At the magical age of seven my family and I flew north to the land of the ancient Tongva people, my Father had envisioned a life of more opportunity and experiences. By that time English was the main language now spoken there, but I only knew one of its words, “no”.
It was a culture shock from one day to the next. I had the advantage of loving to draw and paint since a child, that facilitated my acculturation process and I was soon the class artist in my first grade class. On my first day in school two days after arriving to Los Angeles, my first painting in children’s tempera on butcher paper was of the Statue of Liberty, inspired by a little souvenir statue my aunt had taken back to Costa Rica from one of her trips to New York. The teacher pinned it to the wall for all the other children to see!
Forever in my memory is the day that I asked the other children in the sandbox if I could play and they understood my English. The joy of realizing that I could now speak this language was beyond belief!
Growing up and living in such a multi-cultural society expanded my mind beyond anything a mono-culture could give me, my Father and Mother were right…The greatest testament to that is the path that I chose in art to express the infinite essence in every one of us, no matter which corner of our Earth we come from.
San Jose, Costa Rica
Rude Calderón
11/3/2018
