I am excited to announce that I will begin working with Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster and Grant Street neighbors on a brand new mural! The mural will be located here once the building renovations complete: 

Our plan is to meet with community members and the CMCL congregation to discuss potential themes, ideas, and designs that would inform the final design of the mural. When I do community based projects, I like to have at least five sessions of input and exchange to get to the know the community, find points of convergence or shared values amongst stakeholders. This Saturday will kick-off our first round of community engagements with an Ice Cream Social! On Saturday the 24th from 6:30-8pm we will meet in the parking lot with ice cream, frozen treats, coloring pages, a mind map and visioning activity as an ice breaker and kick-off to this exciting project! I will continue to update on progress and insights here as we go. 
-Sigue Pa'lante!

Hi friends! Starting this up again :)
I will share some of the things I'm creating. I am leaning into the things I've loved all my life and have tabled to be busy with work and life. I'm taking solace in the stretching of time and have been reading to escape and to weigh down differently my thoughts. Here are the books I've read since we've been sheltering in place. What are you reading?: 

• Hunger by Roxane Gay
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
• Pleasure Activism by Adrienne Marie Brown (still reading bit by bit)

Hello again! 
Above is an image of a some new work/experimentation. I've been really interested in playing with wax again. I had a load of the fleshy colored wax I made a while back at a residency and have been thinking a lot about layers and what embedding matter into them means. This is what I wrote after making this: 

Then I made this one (below) to set some intentions during the  most recent eclipse. I'm still learning a bunch about what all this means and really trying to reconnect with something inside me that craves spiritual/somatic healing. You can read more about what I mean by this on my Latinx Lancaster posts. 

This one has layers of flowers my fiance (oh yeah I got engaged!) bought me on one of our first dates, the number 5 because it's my favourite number and I've learned some stuff about what that means, flowers from a Latinx event that I loved, butterflies because transformation, and the words who and enough because I like that I've become more comfortable with the idea that who I am as an artist and human is always changing and I can always work on knowing that I am enough and the work I make- even during dry spells- is enough. I'm learning to embrace the idea that even music needs rests to make a melody. 
​
This isn't art related but I wanted to share these thoughts percolating since Wednesday in my brain space. Maybe it will help another artist/maker:

Recently I took a yoga class with one of my favourite instructors and good friend Hawa (https://www.facebook.com/events/1905063089795740/) She teaches in a yin yoga style that is slow paced and holds poses longer than many popular versions of mainstream yoga. This particular practice was designed for helpers and healers and gave so much space to allowing us to use supports when and if we needed it. Hawa did a great job at weaving a beautiful metaphor for us around literal supports in yoga practice and the supports we need to recognize we have or need when we're out in the world. It takes a lot of unlearning and practice for me as a Latina with not a lot of capital to ask for support. It is especially hard when I know that Latinas, like many non-white women, have to work many times harder to earn a living, be respected, and generally live a comfortable life. It's also especially hard coming from a family that is large and being one of the eldest. I've grown and thrived in waters that taught me these things: that the hustle is the only way-take as many jobs as you need to get to the next phase, you're siblings are watching you so be on point, don't ever drop the ball because you may never get it back, show up...to everything, because if not you, who?. All of this is valid in some ways and comes from a broader context of white supremacy, the tension around generational assimilation, and loads more. It's not any one persons fault for passing those things on. And I'm not the only one to grow in these waters. I'm at a place now where I know I need to set boundaries around these things and reframe them so that I can do the work I feel is necessary and use the tools I have acquired to do that work. I have also learned that it's time for me to listen more to my body. To know that while I can push my body with ferocity and I am capable of doing so much, that doesn't mean I need to or should.
So does this mean that I'm going to stop? Hell no. While I'm reconnecting with my body, I also know that I have tried to "slow down" in the past and it doesn't feel good. I don't believe there's a binary here for me or anyone. And I don't believe that everyone needs to move slow. I believe it's depends on the individual. And maybe that belief will change. I'm open to it. I think I'm tired of folks seeing how I've been working and giving me doomsday prophesies about how I will inevitably burn out but never offering support. I'm also tired of feeling parented by folks who really have their best interest in mind (i.e. "Damn, you do so much stuff" is code for "Damn, I want you to do something for me and I hope your life doesn't get in the way of it getting done because I need it"). I do a lot. I know I do. I am constantly reminded of this every time I open my calendar or see a friend that I haven't had time to chat with. I think what I am changing now is the frequency with which I hold space for myself in the midst of all the things I "do". It's in how I hold myself in board meetings or during my work hours or when I'm making art or when I'm volunteering. And it's in forgiving myself and others for not always running at 100% and asking for help more frequently. I know to others it won't look like what they think I need to do (quit a thing, stop doing x, start focusing on y) but like the bolsters and blocks in that yoga class, to some folks using them looks like not trying hard enough. 
This all comes back to these pieces I've shared because I feel like I'm settling more comfortably into a practice of experimentation and not feeling like I need to have full control over every square inch of canvas or medium. I'm also embracing temporality and leaning in to making work that might change each time it's installed. I'm enjoying layers and the ways I can obscure and selectively reveal. And I'm enjoying the ways that my work keeps moving more and more into the personal. 
So with that: Sigue siempre pa'lante, 

Hola Amigx!
Get ready for a personal post y'all!
I've recently started a Patreon and will be posting regularly there as well as getting this going again. To be totally honest I haven't made much for myself lately. After grad-school took off and the residency ended my focus went mostly to writing my thesis, running a successful School Board Campaign, and social justice work. Now I'm feeling very calm, though still busy, about where I am in life.​

​The above photos are from the two day install of the Inside Out Dreamers project. I'm on the Public Art Board and as a board member have taken on a few projects. In this position I like to not just make decisions or dole out advice but to do the work (as I do in any position really). It's been challenging and this project was definitely all I did for about a week but I'm so proud. Many thanks to Carrie Carranza, Audrey Lopez, and all of our dreamer volunteers for the work they did posting the images up. And for being willing to organize our action. Thanks also to the Emerson Collective for allowing us to take our site one step further and provide full context of why we NEED a Clean Dream Act NOW! 

I've recently started a challenge for myself where I will doodle everyday for at least 10 minutes. I'm hoping to exercise my illustration skills, shake off some of the stuffy way I've been trained to draw, and also just get back into observational drawing. It's been so long and most of the drawing I've done in the past year or two is as a means to an end or very quick. I want to see what happens if I draw every day and have fun with it.

I've also been invited to lead creative workshops, talks, and host panels (feel free to email me if you want to book me!), and I've occasionally gotten paid for that work! This makes me so happy because I feel affirmation from my community. It's also a challenge when I desperately want to help and educate or share but there's not always funds available and it requires so much time and energy from me. Still working on those boundaries.

At work we've moved out of our old building and into our satellite spaces. We allowed students, faculty and staff to add a touch of graffiti to the walls before the building is torn down. These are mine. 

​​So this is where I am now. Below is the link to my Patreon (cafecito's aren't free!), some shots of Etsy products, and a screenshot of my first official School Director photo! 

​https://www.patreon.com/salinaalmanzarart

I'll be updating this ol' blog in a few days but in the meantime check out my beebee shop! 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/SalinaAlmanzarArt

The past few months have been full! Updates:

• I ran for School Board Director and won the most votes in the Democratic Primary
• I completed a Community Quilt Project with the Fulton Theater as part of the Community Outreach Initiative for In the Heights
• I graduate this coming Tuesday!
• Thesis is done!
• I started a webzine called Latinx Lancaster with new best friend and soul sister (and blogger/Astro-psychologist/Astrologer/badass) Ariana (@saltwaterstars on IG)

Through all of this I've been thinking a lot about identity and how my art can work to document and help others decolonize their art and identities. I think that a lot of this definitely started with this blog and my new studio practice. I find myself again at a moment where I'm transitioning into a new schedule, new perspective, and out of academics. I'm glad to be finishing grad school and intend to continue the work I'm doing with placemaking and the Latinx community in the city but I also see this as an opportunity to breath and revisit my work.

Starting Tuesday I'll have a more flexible schedule and I'm looking forward to diving deeper into a new portrait series I started. I'll talk a bit about them below:

 This is Self Portrait as Atabeira. As you know if you've been following my work, I'm obsessed with Atabeira and Taino mythology. I'm still learning a lot and plan to read even more. I had been thinking about goddesses a lot after an interaction with Line Bruntse (former mentor during the EAR program). I had been avoiding saying it out loud and she sort of took the words out of my mouth when she said that my work was about goddesses and self-determination. I decided to start imagining myself as various goddesses as a way of reclaiming my history and identity. I also like the overlap of saints and goddesses and using bold colors. I've been looking at prayer candles a lot and their label designs. I'm interested in how we represent deities and how that informs our spiritual life too. for this painting I wanted to play with texture and crowns as halos. I also liked the idea of playing with the Latina hoop earring (which I own many of thank you) and blurring the line between my face and the face of Atabeira. A direct likeness used to be a sign that I made a good painting but lately, I've taken to trying to be fast and loose and mix bright colors. This is the first portrait I did that I'm happy with the final outcome. 

I'm really happy with this one.  I started playing with the star sequins (mostly because I have a huge bag I'm trying to figure out what to do with) but it just didn't work. The pallete was too much too so I moved on to a more toned down pallete with the finished piece.It's smaller (just under 8x10) and it forced me to pull back a little. I was thinking about symbols that mythlogize Puerto Rico and the flamboyan flowers came to mind. I was also wanting to channel Frida Kahlo's pallete for the skin here. I like her yellowy and ruddy tones a lot and I have a more yellow undertone to my skin. I was taught to mix paint more for pinker tones and I'm still trying to undo that learning. I started to take on and learn how to paint other skintones at the Art Students League of NY and that was really eye-opening in terms of how limiting Lancaster can be. That's for another post though. I'm definitely going to continue this smaller series and play with more ideas of saints, myths, and identity pieces.

The past two weeks have been emotionally a bit draining. I've been angrier than usual and it hurts more because I know my anger is justified. Trump is a pendejo. An hijo de puta. An idiota tan grande that I simply cannot debase myself and call him my president. I don't condone name calling usually, but if you decide you're going to build your campaign and WIN on the basis of blatant racism and xenophobia targeting latino's than I will gladly refer to you now and forever as the world's most racist cheeto (thank you Jezebel). Since the election, I've felt electric. I've already been getting more and more involved in local civic engagement and social justice things but now more than ever do I feel the need to arm myself and fight back. So I've been making to get the aggression out. I find myself coming back to my favourite radical group the Young Lords Party/Organization. I also have decided to start a project where I document space and places from my past and my families past that I have mythologized. I'm excited to see where this all goes. I'm also starting to wrap up the research phase of my thesis on Hispanic and Latinx involvement in the arts here. I'll talk a little about recent stuff below: 

So the top image is the original Immaculate Heart of Mary image I've been obsessing over privately. I just find so much of Catholic and Christian imagery to be so weirdly violent and 'gothic.' I've been using the phrase Tengo Puerto Rico en Mi Corazón a lot lately as a personal mantra. I borrow it from the YLP and I felt like this image resonated with it. On November 8th with the elections heavy on my heart, I started to doctor the image of Mary I isolated to look more like an Afro-Latinx woman I wanted to darken her skin a bit and change her features. I started to think about how regardless of the results, more Latinx and POC will be feeling the brunt of the anger or gloating post-election cycle. So I started to make her features more worried or somber. I started adding poetry and additional imagery the next day. I woke up after several anxiety dreams where I firmly believed I had misread the electoral votes. That Hilary won, or it was a draw, or that maybe this was a joke? I came to work and had little to do with the classes that day so I got to work on getting all the feels out. I eventually toned the paper with coffee and am finishing up the details as I type. Below is the most recent state. I've added transfers of YLP marches, traditional Puerto Rican mundillo patterns, and a ghost image of Atabeira's face over the virgen. 

The piece below is playing with imprints of a Vejigante mask with YLP imagery again. Still working on more of these mini-prints. I'm thinking a lot about radical activism lately.

The polaroids and holga images are the beginnings of my mythology and sacred space idea. They're from Castle Hill projects where my family grew up and I lived for a short period of time. I'm interested in spaces that I lived in and that formed me as a child that other see as "ghetto" or blighted. We'll see where these go in the future!