Oral history interview with Carmen Lomas Garza
name: label: Interviewee
content: Garza, Carmen Lomas
label: Interviewer
content: Karlstrom, Paul J.
label: Names
content: Galería de la Raza (San Francisco, Calif.)
topic: label: Occupation
content: Painters -- California
label: Topic
content: Latino and Latin American artists
label: Topic
content: Chicano artists
label: Topic
content: Chicano art movement
label: Topic
content: Chicano movement
label: Topic
content: Women artists
label: Topic
content: Women painters
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators. Funding for the interview received from a donation to AAA from the Los Angeles women's art organization Double X.
creator: label: Interviewee
content: Garza, Carmen Lomas
label: Interviewer
content: Karlstrom, Paul J.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Carmen Lomas Garza (1948-) is a painter from California.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 5 Sound cassettes (Sound recording (4 hrs.), analog)
label: Extent
content: 122 Pages (Transcript)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1997 Apr. 10-May 27
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.garza97
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Sound cassettes
label: Type
content: Pages
label: Type
content: Sound recordings
label: Type
content: Interviews
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sound recordings
label: Genre/Form
content: Interviews
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: An interview of Carmen Lomas Garza conducted 1997 Apr. 10-May 27, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art.
label: Scope and Contents
content: Lomas Garza discusses her working environment at Hunter Point Shipyard, a former naval facility on San Francisco Bay, near Candlestick Park, occupied by artists and small businesses; growing up in Kingsville, Tex., near Corpus Christi; her education at Texas A and I University (now Texas A and M) and graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in art education (1969); her activism in the Chicano movement during her college years; joining the farm workers march in Kingsville in 1965; installing an art show for MAYO (Mexican Workers Youth Organization) conference in 1969; the impact upon her of MAYO's walkout at Robstown High School, Tex., while she was a student teacher there, in protest of the lack of Mexican American teachers and curriculum; joining Galeria de La Raza in San Francisco, 1976, while a graduate student at Washington State University and the effect it had on the development of her career as an artist; the inspiration of her mother, who painted "lotteria tablas" (figures on boards; game cards); her interest in children's art; using family experiences for her "monitos" or "little figures" (cards painted with sets of fifteen numbers); and preserving her Mexican-American traditions as a basis for her identity.