Nearly every artist starts out drawing, usually when they should be doing something else. You can always tell the budding artist hunched over his desk at school, intently involved in something that the teacher presumes is geometry. Upon closer inspection, it is usually a picture of a car or a girl or a monster or a superhero. The urge to draw is at the bottom of all art and that urge never leaves the artist.

The ability to draw is the first thing that sets the artist apart from his or her peers. It is what makes them special. They may not have been the most athletic or the best looking or the smartest in their class, but when they draw, they are at least the equals of anyone. The urge strikes them at all hours of the day and night, and they reach for the first piece of paper available. It is always paper that they reach for because it is cheap and ubiquitous. Paper is democratic--it is there for everyone. It is the most common material; only original ideas are uncommon.

Chicano artists are unusually good drawers. I say this not out of ethnic pride (although there is some of that involved), but out of simple observation over many years. There seems
to be some element of handcrafted art that is part of the Chicano artistic DNA.

What we present here in Papel Chicano is the product and application of Chicano identity, paper, and the urge to draw.

Cheech Marin
June 3, 2007
Malibu, California