I'm always excited when my art world merges with my personal
world. As a visual artist, that personal world is one where I'm
constantly imagining the sort of artwork I want to create. What kinds of
images do I want to draw? What questions do I want to pose? Do I care
what people will think of me?
Today, I spent an evening with my Latina sistah/gurlfriend and we were
discussing the need for more popular and positive education formats to
talk about sex. I was talking about the various podcasts I find online
that talk about non-monogamy and non-conventional relationships (such as
PolyWeekly.com),
but complained that so many of these podcasts did not speak to me as a
woman of color. What if, I though, I could create a podcast that openly
talked about non-monogamous relationships and how they are accepted (or
rejected) in communities of color. How do our sexual hang-ups or sexual
liberations, intersect with our experiences around race? After all,
talking about women of color's health means also talking out our history
with sexual abuse and sexual violence, particularly as it has played in
out the colonial, slavery and imperialists contexts.
We ended our night with a stroll into Oakland's newest sex-positive store and gallery, Feelmore 510,
owned by a woman of color with years of experience in the pleasure
industry. I was inspired by three things when I walked into the store,
1) by the artistic and erotic images of people of color decorating the
walls, 2) by the conversation I had with the owner, who briefly talked
about her vision for the store as a place where folks could come for sex
education, and 3) by a queer girl film I picked up, which I just
learned was nominated for an award for Feminist Porn. The film, "Tight Places,"
breaks new ground in the queer porn scene by being the first to
feature an all people of color cast. I can't wait to see it and review
it!
I felt inspired overall because for many years, I have wanted to
create art about sexual liberation, non-monogamy, sex-positivity, porn,
erotica, kink and stuff that I rarely talk about in public. Yes, I'm an
anti-capitalist, and an environmentalist, and a lover of the planet, a
lover of people and their rights, and a fighter of justice. But sadly,
the definition around being "radical" or "progressive," so often leaves
out a revolution around sex and the constructs around it. In fact, when I
have raised the issue of heterosexism and monogamism (meaning the
dominance and enforcement of "monogamy"), I get ostracized or isolated.
When will be the day, when I can hold my "Stop Deportations" banner,
alongside my "Fight the Climate Crisis" banner, alongside my "Release
your Inner Slut" banner??
Really, when will we as a progressive sector begin to embrace a full
liberation of not just our outer selves, but our innerselves? That
includes challenging the things we have learned about sex, about
relationships and about pleasure.
As an artist, is it one of the topics that most interests me, but I
have not been able to fully explore, at times because of my own fears of
being rejected by my community. But spaces like Feelmore, remind me the
importance of women of color being voices for a new political analysis
on sex, gender, queerness, porn, sex work, monogamy, etc. We have to be
OUT and unapologetic. That is how we can address the fear. So keep your
eyes open for my upcoming art about Slutdom.
On that note, I have some work in an exhibit in Minnesota, "Everybody! Visual Resistance in Feminist Health Movements, 1969-2009."
"Everybody!" presents
work by artists and activists engaged with the women’s health movement,
inaugurated by feminists in the later 1960s and '70s and continuing up
to the present day. Featuring advocacy posters and self-education
publications, polemical paintings, descriptive drawings, poetic artists’
books and a provocative performance sculpture, this exhibition provides
visual evidence of the struggle to define health care as a human right,
and the quest to view every body as beautiful.
On display through May 8, 2011, admission to "Everybody!" and the Carleton College Art Gallery is free and open to the public.
Following the evolution of the
movement, "Everybody!" presents
recent creative responses to issues extending beyond women’s bodies to
the health needs of women, men and transgendered people. These include
"Constructa/vulva," a large soft sculpture conceived in homage to the
1970s feminist women’s health movement, a wall drawing imagining girls
endowed with non-human reproductive organs, wallpaper featuring
historical birth control devices and videos and websites exploring
gender transformation and other themes.
The image to the right is one of my prints, you can purchase it by visiting my online store here.
Favianna Rodriguez is a celebrated printmaker and digital artist based in Oakland, California. Using high-contrast colors and vivid figures, her composites reflect literal and imaginative migration, global community, and interdependence. Whether her subjects are immigrant day laborers in the U.S., mothers of disappeared women in Juárez, Mexico, or her own abstract self portraits, Rodriguez brings new audiences into the art world by refocusing the cultural lens. Through her work we witness the changing U.S. metropolis and a new diaspora in the arts.
Hailed as "visionary" and "ubiquitous," Rodriguez is renown for her vibrant posters dealing with issues such as war, immigration, globalization, and social movements. By creating lasting popular symbols - where each work is the multiplicand and its location the multiplier - her work interposes private and public space, as the art viewer becomes the participant carrying art beyond the borders of the museum.
Rodriguez has lectured widely on the use of art in civic engagement and the work of artists who, like herself, are bridging the community and museum, the local and international. Rodriguez's has worked closely with artists in Mexico, Europe, and Japan, and her works appear in collections at Bellas Artes (Mexico City), The Glasgow Print Studio (Glasgow, Scotland), and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles).
Rodriguez has exhibited at Museo del Barrio (New York); de Young Museum (San Francisco); Mexican Fine Arts Center (Chicago); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco); Sol Gallery (Providence, RI); Huntington Museum and Galería Sin Fronteras (Austin, TX); and internationally at the House of Love & Dissent (Rome), Parco Museum (Tokyo), as well as in England, Belgium, and Mexico. She was a 2005 artist-in-residence at San Francisco's prestigious de Young Museum, a 2007-2008 artist-in-residence at Kala Art Institute (Berkeley, CA), and received a 2006 Sea Change Residency from the Gaea Foundation (Provincetown, MA). Rodriguez is recipient of a 2005 award from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics.
As a teacher, Rodriguez has conducted workshops and presentations at Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), El Faro de Oriente (Mexico), de Young Museum (San Francisco), the Habana Hip Hop Festival (Habana, Cuba), as well as Williams College and The Commonwealth Club. In 2003, she co-founded the Taller Tupac Amaru printing studio to foster resurgence in the screenprinting medium. She is co-founder of the EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA) and Visual Element, both programs dedicated to training young artists in the tradition of muralism. She is additionally co-founder and president of Tumis Inc., a bilingual design studio helping to integrate art with emerging technologies.
Rodriguez is co-editor of Reproduce and Revolt! with internationally renowned stencil artist and art critic Josh MacPhee (Soft Skull Press, 2008). An unprecedented contribution to the Creative Commons, the 200-page book contains more than 600 bold, high-quality black and white illustrations for royalty-free creative use. Her artwork also appears in The Design of Dissent (Rockport Publishers, 2006), Peace Signs: The Anti-War Movement Illustrated (Edition Olms, 2004), and The Triumph of Our Communities: Four Decades of Mexican Art (Bilingual Review Press, 2005).
Yes. We should embrace all flavors and the diversity that runs through us.