Category Archives: Women Artists

A Village in the Fields: Excerpt 2

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There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. – Maya Angelou, American poet, memoirist, and American Civil Rights Movement leader

Getting ready for our family anniversary dinner tonight!

Getting ready for our family anniversary dinner tonight!

As I continue to work on the revision of my novel, I have absolutely no words for my blog. Hence, another excerpt from my novel, A Village in the Fields, for my blog post. Since today is my 15th wedding anniversary – yes, we have to endure the occasional Friday the 13th years – I chose this particular excerpt. To set up the scene, my protagonist, Fausto Empleo, is a young man working in a hotel in Los Angeles in the early 1930s. He lives with his five other cousins in a cramped apartment in Los Angeles, which was a common experience for many Filipino immigrants in America during this time. One of his cousins is suffering from tuberculosis and he and his cousins are enduring bigotry in and outside of their workplaces. But during this trying period in his life, Fausto meets a young Filipina immigrant who also works at the hotel and who, more importantly, reminds him of why he came to America in the first place:

They stood in the same position, eyes locked, even when the record ended and the needle jerked back and forth across its black glossy surface, making loud scratching sounds. She sighed. “My father played the guitar as part of our town’s rondalla. It was the best string band in the region.” She looked at Fausto, her smile fading. “Do you not like to listen to music?” She pulled away from him and replaced the records in a neat pile.

“I do not have time,” he said. “Where and when would I listen to music?”

“Right here!” she said. “We can listen every time they go to the doctor. You should make time, Fausto. You look too serious. It worries me. I should invite you to the theater to watch a movie with me so you can grow laugh lines here.” She ran her finger around the corners of his mouth, and added, “And remove your worry lines here.” She brushed her fingertips across his forehead.

Did she feel how hot his face had become? He stepped back. “I cannot afford to go to the movies. My cousin Cary says it is cheaper to hang around Hollywood and see the movie stars come out of their big cars and go into fancy restaurants to eat.”

“Oh, I do not care about movie stars. I like the people they pretend to be. I like the stories, the different worlds.” Her gaze drifted to the wall where the Italian plates from Mr. Calabria’s hometown of Palermo hung in a row. “When I am tired from studying and volunteering and working, I go to the movies. It makes me forget how hard things are here. When one of my patients died, I saw Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. I was able to laugh again.” She laughed brightly now, as if remembering a scene from the movie, and adjusted the apron over her skirt. “Next time, come with me. It is only five cents. I know a place nearby where they serve a pork-chop dinner for thirty-five cents. We can have dinner and then walk to the movie theater.”

“I take care of my sickly cousin. I send money to my family. I cannot . . . .”

She pressed her lips together, petals folding, closing as if dusk had descended. “You are a good cousin and son, Fausto.” She offered him a smile. “When I come back from the movie theater, I will tell you what the story is about.”

After their shift on Mondays, she gave him her version of the movies she’d seen. Platinum Blonde pitted hardworking folks against corrupted wealthy people. In Tarzan, the Ape Man, civilized people were crueler than the brute Tarzan. She felt sorry for the monster in Frankenstein because the ignorant villagers misunderstood him. Listening to her was better than going to the movies, he told her; here, he could stare at her as she told the story, instead of sit in a dark theater. She laughed as if he had said something silly, but she was blushing. She always seemed cheerful, although there were times when he spied her near the broom closet brooding and looking sad for a moment.

One morning, he ran into her by the closet, her face shining like a full moon.

“What are you thinking about?” he whispered boldly in her ear in the shadows.

“Salabat and basi.”

Fausto was puzzled. Why was she thinking about beverages?

“I used to make my father salabat and basi, using sugar from our fields and herbs from our garden,” she explained. “My father loved to drink salabat, and I liked making it because the scent of fresh ginger root stayed on my fingers for days.” She stared at her white shoes. “I have not made salabat for a long time, even when I was home. My father lost his craving for anything sweet, anything with sugar in it.”

“That can happen,” he said. “I used to love bagoong, and now the fish smell upsets my stomach. I do not know why, but it does.”

“Yes.” She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron and turned away. “We do not know why things like that happen.” She left him there, clutching mops to her chest.

***

One spring day, a few months later, she came looking for him as he was changing sheets. Her hair flowed down her shoulders, the ends curling at her waist, as luxurious as the mink stoles some of the female guests wore. She asked him to see a movie with her.

“Why? I always listen to you.” He pulled the dirty sheets off the bed with one strong, graceful tug, which he learned from her, and rolled them into a ball.

“I would like to see a comedy,” she announced, as tears gathered in her eyes.

“What is wrong?” He dropped the sheets to the floor and rushed to her side.

She withdrew an envelope from her apron pocket. “My father passed away.”

Fausto sat her on the bed. Two years ago her father had lost ownership of the land where his family had lived and grown sugarcane for generations. To remain on the property, he leased the land and shared half of his harvest. The landlord charged for the use of tools and animals, reducing their profit, and the agents cheated him when weighing the sugarcane. Even the Catholic priests, whom her father had asked to intervene on his behalf, turned him away, favoring the landlord’s bribes. The final blow was this year’s drought, which diminished his crops and prevented him from paying rent, fees, and taxes. Her family was evicted from their home and forced to live in the landlord’s hacienda, where her father and brothers earned less than ten centavos a day. Within a month of being forced off their land, her brothers pulled her father’s body out of Pampanga Bay.

“He was not a strong swimmer, yet he swam towards the sea,” she said in a flat voice. “My mother said he had lost his land, so there was nowhere else to go but the sea. My mother is scared, but she said she must be strong for our family. She and my sisters will find factory work in Manila, and my brothers will stay in the hacienda.”

“I am sorry,” Fausto whispered, taking her hand.

“They sent me here after we lost the land so I could help them. But I have been living foolishly here. I do not send enough money. I should not have gone to the movies or the restaurants. But it is so difficult here in the States. I am so homesick. I should go back, should I not?” She gently shook her hand and their fingers unraveled. She wiped her tears with the crumpled envelope, smearing her cheek with traces of black ink.

Fausto stroked her head, the crown of her glossy soft hair. She closed her eyes, her head tilting back. He combed out the tangles in her mane, his fingers touching her shoulder, the curve of her back. The ends of her hair fanned out across the bare mattress. “You are almost finished with your studies. If you go back now, without your degree, what good would that do? Do not waste what you have already done. I know it is hard, but you should finish your schooling and then go back. That is the best way.”

“And you? When are you going back?”

He thought of the letters his sisters had written on behalf of their mother, asking for more money. It was a way to show his father that he had made the right decision, his mother said. The money was also needed to help them through a meager harvest, pay for hired help in the fields so his sisters could attend school to become teachers, and send Cipriano to Manila to learn a trade. Could he not send more money? Fausto was happy to help his brother and sisters escape the fields. The news of their ambition eased his guilt. He doubled his monthly contribution, but it was getting harder trying to help pay for food and rent, and help sponsor his siblings’ education, let alone save for his education.

“I am still saving money for school. My American teacher back home told me a long time ago how important school is. When I finish college and work some more, then I will go back home,” he said, although his declaration felt like an outright lie. He hadn’t thought about school since the moment he stepped into the apartment on Hope Street.

“You are right. I should stay. We will both stay and be strong for one other. Maybe I will take more time to finish nursing school so I can work more hours here. We will both work hard and send more money.” Her voice grew stronger as she smoothed out the envelope. More ink rubbed off on her fingers, the addresses no longer legible. “When you send money to your family, I am sure you write nice letters to them. Will you help me write a letter to my family? Will you help me explain why I must stay here longer?”

He nodded. As he closed his eyes, he imagined rubbing the ink off her cheek. Their breathing became one. They remained seated on the edge of the bed, joined at the hip, until Mr. Calabria called them by name, breaking them apart. When Fausto opened his eyes, the room had gone dusky. Connie had dried her eyes. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips—the texture of rose petals—lingered on his skin. Then she kissed him on the lips, as fleeting as a memory. She stood up and walked out of the room, stepping with care over the crumpled sheets on the floor.

Transitional dressing for our Indian summer. Throw on a light jacket over a summer maxi.

Transitional dressing for our Indian summer. Throw on a light jacket over a summer maxi.

Ocean patterns with gold and horn accessories.

Ocean patterns with gold and horn accessories.

Birdhouse Jewelry earrings (NYC), Sundance cuff, and reclaimed vintage matchbox necklace from Uncommon Objects (Austin, Texas).

Birdhouse Jewelry earrings (NYC), Sundance cuff, and reclaimed vintage matchbox necklace from Uncommon Objects (Austin, Texas).

A Village in the Fields: an excerpt

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The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.
– Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Clemens, American author and humorist

The contemplative author pose: Navy lace, silk shorts, and soft peach sweater.

The contemplative author pose: Navy lace, silk shorts, and soft peach sweater.

My Labor Day Weekend is over, but not the last revision of my novel. It’s just that now I have to find any nook and cranny of free time to keep on writing. I realized last night that because I have been doing nothing but edit and revise, I don’t have a blog post. Then I thought to myself, why not post an excerpt from the current chapter I am revising?

So, here is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of my novel-in-progress, A Village in the Fields, the story of an elderly Filipino farm worker, Fausto Empleo, who realizes what he has lost and gained from his struggles in America – in the agricultural fields of California, particularly during and after the Great Delano Grape Strikes of the 1960s and 1970s. I am still fiddling with saying what my novel is about in one sentence!

In this excerpt, Fausto, who is living in a camp for grape pickers in Delano in the 1950s, satisfies his curiosity by introducing himself to an immigrant farm worker from Yemen. The grape growers strategically kept the different nationalities in separate bunkhouses, partly to isolate them and to foment distrust among the groups:

Ripe Ribier grapes in September - the jewels in the fields.

Ripe Ribier grapes in September – the jewels in the fields.

“What is Yemen like?” Fausto asked.

The man dabbed the last piece of bread in the remains of his stew and ate it. He wiped his mouth with the red-and-black checkered scarf he had pulled from his head. “Where I come from—the coast—it is hot and humid,” the man answered.

Fausto licked his parched lips. “Is Yemen hot like Delano?”

The man laughed. “Yes, but we have monsoons. Many families fish for their livelihood. We are at the mercy of the monsoons.”

“We have typhoons in the Philippines. That is where I came from. My name is Fausto Empleo.” He thrust out his hand, and the man shook it vigorously.

“I am Ahmed Mansur, the son of Mansur Ali Ibrahim.”

“How long have you been in the States?” Ahmed moved his lips, adding up the years. “Thirty-five years, maybe more.”

“Ai, thirty-five years!” Fausto slapped his hand on his haunch. Dust rose from his dungarees. “You came in the twenties. Same as me!”

“When I left, there was so much unrest in Yemen, too much hardship for my family. I was looking to improve my fortune. I took a ship and came here to the Valley to work in the fields. I planned to save enough money to return to Mukalla, my hometown.” Ahmed stretched his legs and sat on an empty wooden crate bearing the label “Cuculich Farms.” “But I am still here,” he said, in a voice as hollow as the crate.

“Me, too. Me, too.”

“It is hard work in the fields, but what else is there for someone like me?”

Fausto couldn’t answer, his hands on his thighs, his palms open to the sky.

***

“Do you miss the Philippines? Do you miss your home?” he asked.

Fausto rubbed his neck where trickles of sweat made his skin itch. “Maybe I missed what it used to be or what it used to mean to me. But I have been here longer in the States than in the Philippines. My family is like a stranger to me. Imagine that!”

“I am afraid to imagine such things,” Ahmed said.

“What do you miss of your home?” Fausto wanted to know.

“Everything,” Ahmed whispered. He folded his fingers together like petals closing for the day. The rocky coast is like a school of ancient turtles sunning themselves by turquoise waters, he told Fausto. The city, crowded with stone buildings and chalk-white mosques, crawls up the base of wind-blasted hills. The whitewashed minarets soar and pierce the sharp blue sky. Ahmed imagined the wrinkles that have deepened around his mother’s eyes, which is not covered by her black chador. He is haunted by the memory of his father—alone in a boat bobbing off the coast, with hands as ragged as the nets he casts out into the deep waters.

***

One of my aunts still picking grapes in her 60s, summer 2005.

One of my aunts still picking grapes in her 60s, summer 2005.

Fausto held up a cluster of grapes. Ripe berries hung down from his fingers like strands of dark South Sea pearls, although these jewels lasted only weeks. That fact made the grapes more precious than any gem mined from the earth or harvested from the ocean. He laid the cluster in the crate by his feet. When he stood up, a sharp pain radiated from his hand, up his arm to his shoulder. He peeled off his cotton glove to massage his fingers and wrist, knead the length of his arm in a slow crawl. How could he forget? The long, hard work in the fields, the ache in his body, the low hourly rate reminded him daily of how costly and dear these grapes were.

Labor Day Weekend: a writer’s retreat

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In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.
– Junot Diaz

Kayaking with dolphins in Morro Bay, Labor Day Weekend, September 2012.

Kayaking with dolphins in Morro Bay, Labor Day Weekend, September 2012.

For many years, I went down to my hometown of Terra Bella for the annual San Esteban Dance and festivities, which was held on Labor Day Weekend. David joined me, and then when the kids were born, going down there became one of our family traditions. San Esteban was the hometown of my father and many of his cousins who came to the United States from the Philippines in the 1920s, and relatives up and down California and even from Hawaii and Illinois would gather in our dusty little town to celebrate being a part of the social club that formed in 1955.

Mixing flaming orange and dusty pink.

Mixing flaming orange and dusty pink.

When my cousin Janet married her husband Tim, 13 years ago in the central coastal town of Cambria, we added another tradition.  David made a gourmet dinner to celebrate their anniversary on the Saturday evening of the long weekend when we came into town and stayed with them. We had been doing this for many years until last year, the first year after my mother’s passing away, when we decided to meet in Cambria for the long weekend and stay in a hostel. The highlight of that trip was kayaking in Morro Bay and watching a family of dolphins boldly play in the bay, with one breaching right in front of our kayak.

We planned to repeat the trip to Cambria, but we ended up adjusting to having Janet and Tim come visit us in the Bay Area. Family matters made us change course once again. This time, we were going to be staying put at home – something we haven’t done in years. While I was at first dismayed by the break in tradition, I also had a mission to accomplish in the month of September, and now I had an entire three days to make tremendous strides toward my goal.

Mixing pink hues and orange: Gorgeous & Green reclaimed vintage earrings (Berkeley, CA), Lava 9 ring (Berkeley, CA), and Anthropologie clear bangle.

Mixing pink hues and orange: Gorgeous & Green reclaimed vintage earrings (Berkeley, CA), Lava 9 ring (Berkeley, CA), and Anthropologie clear bangle.

I wanted to revise my novel one last time over the summer but never got around to it. Work is starting to heat up this fall and I’ll be traveling again for business. But I’m determined to make good on finally finishing my novel this year. My college professor from Davis read my manuscript earlier this year and while he found much to admire, his main criticism was in the novel’s pacing. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant until I dove headlong into the manuscript. After spending the last couple of days in an intense writer’s retreat, I understand what he means and I am fixing the problem in earnest.

I must have spent 12 hours revising one chapter on Saturday, but I did so in a state of rapture and with a singular focus on technical precision. Wearing sweats, not showering all day, not knowing what the rest of the house looked like, not knowing what David and the kids were doing or not doing, and not caring, I was fully living in the world of my characters. I was refining their voices and making clearer the landscape in which they roamed. I was exquisitely enraptured. This is what it’s like to be a full-time writer–if only for the Labor Day Weekend.

Adding a vintage embroidered purse from L' Armoire (Berkeley, CA), and Mea Shadow perforated wedges.

Adding a vintage embroidered purse from L’ Armoire (Albany, CA), and Mea Shadow perforated wedges.

I am almost half-way through the last revision. When I sent out the 600-plus-page manuscript to literary agents back in 2005 and received all rejections, I bemoaned in particular one rejection in which the agent had excitedly requested the entire manuscript after the query only to say it basically didn’t fulfill her expectations. I had failed, you see. The story itself was compelling, but I did not execute on telling the story in an equally compelling way. That’s when I shut down for four years and didn’t write.

Definitely warm enough for shorts this Labor Day Weekend. Mixing lace and bold African patterns.

Definitely warm enough for shorts this Labor Day Weekend. Mixing lace and bold African patterns.

When I look back at the manuscript I sent out eight years, I am heartened because I didn’t execute then but I know I am doing so now. I am a better writer, with a clear perspective, and much-needed maturity. There is palpable power in that knowledge, in revising and replacing inadequate words, sentences, scenes with the right word, the concise sentence, the heartfelt scene, the right touch in all the right places. When I finish this final revision, I know that I can send the manuscript out into the world again with renewed faith and confidence. I’m nailing it.

I’m grateful for this Labor Day Weekend when I can call myself a writer again. Three days, a writer’s retreat (with a Friday Night girls’ night to watch a depressing French film with a good friend who happens to be French and an Oakland A’s baseball game thrown in on Monday) – is there anything more a writer can ask for? You can always ask for more full days for writing, but for now, I am grateful, I am satiated. One more day left.

Bold accessories on navy lace: Horn cuff from Kenya, a present from my sister Heidi; Sundance rings; In God We Trust banded ring (NYC); and reclaimed vintage matchbox and rosary necklace by Ren Lux Revival (Uncommon Objects, Austin).

Bold accessories on navy lace: Horn cuff from Kenya, a present from my sister Heidi; Sundance rings; In God We Trust banded ring (NYC); and reclaimed vintage matchbox and rosary necklace by Ren Lux Revival (Uncommon Objects, Austin).

Portland, Maine: vintage love times 3

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Out on the islands that poke their rocky shores about the waters of Penobscot Bay, you can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day, season to season.
– Robert McCloskey, American writer and illustrator of children’s books, from Time of Wonder

Encore's storefront, appropriately located in a former jewelry store.

Encore’s storefront, appropriately located in a former jewelry store.

I couldn’t leave Portland without exerting a herculean effort to visit the three vintage shops that I’ve had the pleasure of perusing in past summer trips. My efforts – in the form of frenzied cab rides from South Portland to downtown Portland and back to my work summit during my lunch break in record time – was totally worth it. (That was an appropriate mouthful!) I recommend not shooting through in the less than the two hours’ time that I did because you really need to leisurely look and enjoy. This is the requirement and beauty of  all things vintage.

Vintage hats galore.

Vintage hats galore.

A mod 1960s skirt - yeah, baby, as Austin Powers would say.

A mod 1960s skirt – yeah, baby, as Austin Powers would say.

Proprietor Rita Prout-Farley opened Encore (521 Congress Street, Portland, 207.775.4275) in 1991 in Brunswick, Maine, but later moved to its current location, appropriately in a historic building built in 1856. Encore focuses on designer and select resale clothing, jewelry, and accessories from 1800 to the 1970s. A collector most of her life, Rita turned her love of fashion and collecting into her business. An apology to the wonderful sales woman who answered all of my questions – in my glee of being amidst vintage clothes and accessories, I forgot to ask for her name. Mille scuse! She graciously and patiently pulled out beautiful outfits for me to photograph. Encore is like a museum that you walk through in awe. Indeed, many outfits were used in films from yesteryear. Complete with tall wooden cabinets that house the antique and vintage jewelry, hats, purses, and shoes, Encore has been cited by Travel and Leisure Magazine as a one of its recommended vintage destinations in the country.

Glass cases dripping with vintage jewels.

Glass cases dripping with vintage jewels.

Encore boasts aisles of amazing vintage clothes.

Encore boasts aisles of amazing vintage clothes.

Material Objects (500 Congress Street, Portland, 207.774.1241) is just across the street from Encore and worth checking out the vintage dresses, especially from the 1960s era. This vintage and consignment shop also offers new goods such as jewelry.

Material Objects' storefront.

Material Objects’ storefront.

A mix of vintage and new jewelry.

A mix of vintage and new jewelry.

A flower power dress that looks circa 1960s at Material Objects.

A flower power dress that looks circa 1960s at Material Objects.

The charming Pinecone+Chickadee storefront.
The charming Pinecone+Chickadee storefront.

My last stop was a street over and a few blocks down. Noah DeFilippis and Amy Teh silkscreen their original designs on t-shirts made from organic material, recycled paper greeting cards and journals, and other accessories. Two years ago this charming storefront opened up and Pinecone+Chickadee (6 Free Street, Portland, 207.772.9280) was born. Musician Noah and graphic designer and illustrator Amy, who are also married, have expanded their offerings with their own line of jewelry. They also have a great collection of vintage wares. Last summer I came across a green-plaid, plastic-covered cardboard carry-on in an oval shape with a strap. I had the same carry-on – though I called it my suitcase back then – when I was a girl. Thanks for the memories!

Vintage goods that we couldn't live without back in the day.

Vintage goods that we couldn’t live without back in the day.

Part of an impressive collection of vintage cameras.

Part of an impressive collection of vintage cameras.

Pinecone+Chickadee's line of jewelry.

Pinecone+Chickadee’s line of jewelry.

Larry Itliong, the Delano Manongs, and the Delano Grape Strikes

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History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
– Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

Johnny Itliong talks about his father at the I-Hotel Manilatown Center in San Francisco.

Jonny Itliong talks about his father at the I-Hotel Manilatown Center in San Francisco.

I spent my Sunday afternoon at the I-Hotel Manilatown Center (868 Kearney, San Francisco, CA 94108, 415.399.9580) to see the nearly completed documentary The Delano Manongs: The Forgotten Heroes of the UFW by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Marissa Aroy. The event was sponsored by the Manilatown Heritage Foundation. I first met Marissa in October 2010 when she came to Stockton, CA, to show her film Little Manila: Filipinos in California’s Heartland, which highlights the history of the Filipino community in Stockton. The Stockton chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), of which I’m a member, hosted the event, along with the Manilatown Heritage Foundation. At the time, she also included a trailer to her then-current project on the Delano manongs, which prominently features Larry Itliong, the Filipino American labor organizer and leader of the 1,500 Filipinos who walked out of the grape fields on September 8, 1965, which began the Great Delano Grape Strikes of the 1960s and 1970s.

Agbayani Village in Delano.

Agbayani Village in Delano.

Now in the editing stage, the documentary is scheduled to be released this year. To my disappointment, Aroy was not in town, though she had taped an introduction and thank you; however, Sid A. Valledor and Jonny Itliong spoke. Having worked side by side with Itliong and other Filipino American labor leaders, Valledor wrote and published in 2006 The Original Writings of Philip Vera Cruz (Americans With a Philippine Heritage). Cruz was one of the few Filipino Americans to serve on the board of the United Farm Workers Union. I don’t remember how I ended up meeting Sid, but I had attended his symposium on Vera Cruz and my family and I made the pilgrimage to Delano in September 2005. Sid took the group to all the historical sites pertinent to the farm workers’ movement, including Agbayani Village, which was a retirement home built in the 1970s for the manongs – the elderly, single Filipino men who came in the 1920s and 1930s and never married, thanks to the laws at the time that forbade Filipinos from marrying white women. I had since lost touch with Sid, so attending Sunday’s event also reconnected me with this walking history book of that era.

Outside the rooms of Abgayani Village is a courtyard.

Outside the rooms of Abgayani Village. The retirement community was built by volunteers from all around the country and the world.

Jonny Itliong, Larry’s son, drove up from Ventura, CA, the night before attend the event. While he spoke, a slide show of his father played on the screen behind him, and we were treated to family portraits as well as published pictures of his father during the grape strikes and boycotts. During the intermission, I introduced myself to him, explaining that I had read the October 18, 2012, article written about him in the New York Times (“Forgotten Hero of Labor Fight: His Son’s Lonely Quest”). [I had mistakenly thought and told him that I’d read the article in the Los Angeles Times.] I explained that I had e-mailed the journalist and asked that she pass on a note from me. He told me he never got such a note. Later, when he spoke before the crowd, he brought up his disappointment in the article, how it focused on “his lonely quest” to get his father recognized. There was more on the grape strike from the Cesar Chavez perspective, and scant attention was paid on Jonny Itliong’s quest not just to get his father’s name recognized but to widely publicize the truth about why the Filipinos were squeezed out of the UFW. Interestingly, Jonny Itliong reported that the UFW had contacted the journalist and her editors to ensure that she would write a “nonbiased” article [in other words, one that doesn’t put the UFW in an unfavorable light], which she did. When 40 Acres in Delano, the epicenter of labor union activities and early headquarters of the UFW, was proclaimed a historic landmark by the Department of Interior in 2008, Jonny Itliong noted that the UFW did not mention his father or the Filipinos’ contributions. However, thankfully, the park representatives did speak of his father in their presentation.

One of my aunts still picking grapes in her 60s, summer 2005.

One of my aunts still picking grapes in her 60s, summer 2005.

All this is relevant to my novel A Village In the Fields, which I hope to complete and have out sometime in the fall. As Jonny Itliong pointed out, there are many stories about the Filipinos and the Delano Grape Strikes – and they all need to be told. Together these stories will provide a comprehensive history that we need to claim in order to understand ourselves and to guide our future. Whether you are Filipino or not, you need to know about the contributions of Itliong, Vera Cruz, Pete Velasco, Ben Gines, and the rest of the Filipino farmworkers, and how they impacted agricultural labor in California and the rest of the country. They need to be recognized for all the work that they did on behalf of the agricultural workers in this country. All the contributions they made and the hard-fought changes they wrought are a mere shadow today, given conditions in the fields today, which is sadly not unlike those of the 1960s. This state of affairs makes requiring us to know our history that much more important.

Stay tuned. The stories are coming.

Ripe Ribier grapes in September - the jewels in the fields.

Ripe Ribier grapes in September – the jewels in the fields.

Lauren Ari: Art as affirmation of the artist’s existence, Part II

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Everything you can imagine is real.
– Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Dictionary Project: "Tickle."

Dictionary Project: “Tickle.”

The Power of mixed media
Lauren Ari’s use of mixed media, as opposed to any one medium, allows her to express what she is trying to say. While the Richmond-based artist likes working with different materials, her foundation is drawing. Working in mixed media, therefore, enables her drawings to be three-dimensional. Throughout her prolific career, Lauren, 46, has produced some amazing projects, as well as collaborative and interactive pieces of art.

Two years ago, she collaborated with an artist to build an eight-foot-tall structure made of clay that resembled an old-fashioned opera shell, which housed a singer and a butoh dancer –performing a postwar Japanese dance that rejected Eastern and Western dance in order to search for a new identity that would establish meaning for a defeated society. Lauren and her co-collaborator invited the community to make parts that would be attached to the structure. “I’m really interested in the interaction,” she said. She likes people to interpret her work by themselves and to bring their past to the experience, rather than being told what the piece means. This is exactly how she wants people to view her Dictionary Project and Bedscapes.

Lauren's Dictionary painting called Mother.

Dictionary Project: “Mother.”

Dictionary Project
Begun in 1999, Lauren’s Dictionary Project was informed by the fact that she wasn’t stimulated in school. Looking back on her education, she jokingly wondered if she could have learned everything from an encyclopedia. Playing with that idea she envisioned getting a dictionary and painting and learning from it. “It just went into motion and moved forward,” she recalled. When she went to the El Cerrito Recycling Center’s free book exchange shelf, she found a “big, beautiful, old dictionary” on the ground. “I’m a really good ‘manifester’ of stuff,” she said, of her serendipitous experience at the recycling center.

Dictionary Project: "Dreaming" - Annie from Annie's Annuals and her seedlings and flowers.

Dictionary Project: “Dreaming” – inspired by Annie from Annie’s Annuals and her seedlings and flowers. Lauren’s murals grace the walls of the well-known nursery in Richmond, CA.

Since the beginning of the project, she has “fallen in love” with the dictionary – its words, the images on the pages, the edges of the fine paper. “I like the contrast between the delicate, old papers and printing, and my intuitive, quick, impulsive, first thought, best thought, down on the paper, don’t edit – boom,” she explained, punctuating each word. “The complement works really well.” The Dictionary Project – numbering some 200 paintings, which are in her own gallery, galleries in San Francisco, and in private collections – is an ongoing project for Lauren, who said, “I can’t get away from it. I just love it.” This project speaks to how prolific she is.

Bedscape: Sleeping with Death.

Bedscape: “Sleeping with Death.”

Bedscapes
In 1997, Lauren was moved by a “brilliant” art show in London that dealt with the topic of sleeping. A quote from Cervantes’ Don Quijote de La Mancha, which was printed in the pamphlet, inspired her, as did the notion of sleep as death: “All I know is that while I’m asleep, I’m never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories – and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level. There’s only one bad thing about sleep, as far as I’ve ever heard, and that is that it resembles death, since there’s very little difference between a sleeping man and a corpse.”

Lauren's Bedscape "quilt."

Lauren’s Bedscape “quilt.”

Lauren was flooded with a lot of images, but she didn’t translate them, along with the quote, until circa 2004 when she began her Bedscapes Project. She embraced the concept of everything being at the same level when one is asleep as well as the ambiguity between sleep and death. The bedscapes run the gamut of emotions – some are tongue-in-cheek, of which bright colors are used to depict humor. But as viewers look more closely, they see that the message is not “funny.” “I think of them as Venus flytraps,” Lauren said. Some are humorous, some dark – with Lauren’s penchant to mix them up. She views them together on the wall as a quilt, involving sewing, quilting, and piecing together. While mostly made out of clay, the bedscapes may move to a different media, according to Lauren. She is still working on them – so far, she has created approximately 30 – for a show planned in May 2014 at the FM Gallery (483 25th Street, Oakland, CA 94612, 510.601.5053).

Bedscape: "War Babies."

Bedscape: “War Babies.”

The subjects or the different “stories” for the Bedscapes Project find her – including her experiences and things that concern her. “War Babies” was made at the start of the Iraqi War. Early on, she would conceive an idea and create a bedscape. Nowadays, with less time and energy, she will ruminate on ideas, although the bedscapes are still intuitive and spontaneous. “I like for them not to feel labored and to just come together,” she explained. “I like it to be somewhat rough or imperfect – with a feeling of freshness.”

Although her art is not labored, it has a certain freedom that’s difficult to get to. She created two bedscapes that deal with the Chevron refinery in Richmond, called “Rooster’s Wake-up Call”: A giant bird is looming over a man in one bed, while two people covered in a black oil slick lie in another bed. A pile of people on a bed is a visual representation of the history one brings when sleeping with another person. For a bedscape addressing global warming, her tongue-in-cheek “solution” was to give trays of ice to a polar bear in a bed. Another bedscape entitled “Sleeping with Death” depicts a woman sleeping with a skeleton. “These are visual poems for me,” she said. “These are things I feel that I can’t figure out, that I feel are too big a subject matter for me to take on.”

Bedscape: "Rooster's wake-up call."

Bedscape: “Rooster’s Wake-up Call.”

Bedscape: "Who are you sleeping with?"

Bedscape: “Who Are You Sleeping With?”

Finding your own way through art
Lauren has spent most of her life volunteering and teaching. Her high school encouraged students to volunteer. “It always sat well with me that you give back,” she said. Lauren is a painting instructor at NIAD (National Institute of Art & Disabilities) Art Center (531-551 23rd Street, Richmond, CA 94804, 510.620.0290), a contemporary studio art program and gallery serving adults with developmental and other physical disabilities. She also teaches at the Richmond Art Center (2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804, 510.620.6772), a nonprofit arts education and cultural institution, and Great Clay Adventure, which brings clay instruction to schools.

Bedscapes: "The Kiss."

Bedscape: “The Kiss.”

As was the case with the girl at Children’s Hospital (see Part I), she has experienced illuminating moments as an instructor. Lauren was teaching art to a kindergarten class when the teacher approached one girl, who had smashed her clay, and asked her where her penguin was. Lauren intervened and helped  the girl verbalize her thought process. When the girl responded that the penguin was under a rock, Lauren celebrated her out-of-the-box thinking. “That is just as valid; I don’t have to see a million penguins for you to be right,” she said of her initial reaction. “That’s how I’ve modeled my life.”

Indeed, Lauren entreats all artists to not listen to anybody but themselves. “Be okay with making lots of what I call ‘ugly’ art. It doesn’t have to be perfect; you just have to be in there doing it,” she said. She tells students in her children’s classes that being an artist is akin to being an investigator, with artists using their eyes. “There’s no wrong way,” she insists of the creative process. “You just need to find your own way. As long as you’re not hurting anybody and you’re finding joy, just go for it – this is your one life. Enjoy it and see what’s out there.”

Lauren with Bella, the family dog.

Lauren with Bella, the family dog.

Editor’s note: Lauren teaches art classes at her home studio on Thursdays, 7pm to 9pm, called Art Camp for Adults. Each session comprises four classes. Lauren suggests ideas and the group decides on the direction. The next session begins in September 2013. Lauren is also open to teaching art classes one on one with artists who are experiencing creative blocks or those who want some coaching and need assistance in putting their portfolio together in order to apply to art high school or college. She also hosts art events out of her home twice a year. To see more of Lauren’s work and to contact her, go to her website www.laurenari.com.