Since the 1970s, Self Help Graphics & Art has combined community, collaboration and activism, all centering on Chicanx and Latinx art. What started in the East L.A. garage of Sister Karen Boccalero has turned into a cornerstone art movement in Los Angeles — a place that has nurtured some of the city’s most successful Latinx artists.

As it marks its 50th anniversary next month, Self Help Graphics has chosen Jennifer Cuevas to lead the organization. Cuevas, who served as a communications consultant since 2017, will become executive director Sept. 5. The appointment follows the departure of Betty Avila, who’d held the post since 2018.

Cuevas first learned about Self Help Graphics in the late 1990s. As collectives like Mujeres de Maiz were forming, and music acts like Quetzal and Ozomatli were rising to prominence, Cuevas started thinking about multidisciplinary art and activism. She previously worked with the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, has held posts as cultural arts producer and is chief executive-founder of Jenerate Media, a small boutique media agency.

The hire comes as the center embarks on a $14-million capital campaign to renovate its building on 1st Street in Boyle Heights. The center will remain closed during the two-year renovation, with programming continuing at local venues, including its signature Día de los Muertos event in November, this time at the East L.A. Civic Center.

We spoke with Cuevas about the new role she will play in the legacy and future of Self Help Graphics. The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The 50th anniversary of Self Help Graphics is being marked by a number of celebrations and exhibitions this year. What are your thoughts on the next 50 years?

I’m absolutely thinking about the mark that we’ll leave in this generation and how that’s going to impact the future generations of Self Help Graphics… I’m also thinking about the renovation of our building. A few years ago, we were able to purchase the building. We’ve been able to pay off the mortgage, and that was under the leadership of former Executive Director Betty Avila, who I worked with very closely over the last several years. And now that we’re in a moment where our team is working remotely and we are about to embark on this renovation, I am thinking about how we are creating a home that will hopefully live for the next 100 years and more.

A Day of the Dead altar at Self Help Graphics & Art in 2019.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

In an interview you did with former Executive Director Betty Avila, you mentioned that there are a lot of intergenerational interactions and information sharing at Self Help Graphics. How have you seen that evolve over the years?

One of the things that makes Self Help Graphic so special is that you have an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning in different stages of your career. You might have more seasoned artists that are training or working alongside young artists. Or you might have opportunities where the youth is teaching some of the older artists about different techniques.

A great example of that [intergenerational experience] is master altar maker Ofelia Esparza. She came as an adult in the early 1980s to Self Help Graphics and participated as an altar maker with Sister Karen. She brought her children and then her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren. She’s a perfect example of somebody who has continued to foster arts and teaching and learning from the top down and the bottom up.

What are some major lessons you’ve taken away from Self Help Graphics over the years?

The organization has experienced tumult over the decades of its existence. As somebody who comes from that communications and storytelling lens, it’s really important to continue to tell our story. It’s important to leave behind and share the programmatic work.

Some years back, when there was some conflating around art washing, some of the things we discovered in our own evaluation and internal reflection as an organization is that we weren’t really sharing how much work we were doing in terms of advocacy, in terms of living those values. We were doing the work behind the scenes, but we weren’t really great about sharing how we’re activating those very important pieces publicly.

If you look at the organization now, we are literally investing in youth, and we are doing a lot of programmatic and engagement work through our youth artivism programs. It was a really important lesson for us to continue to communicate and to continue to stay engaged. It’s not enough to just pop up and do a workshop. We need to connect with our community.

A mural by Kalli Arte Collective adorns a wall at Self Help Graphics & Art in Boyle Heights. The building has been closed for renovation.

(Sarahi Apaez / For De Los)

When you’re not busy, how do you nurture your own creativity?

I love to put my hands in dirt. I love landscaping. It’s a skill and something I learned from my maternal grandfather, Domingo. He really taught me that no matter what’s going on, no matter what life is throwing at you, you can just get into the garden and just let it go… The other thing is I love music. It was one of my first loves in the arts. I worked the first decade in my career in the music industry. I represented artists who were from all over the world… I’ve always got to have a little music in the background to keep me focused.

What are your hopes for the next generation of creative Latinx folks who might be thinking, “I want to be able to contribute to the cultural landscape of L.A.”?

One of the things I’m learning from this next generation, particularly Gen Z, is that they don’t shrink themselves. They come into a space, they take up space, and they’re fully authentic… I would say to the next generation: Continue to take up space, continue to be authentic, have your cultural pride, speak your languages and keep your Indigenous names. Just stay rooted in who you are, and don’t let people shrink you.

My generation comes from a different workforce, where you had to be a little bit more streamlined or you had to work until you were completely exhausted. We’re coming into an age where health and wellness is absolutely vital to not just your personal space but also to your workspace… I definitely believe that this next generation is going to save us in a lot of ways. And I’m continuing to learn and stay open and coachable myself.

Recinos is an arts and culture journalist and creative nonfiction writer based in Los Angeles. She is the creator of Notes From Eva, a free monthly newsletter for creatives.

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LOS ANGELES — Founded 50 years ago in the East Los Angeles garage of Franciscan nun Sister Karen Boccalero, Self Help Graphics & Art (SHG) established itself in the ensuing decades as a vital and vibrant community-focused arts space and printmaking studio. Now, a series of exhibitions staged over the coming months will contextualize the organization’s history and legacy, delving deep into different aspects of its cultural and social resonance.

The inaugural show Marking an Era: Celebrating Self Help Graphics & Art at 50 opened last month at the Laguna Art Museum, one of the first institutions to acquire a significant number of prints made by artists at SHG. In 1992, the museum purchased 170 works spanning the first decade of the SHG’s Professional Printmaking Program (PPP). Curated by Rochelle Steiner, the exhibition features 78 works, one by each artist in the acquisition. Rather than organize it chronologically, Steiner grouped the works thematically, with loose sections devoted to hybridity and immigration, art history, the body, portraiture, war, AIDS, and urbanism.

Sister Karen Boccalero (1978) (photo courtesy Self Help Graphics & Art)

Self Help Graphics & Art emerged alongside the Chicano Movement of the early 1970s as an important hub for Latinx and Chicanx artists at a time when they were still fighting for art-world visibility. In 1974, SHG brought arts education to the streets with the Barrio Mobile Art Studio, a van offering printmaking workshops in local communities. The previous year, they began an annual Día de los Muertos Celebration, bringing art, music, and performance together in recognition of the holiday with Indigenous roots that is widely observed in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.

Although printmaking has always been a central focus of the organization, SHG wanted to create a more formal program, and in 1983, the PPP was born. Every year, SHG hosts two ateliers for five to seven artists who work with a master printer to create serigraphs and monoprints. The initiative is ongoing, with more than 2,000 editions produced to date. Marking an Era highlights a dynamic period in the early years of the PPP, showcasing the experimental spirit and technical growth that took place over the course of the decade.

Barbara Carrasco, “Self-Portrait” (1984), 17-color serigraph, 40 x 28 inches, and Diane Gamboa, “Malathion Baby” (1990), 13-color serigraph, 50 x 38 inches (photo Matt Stromberg/Hyperallergic)

The works in the show embody a remarkable diversity and breadth. Some express a boisterous energy, such as “Cruising Turtle Island” (1986) by Gilbert “Magu” Luján and Yreina Cervántez’s “Danza Ocelotl/Ocelotl Dance” (1983), which both reinterpret Indigenous themes. Other artists employ photo-based techniques, as with Jean LaMarr’s “Some Kind of Buckaroo” (1990), which depicts fighter jets streaking across a purple sky above a brown-skinned cowboy, and Elizabeth Rodriguez’s stark untitled 1986 body print serigraph. An edgy, postmodern-Punk aesthetic is visible in several works: John Valadez’s untitled 1985 screenprint in vibrating orange, purple, and green; Barbara Carrasco’s cartoonish 1984 “Self Portrait”; and Victor Ochoa’s humorous depiction of literal fractured identities, “Border Bingo/Lotería Fronteriza” (1987).

Patssi Valdez, “The Dressing Table” (1988), 12-color serigraph, 37 1/2 x 25 inches (image courtesy the Laguna Art Museum)

Marvella Muro, director of Artistic Programs at SHG, emphasized that the organization has also served as a resource for a broader population of LA artists and people of color. “It has empowered Chicanx communities, but not exclusively,” Muro told Hyperallergic. “That’s what I want to elevate. It’s a multi-cultural space.”

Steiner added that it was important to frame the show in the context of other formative print houses in the region, such as Gemini GEL and Tamarind Press. “There’s a whole other story here about the history of printmaking in LA, of which SHG is an anchor point,” she said.

SHG is in the midst of a multi-million dollar renovation to their current 112-year-old building, purchased in 2018, and is operating from remote offices during construction; however, the group is still running programs like the Barrio Mobile Art Studio, Día de los Muertos Celebration, and an upcoming biennial printmaking summit to be held at the Vincent Price Art Museum on September 9. While the building is being updated and retrofitted, these four offsite exhibitions offer an opportunity to revisit and reassess its history on its 50th anniversary.

Glenna Avila, “Untitled” (1986), serigraph, 25 x 38 1/4 inches (image courtesy the Laguna Art Museum)

The second exhibition in the series, In the Heart of It, opening at the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center at the Los Angeles LGBT Center on November 18, focuses on the community of LGBTQ+ artists who have worked with and thrived at SHG. Sister Karen, who studied under Sister Corita Kent, an influential and progressive nun in LA who fused art and activism, founded SHG alongside artists Frank Hernández, Antonio Ibáñez, and Carlos Bueno, the latter two of whom were longtime partners who often signed each others’ work.

“I would do some pretty radical stuff, and she would just nod her head like, ‘oh, brother,’” said curator Ruben Esparza, who was invited to create a series of prints at SHG in the mid-1990s. The exhibition will feature about 20 artists including Ibáñez, Bueno, Teddy Sandoval, Joey Terrill, Laura Aguilar, and Miguel Angel Reyes.

Teddy Sandoval, “Angel Baby” (1995), silkscreen print (image courtesy Self Help Graphics & Art)

Los de Abajo/Monográfico, the third show, will focus on a collective that formed in the basement of SHG in the late ’90s. Members including Victor Rosas, Marianne Sadowski, Kay Brown, Don Newton, and Poli Marichal combined their prints to create large-scale collaborations. The exhibition, running from March 2 to April 27 at the Long Beach City College Gallery, speaks to the communal aspect of the space and the connections it fostered between artists.

The final show, titled The Re-membering Generation, will highlight the synergy between art and the East LA music scene that took place in the mid-1990s. During this period, musicians and bands including Quetzal, Ozomatli, and the Aztlan Underground formed a new movement that drew from Chicano history and culture, inspired by the Zapatista struggle for Indigenous rights in Mexico. Curated by musician and historian Quetzal Flores, the exhibition will feature archival works alongside new prints being created during the current PPP atelier that pairs musicians from this period with visual artists. It will be held at the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College next spring.

While these four exhibitions offer historical perspectives on Self Help Graphics & Art, they also provide views of an organization that is still alive and generative.

“These works look as fresh today as they did then. These are issues that we’re still interested in, it’s absolutely relevant terrain,” Steiner said. “We should look at them with wide-open eyes.”

Gilbert “Magu” Luján, “Cruising Turtle Island” (1986), 12-color serigraph, 25 x 38 1/4 inches (photo Matt Stromberg/Hyperallergic)

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