Chuy Renteria

Excerpts From We The Interwoven

“I grew up believing that my life was a conduit to making art. My small hometown of West Liberty, Iowa, nurtured that belief. Where cultures of people coexisted as litmus tests for America at large. Where Mexican and Laotian immigrants intermingled with small-town Midwestern values. I learned to draw before I could walk. Started my twenty-year dance career before learning how to drive. Began writing before I realized how important my perspective was to the collective. I have always wanted to use these forms to describe how it feels to be who I am. To document the passion of the people around me. To champion vibrant, messy cultural experience not reflected in popular culture.”

—Artist Statement

“It had been fifteen years and my parents were in the front seat driving the same drive from Ojinaga to Maijoma. The sunlight overexposed the views from our car. I was trying to remember. To think about what she could have been thinking. Was it about how when you leave Ojinaga, it feels like you’re leaving civilization behind? A road off the highway leads to more and more unserved roads, until it feels like you’re driving along paths that don’t quite feel tended by any definitive entity but rather forged by the repeated treks of a select people, going to visit family.”

— Maijoma, My Sister