Based on a traditional Mexican game, students and a local nonprofit organization hosted an art exhibit Friday night at Santa Maria High School.
Walls of colorful paintings filled the inside of Santa Maria High School’s cafeteria during the Nuestra Lotería Art Exhibition. Students painted and personalized cards from the traditional mexican game, loteria.
Bellinda Marcial is a senior who participated in the project. She said she enjoyed getting to see artwork from other students.
“I feel like not like many high schools do this,” Marcial said. “Like it's only like a little bit of high school that show Hispanic culture and I feel like we should have more of that.”
Each card focused on topics ranging from religion to immigration and often focused on issues or aspects of hispanic culture.
Marcial’s lotería painting highlighted alcoholism. She said it’s a prevalent issue in her community that many people struggle with. The students wrote an additional essay relating to their themes.
A local nonprofit organization called Corazon del Pueblo came up with the idea to create the exhibit.
They collaborate with high school ethnic and gender studies classes to have students work on art projects centered around culture, community and social justice. This year about 344 students participated in the project.
Esmeralda Garcia is the organization’s managing director. She said that the project works to heal the community through art.
“You witness right here a whole community coming together celebrating and actually, you know, feeling valued and included in the art world, so that's beautiful,” Garcia said.
The gallery event also had live music from students, mexican cuisine and lotería games attendees could play.