What I paint revolves around a MUCHO work ethos, which comes from culturally understanding every Hispanic worker I know as doing a lot, all the time. We fix cars, build homes, harvest people’s food, then cook, plate, and serve it. We work in warehouses and on top of roofs, in poor working conditions for less than our worth, and still find the time to create and dance and laugh with each other. We’re jacks of all trades. We have to be; we don’t come from money, so we have to know how to do everything because that’s how we got here, right?
When I first started selling art and clothes, having 2-3 jobs at a time on top of that, I’d come home and my mom would tell me, ‘No hagas mucho!’ That means Stop doing so much. I would try to get her to understand that if I don’t do a lot, people won’t take me seriously. If I don’t keep working and doing as much and trying to be in everything, I can easily be boxed in and tokenized.
I grew up in the desert. My mom cleaned houses for a living and still does to this day. She received a lot of clothes from her clients which became what I wore by extension.
I started painting on them to make them my own. Over time I started putting them for sale on Depop & Etsy for five, ten dollars, sometimes a little more. I remember selling a dress for $60 once and felt like I was rolling in it. Now I look back and think, Girl, what?? How much time did you spend on that? That should have sold for a lot more.
Being Hispanic, being a woman, and being a painter, I naturally adapted to being a workaholic. Because for all those things combined, I get categorized into this world that’s not actually the art world. Even after graduating from Otis and working professionally for Coachella for years, I still get compared to Frida Khalo… That feels cheesy.
I aim to create timeless and relevant work regardless of what month or holiday it is.
As a Mexican-American, MUCHO, this brand I created, is a representation against that. I’m taking old white people’s clothing and reworking it to make brown money.
I’m not stoked on being a workaholic. I wish I could have a little stability and not have to do so much all the time. But when you grow up in poverty or with a scarcity mindset, even when you’re well off, the pattern is hard to break.
I’m an introverted person, I find it difficult to connect with people. In-person, I connect with people via my artwork. I feel like what I create connects me with others, not me.
I was born in Indio California, grew up in Cat City. I didn’t grow up around artists or anyone that really did anything like that. Things weren’t exactly easy regarding my family either. I’m sure most people can relate to that but it was kind of scary at home, not a safe space at all. It’s weird to talk about it because I think culturally most of us are conditioned into believing what happens at home, stays at home.
I’m starting to unlearn having to be quiet. Not communicating stunted my communication, social skills, and ability to converse, make friends, and trust people. I started painting around 12 about the things I couldn’t talk about at home; boys, being angry at situations, confusion around the way things work, or why God let certain things happen. Painting started as a sort of soft diary entry for myself.
Going to private school was a culture shock, because I grew up in a very segregated area. I wouldn’t interact with wealthy people if I wasn’t working, you know what I mean? We did not experience life in the same fashion, or shop at the same places in town. When I got to Otis, almost everybody was really well off, which made me uncomfortable. Coming straight out of high school I felt looked down upon because I didn’t have the same accessibility to things.
There were a lot of comments from the other girls, I don’t think many of them thought about how someone might react to what they were saying internally. You’re so crafty was something I heard a lot. Or, Where did you get that jacket? Oh, a garage sale? Good for you, I couldn’t pull that off.
For four years I lived off of brown rice and sweet & sour sauce because I was so strapped for tuition. Even now I feel like I just graduated, as if I’m still a teen, even though I turned 32 last year. I feel like art is the real fountain of youth, you’re always connected to these reminders of adolescence.
I learned more from having conversations with faculty than the actual curriculum. I was being taught by working artists, which made me feel closer to understanding the life of one. But the curriculum was there to market myself to businesses. As I began to grasp that I had to say No, I want to be an actual artist. Not a designer for someone, I want to put out my own work. I started learning to communicate and ask questions to teachers, going to their open studios and looking at how they sell work, thinking about how my life could look when I was in my 50’s like them.
When I graduated college I went right back to what I knew, which was retail. In regular jobs, you’re told what to do, don’t ask questions, and follow through. But I also started volunteering at every art organization in the desert – museums, nonprofits, community organizers – and I mean every single one. Ask anyone from the desert. I was just trying to get into this world.
I didn’t know sh*t about who was who in the community, and that kind of helped me step into every pocket of it. I was doing a lot of free labor. I had some shows here and there, but I was more into the community aspect of things, helping organize and work with people in the know. From there I started to be available for murals and selling paintings while still cleaning houses and working registers.
The college idea of being an artist is gathering a portfolio, finding a few connections, and letting people reach out & cross your path as you start gaining traction. But that’s never really happened to me. Everything I have going for me now I owe to being a hard worker and helping other artists out instead of wanting to make it about me. You have to learn how to put your own sh*t aside.
Seeing what I can do for others taught me what I can do for myself.
Right now I’m really stoked on being less insecure about being an artist, or just doing what I’m doing with my life. For a long time, there was a part of me that felt ashamed for not being ‘successful’ yet, that thought I had to get a ‘real job’ soon because I didn’t have all the things I thought I would by now. But none of that is real, really. The artists that I look up to, my mentors and the people that have put me on over the years, none of those people have ever made me feel like I’m not equal to them. And that means a lot because good people don’t put you down.
The people that are cool and give you opportunities, who want you to be a part of what they’re doing, don’t ever put you down. They don’t ever make you feel like sh*t because your stuff is just as tight as the next person’s. I don’t think there needs to be competition, I think we should all just start where we’re at and develop as long as we can nurture and nourish what we have to share with the world.
-Sofia Enriquez for Dead Relatives.
