The Art Avenue Art Market and Art Show was a huge success as local artist exhibited their work downtown at The Camino Real. Paintings, drawings and jewelry were just a few of the item displayed as locals enjoyed in the various mediums as part of the Last Thursday Art Crawl.
By Monique Oxford
It may be one of the poorest neighborhoods in the nation, but the history and culture of El Segundo Barrio will come alive on Saturday.
Commemorating its fourth year, Celebramos El Segundo Barrio will focus on the arts and culture of its Latino roots. Chicano artists from around the area will display their works at the Lydia Patterson Institute while visitors have an opportunity to take part in a guided walking art and history tour throughout el barrio. They can experience the lives of residents through life-sized murals painted on walls and buildings through this historical neighborhood whose roots date back to 1834.
Additional events to experience will include a health fair with free screenings, mariachi music, food booths, folkloric dancing and a food distribution from El Pasoans Fighting Hunger. There will be a Low-Rider Car Exhibit along with artwork on display from elementary and middle school students in Segundo Barrio.
Jesus “Cimi” Alvarado is an artist participating in the event and said the murals he painted are a way for him to help those maintain the culture of Segundo Barrio. “I grew up in el barrio. I am from this area. I left like many people did, but I came back. Most of my artwork is about our culture and I want to educate the kids on our past. What our parents sacrificed for us,” said Alvarado. His work can be seen throughout El Paso on buildings in both Central and South El Paso, including one on exhibit at the El Paso Museum of History.
Location: Lydia Patterson Institute 517 S. Florence
Date: Saturday March 29 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Photographed by Matt Crouch
By Cindy Graff Cohen
At the foot of the mountains on the Westside, a whole new kind of neighborhood is taking shape near the intersection of Escondido and Westwind. Called Piazza Escondida, the small development may be new for El Paso, but the plan is as old as the earliest neighborhoods in ancient history, says project developer Scott Winton, vice president of business development for Winton Homes.
From Escondido Drive, Piazza Escondida looks like a small cluster of shops or offices under construction. Then you walk behind those shops-to-be, and you enter a hidden gem, an open brick plaza centered with a sparkling fountain and benches inviting you to sit and enjoy the mountain views. Around you are two- and three-story homes with balconies and colorful details. Soft music fills the air and the community’s raised herb and flower garden promises sweet fragrances in the spring.
You’ve never been here, but you feel like you have. You’ve been in a courtyard like this before – a cozy village in France, a town square in Belgium, a plaza in Italy. Your déjà vu moment may remind you of medieval-era Venice or Seville, but walk inside any of the homes and you are definitely in 2014.
Community in the making
“I started thinking about the piazza concept for this piece of land back in 2007,” says Winton, who returned to El Paso in 2005 to work with his father Jack Winton after spending 25 years in the Austin area working in urban planning, real estate, and city government. “We had this empty lot, about 1.6 acres, next to our offices and it seemed like the best arrangement would be to build homes around the perimeter.”
Ask Winton about his inspiration and you’ll gain a new perspective on the evolution of cities, suburbs, and even lifestyles. In the earliest towns, people lived and worked in compact areas, sharing common space in the center of a town, he explains. With the advent of the car, planners moved away from tighter grids of streets and neighborhoods to speed-efficient long blocks designed to keep you driving through, losing a sense of community and intergenerational diversity in the process.
“I decided that my objectives for this development were to have an open public space, a diversity of housing types for people at various stages of life, and convenient services,” says Winton. The development includes a mix of single-family homes, studio lofts, condos, townhouses and “live-work” units, an innovative combination of second-floor living space above a first-floor office or shop with access to Escondido Drive.
The next phase was envisioning how the lot would look; he began sketching and researching. His computer is filled with hundreds of images of plazas from many different cultures and eras. He settled on an Italian-influenced design and came up with the neighborhood’s name.
“The buildings create the sense of space, but the architecture creates the sense of place,” he says. Because no parking will be permitted on the square, with cars tucked away in garages below all units or in parking lots behind the buildings, the plaza also has a sense of timelessness. “Not only will you say, ‘where am I?’” Winton laughs, “you will also say ‘when am I?’”
Innovation attracting attention
“People come into the development and the model home and say they’ve never seen anything like this in El Paso,” says Edgar Barrientos of Mendez-Burk Realty, the agency representing Piazza Escondida. “They say they’ve seen squares like this in Europe or Mexico, but not here. We’re selling a new lifestyle.” He notes that people may like the timeless feel of the homes, but they also go for the energy-efficient features, such as tankless water heaters and double-pane windows, and high-end finishing, such as granite countertops.
Jaime Martinez, who bought a condo in the three-story building called the “Mansion,” reports that he and his wife, a UTEP nursing student, have been looking for a starter home since they married two years ago. They currently rent an apartment on the Westside. “I’m a workaholic so I don’t have time to work on a yard yet,” says Martinez, a plant manager at a local refinery. “I was looking for an affordable investment for now that could be easy to rent down the road when we move to a bigger home. The place seems like it will be comfortable and private, and I like the idea of getting to know your neighbors.”
“The Wintons have a good concept,” says Celia Berton, another condo purchaser. She will be moving into a handicapped-accessible unit on the first floor that eliminates troublesome steps for her husband. She likes the enclave plan and thinks it will have a cozy, neighborly atmosphere. They wanted to downsize and looked at many houses with no success. “Developers in El Paso have not taken older people into account,” she says. “Retirement homes serve their place, but we also just want smaller homes and maintenance-free living.”
Bistro on the premises
Scott Winton knew he wanted a certain kind of cuisine for the restaurant set to open this spring on the “work-live” side of the Piazza. He chose a personal chef and personal trainer, Michael Laster. Laster owns The Grape, a catering service that delivers tasty fresh lunches under 550 calories all over El Paso. The lunch delivery grew out of Laster’s other business, Home Fitness; his training clients wanted to eat healthier while working on their fitness goals.
“I was born with a passion to cook,” says Laster. The new Grape Café lunch menu will list each item’s calories, carbohydrates, proteins, fat content and even Weight Watcher points. The dinner menu will feature signature salads, steaks, salmon and, of course, Italian food. “The ambience will be like you were in Venice,” Laster notes. “We will take full advantage of El Paso’s good weather with tables on the patio and open windows onto the plaza.”
The Wintons think that the Piazza Escondida concept is catching on in El Paso. “People who have parcels of land have expressed interest in developing similar projects with us,” says Jack Winton, founder of The Winton Group.
“To go from sketches on cocktail napkins to the point where people will soon be moving in is very gratifying,” says Scott Winton. “I think Piazza Escondida will be part of the new El Paso that is taking shape.”
Cindy Graff Cohen is now a freelance writer and editor after a long career in journalism and publishing in Washington, D.C., and Boston.
Photographs by Brian Wancho
By Jenn Crawford
UTEP News Service
An international audience of close to 350 attended the premier performance of Opera Bhutan’s staging of George Frideric Handel’s Acis and Galatea, the first Western opera ever performed in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, and the first in the world to incorporate elements of Bhutanese music, dance and culture.
Thirty-one students, staff and faculty from The University of Texas at El Paso took part in the world premiere performance, along with another 40 people from countries around the world, including world-class opera singers, directors and musicians.
The production, and the years of preparation and planning that went into it, strengthened UTEP’s nearly 100-year connection with Bhutan that began with a shared architecture but had evolved to include student and cultural exchanges. For the students involved, the experience of working with top musicians and directors in a beautiful country that is inaccessible to many people in the world was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They were free of the distractions of home and able to focus on learning their craft from some of the best teachers in the world.
“I can still remember the feeling I had when I was performing on stage,” said Mariana Sandoval, a junior music performance major, after returning to El Paso. “Everything that I’ve ever done no longer mattered at that moment where I was truly happy to be doing what I love with people who became family.”
Are you more than just a pretty face? That’s ridiculous, of course you are! Your personality, your likes and dislikes, your values and convictions, your eye color, your family upbringing, your height, your goals and aspirations… there are so many qualities, physical attributes, preferences, and influences that all come together to contribute to the person who is uniquely you. So why then do we treat our bodies like we are only a breathing, heart beating and high brain functioning physical being? “We are not all skin, bones, organs, muscles and blood. We are spiritual beings with minds and souls,” says Adrianna Ortega, who has a master’s degree in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from AOMA University and is the owner of Alma Acupuncture. She says that contrary to popular medicine today, “Acupuncture looks at the whole person.”
Ortega says that Acupuncture is great for the average American with a 9 to 5 job, a hectic family life, and zero free time to relax and rebalance. “Your body releases a hormone in the blood called cortisol, otherwise known as the Stress Hormone, in response to overexertion and tension. The higher the amount of cortisol in your body the lower your immune system,” says Ortega. “I love the medicine I practice and simply want as many people as possible to have access to this amazing healing opportunity.”
So what is Acupuncture? Essentially, in its purest form, it is “a reminder for your body to naturally heal itself,” says Ortega. “The needles help tap into your body’s natural resources and redirects blood flow to areas of discomfort. “ One of Ortega’s new clients, Alejandro Quevedo, who was skeptical at first says, “I feel that acupuncture works. I went for my shoulder and felt very relaxed afterwards.” His experience was rejuvenating and says, “ I will go back.”
“Acupuncture allows you to be well-balanced, rejuvenated and grounded,” says Ortega. “I named my business Alma, which means Soul, because Acupuncture is medicine for the mind, body, spirit, and soul. We have to remember that our body needs this type medicine for healing of the complete self.”
In the center of a roundabout, benevolence triumphs over violence as birds charged with the history of a treacherous border region take flight. Margarita Cabrera, the artist whose work is being featured at the intersection of Country Club and Memory Lane, says she strives to harness the transformative power of art in all her pieces. An immigrant from Monterrey, Cabrera has lived in the United States from the age of 10 and her roots fuel her passion for the border region and her desire to create a conversation about the realities along the US- Mexico border. “Immigrants have a lot to give. They are cultured, hardworking and honest,” says Cabrera. One of her many aspirations is that through her artwork she can create situations where people can see and value the contributions of immigrants to their city. Her desire is for people to walk away, or drive away in this case, with awareness.
After the initial design for the roundabout was denied due to a concern by city officials that the religious connotations were too strong and that taxpayers may find it unsettling, Cabrera was left with only a month to find a new proposal. Cabrera dug deep to create a new unique and inspiring piece. She realized that the only way to create something El Paso would need and appreciate was to involve the community. UPLIFT, the name of the collaborative project that will present the 1,200-piece sculpture, brings together people from all walks of life and allows a conversation about border violence and transformation to begin. Each wing, uniquely designed by locals, carries with it, etched in the metallic feathers, a symbol that represents that individual’s own relationship to the fear and anger that is often associated with violence and their resolve to stand strong and overcome. “I like to bring people together for ‘art encounters,’” says Cabrera. With the help of the Mexican Consulate and many local schools and volunteers, a cooperative partnership was created where citizens from both sides of the border could participate and contribute to UPLIFT. With so much community collaboration involved in the creation of this piece, citizens on both sides of the border are coauthors in a story told by this piece of art.
One of the most unique and symbolic aspects of this artistic tribute is in its very composition. In addition to the recycled metals used to create this piece, there are hundreds of confiscated guns that the El Paso Sheriff’s Department, through the collaboration of Cabrera and Sherriff Wyles, has donated. These weapons, the very items used in violent acts, are being repurposed to represent peace and the end of turmoil. In a final act of defiance against the violent history this border region has endured, Cabrera says, “I won’t be melting down all of the guns. Some are going to be in the talons of the birds being carried away never to return.”
Margarita Cabrera is passionate about the transforming power that art can bring to a community. “Art is a mirror that reflects society,” says Cabrera. Her statement forces us to look inward and ask what our art scene and our grassroots movements are doing to bring more art to more people in our city. What does our reflection reveal? “I no longer want El Paso to be defined as being right across the border from what used to be the most dangerous city in the world or to be the safest city in the world a stone’s throw away from a treacherous border,” says Cabrera. She says we need to start sending out a new message that speaks of new beginnings, peace on the border, and the value of the contributions in the region made possible by immigrants. “We have weathered the storm and have come out stronger and ahead.”
Photographs by Heriberto Ibarra
In the heart of El Paso’s downtown art district on the corner of Oregon and Missouri, Artspace, a building project that has been in the works for nearly five years is finally being realized. Artspace is a program that builds and provides affordable living space to local artists as well as a collaborative working environment to foster their gifts and trade. This program currently has over 1,100 units providing low-income housing to artists and their families all over the United States.
“We are overwhelmed by the support of the community to this project. Grassroots support and philanthropy is so unbelievably critical to our success, and our success is your success. We know that the Artspace in El Paso will thrive,” says Kathleen Kvern, Senior Director for National Advancement for Artspace. “Assuming the project is funded by the end of 2014, construction could begin mid 2015 with completion in spring or summer 2016,” says Bill Helm, the lead designer for this project and Founder of in*situ architecture.
Sitting on the foundation of Artspace will be a commercial area for creative businesses, and the upper floors will contain over 50 dual-purpose live/work units as well as an additional 7,500 square feet of non-profit artistic space for tenants to use to explore their work. Artspace facilities are for all kinds of artists from painters and sculptors to dancers and musicians.
This program equips local artisans with the ability to initiate new community programs that could spread into the school systems, community centers, and other art-minded organizations so that enrichment spreads outside the walls of Artspace.
