ART, PAPER, BOOKS AND CARTONERÍA EL COLONIALISMO ENTRE NUESTROS BOLSILLOS : EL ARTE, PAPEL, LIBROS Y LA CARTONERÍA

In the motion of space and time, the art we continue to participate in is not separate from colonial structures, mentalities, or processes. Colonialism within the art world is foundational. When things become more valuable, we must continuously ask: to whom and to what? Value across many art forms is placed on material, presentation, skill, labor, and who made it. A form of decision-making that can feel subjective—or perhaps, more accurately, shaped through a colonial lens. Shaped by capitalism. And other factors of perception. 

Even the language for art is colonial, as we even create differences between Artisan and Artist. 

Papel Amate was a paper which was banned by the Spanish as a form of Indigenous erasure, culture, history, and ritualistic traditions which are embedded to the land and spirit. If it weren't for communities like the Otomi along Hildalgo, Puebla, Veracruz and other indigenous communities who continued the practice in secret, this paper making practice could have been completely erased.. disappearing rituals, ceremony and ancestral knowledge. 

Using Papel Amate today is a form of resistance. The communities in Puebla, Veracruz, Guerrero, Hidalgo, and many others continue making this paper. Whether for their codices, art, or to sell.  Each sheet of paper is a gathering of threads, a collection of visions and ancestry. 

The Otomi create codices out of Amate, documenting their rituals, paper cut-out of energies, figures and stories to heal, to understand and keep alive a language that connects their existence to the land. Artists from Guerrero, make and use papel Amate to paint beautiful birds, animals, flowers, and landscapes. Documenting the regions of Xalitla and beyond. Documenting their land. Many sell their paintings, selling the originals, and their one-of-a-kind quality, yet their paintings are still not as much as those by some artists in the Art world, or places like New York. Yet when we do see these works of art in higher value, who is profiting from them? And is the money really returning back to the communities/artists? 

Why does this occur? Although, perhaps I know the answer to this… I still feel the need to write it out. To reiterate over and over again on paper and in my own mind into my heart. Finding the threads pulling and then wondering is this world we are still choosing to engage with? 

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to interview Erick Duranton, an artist in Mexico City who has spent his whole childhood and life creating cartonería. He is a descendant of folk-art artist Pedro Linares. Pedro Linares became known through artists like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, who bought many of his pieces and commissioned his work. He was the visionary who brought Alebrijes to life in Mexico and the world. From a fever dream he created these creatures, animals with various mixed parts, dragon with a lion's head, lizard with insect wings, these creatures sound very much like surrealist artists… but yet those artists still have a word and category to cling onto that gives their work value. 

Over time, Pedro was widely known for his work, creations, and interviewed frequently. So, why aren’t any of his pieces displayed in various museums, traveling and selling at the same amount Frida’s or Diego’s work does? 

Shouldn’t his work be valued at that extent as theirs? Am I missing something? His love story or connections to other famous people to add more value to his work? His class status that attributes to certain entry points? Or is it that he didn't have anyone after his death spinning and commodifying his legacy. These are merely questions I had racing in my head after I left Erick’s house and finished the interview. 

I am writing this knowing that my own language I use to write is colonial. Framing. Dissecting. And breathing. 

Erick talked about his process, mother, colors, and imagination. An imagination that was not aided by being around poets, artists, musicians, filmmakers or even art spaces, institutions, diy venues, or anything. His imagination came from observing his mother. Watching her create alebrijes since he was child. Her movements. Techniques. Designs. A witnessing of her making and creating was the reason he started. With time he made his own paper mache sculptures evolving out of his own mother’s shape, body, spirit, and a form of creation placed into him. A transmission without naming the moments or instances. A natural recurrence of blood flowing through veins. 

So, how do we continue engaging with art? If the same patterns and experiences of what ART could be and be sustained repeats. Doesn’t involve out of these spaces.. 

It is important to name those who are not in the room, physically and spiritually. Those who make the things we are claiming or perhaps not claiming in our work. Realize there are certain spaces as much as they would like to say fighting imperialism, patriarchy,  “the empire”, they simply aren’t. Are we willing to recognize those spaces? I am not asking for us to be good human beings, but perhaps honest, introspective humans who can identify what is missing in our time, especially in the art spaces we engage with. In art institutions spaces where the hierarchies are still present and those in positions of power still make more than the employees. Where is the distribution of wealth there? Distribution of class? 

I am not communicating to not care for the artists who are selling their work at high prices. I am just questioning the distribution of wealth within art spaces. Whether they are small, or huge institutions. Whether they receive grant money, or rely on private/public donations. Who is the money going to? 

We must ask ourselves who are we writing/creating for? Even if we say no one. Who are we showing our work too? Selling it to? Art spaces with prestigious?  Academia? The wealthy folks who can afford an art program? 

Erick is the fourth generation papier macher. He works almost every day. Making with his own hands, spirit and heart. Yet struggles with people recognizing the value in his work. He sells his pieces depending on size from $1-20. Though the commissions for the bigger pieces don't happen often they are usually the ones where he can make the most money selling 16ft sculpture for $300-400 dollars. His mother and him have even thought about working on other things to be able to make a living. Like many in his family who had to leave this practice to be able to make the money to survive. 

 

Clearing the clouds. 

I make books. Publish everything by hand. I print 15 free pages at one of the local libraries and then cut everything by hand, then paste everything onto a book form I bind together. I make codices, journals, notebooks, poetry, and visual books. When I have the space and materials to make my own paper and then I purchase from multiple resources, a paper store in the United States when I have a chance, and several different paper stores in Mexico. The paper I buy I spend time researching how it's made, where, and who, and what it can carry beyond knowledge and material. I learn about material to understand the forms in which I can correspond and respect the history and spirit of those who have made them. I have not been able to meet those who have the paper personality. This is an awareness I carry when working with the materials and also selling them here in the United States. I carry this in order to change my practice, the way I think of material and acknowledge those who make it possible for me to be an artist. 

I do this in order to make Artists books. If you want to name it. To make books and create an invitation for others to also make them themselves. And so where does this practice stem from? I began creating my own books by myself when I was younger and then had the immense privilege of going to Poetry school. Although it cost me a lot and I am somewhat paying my student loans. I still had the privilege. Though I am told this is what privilege is… going to a university, going into debt, learning from individuals who are not brown, and spending plenty of my time within whiteness and let’s be honest within my own whiteness I have inherited living and being born in the United States… An immense privilege… 

Though with this privilege I still often question who I learned from at that time in college. Who was around me? Who was the professor? The mentor. The landscape. 

Understanding.. no Artist is separate from capitalism as we work and create from the time now. Also layers how we place value on whom we are learning from. Whether we create value to insure how we will capitalist on or to continue uplifting the hierarchical structures. We create a clear image of what a space or person can represent. Formulating perhaps an erasure of communities who perhaps are not known…through our own creations we can also erase communities. So where is our responsibility? 

My family is often who I think of when I think of responsibility. They are the ones who I learn from most in life and who I talk to when it comes to these questions. My tata, who is a roofer, who moves around all day and can not afford to retire in the United States, I have learned from his body in ways I am just recognizing. The way his body and spirit continue. The way his hands move with wood, repairing and cutting everything around the home. Cutting the yard. Fixing his truck. Driving his truck. Holding a guitar. Or an accordion. Climbing a ladder. Standing in the sun. I have witnessed him in so many ways to understand the forms of capitalism and hierarchies that one can only see when we are looking at classism. Specifically the classism that occurs inside this country, and perhaps specifically cities.. 

If we are still not looking at class and its shaping, or mishaping it within art spaces, and institutions are we able to understand art at all?  

If I can not understand the disproportion between the world itself will my art always reflect the dispositions of the world without a true recognition. 

To say my practice stems from my art program is to erase the stories of my family, my ancestors, and so many other communities from Mesoamerica and around the world. To say that bookbinding, or bookmaking came because of my higher education is to erase the history of the Otomis, Mayans, Mexicas, and many others who have practiced bookmaking. 

I write this knowing this is not a complete piece, or trying to resonate with everyone’s practice and positionalities. But as an invitation to questions and understand what is missing? I am not asking for alternative spaces from these artistic spaces, but perhaps an acknowledgment of those who are not around us… continuously name those who are not in the room, physically and spiritually… for whose comfort?