Objects of Connection: The current art gallery exhibition features works of art and personal artifacts from Latino students and local artists

The second exhibit of the art gallery titled “Objetos De Conexión” is open until Dec. 20. Meaning Objects of Connection, this exhibition includes works of art and personal artifacts from Latino students and local artists.

From quinceañera dresses to magnets, each artifact tells a story about Latino heritage and shows how East students celebrate their own cultures. 

Highlighted in this package are local artists Miguel Rivera and Cesar Lopez who were contacted by art teacher Adam Finkelston while he taught at the Kansas City Art Institute. 

The gallery is open during seminar, after school and by appointment through Finkelston. You can find the gallery in Room 225 in the art hallway.

As then-sophomore Eva Galicia’s father changed her tennis shoes to heels and her grandmother switched her small tiara for an even larger one, she sat in a large chair in the center of the dance floor at her quinceañera and imagined her symbolic transition from girl to woman.

Her quinceañera — which took a year of planning — was an important part of her culture and her transition into becoming an adult. 

But the celebration wasn’t complete without her dress — a long, sparkly silver and blue gown that she picked out with her mom and her grandma six months prior.

 “I just want [people] to realize how big and extreme quince dresses are,” Galicia said. “For prom, you just wear [a] dress but it’s not as elegant and as pretty and huge as quinceañera dresses. And I think it’s really important that [people realize] we take this really seriously and we think that it’s something very important for women to go through.”

The dress was the centerpiece of her celebration. Picking out the dress with her mom and grandma was a special experience for her, and the dress itself represented cultural identity: reflecting Galicia’s individuality as she stepped into a pivotal moment in her life. It also went along with the theme of her quinceañera: a starry night. She wanted a dress that looked like it was glowing at night.

“I think it’s really significant to pick [the dress] out with your grandmother or your mother because it just kind of bonds you guys together,” Galicia said. 

Now-senior Galicia has submitted her dress to the “Objetos De Conexión” art gallery — allowing other students, teachers and faculty members to learn more about her culture.

While Galicia doesn’t think she’d pick the same dress if she had her quinceañera now, it’s still a significant and enjoyable memory for her.

“It’s definitely something I would have picked when I was 15,” Galicia said. “But I still love it. I was really happy that night and [the dress] still is something that’s significant to me.”

After graduating from the University of Guanajuato in Mexico, local artist Miguel Rivera attended his first printmaking conference at the University of Athens in Ohio.

There, Rivera met people from all over the world spanning from Argentina to Poland. Everyone shared his love for printmaking — a passion that started at age 7 when he helped his older brother make prints out of square stone flats by keeping the material wet with a sponge.

“Printmaking is a family in the truest sense,” Rivera said. “When you get to know people, nothing is a competition. Nobody hates you for what you do. I have some sculpture and painting friends, and there’s this rivalry and competition. But with printmaking, you share what you know. It’s a very giving community, that’s why I love it.”

Rivera’s piece in “Objetos De Conexión” is a mixed media on wood titled “In Between III.” He was inspired by author Charles Mann’s colorful descriptions of foods being transferred from place to place in his novel “1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created.”

“The Irish took the potatoes from Peru to Ireland,” Rivera said. “Chocolate ended up in Switzerland and they started making these fancy chocolates. He talks about the colors. And when [Charles Mann] describes all this, I started to use the color of his materials to illustrate this energy that I see.”

Before creating “In Between III” in 2017, Rivera joined the Southern Graphics Council — the largest print organization in North America — to hear from peers about the art of printmaking. Through the council, Rivera attends trade shows where he exchanges portfolios and meets people that introduce him to other artists. He’s traveled to Romania, Poland, China, Argentina, Mexico and Japan to meet with printmakers.

“I talked to a teacher, and he knew that I had possibilities to do something with my art,” Rivera said. “But he knew that if I stayed in Mexico, it wouldn’t be the same thing. You have to travel somewhere else to get the credentials and degree. It’s a very common pattern when you look at art history. Mark Rothko was a Russian immigrant and Picaso was a Spanish immigrant.”

Rivera is currently the Department Chair of Printmaking at the Kansas City Art Institute where he teaches printmaking, runs the budget and organizes events. He met art teacher Adam Finkelston when Finkelston was a student at KCAI and later invited him to teach in the printmaking department. 

Rivera has also picked up using computers — like Xerox machines and routers used for engraving — to add a digital layer to his prints. In fact, “In Between III” started as a block of wood that Rivera carved into and then laser engraved the image on.

When working on a piece, Rivera makes layer after layer with laser engravers, vinyl cutters and CNC routers.

“Think of a pancake in which every color that I drop is one pancake,” Rivera said. “When I laser, I cut part of the first pancake and reveal the color of the second pancake and then the third and the fourth.”

Local artist Cesar Lopez has always been a tinkerer, continuously messing with “doodads and trinkets” with the intention of creating something new. The art form closest to this habit was sculpting.

“I kind of fell into the art [of sculpting], but in [grade] school, my interest was in sports, math and science,” Lopez said. “So I’m trying to make the sculptures that I make now to be like that, which is why I like the idea of technology.”

Lopez’s additions to the gallery — three aluminum sculptures — are based on his interest in technology and creating sculptures that resemble machines. He used anodized aluminum — a process where an electric current is run through aluminum underwater to create a durable finish and change its color. It’s the same process used to change the color of an iPhone.

“It’s a really wonderful finish when you see it on a computer, or on just about anything else,” Lopez said. “People make furniture with that stuff, too. But it’s the visual language that’s very specific to technology. And that’s why I’m interested in it.”

Lopez emigrated from Guatemala when he was 10. The first year, he’d regulatory doze off at school after being forced to repeat third grade due to school years not matching up in Guatemala and the United States.

“I remember being really bored because I had already done some of the stuff,” Lopez said. “Also since I didn’t speak English, I remember not understanding anyone or anything, so I just slept the whole time.”

Lopez quickly picked up English at his school in Carthage, Missouri and later attended the Kansas City Art Institute to pursue painting. There, he met art professor and East art teacher Adam Finkelston. 

“I was forced to take a class outside my department in order to complete my degree,” Lopez said. “So I said, ‘Give me the closest thing to painting that you can give me’ and they gave me [Finkelston’s] class.”

Lopez earned his fine arts degree in 2019 and is now able to create his own projects on his own time. He transitioned from painting to sculpting and has a website to showcase his artwork. In a few years, he plans to travel to a larger city to attend graduate school and earn his masters degree.