(calm music) (camera beeping) (soft music) - I am from Chile, (chuckles) and came, you know, in 1988.

And since then, I'm living in Carbondale and my studio in Murphysboro.

(soft music) It's a little bit in the family.

I have brothers and sisters that paint and my mom, butI didn't start it until late in life.

So always I did art in parallel with, I was a French teacher.

I still teach French, but I'm more concentrating art.

I teach to pay my studio.

And so it was a shift.

And then I concentrate in art and took from there.

(soft music) From when I was a child, I enjoyed so much.

You know, playing with a kite and it gave this idea of freedom.

So the little kite way I'm high, it gave me a sensation that I really enjoy.

So now, you know, years back you look at your childhood and those ideas come up, and so I did an interpretation, a political interpretation of the kite.

But the boundaries are because print usually is a 2D work.

So the boundary are pushing and going to 3D and incorporated other elements.

I think that in that sense, I'm pushing a little bit the boundaries.

I don't know, some people get touched by something that you do.

Like, my last piece that I have is this one.

Amigas, friends.

The juror selected is a simple print, it's a dry point, but I think he read exactly what my intention was.

Two, very young girls, when you are very young, your friendships go beyond your body, you wanna touch your friend and you do the hair.

And so I wanted to capture that and I guess the jurors saw that.

- So my story as an artist, I think actually begins at art museums with my mom taking me and my siblings too various art museums, so getting used to seeing painters like Picasso and especially Chagall.

(rhythmic music) With my piece that's in the Woman's Voices exhibit, it's taking images and turning them into sounds.

And as well, it's also just making music as well, such as making music with broken guitars or half broken keyboards and so forth.

So making music that people would consider noise or noise music is important to me in that way.

- [Announcer] Number 10, ("Please Turn The Page") - The title of my piece is "Transistor," which is a play on words of transistor as in electrical changes and so forth, basically electrical wiring and everything, but also transistor as in transistor, like myself, who is a transgender sister with two brothers.

And so that piece, I went ahead and made by making this symbol that is a cross in combination of the symbol for being transgender, but also the electrical diagram symbol for a transistor.

I mean, it feels good to be included in terms of, it's definitely validating for me in terms of being a female artist, being a transgender woman artist, and being like, yes, you are included among the great woman artists in this area.

That's the ultimate validation.

And also just being an artist in general and having worked accepted to a place, in a place like the Sharp Museum is also major too, to have that sort of gallery that I'm able to display my work in as well.

So for me, pushing boundaries and especially pushing boundaries within a woman, female-led exhibit is important to me as a transgender artist.

So pushing boundaries to me also means pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a woman, since that's something I have to contend with every day.

And pushing boundaries in terms of what we can do with mediums.

Pushing boundaries for me is also being able to change images to sound and back to images again.

Being able to be playful with how we are able to transform mediums in that way.

I hope my impact is being able to make people think beyond binaries.

Of course that's thinking beyond the binaries of gender, but also just thinking beyond the binaries of mediums like images and sounds, basically that art doesn't have to just be this one thing as well as gender doesn't just have to be this one thing.

There can be multitudes in terms of how these things exist in the world.

- I am very much a visceral painter.

I love how materials feel as I'm pushing them across a board or painting them across a board.

I walk in the forest every day and I love frogs and the birds and so my inspiration really comes from that.

I have two daughters and when I had my baby girls, I decided I really wanted to bring a creative life to them and creative experiences.

So we spent our days making hats and painting and sketching and doing plays and playing Barbies and every sort of creative thing I could think of to do with them.

And while they were painting, I was painting.

And while they could maybe lose interest after a few minutes, hours later I'm still working on my painting and they've gone on to do something else.

But it just really evolved from that for me from there.

(soft music) And I immediately felt pretty isolated in this space.

And the "Women's Voices" show put me in touch with some amazing women and some amazing artists and we actually started a little group of our own called Southern Illinois Women Artists.

And so we met throughout last year and we would go to their wineries and have a sip and sketch.

We visited in each other's studios and just learned from each other.

And so that group has been so significant to me and the "Women's Voices" show I think is just a fascinating show and beautiful display of the work that women are doing in Southern Illinois and I'm very honored to be part of it.

I just feel like when people are interacting with art, what I want them to feel is the joy that I felt in making that art.

I want them to be happy and looking at it, I was thrilled that the gentleman who bought the piece that's in the show, he told me that he thought I was a colorist.

I'm not sure I understand that term necessarily, but he was thrilled with the colors in the piece.

But he also said that as he grows older, he only wants to be surrounded by beautiful things.

And that made me feel good and I thought, yeah, that's pretty much what I wanna achieve as an artist, is to create beauty and allow people to feel that joy that I feel.

(soft music) Well, I appreciate the opportunity to have the "Women's Voices" show and I also am very much aware that that's something that needs to happen and maybe shouldn't need to happen because women are often secondary figures, even still in the world of art.

So while we love to come together as women making art, we're probably first artists and then maybe women artists and mothers who are artists and whatever else we are.

- So, I've been lucky that in a way I've been in every single one of the four.

I mean, for somebody who is not classically trained or formally trained and who just has fun doing what she does, I'm really lucky.

I'm very lucky.

I've had lots of wonderful things happen in my life that I never would've thought.

(soft music) You know, that that's a little rough for anyone and an artist it's a little rough.

So I was angry for a while and then I decided what I was gonna do, 'cause I'm a planner, is so one day I was just drawing and I drew myself upside down, holding on strings, holding onto my eyeballs.

(laughs) It was gonna be a hanging piece, but I decided to give it a background to give it more context.

I decided to do the background in a way that reflected, that's what I see.

I had so many people, even to this day, women, that will come to me and say, "Oh, I can't do art."

They don't look at, and I tell them this, cooking is an art, baking is an art, decorating your home is an art.

The art is in everything.

It just depends on how you wanna think about it and do it.

So that's pushing boundaries for me for all women, not to say, oh yeah, you know, I just painted this room and did this, it's not art.

Well, it is to you because you enjoyed it and it's your art.

But it's the differences in people and what they do when something is in their way.

You know, just wonderful things that people do.

And so many people turn terrible, awful things into positive things for change or for themselves and their families.

Those are the things that I like to see, I like to read about, I like to watch people.

You know, that all informs myself.

You know, when I can no longer see clearly, well, I'll use my hands, I'll go into clay.

Whenever my hands, if they stop working, 'cause I have some arthritis, I'll figure something else out because I'm compelled to create, I have been compelled to create since I can remember.

I'm hoping that other people that have vision issues, challenges, that maybe could look at some of these things I'm going to be making and think, okay, this lady is doing and she's finding a way, maybe talking with her, 'cause I'm always available to talk to people, or looking at her process or whatever makes me feel like maybe I can still do certain things I love doing.

That's what I want actually.

- I did this painting during the shutdown and, you know, you just didn't see anybody's mouth for a long time.

That was the season, you know.

But it was a time that I felt very silenced and, you know, you couldn't be around people as much.

It was hard, it was difficult to communicate with people.

It was just a difficult time in that way.

And the lesson in it for me is, we're all choosing what we want.

Every single one of us, we're choosing to be right where we wanna be.

Nobody's making you do all these things and please everyone else and listen to that voice that says, you have to do this.

No one's making you do that except for you.

You're putting all this on yourself.

So if you choose the only thing that's really needed, nobody can take it away from you.

(soft music) There's only one thing that's needed.

And I put it around the house, just, it's written here and there because, you know, when you're having a good day, great.

But there are a lot of moments where you're not having a good time.

And that's when you need to remember, okay, all of these things are happening.

Things look bad, this is hard, but there's only one thing that really matters.

And If you can bring yourself back to that, just, I trust you.

I trust you with all of it.

This looks scary, this sounds bad, this feels bad, you know, painful.

But I trust you and I believe you.

We are hard on ourselves.

We are our own worst critic.

So I've just learned more and more that the only opinion that matters to me is, God, what do you think of it?

If you're okay with it then it's good enough for me.

I just wanna take people's hands and put them in His hands.

I can't do anything for you, not really, you know.

It's good to have community, we want help each other, but He can do so much more than I ever could.

So that's always my goal is just, I want people to know how sweet God is.

- I've always had a huge sense of awe and wonder at creation and animals and just how it all works, and really curious about that.

Never ending curiosity about that, but yeah, that's how it started.

I think art is a healing process, it's one of our birthrights and it's the way we connect to our soul and spirit, and it's what keeps us alive, being, letting the animating force of life come through us in art, music, poetry, writing, cooking, you know, that force of creation.

(gentle music) But it's given me a really great opportunity to meet a lot of amazing women and be more focused about my practice and how I wanna move forward, for sure.

I'd like to share that movement is a really big part of my practice and I think it's what makes my work mine.

I dance or move before I make art, while I'm making art, I incorporate that into community art workshops.

I would just like to provide a space of beauty or a moment of contemplation, something peaceful, meditative.

I'd like to get people to reconnect with nature and their own sense of off and mystery - For me, as painting has become a part of my spiritual practice so I set up candle and an altar and get into a mindful frame of mind and essentially wait, you know, for what's inside to come out.

And it's shocking.

(chuckles) It's always shocking and it's fun.

(calm music) And finally, after about a week of working on this painting, it hit me that essentially these were the people that had gone before me and they were my unseen allies and they were waiting for me.

And it just really was kind of a shock, you know, like, yeah, I'm really getting near the end of my lifetime, lifespan.

And so when that really, you know, sunk in I had this conscious thought, I'm not quite ready yet.

So I ended up painting a bouquet of flowers.

And I told my people, I says, I'm glad you're here and waiting on me, but here are the flowers, you know, I bring you and I'll see you later, but not yet.

So transformation, it was a surprise and a gift, really a nice gift for me.

I think all women push boundaries at every stage in life.

And I think perhaps I push boundaries in trying every time, every time I paint, I try to let go of what my expectation is.

Part of the pushing boundaries is to get through that negative self-talk that says, you know, you're not an artist, you haven't had any training, you know, nobody's gonna wanna see your work and it doesn't matter, you know, but pushing boundaries I think is getting past that.

(calm music) And I think in terms of art impacting people, it's a very soothing painting and I've had the nurses and the doctors, you know, say, that people love to sit there and look at it.

And so that, you know, that makes me feel really good and it's dedicated to my daughter, Melissa, which, you know, is just really special for me.

I just would wish for every person to find some kind of creative outlet.

It doesn't have to be painting, you know, they just all, I mean, it can be cooking, it can be macrame, it can be gardening, anything I think, that we find a way to let go of the world outside ourselves and, you know, touch that creative spark within, I think is really, I would wish that for everybody.

- It started when I was little, but it probably looked a lot like play but I think that I was creating.

(soft music) I didn't like it.

(chuckles) And so I ended up putting it in my garage.

It was the only place that it would fit.

And then I was coming to this point in, I guess in just this journey of getting to know myself more and more, and I realized that I had some things that I needed to let go of.

And so I walked past the painting and I thought, I'll see.

And it turns out that I stayed with it for a week, and then before I knew it it was finished and I looked at it and I thought, wow, yeah.

So that's sort of where it came from.

Sometimes when I feel I need to do something and it's, I'm not scared and I don't need to do that, it's, I'm scared and I need to do that.

So it's me pushing myself really.

I think to just that people will feel something.

I don't want them to feel anything in particular, but just to feel.

(soft music) Yeah.

And maybe even connect in some way.

I love the idea of connecting.

I think in general, that it's in all ages, even when you're younger, when you're older and doing, doing and being and moving authentically from who you are from that place is really important.

And I hope that people do that, whether they consider themselves an artist or not, I think it's really important that people do that and they honor that part of themselves.

And I hope that that's just something that people hear.

Yeah, be yourself, be yourself, unapologetically be yourself.

Yeah.

- It was like the summer of 19, no, 2019.

And I was painting because I just needed to express myself, because that's how I worked things out is through painting.

And as I was doing that I read in the newspaper, we had newspapers then, that Carbondale, or SIU was having a call for arts.

And I thought, wow, you know, I know a lot of other women who are doing the same thing.

Just expressing yourself through your work because you have so much to say.

And at that time, and now, there's a lot that's going on in the world.

And so I was talking to people and I thought, well, there's a call for arts.

There's artists doing the same thing I am doing, expressing yourself.

Why not see if I can put a show together?

'Cause I could do that.

(triumphant music) So the first one was born and that was called "Women's Voices: The Need To Create."

Because it came from the need to create, as many of us were doing.

And it was a huge success, we had close to 200 people at the reception.

I know.

And we just had a wonderful outpouring of people supporting the arts in this community.

So from there, I thought we'd do another one.

Wes said, if I can get the artist, and I said, "You bet I can," 'cause we're so lucky to have some wonderful, amazing talent here in southern Illinois.

And women have a voice and putting it into our art form is a way to express yourself.

Artists have a narrative and these pieces are part of the artist's stories and their emotional outpouring of what they wanna say.

And Pushing Boundaries came about because we just felt like, let's just make it, you know, make the art that much more intense.

You know, let's just take it to a new level.

Each year the artwork is different, each year it takes on a different flavor, the shows take on a different flavor as far as what they are.

But somehow they all come together very organically.

So that's my way I think pushing boundaries is to continue this show and to continue supporting the arts in Carbondale and in our downstate region.

There's so many wonderful artists in this area, women artists especially.

We're just really lucky and we're lucky to have this museum that allows us to do what we do and to let the community come in, because this is a show that isn't necessarily all about professionals.

It's about people creating and having a voice and wanting to show what they do to express themselves through their art.

And it's not always something that we sell or we, you know, pigeonhole ourselves into, say, just only painting or whatever your craft or art may be.

We try to get fine art and I think we succeed at it, but I don't think we'll ever not have a need for the creative artists in this area, the women artists in this area, so.

(triumphant music)