Protraits
In high school, I had a strong obsession with myself; it was how I was able to deal with my dreams and try to understand the world through my teenage eyes. I made a lot of portraits of myself. Many of these portraits were given away, or I lost them somehow. The abuse of my artwork is a common theme, and many of these older pieces have been abused. As a teenager, I didn’t understand why I wanted to abuse my artwork when it would give me so much praise and recognition from teachers and my family. I can say that each portrait I made of myself was a small piece of this bigger puzzle that was me, and this frustrated me because I just felt so lost. I would also get so angry because these 2-D images looking at me were never the whole story. It was just a moment in time captured. This aspect of art terrified me because I was having dreams of people dying terrible, torched deaths, and having that moment be such a defying moment for these people seemed unfair. The dreams seemed so real I didn’t want any of them to be true, and I was desperate to live a positive, happy life because I didn’t know what these dreams meant and whether it was hinting at my own death. Would I fall the same fate, and honestly, what was the difference between me and these people in my dreams? Why do these people die terribly when I am living happily with my family?
Below are the portraits I did at this time in my life, each one so different and taking on a unique meaning for me.
Harlem Protest: In high school, my Ceramics teacher was ahead of her time and felt it was essential to teach her students about racial inequality. Being a minority in a suburban school does add additional hurdles for a minority teenager to relate to non-minority peers. A lot of those hurdles are cautions that minority families teach their children because, time and time again, life teaches us that things are different for us. I don’t know if the dreams led me to this conclusion or my uncanny willingness to follow the Priest's direction to be “happy and normal.” However, I realized that the minorities who didn’t allow these differences to make them angry became more agile and had better relationships. These relationships opened up doors and opportunities to enable that person to get the job or be an asset in the bigger community by fulfilling the promise to advocate for everyone. The most important thing I realized when creating this piece was that “everyone” doesn’t mean now it’s time to give our people all the spotlight. The lesson all minorities must learn to succeed is we must provide an equal spotlight to non-minority and minority groups. Setting the standard for everyone to follow.
My mother’s child: In high school, my mom was at the point where she was just about to break the dysfunctional cycle she grew up in. She had kids at 16 years old, and she was a high school dropout who returned to school to get her associate’s degree (she got straight As). She moved us out of the subsides apartments and bought a home in the suburbs. She started her first job as an examiner for the county, and right when things were looking great for her, the county announced there would be layoffs. At the same time, she allowed her sister’s kid to move in with us because he was sick. Every day, she would get calls for his misbehavior, which didn’t look good to the people who were doing layoffs. No one in my family blamed him; dealing with a terminal illness was very sad. However, my mom needed to keep her job, or everything she built would crumble. Under all this stress, my mom was still able to make me feel she was always watching me. As a teenager, I would call it her evil watchful eye and tell my friends my mom knows. This painting is of my mother and I.
Portrait of my Brother: Being in a house filled with women, my brother was a bit of the odd one out. I remember so much from his entire upbringing. When he was a baby, he was a very sick kid, and there was so much stress from going to the hospital so much that the emergency staff knew him by name. My most significant memory was the constant watching of him. I would spend hours just looking at him because we had to watch him sleep to make sure he wasn’t having an asthma attack, and watching my mom spend an hour ever feeding trying to get him to burb. He was also an emotional kid who cried a lot. I remember when he was 13, standing and crying at the bottom of the stairs. I just turned to him and said, “Just shut up already,”
Portrait of my sister Bella Donna: My zealous sister, whom I fight with and love dearly. Before the dreams of people dying, I would have dreams of darkness, and in the darkness, there would be voices—a constant chatter of what has passed, what will come, and the present. These dreams would be scary because they were just darkness with no real space to live in, and there was a large amount of fear in these dreams. But something in the darkness consumed everything around the voices, and the voices would scream out when they were caught. I instinctually would sit and listen. The whole dream was of me just listening. My sister’s name came up one day, and her past, present, and future were discussed. It seemed not to be the greatest, with a lot of struggle, and I didn’t want that to happen. The voices urged me to speak to save my sister, but I didn’t want to be consumed by the thing in the dark, and I felt like I heard everything so I could help her in real life, not my dream. Then the voices commanded me to speak, and uncontrollably, I started to try and speak. Frightened and struggling to keep quiet, a light came over me, and I saw my face without a mouth.
The woman who would chase me: In my dreams, there were many people for whom I didn’t have an answer because they refused to help themselves. This was because they felt they would get what they wanted if they did something. In the dream, they would all be stuck in this small house; however, once you entered, it was an endless house of endless doors and rooms. In front of the house, there was a monster, which was a statue. When the monster would wake up, the house would flood, and everyone would go running and hiding. The beast was always kind to me and showed me the way out. We never spoke.
One of these people was the woman portrayed in this painting. She would chase me and scream, “How can you take from me? I have everything for you.” I would spend an entire dream, which would be hours, running from this woman. Eventually, I would give up and give her a star, which came from my belly. Each time I gave her the star, the monster would come and lead me out of the house.
Self Portrait, The Island: Constant dreams of other people eventually make you think, “What about me?” Reading a book my mother gave me, “When I Was Puerto Rican,” helped me think about other people from the island from which my family came. One day, before I went to sleep, I prayed and asked God to help me see who I am and not of other people. The dream was nothing I thought it would be. Apparently, in the dream, I was an African warrior who became the world’s first colonist. These African warriors are the world's best warriors; all religions and societies come from them. They live worldwide, spreading their DNA to help other people grow and become stronger, with the end mission for the planet to become colonizers of the universe.
Portrait of my brother’s emotions: My brother was a very emotional kid. He constantly cried and had a hard time with his emotions in general. This portrait shows his emotional turmoil building up all the time.
I am not a doll. I can see: In my Drugs and Pills + Light, Color, and Theory class, Collage Freshman section, I talk about dealing with being in a trance when I make art. I honestly think this was the very first time it happened. I totally forgot about this piece before I looked through my portfolio and all my old work.
Portrait of my mother: In high school, my teacher let the students make these still-life set-ups, and they would pick out what section they would draw for that semester. I felt this section was perfect because it reminded me of my mother. A beautiful, fierce woman. I felt the mask and the dinosaur head really show how much of a mama bear she is.
A man from my dreams: This guy appeared in my dreams exspecially when I am sitting in the chair going over everything that happened. He is the figure that always comes to me to talk to me. Alot of the time he tells me I belong in my dreams however I always explain to him that I dont like to be there. One day in my figure drawing class this guy wallks into my class to be drawn and he looks exactly like the man from my dreams. Shocked I told him I have dreams about you all the time. He just smiled and didn’t say much and the class drew him. From then on I was careful to believe what I see because the reality is dreams can be a complinlation from what you are experiencing in life. This was my biggest lesson to not to trust my senses because it is unfair to project anything you are feeling on someone else.
The dynamic relationship between my sick Aunt, Sister, and the demons in between: This was another drawing I did during high school. What is wonderful about my drawing class was that my teacher would allow the students to create these still life compositions that were in the middle of the room and we would draw it all semester.
Portrait of a Spaceman: I was in 6th grade going into 7th grade, and I attended a summer camp. One of the teachers wanted us to draw flowers to learn about femininity. She explained to us that an Artist named Georgia Okeefe painted flowers to express female beauty. I didn’t understand who Georgia O’keefe was and didn’t understand her paintings. However, I felt very strongly that my flower was a spaceship. My teacher explained a metaphor and said, “This is a metaphor for your feminine side, which is beautiful.” However, I was convinced that my flower was a spaceship, and to pay homage to Georgia O’Keefe, I decided to stick with the metaphor and name the drawing Portrait of a Spaceman because a spaceman is nothing without a ship. This drawing makes me laugh every time I see it because I genuinely didn’t understand what she was saying, and what I came up with is truly ironic.
Portrait of Tanto and his amazing journey: When I was a little girl, I would wake up in the middle of the night and wander the house. However, when my Dad was home, he would watch TV downstairs. I would go downstairs and watch TV with my dad all the time. We would watch cowboy westerns, sci-fi movies, and many action movies. As I got older, I thought Tanto doesn’t have a movie for him. I, of course, assumed it’s because Tanto is native american, and his path to greatness is to become one with the land, which is not a fun action movie. A cowboy’s path to greatness is shooting people up, which is obviously more cinematic. Therefore, I drew this drawing for Tanto, giving him an amazing journey.