Art and design is created through the harmonious blend of colors, lines and shapes. Most importantly though, it is informed by lived cultural experiences. Diego Mendoza-Ramos, a 28-year-old Los Angeles artist, has done just that with a collection of Lotería cards that he designed for the Los Angeles Rams.
Mendoza, who immigrated from Tecate, Mexico to Los Angeles as a kid, has had the chance to make art for the likes of Vans and LAFC. From murals to animation, Mendoza’s multidisciplinary portfolio speaks volumes about his personality and approach to life. In this Q&A Mendoza shared details of his past as well as his process as an artist.
If someone were to randomly stop you on the street and ask you to tell them who you are, what would you say and why?
I don’t like to feel like I’m above anybody else, or any of that kind of stuff, so if someone were to walk up to me, I just feel like, “yeah no, I’m just me, I’m an artist who likes to create and make connections and bridges with people through the through the crafts and stuff.”
You said we’re all uniquely special and what makes you special is your art. How long have you been making art?
When I first started doing art, it was taught by my mother who taught me how to do graffiti…The beautiful thing about that is that graffiti ended up becoming something that I realized that I was very good at, in the lines of being able to paint bigger pictures. And then from there it just challenged me more and more to be like, “Okay I have this ability that I can bring a message that can either be showcased in this small paper or it can be showcased in a giant wall.” And nonetheless I as a person have that and I’m able to show people that they can be capable of that as well in the process.
Along the way, as you were developing your art, were there mentors who taught you more about the medium or would you say that you are primarily self-taught?
Originally my mom was like one of the main origins to that. When she left I did keep it with me to kind of hold her close to me in that sense. But, along the years, as I kept exploring, ironic and funny enough in high school, I failed every art class. So it’s kind of funny to be in this position where I didn’t have mentors in the traditional art space. I had a whole bunch of mentors in like the far side of the untraditional manner, like I had John Zender Estrada…He does a lot of community, mural programs and graffiti programs for the children in the communities and I remember at the time he had a class and he had signed us…he’s one of the people as well in the roster of so many people that are just like, whether they’re artists or even just locals, they somehow someway taught me something that made me incorporate all my craft and all my lessons into an interdisciplinary way.
Home could be people, a place or maybe even a thing. Right now you’re in Brooklyn which is far away from Los Angeles, so where is home? How do you find home away from home?
Home is just more of what you make of it. As someone who’s been on the end of always being on the move, and kind of always having had to move from left to right, even after high school, I was homeless for a bit, during college and then after that. It’s just one of those things where I never really found a traditional sense of home, I almost just created my own home out of the boroughs that I kind of got stuck in, and it managed to provide me with with this interesting nomadic energy of no matter where I’m at…I’m still kind of keeping true to, I kno it sounds funny to say it this way, but the immigrant in me where I will always be traveling and be making these bridges and connections with people all over the world because I don’t know, I feel like it’s one global citizen scale where the globe itself is home.
How did growing up in L.A. influence your art? What parts of the city did you see that you find in your art?
It’s a lot of pride. It’s just so much pride. It’s so rich in pride and that’s what I love about L.A. When I first moved into the country, I was very young. I was around like five or six. We first moved into Compton, and eventually moved to South Central and slowly made our way to the beach, so we kind of were thriving for that beach area. Through all that, it just kind of helped me open up my lens that much more and I think that’s just something that was, once again I feel like this whole journey, although it has tragic parts, it’s just very beautiful in its essence, that one can see life so openly for everything that it really is. I know that now I’m in Brooklyn, and I go to Philadelphia sometimes and I know some areas that aren’t even aware of such diversity around them, you know. And so tying it back, like the whole L.A. thing is just L.A. was very welcoming and it has such a strong community that, once again, just felt like another piece of home that’s familiar still even though there’s so many other people from so many different backgrounds. There’s still this middle ground of understanding that we all kind of celebrate in L.A.
Going back to your background as a Mexican, we know Aztec culture has such a big influence on the country and I know that you’ve studied Aztec designs. How do you incorporate those designs into your own art that already mixes a variety of influences?
The way that I move towards Aztec designs is, I could have easily gotten a design that I like, “Okay, let me just stamp that here and put it here.” Instead if you look at the Vamos Rams merch collection, which has this pattern on it, it’s a pattern that’s supposed to almost storytell within my own version of an Aztec warrior band. If you look at the Vamos Rams design, it has two layers, the top and the bottom. Warrior bands back in Aztec history, whether it’s an Aztec jaguar evil warrior, the bands were supposed to represent strength, you know, and it just gives this very strong feeling to the warriors coming out into battle. So the way that I incorporated that with the Aztec designs that I had implemented into the designs that I had for the Rams collection was that I was trying to tell the story of two worlds kind of meshing together...Basically what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to make a bridge to be able to extend and represent our place in this land before everything else. I’m using Rams especially as a big U.S. platform. What better than a U.S. favorite pastime to help preserve one of Mexican’s most traditional and sacred cultures? And so I took that opportunity with that to really make that bridge and kind of tell the story not just of us as a community, but also me as the artist who’s just like, “Okay, I come from this standpoint, where I’m not from here, but I’m stepping into these rooms. How can I share that without just copy pasting some traditional aesthetic design?” The way that I’m going to do it is by creating this separate new design.
In an interview for Chicano Perspectives, you talk about your understanding of the Buddhist concept of impermanence. How does this understanding, as well as your understanding of other cultures and religions, influence your art?
I always felt like the Buddhist doing that specifically with a grain of salt, where they created such beautiful masterpieces, and so easily just got a Swiffer vacuum and just sweep it away it’s just that was always so fascinating to me, because to be so dedicated to creating something so beautiful ,but yet so easily okay with knowing that, like if it needs to be dismissed if its time was served it’s okay, I’m just happy that I enjoyed it for the time being. It allows you to be a lot more present with the things that you’re creating and also not be so extremely attached, understanding that was just a moment in time that I created that, that moment, and that painting that I created at that time, even if it gets erased is something that will always stick in a weird way because it’s just the understanding that you develop as a graffiti writer in the community. That’s why when the Vela mural was vandalized I was like that’s the name of the game…I just like to navigate life in that sense, where it’s just nothing really, if we really think about it, nothing is gonna last forever and so it’s just more of, whether understanding that or dreading that, when you understand that you appreciate everything and you become that much more grateful but when you, fight it off like bro, you’re just miserable, you know?
Family is very important in Latino culture. How do you keep those connections alive through your friends and your own art and how do you use that to create community?
I feel like it’s another thing where like it aligns with the same question as home where family doesn’t also have to be blood for you to feel so strongly in love somebody to that extent and care for someone to that extent…As a Latino culture, I just know, family is one of the most important things that we rock for, no matter what we do, even if we got that, teenage angst energy of, “I’m not going to do what you say to your parents” type of deal, deep down inside you know you’re just trying to make your parents proud. I just appreciate all the sacrifices that they have made to get us this far…I guess the takeaway I’d like to say with that, it’s just whether your sense of family is strong or not, it’s once again, just like home it’s more of what you make of it you know?
All of these questions add up to this one. Lotería is a traditional Mexican game that is played with family. When designing these cards, how did you keep them authentic while also adding your own twist to it?
When it came to the cards, it was an assignment that when I was presented with the idea, I was like, “Oh, hell yeah, this is so dope, it’s so cool.” But, where can I find the solution for it? Because it can be done, but it can be done in such an exploitive way and that’s always never the intention. My intention is to make sure whoever sees this does not feel like, “Bro are you trying to profit off of my history?” and it’s like no it’s also a shared history that I’m actually trying to keep alive by introducing it to other communities…When it came to the designs, the designs were my middleground. The Lotería itself emphasizes on the Mexican community and the football pieces that were tied into it were supposed to celebrate how we’re being welcomed into this space which is America’s pastime. What better way to jump into one of the most historic sports in the U.S. by providing one of the most historic, traditional games [Lotería] that we would grow up with? Now if you take a whole bunch of friends who are not Mexican to a game, like to this game on Sunday, and they’re all there playing Lotería, the way that you just managed to educate a whole new community who was not aware about something so special and sacred, that now they’ll be able to appreciate it just as much as you do. One of those goals is to create that bridge.
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That “bridge” is being made more and more expansive everyday. It is an example of how the city’s sports teams are becoming more and more representative of the diversity around them, whether it’d be through community outreach programs or opportunities, such as the one that Mendoza was given.
Mendoza is an artist that is as thorough with his words as he is with his designs. He is able to draw from different fountains of inspiration, while maintaining his art authentic to his own identity and beliefs. His Lotería collection for the L.A. Rams is an example of how bridges can be built across communities through thoughtful design that is grounded in tradition, but embellished with the present.
You can view the collection here.