By: Dani Nalangan

Madison Quiroz sketches history with a ballpoint pen.

As SHG’s Administrative Coordinator, with her inked arm and Doc Martens she wears to work, Quiroz is anything but monotonous. Growing up in La Mirada, she went from scribbling on Del Taco receipts during her part-time job to being commissioned for fine-line portraits, to spending her weekends as a tattoo apprentice in Los Angeles. 

I always thought Quiroz was cool—solidified by the old Billie Holiday standards she listened to in the office one day. But listening to her talk about her artmaking, upbringing, and work, I found myself learning that the person behind our usual email correspondence was someone passionate about family, history, heritage, and the fine lines one can draw between art and storytelling with a pen. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You mentioned being an art history major and Chicano studies minor in university, but growing up, were those part of your interests? What were you into growing up?

A: I was always into art. I was always closer to my mom's side of the family when I was growing up;, and on my mom's side of the family, there's five girls. My grandma and grandpa only had girls and all of my aunts are very creative. All of them are very, very artistic. So I always grew up, you know, with my mom encouraging me to do art. I learned a lot of my artistic abilities from my mom, just doing school projects, even. She would teach me how to draw faces, how to use different colors to make, you know, things look more realistic. I think my family was very supportive of me being interested in art. When I was in high school, I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the arts, but when I told my mom that, I think she was just very nervous, you know. My parents haven’t gone to college, so she kind of made it very clear that art was to be a hobby, and it's not supposed to be a career. So I kind of just was like, “Okay, I'll just go to school for psychology then,” just to make my mom happy. That's what I thought I wanted to do, but very quickly learned that of course, it wasn't what I wanted to do. To this day, my mom will ask me, “So what happened? You said you wanted to be a doctor.” And I'm like, “Oh my God, no, I just told you that because I didn't want you to be mad at me.”

I went to, actually, Fullerton Community College right out of high school. I was there for four years, just kind of navigating, kind of trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I'm a first gen student, so I think I took a little longer because I was just trying to figure out how to do everything. I was also working, at the same time, two to three jobs, so it did take me a little bit longer. It was there that I took my first art history classes and fell in love with it. I was also working in our college's art gallery for the four years that I was there, so I had a little bit of the museum experience. I got to travel to a lot of the museums in the area and get to see a lot of what other organizations are doing.

They had a museum city certificate program that I was in, and as part of the classes that we would take, we would take field trips to local museums or galleries or whatever. One time we went to the Vincent Price Art Museum. At that time, they had an exhibition by Star Montana, which was called Tear Drops and Three Dots. Star Montana is a photographer if you're not familiar with her work, but she photographs a lot of her family life. And so, for that exhibition, she had just a lot of pictures of her family, and that was the first time that I had been to a museum or gallery and seen people that looked like my family on the wall. I think that was a very pivotal moment in my life and in my career. That day, I just was so overwhelmed, I was standing in the gallery and crying because it was so personal to me. I think ever since then, it kind of gave me that focus, like I want to bring that same experience, why did it take me till I was in community college to have that type of experience? You know? 

At the same time, I was also taking Chicano Studies classes. I wasn't really sure how I was going to bridge the two, I just knew I knew that I really was interested in both of them. Then I transferred, in 2019, to UCLA, and did my major in Art History, then I minored in Chicano and Central American Studies. I'm not sure about whether I’ll go for my masters or not—I'm kind of taking a pause from school, especially after it took so long for me to finish my undergrad. Yeah, that's where I'm at right now, education wise.

Q: I know you mentioned being really into art growing up with all your creative family members around you. What was your main art practice? And also, do you have any inspirations for your art?

A: When I was younger, I loved to paint. I mean, I just loved to do anything that I could just have free rein on. I remember being in elementary school and being so excited when they would just give us blank pieces of paper, like I could do whatever I wanted to do. As I got a little bit older, I really started to like painting—this is probably when I was in middle school. Every time I got Christmas gifts, I would ask for Michaels gift cards so I could go get canvases and paint, and I would just paint whatever. They're horrible now looking back, but it was fun. I think I learned a lot about color and, you know, how to apply things. That was kind of my main go-to artistic medium—acrylic paint. In community college, I had to take a lot of studio art classes for my major, and I fell in love with oil painting. So I did that while I was in community college for a while.

When I started going to college and even, I want to say, in high school, I started experimenting with ballpoint pen. But I think it really took off in community college because I was working two to three jobs and going to school full time, so I wanted to create art but I didn't have the time to paint. I didn't have the time to do anything else, so I kind of just started doing art with ballpoint pens. I started to get better and better at that and I liked it because I could always have it with me, it was super inexpensive. I could do art wherever. I remember when I was in community college, since I was working at Del Taco, I would draw ballpoint on all of our receipt papers and stuff. I got really, really into it and a lot of, you know, ballpoint art originates from Pinto art—prison art. There's a big Chicano influence on fine line ballpoint art. So I think everything was coming together at that time. I'd really been interested in ballpoint art, I was doing it, and then I was also taking on these Chicano Studies classes, and then a lot of the influence was coming from prison art or other L.A. artists that were doing ballpoint art. That's still the type of art that I do—ballpoint art. For the past, I want to say, five or six years I've slowly been doing ballpoint art, and I haven't really gone back to painting or anything because I'm just so in love with doing ballpoint. I could go on and on about ballpoint—just the connections that it has to communities, like when you're talking about Pinto art specifically. I mean, it's a form of rasquachismo, which is a Chicano term, which is like, “making do with what you have.” 

I create art outside of my job here. That's kind of like my number one thing and for the longest time, I tried to keep my artistic practice separate from, like, any academic or education thing. I just felt like they didn't mesh. I think right now, for the first time ever, is when I'm trying to bridge the two.

Q: What are your favorite things to draw?

 A: I love drawing girls. Girls are fun to draw. I mean, when you look at ballpoint art, there's a lot of common iconography. You'll see a lot of, like, couples, or girls, like hyna and like vato. I love drawing Sacred Hearts, they’re really fun. And they all have ties back, like the Sacred Heart relates back to Catholicism. The male and female—the vato and the hyna—back to Teen Angels, which is another more recent part of Chicano history. I don't know, there's a lot.

I like drawing people a lot, as weird as it sounds. Not realistically, but a lot of the commission work I get is to do portraits of people. I feel very honored to do that. It's usually in memory of somebody. The last one I did, someone had wanted me to do a portrait of his girlfriend. It was a love thing, like he was giving it to her as a gift. I felt lucky to be part of that.

Q: Would you say that all your subject matters are very intimate and personal to you like that?

A: Absolutely. I think I pull a lot from religious iconography, and just the Chicano, Chicana experience. One piece that I've been working on that I haven't finished yet is—actually it's funny but they're like vignettes of girls fighting. But it's from my grandma who was total, like, chola, growing up. When I was younger, she would always teach me and my cousin, who were little, how to fight, as if we’d actually use this information. It’d be crazy stuff like, “Oh, you know, when I used to pull up to fights I would carry a razor blade in my mouth.” So I drew someone having a razor blade in their mouth. Or she'd be like, “Oh, yeah, we would put our hair up and put a switchblade in our hair. Then when you're fighting, you just pull a switchblade out.” And so I drew someone putting a switchblade in their hair. Obviously, I've never done any of that, but it’s just crazy experiences that I'm sure a lot of people had, you know. Different things like that. I pull from everywhere, I pull out from here, from Chicano history in general, from my family stories, from my stories, my experiences. And yeah, whatever. I think the best part of getting commission work and having people come to me is I get to be a part of that, and bring that story to life.

Q: How did you get into tattooing? I had no idea that you were apprenticing, but you mentioned it earlier.

A: I mean, it's always something that I wanted to do, probably since I was in community college. I just never knew how I was gonna make it happen, but I did know for sure that I wanted to give it a good, honest shot, I didn't want to half-ass it. I wanted to finish school before I even thought about doing tattooing, because I wanted to make sure I dedicated time and energy to it. I was stretched so thin when I was going to school, it was not possible. It had always been in the back of my mind. It was something that I wanted to do. I think that ballpoint translates so easily, like a lot of ballpoint artists are tattoo artists because the technique is very similar.

I had been following this artist for a long time—the artist that owns the shop that I currently work at—and honestly it was like fate, I don't know how it happened. He just put out an open call that he was looking for a shop assistant for his new shop that he was opening up. At that time, I still had three jobs. I had been finishing up school or just finished up school. And I was like, I don't know how the hell I'm going to make this happen, but I just have to apply, I just have to reach out to him. So I did, and I ended up getting the position. It was originally for a shop help, which basically, as a shop help you set up and break down the artists stations, you go grab them food, you make the stencils. All of the little things. You open up, you close in the evening. I wasn't even planning on asking for an apprenticeship because I know it's something that you have to earn. But I was like, let me just get this experience, see if I really want to work in a tattoo shop, then I'll go from there. But the owner had actually been following me on Instagram, so he was familiar with my art. He actually approached me about apprenticing. I was like, obviously, all in for it. So that's kind of how that happened. I don't know how it would have happened if that hadn't been the situation, you know. I know traditionally you get tattooed a lot, and then you approach an artist. I just feel like it was very much fate and my worlds colliding. So I'm here five days a week and then on the weekends, I’m at the tattoo shop. My schedule is very packed right now, but I also feel like I'm finally at this point in my life where I'm doing things I want to do, you know. I love being here at this work, and I'm doing something that I've always wanted to do at the tattoo shop. I think now I'm really trying to see how I can kind of bridge this Chicano history, community cultural work, and tattooing. I'm still fleshing that out.

Q: After you graduated college, how did you learn about SHG? How did you find and get this position?

 A: I had been to SHG once a long time ago for a workshop that my friend brought me to, but I don't think I really registered like, “Oh, this is Self Help Graphics”. I just was kind of tagging along. But when I was at UCLA, there's a professor named Alma Lopez. We have some of her prints here, but she's a Chicana artist. She did a lot of her work in the 80s here. She always talked about Self Help and how important it was to the community, how important it was to her growth as an emerging artist, having the space to be able to come and create prints. I think from her, I had known more about it. 

In the summer of 2020, I was interning at the Vincent Price Art Museum through the Getty. Self Help Graphics is in a coalition with the Vincent Price Art Museum called the Latinx Art Alliance which includes Self Help Graphics, Vincent Price Art Museum, SPARC, the Museum of Latin American Art, and La Plaza. We do a lot of work with them, and we're very close with the Vincent Price Art Museum. I was there as their Curatorial Assistant during the summer of 2020, and then after my position there ended, I learned about this position opening up. I contacted my supervisor, and I was like, “Hey, guys, do you work with them? Can you help me fix my resume? Can you help me apply?” And he kind of put in a good word for me too. That's kind of how I ended up here. My position here is Administrative Coordinator, and I've had previous administrative experience. So I was like, this is a perfect way to do what I already know how to do and with an organization that I want to grow with and that I actually like. Our values and mission are the same. 

Q: Do you have any favorite memories or things that have happened that stand out to you working here?

 A: I mean, I think just in the time being here—I mean, Self Help has had such a long history, but I think now that I've been working here, and I introduce myself, and I will say like, “Oh, I work at Self Help,” almost literally everybody that I talked to has had some kind of connection to Self Help. And I think it's just, it's really cool to learn about the reach it's had. The owner of the tattoo shop, he's not Mexican, he's not Chicano or anything, but there was a really big collective—Asco—within the Chicano art movement, and one of the members of Asco was his mentor. And back at the old Self Help building—we used to be down the street, but we got priced out of that building—it used to be two stories, and the second story, like a couple times a night, they would turn it into a punk venue. So like, all these punk bands would come and play. And the guy that owns a tattoo shop that I work at used to play. So when I told him I worked at Self Help, he was like, “Oh, I used to play there, you know?” So it's stuff like that, people have said, like, “Oh, I used to go there for ska shows,” or “Oh, I used to vend at the marketplaces that you guys had.” So I think that's all really cool because as someone that's trained in history and specifically Chicano history, I feel like there's so many stories that are untold about Self Help, and the reach that it's had and like, the things that people have given to us, but also the stuff that Self Help is given to them. I feel like it's really, really important. 

But I mean, as far as specific memories, I don't know. I've only been here a year, maybe I should say that. I started in 2021, so when I started, actually, we were still pretty remote. I don't think we ended up coming back into the office—I mean, we're still not fully in the office, because we still do hybrid, you know. But it took a while to get adjusted to everything here because I was online, and a lot of our programs weren't running. The building still wasn't open until late last year. So, yeah.

Q: Is there anything you're looking forward to experiencing with SHG?

 A: Yeah, there's a lot. I mean, I'm excited to just grow in this position. I mean, I don't want to be an Administrative Coordinator forever. I mean, I'm excited for the renovation. I'm excited to be back in this space, after we move out to see what it's like and see how it will affect our programs and everything that we have. I'm also really excited because—you've been in our staff meetings, and we've talked about the Wallace Foundation. Yeah, so we'll be getting that scholar who's going to do a lot of work here surrounding Self Help’s history. I've been recently doing a lot of oral history training so that hopefully, my goal is to work with the scholar in documenting a lot of these histories. So I'm excited for that too. Because there's a lot, like everything about the Vex has never been documented. And a lot of that's just been to, because of capacity reasons. Prior to a couple of years ago, there was only a staff of like three people. So there was no time to archive, there was no time to document all these important things that Self Help has done. It's just been like survival mode, you know. So, yeah, I'm excited to see how Self Help grows in the time that I'm here because even since last year, there's been a lot. We've paid off the building, I mean, we're gonna have this big renovation. So yeah, I'm looking forward to all of it.

Dani Nalangan is the summer/fall Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture, Arts Journalism and PR Intern at Self Help Graphics & Art. She is a musician and illustrator studying Musicology and Communications at UCLA.