To begin, could you give us an overview of your artistic practice? What led you to become the visual artist, writer, and performer you are today? 

I have a multidisciplinary studio practice which incorporates painting, drawing, fiber art, installation art, sculpture, performance, and video art. Works in each medium exist individually or operate together to form an art installation. Performance artworks can integrate other media to support the creation of props or costumes. My video artworks sometimes include my drawings.

The foundation for my artistic practice is research and writing. I write academic papers: these essays are presented at conferences and published in academic journals. In addition to my academic work, I have been writing poetry for over thirty-five years. A sustained, driving need to create led me to be the artist that I am today. I engage and contribute to society by conceiving ideas, fabricating objects, words or actions, and producing forms of art. 

Your work explores "the relationship between the qualities and symbolism of hair with issues of body image, femininity and identity." Can you elaborate on hair's role in challenging beauty standards? 

Historically, beauty standards have deemed straight, smooth, controlled hair to be attractive. These adjectives are applicable to the hair of white people with European ancestry. Women challenge beauty norms by pushing back against stereotypical notions of good hair. The afro is more than a hairstyle: it is a symbol of pride and liberation. Sinead O’Connor’s buzzcut and pixie cut defied conventions surrounding femininity and prettiness.  

In your artist statement, you mentioned that “hair serves as an archive of my body and reflects the aging process.” Can you deconstruct this line of thought for us? 

Hair grows on my body; notably, this fiber grows from my head. I have been collecting my hair for twenty-five years. The collection of my hair is an archive of my body from age thirty-four to the present day. I was a brunette when I began collecting my hair. Over the years, I dyed my hair to achieve different values for my artwork.  My collection bins of hair have been permeated by gray hair. Bins of hair from the past five years illustrate the aging process: more gray strands and less brunette tresses.  

Your work varies from labor-intensive hand-stitched art to large on-site multimedia installations—how do you correlate these distinct forms of art, and how do you maintain thematic coherency? 

One medium bleeds into the other: hand-sewn objects are embedded into art installations. Different media within an art installation work together to reinforce the theme. For example, The Invisible Woman Syndrome includes hand-stitched soft sculptures paying homage to Latina activists. This art installation is comprised of beans (red, black and pinto), fiber artworks, a specialty fabric tablecloth, dressed mannequin, and hand-stitched apron of specialty fabric.

The installation’s title, The Invisible Woman Syndrome, refers to a term describing what happens to women over fifty in society. It presents to the viewer a dichotomy of presence and absence. Names of Latina activists are hand embroidered upon deconstructed/reconstructed soft bra sculptures. The embroidered names allude to the absence of intersectionality in feminist history and the absence of Latina activists in U.S. history. Food commodities, set upon the table, are signifiers of ethnic identity.   

How does your Spanish and Coahuiltecan heritage inform your intersectional feminist approach to art? 

The history of feminism is based on the experiences of Western, middle class white women. Intersectional feminism considers how social structures impact gender inequality. All women do not experience oppression in the same manner; race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, religion, and age contribute to disproportionate discrimination. My family background is rooted in Mexico; therefore, I am mestizo. Gender and ethnic heritage, markers of my identity, are inseparable. Within this selfhood, I navigate institutional spaces and public environments. Identity is intrinsic to my artistic practice; accordingly, I create art from the point of view of a Spanish, Indigenous, woman.   

How do you contextualize your hair stitching within the 1970s women's craft movement while maintaining contemporary relevance? 

My hand-stitching with hair maintains contemporary relevance due to the current upswing and renewed interest in fiber art. Although it might be a short-lived trend, the art world is increasingly prioritizing fiber art in art fairs and exhibitions. Julia Halperin wrote the New York Times article “Fiber Art Is Finally Being Taken Seriously” in 2023. In 2025, Maxwell Rabb’s article for Artsy quizzed curators about how fiber art was a “growing force in exhibitions and critical discourse”. The art world has pivoted to handmade, tactile practices which are labor-intensive.  

How do you hope your artwork influences viewers' understanding of current democratic and social challenges? Is there a particular piece that exemplifies this? 

I hope the audience for my art contemplates their position and responsibility in the social fabric of our world. Despite challenging times, I retain hope. One art piece which embodies this concept is my video artwork Our House. It draws from my personal history. The video taps into memories and symbolism related to casa (house/home) and juxtaposes these memories with the rallying cry heard on January 6, 2021, “Whose house? Our house! Whose house? Our house!” I center this artwork around the U.S. Capitol as the people’s house.

Our House explores notions of inclusion/exclusion, might makes right, and freedom/oppression. Our House features an original poem (by the same name) performed by myself in two Santa Fe, New Mexico venues: Axle Contemporary and form & concept gallery. These two performances are interwoven with original artwork, family photos and images from the Library of Congress.  

Given your emphasis on poetry and academic research as critical components of your creative process, could you elaborate on their significance within your overall practice? 

The inception of any given theme is anchored in my investigation of socio-political issues. Part of my studio process involves researching a potential theme; consequently, I formally compose these ideas into academic essays. In 2013, I wrote and published my first paper Desired: The Norm of Imperfection for MOD Art’13 Beauty and Ugliness conference (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey). Researching the female image in Western art history served as a catalyst for my own self-reflection. Retrospectively, how did my approach to depicting the human figure evolve and transform over the last two decades? Haphazard verses of poetry in my sketchbooks morphed and shifted into staged performances. A poem might be a signpost for a specific artwork, while another poem may correlate to an entire series of artworks. Threads of thematic continuity link poetry and visual artwork. Clearly, visual presence was as important as articulated words. I designed my spoken word performances: they involve the creation of costumes, memorization, choreography and rehearsal. Performances are frank vignettes of tempos and characters. The characters bespeak the sociopolitical issues in my visual artworks.

From your perspective, how do art and artistic creation bridge the gap between global societal and political issues and the general public? 

Art can be a visual intermediary between the public and global sociopolitical issues. Some artists who work within the modality of social practice art prioritize communal relationships and politically engaged art. Members of the public are sometimes more engaged by the collaborative format and social interaction; thereby, debate and education about sociopolitical issues can take place.  

Finally, what message would you like to leave for our readers? 

I would like to leave your readers with one of my favorite quotes. While it may seem odd, for me this quote is about resilience. As a woman of color, I must be resilient to survive in this world. As an artist, I endure, stretch and adapt. From Clementine Ford’s Fight Like a Girl: she says, “Faith in the feminist identity can feel like pushing shit uphill while having more giant buckets of shit fired at you from a cannon constructed entirely out of shit.”

 Learn more about the artist here.

Cover image

What You Whispered, Should be Screamed, 2018, hand-sewn gray human hair on black twill fabric, 35\" x 33\". Image courtesy of Rosemary Meza-DesPlas.