“Raindrops Make Oceans” celebrates Latino artists in Philadelphia

In Gotas Hacen Mares / Raindrops Make Oceans, six Latino artists display their individuality as part of a collective. According to artist and curator Marta Sanchez, this title expresses the idea that a collection of small strides toward goals could become something monumental and that the works exhibited are only a drop of the whole body that the artists produce.

“As an introduction to the Chestnut Hill community, these works are just a sampling of the large magnitude of work in our studios and artistic psyches,” she said.

The exhibit at Borrelli’s Chestnut Hill Gallery runs through November 15. Along with Sanchez, the other featured local artists are Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Anabelle Rodriguez, Dino Vasquez, Henry Bermudez, and Salvador Di Quinzio. The works Sanchez shared combine her interests in train yards, still life, and retablos (devotional paintings).

The past and future in passing trains

She has worked on a few train series. She has explored the role they played in the Mexican migration through the Southern Pacific as well as with Carpas (tent theaters) with traveling circus and vaudeville troupes that performed throughout Mexico. Sanchez’s great-grandfather was a lion tamer in the golden age of the Carpas and died young from a puncture wound received from a lion.

“The train yards have become my personal landscape in Texas,” where she’s from, she said. “I continue to collect and incorporate narrative and the history of that train yard since it’s a part of my neighborhood back home. It takes me back to a place where I would sit and draw the trains and dream of my future as the trains passed.”

Her still life series feature objects with personal history attached. “Some belonged to my Grandmother. Others are gifts or from someone that has passed away as a remembrance of them,” she said.

The retablos are “prayer paintings that record a specific event as well as pay homage to people,” she said.

Sanchez, who considers herself a Chicana artist concentrating on art and philanthropy, believes art is the best way for her to process the world and voice her response to it.

The Mexican movement of art

“I work toward recording the Mexican movement of art, culture, and history,” said Sanchez, who lives in Roxborough. “My art integrates the folkloric art of my Mexican culture as well as who I am here in Philadelphia and what I see in this 21st-century world.”

Her world is busy — she’s a teacher, wife, mother, and community activist (she founded Cascarones Por La Vida, a grassroots organization which assists families affected by HIV/AIDS) in addition to being an artist. It’s all made possible with the support of family, schools, “and the art community that has become a second tier of family to me,” she said.

She’s excited to showcase some of the members of her art family. “Each one of the artists invited to exhibit is a great contributor in our community,” she said. “I’m proud to have the chance to introduce their work to the Chestnut Hill community and beyond.”

“Gotas Hacen Mares” is on view through November 15 at Borrelli’s Chestnut Hill Gallery, 8117 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia. For more information, call 215-248-2549 or visit the gallery online.

At right: Marta Sanchez's Retablo for Stan. Image courtesy of the artist.