In this Episode of Art is Awesome, Host Emily Wilson spends time with Oakland based multidisciplinary artist & educator Alma Landeta.
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area.
On this Episode, Emily chats with Alma Landeta, an artist whose work centers on queer and trans representation. Alma shares their background, including their education at the Maryland Institute, their move to Oakland, and current residency at the Palo Alto Art Center. They discuss their unique approach to portraiture, aiming to build a reflective relationship with their subjects. The episode also highlights Alma’s involvement in the LGBTQAI+ community through various projects, including a mural at the San Francisco LGBT center and a show at the Bakersfield Museum of Art. Alma reflects on their inspirations, upbringing, and the significant impact of an influential college teacher. Alma also shares insights on their journey towards embracing their identity as an artist and how they aim to provide hope and comfort to marginalized communities through their work.
About Artist Alma Landeta:
Alma Landeta (they/them) is a mixed-race, Cuban American, queer multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work seeks to build community through the exploration of intersectional identities. They make art about the importance of bodily autonomy for queer and trans people through drawings, paintings, and installations.
Landeta received a Masters of Arts from MICA. They have shown work nationally and internationally through solo exhibitions, group shows, and artist residencies. Alma was the 2022 Homebody Fellow at Ma's House, and 2020-2022 Latinx Teaching Artist Fellow at Root Division. They sit on the Board of Directors as Studio Artist Representative for Root Division.
Visit Alma's Website: StudioLandeta.com
Follow Alma on Instagram: @Alma.Landeta
For more info on Alma's exhibits: Resonantly Me and the 2024 King Artist Residency
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About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:
Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women’s Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.
Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil
Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast
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CREDITS:
Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson.
Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions.
For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com
EP031 - Alma Landeta
Host Emily Wilson: [00:00:00] Art is Awesome can now be heard on KSFP 102. 5 FM every Friday at 9 a. m. and 7 p. m. Please follow the show and rate us wherever you get your podcast media. If you like what you hear from today's artist, you can find links and information about them in our show notes.
Artist Alma Landeta: Oh wow, like, I get to bring this to a place where I know that there is some closeted queer youth who will just see this and have, I don't know what I'm looking at, but I know what I'm looking at, kind of feeling that I certainly had at different points. And I wish I would have had way more of
Host Emily Wilson: Welcome to Art is Awesome. I'm your host, Emily Wilson. I'm a writer in San Francisco, often covering the arts, and I've been meeting such great people that I created this bi weekly [00:01:00] podcast to highlight their work.
Alma Landeta grew up in Tampa, Florida, and got a Master of Arts at the Maryland Institute. They moved to Oakland in 2011, and they have shown work nationally and internationally. Alma was a teaching artist at San Francisco's Root Division, and they sit on the board there. They also teach high school art, and last year Alma did a mural, Joy is the Fuel for the San Francisco LGBT center. Currently Alma is the artist in residence at the Palo Alto Art Center. They have a studio, a stipend, and at the end of the year, they'll have an installation at King Plaza in front of City Hall. We met at their studio there right before an open house.
And Alma told me about their intention to hold up a mirror for trans and queer people focusing on joy And their mother drawing a mural of the 101 [00:02:00] Dalmatians on the wall when Alma was a kid. Alma told me when they saw the call for the King Artist Residency, at first, they weren't sure about applying.
Artist Alma Landeta: I've been in the Bay Area since 2011, and I think For a long time, it felt like, well, this isn't my home, this isn't my place to insert myself in that way, I should let other artists do that. Obviously, a lot of time has passed since 2011, but even beyond the time piece, it was more just a mind shift of like, oh, okay, not only can I do this, but actually, I feel a call to do this, I feel excited about doing it.
Yeah, I guess seeing that it was a project that they were looking for an artist who wanted to work with the community around a particular topic relating to, which of course is broad, but diversity, equity, and inclusion, I put in, put in my application.
Host Emily Wilson: Alma does portraits, but not in a typical way. They work with the [00:03:00]people they're painting, checking in to find out what they'd like to see.
Artist Alma Landeta: I've been working on this project of these, you know, I'm just kind of loosely calling it this trans portrait project. And with that, I've been working with individuals to co construct these portraits. It's really important to me that their voice be involved in that, that they feel like a co author of the piece, and so there's a lot of back and forth and dialogue with it.
Host Emily Wilson: Alma thinks portraits have power.
Artist Alma Landeta: For me, growing up as a mixed race, queer, and trans person, I didn't see a lot of reflections of myself. And I think this can be a major pain point for a lot of queer and trans people, as well as mixed race people and people just from quote unquote marginalized backgrounds, right, where there's not as much of that representation.
Host Emily Wilson: Before the residency, Alma looked into some data about mental health in Palo Alto. It was alarming and startling.
Artist Alma Landeta: I believe the statistics, this was from a 2019 report, were something like 25 percent of [00:04:00] LGBTQAI plus individuals in Palo Alto had, had some suicidal ideations and it went up to closer to 50 percent for those who identified as trans specifically.
In their proposal, Alma talked about what portraits can do. This portrait project, I talked about how I felt really strongly that being able to hold space for folks to work with me through portraits, but also to have space to celebrate their queer and trans identities, to have those be reflected in moments of joy, could be really powerful.To provide those kinds of mirrors for people felt like something that I was really excited to be able to share.
Host Emily Wilson: Alma has been learning about organizations in Palo Alto. They went to a Pride event at a senior center.
Artist Alma Landeta: I was just so tickled to be in a room with all of these queer and trans elders to hear about their lived experiences here.
It was just, it was so very sweet. And With that, it's just, you know, I went and I was on a panel and I spoke with Ken Yeager, who actually is [00:05:00] pictured here, who was one of the first openly gay political leaders here in Silicon Valley, and was a big proponent of working against Proposition 64 and fighting against that, stigmatizing LGBTQIA plus individuals, and really just was instrumental in making a lot of, like, law.
So he was on the panel as well and getting to talk with him and getting to hear from other people in the room who had lived here, grown up here. Some folks who had only recently come out, actually. These are folks, you know, in their 60s and 70s.
Artist Alma Landeta: I also make it a point to talk about my work, who I am, the kind of questions I'm asking in my project, and with that, it was really sweet because there were a few folks who came up to me at the end of the workshop and just wanted to share like, hey, I'm trans, or hey, I'm gay, or hey, I had one woman who was so sweet.She was wearing this like rainbow jewel necklace and she held it up to me and she kind of was like, whispering, like, Oh, I'm an ally, you know, it's like, okay, yes, we love the [00:06:00] allies. Like say it loud and proud.
Host Emily Wilson: There's also an audio element to what Alma's doing.
Artist Alma Landeta: Another kind of outreach that I've started is this thing called the Queeries hotline, which I'm just so tickled by.
It feels like this retro kind of like concept of leaving a voicemail and sharing your story. It's just a Google voice, right? So people can call this number. Or text and just share an anonymous story, right? So it could be anything that they want to share. The prompt is, what is something that you would want residents of Palo Alto to know about your experiences as an LGBTQAI plus person of this community?
And so I'm getting to hear some stories through that, which have been kind of bittersweet. You know, there's um, A lot of, really, a lot of beauty, a lot of joy in these lived experiences, and a lot of hardships.
Host Emily Wilson: Alma's mother was a creative person.
Artist Alma Landeta: She was a single mom, literally doing the most, all the time, like putting herself through school, working, taking care of me, and [00:07:00] Somehow, she still would find time to bring so much beautiful art into my life.
And one of my earliest memories of this with her was, I remember she took Sharpies, just little, little Sharpies and drew on my bedroom wall, 101 Dalmatians, like just to kind of like beautify the space. Right. And so I remember the first like big mural job that I got and I called her and I was like, mommy, I remember like you made murals. Did you know that those were murals?
Host Emily Wilson: As a kid, Alma liked making art, but didn't see a lot in galleries or museums. A teacher in college made a big impact.
Artist Alma Landeta: I loved drawing. I was always like making cards for my mom for just like random whatever. But I probably was doing that because I saw her doing things like that.And she would make me these like really elaborate drawings for like my birthday. She would make the decorations. She would make all kinds of, she was just very creative. So certainly like that was my first exposure. But then it was, it was like, In [00:08:00] undergrad, I was a terrible student. It's a miracle I graduated high school and like got into college.
I very much was checked out. And so I was in this foundation course in a state school in Florida that I remember. Being in this one class, it was fine arts requirement, right? I didn't, I didn't choose it, but it was like, oh, you have to take this for this, like, general whatever. And I ended up in this photo class that had a dark room, and I was mystified.
I was just so in awe, so excited to be there. It was probably the first time I had ever had that feeling of, oh, I'm invested. Like, I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna not only show up, but I'm gonna try, which is a new concept for me as a student. And I think part of that was also because of the teacher that I had.
He would write us, every assignment we turned in, he would give us back a multi page crit. Like we'd have critique in class, but then he would write out like multiple turn the page [00:09:00] written narrative assessments that were like, I felt really seen, you know, I was like, Oh, okay. Like he cares. So I have to rise to that occasion.
And so that was it. I was like, Hey mom, I'm, I know what I'm going to study. I'm going to study art. And she was at first like, Oh God, no, like this is not a real job, but I think more than anything, she was just like, great. You're going to finish college. Cool. Like that's, that's, that's what matters.
Host Emily Wilson: Along with the Palo Alto residency, Alma has work in an exhibition at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, Resonantly Me, curated by Victor Gonzalez.
Artist Alma Landeta: It's a show of 40 artists, all who identify as LGBTQAI plus in some way, who responded to this prompt of Resonantly Me. Right? And so the curator, Victor, was really wanting artists to think about how they identify are making work as a queer person and not necessarily that that work is explicitly queer, right, that it's going to be this like rainbow flag or whatever, right, but [00:10:00] that there's nuance in it.
And I think for him, he was particularly interested in that as someone who was born and raised in Bakersfield, is still a huge community member, an openly queer person himself, and really a big proponent of creating and holding more spaces for LGBTQAI plus in a pretty conservative place. Alma and Victor chose two paintings for the show.
Ultimately, we decided on these portrait pieces that one was someone from the transgender district and one was a self portrait that I had done just before undergoing some gender affirming surgeries. He was really struck by those pieces, I think, because of the, you know, the human connection, the, the, the sense of, like, seeing, these queer bodies, these queer people in a place kind of taking up that space and this, this way of maybe creating a reflection for somebody who, who might need to see themselves reflected in that way.
Host Emily Wilson: Alma is glad to have their work in Bakersfield, which reminds them of their hometown.
Artist Alma Landeta: My family is Cuban [00:11:00] American, but I grew up in Tampa, Florida, and so I was surrounded by a really beautiful, there's a, there's a big Caribbean community in, in Tampa, in West Tampa specifically. And I also was really recognizing all the ways that I don't know if I knew it at the time. But I needed to get out of there. And I think my family even saw that in a lot of ways where they were like, Oh, I was still very closeted at the time, but I'm sure folks were just like, Oh, this queer kid needs to get out of Florida. Right. And so I ended up in, in the Bay Area and I. You know, going back home, it's, it's this kind of like, it's been a dance and I've only just recently been able to like really come into that space and really come as my whole self.
Host Emily Wilson: Alma hopes that the portraits will offer hope and comfort, especially to young people.
Artist Alma Landeta: To go somewhere like Bakersfield, that has so much in common with a lot of the conservative viewpoints of where I grew up, felt really exciting. It felt like, oh wow, like I get to bring [00:12:00] this to a place where I know that there is some closeted queer youth who, We'll just see this and have like a whoa, like, I don't know what I'm looking at, but I know what I'm looking at kind of feeling that I certainly had at different points, and I wish I would have had way more of
Host Emily Wilson: This is the part of the show, Three Questions, where I ask the artists the same three questions every episode. The questions are, when did you know you were an artist? What's some work that's made an impact on you? And what's the most creatively inspiring place in the Bay Area? Alma mentions an archive of queer Cuban history that had a big impact on her.The name of the person who started that archive is Librada Gonzalez Fernandez.
Artist Alma Landeta: Man, when did I know I was an artist? Honestly, it's taken me a while because I, [00:13:00] I was an artist when I was that little kid making those cards for my mom, but I could not take on that identity. I, I knew I was an artist when I had to show up for my students in that way. I think that, that has been a big piece of it for me of like being, being an educator, working with young artists. I have to own that so that I can show them that they need to own that.
I feel really excited what I'm seeing more and more, and I'm seeing this happen a lot where maybe it's because, you know, we, what is that saying, you know, when you're looking for something, then it comes and finds you or whatever. But the ways I'm seeing queer artists, specifically queer and trans artists, take the time to archive our lived experiences and our queer and trans histories feels amazing.
Really exciting to me. I recently got to meet with an artist, I would say, and an archivist who's working on the Cubanecuir Archive that's happening there. This idea of taking the time to really look at the [00:14:00] history that is there that we were denied.
The most creatively inspiring space in the Bay Area, I would say, for me, is the ocean. Like, getting to live out at the edge of the world, as I like to think about it, is incredible. And I feel like there's so many amazing galleries, so many amazing museums and spaces to get to experience the art and the vibrant community that we have here, and I think for me and my nervous system, I like often have to go to the ocean and spend time just being, being in and near water to kind of let all of that process for me.
Host Emily Wilson: Thank you to our guest. For the rest of the year, they are a [00:15:00] resident artist at the Palo Alto Public Art Program, and they have work in the show, Resonantly Me, at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, on view through September 7th. And thank you so much for listening to Art is Awesome. Please follow the show, and if you like, rate and review it.
Join us next time when the guest is Margo Norton, the Chief Curator at the Berkeley Art Museum, And Pacific Film Archive, Margo has been working on a show to exalt the ephemeral that opens at the museum in August.
Art is Awesome is a bi weekly podcast coming out every other Tuesday. It's created and hosted by me, Emily Wilson. It is produced and edited by Charlene Gotu of Gotu Productions. [00:16:00] It's carried on KSFP, LP 1 0 2 0.5 FM San Francisco on Fridays at 9:00 AM and 7:00 PM Our theme music is provided by Kevin McLeod with Incomp Tech Music.
Be sure and follow us on Instagram at Art is Awesome podcast or visit our website till next [00:17:00]time.