People With No Names: The Undocumented #119

This 8" x 12" oil on board is an unfinished view of an undocumented immigrant building a fence,  in the United States, for a family.  There is an unfinished section of foliage "on his back" and as I looked at it, I realized that it reminded me of the "burden" on the back of the 'Pilgrim' in the story "Pilgrim's Progress".  What a relief it was for the pilgrim in the story, when his burden was rolled away.  What a relief it would be to 'roll away' (i.e. reform the immigration policies in our country) or remove the immigrants' daily fear of being 'found out', of being deported, of being separated from their loved ones and possibly never seeing them again.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #72

This oil on canvas is 30"x 40" and titled "When You Eat This Bread, When You Drink This Cup". I am thinking a lot about the fact that immigrants would rather NOT 'eat the bread and drink the cup' of the immigrant experience. Like Christ in the garden, they wish that this cup could pass them by.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #52

This is and oil on masonite 8"x12". This little girl was at the 'Comedor' in Nogales, Mexico. It was a cold January day but she was bundled up in a jacket, scarf, and hat and she was smiling. One sees few women and even fewer children in the deportee/refugee/immigrant population. Part of this is due to the dangers and hardships that all immigrants are subjected to, and part is due to the fact that many immigrants choose to leave more tender and vulnerable family members behind in order to 'go ahead and prepare a place for them'. It is a re-enactment every day of service and sacrifice, (recall Jesus going ahead of us to prepare a place for us, and then gathering us to himself.) Also, I am reading about the Chinese immigration to the U.S. in the 1930s and how the laws had provisions for men to come and enter the work force, but made it particularly difficult to bring in women and children. Women carried within their bodies the threat of increasing numbers of American born Chinese children. So, I can't help but look at this little girl and think, "Is she the next Vera Wang?" In the 30s, we certainly did not want Vera Wang's relatives in this country. Today, we are thrilled to call this very talented, hard-working, creative woman our fellow American!

why i paint what i paint #11

On Sunday night I had the opportunity to go on my local Public Radio Spanish Language program to talk about my work and why I am doing it. It is two days later and I realize that I entered into (in a very small way), the immigrant experience. Oh, and I was a lucky immigrant because I got to take my very supportive husband and my very supportive Cuban friend with me! Anyway, we traveled through the darkness, to the radio station at 10 P.M. and entered into an alien land, a land where everyone but us seemed to really know the customs and procedures. They were speaking a rapid-fire language, where I could catch only a word or two...here and there. It was all very foreign, frightening and disorienting. I could tell that the interviewer was most interested in talking to my Cuban friend because she spoke his language and was easier to talk to. I didn't blame him at all because I understood the desire to feel comfortable, included, and at home. Afterward, my husband pointed out that, not only was I trying to function in a foreign environment, but I that I naturally prefer a private work environment to a public arena. How many new arrivals in a foreign country would prefer to remain in their own countries, with their own/known customs, languages, food and family? How incredibly brave of them to venture forth into unknown (often hostile and dangerous) territory because they need to help their loved ones. I was a lucky immigrant. I was chaperoned, welcomed, and safe. I lived to tell my story. And my journey was, mercifully, oh so brief.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #31

This is an oil sketch on canvas (15"x 21") of 3 workers at a wholesale nursery in the Northwest. I asked permission to talk to the workers. The owner at first stated that all immigrant workers are documented...but then admitted that the agriculture business could not exist without the pool of immigrant labor (documented or otherwise). As is often the case, there was understandable hesitancy and resistance to answering my questions. But as I bumbled along in my rudimentary Spanish, and promised not to use names, the men told me why they came to the U.S. and where they came from. This group came from the states of Oaxaca and Yucatan. All came for the same reason: economic necessity. Even though these men are short in stature and the particular plants are about knee high, the day's work involves bending over all day long. These men are thankful for the work. There is dignity in work and the ability to care for one's family.

why i paint what i paint #6

Yesterday I saw a staggeringly beautiful film. I was spellbound by the lighting, the images and the themes. The film is "Never Let Me Go" and was adapted from the book by Kazuo Ishiguro. I cannot recommend the book and the film highly enough. It explores themes of technology, ethics, human worth and dignity, and the place of art as an indicator of our intrinsic humanity. Oh, and it re-visits the concept of 'duty and service' that was so beautifully rendered in Ishiguro's "The Remains of the Day". Interestingly, Ishiguro is an immigrant, raised in England by his Japanese parents. He finds the concept of duty very similar in Japan and England and except for his Japanese name, the reader would never question his English lineage.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #26

I kept trying to paint this Nogales Mary exactly as I had photographed her, and it just wasn't working. Then I stumbled on the Bonnard painting of a little girl at the table...the one where the canvas is almost totally filled with a white breakfast table littered with all manner of foodstuffs. I realized that if I put "my contemporary Mary" (the immigrant who is 4 mos. pregnant and trying to travel with her husband to the United States) into this composition it would be redolent with meaning, as well as working as a painting composition. Thankyou Pierre Bonnard! Now my painting makes me think of the 'Table of Plenty' song we sing at church, especially the line, "God will provide for all that we need, here at the table of plenty".

People With No Names - The Undocumented #19

This is a very loose oil sketch of a table of immigrant men right before they are served breakfast/lunch. (one of two meals a day). They are looking at a piece of paper on which their stories have been typed up. Every few days a visiting student hands these two-sided/ one sheet of paper, accounts to the immigrants to read. They have evidence in their hands that their lives, their journeys, matter. Isn't this what we all want?

People With No Names - The Undocumented #16

This is another of my "ladder paintings". I have noticed that ladders are a recurrent image in many of my paintings, due to the fact that many jobs such as gardenwork, painting houses, cleaning houses require the use of a ladder. The ladder is a metaphor for the journey. I will walk step by step up, from down in Central America to El Norte to find opportunity and work for my family. I will leave the comfort and safety of terra firma (my culture, my family, my language). If I am short in stature (as are many indigenous people) I will take more steps. I will start at the bottom of the ladder: walking, weeding and waiting. I will prop my ladder against a wall of opportunity, possibility and hope. (Note that I painted this in squares, merely focusing on the beautiful colors in each quadrant of the image, because many pieces have to come together for these people to gain a chance at a new life. Also I purposely decided not to let the ladder come all the way to the ground to indicate the precarious position that the immigrant is always in.)

People With No Names - The Undocumented #14

When I was being shown the women's refuge I noticed colorful laundry being dried outside of the apartment building. I snapped a quick picture as I kept following the person showing me around. It wasn't til I got home that I realized what a hopeful gesture it is to simply do laundry. The women are flying their 'prayer flags'...they are saying that there is a future (despite all the hardship and rejection) and they will need clean clothes to walk into it.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #13

This is just a quick brushy underpainting/first pass I made at an image of Caesar on the big ladder. As I looked at it, I realized that this image is a true picture of an undocumented immigrant's life here. Nothing is clearly delineated, articulated or certain. A person on a ladder is potentially in a precarious position; a person on the margins of society is always in a precarious position.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #4.

Notice the American flag in the background. This part of the U.S.A. used to be part of Mexico.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #3.

This man was moving stones into a real estate agent's Lexus in Tucson. It was 108 degrees outside.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #3

Cleaning ladies from Chihuahua, Mexico.

Hard working.

Taxpayers.

People With No Names - The Undocumented #3

Hard working man.  Has lived in Tucson four years.  Has not seen his family, wife, and three children, for four years.  Sends money home every Friday night so his children can go to school.