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Dougie Padilla (born July 28, 1948) ^[1] is a Chicano poet, multimedia visual artist, and activist. He is of Norwegian and Mexican lineage ^[2] and works between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Pepin, Wisconsin. ^[3] Padilla is an autodidact in visual art. He has worked with the traveling art collective Grupo Soap del Corazón and as a founder of Art-A-Whirl, ^[4] America’s largest open-studio tour. ^[5]

Early life

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Padilla was born in 1948, in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. His mother taught him enough music to become proficient playing both the piano and the French horn. ^[6]

Padilla's father came from a Mexican lineage, with which Padilla identifies. Before college, he spent time hitchhiking across the country. Much of his two years at Lake Forest College were devoted to marching, picketing, and protesting. In Colorado, he briefly encountered the Chicano poet, activist, and political organizer Corky Gonzales, as well as other Chicano activists. Padilla trained with Chicano activist Reies Tijerina’s Alianza in New Mexico in the late 1960s. ^[5]

In 1968, Padilla moved to California, immersing himself in the counterculture movement. He spent time in both San Francisco and Berkeley, learning from spiritual leaders who visited during this time, such as Ram Das, ^[7] Swami Muktananda, and Suzuki Roshi. At age 20, Padilla experienced his first heart failure, ^[8] causing him to further explore spirituality. ^[6]

In the late 1970s, Padilla worked with poet and activist Robert Bly, a significant teacher and mentor. He helped Bly found the mythopoetic men’s movement. ^[6]

Artistic inspiration and style

Throughout his lifetime, Padilla’s work has gone through multiple phases. But Mexican influence is incorporated into all of Padilla's art. ^[7] He began with music and poetry as a youth, moved to mask making and drawing, and then transitioned to painting, ceramics, and printmaking. ^[9]

As of 1992, he had moved on to ritual artwork. ^[10] Padilla was influenced by the Mexican tradition of Día de Los Muertos ^[11] ( Day of the Dead) and the making of ofrendas. ^[12] The Day of the Dead resonates with him due to his past ritual practice with Native American and African medicine men. After the passing of his father, in 1992, Padilla felt that a way to stay in touch with him was through this ritualistic work. His current visual artworks contain many images of Mexican-style calaveras, or skulls, as he appreciates the traditional Mexican relationship with death. His representation of skulls signals joy, and he believes that they create a connection between this world and the spirit world. ^[6]

Major works

Grupo Soap del Corazón

In 2000, in an attempt to further the “Latinization of Minnesota and the upper Midwest of the USA,” Padilla and Xavier Tavera co-created the community art group Grupo Soap del Corazón with a mix of artists from different ethnic backgrounds and origins: Latinx, Native American, African, and Euro-American. Today they represent almost 90 local, national, and international artists. ^[13] The collective is mobile and focuses on artwork that is easily transported and translated into different community contexts.

In 2006, the group showcased two exhibitions in Valparaiso, Chile, including “El Otro Americano (The Other American)” at El Instituto Chileno Norteamericano de Cultura. ^[13] This exhibition fostered connections across identities and cultures, supporting relationships among North and South Americans. More locally, the group has worked on the “Pepin Portrait Project,” ^[14] photographing residents of rural Pepin, Wisconsin. ^[5] In 2021, Grupo Soap del Corazón published a zine, “Fabulista 2,” featuring political cartoons and poetry by Padilla along with the work of other artists in the collective. This zine attempts to encapsulate the struggles endured by Chicanxs/Latinxs and focuses on the political uprising of the summer of 2020. ^[15]

Poetry

Padilla returned to poetry in 2019, publishing River Town ^[16] and Pepin Diaries ^[17] with Luna Brava Press.

Contemporary life

As of 2021 ^[update], Padilla lives in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District that he co-created, commuting to his studio, Dougieland Pepin, located in Pepin, Wisconsin. ^[18]

References