These are interpretations of Mother Nature in her different forms. 

Hoes Praying for Justice Series. 

This was the last piece I completed before 2016 ended. 

During 2016 I stopped referring to myself as Catholic. It's something that I wanted to hold on to but realized that the reasons as to why I was still identifying as Catholic weren't genuine and more so to prove to people that there are "cool Catholics". AKA, I can be a feminist, outspoken, Catholic girl and it's all good. But reality hit me and I decided I no longer wanted to associate myself with the religion that helped colonize and oppress the Natives of Mexico and other South American countries. Religion, Christianity specifically, is rooted within all forms of oppression where I grew up and where my family is from and I just could no longer identify with it. Not to mention that in the last few 3-4 years I had been playing with incorporating other forms of spirituality into my already existing beliefs that led my realization that God and spirituality are greater than religion could ever make them out to be. 

These pieces represent what it's been like to develop a relationship with my spirituality, and God while educating myself on social issues in the US (and some world wide). 

Milwaukee Goddess t-shirt design.

There’s this weird ass standard that requires women to keep hairless if they want to achieve an imaginary beauty standard. Otherwise if we don’t, we’re masculine, have issues figuring out our sexuality, and of course, we’re considered unhygienic and unattractive. It’s hella dumb. 
This is probably the most personal I’ve ever gotten with my art work, to be quite honest. So here it goes…
Slowly but surely I’ve quit shaving and have been letting my body hair grow as nature intended it to. Mostly due to laziness and accepting the fact that it is purposeless. 
This series started with a humorous drawing of my legs as cactuses and the prickles representing the hair on my legs. I then wrote “Peluda y Agresiva” over it, which translates to “Hairy and Aggressive”. Really, I was poking fun at the opinions beauty standards have us believing- that women with body hair are assumed to be masculine (and if some are, who gives a fuck), and or butch lesbians (and if some are, who gives a shit, again). All the reasons believed as to why we shouldn’t have body hair are all rooted from sexist, homophobic and even transphobic opinions. And this is why I chose to dedicate some pieces to my body hair, to say fuck you to beauty standards, and of course, to your unsolicited opinion. 
There a few reasons as to why I chose cactuses to represent body hair. I’m Latina. My family is from Mexico, and pretty often, I see cactuses in art work and even pop culture as a way to represent Mexico. I also used cactuses to represent the sensation shaving leaves behind- Itchy and prickly once hair starts to grow back. Recently I’ve noticed a growing interest in cactuses and other desert plants. I see it more and more often as clothing/accessories patterns and in my hipster friends’ homes. I compared body hair to cactus plants- people are interested and fascinated in them, but also afraid of them in some sort of way. And finally, I used cactuses to represent the aggressiveness that people believe body hair comes with. Haha
Here’s a breakdown for each piece and body part. These pieces are titled after the date I last shaved that specific area. 
The last time I shaved my legs was in November of 2012. I was at Wisconsin Dells and I was rushing to shave my legs cause we were basically on our way out to the indoor waterpark. I had gone some time without shaving. My insecurities kept me from showing my legs even during the summer, so it wasn’t too hard to not shave, I guess. But it was winter and we were going swimming and I was already super self-conscious and on top of that they were hairy. Hell naw. Not today. Once summer came along the next year, little by little, I started to give less of a shit. I was still pretty self-conscious but I had to get over it eventually. I was still worried about what people thought or would say to me. My mom and sisters would still judge me occasionally. But it was fine. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I realized that people don’t actually give a shit about women’s unshaved body parts like they did on the internet. So that went pretty ok. 
Every so often I would shave my armpits. Like maybe once every month or so and the time between shavings got longer and longer till I said fuck it. March 2014, during my senior year of college, was the last time I shaved my pits. And 2 weeks after that, I made a GIF of my armpits with growing flames on them as a representation of the burning and irritating feeling left after shaving. It sucked, I hated it and I was like well, that’s the last time I ever do that. My mother really didn’t like this one, but I would just laugh off her comments till they finally stopped. Other than that people don’t really comment, as they shouldn’t. Except for that random guy who’s like “eww, you don’t shave? That’s weird” but will have bushes on his legs, pits and chest tryna talk shit. Anyway.
And last but not least, the cooch area. 
The last time a razor visited the downstairs was July 2015… a year ago basically. Same story, I didn’t shave that area often at all, and my rule was to never ever shave for a guy if he asked you to cause fuck that. Men/sexual partners DO NOT have a say on anything that has to do with a woman’s body. Whether it’s about their weight, the way we dress, or our body hair. PERIOD. 
Sooo there goes Yessica… breaking her golden rule. The last time I shaved this area was due to a partner that I was seeing at the time… who I then ended up pregnant by… which followed by a miscarriage and the worst emotional and physical pain I’ve ever experienced. I am almost ashamed to admit that the last time I shaved my bikini area was because a man asked me to. I’ve also never told this story to anyone, so It’s kinda weird and liberating to write about it. 
This series is my way of celebrating the end of my insecurities when it came to my body hair. I wear tank tops more often than ever, I stopped wearing tights and leggings with every dress and, not once, has my partner, my soul bae, the bae of my life, my one true bae (lol) has EVER made me feel self-conscious about my hairiness. Learn to love yourself as you are. Being overweight, hairy and a person of color, it’s been quite the journey to get to this point of self-love. And if you’re an artist and are struggling with self-acceptance, use your craft to help you love yourself the way you deserve to.

"Mi Sangre Es VIda" - My Blood Is Life
I painted this on the one year anniversary of my miscarriage (sep 5th) 

There isn't a day that goes by where I don't think about it and I needed closure. Although my short term pregnancy was a roller coaster of emotions and a seesaw of keep it or no, it felt as if a decision was made for me and I had absolutely no say in it. My experience made me feel as if I were broken because I'd wonder why my body rejected a life that was growing within me. It wasn't until a month later, when I got my period, that the idea of being "broken" vanished. The first period after losing my fetus was a major step towards healing emotionally. I took it as a reminder of my fertility and ever since I have an even greater appreciation for my menstrual cycle. 

My first period after my miscarriage was the body telling me that the cycle continues and life must go on. 

Now to get into the piece. 
There's a bit of symbolism here so let me break it down. 
Starting with the moon cycle. 
I incorporated the moon cycle for a few reasons. One- during my pregnancy, I want to say maybe a few days before actually taking a test, I had a dream where I was looking at a body of water with the moon above it. It was jet black dark and the only reason I know I was looking at a body of water is because of the moon's reflection over it. The moon was huge and bright, and right under the moon was an even smaller moon. After my miscarriage, I came to the conclusion that the dream was letting me know that I was expecting and that the gender of my fetus may have been female. This is all just my interpretation- I'm no dream reader. Reason number 2 for incorporating the moon on to my piece is because it is believed that the moon cycle has some relation to our menstrual cycle. The Aztecs even related the two. Side note- certain hospitals in Mexico prep themselves for more births during full moons because it is believed that women are more likely to give birth during full moons. 

Moving on to the bloody pad, 
Personally I had fun painting blood onto the clean pad I had drawn, I tried to be as truthful as possible to the way blood spreads onto a pad. Sometimes it goes to the side leaving the other side untouched almost. Sometimes it overflows and the pad isn't even full. And sometimes when you're sitting down for a long time you can feel the blood flow to the back and off the pad and then you go sprinting towards the bathroom to try and save your clothing. This all depends on how heavy your flow is and how long you sit for etc etc. Thus why I painted blood going off of the pad. 
I chose to illustrate a pad over any other type of blood catcher because I wore large pads for 9 days straight after my miscarriage. I was told by my doctor to not wear tampons because I needed to allow everything out of my body. I've never filled my pads as quickly as I did during those painful days. And to be quite honest, A few of my underwear were ruined. Never would I have thought the process of miscarrying would have taken a total of 9 days. 

Lesson learned- protect yourself. Because 9 times out of 10 the person you're sleeping with may not give a shit about your well being- like the man who i got pregnant by. Don't fall for the "condoms make me itch" bs. Put your health first over their inconsiderate "discomfort". Because at the end of the day, an unwanted pregnancy isn't the only consequence behind unprotected sex. 
Love yourself and love your period.

Hija del Maiz was inspired by my sisters when they were going through their Chola phase in the 90s. Their chola style has since then died out but we must #neverforget. 

Milwaukee has a music scene that is extremely underestimated. With that being said, it also means that the women a part of that scene tend to have a smaller platform. 

Over the last year I've developed a relationship with the women in these portraits. Some of them are very good friends of mine and I am inspired by their work ethic, passion and creativity every single day. Their hard work is as loud as their voices on stage- which BTW, if you haven't seen (first to last) Chakara Blu, FIVY, Queen-Tut, Siren or Zed Kenzo perform, then I highly recommend you do so ASAP. 

Go listen to their music on Soundcloud. 

This piece was inspired by and dedicated to the water crisis that we saw in 2016 here in our country. On the left we see a young black boy drinking from a plastic water bottle and is wearing a hoodie that reads "Flint" across it. On the right is a Water Protector whose clothes are dirty and worn down from the days, weeks, months dedicated to stoping the pipeline. I've titled this on Water Is Life Nation Wide, and with every print sold I will be donating 50% to two separate sources. 
One half is going to the Red Warrior Camp, and they have a Gofundme I'll be donating to, and the other half is going to Flint Water Crisis Response- Foundation for Flint.

A 30 piece series celebrating only a small fraction of Milwaukee's Femme/GNC artistic talents.

I can not tell you how many time's I've heard legit chain smokers say that they don't use deodorant because it leads to cancer.

... Is cancer really your concern? Is it?

I'll let you think about it during your next smoke break.