Dylan Cale Jones: My name is Dylan Cale Jones,
Isa Rodriguez: and I'm Isa Rodriguez, and this is Practice Practice.
Dylan Cale Jones: And today we are interviewing Lumen Miramontes. Lumen is here with us at our home in Oklahoma City, and we are going to be talking to them about their practice. We are very excited. Lumen, will you please introduce yourself and tell us about who you are?
Lumen Miramontes: I'm Lumen Miramontes. I live in Norman, Oklahoma with my partner and our three beautiful dog children. I am an interdisciplinary artist and a children's art educator. I use all kinds of materials and all sorts of mediums in my art. It's kind of a function of my practice and not a bug, and has a lot to do with me as a person and my neurotype, which I'm sure we'll talk about quite a bit today.
Dylan Cale Jones: Sure. Yeah. I've, I've heard you refer to yourself before as an art goblin.
Lumen Miramontes: That is true.
Dylan Cale Jones: And that's like, from my understanding, that describes you jumping around and trying out a bunch of different things.
Lumen Miramontes: I'm really curious. And I love problem solving. And I actually quit art for a while because I felt like I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do and I couldn't fit within this institutionalized idea of what I was supposed to do as an artist or what I thought an artist should be.
And I think as I grew up, and as I learned more about myself, and went through some therapy, did some soul searching. I just realized that I am a goblin and I learned to work with myself.
My curiosity and my love of learning new things and trying new things all the time is what makes me really special, and what makes my practice and what makes my art really interesting. And I need to make sure that my practice, my art, and my career fits me as opposed to trying to make myself fit a career.
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah, that's, that's really relatable to me.
I've always struggled trying to write artist statements because I always feel like. Uh, do I write about my practice now or do I write about my practice a year ago? Or do I write about my practice now and a year ago? Cause that doesn't make sense.
And then not fitting in to what people's expectations of what an artist should be.
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely. Yeah. I was working on an artist statement recently and I always end up being like as an educator I do this, as an artist I do this and this, and then I end up editing it down because it's like, I do this and I do this and I inspect that. And that's just part of who I am, and it's not gonna go away anytime soon, and I'm, I have a great time with that.
Isa Rodriguez: Yeah. I'm really interested in expanding the title artist to include all of that, right?
Lately my approach is just to say ,"My name's Isa and I'm an artist." Full stop. And it can include anything I'm doing.
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely
Isa Rodriguez: Everything I'm doing, all of it.
Dylan Cale Jones: Well, you and I have also been talking about like. This is my public-facing practice and this is my private practice.
I was having a conversation with somebody the other day and I was telling them about Practice Practice. And they asked me if I had a studio practice and I was like, "Yeah, I do, but it's private." I draw a lot and I make a lot of ceramics and sometimes I share that with people, but I'm not looking to make that into my career.
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely. Yeah. It's funny that you talk about ceramics being your private practice or having those compartmentalized things, because as a professional, I mostly work as a children's art educator. And that's really where a lot of my passions are. And I'm kind of at this point now where my personal practice motivates my teaching, which is really cool.
I've taken that space back, and now I get to carve out more time for myself, and that is what gets me excited about projects for my class, my teaching, as opposed to feeling like my only value is as a teacher. But then there are things that I will never commodify. And I think that's really cool. I think it was a big step for me where I'm like, this doesn't have to be a gig.
Isa Rodriguez: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I think it's really important for us to find those things that we're just doing for ourselves, just to enjoy our creativity, as creative people who also make our livings in creative fields. Yeah.
Dylan Cale Jones: So Lumen, you work with young people a lot and you've given us hints about your journey as an artist. What was your experience like as a very young person, as a kid with art and creativity?
Lumen Miramontes: As a young kid, I had the privilege of being incredibly unsupervised. So I, I think I was at my most gobliny as a kid. And I have like super fond memories of just running around, building things with like rope and sticks and being just feral and breaking stuff to just see how they were made and then trying to rebuild them again.
We wanted a tent in the backyard. We built one. We dug a giant pool that we jumped out of the tree into. It was just a wild, fun time and I was limitless. I could make anything and build a whole world. And I think now I'm trying to get back to that, like that feeling of just exploring.
And I had a lot of creative people in my life. I don't think either my dad or my mom would say they were very creative. But they were big DIY-ers and they were very scrappy.
My mom always had some crafty thing. She quilted, she sewed. She could build things but she always kind of like downplayed it. My dad was constantly fixing things and building things. He would find clay in the yard and he'd be like you can play with this. Like you can build things out of this and we'll let it dry, and I don't know, make a dinosaur.
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah. I want to hear about this pool.
Lumen Miramontes: Um, yeah, just one day me and my brother were like let's dig a pool. So we spent the better part of, I think, three or four days digging like a four foot deep pool in our backyard and filling it with water and it would empty and we'd fill it again. And the water bill was wild and we were in huge trouble. But we were just kind we were allowed to play outside until the streetlights came on and we just adventured and built things and made pigments out of weird stuff out in the yard. I remember compressing berries and dirt and making crayons and then drawing on the sidewalk and just seeing how things worked And it was a great time.
Dylan Cale Jones: Did you think of what you were doing as art? Or did that distinction matter to you at all?
Lumen Miramontes: No, I think it was just free play. I don't think I considered myself an artist until someone told me I was an artist.
Isa Rodriguez: Can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely.
I had a great art program in elementary school with Mrs. Arndt who I actually sent a message to recently to be like, "I just want you to know how important you were to who I was as a person. And I use some of your little callbacks in my own art classes now." Because she was and she was really like a safe place for me as a kid. BecauseI talked about how adventurous and how fun it was, but I was a really sad and, you know, confused and troubled kid.
I was dealing with a lot of confusion about my queerness and, dealing with issues with neglect and autism and not really understanding the social ramifications of what was going on with me. I often felt like I was an alien. And so having those spaces where I could just make things was so important to me.
And anytime I could use my hands, my brain was quieter. So I learned pretty quickly that that was like a tool that I needed and a tool that worked really well for me.
And then in middle school was when I started kind of realizing that art was a way that you could express yourself. Like, art was used for self expression. And the teacher I had, Miss Barnes, started kind of like letting me know that I had talent. And I think that got heavy.
It's like, you're an artist, you have this thing you're supposed to do with it. So when I went to high school, you start choosing your track of study . And so I started gearing toward the creative track.
And so I think it started getting heavier as opposed to just like this thing that was kind of a part of me. The (question) , "What are you going to do with this thing?" It was starting to be this thing that I was supposed to commodify, this thing I was supposed to hone.
Isa Rodriguez: It's a lot of pressure for a young person to experience, right?
Lumen Miramontes: Or, like, I remember I would make a lot of my clothes. Like we didn't have a ton of money, and I would tweak things. Like, add stuff to t shirts, or, like turn pants that were busted into like jean skirts and people would be like you should sell these. You should make other people's jeans into skirts. And I was just like, "I just wanted to make one, but I guess I have to. I guess that's what you do." So I was also like an autistic kid that was like trying to figure out how to people.
Isa Rodriguez: Uh huh, and so then you're getting positive attention for this really specific thing, this really specific part of you. And it's like, okay, like...
Lumen Miramontes: Well, I guess this is who I am. I guess this is how you be the creative person. So I'm making this script around what people are telling me I'm supposed to act as. Because I wasn't diagnosed until an adult. So I'm making these scripts and kind of masking as I go along. And later in my life I did a lot of unmasking to throw a lot of those expectations away. But as a kid, it's, it's very heavy to like build that on your own without anyone saying like, "No, you don't. You don't have to do anything."
Dylan Cale Jones: For people who might not be familiar, can you explain what masking is?
Lumen Miramontes: So masking is what a lot of autistic people do. I think it's becoming more known that autistic people mask, or like, put energy into looking more neurotypical.
I'm kind of masking right now to sound more energetic, to sound more engaged. Whereas if I were just home and it was just me and my partner, I'd be like, "No, I don't want mac and cheese tonight."
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah.
Lumen Miramontes: And it takes a lot of energy. So masking for people who have higher support needs might be, they don't have as much awareness of social cues. So they might need heavier help with scripting. So it might be them going to a speech pathologist to learn, "When someone does this, you respond this way." So that they build stronger scripts.
So there's been a lot of research where people masking for long periods of time is, like, super detrimental to their long term health.
Dylan Cale Jones: It also sounds kind of adjacent to being closeted in some ways too.
Lumen Miramontes: Yeah, and there was a lot of that. Trying to figure out how to pass as well as how to be girl, because I am non binary.
Isa Rodriguez: I really relate to that.
For me as a young person that took a lot of creative energy, right? Like a lot of my creativity went into passing , you know?
Lumen Miramontes: Like surviving.
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah. And like creating a person to be at high school.And it sounds like it was happening on several different fronts.
Lumen Miramontes: Yeah, like I would have to do it at church in a certain way. I would have to do it to my parents in a certain way, and then I'd have some safe people at school, but like only safe in a certain amount. And then
Isa Rodriguez: Well, and relationships change so fast when you're that age too, so right, someone's safe and then two weeks later...
Lumen Miramontes: they're just not talking to me for some reason. And I have no idea why I'm like, "Are you mad at me?" I would never want to do it again. But it is my favorite age group to teach.
Isa Rodriguez: Oh, that's really interesting. Okay. Yeah.
Lumen Miramontes: And it's probably because of that.
Dylan Cale Jones: Okay. Yeah. So that's maybe a good transition to start talking about what are you doing now?
What is, what is your practice or what are your practices?
Lumen Miramontes: So now I'm actually also a student, so I do a lot.
I had gone to college for art education and dropped it, because I went through high school on this track to do art and then it was too much.
So I switched, did political science and history, learned all about power, hierarchies, and became a very different person. And worked in cake decorating for like nine years. So still making stuff, always doing something kind of creative without acknowledging that it was creative.
And then I moved here. The pandemic happened while I was having a bit of a mental breakdown. I was hitting some serious burnout and doing a lot of therapy. And when I realized that I was still having a lot of like sensory issues and stuff. I got diagnosed with autism.
The pandemic came and I started making stuff again. There was a big call for fabric masks from anyone who could sew because there was a huge mask shortage. And I was like, oh, I can sew. And then I started printmaking again on the masks for different protests that were around too. And I was like, oh, it feels amazing to be doing something that is community driven.
And I had been dragging my feet for so long to do my master's to align with my previous degree. And I was like what does it take to do an art degree here?
So I am now at UCO. I am a student in studio arts. And then I also teach kids classes at Firehouse Art Center. And in the summers I teach summer art camps at Firehouse as well as Contemporary Arts Center.
And then I have a private practice at home where I do printmaking and painting as well as murals, which is a big painting. Those are just big paintings. That's the same thing twice.
Dylan Cale Jones: So what are you studying and investigating right now at school?
Lumen Miramontes: I'm working with layering using transparent materials to kind of inspect this layering of emotion and sensation.
Oftentimes, when I am experiencing like a lot of either emotions or physical sensations, it builds and builds and builds and builds. And this is a function of autism and trauma and a normal human experience. But this layering of these instances throughout the day tends to either erupt in burnout or I can catch it and take care of myself.
I've also been looking at political situations. So I have some pieces around Palestine which is something that I studied quite a bit at Eastern Michigan University for my political science degree. And the layering of just constant violence and bombardment on the Palestinian people. But their resilience, is just...
it's really hard to see it happening again, and just feeling like I'm doing everything I can and it's still not enough. So I've been doing that with the same materials. It's like Durlar and Yupo.
So playing with these transparencies and layering of imagery to talk about how these feelings build over time and erupt in the face of power.
Dylan Cale Jones: Wow. Yeah. So you talked about these two paths that you might experience. One is kind of this eruption and then the other is catching what's going on. What is that experience like of catching that and what do you do to self-soothe when that happens?
Lumen Miramontes: Yeah, I definitely think that recently, like in the last three years, I'm much better at taking care of myself. And I am super proud of that. And I think a lot of my artistic success has been because I'm better taking care of myself.
I have really bad interoception. So that means I don't have a good connection to what's going on in my body. So I don't really feel hungry like a lot of people do. I live very much in my head. I'll just forget to eat because I don't feel hungry. And I do wear a smartwatch and I have timers like, "It's lunchtime, you should eat a lunch. Have you had food recently?"
And I set my, step counter to a like really high step number so it reminds me to move and I don't really care if I hit my steps. But it'll remind me to unfurl myself from whatever hunched position I'm in and check in with my body.
And then I have a lot of discussion with my partner about space that I'll need.
We've been very practiced in how to talk to each other without it being like, " I need you to leave me alone. You should get out of my space." And be like, "I just need like 10 minutes to decompress and then can we circle back?" Which sounds very simple, but I think when our relationship was new, it was very like, "Well, I just needed to know what you wanted for dinner."
Dylan Cale Jones: Uh huh. Yeah, totally. So what is the relationship between the artwork that you're making right now and that growth of self awareness?
Lumen Miramontes: Um, this is a new practice. So I think this is the first time I've really thought about this.
This is a really good question.
Isa Rodriguez: We're here to facilitate this, this kind of thinking.
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah.
Lumen Miramontes: Yeah. I think when a lot of people think about autism and sensory issues, they think the world is like a nightmare. But it's not all that. I also have very heightened sensations about other things
like incredible experiences that it seems like other people don't have.
Like people don't experience joy in the same amounts that I do. And then they like kind of get embarrassed on my behalf. And I'm like, "I'm good!" So I definitely want to explore that layering as well.
Dylan Cale Jones: Okay. So what else outside of your creative practice is part of your life and how do you balance that with your creative practice?
Lumen Miramontes: Um, I have three dogs. They're a really big part of my life. They are my sweet angel babies. And I am a crazy dog person. One of those. So I won't talk too much about my dogs or I will talk about them forever.
Dylan Cale Jones: Makes me want a dog.
Lumen Miramontes: Hint, hint.
Isa Rodriguez: In this apartment?
Lumen Miramontes: A small dog.
Isa Rodriguez: In this tiny apartment?
Dylan Cale Jones: We can't have pets right now.
Lumen Miramontes: There's a park over there.
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah...
Isa Rodriguez: I already have a pet.
Lumen Miramontes: What does it mean?
Oh, it's you?
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah, it's me. (Laughter)
Isa Rodriguez: But dogs and other pets need a fair amount of care, right?
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely.
Isa Rodriguez: And like, need a schedule, need things to be consistent, like...
Lumen Miramontes: Like this morning, Mabel, who is our youngest, most rambunctious dog, woke me up at 6:00 A.M., on the dot, as she usually does. So I woke up took them outside and then got some sketching in while I laid in bed for a while. And then started my day, had some breakfast with my partner. We always do a nice breakfast together on Saturdays.
Isa Rodriguez: Nice.
Lumen Miramontes: It's our little moment of catching up in the busy week. We're both really busy. Generally. We both like to stay busy. He's a research mathematician and I am a goblin.
We do like our little Saturday morning check-in over breakfast.
Is there anything that's changing in your practice right now that you want to talk about?
Isa Rodriguez: Or is like about to change?
Lumen Miramontes: I hope so because I definitely do too much and feel scrambly, I think is what I will call it. Uh, I am graduating soon.
Isa Rodriguez: Woo hoo. Yeah.
Congratulations.
Lumen Miramontes: So I should be doing my capstone in the spring. So I'll have my last full semester this coming fall. Yeah.
Dylan Cale Jones: Wow. Cool.
Isa Rodriguez: That's fantastic.
Lumen Miramontes: So hopefully I will be honing in my projects and my practice and it'll feel much easier. So I'm trying to say, "No." To more things. Which is absolutely different than last year where I actually tried to apply to things that I knew that I would get told no to.
I did this whole practice where it was like seeking out "no's." I would apply to shows and things like that and jobs that I felt like I wouldn't get. And I ended up doing so many cool things, 'cause of that!
Isa Rodriguez: Mm. To kind of like...
Dylan Cale Jones: Wow.
Isa Rodriguez: ... counteract that...
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely.
Isa Rodriguez: ...like, self narrative for that you tell yourself "no."
Lumen Miramontes: Yeah.
Isa Rodriguez: That's awesome.
Lumen Miramontes: I was like, oh, I won't get that. I'm not qualified enough for that. And I did so many cool things.
Dylan Cale Jones: Wow.
Lumen Miramontes: And now I'm at this point where I'm like, I have to say no to some stuff. Because I need to feel like I'm doing the things that I'm excited about. And I need to get back to taking care of myself better, like pack some lunches.
But yeah, I did like six murals and was in some shows and I've done so much teaching. My life changed so much just because I was like, "I'm going to seek out no's," and now I'm like, "I got to say no."
Dylan Cale Jones: Wow. Cool.
Isa Rodriguez: I really like that practice.
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely.
Isa Rodriguez: That's amazing.
Lumen Miramontes: I actually, I had a little jar that was like these little things in this jar are no's, and I'm going to try to fill up this empty jar with things I've sought out that are no's. So it was very, very helpful, if that practice is helpful for anyone else.
Dylan Cale Jones: Cool.
Lumen Miramontes: Now I have too many things. So if you want to take some,
Dylan Cale Jones: What surprised you the most of the yeses that you got?
Lumen Miramontes: Ooh, I think Sunny Days Mural Fest was the most surprising thing and the most impactful thing. That was such an amazing experience. It was so cool.
Isa Rodriguez: Can you tell us briefly what is Sunny Days Mural Festival?
Lumen Miramontes: Sunny Days Mural Festival is a mural fest for all women and non-binary people. It moves around to a different city in Oklahoma every year, and it changes how many people they accept every year depending on funding, so go donate to Sunday Days Mural Fest.
Isa Rodriguez: And all our young female and non-binary artists...
Lumen Miramontes: Absolutely.
Isa Rodriguez: Apply! Apply to be artists. Yes.
Lumen Miramontes: And they're looking for mentorship applications right now. Probably still when this comes out.
Isa Rodriguez: For the mentors or the mentees?
Lumen Miramontes: The mentees. So they're looking for people 16 to 19 for their high school mentorship program where they partner up high school artists with the professional muralists and they get to like learn the tricks of the trade and then they do their own mural project the day of the festival.
We called it Mural Camp, which I didn't really get to go to many, like, camp. I didn't do Girl Scouts or anything like that when I was a kid. It was weird at first as a non-binary person going to this women focused thing, but I had this weird coming home feeling. It was really cool.
And it was just so supportive. And you get to know like your wallmates really well, cause you all end up working at the same time.
It was my first permanent mural. And now I've done two more since just September.
Isa Rodriguez: That's awesome. That's amazing. Yeah.
Lumen Miramontes: And they pay. A lot of mural fests do not pay their artists. It's more of like you get to check a box and you were there. Yeah. They, so they pay per square foot and they paid for our lodging. And so it was really fun.
Dylan Cale Jones: That's great.
Lumen Miramontes: Yeah, it was amazing.
Dylan Cale Jones: Artists need to get paid.
Lumen Miramontes: For sure.
Isa Rodriguez: Definitely.
Dylan Cale Jones: Lumen.
Lumen Miramontes: Yes.
Dylan Cale Jones: What advice would you give your past self?
Lumen Miramontes: I would tell my past self that it's going to get better. And they won't believe me.
Dylan Cale Jones: You're lying!
Lumen Miramontes: Why is your hair like that?
Dylan Cale Jones: Who are you?
Lumen Miramontes: Sick. We have a nose ring. And that I don't have to make anything for anyone. I think that really messed up my vibe.
Isa Rodriguez: Yeah, you really needed to hear that. What advice do you have for your future self?
Lumen Miramontes: Keep stretching. You creaky jerk. And you probably have enough dogs.
Isa Rodriguez: That's great advice. Keep stretching. No new dogs.
Lumen Miramontes: No new dogs.
Unless you have like a lot of money and no, no new dogs. See, I'm already doing it. This is why we shouldn't have more dogs.
Isa Rodriguez: That's great advice. Stretch is also fantastic advice.
Lumen Miramontes: You should always stretch more. Art is so hard on your body.
Isa Rodriguez: It really is. Yeah.
Lumen Miramontes: No one realizes how hard it is on your body. I was working on a ceiling a lot today and I went to like work up in behind me a little bit and my whole spine cracked, arced back a little bit. And it was just like, (cracking sound) just hasn't been unhunched for too long.
Yeah. Stretch. No more dogs. More art.
I will keep doing art and teaching art until I can't anymore, I think. But who knows? I'm just a little goblin. Maybe I'll get bored and I'll start doing I don't know, airspace navigation, underwater basket weaving.
That's still art. They got me again!
Isa Rodriguez: Well, Lumen, this has been a pleasure.
Lumen Miramontes: Thank you so much for having me.
Isa Rodriguez: Thanks for coming out. Um, is there, is there anything else that you would like to talk about or that you think is important for people to hear about?
Lumen Miramontes: It is never too late to change up how you live your life, to re inspect what you're doing.
Everyone is always surprised at how old I am, which is always a bummer, but also I'm like, Oh, thank you. They're like, no, you're not 35. Like that's not that old! But also, yeah. But it's never too late to make your life suit what you need. As opposed to trying to shove yourself into what you think your life should look like.
I spent a really long time trying to find the perfect pattern, find the perfect planner, find the perfect schedule that was going to make me more efficient and make me do the things best. And I really just needed to acknowledge that, like, my need to explore things and switch stuff up and live my life differently every so often is, like, a function of who I am and not a bug.
So, yeah, don't be afraid to be a little goblin.
Dylan Cale Jones: Be a goblin.
Lumen Miramontes: Be a goblin.
Isa Rodriguez: Okay. That was great.
Dylan Cale Jones: Yeah. Thanks, Lumen.
Practice, Practice is created by Isa Rodriguez and Dylan Cale Jones. The music you heard in this episode is by Kate Jarboe.
Isa Rodriguez: This season of Practice Practice is funded by a Thrive Grant from the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition and the Andy Warhol Foundation.
Dylan Cale Jones: Thrive Grants fund community-driven, artist-led projects across the state of Oklahoma. Learn more and apply at ovac-ok.org
Lumen Miramontes:
I am Lumen Miramontes. And this is,
Dylan Cale Jones: I am Lumen!
Lumen Miramontes: No, I'm Lumen! This is Practice Practice.
Dylan Cale Jones: No, this is Practice Practice!
Lumen Miramontes: Wait, is this Practice Practice?
Dylan Cale Jones: No.
Lumen Miramontes: I'm Lumen Miramontes. I'm Lumen Miramontes and this is Practice Practice.