Trancing the Heartbeat
Rest, in these uncertain times, is a struggle for me. My head whirs. In my eight years of following artists alongside collaborating with and writing/teaching about their works and praxis, I have learned to acknowledge the luxury of choosing to rest and escape. On getting the results of a uterine scan this past January, I rewarded myself by registering for Nevada Museum of Art’s “Art + Environment Summit: Under Pressure,” which took place this past April. I reached out to Ruby Jo Barrientos, an artist about whose work I had written since 2023.
Barrientos connects me to a local who hosts me for the weekend and, when I seek an escape from the crowds of the summit, invites me A Wheel Good Time Ceramics, the studio where they’d been learning how to work with clay. When the wheel throwing instructor waves me into the building and reports that Barrientos is working with headphones on, I breathe a sigh of relief. With it being my second time in Reno, NV, and first time venturing beyond the Nevada Museum of Art on my own, I was grateful to find my way.
Mid-carving into a pre-bisque drum base, Barrientos pauses and we make our way down the street to Café Con Papi. Over cool drinks and under the spring sun, we talk about their practice and their vision for “Ser de Ni De,” a show collaboration with Felicia Perez. Thematically, it’s an extension of “Medicina Ancestral,” with attention to their own approach to ‘ni de aqui ni de alla,” which many folks umbrellaed under ‘Latinx’ still carry.
The ceramic drums above are handmade; Barrientos had begun wheel throwing intending to make ceramic drums for “Ser de Ni De.” Like the mixed media works of “Medicina Ancestral,” reclaim ancestral memory through creative practice, much like Xochil Xitlalli described when I interviewed her two years ago for the Latinx Pop Magazine. This is Barrientos's first series in clay, made possible by A Wheel Good Time Ceramics’ owner and lead instructor, Hayley Jane. Reviewing our hours of transcripts across interviews and conversations,
Barrientos’s praxis prioritizes communal, collaborative work, and creative practice as a vehicle for interconnection. It is the ethos they find in Justin Favela and Rose B. Simpson, two artists Barrientos respects and seeks to emulate.
Barrientos's attention to learning new approaches, and to collaborating with creatives from their community, complements what I most respect and admire about Vegas’s own, Justin Favela. Walking back from the café, I find myself photographing a mural. Nostalgia hits in the pause: I miss the murals near the cafés of Puerto Rican Chicago, and I miss the cups of café I used to drink in the kitchens of with whom I worked.
Back at the studio, we photograph the drums pictured above. As we do, Barrientos explains: “I want people to interact with it and play [them], connect with the drum. But sometimes you get lost in music and sound. So, like, if for some reason they mishandle it and it breaks, it breaks.” Barrientos’ vision counters the dominant expectations of museum interaction; their praxis prioritizes audience’s experience more than the object’s permanence. Like I had found in observing and participating in Favela’s interactive exhibits, the audience's experience matters more than the object. For Barrientos, the physical, tangible, spiritual connection is what counts.
Talking about the drum brings me back to AfriCaribe events in what is now called Barrio Borinken. The trance of drum beats take me back to the ocean, the rocks, and the beach that cradled my most sacred memories of Puerto Rico. What would it look like if that trance, that transformative moment, mattered more than the art object itself?
With their drum building collaborator, Nicolina Colette, running late, we head to the house of their musician collaborator, Nate Eng, with whom they are working on sound. Nate, another full-time worker whose creative practice is a side gig, welcomes us, offers us water, and shows us around. I sit on the couch in his studio, close my eyes, and listen to Barrientos play a cowbell while Nate records. In the softness of the couch, with Nate's grandfather's painting behind me, Barrientos's collaborative energy becomes a meditative trance. The trance takes care of me and models the care Barrientos collaborative creative praxis deserves.
Over the course of our conversations on returning to and arriving at A Wheel Good Time, Barrientos and I talk about how much humans need one another. Barrientos intentionally learns from the community around them, not unlike how each artist with whom I’ve worked has offered me critical lessons that consistently transform my writing and teaching. That day contains the slowness, the breathing that I observed artists engage with when, quarantine’s paused rent increases, student loan repayments alongside federally funded relief funds had given them. How many of us feel nostalgic for that slowness, the breathing that necessitated that we—despite the fears of contamination—focus on what was important? How many of us, in the rapidly increasing cost of living, have forgotten the rhythm of a relaxed heartbeat?
When Barrientos asked if I was intending to return to events, I said no. The day with them and their friends had been a homecoming to purpose and connection, the heartbeat of why we do what we do. Barrientos encourages me to follow up with Felicia Perez about their contribution to “Ser de Ni De,” given shared struggles with navigating tumor scares and history. Exploring their Instagram, I could see where further exploration would take me. But, as my stitches continue to heal, my own journey needs words before honoring the privilege of a fellow creative sharing theirs.
After long overdue rest I almost gave up in the evolution of Project 2025, I look forward to returning to being rested enough to come back to writing about visual arts again.
“Sometimes you get lost in music and sound. So if for some reason they mishandle it and it breaks, it breaks.”
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