Abstract
Paño art consists of elaborate ink drawings on fifteen-by-fifteen-inch cotton handkerchiefs produced by incarcerated Latinos. Paños are private expressions of love, devotion, and resilience made artifacts for public scrutiny at art galleries and museums. Although more than two dozen art exhibitions dedicated to paños have been held from Santa Fe to France since 1996, few scholars have published on their artistic merit. Recontextualizing paños as art and pintos (Spanish slang for inmates) as artists, this essay initiates a critical dialogue that keeps these items from becoming a fetishized curiosity for curators and collectors. In examining seven paños produced by Texas inmates in the 1990s from NEHMA and the Leplat-Torti collection, this study also aims to situate their cultural significance amid Chicano and emergent Tejano traditions.
Resumen
El Arte Paño consiste en una cuidadosa serie de dibujos en tinta aplicados sobre pañuelos de 15 × 15 pulgadas producidos por Latinos en prisión. Paños son una expresión privada de amor, devoción y resiliencia hechas artefacto para el escrutinio público tanto en galerías de arte como en museos. Si bien desde 1996 han habido más de dos docenas de exposiciones dedicadas a los paños, abarcando desde Santa Fe hasta Francia, son pocos los investigadores que han publicado sobre su mérito artístico. Al recontextualizar los paños como arte y a los llamados pintos como artistas, este ensayo posibilita un dialogo crítico que suprime cualquier intento de convertirlos en una curiosidad fetichizada por curadores y coleccionistas. A partir de la exploración de siete paños producidos por pintos tejanos en los años noventa pertenecientes a la colección del NEHMA y de Leplat-Torti, este estudio también busca situar su significado cultural entre tradiciones propias Chicano y aquellas emergentes Tejano.
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Notes
Latinx refers to the emerging movement modified by an inclusive approach to issues concerning Americans of Latin American descent. It is distinctive from preceding Latino movements that were frequently based on exclusive definitions, binary outlooks, and patriarchal authority.
Navarro (2015) provides a succinct description of the translation from Vasconcelos’s Mexicanismo to the American Chicanismo.
Personal communication, Reno Leplat-Torti, 24 April 2020. Mr. Leplat-Torti greatly expanded his collection and his exhibition endeavors since the 2015 release of the press kit cited.
Sorell (2006) provides an entire taxonomy on themes found in the pinto aesthetic.
The nomenclature is complex, as discussed by B. V. Olguín (2010). Prisoners that engage in transgressive acts self-identify as “convicts,” relegating the institutional term of “inmate” to their docile counterparts. At many points in history, the creation of paño art was deemed illicit by prison authorities.
Henry (2005) and Sorell (2006) both cite the 1940s. In Leplat-Torti’s press release (2015), Isabel Durand is quoted discussing an undisclosed fan’s theory for paño art beginning in the French prison system established in Mexico during the Revolutionary War (1910–1920). As the source is a press release for Reno Leplat-Torti’s exhibition, Durand’s fan may well be Mr. Leplat-Torti.
In a Latino USA interview, Martha Henry related that the privatization of prisons led to bans of the art form, applied indiscriminately from one institution to the next (qtd. in Hinojosa 2014).
In Texas, the late 1980s and 1990s witnessed the rise of the regionalized Tejano movement that reconnected Mexican Americans with local cultural traditions spanning northern Mexico and south Texas. Lowriders were traded in for pickup trucks and bandanas exchanged for cowboy hats. More recently, the more cosmopolitan Latinx perspective rivals the now-dated Tejano construct.
I suspect “Heary” may be “Heavy,” misread because of an alternate cursive representation of the letter “v.” Heary does not resonate in the Chicano or inmate context, but it may be a unique nickname. By contrast, Heavy communicates the gravity of the pinto’s personality, a term relating his toughness and serious demeanor.
Personal communication, Bolton Colburn, curator of Collections and Exhibitions, NEHMA, 10 April 2019.
Sorell (2006) refers to this compositional approach as a “Baroque horror vacui aesthetic.”.
Sorell (2006) also links the masks to a warning found in the Gospels, paraphrased as, those that laugh now will cry later (Luke 6:25).
Regardless of my suspicion of the inmate’s nickname being “Heavy,” I employ the name applied in the NEHMA catalog, “Heary.”.
Olguín (2010) references the transgressive figure in corridos, celebrated for their capacity for expressing agency through violence. Less a revolutionary than a tragic rebel, the hero of the corrido nevertheless represents resistance to perceived white hegemony.
This may also be a reference to the imaginary Aztlán homeland of all Aztec descendants, located somewhere in the frontier between the United States and Mexico, a prominent concept in Chicanismo.
Heary’s signature on the woman’s shoulder may also double as a tattoo indicating her devotion to the knight-turned-pinto.
Heary’s menacing clown invokes Paz’s assessment of the pachuco as “an impassive and sinister clown whose purpose is to cause terror instead of laughter. … He knows that it is dangerous to stand out and that his behavior irritates society, but nevertheless he seeks and attracts persecution and scandal” (1961, p. 16). Paz’s view was pessimistic and paternalistic, but he did capture the tragic irony of the social spectacle that led to the unjust incarceration of young Latinos in Los Angeles in the mid-twentieth century.
Pachuco and cholo origins are difficult to trace and display regional variation. In the early 1940s, pachuco stylings included zoot suits, fedoras, and pompadours. Flamboyant and even transgressive behavior was celebrated. By the 1960s, cholo emerged as the term Latinos used to self-identify, predominantly in the American Southwest. The cholo subculture borrowed heavily from pachucos, introducing a more contemporary affinity for athletic wear, khaki pants, plaid shirts, bandanas, and customized lowrider vehicles.
Olguín (2010) speaks eloquently about white and Chicano narratives competing for legitimacy in south Texas.
A ranfla is an older model car maintained out of necessity or updated and customized into an appealing lowrider vehicle.
It is Heary’s conflation of Aztec knight to what Olguín (2010) dubs the pachuco warrior hero and the pinto revolutionary.
My thanks to Nancy Galloway, Lupe Ramos, and Micaela Rowlett for their personal anecdotes regarding the growth of cholo culture in south Texas in the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.
The Reno Leplat-Torti Collection of Chicano Inmate Art. I extend my thanks to Mr. Leplat-Torti for sharing his collection and enthusiasm for paño art.
Cotorreando is more broadly used as slang for chatter, a reference to the constant noise-making characteristic of parrots and parakeets kept as pets by many Mexicans. However, in south Texas, Chicanos often used the term to refer to flirtatious banter. In the narco context, the perico is code for cocaine, but this usage was not popular in south Texas around 1993.
The mixing and chopping of imagery and free-form borrowing or abandoning of stylistic and compositional trends follows no hierarchy in modern Mexican or Chicano art. The process of negotiating the institutionalized pluralism of the penitentiary and (inadvertently) the canon of art history produces an individualized pluralism specific to the artists and the paño.
The image is not included for copyright reasons; however, the card is easily found on the internet.
Alternative spellings, capitalization, and the omission of accents and tildes is a frequent occurrence in the code-switching of Tex-Mex.
The ampersand is rendered backward to resemble a cursive capital “S;” the word “Three” is misspelled as “There.” Despite the language errors, playing the Houston event thrice was a notable feat for the artist and Selena’s fans.
A paño artist must obtain starching agents to flatten and smooth the handkerchief, either commercial or manufactured in the prison setting using various combinations of rice water, pasta water, cornstarch, and/or flour. Wax or glue adheres the textile to a hard surface for the application of the ink. If ink is not readily available, the artist must acquire or manufacture ink, with coffee grounds and shoe polish being attested sources.
Olguín (2010) describes the work of activist pinto Raúl Salinas as an ephemeral phenomenon reliant on the presence of a brown body laden with placas.
References
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I would like to thank Mr. Jairo Salazar and Dr. Laura Gelfand for their thoughts and comments.
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Ibarra, Á. Sueño en paño: Texas Chicano prison inmate art in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art Collection, Utah State University, and the Leplat-Torti Collection. Lat Stud 19, 7–26 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-021-00283-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41276-021-00283-x