Carmen professes that in America she was teased by classmates for her race, but accepted it as normal at the time because it was how things always were. Yet in Guadalajara, she also felt out of place, even performing simple tasks like ordering breakfast. “In LA, I’m used to: ‘Okay, can I get a Number Three?’ Everything written on the menu, this impersonal dynamic. Over in Guadalajara, it was: ‘How do you want your eggs? Do you want ham? What kind of ham?’ It’s a whole conversation. Every interaction is a lot more personal, and I became aware of my own anxiety.” Today in Los Angeles, she connects. “Back in LA, I’m Mexican, but I’m also very LA... my taste, my consumer habits – everything ends up being very LA.”
Through her artwork, Carmen articulates these deeply personal overtones – her own search for belonging, her parents’ translation of their Mexican heritage, and how these change across different settings. This brings her to architecture. “There are spaces in-between the spaces, and a lot of those are the spaces that we carry with us; architecture is very much separate from the structure. Although it’s informed by structure, architecture stays within us, our minds, and experiences.”
And to aspiring artists, Carmen declares, “continue to go where you want to go. Try not to see even your success as an endpoint, but as a beginning to new spaces you want to go. And work from something that’s real to you – it has to be sustainable. Can you do this for the rest of your life, and how? What are you after? What are you trying to say, and is it one thing, or is it a search? You ask yourself that over and over, and it changes as you continue to do.”