Poetas y Pintores: Artists Conversing with Verse
    Twelve Visual Artists Engage
  With The Work of Twelve Poets

For More Info www.poetasypintores.com/

              
Poetas Y Pintores: Artists Conversing with Verse is a collaborative project sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts, initiated by the Center for Women's InterCultural Leadership at Saint Mary's College and the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.  The interdisciplinary project will present the work of both established and emerging poets as inspiration for the creation of original artwork, allowing Latino/a artists to enter into "dialogue" with the work of Latino/a poets.

The Poets

Francisco Aragón is the author of Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press, 2005) His anthology publications include Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001), Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California (Heyday Books, 2002), and American Diaspora: Poetry of Displacement (University of Iowa Press, 2001) His poems and translations have appeared in Poetry Daily (poems.com), Crab Orchard Review, Chelsea, The Journal, and the online magazines Jacket and Electronic Poetry Review. He is the founding editor of Momotombo Press, which promotes emerging Latino writers, coordinator of the Andrés Montoya Poetry, and co-curator of Palabra Pura, a reading series in collaboration with the Guild Complex in Chicago. These projects form part of Letras Latinas, the unit he directs the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame. 
 

Francisco X. Alarcón is the author of various poetry collections. His honors include the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award and the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books, 1992). In 2002 the Bay Area Book Reviewer’s Association (BABRA) in Northern California awarded him the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award. His collections include Body in Flames (Chronicle Books, 1990), Of Dark Love (Moving Parts Press, 1991), Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts, 2001) and From the Other Side of Night: New and Selected Poems (University of Arizona Press, 2002). He is also the author of five bilingual poetry books for children, the most recent, Poems to Dream Together (Lee & Low Books, 2005). His work has appeared in various literary journals, including Notre Dame Review.   

Lorna Dee Cervantes is the author of the long-awaited Drive (Wings Press, 2005). Since 1990, her work has appeared in over twenty anthologies, including The Norton Anthology of American Literature, (1998), and The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1996). She is the author of two previous collections, Emplumada (1981), which has been the subject of a considerable body of criticism in literary and Chicano Studies. Her second collection, From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (1991) won the Paterson Poetry Prize and the Latino Literature Prize. Her honors include a Lila-Wallace/Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award, and an invitation to a Millennium Poetry Event at the White House in 1999. 
 
Victor Hernández Cruz’s most recent book, Maraca: New and Selected Poems 1965-2000 (Coffee House Press, 2001) was shortlised for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize, an international competition. Publishing Snaps with Random House at age 20, he went on to publish Mainland (1973), Tropicalization (1976), By Lingual Wholes (1982), Rhythm, Content, and Flavor (1989), his first selected poems, before settling in with Coffee House Press for Red Beans (1991), Panorama (1997) and Maraca: New and Selected Poems, 1965-2000. His honors include fellowships with the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Poetry Foundation. Born in Puerto Rico and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and a long-time resident of California, Cruz currently divides his time between Morrocco and Puerto Rico. 
 
 

Rigoberto González’s book, So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water Until It Breaks (University of Illinois Press, 1999) was a 1998 National Poetry Series Selection. His second collection, Other Fugitives and Other Strangers, is forthcoming with Tupelo Press in 2007. He is also the author of the novel Crossing Vines (University of Oklahoma Press, 2003), and two children’s books, Soledad Sigh-Sighs and Antonio’s Card, both by Children’s Book Press. His honors include a Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, as well as various artists’ residencies, including to Brazil, Costa Rica, and Spain. González’s poems have appeared in various journals, including Chelsea, Colorado Review, Iowa Review, and Electronic Poetry Review. He reviews books by Latino/a authors for the El Paso Times, curates the national reading series, The Quetzal Quill, and is a contributing editor for Poets&Writers. He is an Associate Professor of English and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois in Urbana. 
 

Valerie Martínez’s first book of poems, Absence Luminescent (Four Way Books, 1999) won the Larry Levis Prize and a Greenwall Grant from the Academy of American Poets. Her second book, World to World, was published by The University of Arizona Press in 2004. Martínez’s poems have appeared in a number of anthologies including American Poetry: Next Generation (2000); The New American Poets: A Breadloaf Anthology (2000); Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance (1998); The Best American Poetry, 1996; and Renaming Ecstasy: Latino Writings on the Sacred (Bilingual Press, 2003). Her selected translations of Uruguay’s Delmira Agustini (1886-1914), Lilies of the Flesh, was published in 2005 by Sutton Hoo Press. She teaches at College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. 
 

María Meléndez teaches creative writing and multi-ethnic literatures at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana.  Her collection of poetry, How Long She’ll Last in This World, was published in January 2006 by the University of Arizona Press, and her chapbook, Base Pairs, appeared in 2001 with Swan Scythe Press.  From 2000-2003, she worked as Writer-in-Residence at the UC Davis Arboretum, where she taught multicultural environmental poetry workshops for the public.  She currently serves as Associate Editor for poetry at Momotombo Press, and her own poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in such magazines as International Quarterly, Orion Afield and Ecological Restoration.
 

Orlando Ricardo Menes is the author of the recently published Furia (Milkweed Editions, 2005) and Rumba Atop the Stones (Peepal Tree Press, 2001). He is also the editor of Renaming Ecstasy: Latino Writings on the Sacred (Bilingual Press, 2003). His first collection of poems, Borderlands with Angels, was the winner of the Bacchae Press Second Annual Chapbook Contest (1994). His work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Antioch Review, Callaloo, Chelsea, Crab Orchard Review, Indiana Review, New Letters, and Ploughshares, among others. Anthology publications include The Poetry of Men's Lives: An International Anthology (University of Georgia Press), and Clockpunchers: Poetry of the American Workplace (Partisan Press). He is an Assistant professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Notre Dame. 
 

Pat Mora is an award-winning author of poetry, nonfiction, and children’s books. Her collections of poetry include Chants (1984), Borders (1986), and Communion (1991) from Arte Público Press. Beacon Press has published Agua Santa/Holy Water (1995), and Aunt Carmen’s Book of Saints (1997), an illustrated volume. Her poems have been described by The New York Times as “proudly bilingual.” She has been a judge and recipient of the Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the recent recipient of a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship to write in Umbria, Italy in 2003. A native of El Paso, Texas, Pat Mora promotes connecting communities through literature and literacy, and often speaks at conferences, universities, and schools about creative writing, multicultural education and leadership. 
 

Emmy Pérez, after graduating from Columbia University’s M.F.A. program, received poetry fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She is the author of Solstice (Swan Scythe Press, 2003). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals, including Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, North American Review, New York Quarterly, LUNA, Crab Orchard Review, Notre Dame Review, The Laurel Review, and Karavan (translated into Swedish).  She has taught writing to adult education students, women prison inmates, and college students. She grew up California and currently lives in El Paso’s Lower Valley. 

Alberto Ríos is the author of eight books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir.  His most recent book, The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2002), was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award in Poetry. Ríos is the recipient of the Western Literature Association Distinguished Achievement Award, the Latino Literary Hall of Fame Award, the Arizona Governor's Arts Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Walt Whitman Award, the Western States Book Award for Fiction, six Pushcart Prizes in both poetry and fiction, and inclusion in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, as well as over 200 other national and international literary anthologies.  Ríos is presently a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University, where he holds the Katharine C. Turner Endowed Chair in English.   http://www.public.asu.edu/%7Eaarios/
 

Aleida Rodríguez is the author of Gardens of Exile (Sarabande Books, 1999), which Marilyn Hacker selected to win the 1998 Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize. It also went on to win the PEN Center West 2000 Literary Award in Poetry for the best book of poems published the previous year, and was the only poetry book named to the “Tops of 2000” list by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the California Arts Council. Her work has recently appeared in Dana Gioia’s California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Heyday Books, 2003). Her poems have appeared in various journals, including The Seneca Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Spoon River Review, whose Editor’s Prize she won in 1996. She was recently profiled in The Face of Poetry (University of California Press, 2005), a book which features the work and portraits of poets who have been part of the Lunch Poems reading series at UC Berkeley. A native of Cuba, Aleida Rodríguez resides in Los Angeles.   
 
 The Artists
 

René Arceo attended the Art Institute of Chicago. His work can be found in El Museo Nacional de la Estampa, Mexico City; Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, México; Laumeier Sculpture Park, Saint Louis, MO; Purdue University Galleries; Western Illinois University; Greater Lafayette Museum of Art, Lafayette, IN; Western Michigan University; Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago, IL; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Alfredo Zalce, Morelia, Mich., Mexico; Gallery BWA, Zamosc y Academickie Centrum Kultury, Lublin, Poland. Arceo is curently the visual arts coordinator in the Department of Language and Cultural Education for Chicago Public Schools.  

Sam Coronado is an Austin, TX based master printmaker and painter instructing at Austin Community College, LaGuna Gloria Art School and the Doughtery Art Center. Coronado has been involved in different arts organizations in Houston and Austin. In Austin, he established Cibola Studio/Gallery in the 80's and was one of the original board members of the Mexic-Arte Museum. He is currently directing the serigraph print project at Coronado Studio which involves the production of serigraph prints by artists from the US and Latin America. He has exhibited his work in group exhibits throughout the United States, Mexico and Europe.  

Regina Diaz received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Saint Mary's College in 2002.   While at Saint Mary's, Regina served as president of La Fuerza, counselor for Encuentro, senior representative for the Art Department, and as co-curator of the Latina/Chicana art exhibition, "Chicana 2000 - Emerging Identities.”  Currently, Regina is the digital imaging department manager at The Color House, Inc., a professional photographic lab in Miami Beach, Florida.  Her most recent project was the setup of the digital department of the newly opened photo lab for The Color House, in New York City.  She will remotely manage that department from Miami. Her energy will be focusing on getting a studio big enough to create art on a more regular basis.  Her hobbies are golfing and making/editing movies.

Brookes Ebetsch is an emerging artist who graduated from the University of Notre Dame with her BFA in 2002. Her thesis exhibition, three large porcelain vessels lined with satin containing digital photographs, was displayed at the Snite Museum of Art and are now part of the collection of Dr. Gilberto Cárdenas. Currently, she works at the Institute for Latino Studies where she curates exhibitions for Galería América at ND, teaches a class under the supervision of Professor Gilberto Cárdenas entitled “Aesthetics of Latino Cultural Expression”, and coordinates numerous other Latino art initiatives. Most recently, she was responsible for the design of thirteen HIV/AIDS posters through a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services. 

 
Esperanza Gama graduated from the Escuela de Arte Plasticas of the Universidad de Guadalajara Mexico. She has had solo exhibitions at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum and illustrated for publications such as “Loverboys” by Ana Castillo and Art Magazine. In 1997, Gama was selected as one of the Annual Celebration Awards Artist Latino Institute, Chicago, Illinois. That same year she was an Official Artist for the National Council of La Raza Annual Conference in Washington, DC. She received a Residency Grant from the Chicago Artists International Program and was part of the Bordes Printmaking Workshop, Guadalajara, Mexico.

Tlisza Jaurique is a multi-media artist with past residencies in Manhattan, Berlin, and Ecuador. She is currently the Southwest Borders Initiative Scholar/Artist in Residence at Arizona State University (ASU). Her exhibitions include Ned Hatathali Museum, Painted Bride Arts Center Philadelphia, the Museo Chicano, Nelson Fine Arts Museum, Mission Cultural Arts Center San Francisco, PAPER Magazine Exhibition SoHo, the Port of San Diego, Guadalupe Arts Center San Antonio, as well as spaces throughout ASU and Pheonix. Jaurique recently received a prestigious appointment as a Community Scholar at the National Museum of Natural History in Native Studies at the Smithsonian Institute.

Maria Elena Macías has curated at the Tamaulipas Museum of Contemporary Art, Matamoros and the McAllen International Museum, Texas, and is currently adjunct faculty at the University of Texas-Pan American. She has had solo exhibitions at the Cultural Arts Center Narciso Martinez, San Benito, Texas; la Casa de la Cultura, Reynosa,Tamaulipas; Museo Historico de Reynosa; and the Centro de Artes Visuales e Investigaciones Esteticas de Saltillo, Coahuila. Her work has traveled to Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Museo de Monterrey; Museo de Aguascalientes; Instituto Cultural Tijuana; Instituto Cultural Cabanas, Guadalajara; Museo de Arte de Queretaro; Museo de las Americas, Denver; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano. Long Beach, California. 

Artemio Rodríguez’s work has been collected by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), University of Arizona Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA. Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca, Collection "José F. Gómez". Oaxaca, Mexico. Founders Gallery, University of San Diego, CA. UCLA Special Colection (Books). He has printed numerous books including “Lotería Cards and Fortune” and “Woodcuts of Women.” Rodríguez has exhibited at the Center for Book Arts. New York, Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Self-Help Graphics, Los Angeles, Portland Art Museum, and the Center for the Arts at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.  

Malaquias Montoya is credited by historians as one of the founders of the mid-1960's "social serigraphy" movement in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been invited to exhibit his prints, posters, drawings, paintings, and murals in the United States, Europe and Latin America. Montoya’s honors include the 1997 Adaline Kent Award from the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA and the Art as a Hammer, Honoree from the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Los Angeles, CA, May, 1997. He has been Cooperating Faculty in the Department of Art and a Full Professor in the Chicana/o Studies Program at the University of California, Davis since 1989. 

Fernando Salicrup has received honors from the Latino Press of New York City, the XII San Juan Biennal of Latin American and Caribbean Printmaking in Puerto Rico, the Community Planning Board #11, for Dedication in Cultural Education in the East Harlem, NY and the Committee for the 100th Anniversary of El Barrio, for Outstanding Contribution to the Puerto Rican Culture of El Barrio. Salicrup has also exhibited at El Museo del Barrio, Heckscher Musuem of Art,NY; The Alternative Museum, NY; Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Arts (MOCHA), NY, New Jersey State Art Museum, as well as in Puerto Rico, Germany, France, and Poland. 

 
María Tomasula is currently an Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at the University of Notre dame. Her recent exhibitions include one-person exhibitions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN and at the Mexican Fine Arts Museum, Chicago, IL. In 1994, she participated in the “Timely and Timeless,” exhibition at the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut. She is represented by the Forum Gallery in New York and Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago.

Kathy Vargas’s numerous exhibitions include one-person shows at Sala Uno in Rome and the Galeria San Mart’n in Mexico City. A major retrospective of Vargas' photography was mounted in 2000 by the McNay Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Her work was featured in "Hospice: A Photographic Inquiry" for the Corcoran gallery and "Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (CARA)." Photographs by Vargas hang in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and the Southwestern Bell Collection. Vargas is currently the Chair of the Art and Music Department at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, her hometown. 

Ernesto Camacho

Ernesto Camacho is a New York City artist of Mexican/Puerto Rican decent, who graduated from the High School of Art &Design in 1979, continuing art studies at the University of Syracuse where he earned a BFA in 1984.

Ernesto has exhibited at various galleries in NewYork City and has also been the recipient of awards from Capezio Ballet Makers, first prize in the Manhattan Arts Magazine's cover contest, and the highly acclaimed BRIO grant from the Bronx Council of the Arts. He worked three years as an illustrator for children's books on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Northern Arizona. This was a delightful experience that gave him much insight on the people and culture.

His paintings explore the intimate side of humanity as well as the human psyche. He doesn't restrict himself to one type of subject matter. Ernesto prefers to explore humankind in an array of different setting's and time periods. Most of his work is derived from photographs, which he takes on location and later worked on in his studio.

"His skillful use of dramatic lighting enriches his subjects with sensitivity, valor and poetry."