Multiple Layers
March 11, 2023
Latine Artists Panel
This panel provides first-hand accounts discussing how, while funding for artists from many minority ethnic groups has risen sharply since 2019, funding and opportunities for Latinx artists have gone down nationally and in our region. This panel features Latinx artists' recent experiences, discussions about possible causation for the decline, and sharing of strategies to ask for accountability from funders for the discrepancy in funding equitability.
MEET OUR FACILITATOR
SCOTT MÉXCAL (he/him/él) is a socially engaged practice artist combining work as a public artist, painter, and youth mentor. Scott holds a BFA from Northwest College of Art and Design and is an MFA candidate at Prescott College and teaches at SCC. Scott leads and facilitates youth art programs through Urban Artworks, Coyote Central, Pratt Fine Arts Center, and Gage Academy of Art. His work is an exploration of personal identity in the context of broader Latinx/Chicanx narratives. The work touches on ideas of displacement, migration, exclusion, ancestor work, and language, and draws from his personal family history and experience working with youth who are navigating immigration and/or incarceration.
Panelists
“As a communicator and part of the Latino community of the Northwest, I show my heritage through my paintings. I believe in and share in the world’s necessity of compassion, love, and environmental defense. I speak softly through my art, gentle and strong as a woman—my paintings intimate, spiritual and feminine. My work is mainly connected with Pachamama or Mother Nature. We have in human history many different names for the Spirit of our planet, always manifesting as female because of her capacity to give and create life. We, as humans, are unique among creatures because of our self-awareness. Sadly, many today are indifferent to our connections rooted in Mother Earth. Everything has roots; everything came from something and everything will become something else. We are the roots of what the future will bring. My reflections on my life caused me to identify with the lives of other women who struggle to change their world. All women are creators of life and change the world each in their own way. Many of my paintings are related to the lives of remarkable women in history that share a common trait—courage.”
Seattle-based Chicano Artist is a strong advocate for youth empowerment and the power of positive reinforcement, Jake grew up being told he didn't matter. As a youth, he was placed in special education classes due to undiagnosed dyslexia. He became involved in gang culture as early as middle school. Thanks to positive role models later in life he began to turn things around and became heavily involved in the Chicano Movement and student organizations like MEChA. Jake is the owner/co-director of the Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery on the border of West Seattle and White Center. He also exhibits his art and lectures across the country.
South Seattle based teaching artist by day and a mixed media artist by night was born and raised in Mexico City she calls the PNW her home. She is the Creative Director of ArtMaranth Mobile School where she offers Youth Mural mentorship, Bilingual art classes and private classes. She is also an emerging Public Artist, Consultant, Business Entrepreneur, Performer, Community Builder, Gardener, Mother of a teenager and a Cat momma. Her illustrations of gloomy landscapes, depicting women, goddess and skeletons reclaimed ancient rituals, foods and language while blending elements of PNW nature, water, sea life and mountains. Art is her tool for social change in hopes to inspire others! Her artwork has been shown at Vashon Center for the Arts, Nepantla Gallery, Bellevue Art Museum, Hillman Collaboratory, Arts East Gallery, Burien Arts and at various locations during Art walk. Over the last two decades, she has volunteered for various non-profits, BIPOC Tiny Arthouse Burien Arts, South Park Arts and La Sala Latino Network. Recently, she had the opportunity to jury grants through 4Culture and Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, an awakening experience that has helped her understand the selection process and the necessity to represent Latinx voices and stories in this area.
