INTERVIEW: LILIANA WILSON

December 2, 2017

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On her early life and move to Austin...

Sofia Shapiro (SS): Could you tell me what the Latino art community was like when you moved there?
Liliana Wilson (LW): When I got there, I had no idea what the community was like because I wasn’t a part of it… There also wasn’t really a decision to move because I was kind of out of my mind trying to escape the dictatorship in Chile, so there was no decision. I was just going on impulse pretty much.

The second question was better because I’ve always been creating art. I’ve been drawing since I was eight years old, but I would never call myself an artist. That was just something I did. Those labels are allowed to happen to you when you’re in a completely different situation. Especially if you’re a woman from Latin America. One of the comments that I would get from people when I would draw, they would say, “Who do you think you are? You think you’re Picasso?” Like, “How dare you? How dare you, a woman, be creating?”

SS: Do you still get comments like that?
LW: No, not any more. I’m older so people wouldn’t dare. I truly don’t think I could have decided to be an artist in Chile because the economics are so dire. Most of the artists in Chile were either upper class or really starving because there was no way to make a living from being an artist.

SS: In Chile, compared to Austin, was being an artist a sign of rebellion or protest or of being left wing?
LW: I didn’t think I was going to be an artist. I went to law school so I never thought of myself as an artist. Being an artist in Chile is is not that different from being an artist in Austin.

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On the various interpretations of her artworks...

SS: You describe your art as realities colliding on multiple levels and I was wondering what influenced this? What was your inspiration for this?
LW: Actually, that was not a definition that I came up with, someone gave it to me and I liked it. Most of the times the way that I create has a lot less to do with thinking. Basically, I’m thinking about something --- I have an idea --- and it has much more to do with aesthetics than intellect. For example, I have a picture of a boy or a girl holding something and that can help me give a gesture to a body and make it work. Then I’ll be looking at work or doing a sketch with someone holding a boat in their hands or standing with a bamboo stick in their hands, then I’ll find someone that will pose for me.

I’ve been doing a lot of work about journeys and the journeys of immigrants. I’m interested in the idea of people in transition. I’ve been doing a lot of work about white dresses that are transparent. That’s because I do a lot of children and the white dress looks like purity and innocence. A lot of the friends that I have that have kids here dress their kids like that. I like how they look and then I use that as inspiration. A lot of these kids have parents that are undocumented so I’m going to send a message through them in the image. But mostly I come up with the story afterwards because I’m just trying to create something that I like that is related to the journey. I have this really great piece of two little girls holding hands in a boat, its called “La Norte” and they’re both wearing red dresses. It’s really a beautiful piece, but I really wanted the two little girls in the boat like a game, like a toy boat, but it’s not a toy boat, it’s reality. That might be the multiple realities colliding, but I don’t think about it like that. I like the idea of realities, the reality that they are children, the reality that they might be going to the U.S., the reality that they may be escaping sex slavery, the reality that they may just be playing in their backyard. I’m trying to be more honest with what I’m doing. I don’t say I’m going to do a piece about this and that, I don’t work like that. I think about images and complementary colors. I also love to do texture, which is why I like doing boats. I can do the texture of the boat and the water. The explanations are much more about scene than thinking. I used to have a professor that would say, “Your job is not to think, your job is to see.”

On her career as an artist and exhibiting her work...

SS: Can most Latina artists in Austin make their living doing art?
LW: No, not even me. Half my money is coming from art and half is coming from design. Not even I can say that I make all my living out of my art. There’s people that definitely do, but it just depends who embraces you. With me it’s kind of hard because I have a lot of people that support me and that helps me, but a lot of people that like my work cannot afford it. It’s very, very difficult.

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SS: What is your experience exhibiting your art in Austin?
LW: I was invited to show at a mainstream gallery in Austin. This woman has a great gallery and sometimes I wish I would have gone that way, but ultimately I have a commitment to the people that help me. When I met Cynthia I wasn’t showing at all, but she invited me to show at La Peña. Because my art was so precious to me I said, “Look, I cannot show it because if anyone says anything negative about it it’s going to destroy me so I can’t do it.” But finally she convinced me and I had a show at the restaurant. La Pena at the time was showing the work that they promoted in a restaurant in Las Manitas, so I started showing there and it was really nice because a lot of people started liking my work and then I started doing shows in San Antonio and San Francisco so I started showing all over the place through them. So now I feel a deep responsibility because they helped me so much. Now I do the same in suggesting them artists and sending over artists for them. This woman who wanted to buy my work said let’s go, so I went to her gallery and she said “I want you to show at my gallery, but if you show at my gallery, you can’t show anywhere else.” And I said, “Well, I can’t not show at La Peña.” So I said Ok, let me think about it, but finally I said no I can’t do this because I felt like I needed to be there. The other thing is that I don’t really like rejection, I’m sure people feel the same, but especially I’ve had a hard time with that so I don’t really apply to things, I wait for people to come over. I don’t suggest that it’s a great idea at all because I could have access to people with a lot more means than I do now. I need to start showing in other places because I want to spend more time doing my work than doing other stuff. Also, I live very frugally and that’s a thing that has helped, but I would like to do more work. So I will start applying to other galleries and other places because I think it would be helpful.

SS: Do all galleries have that restriction?
LW: Yes and they kind of have to because they’re trying to make it too. I believe they’re right, they need to have exclusivity because they’ll have artists show at their gallery and then also show at a nonprofit for free so all the people go there… I’m not complaining at all about it, I just think it is a reality. I probably should’ve made a bigger effort to show more places. I always get invited, I just had an exhibit at Notre Dame University. If I could just apply it would be much easier. I should probably do a lot of things that I just don’t do. I’m so much more interested in creating the work that I just don’t want to bother with the other stuff. And that’s problematic because it kind of limits you. I have people that buy the work just to have it, but then it doesn’t get seen. I don’t want to seem ungrateful to her, but then the work doesn’t get seen, I have to borrow it before I give it to her so I can take it to a couple of places. The good thing about that is I don’t have to split my paintings – the price of it – in half, I just get the whole thing.

SS: When you do things like the East Austin Studio tour do you always collaborate with other artists?
LW: Always. I did it one time alone, but it’s just not great at all. First of all, as an artist, I really like working alone, I don’t really like working with other people. I think it’s just too complicated. But in the cases where we do this, we do it once a year for two weekends in a row and it’s absolutely great because we get to hang out together and talk and we kind of work together for the show...I like being an artist because I can just put my work and leave and I don’t even have to be there when people show up. It’s not like a musician where you have to be in front of the people. Presentation is not even my favorite thing to do. It is nice sometimes, like when I do a PowerPoint at a university and I explain each piece, but that’s okay because it’s just me talking about my work. Actually, even talking in public is not something that I really like. To be an artist you have to be a little bit of a loner. I have to say that I really enjoy those weekends with all the people being around. It’s like a team effort and I really enjoyed that… I have a friend of mine that I work with and he’s really good in color and technique… and so I’ve learned a lot from him. Normally now when I work I go take the piece and they look at it and they go, “Think about this, think about that,” and I do the same with their pieces. That’s the part of doing art that I like, that I get to create with somebody else’s eye, with an artist that’s doing the same thing and they’re as dedicated as I am so we can look at each other’s work. It’s kind of like an editor for a writer.

SS: Are the artists that you work and collaborate with also Latino?
LW: Yes, all of them. We kind of have that it common and the art that we create is not similar at all, it’s very different, but there’s something that is similar. And everybody speaks Spanish so that’s not a problem for anybody. You’re just more comfortable.

SS: Do you get a lot of people from your neighborhood now showing up at the gallery?
LW: No, most of the people are there to see the studio tour. The East [Austin Studio Tour] puts out a catalogue and they see it and they like what we’re doing so they come to see it.

SS: What do you do in your art to get people [to show up at the gallery]?
LW: I don’t really change anything, its pretty much what I do, but this year I created this piece of a boy on a unicycle, it’s a really good piece, one of my best pieces. He’s wearing a red shirt, it’s a happy piece actually. I listened to this music from this Swedish band called Winter Garden and I loved their music so much that I started doing a drawing. I did this really hopeful, magic piece and I knew it would be a piece that would attract people. It was just so beautiful.

SS: Is there anything else that you want to mention or feel that I should include?
LW: Well I just want to say how grateful I am to La Peña because they were just so important to me. There’s a book on my work that was published in Texas A&M Press and the way that I got to that was definitely through La Peña, with the connections that they had and people that understood what I was doing. So I got in front of their eyes only because of La Peña, especially Cynthia. She’s just so supportive of women and all Latina artists. For them it’s not about making money, because most of them don’t make a lot of money, it’s just to do this. They get grants, but its not like they’re making a lot of money. They finance La Peña alone and get paid very little because they believe in the project so much. It’s just about art. Not just visual art, but music and writing and poetry. They were so supportive to me that I just want to say that.

On her friendship with Gloria Anzaldúa…

SS: We were doing a google search and we found that Gloria Anzaldúa wrote a piece about your art!
LW: Yes, she did, I was a very good friend of hers. I met her through Cynthia—I’m not a very sociable person, most of the time that I’m painting I don’t really want to be socializing. Cynthia called me said I have a friend and brought her over, she came over with Gloria and Gloria loved my work. The next thing she did was invite me to an artists in residency in Saratoga, California, at this place where they do residences. I was with her for 5 weeks… and that’s when I became friends with her. After that, me and my partner moved to San Francisco. I visited once and week and she kind of changed my view of the world because she was so positive and so smart. We were not that much of a difference in age, but she was so advanced in her thinking and ways that it totally went over my head. At the time, her vision was incredible. Anyway, I became really good friends with her and she wrote a two page article [on my work] and gave it to me. That became part of my book at Texas A&M, the book is called La Offrenda. I had ten people writing, major Latino artists. It all comes back to La Peña because they put me in touch with all of these people, even Gloria. The fact that she had written about my work made my work important. She was always very respectful. She loved my work, I had no idea why, but she did… Gloria was seeing her theory coming out in my work. I was already doing the work, but she was able to see [the theory] in it. She analyzed it incredible ways.