In South Texas, curanderismo has lengthy provided not solely cures however a framework for restoring concord inside communities — therapeutic that’s as social and non secular as it’s bodily. As students Robert T. Trotter II and Juan Antonio Chavira state in Curanderismo: Mexican American People Therapeutic, the curandero or curandera is a group determine who “shares the identical experiences, the identical language, and the identical socioeconomic standing as his or her sufferers,” utilizing culturally rooted practices to activate pure help techniques and reintegrate people with their households and neighborhoods. Likewise, curanderismo within the borderlands is much less sure by geopolitical strains than by a dwelling cultural continuum, the place therapeutic turns into a method of reimagining and sustaining group life. Contemplating this custom, Maritza Bautista’s curatorial work in Laredo will be understood as a type of cultural therapeutic. Its focus demonstrates a tradition of artistic power and belief in the neighborhood. Her appointment as Education Manager at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa in September 2025 extends this ethos past Laredo, carrying ahead her imaginative and prescient of artwork as a observe of fidelity, care, and transformation.
Self-described as “Tex-Mex pocha,” Bautista is distinctly fronteriza, infused by Mexican and American sensibilities. This mix developed via her early life in Houston, her native Laredo, and Chicago, the place she pursued an MA in Artwork Training at The Faculty of the Artwork Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Bautista has been acknowledged as a distinguished chief within the arts. Notably, she takes half in advancing a lineage of native feminine cultural leaders alongside along with her up to date Alyssa Cigarroa, artist, group advocate, Metropolis Council Member for District 8, Founder and Board President of Daphne Art Foundation (DAF), and mentors Janet Krueger, artist, former Board President at Hecho en Encinal; Donna Lednicky, arts administrator, former Govt Director at Laredo Middle for the Arts (LCA); and Mary Quiros, artist, co-founder of and former LCA Board President.
In recent times, Bautista curated and co-curated quite a few exhibitions in Laredo, each as Govt Director of DAF and independently. In 2022, the exhibitions V-AiR Gen1 Hearth and Reflective Fluctuations featured native Laredo artists. That very same yr, Bautista sparked dialog between Laredo and regional artists in Place/d. What adopted is a sequence of group reveals that sustained a imaginative and prescient for amplifying artists from Laredo and The Valley: Intriga and On the Edge (2023), Rio Grande Worldwide Research Middle’s Border Tales and Unusually Acquainted (2024), and Onward and Impetus (2025). Additionally throughout this era, Bautista co-produced the MIRAAA Media Festival with a number of regional organizations, and curated 6 solo reveals in Laredo and 1 duo present in Fort Value.
On reflection, these post-pandemic exhibitions reveal exceptional curatorial coherence from Bautista, and every has drawn regional consideration to Laredo’s artwork scene. Such a centered and speedy fee of artistic-social cultivation led by Bautista is uncommon in Laredo and has thus boldly set a new precedent.
Within the phrases of painter and DAF Board Member Linda LaMantia, “[art] has something to do with the quality of our life,” and many people know this at intestine degree. For many years, Laredoans have identified this from a perspective of lack and want for one thing. Between 2002 and 2025, Bautista’s contributions to town’s restoration and development of arts and tradition via DAF reveal holistic cultural caregiving, and the group’s affect in varied communities and Laredo youth is palpable.
Since its inception in 2021 as much as 2025, DAF’s Artist-in-Residence Program has supported 31 artists from South Texas, most of them native of Laredo, and all of whom Bautista immediately mentored. It is a important metric for a younger program, which has additionally influenced the launch of different residencies by the LCA and Flower Shop in Brownsville (based by former DAF resident artist Jesus Treviño).
Along with her group help via establishments like DAF, as an activist, Bautista has advocated for fundamental support for the arts in Laredo. In 2024, Bautista spoke at a Laredo Metropolis Council assembly, protesting the diversion of funds from “nonessential” public artwork initiatives to water infrastructure. She acknowledged, “Water is life. Artwork is important.” The next yr, per the advice of the Laredo Public Artwork Grasp Plan, the Metropolis appointed its first Public Arts Supervisor, promising “to complement the group and improve Laredo’s cultural identification” via the humanities.
Shortly following a celebratory occasion in honor of her work, and a heartfelt sendoff to Chinati Foundation from the DAF Board of Directors, Bautista relocated to West Texas, the place she spoke with me about her time in Laredo and her new journey.
Rio Grande Worldwide Research Middle, the Los Cinco Coalition, and group members together with Maritza Bautista, at a Laredo Metropolis Council assembly (Might 20, 2024) in help of the Binational River Mission and Zacate Creek restoration, web site for future group artwork initiatives. Picture courtesy of Los Cinco Coalition
Maritza Bautista with Laredo artists and humanities professionals talking at a Laredo Metropolis Council assembly (November 4, 2024), advocating for public artwork. Picture courtesy of Alyssa Cigarroa
Noé Cuéllar (NC): Within the 20 years that we’ve identified one another we’ve had many conversations concerning the depressions of Laredo tradition, and what we wish to be completely different. At this time it feels just like the artwork group has taken root. Your partnership with Alyssa Cigarroa via DAF has been a powerhouse for arts advocacy and producing group and engagement. What are your ideas on sincerity and care?
Maritza Bautista (MB): To start with, I like Laredo. Place has performed a giant function in how I method cultural work. Sincerity and care are completely integral when doing work from the center, towards significant work. My intention is to all the time uphold a sure customary of tradition. Laredo is wealthy in tradition and heritage, and the individuals from that space are stunning and sophisticated. I really feel morally obligated to make use of my inventive observe, which I ponder rather a lot on tips on how to outline what that’s, and my abilities within the service of constructive social change. My inventive {and professional} work maintain the basic perception that the humanities are essential and transformative so long as they’re accessible.
NC: How have the humanities been transformative for you?
MB: Artwork modified and re-directed my life once I was a youngster. It stored me out of the streets and gave me function, which I credit score my highschool instructor Ms. Linda Breedveld for. By way of her I discovered to like and admire artwork historical past and to consider the content material and context of paintings. It was then that I began to query so many issues outdoors of my quick environment. Accessing artwork, and a mentor, gave me a worldwide perspective and launched me to cultures I had no concept existed. Artwork is why I’m right here and the rationale why I put all my coronary heart and soul into my cultural work. It’s why I care and am honest in my observe. I additionally don’t view my path in artwork as a ardour, I method my cultural work as my mission in life.
NC: And your cultural work is sort of holistic. You’ve got been concurrently lively in inventive course, curation, artwork set up, training, design, writing, social media, advocacy, and activism. Let’s dive into curation. The Latin root of “curate” means “to take care,” and “curar” in Spanish means “to treatment.” Your work in Laredo has had a therapeutic and uplifting impact in the neighborhood that it has additionally generated. I see this as an impact of your fidelity throughout all these shifting roles.
Do you method your work as a type of cultural curanderismo or a therapeutic artwork?
MB: I actually just like the idea of cultural curanderismo. Though I’ve by no means used that time period, it actually resonates. I discussed that I feel rather a lot about what my inventive observe is. Even you’ve identified previously that my paintings is the work I have interaction in: mentoring younger and rising artists, creating areas of artwork, curating exhibitions, and so on.. Similar to my cultural work, my inventive observe spans throughout many disciplines, however I do imagine it’s deeply rooted and intertwined with my method towards group engagement.
My great-grandmother was a curandera. She was gifted in ways in which made her a healer. She was an Indigenous girl with knowledge and practices that have been handed all the way down to her by my ancestors. I do imagine that in a method, I too carry these therapeutic powers.
There is no such thing as a single strategy to outline what artwork is. Galleries and artwork areas will not be meant to be loved solely by people of sure financial strata. My cultural curanderismo has helped heal a number of the beliefs that many younger and rising artists, and even group members, have carried. It has helped them perceive that they, too, belong. Not simply in areas of artwork but in addition as artists taking part in a serious function in society. Their voices and the language they communicate via their distinctive inventive practices is essential and wanted in a broader context. Being an artist, or to decide on the trail of an artist, is a giant duty that have to be taken critically.
NC: How do you describe your curatorial imaginative and prescient in Laredo, and typically?
MB: Typically, I imagine in cultural fairness. I imagine there may be area for numerous voices and practices inside my curatorial imaginative and prescient. In Laredo, my curatorial imaginative and prescient is about discovering innovation within the methods artists course of what is going on of their perceived cultural panorama: their properties, experiences with pals, downtown Laredo, and the inevitable affect of popular culture, together with social media. How artists reply to, or create artwork in relation to these experiences actually pursuits me.
Laredo may be very distinctive within the sense that it’s a longtime metropolis with an extended and sophisticated historical past, and but this can be very remoted from what’s occurring on this planet, and even the international locations it’s sandwiched between. I wouldn’t say that is distinctive to Laredo, however individuals love consolation in what they know and loads of people will not be focused on completely different realities, or perhaps they worry change. That perception, which is my private opinion, doesn’t imply that there aren’t people on the market difficult the established order or reimagining themselves elsewhere. There are definitely lots of people with disposable wealth in Laredo who’ve traveled the world.
It’s all the time fulfilling to fulfill artists who gravitate towards what they know as a result of it helps me see what I imagine in a brand new mild. I like when artists discover new mediums or supplies. It may possibly assist them discover their voices. However there may be additionally energy in doing what we all know and discovering the medium that finest tells our tales. I can all the time inform when the artwork carries an genuine voice; the ability could not all the time be there, however I can learn the world in its language. My curatorial imaginative and prescient isn’t restricted to visible artwork, and I don’t imagine there is just one strategy to inform a narrative. That is one thing I push younger and rising artists to contemplate when they’re critical about their observe.
Artist speak throughout “Unusually Acquainted,” an exhibition curated by Maritza Bautista on the Martha Fenstermaker Memorial Visible Artwork Gallery in Laredo, Texas, Might 2024. Picture courtesy of Eva Soliz
NC: Would you say that curated exhibitions are uncommon in Laredo?
MB: Briefly, sure, curated exhibitions are uncommon in Laredo. I feel it’s because artwork and artists have an extended historical past of not being taken critically in Laredo. “Artwork is a passion,” “artwork is ornament,” “artists can’t make a dwelling,” “artwork is a waste of time.” These are all concepts which might be deeply rooted within the tradition of Laredo.
NC: Sadly, in lots of different locations too.
MB: Nonetheless, we, Laredoans, take loads of satisfaction in music and we love to bounce. We’re additionally exhausting employees and equate success with being profitable (I don’t assume that is distinctive to Laredo, although). Nonetheless, I don’t assume individuals consider artwork when they’re listening to a track they like or put a lot thought into how motion is a response to the sounds they’re listening to. Loads of us have been at a household reunion at which the tios and abuelitos take out the accordion, guitars, and different devices and begin performing conjunto music and singing. Now we have all danced polkas, cumbias, and huapangos at events in some unspecified time in the future. That is the artwork lots of people in Laredo relate to, however I wouldn’t say they method it as artwork.
NC: That sounds extra like cultural expertise, which we frequently take as a right as a result of it’s extra embedded, whereas artwork is “an method” as a result of it’s a reflective course of.
MB: I agree, however that can be the rationale I see it as artwork. With a purpose to method an artwork present with a curatorial imaginative and prescient, a minimum of for me, there needs to be a thesis. This isn’t to say a solution to a giant query, however to curate a present is to suggest one thing: an concept, a premise, or just an invite to method a subject.
I’ve by no means had any formal coaching in curation, and I’m not an artwork historian. I had not put loads of thought into how an artwork present can inform a narrative or how it may be an expertise till I began coordinating artwork exhibitions and labored carefully with artists who knew precisely how they needed to current their work. This occurred once I labored on the LCA between 2003-2007. Again then I used to be handpainting the titles of the reveals immediately on the wall.
Studying tips on how to curate a present got here with loads of expertise over twenty years, dealing with several types of paintings and spanning a number of disciplines.
NC: Why are curated exhibitions uncommon in Laredo, then?
MB: Oftentimes, individuals simply wish to fill an area with artwork, and there may be nothing unsuitable with that. Making area for everybody is essential. We wish to see partitions filled with artwork, not empty. However, my questions are: Why are we doing this? Why are we grouping these artworks collectively? These artists? What are we attempting to say with this present? What’s our interpretation of the artwork? Is there a title? What are we calling this present primarily based on who’s in it, the work on view? These are the questions that information me and that I’ve posed to others who’ve offered an artwork exhibition in Laredo.
NC: A didactic component, a guiding context.
MB: I imagine that artwork, any artwork, is open to interpretation even when the artist affords insights into the works they make. That is without doubt one of the beauties of artwork. It’s subjective. Except a piece is created to be skilled alone, there may be area for it in several venues, surrounded by different work. It’s actually fascinating when an paintings fully adjustments primarily based on the place it’s, what’s subsequent to it, how it’s lit, or isn’t.
Maritza Bautista chatting with the 2025 cohort of Artists-in-Residence of Daphne Artwork Basis at Casa Daphne, Laredo, Texas, October 3, 2025. Picture courtesy of Daphne Artwork Basis
NC: You’ve got additionally been a mentor to rising artists in Laredo, formally via your studio visits to the resident artists of DAF. The residency has catalyzed artwork practices for a lot of younger artists, and it’s the primary of its type in Laredo. Trying again at 5 years of studio visits, what do you discover about what younger Laredo artists are exploring?
MB: Artists right this moment who’re 30 years outdated or youthful grew up with know-how. By the point they have been 10, YouTube existed, file sharing was a factor, and if they’d a pc of their house they most probably have been making pals throughout the globe in chat rooms, becoming a member of a minimum of one on-line social community like MySpace or Fb, and watching porn. They’ve skilled two main financial recessions, one pandemic, lots of of wars. They’ve had entry to limitless info.
Younger Laredo artists are exploring disappointment, dying, worry of change. Holding on to moments of pleasure, capturing loneliness, idealization of braveness. Some are making paintings of celebrities they admire, and some make items supposed for use, like ceramics. All of them, once I first met them, felt misplaced due to artwork. They needed to pursue it, however leaving house didn’t appear to be a selection they might make. Some felt caught and with out the means to depart.
NC: You left Laredo to review at SAIC. So did Gil Rocha and I, throughout the identical time. I bear in mind you curated an exhibition of his work in Chicago at Rumble Arts Middle. It was an enormous bust of José José on a mattress of popcorn in a giant yellow room. Gil and you’ve got contributed rather a lot to Laredo having returned.
MB: El Principe was the title of that exhibition again in 2013. I bear in mind Gil arriving at Rumble Arts Middle on North Avenue in an 18-wheeler. These vans aren’t even allowed on that road. We unloaded an enormous crate and I spent the following 10 hours popping popcorn as Gil meticulously coated the large head in gold leaf. El Triste, a track about heartbreak by José José performed on repeat in the course of the exhibition. Gil’s work may be very emotional. It was a extremely particular present as a result of it was the final one I curated earlier than transferring again to South Texas.
As quickly as I moved again, Gil and I, now each in Laredo, spent many hours reimagining town, speaking about artwork and our experiences in Chicago. He was nonetheless dwelling and understanding of his outdated studio on Matamoros Road. Our conversations stopped for a number of years, and round 2017-2018 we began catching up once more. At the moment, the conversations deepened. Primarily as a result of we each desired the mental rigor across the arts that we skilled in group at SAIC. The college actually impacted the way in which we have interaction with artwork, in group, and the way we method our practices. We’d speak concerning the roles we have been taking part in to alter the cultural panorama in Laredo.
Laredo artists Gil Rocha and Maritza Bautista on the opening reception for Rocha’s and Victor Calise Blanchard’s exhibition at Kirk Hopper High-quality Artwork in Dallas, January 8, 2022, throughout which Bautista learn her poem El Tren (The Prepare) (2022). Picture courtesy of Maritza Bautista
NC: Group is a phrase that’s used rather a lot, paradoxically, with no frequent understanding of what’s meant by it. There are numerous completely different views on group in artwork circles. Pedro Helguera sees it as a course of and categorizes forms of social participation. For Grant H. Kester group is a “dialogic art.” Claire Bishop’s “antagonism” is extra essential of idealizations surrounding the time period and requires aesthetic and moral judgements in participatory artwork initiatives.
Do you draw inspiration from these or others? What does that phrase group imply to you?
MB: I do draw inspiration from Helguera and Kester. Group, to me, is about reciprocal help, mutual help and respect, and dialogue and reflection. Nonetheless, whereas I do use the time period rather a lot, I don’t solely use it because it pertains to artwork or my inventive observe. I imagine it’s a type of social engagement that takes time and belief to construct, or strengthen. Artwork is a automobile that results in group constructing, as are cultural experiences or area of interest pursuits. Some could name it a pals group, others a tribe.
Daphne Artwork Basis’s Raíces Multi-Arts Kids’s Studio Program, led by Alyssa Cigarroa and Maritza Bautista, and facilitated by educating artists Katie García and Kassandra Romero, in summer time 2024. Photographs courtesy of Daphne Artwork Basis
NC: Towards the top of your time at DAF your function started to pivot towards an training program. In Laredo, artwork training and free artwork packages for youngsters have been a serious blindspot. What was your involvement and expertise in DAF’s Raíces Multi-Arts Children’s Studio Program?
MB: I designed and carried out Raíces in 2023, which was a full circle second for me. It’s a curriculum, a set of lesson plans, impressed by what younger artists have been sharing with me since I began working at DAF. I didn’t train it, however I educated three educating artists to guide the courses. Typically talking, elementary faculty college students in Laredo don’t have entry to artwork training.
Raíces was particularly designed to supply alternatives for elementary school-aged kids to make connections between the humanities and their identification by exploring their connection to their properties, their neighborhoods, and the general group. A number of the individuals dwell in Bethany Home, a homeless shelter. I stored considering: if all of us begin out artistic and unafraid earlier than we change into self-conscious round age 8 or 9, how can I design an artwork program that helps kids see artwork as an integral a part of life whereas connecting their creativity to innovation? Dialogue is basically essential in Raíces.
NC: How is your work in training flowing into your new function on the Chinati Basis?
MB: In the meanwhile, my function is to make sure Chinati’s robust partnership with Marfa, specifically to keep up and improve our partnership with Marfa ISD. Additionally to constantly assess present group partnerships with different businesses and companies on the town, to have the ability to supply robust and excessive degree art-making workshops to Okay-12 college students, and create a pipeline towards success. I imagine that is already occurring, and has been for the reason that early ‘90s. The precedence is Okay-12 teams, however my function additionally contains constructing belief with Marfan households, particular person adults who dwell right here, and the native artists who’ve made Marfa their house.
Earlier than and after photographs of a basketball court docket reworked with a mural designed by group members on the Historic Barrio Azteca in Laredo, Texas, October 5-6, 2024, a mission of Los Cinco Coalition. Photographs courtesy of Maritza Bautista (left) and Alyssa Cigarroa (proper)
The group members of the Los Cinco Coalition at Eliseo Valdez Jr. Park throughout a conjunto music historical past studying exercise from the South Texas Conjunto Affiliation, September 7, 2024 (left); cyanotype artworks created by group members of the Los Cinco Coalition. Photographs courtesy of Los Cinco Coalition
NC: What about your expertise in group constructing with adults in Laredo?
MB: It was actually significant and particular. The purpose of the Los Cinco, a coalition I helped form in 2023, was to strengthen a way of belonging and civic engagement by rising entry to arts training, cultural experiences, and exhibitions in 5 of the oldest neighborhoods in Laredo. Los Cinco was a grant-funded mission, and the mural mission was additionally supported by Alyssa Cigarroa, Metropolis Council Member for District 8. The thought was that by socially participating with the visible, performing, and media arts, a brand new inventive group would kind, outdoors of the normal, extra formal arts group that was additionally taking form in downtown Laredo. Like Raíces, the themes of identification, house, group, and metropolis have been on the coronary heart of Los Cinco. On the core, I do imagine individuals of all ages wish to really feel like they belong.
Residents who dwell within the 5 neighborhoods shaped a cohort that participated in a weekly studying group. In the course of the yr, they painted a mural within the historic neighborhood El Azteca, discovered about and created cyanotypes, embroideries, giant format black and white images, participated in a drumming circle, listened to and recorded oral histories, watched and mentioned documentary movies produced in Laredo, discovered concerning the historical past of conjunto music by native musicians, and created distinctive work.
NC: In Laredo you’ve been centered on group constructing and getting issues off the bottom, whereas Marfa is an artwork pilgrimage web site. What has drawn you to Marfa and Chinati?
MB: Initially, the panorama and my love for geology drew me to West Texas within the late ‘90s. Since I visited in 2005, my main motivation to be right here has been The Chinati Basis, and I really feel honored that my new function as Training Supervisor introduced me to Marfa. What I like about my new function at Chinati is the artist-centered method which aligns with the work I used to be doing in Laredo. Marfa is near the Mexican border, one hour away. Many individuals who dwell in Marfa are additionally fronterizos. As an artist that explores scavenging, motion, transportation, and the financial disparities alongside and throughout the Texas-Mexico border, there may be additionally rather a lot for me to discover right here.
Maritza Bautista presenting her paintings Casas de Cambio (Cash Trade Areas) (2017–ongoing) at Pedantic Arts Residency, a program of Casey Droege Cultural Productions, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, summer time 2024. Picture courtesy of Maritza Bautista
NC: Since I’ve identified you, you’ve been obsessive about the theremin, a singular and strange musical instrument that’s performed with out being touched. It produces steady, fluid tones that sound eerie, like magic from a distance. The instrument involves thoughts as you transition from Laredo to Marfa.
How do you see your connection to Laredo from afar given current strides?
MB: Laredo is a extremely robust place to begin for me. My roots are there. I discovered concerning the theremin once I was an intern on the LCA, working as a studio assistant with Janet Krueger. A track performed on the radio and I couldn’t inform what instrument it was. I requested if it was a noticed, and Krueger mentioned, “both that or a theremin.” I had no clue what that was. I grew to become obsessive about the instrument after that second.
After I was in grad faculty, I designed an exhibition concerning the theremin. It acquired loads of reward. Most individuals don’t know what a theremin is, however I’m all the time glad to speak about it and share the story of how I acquired my first theremin and the way I make experimental music with it. After I moved to Marfa, my first weekend right here, I attended the Marfa Lights Pageant. There was a theremin on the stage! I used to be so glad to listen to it! It goes with out saying, music is unconventional right here. I’ll all the time be drawn again to Laredo. Earlier than leaving I made it clear that I’m completely a part of the artwork group community there.
NC: In closing, why is artwork “important”?
MB: The humanities are integral to our on a regular basis lives as a result of they problem the concepts we could have about dwelling on this planet.
