NETWORK GIVES LATINO ARTISTS AN OUTLET : Before Becoming Group’s Members, Some Felt Isolated

It’s small--there are only nine dues-paying members--but without the Orange County Latino Artists Network, many of the county’s Latino art exhibits during the past eight years may never have been mounted.

In addition to showing the work of its core members, the grass-roots network approaches other local Latino artists when it plans an exhibit and provides them with an opportunity to reach the public, said Emigdio Chavez Vasquez, who helped found the organization in 1979.

Operating out of Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the group is a loose amalgamation that does not even have a president, although Vasquez--the Orange painter known for his immense murals documenting barrio life--usually assumes the leadership role.

The group meets at the museum once a month and any other time members feel decisions must be made about a show or other project. Its most recent exhibit, at Rancho Santiago College in Santa Ana in May, featured work by Vasquez, Henry Godines and Ben Valenzuela.

Perhaps the organization’s most important function is as a secure link among the artists, many of whom have become close friends and who seek daily advice from each other on their work, even their lives.

Godines, a 38-year-old artist from Westminster known for his realistic portraits of subjects ranging from Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata to luminous blondes in bikinis, joined in 1982 after seeing a blurb about the group in a local newspaper. Like many of the other members, he was inexperienced with exhibiting and often felt like a lone Latino artist.

“I was looking for two things--exposure for my work and exposure to people who could tell me what they thought about my work,” he said. “I ended up getting both.”

Although the organization was formed in 1979, the idea first came to Vasquez during the 1960s, when he often wondered what other regional Latino artists were up to. Did their work reflect “the Chicano experience?” Were they exhibiting regularly? Were there, in fact, any other Latino artists out there?

“I remember that when I started showing my stuff, back when I was showing it on street corners and at fairs, that I had this feeling of isolation, that there was this lack of exposure,” Vasquez said. “I felt for a long time that there should be some organization, something of a support group (where Latino) artists could get together.”

The notion went unrealized until the late 1970s, when Vasquez helped found Artistas Latinos de Orange County, designed to provide artists with a friendly forum and the opportunity to exhibit in organized shows.

After a positive debut, the atmosphere of hope and camaraderie turned to something else. Political infighting over control of the group led to its disbandment, and Vasquez started the Orange County Latino Artist Network with the same goals.

The sense of isolation he felt during the 1960s was also the inspiration for Abram Moya, 38, of Placentia, to join. Moya, who specializes in bold, emotional watercolors and charcoals, was taking a graphics course at Fullerton College in 1983 when he met Vasquez.

“I really wanted to meet other Latino artists to see what they were doing, to see how they (were looking) at the world and recording it,” recalled Moya. “It also helped me show my work. Being associated (with the network) gives you some credibility.”

While noting that the network has helped their careers, members concede that involvement has a downside as well. Their status as Latino artists comes with a built-in limitation because many people perceive their work as having a specific cultural view. The network, because of its commitment to the Latino perspective, can underscore that type of association, they say.

“The stereotyping can be a drag and something we have to fight to get away from,” Moya said. “Sometimes I think that people come to our exhibits and want only to see pictures of Aztecs, cactuses, donkeys on a corner, that kind of thing . . . they have a preconception.”

Ben Valenzuela, 32, a former Seal Beach resident who now lives in Artesia, said people often visit network shows expecting to find “generic Chicano artists doing things that white artists wouldn’t do. . . .

Our material can be as varied as anybody else. Why should we restrict ourselves to any point of view?”

His brother, Art Valenzuela, however, notes an irony in being classified. Despite the drawbacks, a Latino artist may attract a large, responsive audience because of his ethnicity.

“You can’t deny there are some benefits . . . sometimes I feel I’m torn between two cultures,” said Valenzuela, 35, of Artesia. “I guess the best thing is to try and incorporate both your (Latino) experiences and your everyday experiences into your work.”

Vasquez believes that there must be a compromise, but certainly not one that dismisses the impact of the Latino community. His murals, many commissioned under city and state cultural programs, document both the dispiriting and uplifting elements of barrio and middle-class Latino life. “We have to chronicle it,” he said simply. “It’s the world we know.”

In that world, Vasquez believes, the network has a responsibility that goes beyond exhibiting. He and other members routinely visit both barrio and other schools to introduce children to art--both mainstream and ethnic.

Virginia Donohugh, director of the Historical and Cultural Foundation of Orange County, said such groups as the network are valuable because they are part of the “weave” of Orange County culture. They help give the public an opportunity to see varied styles and learn more about the community’s diversity, she said.

“You have to be impressed with something like this because it just makes the county that much richer,” said Donohugh.