How Alma Landeta Holds a Mirror Up to Queer Experiences

Before applying to Palo Alto’s King Artist Residency, Alma Landeta researched the state of mental health in the city, specifically among queer people. The findings alarmed them.

“The statistics from a 2019 report were something like 25% of LGBTQAI+ individuals in Palo Alto had had some suicidal ideations, and it went up to closer to 50% for those who identified as trans,” Landeta remembers. “It’s startling and deeply upsetting.”

Landeta grew up in Tampa, Florida and always thought of the Bay Area as a refuge. “A part of me was a little surprised,” they say. “I guess I thought those numbers would be lower here.”

In their winning application for the year-long residency, Landeta proposed a portrait project in which the artist would work collaboratively with their subjects. In all their work, Landeta wants to provide mirrors for queer people to see themselves — and for the rest of the world to see them as well. That’s why their portraits, though identifiable to sitters, are somewhat abstract, so that viewers can project their own lives and experiences onto each artwork.

In June, in the plain, white studio in the Cubberley Community Center, which they had recently started using as part of the residency, some examples of those portraits hung on the walls. Landeta’s process is careful. They check in with their sitters often, before, during and at the end of the session, making people feel comfortable with how they’re being portrayed. Sometimes, they say, a sitter will ask for small adjustments: lips more defined, a jawline less pronounced. Finally, Landeta has their sitters title the artwork.

Since painting a mural for the San Francisco LGBT Center in 2023 titled Joy is the Fuel, Landeta says they have been wanting to express more joy in their work. It’s part of why they take the collaborative process so seriously; Landeta wants people to feel good about how they’re portrayed.

As the 2024 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & Coretta Scott King artist in residence, Landeta has, along with the free studio, a stipend from the city, and will do an installation at King Plaza in front of Palo Alto City Hall at the end of the year. Landeta is the third artist to participate in the residency program, which focuses on equity and belonging.

In May, they started the Queeries Hotline, which people are invited to call and leave a story. Landeta says the retro nature of voicemails tickles them, and they are thinking of using some of the audio in the installation at the end of the year.

“The prompt is ‘What is something you would want residents of Palo Alto to know about your experiences as an LGBTQAI + person of this community,’” Landeta says. “There’s a lot of beauty and a lot of joy in these stories as well as a lot of hardships. There are a lot of ways folks are still not feeling safe to be out and open, and that’s heartbreaking.”

In-person events are providing Landeta with opportunities to further connect with people in Palo Alto. In June, they hosted an open studio event, and a free community portrait workshop at the Mitchell Park Library. Landeta has linked up with Avenidas, a senior center that welcomes all communities. They participated in a Pride event there with Ken Yeager, one of the first openly gay political leaders in Silicon Valley, who served on the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

“He was instrumental in making a lot of change happen, and I got to hear from him and other people in the room who had lived here and grown up here,” Landeta says of the senior center event. “There were some folks who had only recently come out, and they’re in their 60s and 70s.”

At Avenidas, Landeta stayed after the panel to have lunch with attendees, inviting them to visit the studio and sit for a portrait if interested. At the library, Landeta led an hour-long workshop where the participants made portraits with Sharpies, which they took home.

“There were a few folks who came up to me at the end of the workshop and just wanted to share, ‘Hey, I’m trans,’ or ‘Hey, I’m gay,’” Landeta says. “I had one woman who was so sweet. She was wearing this rainbow jewel necklace, and she held it up to me, and she kind of was whispering, ‘I’m an ally.’” Like, ‘OK, yes, we love the allies, say it loud and proud!’”

Landeta’s ability to connect with people is part of why they were chosen for this residency, says Elise DeMarzo, director of Palo Alto’s public art program.

“Alma is so relatable and approachable,” DeMarzo says. “In the interview and presentation, they engaged everyone right off the bat with a drawing exercise. They put everyone at ease with their warmth.”

Landeta, a high school art teacher, is skilled at drawing people out, and their collaborative approach comes out of a genuine desire to make others feel included. Meanwhile, their art is entering ever-more formal contexts. Currently, they have work on view in Resonantly Me: A Queer Artist’s Invitational at the Bakersfield Museum of Art, up through Sept. 7, 2024. With curator Victor Gonzales, Landeta chose two portraits — one of someone from San Francisco’s Transgender District office, and a self-portrait Landeta did right before undergoing gender affirming surgery.

Gonzales says he’s long admired Landeta’s work.

“It’s really about owning your own body and being able to be expressive and comfortable when you’re finally who you really are,” he says. “That’s what I want to come from those two works. Just be yourself, honestly.”

Landeta says Bakersfield’s conservative character reminds them of Tampa. With Resonantly Me, they get to be part of a show they would have enjoyed seeing growing up.

“I get to bring this to a place where I know there is some closeted queer youth who will just see this and have a ‘Whoa, I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I know what I’m looking at,’ kind of feeling,” Landeta says. “I certainly had that at different points, and I wish I would have had way more of it.”