El Mending

Refran:  "A cry for help that always falls silent, but perhaps someday will it be heard."

Card Description: For my Loteria Card, I wanted to share my thoughts on mental health and my personal experience with dealing with depression. I chose Mental Health as a subject matter because no one really focuses on it anymore. No one even bothers to acknowledge someone's own mental health, which is very upsetting to me. The colors in this piece represent happiness and sadness. The blue side represents happiness and how someone sees others on the outside, and the grey represents depression and struggles, how they may truly be on the inside. The middle which is black with red strings, represents that person struggling to keep themselves together before they finally break and snap. For me personally, this card represents my personal experience with mental health and a way to vent out my inner feelings, while still representing my theme. I want the audience to see how badly someone could be suffering in silence and how mental health can affect them. Even if it is a sensitive topic and a bit dark, this topic shouldn't be sugar-coated. It should be straight to the point, no matter what.

Student Biography: Greetings, my name is Angelica Romero and I am a Senior at Santa Maria High School. I live in Santa Maria, California with my parents, my 2 older sisters, and my 2 dogs. What inspired me to draw my Loteria Card was my own personal experience. I wanted to spread awareness of this topic by drawing my Loteria Card that represents my own pain and how others similar to me may also feel. The artist process was a bit difficult at first, I struggled with figuring out a design I liked and wanted to use as my final project. Admittedly, I could've done better and it's not exactly how I envisioned it, but it gets the message out nonetheless, and I am pleased with the results. As for my future plans for high school, I am still very unsure. It has been a painful struggle to find out what I want to do. What I feel like what I want to do currently is practice art and animation. If I do succeed in doing that, I'd like to make my own animations with my own stories for others to enjoy.