The New Inspirational Movement

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 »

This month…

Hunting the Now/ Cazando El Momento by The Counter Narrative Society
Begin at the corner of 14th and Valencia Streets

For this SAT. Dec. 1 - 11am-5pm
To download a map locating this project from GROUNDED? go to http://soex.org/Event/152.html

Game will be available at various venues and online after Dec. 1 at: TheCounterNarrativeSociety.org

Hunting the Now is a bilingual and peculiar treasure hunt that intends to divulge unique but ordinary features of the present social-urban development of Mission and Valencia Streets between 14th and 24th Streets. Brochures containing map, instructions and clues to the unique destinations we have gathered will be available at Southern Exposure.

Cazando el Momento es un juego bilingüe artístico de encontrar tesoros que divulga cualidades únicas pero cotidianas del presente desarrollo social-urbano de las calles Mission y Valencia entre la calle 14 y 24. Afiches con mapa, instrucciones y pistas de estas destinaciones inusuales estarán disponibles en el local de Southern Exposure.

Hunting the Now is part of Southern Exposure and Intersection for the Arts’ GROUNDED? 1st Annual Juried Public Art/Urban Interventions Day. For more information about GROUNDED? including the 16th Annual Juried Exhibition, 5-week Performance Series, and 7th Annual Film/Video Screening please visit soex.org or theintersection.org.

No Comments »

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.

No Comments »

<>Acrylic on Canvas, 54″x54″, 2007, SOLD

by Rene Trujillo

No Comments »

Acrylic on Canvas, 54″x60″,  2007

by Rene Trujillo

No Comments »

The new thing is that there’s a mural project finally happening on my block in da mission… finally after all these years. i first got the idea in Rigo’s Public Mural class when i was his TA in 1998 at the San Francisco Art Institute. I tried to get it off the ground several years ago as a female graffiti mural project with crisaida and leslie, but we couldn’t get permission from anyone and it turned into a big headache. But now, finally, my neighbor’s Randolph and Lisa have begun to get permission from many of the building owners and the LILAC MURAL PROJECT is off the ground. it’s not what i originally envisioned, but it still has good energy and is full of plenty of great graffiti pieces (vs traditional brush painted murals). i’ll blog later with pics of all the pieces, but i wanted to share this one to start. this pic was taken a couple of weeks ago. it’s me and Jet (from Clarion Alley Mural Project) reunited. Jet was my student in Rigo’s class at SFAI. Jet’s doing something on Lilac, but not for a bit cuz he was in the middle of wedding plans. Anyhow, i just thought it was a great pic. Jet’s really cool and Randolph captured it in the photo. thanks Randolph for taking this flick!

2 Comments »

This is an “in progress” version of a piece I am working on about Eazy-E and Ofra Haza, two artists that have died of illnessrelated to AIDS. The death of Eazy-E was more profound to me than the violent demises 0f Tupac or Biggie. As a teenager, it made the onslaught of AIDS even more of a reality to me than the deaths of artists and friends from the disease. Almost fifteen years later I can still attest to how much it has changed my life. The project will eventually be a part of a Day of the Dead exhibit that I am a part of.

The final version of this image will have a different and more detailed background. I’m still debating if I should add in Eazy’s famous locs (sunglasses) or leave his eyes revealed. I wanted to show his eyes closed but he’s not nearly as recognizable without the glasses. Anyone have any suggestions?

2 Comments »

yes, still here, and not exactly painting my little heart out… have been experiencing a feeling of unreality for quite some time… i have yet to find my “tribe”. nyc is not what people outside of it think its like. living here is not at all like visiting… yes, been in a couple of big shows, but have not found the “desire” of being here and the expression of that in paint as i expected i would have… still, it is an experience i would not have missed out on for the world… i am so happy that this forum exists, that i may connect with my california roots… i feel that a smiley face is in order at the end of that sentence given the subject matter of so many of the blogs here!

you all should see the tiny place i live and work in. truly amazing. one little room, the size of my living room in sf, and the kitchen is included in this space! i should post some photos. still, it is workable. the painting in the photo i was able to do here. i cannot keep any stretched canvas due to the space, but can work against part of one wall. i will keep in touch and let you know of any more new work… peace and love and happiness to you all, chea

2 Comments »

“Wind from the Sea” 1947 Tempura Painting Andrew Wyeth

“I’m not talking about subject matter but a very American quality-an indigenous thing you’re born with.”
Andrew Wyeth

I was at a used bookstore in Fort Bragg Ca, during the July 4th weekend (my second year anniversary) and found a book called The Art of Andrew Wyeth. I was captivated by the way the book was written and his paintings: the critics/historians actually put themselves into his art/shoes, speaking almost in a human spiritual way about his work…and they let the artist speak a lot. I felt like I was living thru his life, like I understood where he stood in his studio and in his world. I was never a fan of “Regional” Art. But I appreciate Andrew because of his approach to making art.

A lot of people drive thru the country and see either a picturesque beauty or nothing important. But Andrew really captured something, the feeling and reality living in a farming community. And even more importantly, there’s integrity in his work, like “this is what my environment is really like, folks.” His portraits are of his neighbors and symbolicly choses them and their landscapes to capture the remoteness, the struggle of living and the death that occurs in such a place….Their emotional power move me…And we’ll I grew up in place similar to Chads Ford Pennsylvania, where he lived, but his paintings show a time of year when his community is very stark…(I would paint Kansas differently, with more color, if I ever have the desire.) But the point is, I’ve had similar feelings he had being out in such a simple landscape: just sky and land, the vastness of it to wander, ponder, to dream…When I read his book, I had a memory of Kansas when I was a child:

“Looking out the window of a car, driving on a single road. The tall prairie grass moving like liquid gold…
The car pulls up the driveway. We get out. I go to the backyard to find something to do. A chainlink fence, a dog house, a tree…A plane flys over me… Its distant motor makes a sound so sad that I’m reminded it’s Sunday…
Sundays are sad, because they are the end of a weekend, family and friends leave and I have to go back to school alone…”

Me

I love the nostalgia more than the reality of Kansas….which is why I can’t return. I’d have to go thru another nepantla to get there, and I can only handle one at a time…. Continue Reading »

No Comments »

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

3 Comments »