September 2007
Across Borders and Communities
Local Chicana Artist Contributes to Anthology
By Judith Gille
When an editor at the Children’s Book Press asked Seattle artist Cecílía Alvarez to contribute to a new anthology, On My Block: Stories and Paintings by Fifteen Artists, she embraced the idea enthusiastically.
“As a Chicana artist I am happy to share this small piece of my life. I want to help increase the visibility of the Latino community and our experience whenever I can,” Alvarez says.
Alvarez is one of 15 artists who were asked to explore, in words and pictures, a place from their youth that was special to them. The result is an enchanting celebration of community and of rich, culturally diverse childhoods.
Alvarez’s contribution, “My Abuelita’s Garden,” is the book’s opening illustration and story. She paints a colorful and poignant picture of growing up on the border of Mexico and California before immigration issues became a raging national debate.
She grew up in a large extended family – half lived on the Mexican side of the border and the others lived less than five miles away in California. Her family traversed the border to visit her grandmother, cousins, aunts and uncles in Mexico, just as any family might cross town to visit relatives.
“The borders were not like they are now,” she says. “We crossed them every day. They have always seemed like arbitrary barriers to me.”
Alvarez, her siblings and many of her cousins grew up and attended school in California. Summers were spent at her aunt’s simple home in Baja, where there was no electricity, but an abundance of nature that would later provide inspiration for Alvarez’s artwork.
Inspiration also came from the subject of her story from On My Block: her maternal grandmother, her abuelita, Conchita. At a time when few Mexican women painted as a hobby, Alvarez’s grandmother was filling Masonite boards with beautiful images of animals and indigenous Mexican women.
“When my cousins went out to play, I would stay behind
and tag along after my grandmother,” Alvarez reminisces. “I
learned to draw from my grandmother. She was an excellent draftsman and
painter. Her hands were always busy.”
And when Alvarez decided it was time to spread her wings and leave her
close-knit community – instead of marrying a local boy as her family
hoped – it was her grandmother who defended her from her nagging
mother and aunties.
“She’s a bohemian, she can’t help it,” her abuelita told them. “That is her nature, leave her alone!”
Being the family’s matriarch, her word was final, and Alvarez left to study sociology at California State University in San Diego. After finishing her degree, Alvarez migrated up the coast to Seattle where she settled in 1975. She married and has two adult children, both of whom attended Garfield High School. She recreated some of the extended family community of her native Mexico by hosting the entire Garfield football team to Friday night spaghetti dinners.
As an artist, her oil paintings and murals depicting themes
of feminism, immigrant life and poverty have been featured in numerous
books and exhibitions. Her first venture into the world of children’s
literature was as illustrator of Antonio’s Card/La Tarjeta de
Antonio, a bilingual children’s book by Rigoberto Gonzalez
(Children’s Book Press, 2005).
Today she continues to express herself through her vibrant paintings and
also as a specialist in the Work Based Learning Program for Seattle Public
Schools. There she has found another opportunity to explore with her students
the values of a just society, inclusive of all people. That idea, according
to Alvarez, was also planted by her grandma Conchita.
Conchita lived to be 96. She died more than 20 years ago, but her garden still exists today, just across the border in Tijuana, on a narrow lot between two high-rise apartment buildings. And – as in the story – it is still a jungle, filled with an exotic array of plants, birds and insects. Only the tender papaya is gone.
It died the same year as abuelita.
On My Block: Stories and Paintings by Fifteen Artists, edited by Dana Goldberg, (Children’s Book Press, July 2007; ages 4-8).
Judith Gille is a Seattle
writer, who spends much of her time in Mexico.
©2007
Seattle's Child, a publication of the Washington Post Company
All rights reserved
Web design by Intentional Publishing & Design