February 2, 2002
Subject: AztlanNet: Education of Pedro Romero
Sedeño
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002 11:31:19 -0700
From: Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
References: 1
The Education of Pedro Romero Sedeño:
Chicana/o Art and the Virgen de Guadalupe
Objective: To gain a broader understanding of
Chicana/o Art, with a focus on Chicanas and the Virgen of Guadalupe.
Requirements: Respect for Chicana/o art production
that reflects the evolution and expansion of Chicana/o identity. Commitment
to tolerance and an openness to learning about a different point of view.
Many of us have academic/institutional degrees like MFAs, but we know the
experience that lead to that document does not necessarily reflect what we
know about Chicana/o art. Academic education is incomplete unless supplemented
by self exploration, community involvement and experience contributing to
a lifetime of learning.
Required Reading (just for starters) are listed
below. If unable to find texts in local bookstore, please special order from
www.espressomicultura.com
Ana Castillo, Goddess of the Americas: Writings
on the Virgin of Guadalupe; Riverhead Books, New York, ISBN: 1573226300
Alicia Gaspar De Alba, Chicano Art Inside Outside
the Master’s House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition; University
of Texas Press, ISBN 0292728050
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985.
Exhibition Catalogue published in conjunction with the exhibition organized
by the CARA National Advisory Committee and the UCLA Wight Art Gallery. ISBN
0943739152February 2, 2002
"Since the mid-1960s, Chicano artists have
chosen a variety of images from contemporary life in the United States and
Mexico, as well as historically significant forms and individuals from Mexican
history, as material for their art. Chicano artists reinterpreted these borrowed
images, which have significance and meaning within their own original cultural
context, and made them effective in the bilingual, bicultural context of Chicano
art. A few of these images became cultural symbols, or icons, that are used
repeatedly by artists in a variety of artistic forms and media. Some of the
most commom are la Virgen de Guadalupe… )" Page 238, Chicano Art:
Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985.
"Beginning in 1970, feminist caucuses began
to appear at national Chicano conferences in response to the growing need
to address the roles and, in particular, the repression of women in el Movimiento.
By the mid-1970s, Chicana feminist poets, writers, artists, and other professionals
became increasingly visible through their work and their activism. Chicana
visual artists, in particular, provided a perspective that helped to revitalize
Chicano art in this later, postnationalist period. These artists produced
artworks of self-affirmation and empowerment by creating new imagery and reinterpreting
established cultural and religious icons such as the image of the Virgen de
Guadalupe… They expressed their resistance to the male-dominated structures
of Chicano nationalism and to the larger social and class structures that
affect women and children even more than men. Their visual and conceptual
trasnformation for the female image from victim to role model and heroine
was an important step in this stage of Chicano liberation." Page 322,
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, 1965-1985.
Image: Yolanda M. Lopez "Portrait of the Artist as the Virgin of Guadalupe," 1978 oil pastel on paper, 32 x 24 inches
Subject: Alma Lopez/ Pedro Romero debate onAztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 13:28:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Pedro Romero <romesedeno@yahoo.com>
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
CC: almalopez@earthlink.net, kaytiejohnson@yahoo.com, magu4u@hotmail.com,
elbulldog69@hotmail.com, lizz.romero@tdi.state.tx.us, traveisablue@aol.com,
naftaztc@aol.com, goldie@rt66.com, XColumn@aol.com, puromando@aol.com
To Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net> >
Subject:AztlanNet: Education of Pedro Romero
Sedeño
Dear Alma, thank you for your posting Feb 2,
2002: "The Education of Pedro Romero Sedeno". In pursuit of your
objective: "To gain a broader understanding of Chicana/o Art", with
a focus on Chicanas and the Virgen de Guadalupe", please know that I
am preparing a response for this discourse which you have initiated. Please
give me a little time (actually, I've got to clean my house right now) In
the meantime, can you please provide me the name of the author you cited from
the CARA catalogue you cited from? I was curious.
Also, for purposes of this discourse, I would
like to make two distinctions as to the visual interpretations Chicana artists
have made of the Virgen de Guadalupe original Image. One interpretation put
forth by many depicts the Image intact, in which the prominent forms in the
icon are all included, i.e. pose, aureole, garments, crescent moon, etc. Works
by Santa Barazza, Delilah Montoya, plus a long tradition of depictions with
the Image in which the diverse formal investigations of the Image express
a fidelity to the content of the icon. This type I believe is considered as
interpretation.
The second type of interpretation (actually
a modification or "re-image" as you call-it), is that offered which
does not pursue this fidelity to the Image-content, and instead is selective
in its choice of elements in the icon, deleting some and adding additional
content derived from the artist's personal experience. To this second type
of interpretation, your Lupe series, and the portrait of the Virgen by Yolanda
Lopez, subscribe. Please correct me if I am wrong, Yreina Cervantes is the
artist who produced "the Virgen in High Heels", an image I see as
falling into this category as well. A few male artists have made this type
of interpretation as well, but our objective here is to dicuss the Chicana
expression, right? Is it fair to call them modifications as opposed to interpretations?.
Alma, I hope you will be able to give some attention to my future response, and to continue in this important discourse on Chicana art. Thanks again for your efforts. BTW, I don't have an enye on my keyboard as per Sedeno; you posted my name correctly. Maybe I can get over to the library, and use the Spanish computer to do likewise. Also, I attach my credentials M.F.A. to show that I have earned my education in the field of art, as opposed to physics or literature. Respectfully submitted, Pedro Romero Sedenyo M.F.A. 2/1/2002
Subject: AztlanNet: Re: Alma Lopez/ Pedro Romero
debate on AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002 14:24:09 -0700
From: Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
To: Pedro Romero <romesedeno@yahoo.com>
CC: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com, kaytiejohnson@yahoo.com, magu4u@hotmail.com,
elbulldog69@hotmail.com, lizz.romero@tdi.state.tx.us, traveisablue@aol.com,
naftaztc@aol.com, goldie@rt66.com, XColumn@aol.com, puromando@aol.com
References: 1
Pedro Romero wrote:
> To Alma Lopez <almalopez@earthlink.net> > Subject: AztlanNet:
Education of Pedro Romero Sedeño
> Dear Alma, thank you for your posting Feb 2, 2002: "The Education
of Pedro Romero Sedeno". In pursuit of your objective: "To gain
a broader understanding of Chicana/o Art", with a focus on Chicanas and
the Virgen de Guadalupe", please know that I am preparing a response
for this discourse which you have initiated. Please give me a little time
(actually, I've got to clean my house right now)
> In the meantime, can you please provide me the name of the author you
cited from the CARA catalogue you cited from? I was curious.
This quote was from pages 238 and 322 of the
CARA Exhibition catalogue (paperback), no specific author for this section
is cited. So I would probably say that the author might be the CARA National
Advisory Committee. Perhaps someone involved in the organizing of this exhibition
can answer that for us.
> Also, for purposes of this discourse, I would like to make two distinctions
as to the visual interpretations Chicana artists have made of the Virgen de
Guadalupe original Image. One interpretation put forth by many depicts the
Image intact, in which the prominent forms in the icon are all included, i.e.
pose, aureole, garments, crescent moon, etc. Works by Santa Barazza, Delilah
Montoya, plus a long tradition of depictions with the Image in which the diverse
formal investigations of the Image express a fidelity to the content of the
icon. This type I believe is considered as interpretation.
>
> The second type of interpretation (actually a modification or "re-image"
as you call-it), is that offered which does not pursue this fidelity to the
Image-content, and instead is selective in its choice of elements in the icon,
deleting some and adding additional content derived from the artist's personal
experience. To this second type of interpretation, your Lupe series, and the
portrait of the Virgen by Yolanda Lopez, subscribe. Please correct me if I
am wrong, Yreina Cervantes is the artist who produced "the Virgen in
High Heels", an image I see as falling into this category as well. A
few male artists have made this type of interpretation as well, but our objective
here is to dicuss the Chicana expression, right? Is it fair to call them modifications
as opposed to interpretations?.
I think they are all interpretations and re
interpretations. Even in the work of Santa Barraza. In Santa's paintings of
the Virgen, sometimes the image looks forwards, sideways, her hands aren't
in the usual pose, half of her body is replaced with a maguey or aloe plant...etc.
And they are all basically modified images since the tilma itself was modified
(crown was off then on then off...??)
>
> Alma, I hope you will be able to give some attention to my future response,
and to continue in this important discourse on Chicana art.
I will try.>
> Thanks again for your efforts. BTW, I don't
have an enye on my keyboard as per Sedeno; you posted my name correctly. Maybe
I can get over to the library, and use the Spanish computer to do likewise.
Also, I attach my credentials M.F.A. to show that I have earned my education
in the field of art, as opposed to physics or literature. Respectfully submitted,
Pedro Romero Sedenyo M.F.A. 2/1/2002
I sometimes do the extra effort of opening microsoft
word in order to copy and past the enye.
I have an MFA too. I understand somewhat about what you mean... if someone has a focus or concentration or something that they have worked and therefore have experience then they come with knowing some things in particular... for example a carpenter may know more than the average person about wood. But I don't think an MFA is credential enough, nor lack of means that you can't engage in discussion...
Subject: Re: AztlanNet: Alma Lopez/ Pedro Romero
debate on AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002 22:24:21 -0800
From: Octavio Romano <oromano@tqsbooks.com>
Reply-To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
Organization: TQS Publications
To: AztlanNet@yahoogroups.com
CC: Pedro Romero <romesedeno@yahoo.com>
References: 1
Estimado Pedro:
With regard to your forthcoming debate with Alma Lopez, I think it would be
a courtesy to all others if the participants adopt everyday English to the
exclusion of in-group shop talk and technical language.To express life-long
curiosity that I have had, I would like to prompt the discussion with a question.
What is Art? And what is an artist? What is the sphere that constitutes an
artists domain?
If I had an answer to these questions I would be better able to follow and
understand the exchange.
Thanks. Kindly do not entertain the notion that I am being facetious. I'm
not. Nor do I desire a series of platitudes and truisms as a reply.
I would wish that both of you would participate in this response.
Octavio Romano