Rebuilding identity.

During the course and the topics covered thus far with race and culture, I began to question my cultural contributions within my work. As I observed and self-assessed my paintings, they did not really have that cultural connection to my Hispanic background. Is this bad? am I too late to address this within my work? Do I have to? As with Emma Amo's artwork, she truly found her purpose and identity as an artist, a female black artist, later in her life after much experiences in London and New York.

I was wondering to myself what hints of culture are embedded within my work? Does my work look Hispanic enough? Does it need to? I don't know, but what I do know is several of my pieces have a strong emphasis on the supernatural like this painting titled: "Bocaccio's 2000". It was inspired by a local folklore tale, "Dancing with the Devil", which was originally documented in Juan Sauvageau cult classic, "Stories that must not die", truly an amazing book of old urban legends from deep South Texas. The original illustration by Roel Montalvo is inserted as a playing card the Devil is holding. I wanted to pay homage to Mr. Sauvageau for indirectly giving our community a book that represents the richness of our heritage and culture. The writing over layed throughout the painting is actually the original story from the book. I took the incentive in writing it in spanish because that was the original format the story was first told among the community years ago. Now that I think about it, yes, some of my work does have a hint of cultural identity... I think I'll further develop a series of related stories about Dancing with the Devil and maybe video tape an elder telling his version and interpret that within my work. good ideas.