¡Muralismo! Interview with Flor Rivas
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“I don’t worry too much about if my art is ‘loved’ in the conventional way,” she says. “The point is to make people feel, and to get people talking.”
Flor Rivas, a 24-year-old artist and graduate student* who grew up in D.C., has been part of the city’s rich street murals tradition for nearly two decades now.
Her earliest memories of mural making date back to about the age of five. By her teenage years, she was working on indoor and outdoor art projects. One of the murals she helped create nearly a decade ago still stands on the sidewall of the CentroNía school on Columbia Road NW., around the corner from the Columbia Heights Metro station.
That vibrant nine-section mural combines both ancient and modern elements. It features representations of the Olmec heads, enormous stone carvings left by the mysterious people who archeologists say formed the first major indigenous civilization of Mesoamerica. While honoring this mysterious culture that predated the Maya, the mural also incorporates elements of graffiti with its stenciled-in artist “tags” (or names), below each of the portraits gracing the length of the 14th Street NW side of the building.
It was painted in 2008 by lead artist Ryan McDonnell and a team of young D.C. artists working with Murals DC, as part of a D.C. government funded illegal graffiti prevention program. Rivas has also created murals with the local organization Words Beats & Life, as part of the graffiti/art program then run by muralist Cory Stowers.
Rivas says she first realized she had artistic talent when she was nine years old.
“There was this TV contest, where you had to send in a drawing of Bugs Bunny, and I won,” she recalls with a smile. “That was when I realized that I could do more than draw all over myself with crayons and stress out my mom.”
The most challenging aspect of her artwork is not the community response to her work or even finding the necessary funding, but working on such a large scale, says Rivas, who stands just 5’2” tall.
The hardest part is “being able to take the image you have in your mind (of what you want to paint) and recreate it as something even bigger than you. It is pretty amazing-when it comes out like you planned,” she says.
She is grateful for her time in local graffiti art programs, which provided budding D.C. artists with new creative outlets and skills. The fine arts training she received has had a lasting impact on Rivas both as an artist and a thinker. She is also a committed Latino community activist. At “every rally, I am there, making the signs,” she says.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and Latin American studies from Catholic University of America in Northeast D.C., it’s important to her that every piece of art she creates makes a statement. Currently taking classes as a a non degree student at American University with plans to become a human rights lawyer, Rivas’ artwork often features representations of indigenous icons.
“The project I just finished was twelve artists painting revolutionary figures on twelve drums,” she explains. “I chose Sitting Bull because I think, no matter who you are, we’ve all got indigenous heritage. And I feel so sad that the indigenous population here isn’t represented.”
For some artists the struggle over identity and representation in the Latino community could deter or dilute depictions of iconic figures, but unlike many of her contemporaries, Rivas embraces the potential her work has to create outrage.
“It’s gonna sound weird, but the same way I want people to love (her work) or be inspired it,” she says, “I want people to hate it too.
“I want people to dislike it or feel like, ‘Well this doesn’t represent me.’ I want it to cause emotion. Because once you get people feeling something, you’re low-key inspiring them,” she says. “If they love it and they feel like I’ve captured their life, they’ll do something with that. And if they don’t like it, people find a way to prove that what they can do is better.
“I don’t worry too much about if my art is ‘loved’ in the conventional way,” she says. “The point is to make people feel, and to get people talking.”
—Jennifer Fowler
*This story has been corrected to reflect that Rivas is currently a non-degree student at American University.
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