- [Alessandra] The San Diego region is home to many artists who work in an assortment of media.

As a curator and educator, I want to know what inspires these creatives.

This is "Insights Into Art."

Today, I am visiting with painter Marianela De La Hoz at her home studio.

A selection of her work is currently on display at the Museum of Art in Balboa Park.

I've been following your work for so many years, and I'm very intrigued both by your ideas and your concepts, but also by your process, which is very unique.

And I was just at the San Diego Museum of Art.

- Ah.

- And I saw Los Pollitos.

- [Marianela] Los Pollitos.

The little chickens.

- The little chickens.

- [Marianela] Yes.

- And it was such a powerful image, but at the same time, very, very, very sad.

- Sad and provoking.

And the thing is that it's such a small piece, and even so, people come and stay there, and try to understand what is happening there.

- [Marianela] I was so angry and so concerned to know that these little children came from Mexico and other Latin American countries, and they came in la bestia, the beast.

This train.

And the parents paid the smugglers to bring these children, all by themselves.

And sometimes they took the money and then left the children alone.

There were other cases.

They put the children in cages, and the families were all destroyed.

That's why I painted scissors.

And all the family photos all torn and cut.

- [Alessandra] In discussing how her painting like Los Pollitos are made, Marianela directs me to a stack of notebooks.

When she has an idea, rather than draw, she uses words to describe and sculpt the image in her mind, like a diary entry.

After looking at her notebooks, Marianela invited me into her studio, which is essentially in her kitchen.

- Yes, come to my studio.

My little studio.

First, you have to prepare your board using gesso.

Layers and layers of gesso.

Then you have to sand it.

I draw on the board.

I use silver point.

- Okay.

- I love it, because you can draw and it won't smudge.

You can do this and... - [Alessandra] Oh, yes.

- And it maintains the line.

- Exactly.

And it's very precise and very detailed.

You can draw with this.

The technique that I use is called egg tempura.

It was used in the medieval times and in the early Renaissance.

- This is really cool because when I was studying painting, we worked with watercolor, oil, acrylic, but we never covered egg tempura.

That was just not part of the curriculum anymore.

So, I'm really intrigued to learn more about it.

- Few artists use it because it takes a lot of time to paint.

The painting is translucent, so you have to apply many, many, many layers.

For the pigments.

The pigments are powder colors.

I have a lot of them.

And you add a little distilled water.

And grind it.

- [Alessandra] Oh, so you have to grind them even finer?

- Yeah.

(pestle thudding) Okay.

So the first two or three layers are always with green earth color all over.

- [Alessandra] That kind of establishes the tones.

- It's like the mother color.

- Okay.

- And every other pigment will go well together.

- [Alessandra] I noticed that you have tiny, tiny brushes.

- Ah, yes.

This is big.

- [Alessandra] That's big.

What's your tiniest?

- Ah, the tiniest.

Maybe this one?

These are for the faces, the eyes, the smaller.

- The finer lines.

- Exactly.

So.

- [Alessandra] And sometimes the writing, because you include sometimes writing.

- Ah, yes.

yes.

So.

A little of this.

(upbeat music) - So you use the egg yolk as the medium?

- It's the binder.

- It's the binder.

- The binder, yeah.

So for the first layers, it has to be very subtle.

(upbeat music) For a piece like this, it will take about a month to finish.

- [Alessandra] Wow.

- [Marianela] And I work every day of the week.

- And about how many hours?

- About eight hours a day.

- Eight hours.

- Yeah.

- So a piece of a day.

- And I only work in one piece.

I cannot paint like, many different paintings Because I like to imagine that I'm having long conversations with my characters, and the longer I work with them, I understand them better.

- You are devoting yourself to them.

- Exactly.

So I love the process because it takes time, it takes discipline.

It takes, I don't know.

Imagination.

Love.

- Marianela's home is adorned with her artwork.

Some a commentary on the border and immigration and other issues important to her, but she has also turned her creative eye towards family, immortalizing them in her paintings.

(upbeat music) - I use a lot of my family as models.

- Because they don't charge.

- They don't charge.

(both laughing) And I ask them, "Please do this, do that."

And they- - So even your grandkids?

- Ah, yes.

Of course.

- Do you usually work in silence or do you listen to music?

- I need music.

- You have music usually.

- Yes.

- Usually.

- And usually, my cats are here, even here or here.

So I have my little tweezers because I have to take all the- - The cat hair.

- The cat hairs.

And other thing about egg tempera, if you commit a mistake, you cannot erase it.

- [Alessandra] So it's kind of like watercolor?

- Yeah.

- You just have to start over again.

- Yes.

And now that I have been painting with this technique for almost 28 years, now I can disguise.

- [Alessandra] So now there's sometimes if you make a mistake, you have to like, kind of add something or change something.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A little rock.

And it is easier to.

- [Alessandra] How long do you have to wait before layering another color?

- I can, let's see.

Let's do another layer for the face with other pigment.

- [Alessandra] And then you have your palette with all your pigments?

- Yes.

- And so you mix, you use this to mix your color?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- Try to keep everything very neat.

- I'm a very messy painter, so, I'm learning a lot looking at how you paint.

So.

You develop, you did this kind of flesh tone with a little bit of ochre or?

- Yes, it's ochre and white.

- Ochre and white.

- [Alessandra] Oh, yeah, and you can just do it.

Like, layer it right on.

- Yes.

(upbeat music) I like this because I feel that there is some living thing from the yolk and it passes to my painting.

- It's exciting to see her painting.

Her work is so imaginative and dreamlike, yet her technique and approach is very precise and measured.

It's been an honor to witness her process.

Thank you so much for telling us a little bit about your process.

- I'm so glad you came, and thank you very much for visiting, and let me show you my whole process and my creativity patterns and everything else.

Thank you very much, Alessandra.

(upbeat music)