Linda Victoria

​I use my artistic and technical talent as my voice to lift up the majesty of what remains of the Sonoran Borderlands and its heritage: butchered, blown up, tunneled under, walled off, yet still magnificent, mystical, and 'full of sound' to those who listen.   The wisdom of the people and traditions that have flourished in the splendor of this searing corner of the universe is timeless.   I am enthralled following the  threads from pre-history to today... they give me an even greater sense of awe and wonder about this semi-tropical desert that exists nowhere else on earth.
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As a Euro-American (Scottish mutt), I am aware that I am here under the stain of American Manifest Destiny.  My home sits on O'odham land that was Mexico until 1854.  Arizona didn't become a state until 1912.  I am now acutely aware how being Caucasian in America guarantees privilege and safety granted no others.  It will gnaw at my gut until I die.  I've lived in melting pot or minority white communities all my life.  Dad always said he'd rather die digging ditches than on a golf course any day.  Like my artist Mother,  I never felt I belonged where I was no matter how hard I tried to fit in.  My entire life has been journeys of learning to carve out my own space,  and then-- claim the right to thrive in it.  The first is hard enough.  The second is what makes or breaks a human spirit.  But I'm a tough old bird and a lucky one.  ​​Just how lucky I hadn't a clue until I began learning about unidentified brown people from the south dying en masse in our desert every year-- and being blamed for it. 

Living near the border over these years has taught me a lifetime's worth about humanity and humility that I wouldn't have learned otherwise and I am eternally grateful.  We are intimately connected with Mexico and all Latin American countries even though casual cruelty and demonization is a grizzly way of life on both sides of the border.   Predatory systems  will exist in our country and theirs  for as long as power grows and money flows.  The persistent rays of light that exist are those of the ephemeral human spirit.  It never ceases to inspire me.  

Until recently, I was relatively oblivious to the potency of the White Race Card here at home until the 45th president slapped it on the table and called for action.  I grew up in the L.A. harbor during the 1960's-- through the Watts riots, Malcom X, MLK, Bobby Kennedy, East L.A. Chicano uprisings, Cesar Chavez grape strike, Black Panthers in Oakland, American Indian Movement (AIM) occupation of Alcatraz etc.   I thought we had evolved past the horrific days of White Supremacy and J Edgar Hoover.  Living near the AZ border  in the Trump Era has revealed the deep toxic layer still metastasizing in the American Anglo Bubble.  
I am  "sick and tired of being sick and tired." 

Still, after the Jan 6th Insurrection, that ephemeral human spirit found its way in the form of a slender young black woman from Watts: 

​"The new dawn blooms as we free it
For there is always light,
if only we're brave enough to see it
If only we're brave enough to be it.”
 - Amanda Gorman, American Youth Poet Laureate 

​So beautiful the vision. We climb and claw and cliff-hang with bloody fingers until Truth is no longer feared:  
​that ALL people are created equal.  Only with Truth can there be liberty and justice for all. 
Truth is The Dream.  Maybe it will remain a dream.  Who knows. 

Meanwhile, at the end of the day, Nature bats last and we are at the bottom of the 9th. We cannot make honey without sharing in the fate of bees.  My spiritual home has always been in nature, and these days I enjoy the simple abundance of life's little wonders.   My family.  My dogs.  The birds in my yard, creative  projects around my little old handmade house.  The sweet desert air.  And of course, the exquisite Arizona sunsets...  The simple gift of Now.

As Zuni farmer Jim Enote put it: "We are part of a Collective Magnificence."  Indeed.
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Ed Keeylocko was right:  "A person has to get back to the land..." 

"All life is holy, all life is one" - by Vera Louise Drysdale, my mother. Circa 1970

Nuestra Señora in an alleyway, Nogales MX