new work!

Hello again! I'm in another show! The Fulton Street Arts Cooperative is hosting a Feminist leaning art show in the gallery space. Third Wave will open on the 2nd of April and I'm super pumped. I feel like a lot of the shows I've participated in lately have similar themes and I'm excited about that. Both DECA and this show were one's I was invited to show in. It makes me feel like I'm doing something right. I always worry about how the content of my work will be received. Is it easy to get. Especially the work that is more directly tied to my culture. The above piece, Cycle Piece, is a more light-hearted look at how a cycle fits into our societal norms. I wanted to take something that is usually perceived as disgusting and not just make it pretty, but make it overwhelmingly decorative. I think that there's a bit of irony there. The idea that a menstrual cycle is only when you bleed is a common misunderstanding of how cycles work in general. Also the idea that a vagina is dry unless it's bleeding or in the midst of intercourse is a common mistake people make. I wanted to take the cycle as a whole (all 28 days) and show how we are leaky bodies. Women, people with periods, and all humans in general are leaky and/or prone to leaking. The idea that we need to plug ourselves up and keep it all inside is a mistake that is hindering and time consuming. I also am interested in engaging conversations about periods in general. There's so much shit out there, like actual factual shit, about how periods work and how they affect women emotionally. Menstruation marks us as different and dirty and unreliable. And yet there's scientific proof that all of those ideas are more reliant on an individual and not necesarily their gender or sex. 

I recently had a challenging conversation with a past professor about how my work should be read. They argued that they wouldn't "get it" and assumed that most people didn't "get" any of the work in the show right now. I actually felt like most of the people I spoke to (many of whom have not seen my work before) got what I was trying to say or at least understood my references. I was most excited that many latino and hispanic people I spoke to about my work got it. Many women got it. They argued that you would essentially have to be a woman or latino to get my work. I disagree, but I'm open to the possibility that this can happen. And I think I purposely make work that deals with that need for translation or what can get lost in translation. I think what challenged me most, or rather bothered me most, was the idea that making work about femininity and my latino heritage was somehow so drastically different that I would need to provide an explanation. This thinking prescribes to the idea that anything not eurocentric needs explanation. 

All of it's super complicated and I get that it's all sort of subjective. I'll keep mulling over this whole idea.