“Y
ou’re here because you want to teach
right?” And I said, “Well yeah, that’ll bring me some
security.” But he responded, “Well, if they respond
to you as an artist you’re still going to be okay. But
this (not painting my passion) isn’t going to take you
anywhere.” So I went back to doing what I liked and
began being invited to shows. Eventually, I won the
Bellevue Art Show.
Now here’s something funny. A lot of critics said
the same thing about my art back then; they didn’t
understand it or like it. But years later at the
Bainbridge Island Museum — I was showing there
for my retrospective — those same critics said I was
amazing! *LOL!* It’s poetic justice. It felt so good.
M.J.: Nice. So did you ever become a teacher?
Arreguin: No. I managed to get my MFA then I
spent the next three years sending in applications to
be a professor. I got one offer in El Paso, Texas but
thought no way am I going to leave Seattle for El
Paso, you know? So I decided I’m going to have to
really work hard and try to make it (as an artist).
M.J.: And you did. What was your first big break?
Arreguin: A Mexican museum opened up in San
Francisco. It used to be a shoe store and had two
wings. The Director and Founder, Peter Rodriguez,
called me and said, “We’d like to show some of your
work.” I was so excited! He told me the left wing is
Mexican artists the right is Chicano. “Which one are
you?” he asked. I said I really didn’t know and he
asked me how long I’d been in the U.S. When I said
18 years he said, “Then you are Chicano.” Which is
silly!
Andrew Connors, the curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum
of American Art, noticed my work. He came to visit me in Seattle and
recommended I send a few slides of my work to the museum. Well, the
director fell in love with my triptych “Sueno” and purchased it for their
I’ve been battling with identity all my life, you know? permanent collection. Another of my paintings, “The Return to Aztlán”
The funny thing is, when I’m in Mexico they think I’m is now also on permanent display at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait
an American but the minute I’m in the U.S. I become Gallery and thousands of people see my paintings every day!
a Mexican.
M.J.: Amazing! What do you do for inspiration?
M.J.: Either way, your success continued.
Arreguin: I get up early to walk and take pictures every morning. I love
Arreguin: Yes. When I first started gaining success, a nature and seeing all the wonderful plants and animals. It brings me peace.
man from Washington, D.C. — David Schaff — chose It’s the trigger that puts me in the situation to paint. It’s a great inspiration
me along with two others to represent America at the for me. That habit is what allows me to enter into my paintings. When I
International Festival of Painting in Cagnes-sur-Mer, paint it’s sort of like meditating, then all of a sudden all of these things start
France. My painting won the Palm of People Award. pouring onto the canvas, so it’s a lot of unconscious things that happen.
Later, my paintings were included in the Chicano Art I think the mission of art is to connect us. I was in an elevator once when a
Resistance and Affirmation exhibition. The biggest
woman told me she brought a friend who was suffering depression to see my
showing of Chicano art at the time, it was touring the retrospective show.
United States.
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ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE