Author: Michael Chesnick

Before bringing her storytelling skills to the University of Arizona School of Art’s graduate program, Semoria Mosley found out just how impactful her photography could be during a social justice reporting project for the San Diego Union-Tribune called ­“____ while Black.”

Mosley amplified the voices of seven Black Americans who faced subtle and overt discrimination and exclusion in San Diego after interviewing more than 300 people. She told her editors, “I have hopes that the photographic art I create will give the invisible the superpower of being seen and probe the ones who never saw them to ask themselves, ‘How long have I ignored this voice?’”

Her hopes were answered.

“When it was published online and in print, I started getting calls and emails from San Diegans who felt moved by the work — it caught me by surprise honestly,” Mosley said. The seven profiles online contained film and digital photography, along with audio clips from her interviews.

She was one of six young journalists from diverse backgrounds selected to participate in the 2019 project, which won national and local awards. She grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, which has a 40 percent Black population compared to 6 percent in San Diego.

Mosley, 26, is pursuing her Master of Fine Arts in Photography, Video and Imaging after earning her B.A. in Mass Communication and Media Studies from Claflin University in South Carolina. “While emphasizing the Black American experience, my work is a portal to multicultural understanding,” she writes on her LinkedIn page.

She answered questions for the School of Art during February’s Black History Month.

Q. How did your Southern roots help you become a better photographer and storyteller?

A. Being from the South taught me that there is a truth that’s subjective (and pretty objective in my opinion, but y’know) to my lineage and a truth that is subjective to their lineage. It inspired me to look beyond the normal bounds of truth and storytelling to see where the proof could exist; beyond devices like bondage, history, racism and representation.

Q. How important is authenticity and preserving cultural identities in your work?

A. Preserving cultural identities in my work is imperative because it assists me in being resistant to colonial constructs and more uplifting of the “discredited way of knowing that discredited people often have” (to quote Toni Morrison) — which I find in myself. It’s the permission I’ve given myself to fully immerse in the actuality of my experiences. With representation on everyone’s plate, at the dinner party where all men are created equal, I have hopes that outside the smoke and mirrors, my work can serve as reference to a life truly lived — in all of its subjectivity, nuance, and vision.

Q. You attended the same middle and high schools as Dylann Roof, convicted in the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a Black South Carolina congregation. How does that reminder affect you and your work?

A. It reminds me that Black, Brown and other colored communities are in close proximity to racists whose ideals can manifest in extreme ways and not even know it. In creating work, I realize I have no time to be slight in my expression as an artist; nor do I have time to explain. Walking on eggshells is a disservice to the resilience of my people. I think we’ve been cornered into being submissive to the voice that is not ours for far too long. My voice is my gift, so I work it as such.

Q. How did your Social Justice reporting project with the San Diego newspaper come about? What was the experience like?

A. I applied after my photo editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune suggested it. Of course, there weren’t any guarantees, but I’d just done 10 portraits for their front-page Sunday story — about a week after George Floyd was murdered. The editor knew I was eager to do more print work and that I would deliver, so it was a good opportunity. Working on that project solidified the passions I have for documenting, community and creating. I worked on it for about six months.

While I was excited, I was hesitant to speak about a community I had only been in for a year. Careful not to impose my idea of Black, my identity politics on to them, I asked the Black community what they dealt with. I interviewed anybody who considered themselves Black and was a native of San Diego — making exceptions for individuals who migrated to San Diego and/or lived there 10-plus years.

After listening to 300-plus people’s experiences, I picked seven to express the recurring sentiments I heard of Growing up / Birthing / Speaking up / Identifying / Fostering / Parenting /  being Homeless … while Black. It was hard to meet the subjects because Covid was extremely new, we were about four months in. The subjects changed often due to feelings of health anxiety, targeting from the (police department) and not wanting to lose their jobs — I understood. I’d like to do a shout-out (to the subjects) — Mikey, James, Ms. Shelley, Eryn, Billy, Ms. Ebony, Diamondz and Ra — for lending their stories and voices. The community appreciated it. I appreciated it, much gratitude. …

I spoke on San Diego’s NPR about it which made more people engage with it. It made me more confident. Now, I have community in pockets across San Diego, that are just one call away if need be. I also keep up with what’s going on, always still there to lend a hand.

Q. What attracted you to attend the MFA Photography, Imaging and Video program at the School of Art?

A. friend of mine (alumna Nassem Navab, MFA, ’19) who I met in San Diego suggested it to me. She was a graduate of the PVI program and knew it’d benefit me. I had always wanted to go to art school and the opportunity presented itself as organically as it could. The care from the School of Art and PVI’s welcoming arms, it felt right — and you always do what feels right. I’d like to give a shout out to Nassem; you’re a real one!

Q. What project(s) are you working on now?

A. I’m working more with the moving image, making myself the subject, challenging my visual language. I’m definitely in an experimental phase, but I enjoy.

Q. What are your career goals after you graduate?

A. It’s too early to tell. Circle back in 2025!

Basketball television analyst Bill Walton is a huge Grateful Dead fan. As luck would have it, the University of Arizona School of Art graduate student tasked with repainting his special McKale Center chair also shares his love for the eclectic rock band.

“I’m a big fan, so I originally did a design where it was all Grateful Dead,” said Gabrielle Walter, an MFA candidate in Illustration and Design. “But then I did some research on Mr. Walton, and I realized he also loves the Sonoran Desert and Tucson.”

So Walter incorporated more desert artwork on the seat and a small university logo on the back, while still including two small skull and lightning bolts – the band’s iconic logo – on the front. The lettering on the back, with the band’s font, simply says “Bill’s Chair.”

“I wanted to make sure the design was a culmination of all the things near and dear to his heart,” Walter said.

The finished product left Walton almost speechless on Jan. 7, when Arizona Athletics presented the yellow chair to Walton before the men’s basketball game against Washington State. Walter, who goes by “Gabi,” attended via Zoom and chatted with Walton as School of Art Director Colin Blakely and Assistant Director Karen Zimmermann looked on along with University of Arizona President Robert Robbins and Director of Athletics Dave Heeke.

“Oh, my. Look at this chair,” Walton said after it was unveiled at center court. “You’re incredible, Gabi. How did you know I like all this stuff?”

The new paint job idea came out of a meeting between College of Fine Arts Dean Andrew Schulz and Matt Ensor, assistant athletic director for communications.

“Obviously Bill is an iconic fixture in all walks of life and a champion of the University of Arizona,” Ensor said. “Once the idea came out in conversation with Andy, it was off and running.”

Walter ran her design ideas by Blakely, Zimmermann and Arizona Athletics. Walter sandblasted the chair to begin with, then had it finished with a protective coating afterward.

“When you get artists involved like Gabi, this is how cool you chair can look,” Blakely told Walton.

“Yes, I now have an ultimate destination (on press row),” said Walton, admiring the chair, which will stay in McKale.

The tall chair makes the 7-foot Walton seem even more imposing. A member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, the center led UCLA to two NCAA titles and helped the Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics win NBA championships in a stellar professional career.

His career took a toll on his body — Walton has had nearly 40 orthopedic surgeries, including several on his back — so he asked the University of Arizona years ago to order him a plain gray metal chair that helped his posture during the games.

To spruce up the chair, the School of Art ordered some enamel paints, and “I was lucky enough to get to do all of the detail work by hand,” Walter said. “A lot of the imagery is inspired by the Saguaro National Forest and the plants found there.”

Walter grew up in Houston and listened to her family to stay in Texas for her undergraduate degree, which she earned at Texas Tech. She loved Lubbock, creating a mural there, but said she was “ecstatic” when she was accepted into the University of Arizona School of Art.

Her partner, a graduate student in Omaha, Nebraska, also is a huge Grateful Dead fan. Walter plans to move to Omaha to be with him after graduation in May.

Walter is a graduate assistant for the School of Art, teaching studio art classes for First Year Experience students.

“I really love teaching,” Walter said. “I also worked with high school students as an undergrad at Texas Tech. I realized how much a difference you can make as a teacher.”

She certainly made an impression with Walton.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he said. “Spectacular job, Gabi. Empty the Thesaurus. You did it right here.”

Walton added: “I need my chair, and now I have a special one, and I can beam ever more proudly.”

“I’m happy to do anything for a fellow Deadhead,” Walter said.

Creating art is helping Erika Tenorio honor the University of Arizona student’s Nicaraguan-Mexican Indigenous heritage and grandmother, who died from COVID a year ago.

Not only is the two-spirit senior working on a printmaking project this semester titled “Linda Nicaragua, Mi Nicaraguita,” but one of Tenorio’s designs was chosen by the university’s Indigenous Cats Association to mark Indigenous People’s Day in October 2022.

Tenorio, who is double-majoring in Studio Art Illustration and Latin American Studies while minoring in American Indian Studies, was an inaugural scholar for the LAS department’s first-ever Central American Certificate Program.

In July 2021, Tenorio created a “caballa bayo,” a traditional Nicaraguan ceramic item, used to keep food on top of a dish warm. For the student’s paternal grandmother, it was the last image of Tenorio’s artwork she saw before dying two months later.

“My grandma said, ‘It’s beautiful to see you creating artworks about where you come from, whether it’s from this side of the family or your maternal family. It warms my heart – you are our family’s matriarch storyteller and will continue on the traditions,’” Tenorio said.

Tenorio’s father fled Nicaragua in the 1980s to escape fighting tied to the Contra War. Tenorio’s indigenous heritage draws from three communities: Chorotega (Nicaragua), paternal; and Tohono O’odham (Mexico) and Yaqui or Yo’eme (Mexico), maternal.

Born in Tucson, Tenorio saw few Nicaraguans or Central Americans while growing up in Arizona.

“Living in a predominant Mexican population, my father explained he had no choice but to assimilate to Mexican culture and Spanish when he arrived in the states because he stood out with his appearance and dialect,” Tenorio said. “In doing so, he forgot his Nicaraguan Spanish and culture for the most part.”

That’s one reason Tenorio is using artwork to “show the heritage I carry.”

For the independent study printmaking project, Tenorio is working with Professor Karen Zimmermann, assistant director of the School of Art, with possible topics of Indigenous history, identity, social politics and folklores.

“I’ll be carving my drawn images onto a linoleum block and carving it by hand, and finally moving the block onto the printmaking press,” Tenorio said. “The timing is tedious but very fun at the same time.”

As for her classes at the School of Art, “they are simply great,” Tenorio said. “I get to learn in different fields – design, typography, illustration, sculpture, ceramics, painting, figure drawing, etc. – and get to apply it to my artworks. Some professors have made me appreciate more of what I am capable of and … to think outside the box.”

Tenorio is proud of the winning design for Indigenous People’s Day, which will be included on T-shirts.

“I included a part of myself into the design,” said Tenorio, referring to a red, green, white and black flower at the top – a design used by the Chorotegas in Nicaragua. “This also shows that a Latino-Indigenous person such as myself exists and is capable of creating any representation works, whether its Central American, Mexican or Indigenous related.”

Tenorio joined the university’s Native Student Outreach Access and Resiliency (SOAR) program as a mentor – teaching Indigenous students from the Southwest about painting and sketching. Tenorio also helped other SOAR instructors gain a connection with Indigenous college students in Guadalajara, Mexico.

“With my community connections of the Tohono O’odham nation and Pascua Yaqui nation by my spouse and his family (O’odham), my family, friends and Indigenous communities on social media, it’s been healing to reconnect and actively help my family and Indigenous community in general,” Tenorio said, “and help those who are Indigenous outside of the global north and teach others that our relatives exist outside of the global north.”

After graduation, Tenorio hopes to keep making ceramics, which the Chorotegas are known for in Nicaragua.

Tenorio recently created a ceramic work of a mother and child, which “is about me and my son!”

“It’s almost identical,” Tenorio said, “to the one I made in sculpture of a mother holding her infant child – representing my father when he was an infant and my grandmother.”

That bronze sculpture now rests with Tenorio’s grandmother at her tomb in Nicaragua.

• Watch a video of Erika Tenorio for Native American Heritage Month,

TENORIO ADDRESSES COUNTY SUPERVISORS MEETING

Tenorio read the Land Acknowledgement on Nov. 15, 2022, at the Pima County Board of Supervisors Meeting.

“Koi muriό, S-ke:g taṣ, Tui taewai, Buenas, my name is Erika Tenorio, I am Central-American Mexican Indigenous and come from the Chorotega, Yaqui, and Tohono O’odham communities respectively. I’m an undergraduate senior studying at The University of Arizona where I’m double majoring in Studio Art Illustration, Latin American Studies, and minoring in American Indian Studies. Many of my works, both essays and artwork wise, revolve around my Central American, Mexican, Indigenous backgrounds; therefore the representations and acknowledgement is very important in a colonial diaspora. Kupa kastai, S-ap’o, Chiokoe uttesia, Gracias!”