The Muse on Cesar Chavez Avenue

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“They nod to tradition,” says Duron, holding up an image by Germ, who has rendered the Virgin of Guadalupe as a fluorescent, anime-reminiscent squid. “They come up with imagery that the Catholic Church might not agree with,” he adds, laughing, “but we give them the freedom to do what they want.”

Sister Karen died in 1997, but her vision of art as activism has been honored in historic proportions. The center is open to the public, and hundreds of artists and students from all over the world interact with it every month. One of the most popular programs is a printmaking atelier in which artists make high-quality screen print editions. Artists can pay a small monthly set-up fee to work in etching and some other media; more sophisticated serigraph studios are invitation-only. Artists flock here just to make the legendary monoserigraphs, a technique blending the monoprint and serigraph pioneered by Self Help’s master printer, Jose Alpuche.

November 2008 marked the center’s 35th annual Day of the Dead celebration, an event whose print fair, altar-making, food, and music attracted over 4,000 people.

“They don’t have those crowds at MOCA,” Duron says, knocking the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Alpuche is self-taught, from his English to his printmaking. In 1976 he moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles and took an entry-level job at a studio, where he worked his way up, learning everything from embossing to framing. He came to Self Help in 1979.

Artists have changed the tack of their careers by printing with him, but Alpuche has also altered the lives of kids who wandered in one day after school, learned etching, and stuck around for a decade. “You have to take them seriously to keep them off the street,” he says.

The new president of Self Help’s board of directors, Stephen Saiz, started coming here in the ’90s. Saiz looks a good 20 years younger than anyone else in the office, and ready to breathe new life into Self Help.

“There are seven values for Self Help, but the one I attach myself to is accessibility,” says Saiz. “We’re open for everyone.”

Excerpted from Creative Review(March 2009), a British magazine covering visual communication including advertising, design, illustration, new media, photography, and typography; www.creativereview.co.uk.

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