Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives / Fronteras: Dibujando las vidas fronterizas
by Steven and Reefka Schneider
978-0-916727-65-9 Cost: $19.95
Hardback , 64 pages
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Critical Praise for Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives / Fronteras: Dibujando las vidas fronterizas
- These border portraits caught my eye when I first saw them at the University of Texas-Pan American, and they draw me in even now. Ordinary folks rendered with love, compassion, and intimacy at a time in history when love, compassion, and intimacy are in short supply on borders, especially when it comes to the Tex/Mex border. Hurray for Steve and Reefka and the magical work they are doing crossing fronteras. Hurray for Wings Press for publishing this celebratory book when we need it the most. ¡Que vivan!
— Sandra Cisneros, MacArthur Fellow, author of Caramelo and The House on Mango Street
- Borderlines/Fronteras is a true marriage: poetry and art, English and Spanish, north and south of the border. I'm telling you, such a kiss is this book that you oftentimes cannot tell which came first: the poem, its translation, or the art work. ¡Qué besito es este libro!
— Rene Saldaña, author of The Jumping Tree and The Whole Sky Full of Stars
- Borderlines/Fronteras reflects an accuracy of eye and voice that goes beyond mere physical reality and probes the uncompromised elegance of street vendors, beggars, and the Angel who likes tacos. The poetry carries a grace and a toughness that are equally eloquent in the Spanish translation, and the drawings leave the reader entranced by the exquisite beauty of truth.
— Carmen Tafolla, author of The Holy Tortilla and a Pot of Beans and Sonnets & Salsa
- Steve and Reefka Schneider have created a portrait of border life that utilizes both words and pictures to capture an historical moment. My copy of Los Mexicanos pintados por sí mismos (1846) includes personalities such as el músico de cuerda, la recamarera, y el ranchero to present a moment in time that has passed. The notable difference in Borderlines/Fronteras is the inclusion of working children. These compassionate portraits, from the accordion player to the bead seller, show their everyday public lives, la gente decente on whose backs we have constructed the vast, complicated economy and culture that is the border today. In the discussions of walls, guns, drugs and abstract policies, we need to remember that ordinary individuals live here too, and always will.
— Kathleen Alcalá, author of Spirits of the Ordinary and Treasures in Heaven
Reviews
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Illustrated book of poem paints the hopes and heartaches of border life
The Monitor (McAllen, TX)March 29, 2010
Reviewed by Amy Nichol Smith
Her mother cannot afford to buy her a bracelet
Or a brightly colored frog or crab from Oaxaca.
She wears a striped sarape across the shoulders.
Her lips are sealed, mouth lined by disappointment,
Eyes glazed with fear.-- from "Beggar and Daughter"
At a time when it is perhaps needed the most, Steven and Reefka Schneider illustrate their compassionate and understanding perspective of the lives of a handful of people who live and work along the Rio Grande Valley border in a collection of portraits and poems in the book Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives / Fronteras: Dibujando las vidas fronterizas.
Several of the portraits and poems have been on display at the University of Texas-Pan American library galleries and have been shown throughout Texas as a TCH traveling exhibit. Now, Steven and Reefka, who have been married 30 years, are celebrating the launch of their book Friday during Art Walk at the Nuevo Santander Gallery in McAllen, the gallery that represents Reefka and often displays her work.
Reefka immediately began drawing people she and her husband encountered at flea markets in Mission and vendors on the streets of Progreso and Reynosa, when she and Steven moved to the Valley in 2001. She also drew portraits of mariachi musicians and dancers performing la bachata.
Together, the poet and artist, through words and charcoal, celebrate the art and culture that is endemic to the Valley and its borders. The Schneiders don't shy away from the sadness, fear and hopelessness that appears in several of the portraits and poems depicting young children selling cheap confections and homemade purses and jewelry. And many of the pieces evoke the political climate in the Valley and beyond the border.
Over the past nine years, Reefka drew more than 100 portraits and even though only 25 pieces were chosen for the book, it was a labor of love for both her and Steven.
"It's not nine years of making a book," Reefka said. "It's nine years of living our lives."
Steven accepted a position as an English professor at the University of Texas-Pan American in 2001. Steven has written several books, including two other poetry collections, Unexpected Guests and Prairie Art Show.
Many museums, galleries and universities have featured Reefka's exhibits, and drawings from Borderlines have been included in the book Writing Toward Hope: The Literature of Human Rights in Latin America (Yale University Press, 2006).
Recently the drug-related violence that some analysts say has crept over the border and into the United States has attracted national attention, but Steven and Reefka strive to show the people behind the headlines, to tell the stories of the unseen and unheard people who are often overlooked.
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Couple releases book of poems, drawings of border life
The Brownsville HeraldApril 3, 2010
The young girl with the cloth bags gazes pristinely from the picture, her charcoal and conte crayon image conveying a sense of innocence.
"In her right ear she wears a pink stud/her lips are sealed and will not share the secrets" reads the poem by Steven Schneider titled "Six-Year-Old Street Vendor" in the book Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives, published by Wings Press. The poem accompanies the image created by his wife Reefka Schneider. The book was released Friday at Nuevo Santander Gallery, 717 N. Main St., during the monthly McAllen Art Walk. The book is composed of 25 images with accompanying poems.
"Most of the poems were written in response to the drawings, and I was trying to in some instances to tell a narrative or a story in poetry about the subjects of my wife's drawings," said Schneider, a professor at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg.
"There's a range of styles and tones in the poems reflective of the diverse range of subjects in her drawings," said Schneider, director of New Programs and Special Projects in the College of Arts and Humanities.
"Some poems are talking about the social problems here on the border, poverty, illiteracy, kids on a street rather than in school," Schneider said. "And some of the other poems by way of balance are much more celebratory of the culture and of the music and of the region."
The pictures indeed reveal a broad range of people: a man with a loop of garlic around his neck, a strapping mariachi with a violin, an older woman with a little girl, a child with an accordion. Each has a poignant story in verse.
"It is a long way, vaquero/From the cattle you worked on the ranch/Outside Veracruz," reads a poem titled "Vaquero de Veracruz" that accompanies the charcoal and conte drawing of the same name. The image on an orange background depicts a handsome young man with strong cheekbones and broad chin, his thick black hair hanging from beneath his hat.
"I see you here," continues the poem. "In your soft, white Stetson hat/Shiny leather Western boots/Your blue jeans and construction worker shirt/A long way/From the chaparral/And the saddle horses/A long way/From the campfires/Under the starry Mexican sky."
Reefka Schneider said she uses conte because that is the closest thing to what many of the old masters used in their artwork.
"It's a mixture of clays and chalks," said the artist. "I'm trying to express the soul of each person I draw. And by expressing their soul, I'm hoping that people will connect on the universal level of life and thus, you know, be open to cross-cultural understanding and seeing the humanity of the people of the border where we live. That's what I hope my pictures portray."
Steven Schneider said he and his wife are trying to "put a human face on the sorrows and joys of the people who live along the border. In a time when violence and drugs have created an atmosphere of fear, our work shows the aspirations and beauty of the culture and people who live and work here."
Reviewed by Travis Whitehead
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Local artists launch book during April's Art Walk
Valley Town CrierMarch 30, 2010
What do you know?
You know the rings,
The silver circles of light,
The roundness of the rim of the flower pot,
The roundness of pupils of the eyes,
The depths of their wells.
You know the roundness of pebbles on sand.
Steven Schneider, a poet and Professor in the Department of English at UTPA, studied the picture his artist wife, Reefka, had drawn and the words came to him for Wise Woman with Rings.
"What struck me about this picture was the roundness of the rings, the pot, her eyes and face along with the wisdom in her face. The circle is an image of wholeness and fullness," said Steven. "This woman understands the circular nature of life. That's what I liked about her. It's a very spiritual poem."
Since 2001, Reefka has been drawing people of the border, becoming one of the foremost artists of "la Frontera," the binational region of the Rio Grande Valley. Her artwork reflects the social and economic realities of the border while celebrating the local culture, people and music.
Having done projects together before, (About Love), this was a natural for them. The culmination of this collaboration is the book Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives.
"I met the publisher -- Wings Press, Bryce Milligan -- at the Texas Book Festival a few years ago. We handed him a card with one of our poems/pictures," Steven said, with a grin. "He said, 'I really would love to do a book with you both.' One thing led to another and today, we have a book."
When you look at Reefka's drawings, the very soul of her subjects come alive.
"That's how art is different from photography," said Reefka. "As an artist, I have more elements to work with -- lines, tones, textures -- which communicate a deeper feeling." Blending charcoal, conte -- a technique taken from the old masters, and pastel, Reefka brings the reader in unity with these people.
From Nuevo Progresso to the flea market on Conway they found their subjects and after Reefka finished the piece, Steven would write a poem. Deciding he would like to have a variety of poetic forms throughout the book, the poetry reflects a myriad of poetic styles. Some pieces were named after their form -- "Sestina" and "Triolet."
"Some of these poems are formal and follow certain particular poetic forms," Steven said. "Those poems follow certain rhyme schemes and meters. Other poems are free verse and are not strictly formal. One of the ways we want to use the book is to educate students about poetic form and the relationship between art and poetry."
Flipping through the book, absorbing the exquisite detail Reefka showers on her subjects, the reader can flow through a gambit of emotions. The Boot Seller brings a bit of joy -- "You are happy to be selling these leather boots...You are a man comfortable."
Heart strings are pulled through "Three-Year-Old Street Musician" -- "...You play for all the lost children Who have disappeared in wars, In the crevices of earth, In floods of the seas."
"This project is especially meaningful to me because it's a collaboration between my writing and my wife's artwork. The poems and drawings speak to one another. They work together to create a greater whole," he said. "We're also talking about issues along the border here in terms of literacy, poverty and education. We think there's a social component to our book as well as an esthetic one."
"These pictures and poems are about real people and real life," said Steven. "There are real stories behind them."
"Most of the time we were actually able to meet the people," Reefka said. "We want to share with others what the people here at the border are about -- one person at a time."
The official book launch will be at Nuevo Santander Gallery in downtown McAllen, Friday, April 2, during the Art Walk from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. with a book signing, an exhibit of Reefka's newest work and a celebration.
Reviewed by Roda Grubb
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San Antonio Express-NewsMay 16, 2010
Reviewed by Ed Conroy
At a time when Arizona's new immigration law has created an intensified national controversy over the value and worth of the people of our border regions, one new book has the power to make us pause to reflect on the stories and conditions of their lives.
Anyone who has crossed a bridge over the Río Grande/Río Bravo into México's border towns will find the faces familiar that leap off the pages of Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives / Fronteras: Dibujando las vidas fronterizas.
There are the children with haunted stares hawking handmade dolls or beaded trinkets; the grim, ancient women with faces of stone, lips sealed tight against proverbial moscas (flies); the gregarious salesmen of boots, hats and other western wear; the accordion players and mariachis who grace the cantinas and plazas in the evenings; the young lovers who sway to their melodies plus so many more.
These faces come to life in the charcoal and pastel drawings of Reefka Schneider, who fascinatingly captures both the graphic details and emotional truths etched into faces young and old by the harsh social and natural realities of border life.
And those faces breathe with life in the poems of her husband, Steven P. Schneider, crafted clearly with the intention of creating a narrative that captures a moment in life and its emotions for each person.
As a married couple not native to the Rio Grande Valley (where Stephen teaches English at the University of Texas Pan American), the Schneiders bring to this book a tremendous sympathy with one another's aesthetic sensibilities, as well as their own ability to sympathize intensely with their subjects.
The result of their work is a series of 25 poignantly moving vignettes of border people and their lives, expressed as a page of poetry in English and Spanish, and, opposite, the portrait that is integrally joined to the poem.
José Antonio Rodriguez's translations of the poems, for those who prefer to read them in Spanish, are wonderful evocations of Schneider's work as well.
As they put it in their artists' statement at the conclusion of the book "& our marriage of art and poetry reflects the creative synergy of the people who live on both sides of the River & It is a story of the human spirit and its quest for happiness and fulfillment, its struggles to survive and overcome human hardship."
But the Schneiders also go beyond eloquently capturing the pathos and joys of the lives of diverse border people. As UTSA English professor Norma E. Cantú points out in her excellent introduction, their last two poems, "It's a Lie/Es una mentira" and "Disappeared /Deaparició," hammer at the injustice of inadequate school systems on both sides of the river, and the atrocities suffered by people known as "the disappeared, los desaparecidos," not only on the border, but, as they name it, in Chile, Guatemala and El Salvador as well.
They remind us that "the border" is extensive and indeed is, as Gloria Anzaldúa put it, "una herida abierta (an open wound) where the third world grates against the first and bleeds."
Hopefully this book will find ready acceptance in schools and public libraries across the U.S./Mexico border, and will help fulfill the authors' desire to "improve cross cultural understanding and deepen awareness of the human ties that bind us all together."
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San Antonio writer Ed Conroy is director of development for the Southwest School of Art & Craft.
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The U.S./Mexico Border: Beyond Fear
Iowa SourceJuly 2010
Steven Schneider on creating Borderlines in the [Iowa Source]
They call it Río Bravo. We call it Rio Grande, the 1885-mile river that separates Mexico from the United States. It is a historic natural border, the site of fierce battles during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48.
Several major cities along the northern border of Mexico are tied closely by commerce and culture to border cities on the U.S. side. Tijuana and San Diego. Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. Nuevo Laredo and Laredo. Families and friendships bridge both sides of the river.
Today, however, the natural border of the river is supplanted by a border wall. Commerce and cultural exchange are being destroyed by warring cartels, gun running, and drug smuggling. With the recent passage of the new anti-immigrant law in Arizona, the border has become the focal point of national debate. And the river is patrolled by increasing numbers of agents and helicopters in ways that it never has before.
When I moved in 2001 to McAllen, Texas, a short drive from the northern border city of Reynosa, Mexico, to teach English at the University of Texas-Pan American, the border was very different. The border wall had not yet been constructed. The activity of the Zeta and other drug gangs was quiescent compared to today.
You could cross with ease from the U.S. side to the Mexican side on one of the many pedestrian bridges built over the Rio Grande. In fact, my wife Reefka and I would often take our two boys to the small border town of Nuevo Progreso, about a 25-minute drive from our house. We would walk across the bridge from Progreso into Nuevo Progreso and shop for exquisite talavera pottery or colorful wood-carved alebrijes, and buy fresh garlic from street vendors.
We would listen to Mariachi music played in the streets and restaurants of Nuevo Progreso. And we were not alone. In the winter months you can see hundreds of tourists in Nuevo Progreso from places like Nebraska, Minnesota, Illinois, and, yes, Iowa. These Winter Texans flock to the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas to escape the snow and ice of the Midwest winters.
On these excursions Reefka would often photograph and sketch the people that we met in the streets of Nuevo Progreso: the garlic man wearing a rugby t-shirt and orange baseball cap, the six-year-old street handbag vendor, selling them each day to help feed her family. We would see very young children playing the accordion on the curb so tourists would toss coins into a cup. Back in her studio, Reefka would draw in charcoal and conté formal portraits of these people that we met.
Over the course of several years, I began to write poems about Reefka's drawings. I was struck by the vibrancy of the border culture despite the economic hardships children and families face.
Together, our poems and her drawings created a marriage of art and poetry, figure and figure of speech, a space where two art forms embrace each other. This past spring a collection of 25 of Reefka's drawings and 25 of my poems were published as a book: Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives, a look at the diversity and dignity of the people of the border, our frontera.
What does it mean to cross over a border? It means that you leave the familiarity of your own space to enter another culture, which opens the door to cross-cultural understanding. When that door is closed, no exchange of views and ideas can take place, no breaking of boundaries.
In the current climate of fear along the U.S.-Mexico border, where the headlines about drug-related murders dominate the news, it is very easy to lose sight of the real people who live and work there and aspire to raise their families, listen to music, and dance under the stars.
We invite you to come with us to explore this region, this people, this rich and varied culture in the borderlands where las Américas come together.
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Steven and Reefka Schneider show off their latest book at Prairie Lights
The Daily IowanJuly 21, 2010
Reviewed by Jennifer Downing in [The Daily Iowan]
One of the portraits in the book Borderlines is an image of a young Latina girl, maybe 6 years old, whose arms are draped in women's handbags. Instead of going to school and learning to read and write like other children her age, she is selling her wares on the street in order to help support her family in the Mexican town of Nuevo Progreso. Poverty and hardship are common themes here.
This is part of life on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Other images show the enthusiastic and joyful experiences of Mexican music and dance. Dancers look serene and happy as they move and twirl in their world made of watercolors and pastels while mariachi musicians play along. These images demonstrate the hope and spirit residents of this area still feel.
This is also part of life on the U.S.-Mexican border.
Steven and Reefka Schneider will read from and talk to audiences about their latest book, Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives, an artistic and poetic representation of life on the U.S.-Mexican border, at 7 p.m. today in Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St.
Reefka Schneider began drawing and painting portraits of the people of the Mexican-U.S. border after she and husband Steven Schneider moved to the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in 2001. Steven had just been made the chairman of the University of Texas-Pan American's English department, and Reefka Schneider, an artist, took the opportunity to use local residents and workers as models for her art.
Soon her husband, struck by how compelling her drawings were, got in on the act, composing poems about the lives of the subjects drawn in charcoal, chalk, and watercolor.
"It really was an evolutionary process," Reefka Schneider said. "The whole thing just grew from being an expression of the people around us on both sides of the border."
Though she drew the pictures of more than 100 border residents, only 25, accompanied by Steven Schneider's poems, are featured in Borderlines. The poems either stem from these people's real lives or from his imagination about from where both their hardships and happiness come.
Both Schneiders are known nationwide for their work as individual artists, and there is little doubt whether their artwork and poetry would be able to stand alone. But both also feel that each work wouldn't be near as strong without its counterpart.
"We can make a more powerful statement through our poetry and art together," Steven Schneider said. "So each poem really is drawn closely at the hip with each of the drawings."
Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives puts a human face on a subject that is often polarizing in the United States--immigration and the human rights of those living along the U.S.-Mexican border. Along with this, the Schneiders also have striven to present a more balanced, realistic look at life on the border.
"We always see headlines about drugs, guns, and violence, and illegal immigration in this area," Schneider said. "The reality is that the people on both sides of the border aspire for fulfillment and happiness and education like everybody else."
To solidify this sense of camaraderie among people of different backgrounds, the poems in Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives are written in both English and Spanish as a way to not only create connections between people of different heritages but of different generations as well. In a country where the largest minority is people of Latino descent, there is also an emerging population of younger people who are bilingual, even though the older generations may only speak one language or the other.
"Grandparents who speak Spanish and kids who speak English can share this book together," Reefka Schneider said. "It helps realize their shared humanity."
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Our View - Humanity behind immigration debate
Press-Citizen.comJuly 21, 2010
Reviewed by the Press-Citizen Editorial Board in [Press-Citizen.com]
One of the oft-cited limitations of contemporary American poetry -- including the poetry produced by graduates of the Iowa Writers' Workshop -- is its inaccessibility. Readers often have to be as well-trained and academically astute as the poets themselves to appreciate all the nuances, sly allusions and small linguistic experiments. And the poets seldom offer a helpful hand to readers struggling to find meaning or purpose in the words.
That's definitely not the case with the "Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives/Fronteras: Dibujando las vidas fronterizas" (Wings Press), a recent book project by poet Steven P. Schneider and artist Reefka Schneider. Not only have the husband and wife team paired every poem with the drawing that initially inspired it, but the book stage of the Schneiders' broader project evolved from exhibits that the couple took on the road to schools and other educational settings throughout south Texas.
Steven Schneider, a 1977 graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop who now teaches at the University of Texas-Pan American, said the couple has long had an educational purpose in mind for the project. They describe "Borderlines/Fronteras" as a text -- appropriate for use in high school and college classes as well as for everyday reading -- that demonstrates how to cross the borders between:
" Art and poetry.
" Academically aware poetry and a broader, popular audience.
" English and Spanish.
" The physical border between the U.S. and Mexico and the different ways that imaginary line echoes symbolically throughout both nations.
The "Borderlines/Fronteras" project began in 2001, when Steven Schneider came to teach in Texas, and Reefka Schneider began to draw portraits of people on both sides of the border. Once Reefka had amassed more than 100 drawings, Steven chose the 25 most engaging and began a four-year process of writing poems in response to the visual images. He then worked with bilingual poet José Antonio Rodriguez to translate the poetry so that reading through "Borderlines/Fronteras" would be a dual-language, integrated-arts experience.
With readings scheduled in New York, Rhode Island, Florida, New Mexico and Iowa City (7 p.m. today at Prairie Lights), the Schneiders now are hoping to attract a broader, national audience for the book stage of their project. (Interested readers can follow the couple's progress at http://poetry-art.com.)
"The border has moved north," Steven Schneider said. "There is still the Rio Grande, of course. But (through farm labor and working in meatpacking plants) the influx of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America has come as far north as states like Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota."
At the very least, "Borderlines/Fronteras" is a helpful primer for anyone looking to improve their Spanish or English reading skills. At its best, however, "Borderlines/Fronteras" is a model for the type of cross cultural understanding and communication that needs to take place to ensure a healthy and comprehensive national debate on immigration issues.
Sandra Cisneros, a workshop graduate and MacArthur fellow who has spent decades urging writers to be more culturally relevant, describes the Schneiders' poetic/artistic portraits as, "Ordinary folks rendered with love, compassion and intimacy at a time in which love, compassion, and intimacy are in short supply on borders, especially when it comes to the Tex/Mex border."
Thus "Borderlines/Fronteras" also is welcome reminder that legacy of the Iowa Writers' Workshop is not just the linguistically and formally challenging work of poets such as Pulitzer Prize-winner Jorie Graham. The workshop's legacy also includes the poets and writers such as Cisneros and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove who continually call on literary artists to be more actively, socially and politically engaged in the world around them.
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"Our View" represents the consensus opinion of the Press-Citizen Editorial Board -- which includes General Manager Daniel W. Brown, Executive Editor Jim Lewers, Opinion Editor Jeff Charis-Carlson, Specialty Publications Editor Tricia DeWall and community members Shams Ghoneim, Angie Blanchard-Manning and Amy Sundermann.
About This Author
Read more about Steven and Reefka Schneider HERE.