What is your name?

Candy Alexandra González.

Where are you from?

I was born and raised in Little Havana, Miami, Florida. I am also from Tulancingo, Mexico and Comayagua, Honduras, and West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Have you thought of a name for your dream studio and where to put down roots?

In college, I came up with the press name Printing Sin Fronteras, or Printing Without Borders and always dreamt that I would one day set up a studio in Philadelphia. Recently, that dream has changed to reflect where I am on my artistic path currently. I don’t dream of a printmaking studio anymore. These days, I dream of a gathering space where queer artists of color can come together and learn from one another. The name of that space will be revealed when that dream becomes a reality.

Who are your favorite printmakers/papermakers and biggest inspirations?

At the start of my career in print, I was deeply inspired by Mexico’s iconic lithographer Jose Guadalupe Posada, of course! His prints are still a source of cultural pride for me.

During grad school, I discovered José Antonio Suárez Londoño and Louise Bourgeois’s work and loved what they offered to the craft. As for papermaking, I am inspired by Otomí communities in Mexico and Japanese papermaking community. They push the seemingly ephemeral quality of paper through tradition and history. While there are so many great, prolific papermaker out in the world, I am most inspired by the technical contributions of indigenous peoples. Similarly, my work in print and paper has been most directly informed by the queer Mexican-American poets Benjamin Alire Saenz and Eduardo Corral; by the Mexican altar artist Ofelia Esparza; and by Mexican and Chicana photographers such as Graciela Iturbide and Laura Aguilar.

What was your first job as an artist?

My first job right out of grad school was as an Admissions Counselor at the University of the Arts. My time working in higher ed administration was a wake up call that higher ed needs to develop a student-need centered framework and that they need to hire more people of color. While I’ve temporarily stepped away from higher ed, I hope to come back around to it in order to help create support systems for marginalized students in higher ed art institutions.

Where did you discover printmaking & papermaking and how did you get into it?

I discovered print in my senior year at Mount Holyoke College. At the time I was interested in sculpture but Sculpture 2 wasn’t running that year, so I enrolled in the Printmaking I class and of course, fell in love with the process. Tatiana Ginsberg taught my class and she is a supportive, inspiring professor. She was also my first papermaking instructor! After graduating from Mount Holyoke, I took her Japanese Papermaking workshop at the Women’s Studio Workshop and fell harder in love with papermaking. It was after that class that I decided to pursue book arts. As a printmaker and papermaker, I’ve loved learning the many many ways to construct a surface and I’ve enjoyed pushing these art forms in multi-dimensional ways.

How did you come up with your non-traditional techniques?

Great question! Like I mentioned in the last question, artistically, I am concerned with the concept of a constructed surface. I want to allow viscerally constructed surfaces to speak to the concept of the work. Arriving at non-traditional techniques requires me to observe and practice traditional techniques, and use them in non-traditional ways. For example, at Dieu Donné last summer, I spent some time assisting Nicole Eisenman. Naturally, she pulp painted a lot. While observing her in the studio, I envisioned ways of creating texture by allowing the nature of the fibers to do it for me, so I started experimenting with layering washes (watered down pulp paints). I experimented with the consistency of the washes and my base sheets and it turned into something magical. I’ve done this with printmaking as well. I allow techniques to expand past its traditional functions and to inform my work where necessary.

What is one tool you could not create without?

My pen. There have been periods of time that I have to take a break from printmaking or papermaking (such as right now because of COVID) but writing poetry, or just writing for myself, constantly offers a space for self-expression. Oftentimes, those poems turn into whole bodies of work.

What is your biggest rule in the studio?

Be organized and clean. A clean studio makes for clean work. This is especially true in papermaking and printmaking studios.

Tell us about your current studies in working with trauma (breathwork and presence, etc) and future plans and how you apply this through artmaking and informed social practices.

Last year, I had the opportunity of taking my first trauma-informed practice training for teaching artists. I walked away from that program appreciating how important it is for people to develop a self-care practice in order to sustain an art practice, especially for marginalized artists making work about trauma. Trauma can seriously impact a person’s physical health and in art school, as folks who’ve graduated from art programs can attest to, we are encouraged to work ourselves to the ground, which can take a real health toll. The trope of the depressed and struggling artist is toxic. Exhaustion and mental/emotional stunts creativity. This is a fact. For that reason, I am determined to start conversations with fellow artists regarding our self-imposed and collectively-upheld toxic artmaking expectations. I am currently working towards being able to guide other artists in adopting a trauma-informed artmaking practice in order to avoid being re-traumatized during the making process.

Talk about fat phobia, LGBTQ+ issues, your "Mirror Talk" event via the Rotunda, and how you are addressing that with your work.

About two years ago, I started to develop a sense of the extent to which internalized and systemic fatphobia informs how I live my life. In an effort to break the toxic patterns I’d adopted as a result of fatphobia, I began to use my art practice as a way to hold space for the internal work I’m committed to. This internal work manifested as a poetry and self-portrait project titled Mirror Talk. This self-portrait project has reconstructed my relationship to cameras and to being photographed; it has allowed me to overcome my fear of my own likeness. I say it all the time because I believe it, art is a healing tool. That is how I choose to make work, knowing that it is a privilege to be in the position to heal from past trauma through my artwork. I continue to photograph myself knowing that other fat folks feel affirmed by seeing a diverse representation of fat bodies out in the world. My talk for the Rotunda centered the healing and growth-oriented nature of my art practice.

Tell us about your family, your current stay in Miami (where you are from), your beautiful attire based on indigenous culture- and how you are bringing awareness with your work.

For folks who don’t know, I was quarantined in Miami with my family for three months. Being in Miami for long periods of time can be difficult for me because of Miami’s toxic fitness culture. However, the past three month were an opportunity to look inward and start to heal wounds caused by Miami’s fitness and beauty culture. This being said, being raised in Miami gave me the opportunity to grow up being proud of my Mexican and Honduran heritage, since I live in an immigrant-majority city. I choose to wear traditional garments and jewelry from my mom’s home state in honor of my ancestors and the culture they gifted us. I am mindful of the fact that many generations hustled to get me to where I am today and that I am because of them.

Do you have words to empower other first-generation immigrants to be teaching artists?

Art education empowers people. To take it a step further, culturally-relevant and trauma-informed art education can be empowering and healing. This is essential work. Be a part of this change.

How has this pandemic changed and current events changed your life as an artist? What has stayed the same?

This pandemic affirmed the importance of my trauma-informed teaching and making practice. At its core, trauma-informed work is people centered and not product centered. What is to be gained from a learning or making experience isn’t always tangible or salable, and that is okay! What has stayed the same is my desire to keep experimenting, to keep pushing the boundaries of art making and art sharing, to keep having necessary conversations in the community, the drive to let go of art traditions that uphold systemic oppression. In with the new. As we consider a world free of supremacist values, we need to envision an art community that is for the people as well.

For more information, visit:

www.candyalexandragonzalez.com

Interview by Rachel Heberling June 2020

Edited by Hugo Gatica