Arrivals
Cindy Lozito is a South Philadelphia-based visual storyteller, creating comics, illustrations, and murals that speak to physical health and emotional wellness. She was born in New York City, raised in Queens by Puerto Rican and Italian parents, and frequently found herself at her grandparent’s apartment in the Bronx (Lozito n.d. a). A 2014 graduate of Hunter College (Pino 2015), she has spent the last ten years growing her career in New York City and now Philadelphia. Lozito’s own heritage is something “she’s still figuring out” (Lozito n.d. a) as our community, of mixed heritage Boricuas in the diaspora, is not fixed —neither she herself nor her art fit neatly into a box. That melody of community and the self is not only found in her work abstractly but is her work concretely as she paints on the walls of hospitals, community centers, and other places of daily life with the very same people who work and live in these spaces. You may have seen her art from afar, passing by digital billboards celebrating Latinidad—she is Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month collaborator for 2024 (Philadelphia Museum of Art. n.d. a)—or perhaps a bit closer, as a student studying in her daily diary comics workshops (Marigold Experiences n.d.). Her work is not done in isolation, but rather in communidad.
This essay will argue for Cindy Lozito as a community artist that bridges the distance felt in diaspora through an analysis of her murals, comic-murals, and comic art. The selected works are as follows: Seasons of Reciprocity (2024), Recipe for Community (2023), and Relearning Pasteles with the help of YouTube! (2023). Together they will reveal how whilst in diaspora, through periods of joy and strife, art empowers connection.
To New York City…
For the last year I have done a tour of Vancouver Coastal Health. As I waited for my appointments, I stared at a wall with framed art, prints muddled from my blindness and the glare of the glass protecting the work. These photos of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) lands felt ever so far away and non reflective of the community that labored in these hopeless and hopeful hallways—I felt alone.
In Seasons of Reciprocity (2024), Lozito draws upon home, health, and community to invoke a colorful, welcoming space reflective of the multigenerational care that exists in East Harlem at NYC Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan’s Pediatric Inpatient Unit/Unidad de Hospitalización Pediátrica (Lozito n.d. b).
The three panel, 200 square feet mural of acrylic paints on polytab mural cloth begins beside the bilingual sign welcoming patients, staff, and visitors to the unit. The first panel at the entrance shows a caring nurse holding a newborn, they share a smile as they are lovingly encircled by many different hands and flowers in warm autumnal shades of brown, coral, red, and pale yellow on a deep green background. The second panel shows children at play in the park, bright fall leaves drift down to kids having fun—some do handstands while others read—in muted brown and purple clothes against the same deep green background. The far side of the second panel illustrates once more the adult as caregiver—besides the children at play, a man holds a sleeping newborn in an orange rocking chair. In the final panel, the largest, the deep green background gives way to a comic-like city, home of many generations of staff who have and will continue to care for East Harlem. This panel also illustrates home as intergenerational—an elder holds an adult who also holds onto a child, together they are enshrouded in the elder’s purple hair, protected and cared for by her soft body.
feet. Photo Credit to Erica Figueroa Thomas.
Lozito, as a community artist, did not paint this mural alone but rather with others. A paint party was held at the Wellness Center of Metropolitan Hospital (Lozito n.d. b). Together nurses, security staff, and others mixed paints and danced to Caribbean music, infusing the mural with the very energy that has served the hospital for many decades past and many more to come. People who come to this unit are never alone—they can find themselves in the painting, go up and feel the ink their own loved ones have painted, and position themselves in a much larger history of East Harlem and New York City.
To Philadelphia…
Where is home? Is home on the island, stateside, or somewhere else? To be in the diaspora means to not have one single home, but many. When Lozito left our home, I too was born in Queens, her art led to further acts of community togetherness.
Recipe for Community (2023) is a feast (Lozito n.d. b)! Spread across 406 square feet and three walls, the comic-mural welcomes visitors to Vetri Community Partnership, an educational non-profit serving folks wanting to learn how to celebrate the joy of cooking at home (Venti Community Partnership n.d.). The mural is comic as much as it is wall art with the main panel being akin to a celebratory two-page spread, four panels of large, bodiless hands sauté and season a pan sprouting forth from the top right panel. The pan holds two hands against a bright yellow background, holding steady to catch pieces of fresh herbs and chopped carrots. The next page, or wall, shares the same orange and green background with this panel showing the results of a community coming together to make a meal. Two hands of different skin tones encircle a steaming hot bowl of bright orange, yellow, and green vegetables, ready to be devoured with the oversized fruits—oranges, apples, and grapes—that break free from the panel.
feet. Photo Credit to Steve Weinik.
Recipe for Community (2023) was inspired by food, specifically Moroccan vegetable stew (Venti Community Partnership 2024). As part of the mural dedication event, a cooking class featuring that same dish was arranged for Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Restorative Justice program participants (Venti Community Partnership 2024). This joining of art with action delightfully shows what Lozito does—she creates community even when home may be far away, may that distance be across the Caribbean Sea to Puerto Rico or the Atlantic Ocean to Morocco.
To Cyberspace…
These are the words I often use to navigate the virtual diaspora on YouTube—receta, vegano, y Boricuas o Puertorriqueños. At my Long Island junior high school, we were taught how to prepare baked ziti, not arroz con gandules, so YouTube became my teacher. In those brief moments in Cyberspace, learning our food culture, I am connected to our people.
The focal point of Relearning Pasteles with the help of YouTube! (2023) are people and food—pasteles and family with a side of technology. The story of Lozito and her family’s experience enjoying pasteles during the holidays is told through a nine page long freeform digital comic uninhibited by gutters and panels with splash pages full of interconnected speech bubbles that suggest a vertical reading orientation. Colors are rich and reminiscent of pasteles themselves—banana leaf green colors, child Lozito’s jacket, a kitchen counter, and the awesome grating machine with the soft yellow toned background and masa brown-colored entangling aroma spreading beyond the apartment to unseen hallways. As I read and re-read Relearning Pasteles with the help of YouTube! (2023), I am also taken to beloved picture books that remind children that they are not alone, that others also fill up apartment hallways with the aroma of pasteles.
By intertwining time and place, going back and forth from the past to the present and from parasocial virtual connections to in-person engagements, Lozito highlights how emotional wellness and ancestral connections shape communities. The tale begins and ends with technology—Lozito and her mom are in a video call on their smartphones, discussing Ma who spent hours upon hours preparing pasteles to then share with family and neighbors. However, as time passed so did Ma and many other family members as well as the recipes they carried. In the aftermath Lozito’s mother realizes that she had to figure out the secret behind pasteles now, and so she turned to The Freakin Rican Restaurant YouTube channel for instruction. Lozito’s mom, and her entire family who now make pasteles together, are not alone—YouTube commentators also found a bite of Cyberspace filled with childhood memories and a desire to keep the tradition going. Aptly, the comic ends with Lozito and her mom reaching forth for a virtual hug, a hug that is often felt when many in the diaspora find themselves on YouTube looking for recetas.
Departures? No! Future Destinations
The art of Cindy Lozito is the art of the diaspora, of Diasporicans whose journeys have not ended in a departure from our culture. We can and do foster community wherever we find ourselves, creating spaces for art-fueled connections both virtually and in-person as Lozito has done in New York City, Philadelphia, and Cyberspace. At the end of Relearning Pasteles with the help of YouTube! (2023), Lozito writes:
For a long time, I mourned how disconnected I felt from the Puerto Rican side of my family after we lost so many family members so quickly. I’m learning as I get older that through intention, love, and some modern tools, my family can still embrace our culture and celebrate the memories of our ancestors. (Martinez 2023)
Lozito’s words can also be used to describe the Diasporican Art in Motion (DAM) database, a digital archive made with love and modern tools with the intention of “document[ing] the impact of migration on Puerto Rican visual culture and community-building” (CentroPR n.d.). May this essay take you on a trip to both the world of Cindy Lozito and the creations of other artists featured on the DAM database.
References
- CentroPR. n.d. Diasporican Art in Motion. Accessed 2 January 2025. < https://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/projects/diasporican-art-in-motion/>.
- Lozito, Cindy. n.d. [a]. Meet Cindy. Cindy Lozito Design LLC. Accessed 24 September 2024. <http://cindylozito.com/about-1>.
- Lozito, Cindy. n.d. [b]. Mural Wall Designs. Cindy Lozito Design LLC. Accessed 24 September 2024. <http://cindylozito.com/public-art>.
- Lozito, Cindy. n.d. [c]. Recipe for the Community. Public Art Archive. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://publicartarchive.org/art/Recipe-for-the-Community/1c0769e0>.
- Lozito, Cindy. n.d. [d]. Relearning Pasteles. Cindy Lozito Design LLC. Accessed 2 January 2025. < http://cindylozito.com/pasteles>.
- Marigold Experiences. n.d. Romanticize Your Life: Daily Diary Comics Workshop. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://www.hellomarigold.com/experiences/beyond-the-pintxos-zmfhm>.
- Martinez, Fidel. 2023. Latinx Files: Club Fonograma Forever. Los Angeles Times. Accessed 2 January 2024. <https://ravishly.com/street-meet/cindy-lozito-artist-illustrator>.
- Philadelphia Museum of Art. n.d. [a]. Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month at the PMA. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://philamuseum.org/hispanic-latinx-heritage-month>.
- Philadelphia Museum of Art. n.d. [b]. Pop Up Studio with Cindy Lozito. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://w.philamuseum.org/calendar/event/pop-up-studio-cindy-lozito>.
- Pino, Erika. 2015. street meet—Cindy Lozito: Artist, Illustrator. Ravishly. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://ravishly.com/street-meet/cindy-lozito-artist-illustrator>.
- Venti Community Partnership. n.d. About. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://vetricommunity.org/about/#vision-mission>.
- Venti Community Partnership. 2024. Recipe For Community Mural. Accessed 25 September 2024. <https://vetricommunity.org/news/recipe-for-community-mural-dedication/>.