 Once I've actually gone over to the city of San Antonio at the Department of Arts and Culture, and on behalf of our department, I want to welcome you to our Culture Commons Gathering for this kind of discussion being led by Sarah Castillo, with the artist Lady Bates Gallery, who curated a portion of this exhibit. And Sarah and her team here, and Shalira Houston, have done a wonderful job with this exhibit. I want to welcome you here to the space. I want to thank Sarah and much of my fellow as well as all the artists who did a great job bringing this show together. So thank you for joining us, and hopefully you're going to enjoy the lunch with that, Sarah. Thank you so much, everyone, for being here today, can you hear me, okay? All right. I really want to give a huge shout out to Henry Ford Academy, Arleigh the Lake, University, and Southwest School of Art. You all are here today, right? Yes. Yes. We've been waiting for y'all. Yeah. So again, thank you so much for being here. Recap of this. My name is Sarah, and I am a curator and owner of Lady Bates Gallery. I had the wonderful opportunity to curate a portion of this show here, as you see. The title of the exhibition is United We Are One. And what I ended up doing is I worked to select five artists to present their work that started in January and today is a closing. The artists we have here are Julia Barbosa-Lando, Anel Flores, Susie Gonzalez, and Sonia Padilla, and Kim Bishop. So for the majority of our talk, I'm going to allow the artists to speak. We'll have a group of questions. Each one will have some time to answer, and then we'll have some time for questions. And so we're here today, and I'm sharing our experiences as women in the arts. I'm an artist as well. What we wanted to ask you all is, can anyone name a very famous artist, woman artist here in San Antonio? Kathy Barbos, yes. Yes, she's Devon Ovasquez. We're up with that because we wanted, some of the topics that we wanted to discuss are under representation of women in the art world, and particularly here, our experience is being artists here in San Antonio. We did a little bit of research, we reached out to San Antonio Museum of Art, the McName, trying to find out how many women are on their artist rosters, and I wasn't able to get that much information, but only to get a list from San Antonio Museum of Art. 23% of the artists that are on their rosters are women, and only three are Latina. With that said, if you wanna move forward and discuss what this means for us as artists now and in the future, and especially for you artists who are just starting and finding your way through the art world. First of all, I'm gonna go ahead and, I want all the artists to introduce themselves, or their name, and give a little bit more information like that, so. I'll take care of it. Okay, so my name is Julia, I'm from San Antonio, and I'm a native of San Antonio. I got a Bachelor of Finance from UTSA, and then I moved away and got a Master of Finance in sculpture and media from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. I guess I would say I've been a professional artist for about 10 years, which is when I graduated from graduate school, although I had made arts when I was a child, and I work in a variety of media, performance, video, and installation, and also works on paper, which is what I have in the show here. I made the red, white, and blue silk screen print. Thank you all for being here. I wanna do like a tiny little special shot of the National Report Academy, because I used to work there, I used to teach there, and I love all students and all the teachers. So thank you all for being here. But ultimately, I've been an artist for about 20 years, a professional artist. I'm a storyteller originally, and recognized early that my story, I didn't know my story, I wasn't shown my story as a queer woman, I wasn't, I didn't find it anywhere, and so I went on the track of telling the story as much as I could as a young queer woman, 18, 19, 20, and started as a writer and visual artist, and continued to mend both worlds as a writer and visual artist. My goal as an artist is to try to help others, tell them, give other people an opportunity to tell their story through their art, or just through their work in general. I'm very happy to be here today, especially among Deborah and all these amazing artists that are here at the Salah Group. So thank you for being here. I'm from Austin, I'm born in Austin, group in Houston, I'm living here in San Antonio. I got my BFA at Texas State, and my master in Fine Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design 2015. I think I've been an artist since I was born, but I think a lot of us kind of lose those ties. I guess I thought it was a hobby, didn't think it could be a profession until college, but I guess I've been serious about it, being like a career for about eight years now, and I've been a variety of media, I've studied being deep, but I've been really into culture. We've been more installation work, video work, so kind of all over the place, kind of doing what I think is appropriate for a variety of particular causes. Hi everybody, my name is Antonia Padilla, I'm a San Antonio native, I'm a child of the 60s, went to high school in junior high in the 70s. My academic achievements are minimal at best. Went to SAC, never finished my degree, I was a quote unquote, journalism major. I was very lucky to have had parents and grandparents that were always, always, always reading to me, always reading to me, and my language, my primary language is a visual language. I see pictures, I see moments in time, and I'm so lucky that I'm able to use a camera to basically record those moments for any reason that you could want. I was a news photographer at the Possible Herald, that's a paper on the US-Mexico border from 1985 to 2000, it was a daily paper, and when I left SAC for the third time where I was a photographer at the Ranger, yay. Teachers are so important in everybody's life, we learn so much, and if you have people that care about you, you can sit up here. I'm Ken Bishop, I have been in the public school art classroom for the past 29 years, and I've got 46 days left. I've been an artist all my life. I was very fortunate to be raised by my mom right across the street from the University of Texas in the 60s and 70s, and was allowed to explore my artwork then. I got my BFA from Southwest Texas State University, and I got my Master of Arts from Texas State. I've been in San Antonio for 12 years, and I have two beautiful sons. Thank you everyone, it's always a pleasure to learn about artists here and them who we need. Something I'm really curious about is, I wanna know why do you make art, and along with that, if you can also include in that answer, because when you're making art, it's about also your life and what that looks like. So, if you could, you talk a little bit about why you make your art, and within that describe your career, your day job, your night job, your side job, how you experience unfair practices as an artist. Talk about under-representation, have you ever been ignored, issues with sexism, censorship, access, et cetera. And anyone who's ready can begin, because I had time in my life when there wasn't time, and I was raising my children, and I was, you know, teaching, and I wasn't making art that I needed to make, and I really, it felt like I was starving, and so there came a point where I had to make a change, and that change was to make time for my art and for my career. And luckily, my family, my mom, and my kids, they understood that, and they were supportive of that, but it is a struggle, because you have to be able to balance two lives, three lives, mom, teacher, artist, and it is a struggle, but it's a struggle that if I didn't believe it, I don't think I could survive. But it's just too much of a part of me. Well, did you wanna talk a little bit about your career path in that case? Well, when I got my BFA, I got my BFA in commercial art, which I don't think is even around anymore. And I started working in that career, but as a woman, it was really hard, because when I did start having children, I realized that I couldn't be a mom and do that at the same time. It was too narrow. So that's when I ran into teaching, which is really the best thing I could have done. I've learned more from my students, and I think my students learn from me. So I went into teaching after that, and now I'm retired, and I started teaching in 1908, and now I have the opportunity that teaching career has given me to now, at this age, at 55, to really focus on the thing that my studio and become a studio setup, ready to go. Thank you. So part of what made me create art or why I decided, or the things that drove me to create art were just moments in my life. My parents were both from Igbo, and came to the US during the time where language, speaking Spanish was punishable, so they were punished for every word. I mean, my mother's school in Mission, Texas, they had to pay a nickel for every word that came out of their mouth, but they only spoke Spanish. That silence is the story, right? My father was told in his school, just in another little town in South Texas, that he had to kneel on bottle caps or rice every time he spoke Spanish, and he still has scars on his knees, so those moments, when I learned those stories, I didn't know those stories until about the 80s. Before the 80s, we were an English-only home because they were scared, they were living in fear. Things started to shift in their thoughts and what was happening in the world, and then they started to understand and talk to me more about what their experiences were and I was getting a little bit older and so on and so forth, but knowing that at that moment, like middle school, for example, that I had yet to have a relationship with my grandparents because they only spoke Spanish, so we were, the story was just like, just cut out for me. I didn't get to get it. I didn't get to know what their story was, and I didn't know Spanish, so then it was like, what the hell's going on? As I started to be more conscious, like my grandmother should be getting old, I don't know their story, I had to teach myself Spanish. I mean, all of those things really influenced why my grandmothers, I did not know their story. I learned later that their story was erased by their husbands or by their community. They weren't allowed to drive, they weren't allowed to ride, they weren't allowed to leave the house where my grandpa would be going out dancing and doing their thing, going drinking and doing their thing. And all those moments of consciousness for me made me go like, this is messed up. These women don't have a story, they do, I mean, they do have a story, but for me it was like, what is it? So I went on a constant discovery of like, specimen, all the time my grandmothers before they passed, all the time, I mean, I slept with them in their bed, you know, whenever they were over, I'm like, wanted to be there all the time. And then when I realized that my story as a queer woman, I couldn't tell anyone. I started to feel like I was more empathetic or I understood what was going on. I had no one to tell. My parents were very Catholic, very traditional. And so I was able to see through their eyes in a way of not being able to tell my story, feeling completely alone, feeling isolated, not having a language. And then my language went into the stories that I wrote and the artwork that I created. That became a survival piece for me. So it saved my life from moments of attempted suicide, from moments of feeling like I didn't want to belong, I didn't want to be there. And that art saved me in that way because I had somewhere to put that story. A little bit later on in my life, when I went to grad school, I remember in Vermont, we were in a circle. It was the first group of, that was for creative writing, from the FA. And we were sitting around the circle and was like, why are you writing? It was all, my whole class were white people, right? And there was like one black woman in the program myself and a woman from Spain in the program. That's it. The whole women pay program in Vermont. So in my circle of age, everyone was like, oh, I want to be a writer because I've been studying, you know, that Nartex, the sellers, I've been studying the trends and sentence lines. They wanted to like turn it into a business. And they got to me and I was like, I have to write because nobody knows the stories of my grandmothers, let's be real here. And all of our grandmothers and our ancestors and the people, the thousands of people that have walked before us. And that's why for me, I also know now that art is what tells us our story. The art of the Aztecs, the building of the Aztecs, the math, the science, the astrology attached to that art. It's all good. And so that drives me every day. And my career path has been, I went to undergrad as I became an English major. I was an English teacher, then an art teacher, art administrator, and that gave me an opportunity to say, okay, I'm gonna leave education and try to do art as much as I can full-time and figure out other ways to balance. I am a realtor, which is random, but I thought I was a realtor. Just because it's given me an opportunity to work with artists to help artists find homes in San Antonio before they're kicked out by huge condos. And also to feed my kids and work and schedule, partner lives in my life that way so I can be an artist. I'll start with my, I guess, career path right now. I'm an adjunct professor at R-Lady-of-Life University. Thanks y'all for being here. I'm also a gallery coordinator at the Movement Gallery, part of Southwest Workers Union, so trying to get more involved with art and activism ties. And also co-publish the FBC, Yes Man, and We Do Days. Just like all kinds of, maybe the kind of art things that come up, I guess. I think we all kind of go out of our normal bounds of what our career bubble is a lot. There's been tons of microaggressions along the way that's a part of the journey. I guess the main thing for me was in grad school, like not feeling, or feeling like political art that I wanted to make was kind of shunned, or it wasn't conceptual enough, or I got the word didactic thrown at me all the time. That's a big one of this. And I would joke like, well someday I'm gonna start the didactic school of art. And you know, so those kind of things when people critique you, and a lot of the time, like as a movement of color, your art is a lot about your identity. And so it feels like they're not just critiquing your work, but they're critiquing who you are. And so I think those kind of critiques that I would get made me just that much more sure of like, this is what I'm doing. I'll take what you're saying with a grain of salt and then I'll say, okay, I know that maybe this is, I'm doing something that like I need to stick with and kind of defend yourself, defend your didacticism or whatever someone might be telling you that is wrong or is not elite or whatever. You know that art world hierarchy kind of thing. And so it's good to be back in Sananto because I feel just the culture, there's like this embracing of culture in ways that, again, the word elite, like art institutions are not really grasping still, which is unfortunate because you want them to be this kind of radical place, but they're just not there. They fit into these little constructs of republicans and everything. But anyway, that's me or Emily. So yeah, I think there is this kind of pressure for a lot of artists like, oh, you have to move to New York City be a starving artist and try and fit in and do all this stuff, but there's so many different art worlds that are there. We have it in Texas, we have it in Sananto. We have it in this row of artists and I think we're needed in Texas and it's like that idea of like, maybe this is a conservative state, but that's why we need to be here and try to make cheap pinching us like we do. And so that's the whole thing with that. Another thing I guess I wanted to mention because I think this is the time for bringing up these like tables to talk about ideas is within even the Chicano arts and Chicano art collectors, there is a very scarce representation of women, women of color, Latin as Chicanas and that is a big issue and something that I think we need to be talking about for sure, even like within our own circles, how are we still being, you know, have not been represented. And so I guess that's what we should be looking for now. In this room is such that if I begin to levitate, you don't know why. That I've been hearing is, it is my life as well. In Air Force Brown, I was very, very lucky to have parents who, because of the military, in a strange kind of way, kind of hid the culture from me. My parents always spoke English around me because they didn't want me to have them. I took an accent, having, I live on the south side. I live in the house that grew up in. And during the 60s, I saw the world very differently. I saw through the lens of militarism, people. And to counter that, I was lucky enough to have a dad who was a medical illustrator who had the most uncomfortable ability to take a pencil and just start drawing, could sketch you no matter what you said, would just like you. And I was so intimidated by that. And at a very early age, my parents realized that our son is not like how we thought he would be. And for Christmas 1968, I told my parents I wanted Barbie doll for Christmas. And they gave me a camera. And it was just one of many, many things that my parents were giving me to take to get me out of that phase. I've known everything that every woman in this room knows. Every female, I'm not a female, but I am a woman in her. Every woman in here knows. And I share that common knowledge because guess what? I live in a world where men would look at anyone in a skirt or a wearing makeup perhaps and think that they were apprised to be had. And because of that, I had a very, very strong mother and my grandmother didn't speak English. And so here's the weird part because as a child growing up, I only heard Spanish spoken in my grandparents' house. But whenever I walked in the room, they would immediately, immediately, they would start speaking English. Of course, my grandmother was just the next one. And that is, you know, those things were formative in my life at a very early age. And I knew I was a girl when I was like four years old. I also knew that I wanted to express the world that I was seeing and I didn't know how. And I would look at my dad's, every time we'd go, my dad was at the Brooks Air Force Base and the Medical Illustration Department. He had a huge, gigantic table and it was full of all sorts of art things, drawings and paintings and so many things. And I would look at his work and I would just be so intimidated by what I would think of myself. I'd look at my little crayon drawings of stick men and women and stick dogs and cats and I'd think, oh my gosh, you know, that's, there isn't, that's just not happening. And, you know, when I got that camera on, it just literally, it just changed my life. It was the key, it was the key, it was, it was, it became the means for me to show people what I'm thinking about. Things that I think are important. The things that I want to say, and I do so with the camera. Because of my, because of the two ways that I've seen life, I found out at a very early age that I'm a woman and I've known that my entire life and it's influenced all of my work, all of my friends and all of my family or all of that work. And the images behind me of the International Women's Day March, I've, you know, I've been to pretty much every single one since I came home in 2000. I came home in 2000 because my mom at the time was two years old and I'm an only child and my dad had passed away years before and so my dad died and I was like, I'm not gonna let my mom die on her own, she's not gonna die by herself, so I came home because she fell in the winter of 1999 and no child ever gets the call, you know, where your parent is like, I'm okay. And, you know, when I heard that, it was time for me to come home and I submitted my letter of resignation at the Brownsville Earl where I had been a staff photographer for 15 years and I came home and I worked for the Express on News and I went back to school again at SAC, for life, okay, right on, okay, they had, and I was very, very fortunate to have professors, my photo-jaker professor was from, graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia renowned for photo journalism in the U.S. and we did it around the world as well, so I had photography instructors, oh my gosh, you're not here right now, we're, the brain law comes to the bowl, my brain just doesn't squeak in, anyhow, every influential person in my life that's ever helped me has been a woman and we're all sisters, we are all sisters and even the men in the room, we're all sentient beings on this planet, we're sentient beings and we're cruising on this big rock and hopefully we're communicating with one another and that's really the best way to live because if you're afraid of your neighbor, if you're afraid of the other, then it's just gonna be not good, there's no harmony, there's no love and really that's what, what this is all about, making pictures when I'm in the studio, when I'm in the dark room, and by the way, emerging in the center of the studio, so Kim, I just got my studio last month and it's at Sean, that is dad's place, one star art space and I'm so lucky to be there and it's incredible and I've moved my dark room, my enlarger that I bought when I was 15 from my first summer job, I saved up all my little money and I bought an enlarger downtown in the Southwest camera which has since long gone out of business, along with, what was it, the light. I was very, very lucky, my parents read to me, my grandparents read to me and my grandfather, not my grandmother, but my grandfather would read the light to me every day and being read to and not being talked down to as laying on a child, just being spoken to and the way we do, oh my gosh, that really develops the child's brain and the thirst for knowledge becomes such that why do we create art, why do we live, because we have to, because it's in us and we can't stop doing it or it's like not believing. Two came from a super conservative, super religious family and for me art is sort of like my church and not in the sense that I worship it but it's where I go to think about the world and my place in it and ask all these questions that I was always told not to ask, that I've heard that so many times as a child, just, you ask so many questions, stop. So, and also a super religious family where I would not tell Spanish and we, I mean I went to Mexico all the time to visit my relatives who I was not even taught to communicate with which is sort of insane but it's interesting that there are so many of those stories. So I make art because it's a way that I understand the world and I am a like long student, I love learning and this is a way that I do it and some of my art is research based and it's a way to engage in dialogue. So you're communicating through the work and then when you put the work out in the world, hopefully people wanna talk to you about it and then you start conversations that are really interesting and maybe even life changing and that's something I think is really important and kind of magical. So for my career, like Kim and Anel, I'm a mother and I have a six-year-old and a two-year-old so I'm really, really in the thick of it. And my day job is I'm an exhibitions assistant at the Southwest School of Art and also a preparator. I do a little bit of teaching. What that means is I do, and they're exhibitions and when I do some admin work but I also install exhibitions, pack and unpack all the work, edit videos, I sort of have a really broad skill set that I get to bring to it but being a preparator is a super male dominated field. Mostly people come to that work because they have had some experience in carpentry because you have to do a lot of wall repair and building things and that's something that they learned it from their uncle or they learned it from their older friend and it's harder for women to have someone in their life that's gonna guide them into that skill. So I've learned a lot and I actually got into it with my digital skills because nobody could set up a new media installation and so as a new media artist I kind of got my foot in the door and then now I've learned how to do all these other kinds of skills. Since I, in school I worked sort of every kind of job that you can imagine to get myself through school and since I got out of graduate school I was an adjunct professor for about six years. I taught at U Penn, I taught at Palo Alto, I taught at St. Phillips, I taught at UTSA and I loved being an educator but after six years I realized how very exploitative adjunct work could be. Sorry. But I know that a lot of you are students and I just wanna throw this out to you that almost 75% of your professors are part-timers. That may not even come to mind for you but they're part-timers, they receive no benefits. They are paid very, very little and especially in San Antonio, they're paid very little so after I had a child I could not hack it. I couldn't do that and pay for daycare and be a working person. So then I coordinated a team program, an after-school art program for a while. I've also done independent, like freelance design gigs for extra money. I was a math tutor. I taught people how to do math for the GRA which is a test to go into graduate school which shocks everyone because nobody thinks that artists can do math but if you can and you need math to build stuff, you really need math. And also I've been a community arts educator and I still do some teaching at the Southwest School. He has experience with us. I think what I would like for you all to share is can you tell us here, what are some ways in which you navigate artistic spaces or non-artistic spaces as an artist here? Something that our students in the audience can walk away with, does anyone want to start? So what are some ways in which you navigate these artistic spaces or non-artistic spaces? I know some of you have mentioned a few but does anyone want to bring anything else up? Is it okay if I grab the mic again? One, I think addressing what Susie was talking about that there are many different art worlds, recognizing that and also recognizing that not every single person in the world is in your audience and that's okay, you know? You may be speaking to a particular segment of the population which can be diverse in its own way but if not everyone in the world is touched by your work, it's okay. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with it and it just means it's a little more specific and asking for help, forming your own mafia which is something that one of my mentor professors would tell us all the time and I think really what that means is cultivating community, helping each other rather than thinking of your art community as this dog-eat-dog kind of world. You're helping to lift everybody up at the same time and you put that energy out there and then later somebody's gonna help you and I think being politically engaged in your art or otherwise, so my piece over there is more overtly political than most of my work is it's usually, there's some kind of feminist or political threat going under it but it's more conceptual. The problems that are common to artists and women artists, we may feel in a different way but they're common to everyone and so things like arts funding, right? We're sitting in the city building for arts. We have a mayoral election coming up, right? Like as artists, we need to think about that kind of stuff and we need to participate because it's affecting our daily lives and education that affects our daily lives. Health insurance, having a family, you know? And family services and family leave aren't just for people who have children, you know? It's for people who are caring for their parents and so I think recognizing that whatever kind of art you're making, you're part of your art community and being kind of a good citizen in your art community but also being a good citizen in that community at art. I definitely want to just, you know, piggyback on that. One thing that I think is important is that, you know, having community is very important. Gathering community is very important. Being that person that gathers community is very, very important because as artists, as women, as people, as, you know, just making it through this world, we have to gather. We have to also simply meditate, take time for yourself, keep your body healthy because it is a lot of work to be in our business and with that remind people that it is work. A lot of times you're like, oh, you're making art not cute. You're like, that was not cute. It was hard, I mean, it's work. It's physical work, it hurts your body, it hurts your neck, it hurts your back, your legs, the hours, the no sleeping, you're laying down, all you have is ideas. There's a lot of work. So part of, you know, being an artist and getting and maneuvering through space is also knowing that it is a job, taking it seriously. And I say the word job and I try not to use it when people go, oh, what are you gonna do? I'm like, I have to work. I hate saying that but sometimes it's the only thing people get because when they hear work, they're like, oh, you gotta work. But if you say, oh, I'm gonna ride and they're like, oh, that's so cute. Oh, hi, coffee and you ride, I'm like, oh my god. But so I'm saying I'm gonna work. And then I say, I ride, I wake up at 5.30, I ride in the morning. Give yourself discipline to do that work. Part of navigating for me, surviving the world as an artist is having a group of critical friends. There's like, number one, I have a group of critical friends and they might not live here. You know, one of my critical friends lives in New Mexico. One of them lives in Berkeley and the others are here in San Antonio. But when I had a piece that I'm writing or drawing or talking about, I'm like, oh, is this gonna offend? Is this, what am I doing? Is this, am I doing this? What I really wanna do is I'm doing it right. And I'll call those critical friends. I'll send it to them. You have a couple days. Don't expect them to turn something around for you in a minute. Give people time and trade. Be their critical friend also. If they have work they need to be looked at, and look at their work. Also, so there's that critical friend and then there's the cheerleader friends. You also have the friends that are like, oh my God, it's so beautiful. You know, navigating in those spaces. You need cheerleader friends, right? Because sometimes you're like, no, but you're like friends. They're like, oh my God, your work's amazing. What did you just do? Maybe it's your mom, maybe it's your grandma. You know, whoever it is, maybe it's your dog. My dogs are mine. Sometimes I'm there in the office by myself and I'm like, oh, what do you think? No, they make fun of me. But we have to do, there's a lot of little things. So gathering, critical friend, cheerleader friends, and being vocal, taking your service leave, reading and doing research, knowing the numbers that 23% of the San Antonio Museum of Art, the permanent collection is women, being able to say that, Latina. Women and yes, sir. Yeah, only how many were in Latina? The reading. So it's like, say that to people. No, we need to do this. This is serious. Ask people for money. Artists need to be paid. Don't expect, they need to eat all of the young students here. You want to do free things for community and so on and so forth, but they have money to pay people from all over the world. They have money to pay you. So demand that, so please. Last question of why I do what I do, I guess. I definitely feel obligated to make work like as an agent of social change. And I know it's not everyone, but I think that we have so many issues today that we're facing that people who are given this gift of creativity, we have so much power. And that this is an outlet to use that. And we can use art as activism. Art creates culture. Art creates culture. And even teaching modern art right now and seeing all of you know, it's so Eurocentric, it's male dominated. And how can we make our own place in that for ourselves and for our sisters and everyone using that power we have to critique the world around us? We can't just stand by and make a pretty future and more. I think it's not progressive. So if we want to be progressive, I think we need to tackle big ideas. This is our time to do that. Something that I wrote down which was like my first instinct of how navigating the art world is that I'm definitely guilty and more inclined to apply to things when I see that the jurors or hiring team are women or women of color because I know that I have a better chance. And that is just like a harsh reality. And I think it's an issue of representation for both us, the artist, the applicant, and the hiring team, how they've had their own struggles getting to where they are. It would be an ideal world if I didn't feel like I had to do that, right? But the fact is it's not. And I think that's what makes spaces like this all that more important that we are able to come together, make our own spaces. And so that's I guess my first instinct there. What's to do is to set about space. I would really like to shout out to the Espadrón Supriso and Justice Center, Ticosia, Los Angeles, Sanchez, Tecordia, Ramírez, to one of my besides Mary Agnes that somebody mentioned over here, one of my inspiring artists for me is Redonega Castro. She works in clay. She fires her clay. She details her work. Her articles that you got are incredible works of art that's all for many thousands of dollars. She just opened her studio on South Flotas, and it's basically about I could probably walk from my house to her house. And that's something really cool, because I was leaving the Lone Star art space the other night. And it was late at night. I had been in the dark room printing all night. I thought, this is incredible, that I only lived two miles from my gallery. And I'm just now at 58. I'm just now emerging into the art world. I have no art background. I have no art degree. I was a journalism major, and don't ask me to write, because cut lines are just even that much. But the funny thing is, I've been published around the world and across the country in magazines and newspapers in various languages. And that's the beauty of a visual image, is that it does not need an interpreter. One simply has to look at the work to feel something. And hopefully, as an artist, you'll be able to make people feel. And you don't really need to have one particular group of people. When I photograph, I'm just thinking of images, and they're open to all. And I think that's something, as artists, I think all of us want to reach as many people as possible. We want everyone to see what we have to say. And hopefully, they'll be able to feel something. They'll have what you can invoke a response from someone, after they look at your work. You know, you know, you've got it. So, but anyhow, navigating in the world that I'm just now coming into is, I'm surrounded by people who, in contemporary art, are just finished. And every time the gallery was open, I was surrounded by people that had MFA's and BFA's and were talking about works, and their projects, and their work, and the way they described their work, and the conversation between artists. That language, wow, I am a child learning to speak that way. As a news photographer, I've just seen the world around me, and taken pictures of it, and having it published. I mean, that was all I ever thought about. And I never assigned spectacular works to the work, or anything like that. I'm a very, very simple girl. I'm from the South side. And I'm just lucky to have been the nurture, the nature of my being, such that I'm lucky. Everything just worked out. I had parents that cared, I had teachers that cared. I wanted it. You have to want it, because if you don't want it, then everything in front of you is just going to be there. And we're not going to use it. We're not going to benefit from it. We're not going to grow from it. And that is something that, as an East Central being would want, is to grow, and to live, and to be in the world, and at its maximum, to enjoy the world around us. Those are my thoughts. Art history for 23 years, I always get into. And I first got that job. I just had my survey class in college. And he said, oh, by the way, I didn't teach AP art history. And here's your text. So I've had to do a lot of studying on my own. And one thing that I really realized is that art is the documentation of our existence. And if we don't document our history, nobody else is going to do it for us. We have something to say. We have stories. And those need to be told. And that's why I make art. That is why I navigate the art community. And I'm so lucky here in San Antonio. I've been here 12 years since my home, because of the support of our community here that has allowed me to fumble around and find my place. But my suggestion to students is do your research, study. It's not a hobby. It's not a hobby unless you want it to be a hobby, even in that time. But for people who are artists, it's not a hobby. Do take it seriously. Do take it seriously within your community. Have a conversation. Say what's on your mind. And be flexible enough to listen to other people's minds as well. And take what you can for them. Thank you so much. Now, I know it's you who have one more question for the panel. Can we go that route? OK. If y'all are finding that, would you have a window for queuing some questions? So just real quick, then, if everyone's OK with that. So the last question that we have for the panel is we want to folks to share. If anyone needs to, please do so. I really appreciate y'all being here. Please pick up. There's a handout and a list of resources that we put together for artists. So please be sure to pick it up. And if not, then we can send you an email with a two. So just real quick here. One of the questions that we had for our panelists was, and real quick, please just answer maybe like a word or two. Do you have any advice or shout out to give the audience about your methods of professional development as an artist? OK, well, what I said before about community and helping other people, and they will help you. And don't be afraid to ask for help. One thing that has helped me a lot that I don't think people realize is if you're applying for a school or a grant or a show, ask your critical friend to help you look it over and give you suggestions. And then go help them next time. And also look at, do I know any artists who got this grant before me? And if I do, can I just talk to them? Can I ask them, hey, I know that you got this award. Will you look at my proposal? And most of the time, they'll say yes. And that is incredibly helpful. I want to second that and definitely ask for help. And I guess to add to it, there's so many artists. I know that all of us are here at this table. But we don't all work together necessarily, like one in one all the time. We're not always working together. We all have our art communities. So that's connected to knowing that there are many art communities, and we're all doing work. But we can all love each other, and we can all support each other. And we know everyone's doing their work. If I don't go to Sada's show, and this has a point to promise, if I don't get to go to Sada's opening, if I don't get to go to your opening, it's not because I don't want to go. It's because I might have an opening or I might have an event. So the moral to my message is ego. Kind of let that go, your ego. We are not the only artists individually in the world. Everybody is doing their work. And just be happy that there are so many artists doing so many things. And everyone's working together for the same purpose, to create art, to document our stories, to write our history, so on and so forth. And sometimes let that go, you know? We all want to help each other. Ask for help. We all want to be there for each other. Everyone, if I am having a low time, I can't say, Kim, do you know of some shows? Kim will call me back, even though we talk twice a year, you know? I mean, but she will. You know, that's the way it'll be. And hopefully we can build community that way. And keep it like that, so that's what I have to say. I think it's just apply to everything that ever is there. You know, you're gonna get rejected from a lot of things and don't let them get to you down. I realize that the places that are right for you are the ones that accept you. If they want you, you should want them. It should be this mutual love, right? And wanting of each other. Another that I was gonna touch on is like, if you meet someone at an opening or online, you see people you admire become their friends. They like, hey, let's get lunch. And that is like a networking thing and a friendship building thing. And, you know, meet your idols and then like give yourself the respect to say, like, I'm amongst them, you know? Like, I'm not like a, you know, like, don't just call yourself a student, call yourself an artist, you know? And say, like, hey, I'm an artist, so are you. You know, we're the same, you know? No, like, try to avoid that hierarchy, I guess. And give yourself credit for what you do. Because, yeah, no one's gonna, you know, make those things happen before you bite yourself. As you said, what Nell said about your ego, oh my gosh. Yeah, you know, you may think you're great. You may show your work. And it's so important that you show your work as much as possible. Show it to everybody who will take the time to look at it and ask them to take the time. And if they don't like it, don't stop. But at the same time, don't get such a big head and you're like, hey, what's wrong with you? Why don't you like my work? You know, don't do that, you know? Just take it and move on and continue to work. Learn, learn, learn, use your brain, let your brain soak in information, develop your mind, do whatever it takes to become a better human, to become someone who will make this a better world, not just for those of us that are here now, but for the future line that hopefully will stretch into infinity. I mean, how long are we gonna stay on this planet? But that's really what we're working for is we're not working for ourselves, we're working for everyone who's coming after us. We are so honored to have been given this opportunity. Don't take it for granted. Don't ever take it for granted. Use every minute of it to the best that you can, even if it's just by yourself. And respect yourself, even when other people may not, and you feel like other people don't respect you, you are your own best friend. And if you don't respect and value what you do, nobody else will either. So go through life respecting yourself, respect those around you, listen, be flexible, speak meaningfully, know what you're talking about, and enjoy every second.