“It turned out exactly the way I thought it would,” said Oscar Mireles in reflection on the first of the first-ever Wisconsin Conference on Latino Arts and Culture.
From May 2-3, Latinos Organizing for Understanding and Development (LOUD), a statewide initiative started by Mireles to advance Latino arts and service organizations, artists and communities, held its first full run on its Latino Arts and Culture conference. The conference, something Mireles has wanted to do but struggled to find time until his retirement from Omega School, saw a previous online iteration during COVID.
Now with more time on his hands, Mireles brought the two-day conference to fruition at Centro Hispano, 2403 Cypress Way.
The conference invited speakers from across Wisconsin and a couple from Iowa who had expertise in the arts. Over the two days, attendees gained valuable information coupled with transformational anecdotes on the impact of arts in topics ranging from literature, visual arts, performing arts, music, leadership and fundraising.
“To me, it’s to put them in the room where it happens and they make the connections. If somebody’s asking, ‘Why? What do you get out of it?’ That’s what I get out of it,” Mireles said. “Things happen after they meet each other. I met them. I think they’re interesting, but for other people it’s a connection to a person, that connection to the next thing in their journey.”
The range of electric speakers, a total of 22 across eight sessions, had one thing in common — a connection to Mireles. Often, speakers would applaud Mireles and joke, “If Oscar gives me a call, then I’ll be there.”
(Photo by Omar Waheed)
A life transformed by arts
Issis Macias, a Madison-based artist who describes her work as intuitive and culturally influenced, spoke on how art transformed her life.
“Art has the power to change us. It’s more than an expression. It’s a path of healing, connection and growth,” Macias said. “It invites us to explore emotions, to explore the past, to be open to new perspectives.”
Macias says art has helped her find a process to heal and navigate the world around her. Her journey as an artist has seen an explosive growth throughout the past year with solo shows and galleries around Wisconsin.
Her most recent gallery, “Her Colorful World,” is set to take place this coming Friday in Milwaukee at the Latino Arts Gallery, 1028 S. 9th St.
Macias also received Latina Artist of the Year from LOUD.
Writing to be free
A session was hosted by Dana Maya, a Madison-based poet, essayist, editor and teacher, who spoke on her journey in writing.
Maya was raised between Colorado and Vera Cruz, Mexico, caught between two cultures while being raised by a single mother. She was studious and sought education as a way to positively impact her life, which led her to Vassar College.
“I showed up in Poughkeepsie, New York, at this college that had ivy-covered walls and this incredible place that I wanted to be,” Maya said. “I had earned my way, but in 1987, there were no people of color on that faculty. Nobody.”
There was one Chicano dean at Vassar, which Maya thinks may have had an impact on her attending the school, but realized that the experience made her depressed.
Maya fell into a highly selective creative writing program in her senior year where she was able to write poems the whole year. She graduated and moved to Austin, Texas, where Maya attended graduate school and met her future husband.
Maya and her husband ultimately decided to leave just shy of finishing her Ph.D. to Madison. In Madison, she found her avenue in writing.
The session quickly moved into a writing-based exercise inspired by previous activities Maya engaged in. The first exercise, “writing to be free,” where attendees wrote for five minutes on “what is here.”
The exercise is meant to be an associative, free writing prompt to look past linear writing styles with radical reflection on the present moment.
The second prompt Maya called “the extraordinary ordinary.” Attendees took time to examine the mundane through a lens of awe.
Maya encouraged attendees to keep writing daily with the prompts as homework.
Finding funding for the arts
Multiple sessions on funding for the arts via utilizing universities and grants were held at the conference.
“Overlooked Opportunity,” hosted by Dr. Marlene de la Cruz-Guzman, vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion at Viterbo College, gave a walk-through on how to approach universities for potential funding.
“There’s a huge need for you in universities and there’s a disconnect. There’s always two sets of language that don’t always connect,” Dr. Cruz-Guzman said. “There are nearly 4,000 freaking universities in this country. Guess what? Almost all of them have funding for programs.”
(Photo by Omar Waheed)
Cruz-Guzman pointed out the nearly endless opportunities for artists to make money, but they need to learn how to access them. In Wisconsin, there are 212 universities and colleges — both private and public — and an association of colleges outside of the University of Wisconsin System Schools.
Cruz-Guzman’s college is part of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. She notes that the severe lack of dollars claimed by potential artists through swaths of programs is due to the lack of knowing how to approach universities or that opportunities are out there.
She gave attendees, who were mostly artists, tips and tricks to get a successful pitch and, hopefully, secure funding.
Among the tips was looking at where it is feasible for artists to travel to. Cruz-Guzman says Minnesota is off the table for her in the winter, so she encouraged others to be realistic. Next, in the range of willing travel, what universities are in the area? From there, make a list of the top three with contacts and events that correspond with what an artist would like to do at the university.
Next comes the language aspect. Cruz-Guzman encouraged artists to write their biographies and pitches in language that emulates the university’s goals and mission.
“Your art is an amazing product. Your expertise is an amazing product. So there’s a possibility that they will pick it up and support you,” Cruz-Guzman said.
If successful, the effort yields more benefits past pay. Universities have a vested interest in making the agreed plan successful through marketing and outreach on your behalf. One successful program creates a reputation which leads to more opportunities both at the university, or if in the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges, can help lead to more within that network.
Other advice included price negotiation. Universities appear to be generally shifting towards a flat fee to avoid unforeseen exuberant costs, Cruz-Guzman said. She advised being realistic about overall costs and negotiating with increased costs when universities push more on you than the pitch and avoid itemizing potential costs for you in the pitch.
Other workshops were held on grant writing and applying. At “Basics of Grant Writing,” Augustin Olvera, a long-time grant writer and administrator in Madison, gave his insider knowledge in his career finding and administering grants.
He advised attendees to be mindful of time, utilize the connection and plan well ahead of when looking for grants.
Arts and activism come together in Madison
The keynote lunch address on May 3 was “Voces Unbound: Immigration, protests, and the Power of Community Art” with UW-Madison professor Dr. Armando Ibarra which presented a rare opportunity due to the break between days at the conference.
On May 2, a large protest for immigrant and worker rights occurred in Madison’s state capitol. Ibarra used the chance to give a real-time actualization on the subject.
The lunch address looked at the intersection of scholar activism, art and artivism. The prime example Ibrarra examined was Voces De La Frontera’s Voces de Los Artistas and the signs created in a community workshop prior to the protests in Milwaukee and Madison.
The arm of Voces is a community collective that rapidly responds to social movements as part of its organizing efforts. Signs seen in the protests were made a couple of days to hours before the protests, where artists helped design what’s going to be used by Voces De La Frontera.
“It gives us that narrative from those people, from those communities that are under attack. It inspires action and promotes change for those of us who aren’t directly involved in social movement building,” Ibarra said. “It gives us an opportunity to engage through the eyes of the artist of what’s happening to these communities that are currently under attack, and it fosters empathy.”
Ibarra points at the historical intersection of art and social movements. Like current events on immigration and mass deportations, Ibarra parallels 2006’s attempt to pass a broad act that would launch the contemporary immigrant social rights movement after the 1960 Chicano Movement.