Her art saved her and she’s using it to encourage pride in Chicano culture and history

For Maira Meza, it started with those poster contests for kids encouraging them to say no to drugs. As a kid who loved to draw, she entered those annual contests and won — twice. Later, she got married and had kids, setting her art aside to figure out how to take care of herself and her young family. When she began having health issues in her late 20s, the experience took a heavy toll.

“It was very frustrating, and that’s what took me into that place where I didn’t want to be mentally. My son had asked me for this expensive Metal Mulisha sticker, and I said, ‘Heck, no, I’m not going to buy you that sticker. … Let me draw it up for you,’ so I drew it for him. That made me not think of everything that was so loud in my head,” she said, recalling the frustration of going back and forth with doctors, navigating surgery and prescriptions, and going through a divorce. “I have all of these loud thoughts in my head that nobody else is putting there; it’s myself and the way I’m feeling, and it just wasn’t where I wanted to be. When I was drawing, I didn’t think about that; it was just me and my paper and my pen, or my pencil, whatever it is I was using.”

In 2015, she started painting again, organizing a pumpkin painting session with her kids. She couldn’t afford expensive art supplies, so she used her creativity and gathered up old makeup brushes, cotton swabs, and whatever else she could find around the house. It was therapeutic for her, and then some friends noticed...