Isela RL #1 - Murals 10/8/88 - Interview #1

Could you just give us your name, pronounce your name for us and then just say real one? Pronounce my name please.

Isela Eche Alfaro.

Real one? Very good.

That wasn't so tough.

How many questions? A hundred questions? Well, we have all kinds of questions.

Mostly we can just sort of talk and then we don't have to cover all the stuff.

There are no wrong answers.

That's right.

There's definitely no wrong answers.

We're just interested in your questions.

Witness here.

But we thought maybe for starters if you could just tell us a little bit about your background and your family and just kind of fill us in on the background.

No, it's not possible.

How long have you lived here? I don't know.

Ever since I was a little kid I was born here and I've been living here for the longest.

It's been a long time.

Who knows? So right where you are now? Yeah, I've been living there mostly my whole entire life.

It is my whole entire life, ain't it? Yes, right.

Okay.

I know you have brothers and sisters and pets.

So are you actually, did your parents move here from someplace else? They came from Guanajuato to live over here.

They would go to California where my grandma lived and then they would come back.

But we actually lived here.

That was the whole thing.

So you guys didn't go with them? You didn't travel with them or anything? You've been here all along.

Yeah, well I used to travel sometimes with them.

But other than that we've always lived in our house in Chicago.

And you went to Benito R .S.

Can you tell us just a little bit about someone who didn't know anything about it? Where it is and what it is and how long you went there? I went there for one year.

It's real fun.

I like that.

And I especially had an art teacher who I mean was what you call strict.

You wouldn't want to get on her case because you were dead by the time you were there.

It was like she wasn't letting you do your own kind of art.

She wanted you to do what she wanted, not what you wanted.

And it was like you had to do it or you were dead.

If you wanted to speak to her you had to put something in a box with your name or a drawing so she could know.

So when did you first get, how did you become interested in art in the first quarter? Well I liked art.

I would see it but I never got to the point until at the age of 12 I got motivated by an art teacher.

He gave me the opportunity to work in murals so I just took it to see how it would be.

And actually I started getting very interested in it.

That got me real started.

And so now I'm just right here working with a bunch of artists like Correlio Diaz, Antonio De Los Santos, Robert Valadez which I'm going to work with now.

And Alejandro Nube, Hector Duarte, Dulce and some more artists.

I forgot their names.

It's interesting when you work with artists because you all get little points from each one and see what you like from them.

And then you take it into your own little piece and you form your own design.

So how does that work when you work with an artist? What are you doing? What are they doing? How many people work on a mural? What's your responsibility? My responsibility really is helping out with them.

I like to exist them.

If they give me an opportunity I'll be there.

I'll take it for granted or something.

But if something happens that gets me mad it's like forget it.

But I like to work with artists to see what they're working on, what their techniques are.

And if they're willing to help me I'll take their chance.

So do they give you a certain section to paint? No.

You work as a team on everything.

You don't do it as one individual.

It depends on who the artist is, how he likes to work so you work his way.

Before you started painting murals, how were you familiar with them in the community? Do you remember seeing murals that you liked in the neighborhood? Were you interested in murals? Well, yeah, I liked murals.

When I would see them I would just walk by them.

But I would take first a look at them and see who it was done by.

But then later on in the future that's when I started realizing that I was interested in art.

I'm majoring in it now.

What kind of subject matter or designs or styles of murals that you would see around were you particularly interested in? Well, it's hard to say that because I really like mostly painting other than doing most of the things.

But I like some techniques.

I don't know which techniques, but I know that I like them, especially painting.

When you went to Benito Juarez, when I think of that school I think of murals.

Really there are so many murals.

Were you interested in that? Was that an inspiration to you at all? Did you look at them a lot? Oh, yes.

From the start.

Every time I would pass by there I would right away look at it.

Because it was like that school was full of murals coming from all these artists in the Hispanic community.

So I really liked them a lot.

Very interesting to see what it was about.

Especially of Benito Juarez.

They have his face painted at Juarez.

So I like it a lot.

Do you know any of the background of those paintings? How they came to be there? I really don't know.

But I know the artists who did it.

Other than that, I really don't know.

So you're saying that you got started, you first started working on the mural projects when you were 12? Yes, at the age of 12.

At Cooper.

It's now the Clemente Orozco School.

I have a couple of murals there of the Aztec calendar.

I worked there during the summer painting.

Have you ever been involved right from the beginning? Just the plans? Planning what they're going to do on a certain wall? Through the whole thing? Yeah, I've been through that.

It's interesting.

Can you tell us a little? Because most of us really don't have any idea how they decide.

Oh my goodness.

It's like a milkshake.

Most people really don't have any idea how it even comes about.

How they decide what they're going to paint.

What are the first things they do.

So can you tell us from your perspective about that process a little bit? Sure.

First of all, we all have to put ideas and then we see what we like of each idea.

We put it together and then we look at the wall and see where it's going to be.

So we work on it and then we start drawing on the wall.

It goes on from there.

What kind of ideas, it seems when we've looked around a lot of the murals in the community, there's certain symbols and messages and certain things that you see in a lot of different murals.

Does that influence you a lot when you're thinking what should go on this wall? Are you familiar with that? Yes.

There's always a theme.

It depends on where it is, how they look at it from their point of view.

That's how they do it.

So how do you determine what is the right theme for a certain area? It depends on what you see is having the problem or something that the people want to see it to stop and that's what it does.

So it's really addressing problems and issues in the community? It's always issuing something but it depends on what it is.

When you look at the mural, it will tell you something, what the theme is about.

What about at Benito Juarez, are those meant for people like students, people your age? Are there messages in those murals that are directed for people your age? Messages that you picked up from those murals when you looked at them? Yes.

Some showed that you should study, go on to college and all that so you won't be a failure.

Others show gang problems that they want them to stop.

How would you say that students were influenced by the murals? Did they notice them and were they influenced by the messages? They just look at it and they don't take it like it's nothing.

They always take it like nothing.

There's nothing going on right there.

It's just a painting.

But if you're really interested in art, you look at your point of view and the artist's point of view, what they're trying to mean to you.

And that obviously influenced you a lot.

Yes, I was always looking at them.

Tell us about the muralists you've met, what they're like and what sort of things you've learned from them.

Mr.

Mendoza Francisco, he's interesting to work with because he likes geometric forms especially.

You'll always see in his drawing that he's using that geometric form, especially squares.

If you've seen some of his paintings, they're interesting.

And then he makes it fun for you to work in a painting.

So it's interesting.

And Aurelio Diaz, I like his art a lot.

It's very interesting the way he paints, his techniques.

And since he's a good artist and everything, I like especially how he paints.

I don't know why, but it's very interesting, his techniques.

Do you have a favorite mural? A favorite mural? Yeah, the one I work with Aurelio Diaz.

Can you describe it for us, what it looks like? It has a hand with the earth and people doing corn.

And all kinds of symbols right there showing the whole world, not only one place, even has two parents.

So that meaning the south side and another one meaning the north side, something like that.

So what else do you think he was trying to say with the mural? The Hispanic culture, that's what I think he was trying to say, showing how us Hispanics have worked together in liberation.

So what do your parents think about all this? My parents, okay, they're letting me work on it, but in one sense they're taking it as a hobby, which I want to major in.

But sooner or later, they're starting to realize that I want it now, that I'm going to go for it, take my art and master doing paintings and all that.

So they're taking it good now.

Hopefully that's what I see, but they freak out when they see all these people come in and out of my house, especially artists.

And in my community, they call me Picasso.

It's funny, but they do actually do.

My brothers and sisters started calling me Picasso.

So now you go outside, they'll probably say, Picasso, come over here.

I'll just talk to them now, because at first it was like I didn't want them to call me Picasso.

I wanted them to call me by my name, but I got used to it, so I don't say anything anymore about Picasso being my name outside.

But sometimes I'll tell them, you know, David Alfaro Siqueiros is number one.

Well, if I ever grow up to be a good artist or something, I'll probably think I'm their granddaughter.

Like, I fool some people saying I'm their great -great -granddaughter of him.

So who knows? Are they interested? How do they react to the art in the community, the murals? Well, my brothers and my friends, they just look at it like nothing, you know.

But they know I'm interested in painting, so if they want to bother me, they know that all they have to do is talk about painting bad.

And that's what gets me mad when they talk about it, because it's like they're not putting the effort we are.

They should know we're trying to do something that they don't want to do.

We want to help the community, not let them just go out and do nothing.

They look at a painting and they're like, yeah, it's nice and that's it.

But they don't know the meaning that is for us working on it and having the inspiration we've put in there.

My parents, well, sometimes it's hard for them to understand, but they're understanding that I really like painting.

When they look at a painting, they start telling me what does it mean or something and I'll tell them.

Because they're starting to be interested in it now that I'm working on it.

Before, you know, they would just look at it, it's a nice painting and that's it.

Do you talk about what the paintings mean with them? Yeah, sometimes when I get a chance, because I'm usually not around.

I'm always doing something, helping out someone or something.

But I talk to them, you know, about when someone's going to come to speak to me or something, I'll tell them, you know, these are important people and I want them, you to know them and all that.

And that's interesting.

What kind of art do you think you're going to end up going into? I really haven't, you know, I've mostly worked with murals.

So I still am not in the scene of really doing small paintings or anything like that.

Ever since I began murals, big murals, but once I have the opportunity, I'll probably decide on what kind of painting I want to do.

Can you imagine continuing becoming a muralist? And if so, what sort of things would you like to paint? Well, I would like to paint things that are beautiful, that inspire people, like junksters showing the world or something like that.

Here? Yeah, I would like to do something here to see if they would get inspired by them.

Because we have a lot of murals, but as they say, they've been done a long time ago and it's like we want to get it to start now.

Again, the muralist thing.

Are there different things that you're trying to say now than some of the older murals are beautiful? They have certain messages.

What sort of things are you trying to say now that differ from what those murals were saying to the people in the community? Well, see, things have changed and those murals said about those years now we want it to mean what it's saying these years, not the old days.

We want people to understand.

We want the people to start doing murals like it used to be.

You want to see paintings all over.

You want to see the community full of paintings.

When somebody comes in, you just want to show them that your community is good looking muralists in the Hispanic community.

And it should especially be here because we're Hispanics and that's really where the muralists come from in Mexico.

Why do you think that is? There's all different kinds of painting and all different kinds of art.

Why do you think Hispanic people especially do murals? They're supposed to really show our culture and it's like they since they really stop, I want it to begin again for the Hispanic community.

Because that's where it all began with the Vidal Faro CKs, Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera.

The three Hispanic big muralists, they came from the Hispanic culture.

And I think that since it came from them, we should have them too.

Since we're Hispanic, we should keep moving them on not to stay in one place.

Do you see differences? How is your generation, what you're interested in and the problems that you have? How is your generation different from your parents' generation? Well, the parents always think in the old days, you can't do this.

And it's like us teenagers, we're like, it's different now, you know, things have changed.

We want to do it, let us do it.

And it's like parents, like they expect you to do what they want now.

It's not right.

They should let them do what they want to do.

If they want to paint, let them paint.

If they want to be something, let them be something.

But don't let them, you know, be what they want them to be.

I don't like when people do that.

I want them to be what they want to be, not what someone else wants them to be.

They have the right to choose.

So there's just differences in how you look at things? I mean, that's generally true between parents and children, but do you think in general that the culture is changing, that the way that you look at things is different than your parents? And if so, what are some specific things that are differences between the two generations? Definitely.

That's hard to say.

Well, from what your parents' way of thinking and us, children's way of thinking, we want to do everything our way.

We don't want it to be like those days, because in those days, they were very strict, what you call strict.

And now we want our own freedom to do what we like, not what they want.

Like, if you want to be someone, be someone, from what you like.

Like, parents always especially want you to be a doctor, and they don't let them do what they want to be.

And then later on in the future, they start telling their parents, and their parents start feeling bad.

I wouldn't like that for my parents to do that to me.

So, I've told them from the start that I wanted to be a painter, so they understand that now from me.

But from my family, they all want to be different things.

So, I don't know, because they're outgoing with people, but I don't see anything really that I know that they're majoring in different things.

I just want them to be someone in my family.

I don't want them to stay low or anything like that.

So, hopefully they'll have their career going on.

So, why did you leave Benito Juarez? Oh, I left Benito Juarez because I was majoring in art, and the classes they had there was like I took them already.

And so, I had to move out if I wanted to be an artist.

And Curie was a good place.

It's a magnet school.

It's an art school.

So, I went there, and I told them, you know, give me the chance.

But when I went, it was like they were only accepting people from the community.

And it was a hard time, trouble for me at first.

And I showed the lady, you know, I want to do it, and I showed her some postcards that I did.

And she really liked them, and they gave me the opportunity after all.

So, I got accepted because I was trying to get to Curie ever since I was a kid, eighth grade, when I was moving out to high school.

And when I went, they put me on the waiting list.

And then when I go this time, they told me that they don't accept people from the waiting list because they never get to them.

So, it got me kind of upset for me to be waiting there, you know, not do something about it.

Until this year, I got very upset, and I told the lady, hey, I'm going to be bugging you until you let me in the school.

And she really noticed that I really wanted to it, and she gave me the opportunity to go there.

So, now I'm going there.

And I like it a lot with the people, the atmosphere, different cultures, a lot of artists, and all different things, and music, and art, and dancing.

So, it's interesting, Curie High School.

So, what sort of things do you have to do next to become a muralist, to keep going and growing as a muralist? What do you see, the steps that you need to take? Well, the steps I need to take is I'm going to keep working with other artists, not stay in one community, go to different communities, and volunteer my work to them, keep going to school.

I want to go to the art institute, get my master's in art, and from there on, keep painting until I become a good artist.

That's what I really want to be, an artist.

So, really then, how would you say having stumbled in, or maybe not stumbled in, but having gotten involved with the murals when you were a little kid, how has that changed your life, do you think? The way it's changed my life, because now I look at a painting with beauty, not like when I was a kid, I looked at them, it was nice, and that's it.

But now I look at it like they put a lot of work into this to show us something, and I get it on from there, and then I see who the artist is, and when I meet them, I'll go, hey, I saw your paintings, I like them.

And that's what it gets me, motivating.

I'm curious what you think about the graffiti murals.

The graffiti murals? I don't know if that's the right term for them.

Well, they're nice, some mean something, but others I sometimes can't understand, but I try.

Like there's one that they did in Semsky's, and it's nice, but I don't get it, you know, because I'm really not into graffiti art.

I'm really mostly into murals.

So do you consider them, I mean, the graffiti mural, do you consider them murals? Yes, I still consider them murals because I've worked on them as a team, and it's not like it's not art, you know, it's art right there, they're doing, you know, but in a different way.

So who does the graffiti murals? Well, it all depends on who likes graffiti.

Some are really artists just to do it, you know, they'll do it.

Some are just people, regular people who want to paint, and they like graffiti, so they just do it on any wall.

So that's who I think they are, but I think they're artists and stuff.

Which ones do your friends, like do your school friends like better, the more traditional murals or the graffiti murals? The graffiti murals.

You see all over school, how do you do this, how do you paint this, how do you, you know, draw the letters for graffiti.

So that's what mostly everybody in school is interested in, you just pass notes around on graffiti.

Can you decipher them? I mean, can you figure out what they're saying? Well, sometimes I don't understand the words they're saying, but I try to understand their work and all that.

So someday I'll understand real good what they've worked on and what it's meaning.

I'm really not into graffiti, as you can see.

So you can't give us a clue as to what kind of things they're talking about? No, I can't.

Okay, let's see what else I've got here.

Okay, anyone wants to jump in with a question? Yeah, I was going to ask about your friends in general.

This relates to exactly what we were talking about in terms of the regular murals, because Benito Juarez especially has such a big mural there.

Is it something you just take for granted, you walk by every day, or is it something that you think people who go to school really notice? Well, the people in school, they just look at it and they think it's not meaningful.

But for an artist, it's meaningful.

For someone who's interested in art right away, it would be meaningful for him or her.

So it's interesting, but at Benito Juarez, my friends, they just look at it, it's nice, that's it.

And I'm like, Oh, well, you know who did this and that, and they're like, No.

Or sometimes they'll say, Yeah.

They're like, Oh, I know him, I know him, and that's it.

But they don't recognize him as an artist, which I think they should get credit for them as being artists.

Do you think because you're of their generation, are you maybe better able to do, or can you, because you talk about wanting to do a different type of murals, can you think of murals you could do that maybe your friends then would notice? I bet you if I did a graffiti mural, as they say, everybody would probably put their eyes on.

But other than that, it depends on what they like, if the mural's done about, you know.

Depends who the person is.

If they have a bad attitude, you know, you'll notice, I don't like this, or they have a nice attitude, Oh, this is very nice.

I like when people, you know, have compliments of a painting that an artist have worked on.

Do you think there are certain subjects in the murals, whether the existing murals or murals that you'd like to paint, that are things your friends would especially be interested in? Well, the one I did with Aurelio Diaz, a lot of people really liked that one.

It's very interesting because it was of the Hispanic culture, as I said, and it was so beautiful, meaning something for school deliberation and all that, so a lot of people really liked that one.

So I think that kind of mural, people would get inspired by.

Some people I know feel, some of the murals address, they have real pretty scenes that reflect maybe where their parents came from, their grandparents or whatever.

Some are very kind of hard, cold issues, drugs, and, you know, unemployment and pollution and that kind of thing.

Do your friends, you think, or do you, especially your friends who are not artists, so just people you hang out with, do the issue ones appeal to them more? I mean, do they want to see things about drugs in murals? Is that important to them? They're really not interested in putting drugs in a mural or something like that.

The way how they are, they're very, like they want everything in their point of view, no one else's point of view.

They want to be the only ones.

So that's what I think they appeal to it.

I remember I was wondering about the graffiti murals.

You said you don't especially like them so much.

What do you think it is about them that your friends like about them? Well, they're like different kinds of letters.

People understand them, especially since they're kind.

And I don't know about them really much, but they like them a lot.

They're nice and everything, but I'm really not interested in graffiti kind of paintings and all that.

I wanted to ask if there are certain images you really like to draw and if there are certain things you draw or paint over and over again? Like a certain face or something? Well, I like to paint parrots especially.

You could tell I'm a parrot phony or whatever you call them.

I'm crazy over parrots.

If I could draw them, I would draw them all over town especially.

Have you tried parrots in paintings before? Did you do parrots in the OJPS painting? Yes, I did.

Three parrots are in that mural.

But they're not like parrots.

They're birds from another country.

Putting it together with another country.

Can you describe working on that mural a little bit? Did you do drawings ahead of time and climb on the scaffolding and just draw the air? Well, okay.

It was funny because we really didn't have a painting or a drawing right away.

We would put something and we would keep adding and adding, which we were just putting in things.

And if we didn't like it, we would go and paint over it and put a different thing until we were satisfied about it.

We decided it's finished now, but we really didn't have any theme on it or a drawing that we could say, you know, this is the drawing.

We didn't put any ideas.

We used what we liked.

We would put it in there.

And that's how that painting was done.

So what's it like being up on a scaffolding painting? Well, I really wasn't put on a scaffolding.

We were using chairs or a ladder.

But I have never been on a scaffold in my life.

I'm just curious.

Let's say you have this wall.

Take the painting down.

When you have this wall and you could paint a mural on it, you could paint anything you wanted.

We know there would probably be parrots, but just try to imagine what you might put on that wall and tell us a little about it.

Well, I would probably get ideas.

I would go around to see what I liked.

And if I liked it, I would try to put it in there and see how it would fit with other things in the Hispanic culture.

So when you say you'd go around and get ideas, you mean from other murals? Yes, or I'll go around the area and look what has to be done about this to see.

By putting it in a painting, see if they'll really recognize it.

So it's a message then.

You figure out what message to put in the mural.

Yes, definitely a message on a wall.

So let's say right where you live then, if there was a wall right there, knowing what you do about your neighborhood, you always know your neighborhood best, and you could paint a wall and put any message on that wall, what message would you put there? Well, I really don't know.

I have no idea.

Because I do look at walls and I want to go and paint on it, but since I'm still like a kid, it's like people will say, I'm not responsible, you're not good for this.

There's people always trying to put you down, especially when you're a girl.

If you're a guy, it's okay, but they put you especially down when you're a girl, and I don't like that.

I'll tell them straight out, just because I'm a girl and I'm a kid, you think I'm not responsible enough, if I want to do something, let me do it.

I'm willing to do it with responsibility.

I am a very responsible person.

So you don't think they'd let you have a wall? No.

Because people, some students have tried that, and I've seen that they won't let them because they're just kids.

They think that an older person is much more responsible than a kid, which is not really always a good thing, because it's not always true saying that.

I think they should let us do what we want, even if we're still kids.

I want it, and it's like, I look at walls and it's like, yeah, I want to paint there, but if you go and ask them, they'll say, no, this is my wall.

Especially between artists, it's funny because we look at a wall and see who's going to race to win it, and whoever gets it is all happy.

And so it's funny how we artists look at a wall from our point of view.

Because you brought up the thing about girls, are your friends who are interested in doing murals painting, are more of them boys or girls, or is there any feeling that girls shouldn't be doing that versus boys shouldn't be doing that? Well, I've worked with both boys and girls, and I've seen them most.

There's a lot of guys, but the girls that I've worked with, they really like painting a lot, and they're willing to work, but they've really never worked on murals.

They've worked on small paintings.

So I have no idea, really.

Are there attitudes that keep girls and women out of the mural thing? Yeah, especially since they're girls, it's hard because a guy always wants to be superior than a girl, and when you're an artist, you want it, and they won't understand that.

Like, I have two friends, and they really like art, but it's like they won't really give them a chance since they're girls.

And I think they deserve a chance, even though they're girls.

I really think that a man being superior than a girl is not true, and I would always look at it that way.

I want people to be equal to other people, not putting a girl down just because we want to be someone.

Especially guys, they have the custom of putting us girls down.

I've noticed.

Oh, yes, I really have.

Because guys, I don't know, you tell them you want to be someone.

Oh, this and that.

I want to be someone, too.

But sometimes they won't even make an effort to be someone.

So, if people are out there, I think they should do an effort on what they want to be, especially in murals painting.

I love mural painting.

Thanks a lot.

You're welcome.

Maybe you'll let us do some more.