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Maya Christina Gonzalez (born 1964) is an award-winning queer Chicana artist, illustrator, educator and publisher. She lives and works in San Francisco. Gonzalez is a co-founder of the publishing house, Reflection Press.〔 She also co-created an online learning environment called School of the Free Mind. Gonzalez has a unique, "high queer femme" sense of personal style that includes piercings and multiple tattoos. Gonzalez's art and work are focused on helping others build a sense of self and connection to others and the environment, despite differences between individuals. Her illustrations and books have helped increase "acceptance of, and love for, children's books by and about Latinos." Her art is featured on the cover of a textbook, ''Contemporary Chicana and Chicano Art: Artists, Works, Culture, and Education, Volume II''.〔 Gonzalez teaches and presents workshops around the United States. == Biography == González was born in Lancaster, California into a biracial home: her mother was German and her father Mexican.〔 Gonzalez has one brother, a year younger than her.〔 When Gonzalez was seven, she had an accident which caused her to be a coma for three days. After recovering, she found gifts waiting for her, including a pad of paper and colored pencils. This early gift inspired her to start drawing.〔 In addition to art supplies, she was also taken to classes at a local craft store in order to help her recover fully. For several years, Gonzalez was "deeply Catholic" and used the family Bible and Michelangelo as a drawing source and inspiration.〔 At age thirteen, Gonzalez and her family moved to rural Oregon where she experienced racism and homophobia.〔 In Oregon, she was considered "exotic" and called a "mulatto." Gonzalez didn't intend to become an artist for a living and has little formal art training.〔 She was studying creative writing at the University of Oregon until she decided that art was a more "inclusive and complicated" way for her to express herself.〔 Gonzalez was prompted to move from Oregon to San Francisco after she was shot at while living in a lesbian wilderness community.〔 She also found that she would be better able to pursue her artistic dreams in San Francisco. Gonzalez has become estranged from her parents who disowned her〔 when she came out at age 20 as part of the LGBT community.〔 After leaving school with only a few art classes taken, Gonzalez explored creating her own art. At this time, Gonzales was interested in exploring the nature of "reality, consciousness and how these relate to creativity" and was very influenced by Jane Roberts' channeling of another consciousness that Roberts referred to as Seth. In 1996, Gonzalez suffered from a toxic dose of chemicals in a print-making accident.〔 The accident caused her to be incapacitated for three years and very sick for ten more.〔 During her illness, she traveled out of the United States for the first time, going to India and visiting the city of Varanasi, which she considered a sacred place.〔 She also went to Brazil to work with Ayauasca, a "plant teacher."〔 Ayauasca identified Gonzalez's illness as heavy metal poisoning in 2003 and eventually began to receive treatment in various forms.〔 After her health returned, Gonzalez began to create more art, and also received a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to create a series, ''Healing Through''.〔 González has two children and is married to Reflection Press co-founder, Matthew.〔 Reflection Press focuses on children's book that are considered "radical and revolutionary." She says that "the freaks and geeks need to tell their stories and kids need to hear them and relate to them," and that major, established publishing houses won't publish those kinds of books.〔 Of her family, Gonzalez says that her domestic life is such that the "dominant culture" would have "absolutely no ideas what to do with somebody like me...I'm in line with my beliefs and completely out of line with the beliefs of the dominant culture."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Maya Christina Gonzalez」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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