San Antonio Current - ARTS: Biting back

Thank you to Natalia for reviewing our show. Read our review in The Current, here:

San Antonio Current - ARTS: Biting back

(p.s We hardly ever drink Starbucks [but hey, who's perfect?]......we have some strong points to make in the idea of re-defining what Chicana means to us, and if you have any questions in regards to what we were quoted saying we would be happy to explain in detail)

Biting back
San Antonio's Chicana collective takes in Westside strays

COURTESY PHOTO

Transforming Galeria Tonantzin into SA's west side

By Natalia Ciolko
The women of Chicana art collective Más Rudas sprawl on the floor of the Galería Tonantzin as a tray of Starbucks arrives. Ruth Buentello, whom the others call “the artist,” eyes her venti cup with alarm. “You said get the big one!” insists Mari Hernandez, the photographer, and pushes it toward her. Kristen Gamez, a filmmaker, turns up a mix of freestyle on the boombox and everyone gets back to painting the walls. It’s another long night in anticipation of the group’s first full exhibit, timed perfectly for San Antonio’s Contemporary Art Month.

Despite the strong stirrings of girl power in the gallery tonight, the subject matter of operation Canis Familiaris is San Antonio’s stray-animal problem, itself complicated by human notions of machismo.

“For me the machno-ness is just seeing the stray mothers,” Gamez said. “It’s this lot they have no choice in. They’re in heat, the male dog dominates them, and they’re left with these babies that they have to nurse and find food for. It’s something I’m definitely going to identify with my piece, connecting to these females.”

CAM

Mas Rudas Collective:
Operation Canis Familiaris
Through Apr 16
Galeria Tonantzin
Guadalupe Cultural Arts
Center
guadalupeculturalarts.org

By opening night, the gallery’s formerly blank walls had transformed into street scenes of San Antonio’s West Side, direct reflections of the neighborhood surrounding the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. As visitors entered the streetscape, miniature televisions glowed with images of strays in the urban wild. Buentello’s cardboard paintings of dogs and men stand away from the minimal black-and-white walls, leading into the orange living room of a family home. Hernandez’s black-and-white portraits of beloved animals and the details of recreated domesticity induced visitors and family members to relax on couches and add beer cans to the already-realistic scene.

But opening night was just the beginning: Más Rudas will participate in a gallery walkthrough April 1, at Meet the Artists, followed a week later by a spoken-word poetry event in the space, in collaboration with San Anto Cultural Arts. The show will culminate in a Westside dog show and closing reception in the parking lot of the Guadalupe. By far the most unusual aspect of the exhibit is a free spay-and-neuter clinic scheduled for March 31.

SpaySA, a nonprofit that provides subsidized services in Bexar County, says it’s able to work anywhere — a gym, a hall, anyplace will do. Because the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center is located in Council District 5, the organization has funds available to offer free spay or neutering services for 100 animals, plus $10 rabies shots.

“Because we come from this issue and we’re faced with it, and even some of our families are a part of the issue, we wanted to provide something to service the community,” Gamez said. “It’s not about looking down. It’s just something that we need to provide some kind of recourse for.”

The stakes and scale of this show are vastly bigger than the group’s first effort, a barely publicized art-show-cum-house-party titled Our Debut: Quince at 30, in which the then-nameless collective explored the rite of womanly passage they each skipped in adolescence, and in doing so touched on topics ranging from teen pregnancy to consumerism. [See “A quinceañera, 15 years late,” December 22, 2009.]

Scarcely two months later, opportunity presented itself. Cruz Ortiz, orchestrating the second installment of the Guadalupe’s Artists Curating Artists, chose Más Rudas to take over Galería Tonantzin at the Guadalupe.

“We didn’t have much time, but we knew we couldn’t pass this up,” Buentello said, a hint of amazement registering on her face even now. Things are moving quickly, but not to anyone’s dismay.

Gamez described meeting her fellow collective chicas as a watershed moment that came at a time when she felt adrift. “I could do this 24 hours a day,” she said. “I could get off work, come here, and paint these black lines on the walls until 2 or 3 in the morning or whenever it gets done because I like what we’re doing and I feel good when I’m around them.”

Más Rudas’ origin story should make other aspiring artists feel good, too; to date, the women estimate that — aside from prints of Hernandez’s photos — the show has cost them less than $20 to put together. Found materials and old paint make up most of it, and the spay-neuter services were donated. Creativity and group action made it happen, and the audience the women say they hope to influence most are the Westside youths in whom they see themselves.

“I want them to know their passions can be nurtured,” said Más Rudas’ Sarah Castillo, who is currently pursuing her B.A. in art at UTSA. “My parents did not really support me and my creative side growing up. It was just something that I did, and I placed value on it but the adults in my life didn’t. I know firsthand how that could cause confusion or setbacks.”

Buentello, a painter, says kids should know that Chicano art doesn’t have to look a certain way. “When I was growing up, I thought Chicano artists could only exhibit in a certain part of town, or could only do work that’s made on canvas and in a frame, but when you think about what we’re doing, we’re really stepping out of that,” she said. “You can redefine what Chicano means.” •

Natalia Ciolko is a San Antonio native and UT-Austin graduate living and writing in SA.