User:Bellajlang/Jacalyn Lopez Garcia/Bibliography

Jacalyn Lopez Garcia was born in Monrovia, California in 1953. She is a Chicana artist and activist, and focuses on visual and performing arts. She has excelled in many areas of art, such as photography, painting, playing musical instruments, and theatre. Her art has been featured in museums, newspaper articles, universities, and even in books. She is best known for her interactive art website titled “Glass Houses,” which touches on ideas of immigration, injustice, cultural identity, and her personal experience growing up as a Chicana.

Biography

Early Life and Education

Jacalyn Lopez Garcia was born in Monrovia, but spent most of her childhood in Santa Ana, California. Her father was born in Colorado, and her mother immigrated from Mexico. Garcia spent many years in school. She received her associate’s degree from Santa Ana Junior College, and continued on to get her bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and Photography from UC Riverside in 1997. In 1999, she earned her M.F.A degree in Photography and Multimedia. Clearly, art is something she has a strong passion for.

Careers

Garcia’s interest in photography was sparked by her job as a darkroom assistant for her husband. She gained experience through this, as her husband owned García Advertising, and other businesses that exposed her to a career pathway in art. She later went on to be a choreographer and instructor at Riverside Repertory Theatre, a family owned business. She continued her career in the theatre industry working for the Department of Theatre at UC Riverside. Gaining experience in all of these industries inspired her to take the next step, and become a professor at Riverside Community College. She taught a variety of classes there, ranging from Multimedia to Art and Photography until 2017. She now manages Goldie’s Farm Artist Retreat and Spiritual Healing Center located on the west shore of the Salton Sea. She manages healing sessions, art classes, presentations, and inspires healers and citizens to touch base with their artistic side.

Glass Houses

Garcia is well known for her website titled “Glass Houses.” Her inspiration for this work was her personal experience as a Chicana growing up in the suburbs of California. This immersive website was highly anticipated before its release, as it was featured in newspapers and online articles. In this website, the viewer is seen as a visitor, who walks around Garcia’s virtual house. Each room has its own gallery of art that touches on issues of cultural sensitivity, oppression, injustice, immigration, and much more, and navigating through this house creates an intimate experience for the viewer. Unique rooms include the closet, where Garcia states that the secrets are hidden, and the kitchen, which acts as a message center to reach Garcia.

Garcia’s use of dark irony helps portray the struggles that the Chicanx community experiences in modern day America. Her art shows that corporate greed and the divisions economic institutions have created often make it hard for the Chicanx community to see the opportunity everyone speaks of.

Life Cycles: Reflections of Change and a New Hope for Future Generations

This documentary project explores personal stories and the overall historic patterns of immigration to the United States. The California Council for Humanities funded this project, which allowed Garcia to follow seven families who worked in the farming industry. Through this documentary, we follow along with her and see first hand the struggles these families had to bear. Garcia felt that immigration was a neglected topic in popular media, and created this project to help shed light on what people go through to reach a new promised land of opportunity.

In Search of Mago

This performance-based project is a fun and playful piece which stars Garcia’s dog, Goldie. This piece differs from the rest of her work, and it was Garcia’s way of encouraging non-traditional storytelling. Viewers could become a part of this work, and share their own stories. This piece is unique in that it blends ideas of fiction and reality, and acts as a way to bring Garcia and her fanbase closer together.

Chicana Culture

The majority of Garcia’s work is inspired by her culture. As a Chicana woman who grew up in the suburbs of California, she personally recognizes the struggles some may have with cultural identity, and staying true to one's roots when they are not commonly celebrated in the society around them. Her immersive websites, documentaries, and paintings are equally powerful, and it is clear that she embraces her Mexican culture while still recognizing that she is an American.

Accomplishments

Aside from her art alone, Garcia has received many awards. In 2005, she was awarded the California Council for the Humanities Grant, and the following year, she received the Latino Net’s Artistic and Community Achievement Award, and the Senator Barbara Boxer’s Leadership Award. Her work was featured in best-selling author Gary Keller’s books, and in several museums and universities (California Museum of Photography, Long Beach museum of art, UC Riverside, Claremont Graduate University, and the Hispanic Research Center at University at Tempe).