Black Boots Ink » Alexcia DeVásquez

Black Boots Ink Exhibition at Exposure Gallery

Emilio Banuelos — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:30:14 +0000

Exhibiting until April 30, 2010

Introductions/Introducciones Alexcia DeVasquez

Emilio Banuelos — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:40:37 +0000

I introduce Alexcia DeVasquez

Alexcia’s website also Mexico, Spaces Between Places, Love Politics, Mexico 2008

Tell me about your photographic series Nursery Rhymes

I really heard my first nursery rhyme in first grade. My memory of it is that the teacher was teaching us all a new song, but I realized after a few verses, that everyone else knew “Three Blind Mice” but not me. While sorting out the words, I became very confused, did we know the farmer’s wife? Was a “carver’s knife” really sharp? And why does this class full of people I like, want to kill anything?

I never understood the point of nursery rhymes, and quickly found out that they were to teach a lesson that nobody seemed to really remember from a long, long time ago. The Nursery Rhyme project is an exploration for an explanation and reflection of these old messages. I wanted to illustrate my own book of Nursery Rhymes showing both the comfort and the unease that these stories can bring.

How has your photography developed since you left school?

Wow, I don’t know where to begin. In school, I didn’t know if I wanted to focus more on the image or the message that I wanted to send. I was lost between what the camera captured and what I could create with what it captured. Since I’ve left school, I defiantly want to show more of a straight image than an image between reality and memory or imagination.

How has your mind- set changed from finding your style to solidifying what you photograph today?

I’m just glad that you didn’t ask “how did your style change while you solidified what you photograph today,” because I don’t know if it has solidified. My mind-set let go. My mind learned how to relax and my mind was able to settle into focusing on what I wanted to share with people. I still want to share the gamut of emotions, but I’m more comfortable sharing it in a body of work instead of trying to capture it into one image.

Honestly, I let it go, I left my apartment, I left my city, I left the only state I had lived in, I left my country to live with my fiance, dog, cat and his family, who I barely knew, in a country I’d never been to, with laws I didn’t know, with customs I hadn’t learned.

I learned what American values I had because I was American and learned what were mine because I’m me. I left the importance of credit reports and gained a true understanding of the importance of a reputation (despite not really having one). I turned strangers into friends and learned how to answer the question “What is really important?”

Photographing so many things so that I could compile them later wasn’t an option anymore. I didn’t have the dual monitors, the printers, the hard drive space or more importantly the cultural understanding of my subject for that to work. I realized the value of what will never happen again not only what I would like to create.

What are you working on now?

I’m working my way off the boat.

I recently came back to America and have been going through culture shock being here. To my surprise, it was much stranger moving BACK here than it was leaving. I’m working on a project of some of the things that are the everyday and normal here but seem so strange to me after being away for a while. I’m considering including text with the images some how. I’m not sure how, but I’ll find a way.

Love Politics

Will Hortman — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:17:46 +0000

images by:

Love Politics
by Ruby Cymrot-Wu

How can activism be a practice in love? I believe it must be, because activists need to learn how to love themselves and trust themselves to do the work that is necessary. Activism requires love to be sustainable. Whatever underemployed activist you are – an artist, a teacher, a community organizer – love can be the basis of your work. Not anger or frustration, but a passionate love of change, of your own self, and of the people around you.

As activists, our mission is to love the whole being of every individual, and work to improve each person’s quality of life by moving forward comprehensively and holistically. It is strange that many of us believe this, but forget to include ourselves. We are not pardoned. How can we fight for the improvement of the quality of life for others and simultaneously forget to leave room for our own feelings of elation and grief? As our society ignores the realness of emotional and mental stress for everyone, we feel that we must suppress our own experiences and struggles in order to be true, efficient leaders. There is a silencing of our needs, and we are forced to push ahead, perpetuating the cycle of our pervasive mental health crisis. Instead, we can combat the pandemic by doing our work passionately and forming our own practice of loving ourselves.

A fulfilling project, not to mention a paycheck, is a privilege not many are afforded.

And at the same time, we cannot take this privilege and turn it around into a guilt-ridden drive to ignore passions and needs that are not directly linked to an end goal. We cannot give and expect nothing in return. The work can feed you in some way.

How can we bring our whole self to activism? By loving ourselves as well as the people directly affected by our activism. In the old Jewish teaching from Hillel “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me.” We must perpetuate a sustainable model for activists, or else our actions and movements in the present will fail in the future. If we do not take this moment now, there will not be anyone to carry on the work, or even worse – no one to mentor the next generation of activists.

I charge each and every person to take a moment and reflect on what you can do to support yourself. Even if you take 10 minutes out of your day to drink a cup of tea, I encourage you to try it. It might just be the change you need to make change in our world.

Workshop 2: Mt. Shasta

Will Hortman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:25:37 +0000

Workshop No. Two: Mt. Shasta

In collaboration with the Noda Rickard Center for Photographic Arts and Earth Day as inspiration, Workshop No. Two is designed to help students maximize their understanding of the landscape as a portrait of the place. We will also discuss the visual narrative, editing and presenting your work to galleries.

The resulting images were published in Issue No. Four and exhibited at the Rostel Gallery, in Dunsmuir, CA.

more:

IAC 2008 | Landscape as Portrait: Mt. Shasta | Workshop Mexico 2007

Mexico

Will Hortman — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 00:14:34 +0000

images by Workshop Mexico 2007 Participants :

The ‘REAL’ Mexico
by Lydia Gonzales

As a Mexican-American (very American), I was curious about what the real Mexico was like. Guadalajara was an introduction to a culture similar to my own upbringing and the experience of a traditional yet cutting-edge city vibe. Some residents say Guadalajara, in Jalisco, is like an adolescent that doesn’t know what it wants to be when it grows up. With a history going back nearly 500 years, Guadalajara should have surpassed adolescence by now. Yet, as growth continues, the urban seams of the city are bursting open even farther.

Litter, traffic and American corporations such as Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Burger King, Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven can be found in abundance throughout the city.Yet Guadalajara firmly preserves its historic city structures and traditions including churches, music, people and ways of life.

What many profess to love about their communities despite rampant urbanization are the generous, goodnatured and friendly attitudes of the people who reside there. From the youth of the city to the residents of the small towns that flank Guadalajara, many consider the good-will attitudes of the people to be the area’s greatest assets. People remain amigable or friendly, and the environment remains beautifully humble.

Workshop Mexico 2007

Will Hortman — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 04:13:07 +0000

Black Boots Ink | Workshop Mexico
June 17-23, 2007
Instructor/Photographer: Emilio Bañuelos

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Black Boots Ink is about the curiosity that makes you walk into a new situation. It is about wandering in the company of strangers, about stopping, walking, working, protesting, progressing–it is about all of us.

The first Black Boots Ink Workshop takes place in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, with photographer Emilio Bañuelos. The seven-day workshop culminates with a public exhibition of the final images and a selection of the images will be considered for publication in blackbootsink.com.

Workshop Mexico, participants will have the opportunity to make images that show relationships between people and their environment.You will learn to photograph people and landscapes while creating a visual narrative. Workshop sessions are designed for practical use with instruction for daily shooting, personalized working critiques and editing.

Morning workshops will be held at Instituto Cultural Cabañas a cultural center designed by Manuel Tolsá in 1810. The Instituto’s106 rooms and 23 flower-filled patios house art exhibitions and the main chapel displays 57 murals by José Clemente Orozco from1938-39, including The Man of Fire.

Afternoons will be set aside for daily trips to visit Guadalajara’s neighboring towns. We will travel by bus to visit the Basilica de Zapopan, which dates back to 1730, the Zona Rosa, and the village of Tapalpa, Jalisco, where you will have time to make photographs and learn about contemporary Mexico.

IAC 2008 | Landscape as Portrait: Mt. Shasta | Workshop Mexico 2007