Border Pieta, Carbonic Drawing, Projector, Rio Grande Water
Border Pieta, Drawing for Carbonic Process
I AM HERE (AGAIN)
In 2015, I heard words that would set a divisive tone for years to come. Spoken by Trump, they cast Mexico’s people as a burden, as criminals, as something less than human.
I remember turning from the television and looking at my two young sons, wondering how I could ever explain that their grandparents, born in Mexico and once undocumented, were not only good people, but the very foundation of who we are.
From that moment, I felt a conviction to create. To reshape the narrative. To tell a truth about our communities that resists distortion. I did not want to lean on tropes or repeat the images that so often reduce us to caricature. Instead, I wanted to draw viewers in through beauty, softening their defenses long enough to glimpse what I have always known: that those so often vilified are, in truth, people like any other, carrying their lives forward with resilience, with love, with hope.
The Rio Grande became my material and my metaphor. This river, which divides nations, also unites histories. I began to gather its water, to burn its branches, and to use them in my drawings. And as the work deepened, I discovered the presence of light.
I have begun to fix my drawings onto glass through a chemical process that embeds the Rio Grande itself into the surface. The glass receives the river, and light moves through it, revealing, illuminating, bearing witness. Through this union of river and light, I seek to hold open a space for truth: one that honors our region, our people, and the quiet dignity that endures despite attempts to diminish it.