All posts by Monica Veleta

Pablo Hernandez

Biography

Pablo Hernandez was born in the border city of El Paso, Texas, to a family of immigrants from Zamora de Hidalgo, Michoacán, Mexico. Growing up between two countries and two cultures was a challenge, so from a young age he used art as an outlet focusing mainly on oil painting, making a living as a professional tattooer, and now branching out into murals. Pablo has immersed himself in studying his cultural heritage by researching ancient Mexican cultures, traveling Mexico, and with the help of friends from a few Mexicanismo revival movements, and through the teachings of pilgrims from the Wixarika, also known as Huichol.

Pablo’s art draws inspiration from tales and traditions of ancient Mexico and incorporates stylized and simple figures inspired by traditional American tattooing and Mexican folk art, mixed with naturalistic textures and brought to life by vivid and bright colors. Through the use of his art, Pablo aims to honor his Mexican Mestizo heritage by educating about ancient Mexican history and the spiritual and medicinal content of our marginalized indigenous cultures.

Paola Martinez

Education

BFA in Painting and Art History from the University of Texas at El Paso

Biography

Paola Martinez is a portrait painter located in the border region of El Paso, Texas, and CD. Juárez, Mexico. She completed her BFA in Painting and Art History at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Her eclectic and indigenous portraits pay homage to her Mexican heritage, bringing awareness and life to the ancient tribes that adapt and diminish in today’s modern world. Her black and white portrait paintings focus on her subject’s gaze as she captures intimacy with the viewer. By using her unique finger painting style, the artist believes that she truly becomes in contact with her work and her subjects. She is known to use a black and white palette to disarm classicism and create equality. The multidisciplinary artist is constantly inspired by her travels around the world as she shares her knowledge and brings cultural diversity to create unison in humanity through her work.

Miguel Juárez

Education

MLS from SUNY Buffalo and an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at El Paso

Biography

Miguel Juárez is a faculty lecturer both at the University of Texas at El Paso Department of History and in the Department of ESL, Reading and Social Studies at El Paso Community College. He has an MLS from SUNY Buffalo and an MA and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at El Paso. He was an academic librarian/archivist from 1999 to 2013.

He has published two books: Where Are All the Librarians of Color: The Experiences of People of Color in Academia, co-edited with Rebecca Hankins (2016, Library Juice Press), and Colors on Desert Walls: The Murals of El Paso, with photographs by Cynthia Weber Farah (1997, Texas Western Press).

His art, reviews, articles, chapters, and opinion editorials have appeared in numerous publications, books, and blogs such as Bakunin, The Trouble with Los Angeles, A Special Issue Focusing on the Simi Valley Verdict, the L.A. Riots, and Race Relations; Chiricú Journal; The Journal of Southern History; The Public Historian; The American Studies Journal (AMSJ); Latino Rebels; Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives: American Women’s History; Mujeres Talk; The Women of Library History Blog; Librarians With Spines, Vol. 2; El Paso Times; El Paso Herald-Post; Fusion Magazine; Fuerte Azul, and El Paso News. He is currently revising his dissertation titled “From Concordia to Lincoln Park: Race, Power, and Representation in Highway Building in El Paso, Texas,” for publication.

Read Article: The American Rescue Plan and the Arts: Will Creatives Receive the ‘Once-in-A-Lifetime-Funding?’

Eric Chavez

Education

B.A. in History, B.A. in Psychology, an M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Biography

Eric Chavez is a Ph.D. candidate and professor of history and philosophy at El Paso Community College (Northwest Campus). Born in El Paso, Texas, and raised between the U.S.-Mexico borderlands of Juarez, Chihuahua. He obtained his B.A. in History, B.A. in Psychology, an M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso.

His current research interests focus on how individual and group agency is historically informed, produced, and challenged via cultural expressions and artifacts such as graffiti within US-Mexico border cities across the 20th century. Chavez’s methodological approaches are inspired by a constellation of borderlands history, intellectual and social history, Latin American history, critical theory, phenomenology, and philosophy of liberation.