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ARTS
Sisterhood and Shared Practices with Samantha Vo and Yaritza Flores Bustos
Interview by Andrea Quinto and Anitah Imani Photos by Marina Luz Reyes
Styling by Dennay King
Hair by Priscilla Urrutia
Yaritza Flores Bustos:I think something that I've always stuck to is that it's a way for me to honor where I come from and where I've grown up and the people that inhabit those places. It's a meditation in many ways. It feels like ceremony, devotional in many aspects. And it's a practice that is rooted in healing and intention.
I would say my mediums range, I know that I'm predominantly known for working with ceramics, because that's what I've been working with most in the past few years. But prior to this, I was working with a lot of found materials. It's kind of the direction that I'm going back to currently, and I'll always work with clay. It's a driving force for me, and it's been very necessary for my practice. And I think my development as a person, and as an artist. My mediums range, so I wouldn't ever consider myself just a ceramics artist. I would always just say I'm a multimedia artist or interdisciplinary.
AQ: And what would you say are those things that you're trying to heal. Where are the things that you're interested in?
YFB: In order to fully understand my practice and how I approach it, where I come from is huge. I was born in Mexico. I was born in Michoacán, Mexico, and I migrated to the states when I was two, and I've lived in Phoenix my whole life, ever since migrating. But for a large portion of my life I was undocumented, and I now have temporary protection through a program called DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival. So my understanding of land, and mobility as a whole, and navigation, and really every aspect of my life is completely altered because of my status and because of this decision made to migrate. My parents wholeheartedly believed in a future for us all, so much so that we left our home and all that comes with it. They did this so my sibling and I could have a better life and more opportunities, and so that they could also have a better life. But there's always just been this disconnect to the land here, and so a lot of my work is tied to that. It’s tied to only knowing things at a distance because of my status.
AQ: How has the topic of being a migrant figuring out trans border relationships evolved in your career?
YFB: I grew up in Maryvale, on the west side of Phoenix. Ever since we migrated, we lived on the West side. Maryvale is predominantly a migrant community. I've never felt othered for who I am, or have felt out of place in any way, because I grew up around people that were experiencing the same thing that I was, so I never felt less than. In many ways, I didn't feel that way. There's moments that I look to and I remember where I realize how my identity was being shaped, or how my understanding of life here is being shaped. But I never felt like who I was, was “wrong”. Until you start to learn the language being developed or utilized to perceive us as a whole. But Maryvale, for me, was everything, and it still is. And so the current work that I do, and the figurative work that I've been attending to, is about Maryvale. It's about the only home that I've ever really known, not because I wanted it that way, but because that's how it's been, because I haven't had the ability to go back home and learn and experience where I come from and who I am because of it.
Anitah Imani: And you Sam, Where are you from?
Samantho Vo: I'm from a city called Chula Vista, and it's a border town. It has a high population of immigrants. It's where my family crossed from Tijuana to San Diego, where we lived most of our lives. I think I experienced “community" in the same ways that a lot of people from Maryvale experienced, and I definitely felt the same sense of care.
AI: What intrigues me a lot about your work is just the fluidity at which you move through different mediums. What makes you gravitate towards using the textiles and materials that you're using, and what presently are you being drawn to?
SV: With textiles, I'm really drawn to the fact that we interact with them every day, and that it is such an accessible thing. And I think within all mediums, in textile anyone can learn these things. I don't think there's this natural born talent you have to have to work with this material. And I like the idea that anyone can do this and that we already have so much history with it every day. So that has always kind of been my interest in textiles.
Prior to working with textiles, I was much more digital, heavy printmaking, working on papers, and I just felt I needed something more tangible. Works on walls just wasn't cutting it for me, so it felt natural to pivot. Kind of start printing on textiles, and then from there, exploring the material more and seeing what it can do. And kind of working backwards, because I was just working with fabric, printing on fabric, and now weaving it. It's definitely a gateway thing, with textiles. You start with one thing, and then you're crocheting and weaving and doing five different things within that.
AI: You have been a textile and printmaking artist here for a couple years, and your residency with CALA Alliance came pretty recently, so just tell me a little bit about what that has been like for you, the community that it’s brought you to, and what you're working on as a part of it.
SV: Thank you. It's been a really wonderful experience. And I think with any residency I do, or any opportunity I kind of end up pivoting from things that I already know and know how to do, and kind of use it as a way to challenge myself to try new things, which has been my introduction to working with metal and steel, learning welding and becoming more of a sculptor. I suppose I was doing that with textiles, but this is definitely making the work have more body than before. CALA has been really amazing in offering me the opportunity and resources to be able to do that and explore, and I think also giving me grace to adapt and shape shift. The more things that I learn or research, I end up pivoting so everything's an in the moment process for me, and I think they've been really supportive of that. And in those ways, I think that would help me grow more than kind of going in with an idea and sticking to that,, and not trying to challenge myself outside of those. Outside of the things that I already know how to do. They've been so gracious and supportive.
AI: How's it been for you, learning new material to work with?
SV: It's been fun, it's been challenging. With my practice in general, learning new things allows me to see how much further they can be pushed, and kind of understanding different types of mediums allows me to bridge things even further than they already were. I've had a lot of great teachers and people that have been instructing me on how to do these things. So I'm also really grateful for that, it just feels like the right moment to learn these things.
AI: The basket weaving that you're currently doing, that I'm looking at right now, is really beautiful and intricate. And there was another project that you have, it's an ongoing series, the nets that you work with as well. Are you planning to continue to explore that body of work?
SV: I feel like it just has kind of evolved. I think the idea behind the nets was just more so the theme of containment and carriers, and so i think that has gravitated towards the baskets, towards like textiles that hold things. I recently read the carrier bag theory of fiction.
It's basically the theory that baskets were the earliest cultural device and have been more impactful to society than kind of the more heroic country stories that we know. Not necessarily more impactful, but they should be just as impactful, and we should know these stories as well and how baskets and the idea of containment functions also within a more inner and emotional world. So I think that is kind of my overall arc for the nets, and just kind of exploring further how else that looks like different materials.
AI: For you Yari, what is something you’re currently working on or working towards?
YFB: I'm pivoting, still making ceramic work, and I still will do that forever, and I want to, and I feel like I have a lot of questions too that I want to answer and to deepen. So it's always gonna be part of my practice. But that big sculpture is the direction that I'm going in. Again, going back to the bootleg, I always think about swap meets and sites for gathering and exchange. And so this is something that I've been thinking through, what feels like my whole life. And now I feel in my power and ready to work through it. It's been a very beautiful but also very difficult year. And so I think, going back again to that question of the administration and my work, and do I feel as though my work is challenging what is going on? I think this will tend to that a little more, and I think it's a little bit more head on. It's always going to be focused on joy and resilience and the beautiful ways that we hold each other and protect each other, because that's what's guided me and what's allowed me to continue in life for so long and with my practice. But it's not as easy to digest as a sculpture. It's really hard for me to go back to this type of work because I was doing it for a while. But it's also hard for me to live the life that I do, and be confronted with all of these policy changes, and hearing what's going on with ICE and the raids and really, everything going on in the world is hard. And then to also think about that in my practice, and to feel like I'm not escaping it. That's why I pivoted to my ceramic work, and started making these vessels that are a little bit more silly and playful, because I wanted to have fun when I was making things, and I didn't want to feel a huge burden or a huge weight to address what is going on. But I feel that because of who I am, I don't have any other choice.
It's not like I was rejecting that. I think my work still deals with those things, but I think my ceramic work is just easier to navigate for folks because, you can look at it and you wouldn't necessarily know what community it's invested in, and that's something that could easily be worked around. It's not something that will be in your face. But if you see blue tarps, you start thinking about what these things mean, like why is that? And so I think it confronts people with these questions and their place within all of this, a little quicker than something like my ceramic sculpture.
AQ: You've done solo art projects, but you've also done community projects, like “Down For Mines”, or Labor. How has that informed your aspirations for the future and currently, such as the community work that you've done so far?
YFB: I don't think any part of who I am would ever feel content if I didn't invest my time in the people and the places that hold me. I think I've been very lucky and had a lot of privileges in that I've always felt very supported and cared for and looked after. And I would never be where I'm at had my parents not made the decision to leave. And that was never easy for them, and it still is never going to be easy. It's hard every day. It's something that we kind of reckon with on a day to day basis, and some days it feels heavier, and some days it feels a little bit more manageable and something that we can navigate.
But our success, or I would rather say, our survival has been possible because of the community that we've established. Because of that, I couldn't ever imagine not wanting to give back or to do my share of setting or continuing the work that they've done.
AQ: Has there been a specific project that you've been working on in terms of continuing that?
YFB: Everything that we've done with Labor, for sure, was that materialized in the most beautiful way. We held it at the Maryvale Community Center. I would go there every day after school, and that's where I would wait for my parents to pick me up after school. Instead of going home, my brother would go to the basketball court, which is where the event was. And then I would be in the library or in the community center where they had board games and stuff. But I spent the majority of my youth there.
And to go back as an adult and know what I lacked and be able to give that is still something that I don't have the language to fully explain. I think just being able to do that felt like an answered prayer in many ways.
Labor isn’t on a hiatus or anything, but we want to move forward with intention and integrity and for everything that we do, to be fully worked and thought out. So it's taken some time. It was also a huge undertaking that we did. Immediately after that, I had the “Down for Mines” show with Antonio, so I was a little burnt out. We still talked and we're still planning things, but again we want to move forward with intention. We don't ever want to fall short of what we know we're capable of.
AI: I want you to briefly reflect on your most recent show in New Mexico. Would love to know how that opportunity came about, but also would love to give you the opportunity to talk about the pieces that you showed.
YFB: I am constantly embraced by angels and just very protected in all aspects.
It was at Gerald Peters, but they had guest curators, Ninabah Winton and Erin Joyce, Ninabah reached out to me. My angel. All of the works from DFM went to that show, which felt like a really good opportunity for the pieces to experience new landscapes and to have new people meet them. My sculptures are for sure people to me. They hold spirit and they have deep intentions. And it's always really special to know that people get to witness them in other places, and relate to them, or identify things that I've put into them. That's how it happened.
The works were up for less than a month. It was really special. All my girls went, it was my first time in New Mexico, first time for many of us in New Mexico. It was a family outing. My parents can't come with me to a lot of my opportunities because of their status. I felt very cared for, just very honored that these are my sisters, and that they wanted to come and be there for me.
YFB: Yeah, it was my second time showing outside of Phoenix. I had shown in LA, but this felt very intentional and the curators were outstanding, and all the works in the gallery were beautiful. There was such a necessary conversation, between all the works that I think wouldn't have happened otherwise. The space was gorgeous. It's one of the most beautiful places that my work has ever been. And then I was able to really speak on why I do what I do, even within a five minute conversation. But it was one of the most amazing opportunities I've had, and I feel like I'm still receiving gifts from that. And there's just a lot underway, because of that show. When I tell you that I feel like I'm living my dreams, I really am, and it feels very surreal. I just think about telling my little self you're doing that. You’re doing it.
AQ: So in an interview that you did with LVL3, you were talking about the sacredness that you have in the studio, and it's really cool that you have this here right now. But there was this sense of wanting to protect it a little bit, maybe talk about the importance of this space.
YFB: So our previous studio was my first ever studio, and Sam's first ever studio. And prior to So our previous studio was my first studio, and Sam's first studio, ever. And prior to that, I only ever worked in institutions as a student, and I had a lot of access to studio spaces through institutions. But I've always also had to be confronted with being pushed out of spaces, so this was my first time having something of my own.
Because of that I wanted to hold it near and dear. I navigate my work in that way too. And I'm trying to unlearn not sharing my work prior to it being fully finished. A fear that evil intentions, ill intentions will be put onto the work. So I think because of that, because of how hard I've worked to have a space of my own, I wanted it to just be sacred and something that I let people into. It's not something that everybody has access to.
AI: I wanted to touch on your friendship with Sam. How did it come to be that you guys are in a studio space together?
YFB: I got a grant, and I was working on bigger works, working towards that, and I didn't have space anywhere to work on that. And it was also a pivot within my practice. So I wanted a place where I could dedicate myself to that new body of work. I put feelers out, and Sam and I have known each other for a while, by being in orbit with each other, through Palabra and Futuro, which is how we met.
AI: That place connects so many artists in the city. But I didn't know that's how you guys met, because that's how I met her, too.
YFB: I was working there for a bit, for a while. We'd always just be in community together. We shared a lot of laughs and slowly started getting closer, relating to each or seeing ourselves within each other.
She had just gotten a studio, and she told me that there was another space open in the building, and I went to go look at it, but I wasn't convinced. And then she said, ‘What if we share? I was like ‘I'm down.’ Yeah, it kind of just went from there. Our studio got damaged because of the rains, so then we moved out, but this space popped up and this is everything on the list that we wanted.
AI: So this is your second space together, technically? Was that after that huge rainstorm we had this past summer?
YFB: Yea I would say this was around June. I started looking, and this one popped up. I think the following week we signed the lease, but it happened really fast, and it just felt very serendipitous in many ways, and destined. We both really found ourselves in this space. We've really made it our own. And it just really feels like a studio, it feels like a safe space. Coming in here feels so different compared to our other one.
AI: How has working together contributed to what you're working on right now. Have you guys started to inform each other's works?
YFB: Yeah, 100%. I mean Sam's like my sister. I love her so much, and I feel so lucky to be able to share space with her, and to co-create and to have our friends come over. I think that space was also necessary, because we also learned that we needed to invest in ourselves fully, in order to really go forth with our practices. You'll find the space to make no matter what you want to do, but just thinking about our previous studio in comparison to this, this just feels so much more light and we could be here all day. It doesn’t feel like we've been working hard, but it just feels really tender. I don't know how else to describe it.
The first day that we were in the studio together, we were in there for probably five hours straight, just talking about what we were thinking of, and what we wanted to make, and what we wanted to accomplish. And I don't think I've ever aligned so much with somebody and dreamed. It feels really special. I'm endlessly grateful to have her in my life and to come in here, and for us to play and create alongside each other and world build. It's sacred.
SV: It’s been a relationship I think that has marked such a pivotal time in my life. I think Beyond friendship, but I feel such a strong sisterhood connection with her. I think that we're both so different and also the same in so many ways, and I think we grew up in the same kind of love and care and this kind of community, and so we're able to share that and know each other in that way. And that's such an intimate thing, to really know and interact with someone. So it's been maybe the easiest thing I've ever done, share a studio with her and build our relationship. I think we both motivate each other so much and also are able to give each other the space to be vulnerable and to express our fears, express the parts of making that no one really sees. I think everyone sees the finished product or the successes of being an artist, but not the kind of turbulence that goes into doing these things. And to think that I was going through that alone prior to this is so crazy to me. I don't even know how I’d manage. And I mean, I didn't work for a long time, very little. And since our relationship, it's been such an energy booster to feel more confident to do so. I think that it's important to have community and friendships that you can share that with, especially if you're a creator or a maker of anything. We don't talk enough about the emotional aspect of art making, and it's hard. It's such a privilege to be an artist, but it does take a lot from you know, it comes from your heart, and we’re so sensitive about our things.
I think our friendship in the studio has been such a safe place to land for all of those things, beyond what comes out or what gets produced, it's like our inner worlds feel a little more healed. I would say that's beautiful.
AI: What has this period of community in this season meant for you and your art practice? What's a takeaway that you can take from all of this?
SV: I think that it's important to not create alone. Like I said, historically, I've just been more isolated, or more in an isolated environment. And I think since inviting people into my practice, I've been able to learn so much more, not only about myself, but about others and how to do things. And I think collaboration is actually a really big and important part in art making, and just inviting and creating an open space is always my goal. Because that's what I needed, you know?
AI: It feels like you guys really love it here. Going off of that, beyond your relationship with Sam, Yari I wanted to ask you about just in general, the relationships with women in your life. How does the community of women that you surround yourself with in your life contribute to your work?
YFB: My mom is my best friend in the whole world. And I don't think I touched on it enough, but, my community is everything to me. The place that I grew up is everything to me, and the place that I come from is everything to me. It's always the people. And obviously, that's what makes a place home. I don't have much. I don't have any family in the States. So it's always been my chosen family, my friendships, and the women in my life, that's my family. I've always had the best friends in the whole world. I think that my relationship to women is so special and huge to who I am because of the relationship I have with my mom.
I don't think I could ever not think of women and my relationship to them because of who she is and because of how she raised me. So even with friendships that I have also transitioned out of, I will always look to those moments with all the love and respect. The girls in my life right now are saving me. “Parallel Play Mondays” is when we come together, this is our second one. This is when we come together and we work on the things that we love, and we gossip and we cry and we laugh. The friendships that I have right now are what I've always dreamed of. And I think a lot of my life right now is what I've always dreamed of. It feels really insane to say.
Womanhood is central in every way. I’m learning as I age, just how to be a better sister for the women in my life, and how to be a better person, and how to nurture each other more and how to hold space for everybody. I don't think I highlight it enough in my work. I think I recently started to within my sculptures. I made two girls together recently, my first time working on that. And that was me also, within my work, thinking about connection. My first ceramic collection was the pieces at the museum, and I was deeply focused on Maryvale as a place. And there was one girl, and everything else was mostly guys/boys, which it's interesting to think about and to consider. But then when I continued to develop my practice and deepen it, I knew that I wanted to focus on that.
AI: And for you Sam, can you just talk me through some of these bigger ideas that you're working through here, like the feminine technology theories?
SV: In an essay that I read, they stated feminine technologies as, like the web weft and stitching of material and items. And I thought that it was really brilliant to think that women weave the world essentially. And so this work is really about the women in my life, but also just all around us. And I think when I think about feminist art, I don't always see myself in these artworks or in these stories, and so I'm really trying to think about, well, what does that look like for me, for my history and for the stories of the women in my life. Things are a little bit more heavy, they are more messy, more turbulent, and so this is all kind of a way to honor them and put their stories on a pedestal, which is kind of why I'm working with the heels.
AI: I'm really drawn to the heels. Immediately when I saw them, with the gritty concrete, it was really beautiful.
SV: I think they say a lot without doing too much. And I think they allow for inner emotion to come through, where I don't have to be so literal. But at the same time, I think with heels, historically they were a symbol of power, but also a symbol of ceremonial practices and costume. I kind of want to teeter the line between the two - returning power to those who practice care, and also kind of grounding them and making them look almost archeological, pulled out of Earth, and thinking of them as anchors. I'm thinking of heels also as a feminine technology, as power. I think we wear heels sometimes, to give power, to give style, to elevate ourselves.
It's also this weird sexual tension between the two ideas. As women, or in a feminine perspective, we see that this is sexy, or powerful, and for maybe the male perspective, it feels violent, kind of gross, kind of gritty.
What is a feminine heel supposed to look like, exactly? And in a way, I'm really trying to reclaim these materials and kind of submit these emotions and stories within the basketry, within the heels, kind of building them up. So this was another prototype that I did. This is the shape of a foot, but I'm really trying to get more, making them more exaggerated. This is more an ode to the home.
This will also kind of be in the same line as the other one, but this will have basketry weaving that goes up as well. I think feminist art always exists in this fantasy context, or even matriarchy. The idea of matriarchy is this fantasy, exotic type of story. I think I am using real, world building materials to cement these concepts and ideas. So that's really why I'm gravitating towards cement and steel and then trying to soften them with textile and craft work. So the show is called “The Softest Hard”. I'm seeing all the ways that we decorate ourselves as feminine technologies as well. And like, why do we do that?
AI: While we're on that tangent, can you elaborate more on your MVP piece that was debuted at Palabra?
SV: It's one of my favorite pieces. I think The apron that is used in the piece is actually my grandma's apron that she wore growing up, and she gifted them to me recently. I didn't really know what I wanted, why I wanted them. I still need to send her a photo. The piece is really about honoring the labor and care that women do in the home and in our world. I think this is kind of the untold heroic story. And so making them as jerseys, because to me, the women in my life, are the MVPs, so I really just wanted to honor that. It's kind of a mundane thing that we take for granted or don't appreciate as much as we maybe should. Or we don't appreciate the ways that that kind of care and labor has shaped us all as people and how we take care of ourselves and our own homes. Thinking about home a lot too. I'm in this very much care, labor, home, matriarchal kind of headspace.