The Three Sisters Collective, the Alas de Agua Art Collective, the International Folk Art Museum and Amapolay Manufacturas Autonomas, an art collective from Lima, Peru, all came together. Not just to bring a bright spot of color to the Southside, but for a larger mission aimed at uniting the Indigenous, Chicano, Latino and Hispanic communities and their allies. The International Folk Art Museum connected Amapolay with the local collectives, provided the supplies and and paid the artists for their work.
“What we have is a jaguar that represents the land and it goes through with love. And this snake that’s going through is going to be like a path. Because the path from Peru to Santa Fe has been a sacred path for millions of years and people have just been walking it forever,” Granillo tells SFR. “And so it’s prevalent with the border issue to show some of the things that we’re dealing with by being oppressed or marginalized voices… So the snake changes from Peru into Taos Pueblo style.”
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“The serpent is found in all Meso-American and American indigenous cultures. So whether it’s down south in Quetzalcoatl or up in the northern Pueblos; you see it in a lot of our Pueblo pottery designs and textile designs,” Castro says. “We ran the serpent through and then each section like ours will have Pueblo motif… That’s an altar, the steps and then corn is sacred to all indigenous cultures in the Americas. And then we pray for and do ceremony for rain for the crops and the continuation of that agrarian lifestyle that we love.”
"We're focusing on borders and seeds, not just the literal seeds that you plant in the ground even though that's something we want to focus on, the natural, but also the seeds that you're planning in the community. When I get the kids out of Monte del Sol to come mentor with us, when we get the kids from probation or the kids that have issues or marginalized in a sense, we get them in here and we plant the seed, the idea that community wants you and community loves you," Granillo says. "The eagle itself on the end is for women's marginalized voices and the sky. The jaguar was the land. Then you have the path and then you have the sky for direction. Three different collectives working as one. You get a little bit of flavor from every single thing. But throughout all of our cultures we have a lot of the same iconography."
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“The Southside itself has been looked over… People on the Southside don’t have much other than a library and Swan Park,” Granillo says. “If the kids can walk by and see this or they drive by every day going to school maybe it will spark something inside them. Plus it beautifies this area because a lot of this area is a little more run down than the rest of the city.”
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