Yellow Dog Dreams: A Mexican American Memoir - Softcover

“Making do” is often considered a negative act. But what if it is a test of creativity, a challenge to search for hidden beauty in the circumstances or objects you consider unworthy? This process of improvisational innovation is the very heart of bricolage art—and for author and artist Jose Hilario Cedillos, it is also a way of life.

A university professor for the past twenty-five years, Cedillos wasn’t a college student until late in life. When comparing his early circumstances to his current existence, it can be hard to believe that a path connects the two together. But as his remarkable memoir Yellow Dog Dreams so richly reveals, it was the very hardships he faced that fueled his imagination. From an agricultural fieldworker, to a jailed migrant, to an older nontraditional student still wearing his work boots, Cedillos tells his story with a stirring sincerity that will make you reconsider your own life to see what unexpected treasures you might discover.

Jose Hilario Cedillos is a college professor, writer, and bricolage artist who began his journey as an agricultural fieldworker. He’s spent the last twenty-five years teaching interdisciplinary studies at the doctoral level with an emphasis on the practice of using art-based concepts in the design and conduct of qualitative research. He built his teaching model around a stepped typology he developed that uses six designs of interdisciplinary creativity. His website, http://www.thebricolageworks.us/, features his growing collection of both visual and written work.