Mena, Luis

This interview was recorded via telephone on September 15th, 2020 and it covers the following themes:  

b. 1961 

Growing up near 6th Avenue and Valencia. Father’s interest in architecture, construction, and art. Masonry. 

Parents’ divorce and need to work at the age of 11. Early exposure to the adult world—witnessing bar life, pool halls, Hell’s Angels. 

Meeting Ted DeGrazia. 

Ancestry and family art influences. 

Comments on machismo, language, and a transformative trip to Mexico. 

Influential teachers, especially Alferdo Quiroz, Antonio Pazos, and Willie Cocio. 

First experiences with painting and murals. Learning to work with bronze sculpture. 

Art in Tucson during the 1970s. 

Moving to Los Angeles for art school at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.  Los Angeles experiences and reasons for returning to Tucson. 

Feeling that Mexican and Chicano art was underrepresented in public art and galleries in Tucson during the 1980s. Experiences with discrimination as a child and at the University of Arizona. 

Early commissions. Discrimination in the granting of public art commissions. 

How the art community in Tucson has changed. Changes in popularity of mediums over Mena’s career.