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!

3 Comments »

“Believing “pastel on paper 45″x55″ 2008

What are our fantasies as Indigenous/Multicultural/Mulatto/Mestizo Peoples/Artists?

The history I received in public schools, the Hollywood sitcoms, tv dramas, and movies that I watched, the museums that visited, mostly iconicized and exotified Native Peoples….I enjoyed this portrayal because it mythologized us. They made us look beautiful, spiritual, strong, but always ultimately defeated, which I resented deeply. To continue seeing one’s culture as defeated, is destructive to one’s consciousness and self esteem. This was my Indigenous Reality.

Looking back at my previous art endeavors in art school, I drew and painted about my Indigenous Reality: oppressive government laws concerning women and native peoples, reproductive rights, and failed relationships with boyfriends. My Indigenous Reality was hopeless and depressing. I continued working this way for over 10 years. I think part of why I painted such things was because I couldn’t be motivated to paint unless I feel. And so the topics that I chose to paint about in those days, deeply effected me. It wouldn’t be until the late 90’s that I began to paint from my Indigenous Fantasies.
It started with the LMA Series (Little Miss Attitude Series).

Wonderwoman LMA 8.5″x11″ graphite on paper study

LMA Series was an exploration of behaviors of empowerment. The cartoon has always been a creature typical of emotion and so are women. In our chatty conversations with one another, we expose so much about ourselves, go in depth about relationships with others, go into minute details about sex, love….When we aren’t conversing, our quiet moments are psychic, still attentive to each other’s emotions, knowing what the other feels, because we collectively know what makes a woman happy and what makes her bleed…So intoxicating is this awareness, that my research was already done. All I had to do was paint. And so I did 16 paintings, 8 studies, 8 paintings trying to understand what attitude was as a factor of empowerment in us ladies…This was the beginning of Indigenous Fantasies because I was painting what what my ideal of a woman was.

Continue Reading »

No Comments »

Most of these hip-hop fools out there make claims about being hustlers when in reality they’re just taking a fashionable pose. Priscilla Ceballos is the real deal Holyfield. If you don’t know who she is, Priscilla Ceballos cold got ill so her daughter could score some free Hannah Montana concert tickets. She entered her daughter into an essay contest to win a free pair of tickets to see Hannah Montana and won by writing that her father was a soldier who had been killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. The trouble was that none of it was true, her father was alive and well-living in the next town over. When Priscilla was finally busted she and her daughter lost the tickets and she became the most hated woman in the western world. Homegirl defended herself by saying that no one ever specified that the essay for the contest had to be true.

Priscilla Ceballos may be a dumbass but her ass ain’t dumb, of course she knew what was going on all along. What makes her a true hustler is that she will stick to her story of “not knowing the essay had to be true” until the bitter end. Some people will no doubt call her delusional but in the hood that’s called some fuckin’ hustling. To the rest of the world she may be a villain but I’m canonizing her as a saint of the ghetto: Our Lady of Hustlers.

Since being busted for the fake essay Priscilla Ceballos has made numerous media appearances to clear her name. With these interviews she’s done a lot more harm than good and exposed herself to even more ridicule. Many blogs outside of Latino culture are both confounded and fascinated by Priscilla Ceballos’ bad chola style. “Doesn’t she know how fucked up those sharpie eyebrows look?” they all seem to wonder. The motivations of chola fashion still elude the mainstream but with her appearance on the Today Show she has become America’s most recognizable chola.

I don’t really take issue with people challenging the basic humanity of Priscilla Ceballos or at least her qualifications as a mother. What I have found deeply disturbing is the amount of racist bile that has been thrown her way. One look at her Bebo Profile and you can get a good sampling of some of the racist rants that she’s no doubt confronting on a daily basis. Most of them shits call her out for being Mexican, even though her profile picture is clearly all about her being Salvadoran (Holla at my Central Americans). The truth is, whenever one of us fucks up publicly it becomes baggage for all of us not just for Salvadorans, Mexicans, or Chicanos (except for maybe Brazilians…Tudo Bem!). Despite my anger at Priscilla Ceballos I am even more offended at the racist responses to her choices and that is why I chose to include a tear forming on her eye as well as text from the aforementioned Bebo profile behind her.

Orale!

1 Comment »