Ruby E. Garza, whose La Chicharra Studio at 1400 E. Madison St. will celebrate its one-year anniversary on Saturday, sees the studio as a venue where local artists can exhibit their work and those just starting out can find their voice.
La Chicharra takes its name from the Spanish word for the cicada and a belief in the Mexican culture that placing la chicharra on the tongue of a person who is mute or stutters will help them to speak.
“So there is this tale in our culture that if there is a person who is unable to talk, that they’re mute or that they stutter, you can put a chicharra on their tongue and it sings and then the child or the person will go ahead and talk,” Garza said on a recent afternoon inside her studio.
“So I felt that it went along with freedom of expression, where they are able to express themselves through art and they have freedom to be able to exhibit what they want so that the community can come and see their work. … I always say La Chicharra is where art and the community meet.”
La Chicharra Studio opened on June 26, 2021 with “Renacimiento,” a group exhibition. Garza had sent out a call to artists she knew asking for work “and sure enough they were down for it. A lot of people from the community came. It was a good exhibition,” she said.
In the year since, La Chicharra has had six exhibitions, most recently by Brownsville artist Jesus Trevino who just received his master’s of fine arts from the University of Texas at Austin and is doing a summer residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, in Madison, Maryland.
Trevino’s exhibition, titled “Dark Horse,” proved so popular Gaza held it over an extra week. It was up from June 3 through last Thursday.
Garza describes herself as a multimedia artist who specializes in printmaking and La Chicharra as an art space that offers printmaking workshops, private art lessons, Chicharra painting nights, private events and hosts exhibitions.
Visits are by appointment but she said she is at the studio most of the time after 11 a.m.
“I want to promote the arts here in Brownsville. I would like to see more galleries open up in the future. I want to see the artists be able to make a living out of their work and for that to happen here in the Valley,” Garza said.
Garza also said the success she’s had at La Chicharra hasn’t been only her own doing.
“It hasn’t been only me. I see this as a big collaboration of artists and community coming together to bring out the arts,” she said.
She also credited the artist Teodoro Estrada of Artevivo Art Studio, 535 E. 12th St., as a mentor.
“He has has worked really hard to to make the art world here work,” she said.
The one-year anniversary event will feature print makers from the Valley demonstrating their process. “We’re also going to be giving out postcards to first 30 people that arrive,” she said.
They will also be selling T-shirts as a way to promote the arts through shirts. Two designs by Garza were on display in the studio, a head shot of a Xoloitzcuintle, a Mexican hairless dog, and another called “La Chingona.”
Sometimes people will buy a print, but a shirt bearing the print’s image is a way for them to wear the art, she said.
