Our cover art is by Linda Arreola, whose training in architecture makes her comfortable with geometric forms. She seeks to detail the underlying structural system that supports a constructed object, and she finds quiet power in the parallel lines, arches, or intersecting points that emerge from humanity. Arreola traces for us the grid of humanity because she sees connections that do not easily appear to our senses. This concern with the simple geometry of the cosmos emerges from the influences of her indigenous and Hispanic ancestry, which both pull toward the metaphor and symbol. Although her abstract paintings are frequently overlooked in Chicana/o art history, her work is not vaguely Chicana, as some critics have claimed but definitively central to Chicana/o cultural production.
Excerpt from López, Tiffany Ana, and Karen Mary Davalos. 2009. “Knowing, Feeling, Doing: The Epistemology of Chicana/Latina Studies.” Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social 8(1/2): 8-22.
