I was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, raised in Ensenada, and I have made my home and my art in Chula Vista, California. I am a self-taught artist. I learned from classes I took from a very young age, and from the people around me who carried these traditions in their hands. That knowledge, passed from person to person, is part of what I try to keep alive in my work. I live in a border town that holds two worlds at once. San Diego is shaped by its military history and can be a conservative place, and at the same time it is full of Spanish-speaking families, Mexican culture, and traditions that go back centuries. I do not see those two sides as a conflict. They are simply the place where I live, and my art lives there too. I work in paper mache, clay, textiles, painting, drawing, and photography. I come to sculpture through drawing and painting, and I come to fabric because textiles have always been how women tell their stories, even when no other way was open to them. For twenty-five years I have been building ofrendas for Día de los Muertos. I build them not out of sadness, but out of love. Death, in my culture, is not something to be afraid of. It is another step, and on Día de los Muertos we open the door and welcome our loved ones back. My message is the one I carry with me always: no olvidar las raíces de donde venimos, la cultura de nuestros países, y recordar a los que ya no están. Not to forget the roots of where we come from, the culture of our countries, and to remember those who are no longer here.