Seduction, art historian Eunice Lipton explores her sensual obsession with the icon of France, the pool of memory and the way that obsession is fused to a contradictory history of her childhood and her connection to the Holocaust. But before that, Lipton authored a biography on Degas and in Alias Olympia, she attempts to cast light on a pivotal, but now obscure figure in the Impressionist movement.

Victorine Meurent was the model for Manet’s notorious painting, Olympia. In it, Manet re-stages that ancient pose of the odalisque, however, Victorine appears in the painting as bold, sexually aware and powerful. This caused an outrage in Paris at the time, and sadly, is still the reaction a sexually self-aware woman receives in present time. I stumbled upon this book, looking for more role-models, fodder, inspiration, other lifelines.

I was glad this book found me. The story is so much more than the telling of the painting controversy. Meurent was an artist, a brilliant one in her own right. She and her work were buried in a barrage of lies as result of her posing for Manet. The popular story about Meurent was that she had descended into prostitution, drunkenness and despair. Not so different than the double-standard of scrutiny and criticism that women who push the barriers, especially, barriers of the body and sexuality continue to face. There still is a threat, albeit more sub-rosa perhaps, that in claiming one’s full physical and sexual power, a woman leaves herself open to the psychic version of public stoning for her ‘lewd’ behavior.

While Meurent did know despair, it was one born out of a career thwarted, and a reputation slandered. She lived a ‘comfortable’ life as bourgeois wife, but not one in which she could move freely, express her ideas or create within the confines of women’s roles at the time. Lipton wrote the book in a narrative style, so that it reads and moves like a novel. No stuff of fiction here, but the complex and brilliant story of a women who dared conventions, and was meted out the punishment of a gilded, dulled existence and obscurity as a result.

I was struck with how women are still offered the choice of ‘comfort’ vs. authenticity, with the implied message that an authentic one will surely be the more painful, the one with the greatest social and emotional costs. To the extent that this blackmail is still being played out, Lipton’s book is a sadly cautionary tale.

ISBN-10: 0801486092
ISBN-13: 978-0801486098

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Raúl Niño , author of Book of Mornings will be appearing at:


Rudy Lozano Branch Library,
August, 22 at 7:00PM
1805 South Loomis Street
Chicago, Il 60608
312-746-4329

Please come and enjoy the readings, and diversity of Chicago neighborhoods.


And also.....

In preparation for City of Austin's Mexican American
Cultural Center's grand opening September 15, 2007,
The Public is invited to a MEET AND GREET Sneak
Preview featuring--

AMORINDIO:
Tributo y Celebracion for
raulrsalinas/Fundraiser for Red Salmon Arts:

Join us to honor and celebrate the life of Austin's elder
Xicanindio poet/human rights activist. A veterano of
Chicano literature/letters, raulrsalinas' writing and
activism have earned him international recognition as
a spokesperson for a diversity of political causes,
ranging from prisoner rights and national liberation
struggles to gang intervention and youth arts
advocacy.

raulrsalinas is the author of three collections of
poetry: Un Trip Thru the Mind Jail y Otras Excursions
(Editorial Pocho-Che, 1980; Arte Publico Press, 1999),
East of the Freeway: Reflections de mi pueblo (Red
Salmon Press, 1995), and Indio Trails: A Xicano
Odyssey thru Indian Country (Wings Press, 2006).
Recently, UT Press published a selected collection of
his prison wirtings, raulrsalinas and the Jail
Machine: My Weapon Is My Pen (edited by Louis Mendoza,
2006).

The tribute will feature performances and
presentations by renowned Chicana/o and Latina/o
writers and scholars: Miguel Algarin (NYC), Sandra
Cisneros (San Antonio), Carmen Tafolla (San Antonio),
Norma E. Cantu (San Antonio), Alejandro Murguia (San
Francisco), Rosemary Catacalos (San Antonio), sharon
bridgforth (Austin), Roberto Vargas (San Antonio),
Tammy Gomez (Fort Worth), Celeste Guzman Mendoza
(Austin), Levi Romero (Albuquerque, NM), Tony Spiller
(NYC), Jessica Torres (San Antonio).

Presenters on raulrsalinas' life include: Antonia
Castaneda (San Antonio), Roberto Maestas (Seattle,
WA), and Alan Eladio Gomez (Ithaca, NY). There will
be an opening ceremony by Danzantes Concheros y musica
movimiento Chicano by Conjunto Aztlan.

The celebracion will also include a Silent Art
Auction, curated by Chicana artist Jane Madrigal, with
over 30 pieces by artists throughout the Southwest,
and food and refreshments provided by Alma de Mujer
Catering Dept.

All proceeds will support Red Salmon Arts, a Native
American/Chicana/o based cultural arts organization
with a history of working within the indigenous
communities of Austin since 1983. This event is
sponsored by Red Salmon Arts, Alma de Mujer, PODER,
and UT Press. $10 dollar suggested donation.

Saturday, August 25, 2pm - 7pm.
Mexican American Cultural
Center, 600 River Street.
For more info:
512-416-8885/ revolu@swbell.net.

Donation: Please send to Red Salmon Arts, 1801-A South
First St., Austin, TX 78704 Austin, TX.
For tax-deductible contributions, please contact Rene
Valdez first at
revolu@swbell.net


Bios for Performers:

Miguel Algarin (NYC) is the "poet laureate" of the
Lower East Side - and founder of the Nuyorican Poets
Cafe in New York City, where he has nurtured the
spoken and written word for nearly three decades.

Sandra Cisneros (San Antonio) is an American novelist,
short-story writer, essayist, and poet, whose works
helped bring the perspective of Chicana women into the
literary mainstream. Author of House on Mango Street,
Loose Woman, and Caramelo, among other works.
President and Founder of the Macondo Foundation.

Carmen Tafolla (San Antonio) is an internationally
acclaimed writer and regarded as one of the masters of
poetic code-switching. She often employs the
bilingual idiom of her native San Antonio’s Westside
in her poems. Author of various works, including
Sonnets to Human Beings, Sonnets and Salsa, and
Curandera.

Rosemary Catacalos (San Antonio) is the author of
Again for the First Time (Tooth of Time Books, Santa
Fe, 1984). A past Dobie Paisano Fellow, Stegner
Creative Writing Fellow, and the recipient of an NEA
grant, she has been the Executive Director of Gemini
Ink since 2003.

Norma E. Cantu (San Antonio) currently serves as
professor of English at the University of Texas at San
Antonio. She is the author of the award-winning
Canicula Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera, and
co-editor of Chicana Traditions: Continuity and
Change.

Alejandro Murguia (San Francisco) is is a two-time
winner of the American Book Award, most recently for
This War Called Love: Nine Stories, City Lights Books.
His memoir The Medicine of Memory: A Mexica Clan in
California, University of Texas Press, has been
nominated for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic
Writing.

sharon bridgforth (Austin) is the Lambda Award winning
author of the bull-jean stories (RedBone Press), and
love conjure/blues a performance/novel (RedBone
Press). Bridgforth has broken ground in the creation
and presentation of the performance/novel and in doing
so has advanced the articulation of the Jazz aesthetic
as it lives in theatre.

Roberto Vargas (San Antonio) is a community/labor
organizer and author of two poetry collections:
Primeros Cantos and Nicaragua, yo te canto besos,
balas y sueños libertad. He was a founding member of
The Pocho Che Collective, a loose coalition of writers
who published some of the first books of the
contemporary Latino literary renaissance taking place
in San Franisco.

Tammy Gomez (Fort Worth) is a native Texas writer and
performance poet, is featured in the PBS documentary
"Voices from Texas." She has published the work of
Yoniverse, a women's poetry group she founded, in the
anthology In a Loud Kitchen (Tejana Tongue Press,
1998); a second anthology, North Texas Neruda Love,
published by Tejana Tongue Press, was released in
January 2006.

Levi Romero (Albuquerque, NM) is an Embudo Valley poet
& author of In the Gathering of Silence (West End
Press).

Celeste Guzman Mendoza (Austin) is a San Antonio
native. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as
Salamander, Poet Lore, and 5 a.m., and in various
anthologies, including Telling Tongues, Red Boots and
Attitude, and Floricanto Si. She won the Poesia Tejana
Prize in 1999 from Wings Press for her chapbook of
poems, Cande te estoy llamando.

Jessica Torres (San Antonio) is a youth filmmaker,
activist, visual artist, and singer/musician. Her
short film, Los Punkeros, Chicano punk rock movement
with a twist of Conjunto, appeared on San Anto TV, a
TV Magazine produced by local youth through the San
Anto Cultural Arts Multi Media Institute (SAMMI).

Bios for presenters:

Antonia Castaneda (San Antonio) is a Chicana feminist
historian, teaches in the Department of History at St.
Mary's University. Her research and teaching interests
focus on gender, sexuality, and women of color in
California and the Borderlands from the 16th century
to the present.

Roberto Maestas (Seattle, WA) is the co-founder and
Executive Director of El Centro de la Raza, a center
for Seattle’s Latino Community. He has long been
involved in the ongoing struggle for civil rights in
the city.

Alan Eladio Gomez (Ithaca, NY) earned a Ph.D. in
History and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the
University of Texas at Austin. A community organizer,
scholar, and radio journalist, Gómez studies post WWII
social movements involving multiracial and
transnational alliances of U.S. Third World peoples,
prison rebellions, political theater, and Latin
American revolutionary movements.


Bio for Conjunto Aztlan:

Conjunto Aztlan (Austin) represents a spiritual and
musical journey expressed through poetry and song.
The Conjunto was born of the Xicano Movement in
Austin, Texas, in 1977. Their purpose is to
celebrate, defend, and expand the musical, cultural,
and spiritual legacy of the Chicano people.

Lisa Alvarado