Like flowers that bloom from the cracks in sidewalks, immigrants have always faced setbacks in America, yet we find a way. We manage to create and inspire beauty despite the grueling circumstances.
I am a mixed media artist who uses material, layering, and symbolism to translate internal pressure into physical form. In Ojo Con El Futuro, which translates to “watch out for the future,” I use mixed media to visualize the tension of being watched by decisions that have yet to unfold.
In 2019, my family and I boarded a plane north that would irrevocably change our lives. León, GTO, which is the definition of vibrant, is much more than my birthplace. The streets are flooded with music, mouthwatering flavors, and the constant sun that blankets everyone into a community.
But what I miss most is the color. Vendors decorate the sidewalks, showcasing recreations of the intermachinations of their minds for all who wander by to see. So bold, so unapologetically loud, beautiful in a way that teeters on grotesque. Some of it is sleek and classic, while other pieces are nonsensical, and yet they all hold this air of regality, an unmatched beauty that I miss to this day.
Salinas, the city I move to in 2019, is a similar world bursting with color, brilliant minds, and the humming of the beautiful language I grew up laughing in. I hold my heritage close to my heart, remaining unapologetically true to myself and my culture, especially when it’s hard, because life is more rewarding when I do.
The political division and hostility this country faces has hit many communities, with immigrants being one of them. I know with unwavering certainty that there is no better use of my education and my voice than to defend the people who give the best they have to America in the hopes of a better life. That is what I work toward, days and nights spent pouring over a desk, bettering myself and the chances of achieving higher education.
When you see college applications in movies, it is usually in a compiled montage that lasts no more than five minutes, in which the main character types up an essay and hits the submit button with glorious finality, patiently waiting to see what will come.
That portrayal is a ridiculous oversimplification. The last sixteen months of my life are defined by preparation for college application season, and yet I still feel chronically overwhelmed. There is no five second montage, but rather months of writing and rewriting. Once I finally submit, I am still not done, instead constantly bombarded with emails, deadlines, and follow ups. It feels like a never ending cycle of work and more work. Even at the dinner table, I am plagued by incessant questions disguised as menial chatter. “Oh, have you applied to this college yet?” “This college sent an email, have you filled this out yet?” I can’t even open the door without finding a letter from a college inviting me to apply.
That is when it hit me.
Art is an escape to me. Creating is a release in which I open the floodgates, even if just briefly, to release some of the turmoil that eats at me from the inside out. It is cathartic and sometimes ugly, but it is fun. I quiet my brain for a few seconds, and in that calm I channel what I cannot verbally communicate.
In the eye of the hurricane, buried in applications and work, I saw an opportunity. I wanted to show what I’ve been feeling these past few months. I had been compiling all of the mail colleges sent me, letters, postcards, stickers, booklets. For no reason really, but now I’m very glad that I did. I took them, soaked them in water and Mod Podge, and began creating a tangible actualization of what it feels like to be going through this. This piece exists as a physical manifestation of the mental and emotional tension that comes with standing on the edge of an unknown future, where ambition, fear, and expectation occupy the same space.
Thoughts of pressure, expectation, and the sense that everything rests on decisions made now shape this piece. These thoughts are not logical. They border on catastrophizing. But art does not need to be logical. It does not need to be good. It simply gets to be.
My work lives at the intersection of material experimentation and emotional honesty, where ordinary objects are transformed into vessels for meaning. I rip the mail apart, dramatic but satisfying. I select the strongest scraps, the most striking words and visuals. I sculpt the general shape with tin foil, hot glue it, and layer the paper piece by piece, soaked in water and Mod Podge slurry until it becomes one form. The process is tedious and long, and I enjoy it deeply. I paint the eye with acrylic, aiming for something slightly fantastical rather than realistic. Mixing the cool colors with hints of warmth, peppering them to give a wink to pointillism and a breath of dimension. The dramatic paper lashes are a simple touch of flair, a detail fun enough to keep.
And that is what this was, fun. In a time in my life in which fun was so far and few, I was grateful for a break in the monotony. By transforming institutional mail into a single, watchful form, I explore how moments meant to represent opportunity can also carry immense psychological weight. I endure all of this stress, pressure, and uncertainty now, knowing that they will help me achieve a better tomorrow.
There is only one place in which it feels useful to revel in otherwise unproductive and bothersome emotions, and that is when I make art. Consider this a love letter to this form of self expression. A thank you for remaining a delightful constant in my life, a companion, and a source of solace.
