Yanaguana
Suzy González (Xicanx, b. 1989)
Yanaguana, 2021
Painted mural on cut wood panels
Commissioned with funds provided by the Art Bridges Foundation
Mural Artist: Suzy González (www.suzygonzalez.com, @soozgonzalez)
Artist’s Statement: Yanaguana is comprised of thirty-two individual jigsawed and hand-painted panels. It highlights local artists, activists, writers, musicians, healers, culture workers, and stewards of the land. They are seen thriving in their environment among native plants and birds. Their portraits surround the San Antonio River, whose spirit was named Yanaguana by the Coahuiltecan First Peoples of this land. The concept for this mural was based on community feedback of what locals wanted to see in this space.
Mural Assistants:
Michael Menchaca (www.michaelmenchaca.com) painted the central image of the split sun and moon along with the stylized fish and turtle elements.
Galileo González (www.galileogonzalez.tumblr.com) painted the yellow center maguey, sunflowers, Castilleja, red amaranth, bluebonnets, great egret, painted bunting, blue jay, northern cardinal, crested caracara, and great blue heron.
Madison Cowles Serna (www.madisoncowles.com) painted the prickly pear nopal and white-winged dove.
Portraits
- Jess Gonzales and Sarah Aguilar
- Ceiba Ili
- Manuel Davila
- Aissatou Sidime-Blanton and Stewart Blanton
- Azul Barrientos
- Jazzy Bethel and Alisa Garza
- Maria C. Turvin
- Anel I. Flores, Erika Casasola, Jessica R. Gonzalez, and Klarissa A. Gonzalez
- Barbara Felix
- Laura Yohaultlahuiz Ríos Ramírez and Álvaro Itzli Ramírez
- Andrea Vocab Sanderson
Elements
Yanaguana/Yanawana is the name of the spirit of both the river and this land before it was renamed San Antonio. The depiction of the river is inspired by an image in the Tovar Codex, where the flowering cactus that sprouts from the water represents Tenochtitlán. The central image of the split sun and moon references the Codex Borbonicus depiction of day and night. The stylized fish and turtle elements are inspired by an African Asante textile from Ghana that includes animals as symbols of leadership.
Birds & Plants of Yanaguana
- Great egret
- Painted bunting
- Blue jay
- Northern cardinal
- Crested caracara
- Great blue heron
- White-winged dove
- Yellow century maguey
- Sunflower
- Castilleja
- Red amaranth
- Bluebonnet
- Prickly pear nopal
Find more information about each figure pictured in Yanaguana below.
Jess Gonzales & Sarah Aguilar
Jess Gonzales is an interdisciplinary Xicana artist from San Antonio. She has worked at nonprofits such as the San Antonio Conservation Society, the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, and San Anto Cultural Arts. Her work is centered around grassroots community organizing, education, photography, digital content, art, and history. As a photographer who is passionate about community, here Jess photographs Sarah Aguilar’s quinceañera.
Follow Jess Gonzales at www.jessgonzales.com.
Ceiba Ili
Ceiba Ili is a cultural educator and musician-activist from Honduras who centers Lenca and Maya Ch’orti’ identity revitalization in her work. Through language recuperation, land conservation, and powerful testimony, her music empowers us to face the urgency of now through the timeless truth of a living earth. Ceiba employs Indigenous instruments and languages in music creation. Her work intertwines advocacy for migrant communities, Indigenous rights, and environmental justice. Her chosen name, Ceiba, comes from a statuesque tree of life with spiritual significance to native people in the Americas, including her home country, Honduras, and West Africa.
Follow Ceiba Ili on Instagram @ceiba_ili.
Manuel Davila
Manuel Davila is a 2Spirit Coahuiltecan tradition keeper and artist who creates herbal medicines, natural dyes, pigments, and clays. As the cultural arts program coordinator with American Indians in Texas at the Spanish Colonial Missions, Manuel’s passion for the traditional arts, medicine, food, and storytelling is interwoven into their preservation of the culture of the Tap Pilam Coahuiltecan Nation and other Indigenous communities of the place we now refer to as South Texas. Their goal is to continue to uplift the decolonized history of Yanaguana/San Antonio and the elders who have preserved cultural ways. Manuel has also organized campaigns focused on immigration, nutrition, land restoration, and climate justice for over a decade.
Follow Manual Davila on Instagram @mesquitepapi.
Aissatou Sidime-Blanton & Stewart Blanton
Aissatou Sidime-Blanton and Stewart Blanton are collectors who work with the San Antonio Ethnic Art Society, which creates biennial grants to support projects that further the careers of early to mid-career African American women artists and arts professionals and promotes art interests among female youth. Together, the Blantons pursue strong interests in contemporary art and in community service to foster cultural projects and to help those in need. They have funded visual arts projects, underwritten funding for art scholars, and curated exhibitions.
Follow Aissatou Sidime-Blanton and Stewart Blanton at www.saethnicartsociety.org.
Azul Barrientos
Azul Barrientos is a musician originally from Mexico City and now based in San Antonio as artist-in-residence at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Azul works to conserve and develop the folk music that she was first introduced to as a child. Azul’s music gives life to the narratives of Latin American history by highlighting the many cultural influences and interconnections between the Americas, Africa, and Spain. As a woman of Nahua Otomí descent, she gravitates to the music that represents her, paying attention to the history and context behind each song and sharing these connections with the public through interdisciplinary presentations.
Follow Azul Barrientos on Instagram @azulmusica.
Jazzy Bethel & Alisa Garza
Jazzy Bethel is a local youth who is seen here volunteering at Southwest Workers Union’s Roots of Change community garden, a space dedicated to connecting youth with the earth and teaching them to tend the land. Alisa Garza is also a frequent volunteer at Roots of Change. As an organization of low-income, working-class families and youth, SWU advocates for workers’ rights, environmental justice, and inclusive, healthy communities where people have autonomy and live in balance with the Earth.
Follow Jazzy Bethel, Alisa Garza, and Southwest Workers Union on Instagram @swujustice @rootsofchange @readingrageink.
Maria C. Turvin
Maria C. Turvin in an Indigenous woman of Mexica ancestry whose maternal line comes from Guanajuato, Mexico. She was brought up learning energy healing from her mother, and she cultivated her love and relationship with plants with the help of her maternal grandparents. Maria is a clinical herbalist, an energy healer, a street medic, a musician, an activist, and the founder and operations director of Yanawana Herbolarios, a nonprofit established in 2016 to meet needs in the areas of healthcare and preparedness among vulnerable communities of San Antonio, serving folks of all ages from youth to elders with a special focus on Indigenous, Black, people of color, and LGBT+ communities.
Follow Maria C. Turvin on Instagram @yanawanaherbolarios.
Anel I. Flores, Erika Casasola, Jessica R. Gonzalez, & Klarissa A. Gonzalez
Anel I. Flores, Erika Casasola, Jessica R. Gonzalez, and Klarissa A. Gonzalez are a family dedicated to activism whose work has been featured on the Katie Couric show and in the San Antonio Express-News. They have advocated at City Council for the Non-Discrimination Ordinance, demonstrated at the Texas Capital against the discriminatory "bathroom bill," and participated in the many annual marches advocating for LGBTQIA+ rights, racial and economic justice, and honoring those lost to violence. Erika, a visual artist and stylist, actively works in community as a curandera. Anel, an author, visual artist, realtor, and educator, is completing her novel, working on her graphic memoir, and participating in various projects internationally. Jessica and Klarissa are both in higher education, paving the way for future generations as queer women in the male and heteronormative dominated fields of engineering and medicine.
Follow Anel I Flores, Erika Casasola, Jessica R. Gonzalez, and Klarissa A. Gonzalez on Instagram @aneliflores, @erikacasasola, @jessi_94, @missk2017.
Barbara Felix
Barbara Felix is an Afro-Latina mixed media and multimedia artist whose work is focused on women of all ages from her community. Barbara’s creativity draws from visual nuances captured through dance and movement in her figurative portraits. Her multifaceted portraits in The Glorious Way She Moves celebrate Black women as they navigate through the path of their lives and the complexities of the world. Barbara's love of the human figure has inspired and cultivated a more dedicated pursuit of her art as a social expression of the diversity of beauty. She is self-taught in animation, video, and audio editing, and her animation and performance videos have been screened in festivals and exhibitions across San Antonio and the United States.
Follow Barbara Felix on Instagram @proximityartmedia.
Laura Yohualtlahuiz Ríos Ramírez & Álvaro Itzli Ramírez
Laura Yohualtlahuiz Ríos Ramírez & Álvaro ltzli Ramírez are a Xicanx, hip hop, Mexica danza power dualidad based in Yanaguana on Somi Se'k Territory. They along with their children Azalea, Huitzi, and Ketzal are keepers of Nahuatlaca traditions and serve their community as leaders of Kalpulli Ayolopaktzin, a group of intertribal families of indigenous descent building community through the shared value of honoring the healing medicine of the heart of the waters.
Follow Álvaro Itzli Ramírez, and Kalpulli Ayolopaktzin on Instagram @itzli_ramirez, @ayolopaktzin.
Andrea Vocab Sanderson
Andrea ''Vocab" Sanderson serves as a teaching artist for Gemini Ink and is an artist-in-residence with the Carver Community Cultural Center. Her debut book is entitled She Lives in Music, Flower Song Press, February 2020. Her music is available on all music streaming platforms. Andrea is the first Black Poet Laureate of San Antonio, 2020–2023. Some of her awards include the San Antonio Current’s People's Choice Award 2019, Best Live Band/Musician of the Year by the 17th Annual Southern Entertainment Awards; the Arts and Letters Award by Friends of San Antonio Public Library; Best Literary Advocate 2021, San Antonio Magazine; and Best Local Poet 2021, the San Antonio Current.
Follow Andrea Vocab Sanderson on Instagram @vocabulous.
Community Voice
As part of SAMA’s presentation of the 2023 special exhibition Roman Landscapes: Visions of Nature and Myth from Rome and Pompeii, SAMA invited artists, educators, and community leaders to record their perspectives on landscapes from across the Museum. Manuel Davila, who is depicted in the mural, chose to respond to Yanaguana. Play the video below to hear his insights.
