The New Inspirational Movement

The roots of this strip began a couple of years ago. It was around the time of San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride events and Mariela and I were looking through the SFWeekly for a schedule of who would be performing on Pride’s Latino stage. While looking through the Weekly we came across an ad for sex toys in the shape of different religious icons. I laughed but Mariela freaked out and couldn’t even bring herself to look at the ad again. Even though she didn’t exactly consider herself Catholic her opinion was clear: You don’t sexualize your personal icons

As Chuck D once rapped “My wanderings got my ass wondering” and as a Chicano I’ve wondered about our iconography and the taboo of eroticizing it. In terms of Chicanoness, I can imagine that it would be very bad to have a fantasy about bustin’ out Alberto Gonzalez; so would the opposite be good? Or maybe I just have the hots for Dolores Huerta?

As far as the whole Peanuts thing goes, I’ve always identified with Charlie Brown. His philosophical ponderings and neurosis always seemed to click with me. With this strip, Charlie Brown is a stand-in for my parents both of whom have taken risks with their artwork and both of whom have told me in some form or another that I’m goin’ to Hell for doing this comic strip. Wimps!

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my alter ego, mero cocinero karimi, went to the minnesota state fair this past august. i don’t know if you Mero or the State Fair, but Mero was created at the Galeria de La Raza in 1997 when I built my first installation piece for a Regeneration project. He is a progressive idealist chef who wants to start the “revolution one kitchen at a time”. He goes around the country trying to raise consciousness: food, cultural, and political. Anyways, he (I) went to the Minnesota State Fair, home of everything on a stick. In response to this stick mentality, he walked around with every presidential candidate on a stick, and asked people which candidate they want on a stick. It was a riot. People would give him (me) their food to try, and it was hard staying in character for 4 hours. Chihuahua!

Go here for the photo

Love to get folks feedback.

The show itself is different than the other live street performance. I can write about that, too…later.

I am doing the show in houston in December and in the Bay May 08, if you want to eat free food.

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My work is inspired by the psychological impact that mass media- and mass production have on our society. I am especially interested to re-make those mass produced objects that seem no longer relevant to our society and transform them into new realities, changing our memories and our perceptions of them.
Because my work is interactive it gives the viewer an active role on the decision whether to be removed or not from a reality to which they have become accustomed. My work engages them to reflect on our relationship with material and culture.

For the Chicana/0 Biennial I am showing Osiloscopiando from the Recycling Junk series.

I hope you will enjoy it!

Daniela

www.danielast.com

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Paula Goodman (my good friend) turned me on to this amazing phenomenon, BUTTERSCOTCH. She has to be the next big thing if she doesn’t freak out from the fame or take the wrong dark road… she’s amazing… inspiring… and so young! Anyhow, Paula and I, and apparently a lot of others love her. Isis and I were talking and she hadn’t heard about her yet so i thought i should share with NIM. This is my first time using You Tube clips also, but i cheated and used the ones Paula sent me as myspace comments (gotta start somewhere). hope you all enjoy!

Butterscotch Myspace Profile Link

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These images represent my first foray into my Raza Zombies series. They were inspired by the single best mainstream comic book of the 21st century: Marvel Zombies. Marvel Zombies re-imagines classic superheroes as flesh eating zombies. After reading it I felt compelled to do some zombie transformations on a few of my own personal and iconic heroes. I think we’ve exhausted just about every other form of representation of these figures. More to come fo’ sure.

I don’t actually own a Microsoft X-Box but I’m pretty sure Che would kick ass at Halo 2…That is if he was willing to sully his hands with the most oppressively capitalistic video game system out there. But hey! Even my most hardcore communist friends enjoy a little X-Box behind closed doors.

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First of all i have to say that the question “Can an Anti-Pop and Pro-Pop Artist Collaborate?” is an interesting one. I can’t really think to any artforums, art in americas, juxtaposes, art history classes i have taken, or graduate school seminars in which this topic has ever come up in my own experience. So here, i can put my personal feelings aside and say this is really a revolutionary and pertinent question of our time, one I guess that isis and i will figure out an answer to.

Idea #1. The Really Pop Idea. The Idea I love most of all. The Idea i think you probably won’t like because it is too pop and you already said no to anna nicole… but i can’t stop thinking about her and i don’t want to.

she touches me i away other celebrities don’t… i guess i would think she is more like me than the average celebrity in that she is real…

much more real than stupid paris hilton or britney spears or angelina jolie… despite her boobs that i discovered were fake, she is more real to me… because she worked her way up from nothing, the way madonna did, from poverty. because she was a stripper who broke into modeling… to me to become so much more classic looking than your average hollywood bimbo. she raised a son when she was basically a kid herself on her own… totally respectful. she wasn’t totally skinny… i fucken hate aneroxic models and celebrities… gross. too skinny is bad. anna was 176 lbs when she died. shots of her dancing, just days before she died, practicing for an upcoming trimspa commercial, she looks absolutely beautiful and natural to me. all you skinny girls can kiss anna’s ass cuz she looked all that at 176 lbs… damn!

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Before i get into this idea of collaboration, i thought i’d hit up the link to my bebo profile and the photo albums i’m keeping over there. i am kind of beginning to visually categorize everything in my life or trying to. I have 10 albums so far. Each one has a 48 photo limit. It’s great for creating an online portfoilio of all my artwork because i work in so many mediums. it’s fun to divide them all up and make decisions to group certain things together in an effort to decriminalize them (ie. graffiti mixed in with gallery art… he he… is it legal is it not? and who really cares in the end?). Especially after you see my card that i sent to Gavin Newsom… that’s pretty revealing, if anybody even picked up on it. I had already given him my business card at that point anyway. Where do we draw the line on all these things? What is art and what is not?

Part of my art now is collecting news stuff about anna nicole smith… her legacy… her baby. I’m just so into her story… thus, my anna nicole smith rip bebo photo album… which i worked on for a couple hours this afternoon. i had to catch up on that before i wrote down the collaboration idea #1…. the anna nicole idea i had after i saw your recent drawings, isis. to be continued…

anyhow, here’s the bebo link

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Hey Isis, now we’ll see how separate our thinking really is under the gun. I am soooo… greatly saddened by the sudden death of Anna Nicole Smith. How do you feel about it? See my myspace blog…

Anna Nicole R.I.P. Blog

I have no idea how you feel about her. would you like to collaborate on 2 (it works when we do two, passing back and forth) Anna Nicole Tribute Pieces…Life size with glam guess jeans for the 80’s image and some super sexy dress for the 2000 piece!! (or better yet a sexy pregnancy shot)… i was thinking one from a guess ad mid eighties and one from anna recently… a flattering pic, no super fatty shots but no super skinny. i hated when she was skinny. i hope yer into this idea! my weekends are packed and sharon is usually wed and fri afternoon/early evening. starting march, i’m starting art therapy as a patient thurs afternoons. so it looks like my collaboration days could be mon or tueday if you wanna go for afternoon or early evenings. R.I.P. ANNA NICOLE, my teenage idol.

God, i hope those pics worked. i used photobucket this time…. an experiment. Hope yer into the Anna Nicole Art. Sounds fabulous to me!

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