The Translation, The Houses of Antigua
It’s been a little bit since I written, about art or anything really. It’s called life + a little person (toddler) who keeps me extremely busy, ALL the time.
If you are signed up to my newsletter you know what I’m about to write about. You should be subscribed because those that are, always find out about things before everyone else, if at all. Sometimes I decide to keep things between my readers and myself.
The latest news, which I also shared a lot about on my social media, because I was that excited, was that several of my works were featured in La Horchata Zine. This is a magazine that highlights artists of Central American ancestry. Isn’t this fun and interesting and by the way amazing for the Central American creatives?! Well I definitely think so.
Featured Pieces
- Colorful Traditions Sketch
- Las Casas de Antigua
- Leaving
- Going Back II
Where Las Casas De Antigua Started
As from most of my art, it is first inspired by the sketch, which is a photograph taken by me. A story is there, I just don’t know it, sometimes, such as this.
I went back to explore my country for the first time with my mother. She knew how much I fell in love with Antigua Guatemala, that she took us twice. That was still not enough, I go back each time I travel to Guatemala. I call it my happy place. It truly is.
The photograph (sketch) that started it all was from that very first trip with my mother. It was a very inexpensive camera, and I was still teaching myself the basics of photography, I hadn’t even taken a single studio art class. That’s how much I DIDN’T know that photograph would turn into anything.
What it turned into
Fast forward to college years, studio classes and I had a project for drawing class. I open up my photo vault and got lost. My professor had not been so keen on my choices for projects. I was still very new at picking a subject for my art. I had no idea what I wanted to create, making art was hard enough.
So, I dug deep, I asked myself what it was that I really wanted to create or see in my art? I mean I had no faith in myself, I wanted to at least like all the art that I was making since no one would want to see it. I know my confidence was at an all time high! Jaja
What made me happy, other than taking photographs was the places I was traveling to. The architecture & people were retelling the story of the places I had explored. That’s why I went back to those photographs of my time in my happy place, a place I was once with my mother. My mother had now been gone for a few years, so it was like I was sharing a memory of her too.
One Photo turned to a Collage
My professor kept challenging me to take my photos further. I honestly think she didn’t like any of my photographs. She told the class once that we were spoiled visually because we have seen so much, we weren’t really creating original things.
This is how I decided to take it further, I was still experimenting with photoshop so I went for it. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing, but I did hours worth of it. I must have done a good job because my professor approved. It was a photo on top of a photo on top of a photo. Different sizes and then I combined it with a light intaglio piece from a printmaking class. It was from another photo of Guatemala. The very last step was bringing it all together.
The End Result
The photograph above it the end result of my outside the box experiment. At that time in my art, the wildest thing I had ever done. Ja! I was still such a newbie and it was hard to let go. In the end I liked the artwork, I wasn’t sure if if was complete or if anyone else would find it interesting.
Fast forward four years and college had been over and I was preparing for my first solo exhibit. I wanted an artwork that would give a sneak peek to my follow up series to Fragments, this in one that spoke to me. Several people told me how they found this piece interesting as it looked and felt different from my other pieces hanging in the show.
Now you now the story of Las Casas de Antigua.