Watsonville Brillante: Hermanita

The Hermanita image was originally done in 2005 as a linocut.  The image was based on a photo I saw in a travel magazine while visiting friends in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I made a quick sketch and later I created the Hermanita print based on that small sketch as a relief print.

Hermanita was done as a tribute to Native women, but when I titled it Hemanita, (little sister) I was thinking of my sisters, even though they are older than me.  Hermanita represents beauty and strength.  The resilience of native cultures, but as a mosaic she now represents the first peoples of Watsonville, which were the Ohlone and the many indigenous women that come from Mexico to toil in the fields.