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By Diana Garcia
 L.
paints her empty sardine tin bright red. She glues multi-colored
sequins all around it. She is completely
absorbed in her handiwork and does not speak to the girls sitting
next to her.
M., on the other hand, always a spurt of high-energy, chats away as she glues
blue plastic dolphin beads to the middle of her empty tuna can.
“Look, Ms. Garcia!” she beams at me, “I’m making a pool
of dolphins! I love dolphins! They’re my favorite!”
Eighteen other boys and girls, ranging from ages 6 to 11, paint, cut, glue,
and create their own personal art pieces out of discarded tins, cans, scraps
of fabrics, old magazines, sequins, and beads. They sit at long tables
in the art room of Allan Elementary in Austin, Texas. How content they
are to take junk and to recycle it into colorful, sparkly 3-D collages.
 Before letting them begin their pieces, I read them a lovely children’s
book, The Tin Forest by Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson. In this book an old
man living by a junkyard gets the idea to turn the trash all around him into
a tin forest. The students loved how the man cleverly transformed old pipes
and scraps of metal into a huge forest complete with robotic birds and beasts.
He had taken junk and created a place of beauty and tranquility.
***
Now
let me explain why the children are here and what this is all
about. For the last three years
I have facilitated a 2-hour after school art enrichment class
I call “Club de arte cultural”, or “Cultural
Art Club”. We meet on Wednesdays, from 3pm to 5pm. I only
allow 20 students in the class because I also teach full-time
as an elementary bilingual teacher, and I’m exhausted and
stressed after a full day of teaching. I look forward to this
art club—no behavior problems to worry about, no pressure
for grades. We are here simply to be creative, to express ourselves,
and to learn how art is an expression of culture.
The school I work at is 87% Hispanic,
12% African American, and 1%Anglo with 93% of the students labeled “Economically
Disadvantaged” (Texas Education Agency). I live but five
minutes away from this campus in East Austin, the “poor” side
of Interstate 35. I know well the streets and homes of where
my students live.
L., the girl who carefully glued her
sequins to her can, her house, with its peeling paint and broken
screen windows, sits amidst a patch of brown dirt. No grass.
Three mangy-looking dogs lounge outside among broken bicycles,
soda pop cans and debris. Inside, the furniture is old and the
couch’s fabric torn in places. Four broken chairs line
a greasy spotted wall. “Why don’t they just throw
the chairs away?” I think as I try not to vomit due to
the rancid smell coming from the small kitchen.
“God,” I think, “this
place depresses me.” I wonder how L. keeps her creativity
alive, and where did it spring from? I see nothing here that
resembles or reflects beauty. How much more amazing L. seems
to me now. L., who loves to paint, to color with sweet-smelling
markers, to use glitter on her colorful drawings.
That is why I hold an after school
art club—L. should have beauty in her life, all children
should. I try to teach them how to take discarded materials,
things they can easily access, and to re-invent what is usually
thrown out, to make it useable again as art, as something precious.
This past school year, our campus lost
its funding for after school enrichment classes. We had funding
for much-needed tutorials in reading, writing, and math, but
no “fun” classes like cooking, soccer, dance, karate,
or reader’s theatre. Luckily for me, and my desire to host
an art club, I got involved with a certain Veronica Perez about
four years ago. Veronica, along with her sister MaryLou Castillo,
started a non-profit arts organization, Latinas Unidas Por El
Arte, L.U.P.E. Arte, for short. Thanks to their passion for making
art accessible to children with limited resources, my art club
can get paint, brushes, markers, paper, and other art-related
supplies from L.U.P.E.Arte. They also fund field trips to museums
and art galleries and organize art shows celebrating the children’s
completed art projects.
I asked Veronica Perez how L.U.P.E.Arte came to be. She explained that she
worked for 20 years with La Pena, a non-profit arts organization, and that
they often worked with the students at Sanchez Elementary, another school
in East Austin.
“As an executive director of La Pena,” said Veronica, “I also
got involved with Harris Elementary. I saw the need to get involved with more
East Austin schools. One organization serving one school didn’t seem to
be enough. My sister said, ‘Why don’t we start our own organization?’”
Veronica elaborated, “When I was executive director with La Pena, I had
to produce two events around Christmas time; La musica navidena centered around
the birth of Jesus and was art created by children, and the Virgen de Guadalupe
exhibition was created by adult artists.”
“La Pena was going through some hard times. I was left on my own to produce
the Musica navidena and La Virgen de Guadalupe events. I could combine the two
events, I thought, but then I woke up at three in the morning thinking La Virgen
was insulted. I didn’t hear any voices or anything, but I felt it. I had
wanted to combine the two events, but we as women are always sacrificing for
the sake of others. I should do a special homage to La Virgen that has nothing
to do with Christmas. I decided to do a separate event with her and the art of
children.”
Veronica also explained, “La
Virgen de Guadalupe is an icon that unites Latinas. It doesn’t
matter what religion you are—she unites us. That is where
I got the name Latinas Unidas Por El Arte, and I decided to focus
our event on two goals, to support Latina artists and children
in art because it is women and children who are the first to
get thrown out of the ‘sinking boat’ in arts funding.”
“I started at Allan Elementary
because my grandsons were there,” Veronica explained. She
added she wanted to serve children who were less likely to have
the experiences of going to museums and of finding artists they
could relate to.
Leaving La Pena, Veronica applied for
grants and, along with her sister MaryLou, established what has
now become a yearly arts event, La Virgen de Guadalupe exhibit.
It is always held on December 12, the day when Mexicans honor
the miraculous appearance of La Virgen to the humble Juan Diego.
Until Veronica approached me with the
idea of having my art club students paint their renditions of
La Virgen on cloth, I had never heard of this major Mexican holiday.
Now I am forever grateful to Veronica for the legend of Juan
Diego holds a powerful, symbolic message for me. For those of
you who are not familiar with the legend, in 1531, Juan Diego,
an Aztec peasant, saw a vision of La Virgen. She spoke to him
asking him to go to the bishop in Mexico City. “Tell him
I want a church built here,” said La Virgen, “here
on the hill of Tepeyac.”
Instead of feeling proud and excited
to have been chosen as spokesperson for La Virgen, Juan Diego
mumbled something to the effect, “I am a nobody. The bishop
will never listen to me!”
But La Virgen insisted that Juan Diego
have faith. Of course, the bishop did not take Juan Diego seriously.
Only when Juan Diego asked for a miracle from La Virgen did the
bishop listen to him. La Virgen told Juan Diego to go gather
roses although it was wintertime. Juan Diego did see beautiful
red roses and felt confident the bishop would take this as a
miraculous sign. Both Juan Diego and the bishop received a bigger
miracle, however, when Juan Diego, spread his tilma, a type of
cloak, where he had carried the roses. The image of La Virgen
de Guadalupe had been imprinted on the tilma. The bishop bowed
down to La Virgen and the church got built, and Juan Diego’s
tilma can still be seen by those who visit the Basilica of Guadalupe
in Mexico City.
I love this story because I read it
as a gift of art. Juan Diego did not believe in himself and felt
intimidated by the bishop, but La Virgen chose him, telling him
that she was the Mother of all people. To me, the fact that her
image was imprinted on his tilma, signifies the impact of art.
La Virgen chose a visual image as her miracle to Juan Diego,
as her gift to all the indigenous and humble people who feel
they are not heard by those who hold power.
I hope that through my art club I can
pass on this feeling of empowerment through the creative processes.
While we mainly focus on creating art pieces we also read multicultural
children’s literature to the children and ask them to think
about the books’ messages. They are also asked to write
about their art in their artists’ journals and have also
integrated poetry activities. Lastly, we work to celebrate the
children’s culture through art. Besides our big annual
Virgen de Guadalupe show, we also create a Dia de los Muertos
altar on our campus for the whole school to use, and invite parents
to participate too.
While I work at Allan Elementary, Veronica
and Mary Lou busily work at other campuses to recruit other teachers
to help spread art to our children. This past year Veronica received
a funding from A Glimmer of Hope Foundation. While she started
three years ago with L.U.P.E.Arte at Allan., she now has had
art clubs or projects going at Graham Elementary, Pickle Elementary,
Winn Elementary, Dobie Middle School, and Martin Middle School.
She proudly tells me, “My sister wants to mentor kids,
to encourage them to look into careers in art. You can find a
job that you can create that gives you freedom. We went from
one school to six schools! Now I want to hang on to these schools
and concentrate on helping women artists to do the things they
want to do, to look for women-centered arts projects, and to
expand with women’s writings projects.”
Veronica and Mary Lou constantly network
and strive to integrate multi-disciplinary art shows. The Virgen
exhibit always includes a theatrical rendition of the Legend
of Juan Diego performed by the children perform and directed
by Marita De La Torre. She also teaches the children Aztec dances
and incorporates them into the play. Recently, singer song-writer
Lourdes Perez got involved with L.U.P.E.Arte and taught Martin
Middle School students how to write simple songs. I attended
their show, and the students’ music floored me! So simple,
yet amazingly poetic and beautiful. These were youth who had
never played an instrument before, yet how quickly they learned
to share the lovely songs inside of them.
Veronica excitedly tells me San Antonio
writer, Carmen Tafolla, plans to do writing workshops with L.U.P.E.
Arte for women who dream of writing. As you can see Veronica
herself dreams big and works, like the little old man and his
tin forest, to make those dreams a reality.
***
When I bought a house in East Austin
six years ago, my mother seemed a bit disappointed. This house
and neighborhood looked too much like the Westside barrio I grew
up in my native San Antonio. For some, success means a brand
new car and a spiffy suburban home in some gated community. But
I am who I am. I love East Austin. That is why I live here, work
here, create art here. My success is the happiness of watching
children engaged in painting, sewing, enthusiastically rushing
up to me, “Look Ms. Garcia! Look what I made!”
A new school year is about to begin.
Who knows what kind of funding we will get this year at Allan
Elementary? At least for 20 children, the Club de arte cultural
will provide art supplies, field trips to local museums and galleries,
and a space in which to paint, sew, cut and take tin cans and
turn them into colorful, whimsical collages. We will construct
our Dia de los Muertos altar to honor our dead loved ones. We
will paint our Virgencitas as we see her. We will read beautiful
books about art and artists. We will write our poems and thoughts
down. We will use our imaginations to celebrate who we are and
what we feel. We will continue to network, Latinas y ninos united
through art, and our little miracles will keep us going.
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