By: Dani Nalangan

Natalie Godinez engages in activism with the DIY mindset of “we can do it too!”

A multi-skilled crafts and textiles artist, SHG’s Community Engagement Manager strives to add storytelling to activism through the arts. Running SHG’s youth programs, she’s been able to facilitate just that, guiding youth in bringing awareness to issues and narratives in the communities through the creation of workshops, videos, ofrendas, and more. Godinez herself, however, has her own story, from her childhood growing up in Tijuana, to teaching in Oakland, to here in East Los Angeles. I got the opportunity to hear about it one day. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You mentioned being into art since you were a kid. Did you have anything that inspired you to get into art, like was it something you just started doing on your own from your own curiosity? Or did you have any influences?

A: I feel like it was something I was always really into since on my own, but my mom would always tell me that when she was younger, she liked painting. And also, I feel like in my family we're all very DIY, so like, if sometimes we saw stuff we liked, we would be like, “Oh, we could make it at home.” I feel like it was the culture of my home. I feel like my mom always encouraged anything that I, well both my parents, but they always encouraged whatever I wanted to do. So I, you know, for example, I took French classes when I was like a kid, and it was like a class for adults. [Natalie laughs] I was the only kid there and went for like, two years. So I feel like my parents were just like, “Okay, cool, you want to do this thing,” and as long as it would fit within our budget, they would allow me to do it. I went to a community center, the ‘Casa de la Cultura’, in Tijuana, where I grew up. They had affordable art, dance and language classes, that’s where I took French and dance. I think it was like something I was into, I just liked drawing a lot. I loved reading, so then I really loved writing too. So I would write poetry or short stories. It was just something I was just drawn to naturally and it was encouraged by my family. They just let me do it. So I can't think of a specific thing that caught my attention to do art, it was more just like, “Oh, that's something I like and enjoy. It makes me happy.” 

Q: When you went to college, did you go into college wanting to do art? When did you decide that that was something you wanted to do?

A: So I went into college thinking I wanted to be a fashion designer. I went to community college first, and I was taking classes so I could transfer to Long Beach State. They had a fashion design and merchandising program. But when I started taking art classes, I realized I didn't actually want to be a fashion designer, I just really loved art, and I loved fabric and textiles. So I just wanted to use those materials, because I would do some sewing projects in high school just for myself, but I wasn't that passionate about making clothes. So then I just transferred to a program, I transferred to San Diego State. It was a program that was crafts essentially, it was called Applied Design, so I could do textiles. I also did ceramics and I also did woodworking a little bit, because you have to take all the different topics within the program. Then I took printmaking classes and that's when I fell in love with printmaking. After that, I mostly focused on printmaking and textiles. Those are the mediums I like the most. But I also like drawing and watercolors, but they’re not the primary medium that I use. 

Q: So what exactly about textiles and printmaking made you really like those kinds of mediums of art, compared to others that you've tried?

A: Well, I feel like I like to try all kinds of art. So I do like other mediums, I do love ceramics too, I just didn't do it enough. I don't know what it is, I think it's just, that it's really process based. And I like things that are super process based like printmaking, I did a lot of intaglio printmaking in college. And it's like, even from creating the image to printing it, it's super labor intensive. Processes like that, that take a long time, they give you time to kind of think about what do you want to do next? And how do you want to approach it? It's not as quick. And textiles, too, I think textiles were more like, because I love clothes and I love fashion, it's kind of was a natural segue into them. Textiles are also very traditional in Indigenous based crafts in Mexico, which you see a lot by just living there, and that really inspired me too. Seeing all the embroidery and weaving was something that really interested me in pursuing learning these processes. I think in the beginning, it was more of that, like the process oriented nature of it, but then as I've gotten older I’ve learned that printmaking can be really political. That's something that I'm really drawn to, like you can share a message, you can reproduce it. Lately, I've been doing more linoleum cuts, more like relief printing, which I did less of before, and now I want to get more into screen printing since I’m at Self Help. It's a combination of things, but I really, I just like things that take time. It just gives you the space to really analyze what you're creating.

Q: What do you like exploring with your art?

A: I think it depends on what I'm creating for, if that makes sense. So like with textiles, I like something that’s just a process, and the materials. I like making jewelry—I made, for a little bit, jewelry, and sold at craft shows but kind of stopped doing that—but I think for me, that was a way of just creating it for the sake of creating without thinking about the subject matter or the theme. It was more like, “Oh, I liked these materials and I like bright colors, and I like, you know, expressing myself.” But now, I've been trying to explore using a lot of text in images with printmaking. I, you know, like I said before, I loved writing when I was younger, and I still do. I write poetry, but I don't share it with anybody [Natalie laughs]. But you know, I used to. And I think I'm just going more towards that route. I think most of the things in my artwork are connected to identity or my own experiences. And those, you know, vary, because my experience is complex, right? I’ve had a lot of experiences that have shaped who I am. So I think all those things influence the work that I create. 

Also, I was part of a collaborative project called AMBOS Project that my friend Tanya Aguiñiga founded. We did a lot of work on the U.S.-Mexico border. So we did documentation, it was her project to create documentation on the U.S.-Mexico border. We traveled, we did performance-based work and we’d meet a lot of artists during that journey. I was in charge of social media and in charge of contacting artists. We did two big trips. On the second trip, I was in charge of contacting artists that we could meet in different areas. That also influenced my idea of what artwork could be, and understanding that sometimes it's not an object, but it's a process, like, for example traveling and meeting people and showing others what that looks like. That can be artwork as well or even creating a performance. I had never done anything like that before that project. So that's another side of my practice, more community-based work, which is a lot of what I do at Self Help Graphics through facilitating projects. It’s less of me doing the projects, and more of me helping the youth or helping the campaigns we’re part of create artwork. 

So a lot of my artwork can be really personal and introspective work or it sometimes addresses issues that are important to me and I'm creating artwork for that. So right now, I'm trying to kind of merge those two sides and I'm trying to figure out how to use my personal experience and what I want to express, and then connecting it to other people's experiences and how they're similar. That’s where I'm at right now, trying to marry those two things in my own artwork, which I’m hoping feels more cohesive. 

Q: What were your first experiences with SHG? Also, did you have any jobs before that?

A: Yeah, when I was in college, I worked at a children's museum. Well, I worked at the mall first, you know, like, first job, you work at the mall. And then I worked at a children's museum when I was in college as a teaching artist. So I was doing school tours for kids. It's a museum in San Diego called The New Children's Museum, it's a contemporary art museum for kids. So they have a lot of interactive pieces that also have a lot of content and meaning behind them, like themes. So I did school tours, I helped do workshops that were connected to the exhibitions, I also ran some of the birthday parties. I did like a lot of stuff there. That's kind of when I first started working with kids.

After college, I moved to the Bay Area, I lived in Oakland for five years. And when I was up there, I worked as a teaching artist for a short time in one studio, then teaching classes on the side as an independent contractor. After that, I worked for an an after-school program as a teacher, both in after school and supporting small groups in the daytime. The program I worked for was focused on literacy, but I integrated a lot of my art background and art knowledge, and brought some art projects into the classroom. I even wrote a year’s worth of art curriculum before I left.  Alongside that, that's when I was doing a lot of my jewelry, because I was trying to do art on the side that was easy to do because I was working full time. I was very focused on teaching and I was like “Okay, maybe I want to be a full time teacher,” and I almost went that route, because I loved working in the classroom. But ultimately decided that I just wanted to make art and I wanted to get a job connected to the arts.

Around that time, me and my husband decided that we wanted to move, so we landed on moving to L.A. because it's closer to home, and I knew there were a lot of art jobs in L.A., because I have some friends who live here. So we moved to L.A., and then that summer before was when I started doing the project that I told you about before, AMBOS Project. So that whole summer right before we moved, I was part of that. We traveled for two weeks on the border, and then when I came back, my friend who started the project had a studio—she's a textile artist—and she's like, “Okay, do you want to just work for me in the studio?” So I worked in her studio for two years doing production while managing all the communications for AMBOS Project. We would plan other trips to go finish documenting the border, as well as working in her studio creating artwork for gallery shows, museum shows, for private clients. So I worked doing that for two years, kind of two jobs in one. Then after that, there was no more opportunity to work there anymore doing production, but I continued doing work for AMBOS Project. At that time, there were a lot of people coming to the border in the caravans, a lot of people from Central America. I coordinated a lot of donations and co-organized a fundraiser, and during this time I was also pregnant. I did that for a little bit before I had my daughter.

Once I had my daughter, I stayed home for some time, for like eight months. After that I started looking for jobs, and I found the Self Help Graphics job. I already knew about Self Help Graphics from college because I did a lot of printmaking, and a classmate had told me about it. I had heard about Self Help Graphics, and I was like, “Oh, this job looks really cool, it's like combining some of the activism work that I like to do with arts education.” But it was a totally different theme. I had been working a lot on immigration and border rights, but this job’s advocacy was around housing justice, and at the time as well, the Invest in Youth campaign, which was fighting for a Youth Development Department. I was like, “Oh, that's really cool.” I was doing some activism work with AMBOS Project, but then this also had the arts education piece through the youth. I had been working with kids before for a long time, but I had never worked with teenagers. But I was like, “that's fine, I can transfer all my skills working with kids to working with teenagers, it's not a problem.” So I applied and I was like, “I don't know if I'm gonna get this job,” you know, “I don't know if I have the experience for this job.” But no, I got it. I really think it kind of marries a lot of the things that I like. So yeah, that's how I landed at Self Help, and now I've learned a lot. I've been here for three years. I had to learn really quick, a lot of stuff really quick, because when I started, I knew the basics of things like gentrification from just reading myself, but didn’t know anything about advocacy with elected officials, for example. I learned a lot really quick. Then the pandemic happened pretty soon after I got hired, so I had to also learn how to do everything online. It’s always a learning experience, but it’s so supportive so it feels like a great place to be. 

Q: I noticed after college, you talked a lot about working as an educator and stuff like that. But what drew you to education in the first place and working with children? Because I know you didn't go to you didn't necessarily go to school for that.

A: I've always liked kids growing up, I loved playing with younger cousins, nieces, and nephews and even helping younger students at school, so I've always been drawn to that piece of it. But, this is a full circle, my friend Tanya, who I did the AMBOS Project with, did an installation for The New Children's Museum when they first opened. Her youngest sister, Marissa, and I went to volunteer to help her build it. She and I have been close friends since High School. That's what I learned about the museum. It looked like a very fun place, and I told myself one day I would work there. I actually inserted myself in there because they didn't have job openings. I was like, "Can I just volunteer?" And I volunteered the whole summer like I was doing the same job as people who were getting paid—just volunteering because I just wanted to work there so badly. At that time, it was more like, "I want to work in a place that will bring me joy. I don't want to be working at the mall forever." That fall, after volunteering all summer, they hired me. The educator part came after that. First, I was just a gallery guide, hanging out in the galleries and helping people. But then they were like, "Oh, do you want to do school tours?" And I was like, "Well, I'd love to do that!" And then they trained me. From that experience, I was like, "Oh, I like education, working with people, and teaching others how to do things." So yeah, even though I didn't go to school for teaching—I didn't understand what the art education department at SDSU did — But looking back, I probably should have studied that. But I didn't know that was an option if that makes sense. I had never heard about people doing that. So I created my own path to it. 

Q: So working with the Youth Committee and all the things that you're doing at SHG now, what kinds of things have you guys been able to do?

A: Yeah, I've been running the Youth Committee program, I just finished doing interviews for the fourth group. But the first group, when I got to SHG, they had already started. They had been there for a couple months, and then I took over facilitating the group. It was the first year so we were all learning. But we still did really cool projects. For example, that first year, one of the youth, Hélène, was super passionate about fashion, she organized a fashion show. She was really good at managing a project even though she was really young. It was a great experience for her and myself, because I was able to learn how to best support her. Then the pandemic started when the first youth committee was still doing their term, and we were trying to figure out what to do, you know, because everything was changing. So we did a series of online art classes. 

The Wellness Wednesday program that we have as an ongoing program at Self Help, that was started the first year by two youth committee members, Samantha and Aimee — Sam is a Youth Artivist this year. It was a program that they came up with and then we decided to keep, because it was a great program. We do meditation and art making, or wellness classes and people really like it. Last year we did a mural highlighting the Boyle Heights community, in collaboration with NSRGNTS, an artist duo. And then with the first cohort of Youth Artivists we also did a mural focused on tenants on the Eastside, in collaboration with Pável Acevedo, who was our artist in residence. This past year The Youth Committee organized a Summer Youth Night. It was an event that the youth created this last year that had music, a curated thrift store, and some vendors. We've done different projects that are connected to community. Every year for Day of the Dead, the youth committee works on an altar, that's the first project they work on. They pick a topic that’s timely, or something that's important to them. The topic is always connected to a social justice issue or just an issue in the community. The first year, they focused on immigration and youth who passed away while migrating to the US. The second year they did it on COVID, specifically BIPOC who had passed away due to COVID, and essential workers. That year the whole program was online because we couldn't be in person. And then this last year, they did it on activists and journalists who had been killed in Latin America due to them exposing issues in the community. So every year it changes depending on what the group is interested in. 

With [the Youth Artivism Interns], the first cohort worked mostly online. We did a lot. It was during 2020. Everybody was just ready for it, and we did a lot of actions and rallies. We did a lot of posters and banners for those actions. They created a zine focused on tenant’s rights, they did a fundraiser for tenants who had lost their homes to a fire. And then this year, they focused more on— this is the second year that the program's still happening—they did a series of workshops for tenants to share their stories of what they faced during the pandemic and or in general. Then they're going to create a video to share out for people to see, and then create a toolkit so if people want to implement this kind of workshop later, they could. So, just as the Youth Committee, it’s really youth-lead. I'm just the facilitator and coordinator, alongside my colleague Pamela Agustin, from Eastside LEADS. We don't really decide for them, what they should do. It’s more like, they have the idea and then we just guide them. We ask questions, like  “Okay, well, you have to think about this, do you think you can actually accomplish this? What skills do you have that we can use? Or do you think maybe we should scale it down?” Or give them ideas, “Well, what if we do this, right? This might be cool.” So it's more like a teacher role in a way. We want them to grow as artists and organizers, so that they can take that knowledge when they leave the program. But, as you can see, we’ve done a lot! There are more projects that I didn’t touch on. 

Q: I think that's super cool, even young people can have this big impact in their community through arts. I'm just wondering, for the medium of art specifically, how do you think that plays a role in activism?

A: The arts can play a huge role because it's a different language. So a lot of people are visual. So if they can see an image, or if they can experience a project or they can experience a performance, right, that helps them understand more of what an issue is sometimes than just reading about it. Mainly because a lot of the work that we do, for example, with Eastside LEADS, it's a lot of policy work, so a lot of advocating for specific policies to protect tenants. For many people, even for me, I read through these documents, and I'm like, this is hard. It's hard to understand. And, like, if you have a way for people to talk about it or understand it from a different angle, or even not understand it in the detail that a lawyer has to understand, it can be powerful. Sometimes the art of also coming up with a catchy slogan, a catchy chant, right—things like that grabs people's attention so they can be involved. So I think that's a way that art can connect. 

Also, storytelling is important. People forget storytelling is essential in activism because without people's stories, what are you fighting for? Sometimes artists can create projects that maybe they intended to be something other than activism. Because they're like, "Oh, I just wanted to share the stories of, you know, people who are homeless, right? Just wanted to share their stories." And, maybe their intention wasn't political, but then it becomes political because people are like, "Oh, wow, these people are facing all kinds of issues. That's not okay. We should be fighting for that." It serves different purposes, either to spread a message to get more people involved or to share messages for people to be aware of and then take action. Art is super important. It also creates a gathering space. A lot of times, we get together to make banners, posters, or installations for actions. People make friendships and talk about stuff that maybe they didn't want to talk about, so it's like a healing tool in that sense, which I feel is something that people take for granted when they're in the fight—to take care of themselves. So, there are various roles that artists can play in activism spaces, and it depends on the artists and the cause that people are fighting for.

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.