Meet Berenice Badillo | Marriage and Family Art Therapist & interdisciplinary Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Berenice Badillo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Berenice, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I am an immigrant from La Piedad, Michoacán Mexico. This caused me to straddle intertwined cultural and subcultural identities my entire life. Like my parents, I learned to work hard and keep my head down, but I decided that this experience and the experience of others needed a voice. I illustrated an award-winning book “Am I Blue or am I Green?” that explores the identity and impact of a boy’s life with parents that are undocumented in the United States. Growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s talking about your emotions was not a thing. I often was told “forget about it” or “be strong” when I needed validation and answers. Going to therapy was an alien concept and only reserved for “rich white people.” As a person of color and having a non English speaking parent, I felt that we were always just surviving. I wanted to know what it would be like to thrive, and later I found out this included being able to identify my emotions and understanding my personal experiences growing up. I became a Spanish speaking Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, board certified art therapist with a PhD in Art Therapy. As a child, art allowed me a voice, a sounding board and a safe place. Growing up, I did not fit in within my family’s cultural beliefs of being a woman and I also did not allow myself to melt in a pot through assimilation as I refused to lose my roots. This led me to document and encourage the creation of communal cultural wealth through murals, sculpture, pop up art galleries and in the co-creation of counter stories. Growing up, I had no heroes that looked like me or stories of people that shared the same experience. There is importance in representation and co creating art becomes a means to both amplify the voices of those in the shadows and to disseminate the stories of their community where it can be witnessed on a grand scale.

I started my career as a community muralist mentoring homeless youth. I co-created a monthly hip hop event called ELEMENTAL that showcased the art of local youth at the Centro Cultural de la Raza, and developed after school programming that was recognized by the city of San Diego and the state of California. I was a MANA Honoree (Mexican-American Women’s National Association) in recognition for “Outstanding Work and Dedication to the Community through Arts and Culture” and became a Community Fellow through The California Wellness Foundation Violence Prevention Initiative. At twenty three, I became a Chicano Park muralist in a male dominated field. Chicano Park is the home of the largest collection of Chicano murals in the world. I co founded XoQUE art in motion, (www.xoque-artinmotion.com) an all women multi-media art group determined to evoke change on how the U.S./Mexico border is portrayed and represented in the cultural imaginations. Together we recently restored the Chicano Park mural I painted in 1997, going up seventy feet high, making it the largest mural in the park made by women, for woman and about women.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Art saved my life, it was the only thing that redirected my rage, changed my life trajectory and gave me a voice. Art was my escape, the one thing that I excelled in and the only place where I could express myself freely. Art calmed me amid the chaos and would propel me into a path that seemed insurmountable to achieve. At an early age I found myself in negotiation of identity, power and self-worth. Art became my platform; a vehicle of change where we could disseminate the stories and struggles of the community on a grand scale. Intuitively, I utilized art as a tool for diffusion and de-escalation, to unite and to empower. I refined the skill of organizing and taught people that they too had something to contribute to their community through art. It is through these experiences that I began to see art and its potential to transform society. As an art therapist and a multidisciplinary artist, it became natural to work with people and communities on both sides of the border. I found that working with like minded artists interested in using art as away to bring important issues forward was essential for large site specific work. In 2020, I co-founded XoQUE which is a border art collective of diverse women consisting of Chicana/x, Mexican and Native American/Indigenous identities. XoQUE’s art gives voice to feminist perspectives, social justice, and racial equity issues. The group centers on a multiplex of voices and dynamic interactions between artists, people and ideas that crash and hold space for authentic selfhood. XoQUE commits to innovation and experimentation that is participatory based as each artist and the community comes together as a puzzle that utilizes each unique strength to create hope in the future. Members include Berenice Badillo, Selina Calvo, Sandra Carmona, and Jennifer Clay. Was this easy? no but I feel that I have to create as much as I need to take in a breath.
In 2023, I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, I was also a recipient of The Far South Border North grant and the Living Cultures grant. In the effort to not “waste this pain” as suggested by Audre Lorde in The Cancer Journals (1980), I created content that explored taboo subjects on my journey through Cancer. This included educational videos, a resource website, (www.treacheroustitiites.com), a poetry book (currently being published) that will be given to newly diagnosed patients, and artwork that will be showcased in my solo show “Treacherous Titties at the Hill Street Country Club 530 S. Coast Highway Oceanside, CA 92054. The opening reception is Sunday August 11, 2024 12pm-4pm. This solo show Treacherous Titties celebrates a breast cancer survivor’s journey of being “Cancer free” as well as creating dialogue and awareness through raw imagery and content. There will be a Breast Cancer Art Therapy Group Saturday August 17th 2024 11am-12:30pm. I found that continuing to create helped me deal with a life altering event and hopefully can help others to accept all the emotions and overwhelming circumstances of having Cancer. I am currently in this process and I am proud of my ability to share my most intimate and vulnerable moments through this exhibition and poetry book.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
San Diego is so gorgeous and also close to the border which also has many magical spots. I would start in Chicano Park and let my friend marvel at the beauty and history of this park that was built on resistance and love. We would hit Cuatro Milpas for their juicy pork burritos and crunchy tacos all made with lard. We would check out the Chicano Park museum and we would then go over the Coronado Bridge, to see the female archer of the mural we just finished. Coronado Beach is my favorite and we would check out Hotel del Coronado get a drink and take a walk. We would then hit up Cowboy star in Downtown San Diego and have an amazing dinner. The next couple of days we would wake up early and grab breakfast at ASA bakery, Black Market bakery and Morning glory, we will go to Balboa Park and enjoy the museums, explore more beaches such as Torrey Pines and Sunset cliffs, we will have birria at Ed Fernandez Birrieria, Tacos el Gordo and have dinner at lion’s den in downtown San Diego. We will hit up speakeasies like Raised by wolves, Realm of the 52 remedies and the grass skirt and having enormous late night munchies burritos at Sarita’s in Spring valley. We would hit up Lips drag show and a show at the Music box. Of course we would cross the border and have adventures.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I give a shoutout to all those mentors in my life that believed in me. I especially want to thank the ones that saw the diamond in the rough, as I was all rough and little shine in the early years of my life. I was a misunderstood youth, blamed for my rebelliousness. It was later that I understood I had something to say but ignored and that was my root of my anger. Thanks to my Chula Vista High English teacher Diego Davalos who allowed me to divert from the assignment and draw in his class and tell a story for a grade. Although I now hold an alphabet behind my name, I almost didn’t graduate high school. Diego worked with me and I found myself returning to school to take his class after I had ditched for the day. My art mentor Michael Schnorr who taught me to use my anger to create and make an impact. He taught me to use things around me like discounted paint and Home Depot supplies to create a world of art and resistance that spoke for me and other young people. I would also like to thank Jim Bliesner who showed me that I could get paid to do art. He showed me the finesse of the hustle. I have the fortunate experience to have found many mentors along the way that saw in me the good and ability I could not see. Finally I want to thank my father Oscar Badillo for being a good man and taking me to the library as much as I wanted when I was a child.

Website: https://www.xoque-artinmotion.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bbadillos/?hl=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/berenice-badillo-ph-d-ma-lmft-atr-bc-59a3ba30

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/berenice.badillo.5

Other: https://www.treacheroustitties.com
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/02/17/a-1997-mural-in-chicano-park-is-being-restored-for-a-new-generation-of-female-activism/

Image Credits
Adam Straubinger
Mabelle Reynoso