Self Help Graphics & Art is a non-profit arts organization that I have been volunteering for almost 10 years. They are credited with bringing Día de los muertos to Los Angeles in 1973 and every year they have been charging an artist with the task to create a commemorative print. Like any organization, they have gone through trials and tribulations in the past years but they have secured a new space in Boyle Heights, the neighborhood I grew up in. 2013 marks the SHG's 40th anniversary and I wanted to create a piece that not only reflects traditional aspects of Day of the Dead, but also takes it's internationally recognized printmaking program into a new direction by incorporating a new processes into its creation. Day of the dead is a ritual celebration that is steeped in tradition that is a mix of Catholic beliefs and Aztec/Mexica cosmovision. Day of the dead is a true reflection of what the make up of the modern Mexican and Chicano today is, a mix of traditions, histories and ritual that are constantly being translated and recontextualized within a social framework that is not always friendly or receptive to them. I took this into account when I created this piece. . The central image of the skeleton, is housed within a living tree, represents the duality that is being expressed during Day of the Dead, that life and death are inextricably present in each other. The tree also forms an axis mundi in which each direction expresses a different phase in SHG's history. On the left, are images of the Virgen of Guadalupe and palm trees that dominated the landscape of the location. The Virgen de Guadalupe was a statue that was in the lot of the old location and has been adopted as a symbol of the organization. To the right is the new landscape in which SHG inhabits, east of Downtown LA with City Hall connected by the First Street Bridge which is a block away from their location. Hidden in the roots are icons of past artists who have come through SHG and left their mark. Sister Karen Boccalero, a Franciscan nun who founded the organization in 1972, is represented by the Sacred Heart which symbolizes the founder's love and passion she had for the arts. The needle-man alludes to the group ASCO which used Day of the Dead as a platform to speak about politics in the Eastside and the leading causes death amongst youth at the time, gang violence and drug abuse. The lowrider is artists Gilbert Magu Lujan, one of the founding members of Los Four, a group of artists that created the visual lexicon of Chicano Art. The last icon, is the pre-columbian deity, Tlaloc, as symbol of the pre-columbian past that is always present within Chicano and Mexican culture. The birds holding up the scrolls, are all from the logo created by artist Leo Limon who also worked with SHG in its early formative years. The shape of the piece is a papel picado pattern, paper banners that are traditionally used at parties in Latin America. The tradition partially extends from the ritual offering that is used for the dead in Aztec/Mexica rituals for the dead
