I kinda touched base with this during my artist talk with El Comalito Collective. BTW El Comalito Collective is an artist-run space co-owned by Edgar-Arturo Camacho-Gonzalez and Abel Rodriguez. They’re a very supportive space that is dedicated to making art accessible to their community as well as highlighting and supporting WOC, POC, and LGBTQ+ artist. So if you didn’t know about them y’all should check them out via IG @elcomalitocollective.
So I’ll be going further in to how I became interested in lowrider’s and the lowriding community. When my parents moved us from South Central to Whittier we moved into a home that is directly off Whittier Blvd. for y’all who aren’t familiar with Whittier Blvd. it’s an iconic location for cruising. Every weekend I would see cars cruising on the boulevard. I always thought they were beautiful but at the time I was more interested in classic cars. So no customizations just a simple clean paint job and lowered. But when I got into a relationship with Mark, my partner, I became more and more interested in the loud and outrageous patterned lowrider’s that had tons of customizations. I would go on to help him fix his 1984 El Camino. Besides him I was the only other person to help him to do the body work on this car. I also eventually helped him pick the color palette for the paint job many years later. (Sorry to say but usually a car painters personal cars get put aside when you could make money fixing other peoples car). In total I saw Mark through 5 almost 6 years of fixing the ElCo on again and off again. It was a very rewarding experience. That car was the first car I ever helped to work on, also the first lowrider I actually drove. Driving a lowrider makes you feel powerful, I can’t even explain the feeling beyond that. I just felt like a badass. He went on to sell that car, it was hard parting with it.
Two years ago Mark surprised me with my 1975 Cadillac El Dorado. I had never actually planned on owning a lowrider. I loved them but I never thought I would own my very own one. Basically it was a surprise. Mark had a customer that always went to the auto body shop that had the ElDo. He had shown me some pictures of it like two or three weeks prior and joking I said oh my god buy it. The old man was trying to get rid of it for dirt cheap, it was all original, had been in the garage for years, only had two owners prior to us and only had 75,000 miles. I never thought Mark would actually buy it. One day he called me before he was getting out of work and said, “Babe come pick me up please the ElCo won’t start and I need a ride home”. I went thinking oh god Mark what the fuck I took Smokey with me. I pull up and he’s nowhere to be seen. His boss is like “Mark left”, I was so confused. Then dramatic ass Mark pulls up from behind some of the storage containers that surround the auto body shop and he was in the pink Cadi!!!! He told me “It’s yours!”. I couldn’t believe it 😭😭😭. Then Mark, me and Smokey went for a cruise. Anyways fast forward to two years since then. We’ve been chipping away at the body work needed for La Playgirl. I’ve been there every step I could help with. I’ve done just as much if not more than half the men you see flaunting their lowrider’s. I’m so excited for this car, next steps are finishing the body work, fixing rust left from the only vinyl top, primer, sand, primer and a layer of paint. Once that settles in for a couple of months we’ll begin pattern work. And then we are redoing the entire interior. I’m a perfectionist, I want this car to look like a show car but actually be driven. I want it to be as loud and obnoxious as my paintings but still have fine detail. I’ll probably keep this car for a while, Mark and I have agreed to it. It’s a huge car, and considering the amount of time we want to put in to it, I’m considering it’ll be my life long lowrider. I do want other cars but I can’t imagine parting with La Playgirl.
Currently, Mark has a new ElCo this one is a 1973 one. He’s doing it all up too. So we have two project cars at once. It’s stressful, but that feeling you have cruising in your beautiful car on the boulevard is worth it. Lowriding has become a part of my life in ways I never imagined. Mark is in a car club, Genocide CC. He is plaqued. The plan is I will hopefully be plaqued as well. Gender inclusive car clubs are becoming more and more normalized. Which is amazing. Also the lowrider community has been supportive to my art in many ways. Mostly all the women I have painted have made it a point to go to my art openings, see the paintings of them in person. The car club Mark is in has shown just as much support as well. In general the role that lowriding has taken in my life, in my relationship has been immense.