Today is day two and I will be meeting the Advanced Class this evening. I'll probably write about that tomorrow after my second day with the beginning class. As I've mentioned, I'm working on a new series involving embroidery, photography and various printmaking media. I'm referencing symbols and icons from my Puerto Rican and Dominican backgrounds in this series (see here!). It's called Lazos de Sangre which translates to bloodlines. Here I'm actively in the process of exploring my heritage but deliberately not really addressing my family proper. I feel that it is important for me to sort of reach back as far as I can into the history of both countries to better understand how that culture has morphed into what it is today in the States. It's difficult because growing up in a Latinx household, it is easy to assume that everything your family does is somehow influenced or similar to what happens on the island but in reality everything that happens on the mainland, down to the Spanish we speak is vastly different than the island. So I'm in a position as a second generation of Latinx living in the states that 1) speaks better Spanglish than Spanish, 2) Has never visited Puerto Rico (though I have been to DR) 3) Is considered by much of my family (in the most endearing way) the least Latinx of all Latinx. I'm white-passing, don't have an accent of any kind and am still learning about what it means to be Latinx. Granted I'm well pretty well versed in the history of both Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico but still my book smarts are somehow deemed less than the smarts others in my family gleaned from being on the island or living in the Barrio or Boogey Down Bronx. It's a hard road to navigate and I'm finally learning to express these somewhat suppressed feelings of cultural confusion through my artwork. In the process I'm reading tons of books and articles regarding Santeria, Taino Mythology, Feminism and the Latinx community, and the list goes on and on. A lot of the 2D pieces I've started are self-portraits I've shot and then manipulated post-printing. They've evolved tremendously and are very organic in nature. I tend to let them dictate what they need. I generally have an idea of what's going to be in the piece as far as which motif I'll use however, more often than not I'll add things on a whim or because it just feels right.