Rosy Conversation: Liz Mayorga
It’s time for a Rosy Conversation!! To kick us off, here’s Liz Mayorga, whose BREAD AND BUTTER will be released later this year! BREAD and BUTTER is a graphic novel about Liana Caudillo, an artist who likes painting portraits of musicians. She goes to San Francisco to find a community of like-minded people, but when she arrives finds that most of the artists that gave the city its character have been pushed out. Instead she finds a different community, one of servers and cooks and she paints portraits of them instead. Each portrait tells a story of survival and perseverance.
First we got all biographical:
Jaymee: Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Liz: I come from a traditional, Catholic, Mexican family from a small town. My parents were both very hard working, and they were always graceful about it. I grew up going to work with them after school, on weekends, and holidays. My dad was big on films and music, so our whole family would indulge in classic films and records from both sides of the border. I grew up in LA, so my parent's interests mixed with LA's endless world of entertainment and subculture shaped me into who I am today.
Jaymee: We're labelmates, but we all have different stories of how we fell in with Rosarium! What's yours?
Liz: I went to Sól Con at Ohio State University this past October. I was talking to Bill about writing. I was asking him about his process. He asked me what I was working on, and I shared this zine called "Bread and Butter" that I had been working on about living and working in San Francisco as a server. I didn't mean that to be a pitch, but Bill took it. He offered me the opportunity to turn it into a bigger project and share with a wider audience. And I'm forever grateful. I love being a part of this crew.
Jaymee: What got you into art and drawing?
Liz: I was a lonely kid with an active imagination. My brothers are both about ten years older than me, and they were always doing their own thing, and my parents were always working, so I would draw. Movies and cartoons also helped. I knew as a kid that I would never outgrow cartoons.
Jaymee: What mediums do you use for your art?
Liz: I mostly work with brush and ink. I use a Pentel brush pens and water for my ink wash illustrations. But for this project, which needs a faster drawing pace, I've been using Copic markers for the "ink wash" and gel pens for cross-hatching.
And now some questions about the upcoming graphic novel!
Jaymee: In BREAD AND BUTTER, your protagonist begins painting portraits of servers and cooks instead of the musicians she'd gone to the big city for. What drove you to choose this group of service workers?
Liz: I grew up in the kitchen. My parents had a small, fast-food, Mexican restaurant. There was always music in the kitchen, rhythm, and almost an organic choreography. There was also a lot of labor, sweat, tears, which is potential for great storytelling, and that resilience I grew up with has always been a source of inspiration.
Like my main character, Liana, I also came to the Bay looking for an artistic community. Soon, I realized San Francisco has a very elitist side to it and it is a cruel, cruel place for anyone without money. I worked at the de Young Cafe for a year. I was bussing tables, getting flashbacks of my youth, and I felt stuck, like there could never be a way to escape this routine. What was most infuriating was the invisibility that came with serving other people, so I started writing. I loved my coworkers. Their stories were fascinating. I also started to see the craft behind good food and good customer service, so I considered my coworkers artists in their own right.
Jaymee: Tell us a bit about Liana, your main character... what is she like? And how autobiographical is she?
Liz: Originally, I wanted this to not be autobiographical, but the more I dive into this story, the more of me comes out through Liana. I needed distance from my own experiences in order to write this story, and creating Liana has helped with that. Her interests, her emotions, and her background is the same as mine, but she's definitely a lot more extroverted than I am. She likes to party and I don't. Yet, sometimes I feel like I'm rediscovering myself through her, and that I'm also changing because of her.
Jaymee: It sounds like Liana's story grew from what you had initially planned! Could you tell us a bit more about how her character has developed, and where you think she will go, from zine to novel?
Liz: When Josh Whedon took Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie) and made it into a television series, he said he had a hard time figuring out how to make it a longer project. But it all became clear when he saw how you can use horror films as a metaphor for your High School years. I had a similar experience with "Bread & Butter."
It was supposed to be my personal account of dealing with classism and other obstacles in San Francisco, while trying to hold on to my identity as a creative. It was supposed to be about working through different types of heart ache.
Well, while I was trying to figure out how make this into something bigger, I started collecting records and I realized that music was just as important to me as it was to Liana. She understood the world through songs, so she would paint an album cover for every person she admired. With just a few characters, these portraits would make up a soundtrack for an invisible group of San Franciscans.
Prodding a bit more into history…
Jaymee: What other projects have you done?
Liz: Mostly "zines" (or self-published magazines), and they are a mix of prose, comics, and illustrations. I started with "Outgrowing Plastic Dolls," which is about coming of age and identity. I followed that with "A Caxcan Guerilla Takes Over the Awkward Girl." I did my mini-comic "Monstrous Love Stories," and that's about heartbreak and feeling isolated. My last two zines, "Inked" and "Temastian" are almost travel journals. They're about experiences and conversations that take place while visiting relatives on the other side of the border. In these two zines, family polities and Mexican politics intertwine.
Jaymee: Those zines sound amazing! Are they available for purchase somewhere?
Liz: I had an Etsy page at one point. Then life threw a few curve balls at me, but I'm working on getting it up again.
Jaymee: What do you like about zine-making as opposed to other forms of sequential art?
Liz: I like the DIY aspect of zine-making, and how accessible or affordable it is. You can create a book and engage with different types of creative thinking, from writing to design. And because it can be so casual, the stakes feel low. There's less pressure to create something perfect, which helps relieve some of my creative anxiety. I also like how easily people become engaged with zines, and the exchange that happens between people who make them. It fosters a community. And if you ever see teenagers making zines, you'll see each unique voice shining through. It's an impressive thing to witness.
Jaymee: What are some zines you've enjoyed and would recommend?
Liz: There's so many! I'm lucky enough to be part of a really creative community. A lot of my favorite creators also happen to be my friends. Gabby Gamboa makes beautiful zines inspired by short stories, Film Noir, and music. I love Jaime Crespo's "Tortilla" zines. I also feel inspired by my friend Sarah Godfrey's work. She compiles stories from different women, their relationship to their bodies, and dealing with health issues that are usually not discussed in the open. Her zine titles are "My Family's Vaginas," "My Friend's Vaginas," and she also made a great X-file fanzine. I also love anything by Awkward Ladies Club, which is always filled with hilarious dry humor. Tomas Moniz's Rad Dad zine is an endless pool of amazing collaborations.
Tyler Cohen brings her experiences as a mother and her relationship with her daughter to life in "Primahood." Miyuki Baker does "International Queer Art Activism Zines." Jonas Cannon's "Srviv" and "Cheer the Fuck Up" are great! Celia Perez does "Ofrenda," which is filled with compelling stories. Ed Luce's "Wuvable Oaf," which is more of a graphic novelist now, never disappoints. "Zinerasquache" is another great one by Chicana zinester, Brenda Montaño. She and Breena Nuñez Peralta sometimes collaborate, and Breena's work is also outstanding. Justin Hall also does graphic stories, but he's one of my favorite storytellers, and he made this zine "A-Z" (I think), which is one of the zines I've enjoyed the most. Really, the list is endless. These are just the few that come to mind.
Getting political…
Jaymee: Your work that you've described comes out of deeply personal-is-political spaces. Is that a thing you consciously infuse your art with, or are these themes are just so happen to interest you?
Liz: I'd describe it as a subconscious infusion that threads through all of my work. I write when I feel conflict, and I come from a very conflicting family, so they unintentionally give me a lot of material. Then, when I go work - regardless of the type of work - I end up running into the same problems that I've had growing up. A lot of it has to do be being ignored or silenced and my never-ending struggle to validate myself. I've been told in many ways to "remember my place," and to value other people more than I value myself. It's a constant process of unlearning and relearning how to love who I am and not apologize for it. I often ask myself, "What is my place?" The power of imagination is that it challenges whatever limits other people impose on you. I try to remind myself (and others) of that whenever I sit down to create.
Jaymee: I'd also love for you to talk more about the framing of food service workers as artists, and the invisibility of their labour, especially if you had anything you'd like to share that would give us a hint of what we can expect to see in BREAD AND BUTTER.
Liz: There's a lot of theater in the food service industry. It's not a coincidence that so many actors were also servers or bartenders. There's a curtain between the front of the house and the back of the house, and there's a dance that happens between the two. Servers filter whatever drama guests create, so that the cooks can continue hustling through their day. And the guests never see the sweat that goes into creating their meals. They don't hear all of the languages being spoken in the kitchen. They don't realize the skills that go into creating their food and beverages, nor do they see the effort it takes to create a pleasant and memorable experience.
People seem to associate intelligence and talent with other professions, usually white collar jobs or any job that pays you a lot of money, and they have no idea how much logic, critical thinking, problem solving, creativity, emotional and physical intelligence goes into working a labor-intensive job. Money doesn't necessarily follow hard work, intelligence, talent, or any of those things, so to place monetary value on individuals is just wrong. It dehumanizes people with low wages or no wages at all. My attempt is to challenge that perception by unveiling the theater and showing more humanity.
Getting personal…
Jaymee: You mentioned your family being Catholic and Mexican. Do you identify as Chicana, then? How much of this diasporan background might have influenced your work?
Liz: I do identify as Chicana, but for the longest time, I just identified as Mexican. When I was a kid, I lived in Mexico for a few years. We moved back to LA just as I started first grade, but my parents still tried raising me as if we were in Mexico. That was easy considering the demographics of our neighborhood. Mexican culture dominated my life, but that started to change around 4th grade when I discovered Nirvana. Then in middle school, Tupac became a huge influence. I didn't understand what Chicana meant until I went to college, and realized Chicanismo was all about syncretism that shaped me.
Jaymee: Will you keep BREAD AND BUTTER in mostly zine form, or will we see a developmental arc unfold?
Liz: BREAD AND BUTTER has developed from a zine to a graphic novel, and it continues to evolve. There's definitely an arc. The characters are already growing. I'm not sure exactly how it's going to end up, but I'm excited to find out. This project has been full of surprises and I'm learning a lot about myself in the process, so I'm overall very happy to evolve with it.
Thanks Liz for indulging our questions! If you would like to pre-order BREAD AND BUTTER, please consider pitching in with our IndieGoGo campaign!
CLICK HERE TO DONATE!
Jaymee Goh is an accomplished writer, editor, reviewer, blogger, and academic of science fiction, fantasy, and steampunk. She has written and edited several books, including the wildly successful The Sea Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia along with Joyce Chng and published by Rosarium Publishing. In her new interview series, “Rosy Convos” Jaymee interviews the women that are creating work published here at Rosarium.
