Self Help Graphics Collection

In the early 1990s, as a result of the relationship and mutual respect shared by Sister Boccalero and Edmunds, BWA and SHG exchanged a selection of 30 prints from their respective visiting-artist print collections and created an exchange program bringing SHG artists to BWA to produce lithographic prints. Among the SHG artists with whom BWA has worked who are represented in the Artura.org database are Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Leo Limón, Michael Amescua, and Alex Alferov.

This section of Artura.org presents prints given by SHG to BWA, including prints by artists who participated in BWA and SHG artist-residency exchange program.

SHG fosters the creation and advancement of new work—limited edition fine art prints and monoprints—by Chicanx and Latinx artists through an experimental, innovative, peer-led approach to printmaking that nurtures and encourages the imagination and advances artists’ careers. SHG encourages and facilitates artists in their explorations of both conventional and nontraditional processes of printmaking and the creation of art that is culturally significant, meaningful, and illuminating. Through SHG’s cornerstone Professional Printmaking Program, more than 1,000 editions of silkscreen prints have been created by an ever-growing number of local and visiting artists.

SHG has long been one of the most highly recognized Latinx printmaking centers in the United States and beyond, producing the largest collection of Chicanx/Latinx fine art prints in history and building nationwide partnerships and international collaborations, and cultural exchanges. Exhibitions organized by SHG have traveled across the U.S. and around the world, including Mexico, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. 

In 1972, SHG first staged what is now the locally beloved and nationally recognized East Los Angeles Día de Los Muertos Celebration. By 1985, this event had grown so popular that its primary relationship passed from SHG to the community with support from regional and national individuals, foundations, government agencies, and businesses.

_{—Adapted from reflections of Sister Boccalero’s friend Allan L. Edmunds—the founder and executive director of Brandywine Workshop and Archives and administrative director of Artura.org—and excerpts from SHG’s website: https://www.selfhelpgraphics.com/history}