UPSIDE DOWN IN PARADISE
Works made for the transborder exhibition La Frontera belong to the series, ‘Upside Down in Paradise' which explores the natural and cultural landscape of Southern California expressing the poetic paradoxes found in the day-to-day of ‘California Dreamin”.
I have only lived on the border for 16 years. At the time, I was relieved to move to a place within a short driving distance of another country. I was naive as to what it actually meant to live on a border fraught with the inherent contradictions and less-than-poetic socio-economic disparities between San Diego and its Mexican border towns.
And yet, every day as a teacher and friend, sometimes as an uneasy tourist/neighbor, I am moved and inspired by the richness of humanity made palpable living on the border.
Hotel Paraiso (Paradise Hotel)is a large faded building sort of across the street from our favorite taqueria. I have never known the city as it may have been to inspire the hotel's aspirational name.