Project 1

La Familia Cano y Ruiz

Artist Statement:

Title of work: La Familia Cano y Ruiz

By: Daisy Cano Ruiz

My driving question is: How do I visually communicate the growth of my family over the years, while still making it meaningful to my culture? The title of my artwork is La Familia Cano Y Ruiz. I chose this title because one of the very common arguments that are brought up in my family is the name Cano and Ruiz. When my sister was born my parents originally decided on only giving her my dad’s last name Cano. But, after my brother and I were born my mom strongly advocated that we needed to have her last name Ruiz in our names. Growing up I always preferred writing both of my last names down because it felt empty only writing Cano down. When I think about my family, I like to think of both names, not just one. Which is why I decided to name this art piece La Famila Cano y Ruiz. My intention for this piece of artwork is to visually represent my culture by using day of the dead skulls to symbolize the growth of my family over the years. For this project I decided to use printmaking as one of my medias for this project. I planned on carving out five skulls, each skull's body would represent one family member in my family.

My main media that I chose for this project is relief printmaking. My two dominant elements in my artwork are Texture and Line. Throughout the process of carving my skulls the texture of the print and all the lines I made were very crucial to my final artwork piece. I do think that I was delayed multiple times in being able to finish my final project because I was so focused on making my prints look good (texture) that I lost track of the full picture. I wanted there to be as much detail as I could add without taking too much time so I decided on using the thinnest and narrowest carving tool. This helped with having very unique and individual lines. There were several occasions where the details of the skeletons looked so difficult to carve out, I felt afraid of even picking up my carving tool. My two dominant principles in my artwork are Contrast and Unity. When researching artists, Aimee Zvinakis (our art teacher) recommend me to look at Jose Posadas work which I am currently now a huge fan of. Jose Posadas prints inspired me to do similar prints with skulls. I really like the contrast and unity that his prints all look at the end which is why I was so open to the idea of family skull portraits.

If I’m being honest my project doesn’t feel finished. When I look at my carvings they look amazing but the print in general feels like something is missing. I do think that I answered my driving question successfully and I did convey what I wanted to show. I think that my prints turned out extremely successful. I worked really hard on these prints and the preciseness of some of these prints are very impressive. When I first started carving, It had been difficult and something at the time that I did not have the patience to do. When I chose carving as my main media I knew that it would be a difficult process to do in two weeks but I was very determined to carve out these skulls. I do believe that I achieved a tremendous amount of artistic growth especially with carving skill, I made sure to practice multiple times in order to perfect my carving skills. Even though I practiced my techniques with carving, that still didn’t make the process any faster. It was a constant battle, me against time trying to finish my carvings in time for critique day. If I were able to go back in time and start this project again I would definitely use a bigger carving tool in order to have more time to experiment with the layout of my project.

Project Process Presentation:

Photos of Final Artwork Piece