No art happens in a vacuum. The process of creating new work and sharing it with the community takes commitment, training, practice, and, most importantly, lots of hands working together. During Rixy’s recent picnic and mural celebration on Saturday, October 15th Pa*Lante, Curatorial Assistant Jasper Sanchez, encouraged the artist to reflect on her new mural at 301 Highland Ave in Roxbury’s Fort Hill. This soundbite offers some highlights from their exchange, with additional details that situate Rixy’s themes and motifs within a larger diasporic context. And, to demystify some of the art-making processes we engage in, hear Rixy’s detailed applications of studies and experience to offer one of her latest contributions to the community.
Painted near Rixy’s childhood home, which is located right in front of Paige Academy, this mural is the artist’s first mural in a place that is so close to where she grew up, where she witnessed family and loved ones grow and work to making a living. Among several messages of acknowledgment and care, Rixy’s most pressing call is for us to collectively move on, move forward, and defy/provoke social norms/patterns to attain healing and engage beauty and power. As Rixy’s otherworldly creations focus on illustrating the innate power of femmes/feminine energy, they speak to the visceral need to feel valued/empowered in ways that support the material, sensual and spatial health of our communities.
Pa*Lante means onward and forward in Spanish while Cúcala, also of Latin American origin, finds its root in the verb cucar meaning wink, close one eye, insinuate with a wink; deride, ridicule; provoke, annoy. If you listen to Salsa (and share an appreciation for Celia Cruz), you probably have heard of “Cúcala,” her song from the mid-seventies, which tells a tale of a woman testing norms and expressing her feral side as she dances. It is no surprise that Pa*Lante + Cúcala resonate deeply with Rixy and have found their way into her meaning-making through arts/murals.
Location 301 Highland Street in Roxbury’s Fort Hill
Interview Date Saturday, October 15, 2022
Mural Reveal on Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Speakers Jasper Sanchez + Rixy
Jasper
How are you after finishing a project that takes months and months of preparation?
Rixy
Very excited. Tired.
Jasper
What is the origin of this idea? For folx that may not know, the Now and There Accelerator Program is a 14-week workshop that is run to help, lift, and support local emerging artists. At the end of that, we award them a financial stipend, to make a public art project of their dreams come true. So that's what Rixy was a part of. That's how we got here.
Rixy
You said that so much better than I would. We were calling it public art grad school. I got to this program thinking about a lot of these concepts socially - street art, murals, public art - and I was thinking about the fact that I need to make certain types of impacts right now, based on the world, my mural community and what I’ve been doing/creating. This work is connected to different collections throughout the years, connected to all the space that I’ve seen. I had a bunch of different ideas at different points, and it felt nice to be able to workshop them back and forth.
Jasper
Is this the largest mural you’ve ever done? I’d love to hear about your experience of doing large-scale with a large budget.
Rixy
Size-wise, it’s the same height (30-35 ft) I’ve been working. This is probably my smoothest and cleanest wall/space and as a graph/street artist, typically, you’re just finding whatever’s blank and making something with it. I will say it didn’t have to come out of my pocket, which is great. I would have to pull $500-$600 out of my pocket to say, “Now that you see I can do it, just let me know how I can get that support”
Jasper
Thank you! Can you expand on this idea of Cúcala?
Rixy
Cuca, the shorter form of Cúcala, has connotations for femme body parts/genitalia, and it was the way I referred to those parts when I was a kid in the household. It was a community slang/colloquial word. Saying it back home was very regular, but in the United States, it took on very different meanings. And, salsa is my favorite thing to do when I have a lot of energy, so it relates to empowerment and looking for awakening and understanding. So, when I think about moving/moving forward, I think of going to this place where growth happens through healing and survival. This place I created is called Cúcala. I’ve been talking about characters for a while. Now we’re talking about where is that place that we need to go. Where is that place that we can find that is for us? So, then, from there, I get to show more and more of where that is and who’s there.
Jasper with Audience
How did you go from idea to mural?
Rixy
I was thinking about what certain details are going to look like when the cars are coming up the street. To get it on the wall though, I took a picture of the wall and just used my digital pen to explore ideas. You can even do that on your phone! Take a picture of the space and just draw on top, so it looks like you drew on the wall. The photo-to-drawing process is a great way for me to think about what it's going to look like when it's here, and that's my reference. After that, some people will freestyle it on the wall. I used to do that, but that takes a lot more time. So I do what's called a dual grid. I throw a bunch of squiggly lines up there/random words. I use different details from my doodles and the space where the mural will go to identify points of reference that help scale to fit.