Rooted in the Making: Creative Women of San Diego pt. IV
Part four: Fedella Lizeth
Grounding the Work
Fedella Lizeth is a queer, Nicoya, Italian woman and uses she/ her pronouns. Her main medium is photography though her first love was writing. You can follow her on IG at fedellalizeth for some of the brilliant work that she’s created.
Fedella shares that her creative practice began with her walking around her community and documenting what she felt was important to her, “Neighborhoods I knew growing up in, the people that I felt like I'd never seen in mainstream media… whether they were liquor store owners or people I met at a market or when I went to the swap meet or something like that, just us – regular people. Now I would say my practice is in everything that I do.” She goes on to share that she has a full time job as a teaching artist to the marginalized youth along with young mothers in San Diego.
In asking about what her best work requires from her emotionally, she mentions “I would say it requires me to be honest with myself. Meaning understanding more of what I’m going through at the time. Lately, I've been focusing on family. I have a Latino family and an Italian family and both are very traditional, but I do find myself (as an adult queer woman) struggling a lot with my Latino family – I’m trying to learn how to love them in this new way, because I can no longer love them in the blind way I was when I was growing up.” We share a moment of understanding here around honoring the generations that came before us while also curious of what we can create for ourselves and those to come. She speaks of feeling the most resistance in the form of wanting to express more of herself while also feeling worried about how a family member might react to seeing it. “There's moments where my family will show up for an exhibition that I'm in and it feels really special, but it's also very censored. I have a lot of goals in my mind… I like the woman that I am now and I know what kind of woman I'd like to be too. I know that at some point I want to make my photography more honest.”
We start the topic of wellness and Fedella becomes a bit emotional with this question. “I think as a Brown woman, just trying to advocate for yourself, it's really difficult. There's not always answers for things that we may be experiencing for some reason. Wellness right now looks like seriously taking the time to thank my body for all that she's done and all that she's carrying. And I've been really proud of myself for being so adamant about checking up on my health and learning new things about what doesn't serve me anymore or what makes me feel good.”
The Path Inward
Fedella's journey began to unfold when she acquired her first camera while she was attending City College, studying Chicano studies. Her initial work involved taking photographs within her local community, often featuring friends and neighbors. This attracted the interest and fascination from people outside her neighborhood. “So it then turned into my community feeling seen and understood (through her portraits) and I loved that response. I loved that my friends felt seen, understood, and special.” She pauses for just a moment to then add, “To do that with a camera is really powerful. Especially as a Brown person and same for the Black community because historically photography has been inaccessible to many and there are still problems with how people of color are represented. Like film for instance – the chemical base doesn't adhere to certain skin tones and makes dark people look darker than they are. So there's just so much to revolutionize that really made me feel like, okay, my commitment is to make this right for everyone else.”
In connecting to her body and noticing sensations that might be trying to tell her that something is off, she identifies that she stops breathing for periods of time. She also mentions shallow breathing, but mostly the former. I ask if she can go into more detail about this and she shares about her recent exhibition, Teo, and how after putting on such a vulnerable and raw show she realized that her body was immensely sore and that she had to do more than breathing techniques to move said energy around. She speaks more on being the eldest daughter, the parentified child, etc, meaning that she’s still learning what vulnerability really looks like today and how to work with it. She identifies “The Caterer” as the version of herself that she’s had to outgrow to be where she is today. She mentions once being someone who would encourage others to go after their dreams, become an artist, travel, feel good in their skin, etc., however would fall short when catering to herself. “The version that I am now is more grounded, definitely more confident, more introspective in that I know I can slow things down, and then make a decision as a way of responding (rather than reacting).
Restoration
Fedella feels most validated in her work when one to a few people express to her the emotion that her work evokes in them. She shares that if one single person comes up to her during one of her shows and the two can connect over shared experiences then she feels impacted. In discussing the part of her work that feels the most restorative, she shares that her current work has been just that for her. “I feel like my queer identity and my work around that is just more about myself… I want to do more self narrative stuff because I feel like when I connect back with that little girl (inner child), that’s restorative for me more than anyone.”
In wrapping up this interview, Fedella mentions that she’s pretty funny (must be an Aquarius thing) and that she enjoys spending time with her two cats at home. She shares that she’s very attached to her friends and that she simply loves spending time with them, regardless of what they’re doing. She feels fortunate to work in the arts as a teacher, artist, and also within her neighborhood. “I really do spend a lot of time just loving my community… like, that's just my beautiful community and I know it will never let me down.”
