This evening I attended a book signing at Tropico de Nopal gallery, a great cultural community resource just west of Downtown L.A. This event was to celebrate the release of Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities by Laura E. Perez. There were several reasons to go: First, Chicana Art features the work of several longtime friends - Diane Gamboa, Yreina Cervantez, Gloria Alvarez, and Barbara Carrasco; as well as colleagues whose work I had admired from afar, such as Yolanda Lopez and Laura Aguilar. Additionally - astonishingly - this marks publication of the first book dedicated to the contributions of Chicana artists and writers. The third reason was a recent development: in a wondrous bit of synergy, the book's author, Laura Perez, had generously contributed a blurb for my upcoming book on All the Saints!
The evening was warm and embracing, full of great energy and communal accomplishment, and justifiably celebratory. I even felt like I was momentarily transported back to [a far better version of] high school, as I took my just-purchased copy of Laura's book around to be signed by friends.
It was only as I was driving home, recalling something someone said, that the evening's full impact hit home. When I first saw Yreina, after giving me a hug and saying she was happy to see me, she added, "I was hoping some of 'the guys' would be here tonight." I hadn't given it much thought then - I was just enjoying being among friends and colleagues, and delighting in Laura's rich, expansive discourse - but now I did a mental head count: besides myself and Reyes Rodriguez (Tropico's co-director), I recalled only two other male artists in the large crowd: Jose Lozano and Richard Duardo.
Yreina's words underscore the value and significance of Laura's book, and emphasize the struggles and accomplishments of the women this book celebrates: thoughtful, fascinating artists marginalized and largely ignored both by the dominant popular culture and by their male cultural counterparts.
The evening was warm and embracing, full of great energy and communal accomplishment, and justifiably celebratory. I even felt like I was momentarily transported back to [a far better version of] high school, as I took my just-purchased copy of Laura's book around to be signed by friends.
It was only as I was driving home, recalling something someone said, that the evening's full impact hit home. When I first saw Yreina, after giving me a hug and saying she was happy to see me, she added, "I was hoping some of 'the guys' would be here tonight." I hadn't given it much thought then - I was just enjoying being among friends and colleagues, and delighting in Laura's rich, expansive discourse - but now I did a mental head count: besides myself and Reyes Rodriguez (Tropico's co-director), I recalled only two other male artists in the large crowd: Jose Lozano and Richard Duardo.
Yreina's words underscore the value and significance of Laura's book, and emphasize the struggles and accomplishments of the women this book celebrates: thoughtful, fascinating artists marginalized and largely ignored both by the dominant popular culture and by their male cultural counterparts.
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