User:Allimore13/sandbox

In my sandbox I hope to add more information about Alma Lopez's work and her personal life.

 Personal Life 

Alma Lopéz's family moved from Los Mochis, Mexico to Los Angeles when she was young.

Lopez grew up visiting Mexico since their move and the influence of the Virgin Mary was something she saw in her life. Alongside the image of the Virgin Mary much of the culture from both sides of the border influenced Lopez in the development of her artwork.

Lopez holds a BA from UC Santa Barbara and a MFA from UC Irvine. She was a California Art Council artist in residence at SPARC (the Social and Public Art Resource Center) in UCLA.

Around 1996, as a research assistant to the UCLA Cesar Chavez Center's Mural Course professor Judith Baca she was introduced to digital media. Baca wanted to explore digital media as a medium for murals and in doing so Lopez came into digital media.

La Briosa y la Medusa
One of Lopez's works inspired by Lucha Libre, that she had grown up watching. This piece focuses on female luchadores, specifically La Medusa and La Briosa who Lopez had found in her research on luchadoras. Lopez saw the story of Alicia Alvarado, La Medusa, who herself had been inspired by a tag team match of luchadoras to become a wrestler herself. Lopez saw these women in a male dominated sport like lucha libre and wanted to display the lesser known presence of women. Something which she herself believed that young people should see and that is the inclusion of women throughout male dominated history and events.

Bibliography

Hidalgo de la Riva, Osa. Chicana Spectators and Media Makers: Imagining Transcultural Diversity. 2006, pp. 14-19. USC Cinematics, cinema.usc.edu/assets/097/15692.pdf

López, Alma, et al., editors. “It’s Not about the Santa in My Fe, but the Santa Fe in My Santa.” Our Lady of Controversy, University of Texas Press, 2011, pp. 249–292, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7560/719927.16.z

Villareal, Natalie. "Artist in Residence Spotlight: Alma Lopez: Perseverance." Serie Project. serieproject.org/airspotlight-alma-lopez. Acessed 28 October 2017.