Hope Mora
Hope Mora is a visual artist from West Texas, working between Pecos, TX and Buffalo, NY. Her work is an ongoing exploration of how the dynamic between hard labor and resilience is sustained within communities, specifically in her hometown of Pecos. Mora’s research looks into working life, regional culture, economy, and ideas of home. She documents how communities joyfully celebrate their lives through family, food, music, dance, and fashion using photography, video, sound, and text.
Hope received her MFA at The University at Buffalo and BFA from Texas State University in San Marcos. She has worked as a staff writer and photographer for the Pecos Enterprise News in Pecos, Texas and has shown work in selected gallery and public space exhibitions in Central Texas and Western New York such as; Mexic-Arte Museum, Public Art San Antonio, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center, El Museo, Anna Kaplan Contemporary, and The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA).
Pecos
A small yet shifting desert town located in West Texas, Pecos is known for its delicious cantaloupes and claims to be home of the world’s first rodeo. Located on the Permian Basin, it is one of the country’s largest oil and gas producing regions. Broken beer bottle glass covers the land of dry caliche dirt in my neighborhood. The hot desert climate produces sounds of loud air conditioners and quiet streets. A place that is boring; an empty park and remnants of what was a small zoo my father used to maintain for twenty years. The unexciting town we cruised around bumping tunes from the east side to west in less than ten minutes. Repeat. A place that is transforming: the small town gossip has changed from who had kids with who to gossip about the frustrating amount of traffic and incoming strangers produced by the oil fields. A place I call home. “There’s not much to do” is the overall attitude when I ask la gente de Pecos how they would describe our home to someone who’s never been here. “It’s hot and dusty.” Another common denominator: “Everyone knows each other and we come together like family when times are rough. It’s home.”
Pecos , a self published book, includes a collection of photos taken in the town of Pecos within the span of two years (figure 1). The cover of the book reflects the Pecos Eagle school system’s two colors, purple and gold, and resembles a yearbook, which is an expression of school spirit. This eighty-six page book includes portraits of family, friends, friends of friends, and strangers. Some of the images are close and intimate, such as families inside their kitchens and living rooms; strangers and friends at Pecos’ popular bar and club, Freddy’s Ice House; business owners such as my mother’s boss, María, at Taylor Flower Shop ; and Claudia Muñoz at her restaurant and ice cream shop, Paleteria Y Dulceria Muñoz. Other images depict the landscape with its growing number of RV trailer parks due to the oil boom, food trucks in empty five-acre lots that feed the traffic of workers, and neglected neighborhood basketball courts. The images in the book also give subtle hints of the fashion and style of individuals and cultural events, like quinceañeras, the rodeo, and car shows. It’s important for me to describe what’s behind some of the pictures, the conversation that happened before I pressed the shutter, and my relationship to the persons. Their actual voices matter in the creative process.
I have been making work about Pecos for eight years. It has taken many different shapes and forms, but the work in this place is something that I cannot stop doing or thinking about. Although my work is undoubtedly regionally specific, there is a thread of solidarity with other left out places like it across the U.S. My camera work in Pecos is autobiographical. The people and history there matter to me and I document to preserve and sustain the essence of my community’s humanity.