Free community Día de los Muertos events

Since 1973, Self-Help Graphics and Art has been an organization dedicated to providing space that fosters creativity in local artists. They are currently hosting a series of free community crafting workshops on Saturdays in East L.A. And here to tell us all about it are Paulina and Nupur. Welcome. Welcome, ladies. I love how colorful it is. Oh, and the music's going. The music and great activity for people. So, Paulina, tell us all about it. yeah so Self Help Graphics and Art is one of the oldest arts and culture organizations here in los angeles we've held and organized one of the longest-running Dia de los Muertos celebration as part of that season we hold weekly craft workshops so today Nupur is going to give us a demonstration of a workshop that will happen on the 31st she is one of the teaching artists and as part of our work we have a set of teaching artists that facilitate these workshops and really build bridges between communities by celebrating Dia de los Muertos. I love that. Okay, what are we making today? So we're gonna do candle decorating today. Okay. So there's a wax paper, tissue paper transfer that we're doing. So what you can do at the workshop or today if you'd like to is you can choose a different design or you can make your own design. So we have marigolds right here. Pretty. So you just use a marker and make a design? Just a regular marker. Okay. All you need. So we would- On a regular paper, right? Tissue paper on top. Tissue paper on top, okay. And then you would trace it. Okay. Or you can make your own. This is in memory of if you want to put someone's name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a pet too if you would like to. You can honor a pet. So here's an example right here. So you just trace it with the tissue paper. And then cut it out. Okay. Yeah. And then what we do is we put it on wax paper and then cover a candle with wax paper. So we just make sure everything's good, tape it on the back. And then we start the transfer process, which is using a blow dryer. So if you have a blow dryer at home, put it on a low setting, and you can just heat it up. Exactly. And then maybe less than a minute or so, it'll start to glisten a little bit, and you'll see it kind of get into the candle. So it's transferring onto the candle. And then when it's done, it looks like this. So this is a final kind of product. This one is a papel picado, which is another craft that we're doing during the workshop, which is the tissue paper cutouts that we have. You can hang it out here. Okay, let's put it down so we can get a close-up shot. This is the tissue paper, right, that you said you wanted to make? Yes. And then what, do you string these along? Yes. You string those along. We're also going to have the paper miracles there, which are the miracles of this year as well. Oh, you make these. There's so many things to make. Such fun activities for kids, for families to get together. And then once you're done, you can make a whole of Brenda, right? Yes. Is that the whole point? That is. So every week we have a different activity. And so besides just our weekly workshops, we have a whole season dedicated to the remembrance of Dia de los Muertos. Dia de los Muertos isn't necessarily Halloween, it's not Halloween. It's just a day to honor our loved ones who have passed. So besides the workshops, we are also having an exhibition this weekend that incorporates a lot of our artists. And then we have a big celebration happening on November 7th. Tell us about that. It's a block party, right? It is. So bringing us back home, we've been out of our building for the past couple years as we've renovated it. So now we're kind of starting the trek back home and having a block party right next to our permanent home in Boyle Heights. So it'll be November 7th. It's free. All of our workshops are free. All of our activities are free. And so we invite community, the public to our block party on November 7th. It'll start at 3 o'clock and go until 10 PM. We're working in partnership with the Smithsonian this year and our headliners are Los Lobos and La Santa Cecilia. So we look forward to seeing everyone there. Did you draw all these before? Yes. You did? You're quite an artist. Thank you. Wow, this is beautiful. My little doodles. But you can make your own. If you go to the workshop you can draw your own. earrings are those available to be made like well if you come to the market um to our dia de los muertos block party we do have the mercado the muertos market where a lot of our artists will be there to share to sell their craft as well we'll have prints for sale as well and you can get our commemorative um t-shirt which is also a creation by one of our artists so much to do to see fun with the kids right and all for free thank you so much dia de los muertos craft workshops are happening Saturday October 24th and the 30th at the East LA County Library and the community block party don't forget that Saturday November 7th in Boyle Heights so to learn more go to selfhelpgraphics.com thank you so much we're so colorful