Slow Ride

Santa Fe celebrates lowrider culture as art

“I can remember being 3 years old and hanging out in the backseat of my parents’ lowrider,” Orlando Martinez Jr. says as he glances with a certain kind of love at his beautifully customized 1983 Monte Carlo. Martinez, a security guard at the New Mexico History Museum and lifelong lowrider, has graciously allowed his car to be exhibited in Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods, the first in a pair of exhibits curated between the New Mexico History Museum and the New Mexico Museum of Art that will run throughout the spring and into the fall. He refers to the vehicle as “my baby” and lights up at the very mention of the thing.

"Or," he continues reminiscing, "I would cruise with my uncles when I was young. I always liked the attention. I couldn't wait until I got my first car."

This is an idea shared across generations of lowrider folk and a desire that has existed at the core of an automotive and artistic history that spans back nearly a hundred years. Within the world of cars, both classic and contemporary, no style is more synonymous with New Mexican Hispano society than the lowrider, a word insiders use to describe both the cars themselves and the people who drive them. A culturally ingrained holdover from movements that occurred in Southern California, Arizona, Texas, Mexico and New Mexico, the art of dropping cars dates back to the 1930s zoot suit era, a Chicano-led automotive response to the Anglo world of hotrods that favored stylish luxury over the utilitarian stripping-down of cars to maximize speed. The lowrider became the ultimate entrance, the supreme statement.

In the days before World War II, the pachucos—a term coined to describe young men embedded in zoot suit or car culture—would lower their cars by placing sandbags in the trunk with boards over the top to obscure them, but in a post-WWII economy that found returning vets with more money in their pockets and one of the strongest economic eras in US history, experimentalism and customization became paramount. Sandbags were old-fashioned, and the melting or chopping of suspension coils was the hot new thing; the culture was mutating.

"There's this level of complex engineering and artistry, and these people have always been resourceful," says Carmella Padilla, author of the 1999 book Low 'n Slow: Lowriding in New Mexico. "It's something that depicts the landscape of their lives in this significantly creative and cultural way."

In the early days of lowrider culture, first-generation Chicanos who had moved to larger cities in search of work and in pursuit of the American dream tended to stick to their own specific neighborhoods, surely a racially charged necessity at the time. But as their children pushed out into the world and broke through more borders, inroads were made and subcultures were cross-pollinated. It was, perhaps, a desire to also prove they had means that also led lowriders to begin tricking out their Chevys—the preferred car due to its easier- and cheaper-to-customize possibilities. Not only would the pachucos ride in luxury, they'd have the opportunity to lure the ladies into their cars through social peacocking. Over time, their personal styles would become flashy, but through their cars, they retained the means to show off a level of flamboyant creativity. Lowriders were ornate and glamorous carriages, and the minimal approach to hot rods simply could not compete.

By the 1950s and '60s, the pachucos had begun the cruise, an informal gathering that found them moving in circular formations around various city blocks. Anytime you travel anywhere in a lowrider, you are technically "cruising," but these loosely structured gatherings rolled from Miami to Los Angeles, but nowhere was greater than the cruise on LA's Whittier Boulevard. It was the natural evolution of the paseo, a Mexican tradition wherein young men and women would gather together to walk in concentric circles past one another and flirt.

"They would meet in the plazas to socialize," Padilla says. "It was like a mating ritual."

Even Santa Fe had its own cruise, which would run along Alameda Street and around the Plaza, but the concept of customizing one's conveyance as a statement of uniqueness or to garner attention, right down to its minute details, spans back to Spanish colonialism and beyond.

"The entire culture is based around these rituals and an American love affair with the car, but as far as the design aesthetic, you can look to what Spanish settlers were doing to decorate their horses hundreds of years ago; I'm sure there were even soldiers in ancient times at Carthage who would deck out their shields to express who they were when they went into battle," New Mexico History Museum photo curator Daniel Kosharek tells SFR.

Kosharek's exhibit at the New Mexico History Museum is the first of a fleet of exhibitions this spring in the same vein. Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods explores the culture of New Mexico residents, car clubs, families and their cars through dozens of photos, video pieces and several cars parked right inside the museum halls. It's a fascinating exhibit that not only serves to proudly display one of the most prevalent and artistically important pieces of New Mexican history, but also defuses misconceptions about the culture itself.

Kosharek says, "There's this silly preconception that these are all bad guys, but if you ask me, that's profiling."

The uninformed notion that lowrider culture was born of thugs and gangsters and continues to be a respite for such dubious characters is disputed by the simple fact that the foundation lies more within the realm of familial bond, artistic expression and, in many cases, religious iconography. This isn't to say there aren't rough edges in the world of lowrider cars, rather that they're a smaller faction within a much broader spectrum. According to Katherine Ware, photo curator for the New Mexico Museum of Art's upcoming exhibit, Con Cariño, "There's almost this outlaw feel to some of the people, although 'outlier' might be more appropriate."

Bi-Sickle! Bi-Sickle!

For some lowrider fans, it’ll be several years until they can even learn to drive, but they’ve developed an interesting workaround that is an artform in its own right—the lowrider bike. At Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods, you’ll find a pair of custom bikes conceived and built by Brandon and Benjamin Sandoval. The brothers from Española, aged 11 and 14, respectively, have won nearly a dozen bike competitions at car shows in New Mexico and Texas between the two of them, and Brandon’s lime-green “limo bike” is actually the first of its kind. Their father, Ben Sandoval, who runs the Española YMCA Teen Center, says his kids get offers all the time from people who want to either use their designs or just buy the bikes outright.

“We just wanted to get into the culture, and it was a way to do that,” the younger Sandoval says.

“Yeah,” his brother agrees. “There were all these car shows happening in Española, and I’ve always wanted to get into a car, but the bikes are cheaper to build and more portable. … You don’t need a trailer to get them around.”

Benjamin provided a mini-tour of how he customized his orange trike. The frame itself is what they call “twisted,” and many of the decorative adornments are “birdcaged,” a sort of open ball of twisted metal that resembles their namesake. Everything down to the spokes and cosmetic additions is considered and customized.

“The judges at shows give points to everything so, like, we’ll get extra points for the chrome stuff and the birdcaging and the twisted stuff,” Benjamin points out. His trike even boasts a fully functional sound system, which he says he’ll use while cruising or even at car shows when he’s showing his handiwork.

The limo bike was much more work, according to young Brandon. He also says it’s taken him and his dad about four years from start to finish, due to the project becoming bigger than they had planned.

“It was almost like building two bikes at the same time,” he says. “But we like seeing the bike shows at car shows, and I feel good that people like our bikes.”

The entire process speaks volumes about the familial bonds formed during lowrider projects. Ben Sandoval is clearly proud of his kids.

“We raised them to have good values and to work hard,” he boasts. “We’ve been approached by car clubs to join, but that’s not really for us.”

“Our car club is our family,” Benjamin adds.

And though the term "outlaw" does convey a certain apt romanticism, the motivations for car customization are as varied as the people themselves, and to dismiss outright the entire movement as gang-centric would be utterly irresponsible.

Martinez now owns four cars, though none, he says, can compare to his Monte Carlo that's on display in Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods. It is breathtaking, right down to its smallest parts. Albuquerque-based lowrider artist Rob Vanderslice envisioned and executed the complex paintjob, and custom engravings from Dallas' Emmanuel Barrera adorn everything from the handles to the mirrors and sideboards and even the locks. Martinez describes the plush black and crimson interior as "keeping it old-school," and a 10-switch hydraulics system installed by Española hydraulics master PJ Montoya makes the car dance; after all, what's getting low if the car doesn't rise up too? "I'm still doing little things to it here and there, though," he says. "It's hard to say if you're ever really finished." Martinez notes that he and his crew of friends, family and artists have put nearly eight years of work into the car, adding up to nearly $40,000 in costs. "You lose track of the hours you put in, and these things take a lot of time because they're expensive, yeah, but it isn't like there's some lowrider store or a lowrider parts catalog," Martinez says. "You've gotta get 'em where you can."

Of course, this perfectly encapsulates the artistry at the heart of the culture. Car science can be applied to a point, but it isn't as if there's some easy-to-follow guide for customization. This makes the pervasive professional look feel all the more impressive and is a testament to the almost obsessive nature displayed by these people, but it also means that the last several generations of lowriders can be more appropriately described as artists rather than just car guys.

"The thing that always struck me about these cars was in how you can view them more as art objects," photographer Jack Parsons tells SFR. "I love the idea of taking a piece of Americana, like a Chevy or Ford, and repurposing it artistically."

Parsons, who worked with writer Padilla to provide the photos for Low 'n Slow, has been photographing the art of lowriders since 1993.

"I started out with an interest in this guy named Randy Martinez, who was this incredible airbrush artist up in Chimayó," he says. "He would take me to see the various cars he'd painted, and I got to thinking I could photograph more than just his projects, so I started getting passed around to all these different lowrider guys."

Parsons' body of work differs from the usual fare found in trade magazines, in that he shunned the car show circuit in favor of probing the more rural areas of the state. He was interested in the artwork, yes, but his focal point became more about the landscapes and the people rather than just the cars.

"In a town like this, where everyone is either an artist or selling art, it was so refreshing to me that it wasn't commercial and that the Anglos couldn't co-opt it," he says wryly. "Though it is a bit of a bridge between cultures, in that it can become about the car and the work and the art, and these aren't ethnic things, they're human things."

Martinez agrees.

"You could see some scary-looking dude all covered in tattoos, but ask him about his car, and you've got a friend for life."

The art aspect even extends beyond the automotive, with no shortage of acclaimed artists and creators drawing inspiration from lowrider culture. And though we might describe artists like Rob Vanderslice or Emmanuel Barrera as craftspeople who can (and should) be celebrated for their own unique contributions, people like Luis Tapia (who also happens to be Carmella Padilla's husband, further proving the lowrider world is all about family) provide a glimpse into the ways in which the culture has impacted their lives on a more personal level.

Tapia works in several mediums, such as paint and wood and woodcarving, and even has a spectacular piece in the permanent collection of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque called "A Slice of American Pie," which depicts his reflections on Santa Fe in a style akin to prison tattoos. Running along the side of a 1963 Cadillac chopped in half length-wise, it is gorgeous, a microcosm of decidedly New Mexican influences and ephemera. In the Con Cariño exhibit, however, Tapia will show what he calls a "dashboard altar." "Santa Cruz" is a carved representation of the view from inside a lowrider, rife with incredible details such as santos, a radio, glovebox, speedometer, a beer bottle and more. The windshield itself is an acrylic painted depiction of the world outside the car; the view of West San Francisco Street facing St. Francis Cathedral and the rearview mirror features a subtle skeletal passenger, perhaps a sly nod to Posada.

"What sparked it was my mom's old Chevy, which wasn't a lowrider, but I can remember being in the backseat and looking forward, and she had these santos on the dashboard," Tapia recalls. "If you really take your time and look around here, you'll notice altars on dashboards everywhere. I wanted to capture that, and I chose bright colors because religion is a festive thing for me, and I wanted to get that across."

Tapia estimates it took him nearly four months to complete "Santa Cruz," which is an excellent companion piece to his other carving in the exhibit, "Northern New Mexico Woody," a scale model of the iconic wood-paneled American car.

"I was never a lowrider myself, but I was raised alongside them," Tapia reminisces. "For me, the culture says that the actual cars themselves are a canvas, the only difference is they're mechanical."

For artist Art Lopez, a sculptor and painter who follows in Tapia’s footsteps (while forging his own signature style, informed by his own tastes as well as tradition), the use of religious and lowrider imagery in his work is about sense of place.

"I'm using older materials and pigments to represent the saints and religious iconography, but with contemporary methods," he states. "I want for the artwork to work on its own, but to also honor the car itself."

Both Tapia and Lopez can be described as what one would call a santero, a Spanish word that literally translates to "pious" but is assigned colloquially to artists who work with representations of saints and religious themes.

"I would say I'm more faithful than religious," Lopez says of himself. "But this stuff, the religious element and how it can apply to the cars, are very important to these people."

"Important" is the operative word. For those who live and breathe lowrider culture, it becomes a way of life rather than mere hobby. Thus, exhibits like Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods and Con Cariño are surely a celebration of the culture and artistry, but also vindicating events that prove society at large is ready to jettison its misguided prejudices.

"We're always out to break that stereotype that we're bad guys," Martinez tells SFR as he beams with pride beside his baby inside the History Museum. "For me, lowrider culture opens up opportunity for artists, and it can strengthen families. You'll meet people where their father were lowriders or their grandfathers; it's a lifestyle, for sure, and I know I'm always gonna be lowriding."

The Details

NOW >> 2017

Lowriders, Hoppers and Hot Rods runs through March 5, 2017, at the New Mexico History Museum (113 Lincoln Ave., 476-5200) and contains photos from Jack Parsons, Don Usner, Meridel Rubenstein and others, plus actual cars, hydraulics information and more. Photo curator Daniel Kosharek states that the show also serves to kick off the museum’s lowrider archive initiative. “When I was looking around for photos and such, I was shocked that there was no kind of archive of this culture anywhere,” Kosharek tells SFR. Since the project started getting airtime, he says he’s been approached by a number of other photographers who want their work included in the archive.

MAY 20 >> OCT 10

Con Cariño runs May 20 through Oct. 10 at the New Mexico Museum of Art (107 W Palace Ave., 476-5072) and features works by Luis Tapia, Rose B Simpson, Art Lopez and more. Also included will be lowrider piñata creations from Los Angeles artist Justin Favela, who will teach a workshop on creating them, plus new paintings from nomadic Chicano/lowrider artist El Moises and many more surprises. “[Lowrider] art is a key part of the art and culture of the Southwest,” curator Katherine Ware tells SFR. “We wanted to depict how artists react to the world of lowrider and to show how embedded in Southwestern culture it all is.”

MAY 22

Lowrider Day in New Mexico begins at 11 am Sunday, May 22, and will feature a procession of over 130 lowrider cars making their way from Fort Marcy Park (490 Bishop’s Lodge Road), around the Plaza and then to Lincoln Avenue, between both museums. There will be a special hydraulics exhibition, tons of car talk and more. Mayor Javier Gonzales will declare May 22 as Lowrider Day in Santa Fe, and Gov. Susana Martinez has done the same for the state. SFR will be there to document the haps via Instagram @sfreporter with special guest posters, including the mayor.

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