Laughing Woman
I have spent most of my painting time on Laughing Woman, I love this painting, it is the first painting that I have had to paint a background on. My objective for this quarter was to finish this painting and Giants, but the Laughing Woman painting needed more work than I had anticipated. The things needed to be done were: the face, the hair, the milagro, the arms, the sky and the background, see not too much. The only things left that I need to finish are the third eye, the background, the sky and the arms, and apparently the nipples.
I realize that I should probably start explaining what my paintings mean to me. This painting is a part 1 of a series of 2 depicting my relationship to the desert, in this painting it is meant to represent my relationship with the culture of the desert, or at least culture of El Paso and being Mexican American. The painting shows the woman becoming part of the environment around her, growing accustomed to the desert landscape. The woman is burdened by her own culture, the milagro piercing her chest represents the rejection of the Chicano/a people from the Mexican and the American communities. The woman is smiling, because in between these communities that have rejected the Chicano people, we (Chicano people) have found a way to form our own culture, our own community from what we remember of our Mexican ancestry and what we learned from the American culture. Why do I create?Why do I create? Now, I have been thinking about this and I have an answer finally. I create because I need to, because my life happened in such a way that art is what I am destined to do. When I was a child my Mom nurtured the artistic side of myself and told me to accept it and love it. She told me stories of my Abuelita Gloria, about how she made paintings and ceramics and took them to craft shows. Art has always been there, it understands me when no person does. Creating art is who I am and I am the art that I create. Creating is as important as eating, drinking and finding shelter. I love my artwork, as I have said before in the pilot, my artwork is an extension of myself, just as I am of it.
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