Visual Arts

By Aracely Lazcano

In an effort to reinforce the art movement in Central El Paso a group of young artists, known as Colectivo 17,  joined forces to create a mural and highlight the life in the border. The mural, located at the intersection of Myrtle and Cotton, is a multi-discipline three-part black and white mural depicting the artists’ interpretation of life choices.

What is Colectivo 17?

Briseida Ochoa – Coordinator for Colectivo 17

Colectivo 17 is a cooperative with eight active members practicing several mediums like painters, graphic designers, photographers and sculptors from both sides of the border. Most of the participants are art students from the University of Texas at El Paso and the Autonomous University in Ciudad Juarez. Others have already graduated from the same discipline in the US.

What is your mission?

Mario Rojo – Coordinator for Colectivo 17

Our main goal is to foster the arts and culture by promoting different mediums and art expressions. We have no limits as to disciplines or styles. We want to connect with as many artists as possible and promote open lines of communication among the artists in the area. Together we can create greater and unique projects for the residents of El Paso.

What is your contribution to this project?

Ulises Gonzales
I am doing a classical portrait. It is one of the most difficult disciplines because you really need to capture the essence and character of the person posing for you. I have been painting classical portraits for eight years now and I really take pride in my work. I don’t do a sketch of anything, it is more like a free style but it gets more complicated when it is in a large scale.

How is your creative process for this mural?

“Wox” Rincones  – Abstract Painter

As an abstract artist I started this project in a very organic and chaotic way. I started by making marks and shades and little by little I developed the forms and figures I wanted to represent. Although it might seem chaotic, in reality I was able to get everything under control. Like everything in life, if you have a problem or a chaotic life you end up finding solutions, setting order, and finding your way.

I wanted to represent the cycle of life, and I included none soft pink spheres as a tribute to our evolution. The number nine is associated with human gestation, as well as other implications. There is no limits in what you want to express, we are just trying to make a mural available for other people to see and help them realize El Paso has a lot of talented artist.

To view more of their work you can check them out at Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/colectivo17ojos?fref=ts

Photographed by Laura Bustillos

Jorge Calleja’s exhibition at the 2^nd Floor Contemporary Art Center in downtown El Paso poked fun at people’s religious beliefs while mocking his lost sense of culture through his often interactive artworks.

After racing out of Juarez when the violence was at its height in 2009 and settling in El Paso with his family, Calleja said he stopped celebrating his culture when he came to the states.  “I didn’t want to be an American.  I wanted to be a Mexican and there is a different culture here.  I quit going to church and I began to let my traditions, traditions that I wanted to continue, actually fade away.  I stopped seeing prayer as a release, but as a job.” Jorge said that is when his thinking slowly became diluted regarding his own culture.

Jorge’s exhibition entitled Mother, Forgive Me was geared at making fun of himself for losing that connection to his heritage and challenging those who claim to have a religious relationship with their “higher power.”  “I created this ginormous translucent vinyl cross, labeled “Modern Faith,” because I see I am not the only one who has lost some sense of tradition.  These people are wearing crosses and the rosary like it’s a fashion statement.  When you put it on, you are a pimp.”

Calleja also poked fun of religion and candles.  He goes on to say that people want instant gratification these days; they are not willing to work for what they believe in.  “Take for example when people pay to light a candle at church or buy an idolic candle at the store…why do they do this?  So, I made rose scented candles that depict the baby Jesus in my show.  For 25 cents you can buy the candle and expect immediate results.”

Jorge created a necktie made with a pattern famous with the culture of Mexico, the Zarape, consisting of bright colors; reds, greens, pinks, yellows and blues.  He calls this “Business Casual.”  Jorge noted,  “The tie was basically a call back to when I was working in an office environment.  It was not until I had an office job in the United States did I realize it put me in a higher position than most people in Mexico.  I don’t mean that to sound arrogant, but I wasn’t doing anything important and I was still making money.   Compare that to people in Juarez who are actually working their ass off and not making any money!”

Calleja continues to poke fun at society’s adoration of gold in his piece entitled, “Trust Me.”  “We see gold as a symbol of trust.  As I was growing up, there was this guy around the corner and everyone knew he was a drug dealer.  He was tacky yet always had groupies around him and he had this big shiny gold tooth.  Well, as a society we think, the shinier the better, the more gold, the better, but in reality, it does not matter how shiny your tooth is…the rest of his mouth is full of shit.”

The title of his exhibition is an apology to Jorge’s three mothers regarding his choices in life.  “I see the concept of mother in three different forms, mother as the head of a family, mother as the religious aspect with the Virgin Mary, and mother as Madre Patria.”   Calleja wanted the title of the exhibit to say he was sorry for not following what his mother, the Virgin Mary, and his grandmother taught him in life.  The exhibition was an attempt to show what the results of those choices.

You can find Jorge’s collections at:  lapaginadejorgecalleja.net

By Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek

A graphic designer by trade, Mitsu Overstreet feels his truest calling is public art.  His ability to integrate technology into art can be seen with his latest in installation at the El Paso International Airport labeled “Limitless”.

Your installation at the El Paso International Airport is a work in progress…tell me about it?

It’s a terrazzo floor design and installation for the remodeling update of the baggage claim area for the El Paso International Airport and the Museum and Cultural Affairs Department. This is the first time I’ve ever designed for terrazzo and so grateful for this opportunity that this project has provided to help me to grow and work on this level.

The inspiration for the main image finally came down to the Rio Grande River because of its importance to the region not only for social, political and economic reasons but for the life giving sustenance that its water brings to this area.

The next was to have a work that invited people to experience it in whole, and to somehow get the community that used the airport to get involved. I started to interview people in the baggage area, and they began telling me stories about their experiences here, their family’s stories and what they loved about the area.  I figured if we could embed quotes from people all over the region talking about what they loved and their favorite memory I could create a space that told these stories to the visitors that they could experience while walking throughout the work.

Do you have any creative habits that contribute to your success?

Well the one creative habit I can truly attribute to any success I’ve had is my work with other artists. Most of my best work has been collaborative and it’s become almost a necessary part of it. It actually kinda feels weird when I’m working with projects that are only me creating the art. I’ve recently started experimenting with personal work and it’s different thinking that way versus bouncing and responding to other artists’ input and sharing the credit. Collaborative work is just way more fulfilling and fun.

What are/is the biggest challenge(s) that artists in El Paso face?

In recently years I’ve noticed how the art economy here is beginning to take shape. We still have a ways to go. Healthcare for artists and their families is a huge deal when it comes to living on a nearly non-existent local creative economy. It will probably take more than just the city to help create that. Hopefully the organizations like the El Paso Artists Guild will help make it possible for that to exist here.

Photographs courtesy of Mitsu Overstreet

Public Works

By Hope Ishear

Tim Razo has a style that knows no boundaries…an artist who indulges in multiple mediums while drawing on buses, exploring pop culture, and creating awareness through a recent series of Asarco posters.  His attention to detail and design can be viewed through the use of neon colors that communicate his message of the southwest.  Originally from California, Tim calls El Paso home and describes himself as a Southwestern multi-media artist.

Hope:  You refer to yourself as a “Southwestern” artist, but really what you do is take iconic pieces of the Southwest and transform them.

Tim:  I grew up immersed in Southwestern art since I was a kid.  It was everywhere.  You’d go back in the 80s and I always dug the ideas behind the really good stuff I’d see.  Even if it was just really skillfully delivered landscapes, I could understand the inspiration behind it because I’ve mostly lived in the desert my entire life.  Most of my illustrations are usually mash-ups of ideas, but I keep my paintings and overall philosophy resonating with the Southwest.  It’s a vision I have of progressing that feeling of desert psychedelia that keeps me stoked.

Hope:  Your choice of colors is amazing…from paint to pencil.  Tell me about your training.

Tim:  Getting high around the age of 14 to 21 while looking at art magazines and books I bought or stole from bookstores I think is what really ingrained that thought pattern of lucid colors.  Now with 14 years of Photoshop color editing, filters and adjustments firmly established in my brain I think I just have solidified that ability.  It’s a learning process which sometimes comes naturally and sometimes you have to really work at.  

Hope:  Some people have a centralized theme in their work, can you expand on yours?

Tim:   As far as a message with my prints, illustrations, they’re usually just ideas that I have that range from pop culture to synchromysticsm (and everything in between).  My paintings are usually more geared towards the idea of a symbiotic relationship between technology and nature.  We’re coming to this point with technology that seems to be blurring the lines of human morality with GMOs, stem cell research, cloning, etc.  I like exploring what’s past that a few hundred years down the line or so.  So the Dreamcatchers for example, in my mind are GMOs gone wild.  It’s a positive spin to something that people are usually up in arms about.

Hope:  What are you currently working on and what should we look for in the near future?

Tim:  I’m working on two large canvases that will be displayed in El Paso in October and then in Santa Fe by December to early 2014.  The large canvases I’m working on are going to explore human technology even further.  No murals in the near future from what I can tell.  I’d like to work on more, I should probably be hitting the city up for funding.

 Hope:  What is the El Paso art scene missing, and how can you help bring awareness to the art community?

Tim:  If I was to say anything I would think El Paso’s art scene is missing a highly valued art market at the moment.  It seems most people would rather buy their paintings or art that they surround themselves with from anonymous artists at furniture stores or thrift shops rather than buy authentic local art usually at lower prices.  It’s a personal choice, but you have to get into the local game if you want to have a real local experience. Which is what you want to have especially if you’re looking to stay here a while.  Locals need to be more aware of the value that local artists bring to the table.

Hope:  Any comments you wish to add?

Tim:  I would say a genuine study of psychology, the occult and origins of symbols and archetypes is a good thing to have under your belt if you are a visual artist.

You can view more of Tim’s work at:  http://pazomotti.com

Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek

She waits with patience for the smoke from a flame to invoke an emotional exchange between her hand and the canvas.  When the moment arises she nurtures the relationship of her brush to the canvas as the strokes are gently and delicately applied.

Adriana Peraldi is ever so slightly influenced by a sip of Bordeaux as her paintings begin to come alive.  But her attention does not stay with just one subject, she sees the need to pay care to three separate pieces, each requiring of her expertise.

“My mission is to provoke emotions from people to talk about my work,” said Peraldi.  She openly admits she loves to play with the subliminal message she receives from friends and family, even strangers throughout the day.  She transfers those images onto the canvas and works to create a painting that will suggest thought and also a dialogue.  “I want their imaginations to play, I want to entice you to talk about the piece.  I want to play with people’s thoughts and see what translates into my works.”

Adriana, originally from Juarez, now enjoying life in El Paso,  prefers to paint at night.  She feels more creative and alive as the night draws near.  “During the day you can choose to be upset and let it ruin your day, but at night, the emotion dissipates.  You can release that feeling on canvas and let it go,” said Adriana.  “I like to burn a candle and allow the waves of the smoke to mentor to me.  I can sit there for hours until I feel the passion to pick up the brush and let it guide me to the canvas.”  Peraldi says she feels more creative at the wee hours of the morning and speaks passionately about her inspirations.

“The smoke sends me a signal to my subconscious and I like to use that signal in my work,” said Peraldi.  Adriana’s work is notably soft in nature but bold in its statement.  Her pieces portray sexuality, femininity, unity and strength.  The shapes of the bodies are not strictly defined on canvas but in ones mind to decide the message it sends.  “My pieces are very emotional and yes, sometimes very sexual.  I want you to engage with my work.  I want you to speak to each other about what you feel and what you see, because each of us will have a connection to my painting, but each of us will have a different connection.  I want to hear what you feel.”

Peraldi first started experimenting in art when she was a young girl by mixing pigments that would be used in wool tapestries at her mother’s workshop in Juarez.  From there, her love of art blossomed.

She admits she is enamored by painting and sometimes finds it hard to concentrate on new people, “I look into your eyes and I see emotion, I look at you and see the ruffle on your blouse and I want to paint it, I sit in an economics class and think how I can paint the crease on his shirt, not learn about numbers, I see a couple fight and want to paint them!”

Peraldi’s work can be viewed online at http://www.adrianperaldi.com

Q & A with Melissa Castro

By Monique Oxford

Melissa Castro uses the body as her canvas, painting and drawing on the human figure as she transforms her models into walking art pieces.

Monique: How did you become interested in art-specifically?

Melissa: I’ve always liked sketching, painting and working with my hands. When I realized I was good at makeup it just expanded my horizons beyond the typical beauty look.

Monique: You delve into more than one genre of body art, tell me about that.

Melissa: When it comes to the body/face I think I’m very versatile. I can make you look gorgeous for a wedding or horrifying for Halloween. My art is always evolving. One minute I can be really into my body art then next I’m focused on special effect wounds.

Monique: Any role models who influenced your work?

Melissa: Not when it comes to body art. I just go with what I’m feeling. As for my special effects makeup, Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman, and Gregory Nicotero are such inspirations. They are amazing makeup artists. They are the masterminds behind movies like The Chronicles of Narnia and From Dusk Till Dawn. I would love to be on their level someday.

Monique: Did you take classes or intern with anyone to learn how to paint on the body?

Melissa: I’m completely self-taught. I do refer to YouTube videos, blogs and books occasionally to continue my education.

Monique: At what age did you start your art career?

Melissa: 18, it was the first Halloween after high school. I painted my face like a cat from the Broadway show, CATS. Everyone loved it and complimented my work so it inspired me to try more looks.

Monique: You were painting on a model at our launch party from Mitsu Overstreet’s installation piece at the El Paso International Airport, how did it feel when Mistu jumped in and began painting with you?

Melissa: I was beyond thrilled and a bit nervous!

Monique: Where do you draw your inspirations from?

Melissa: My body art pieces are freehand and though they are henna-inspired they definitely resemble my sketches. My special effects makeup is more on the fiction side I love to try and remake famous characters.

Monique: How time consuming are your designs?

Melissa: My designs are ridiculously consuming. I’m so meticulous when it comes to my work, particularly my special effects makeup. I give it my all so I expect only the best results.

Monique: Do you feel you are learning skills now that will elevate you? If so, what would those be?

Melissa: Definitely, the more I practice the more I learn. I’m always looking for new ways to express my creativity on my models, and means working with different materials and paints all the time.

Monique: Is there a particular project you want to work on?

Melissa: I would love to do makeup for a Tim Burton inspired photo shoot.

Monique: How are you further enhancing your career?

Melissa: I work with the skin all the time so I am furthering my education and getting my Esthetician license.

Monique: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Melissa: I definitely want to continue working in the makeup industry, specifically in special effects. I want to make my name a trademark.

Monique: What is the biggest hurdle artists in El Paso face today?

Melissa: Speaking for myself I think there isn’t enough interest in the arts, especially in body art. I’m flooded with work for my glamour makeup but only get to showcase my special effects and body art sporadically. I do though, see a slow but growing interest in other art movements in El Paso. I can’t wait to see what the art scene will be like in a few years.

Monique: What is your biggest hurdle as an artist?

Melissa: I personally feel it’s pleasing my audience. My work and name get out there by word of mouth more than anything, so if I am not pleasing my audience I am not doing a good enough job.

Photographed by Omar Augustine Hernandez

By Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek

Kimberly: Art didn’t seem to be path your originally intended. How did your journeys take you down this path?

Ed: Until recently, I didn’t feel I ever really had or followed an intended path. When I was much younger I never mapped out my dreams or planned my life at all. If anything, I set some pretty modest goals and put effort into going after the things I really wanted. For the most part I have made decisions based on continuance and adventure. I felt lost for years and years. My current direction feels much more natural and fitting but it took a series of painful failures to get to this point. All the right things went wrong at just the right time and once the dust settled I began to make some better decisions and began to participate in life. I started drawing again and cutting really simple stencils to spray paint on whatever I could find. It was so fun and rewarding that I started making them all the time and I slowly started challenging myself to make them a little more detailed and intricate each time. When I wasn’t cutting stencils I would grab a stack of napkins and a brush pen and draw caricatures of people on the street, at bus stops, or I just made them up and it was those actions that made me feel purposeful and gave me a sense of direction. In hindsight and a little farther away from the end of that chaotic period I feel really grateful it all happened the way it did. Things had to happen exactly the way they did in order for me to be where I am now. Life is super fun now.

Kimberly: What art medium do you focus on? What has been the most rewarding?

Ed: The stencil art. It’s really gone way beyond my initial expectations and now I’m using more and various texture techniques, more layers, and mixing it up quite a bit with that medium. I’m totally falling in love with printmaking though. I’m about to finish my first printmaking class at UTEP and I easily see myself doing a lot more relief prints and/or serigraphs from here on; so tedious and process heavy but so beautiful when it goes right. All analog, all the time.

Kimberly: What are your goals and how do you plan to achieve them?

Ed: To unlearn and trash what no longer works in my life and keep what does; to keep moving forward in all areas of life. I’d be thrilled to earn a fine arts degree, I’m taking it slow and trying to actually absorb it all and take advantage of what the studios and professors have to offer. I don’t really have a certain goal in mind, I want to do a lot of things. If I really want it, I’ll work hard and do what it takes to get it. Being a sailor and a trucker gave me a work ethic second to none.

For more on Ed, see our May issue.

Photographed by Laura Bustillos

By Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek

From the east to the west coast artist and professor, Ray Parish’s sculptures and towering installations have been featured in galleries, museums, and universities in over ten states with a transposition in Berlin, Germany.

Parish’s own college days positioned him at Ole Miss on a football scholarship; however after a series of concussions he shifted to a safer path, the fine arts. “I was exposed to art at a very early age. My uncle attended art school and my grandmother painted. They would show me books on Rembrandt. I was surrounded by modernism so my thinking followed. My sculpture is abstract and I’ve been very comfortable with the nature of my work,” noted Parish.

“I enrolled at UTEP to study art specifically from Professor Parish. I was a self proclaimed musician, never took an art class in my life, but I knew I could draw and build things and I was good with my hands. I was told, Ray would be the one who could mold me, “ noted David Quinn, former student of Parish and current art teacher at El Paso High.

“I once overheard Ray retell of his sudden epiphanies where he described a ‘magic’ that can occur in the simplest of forms. This was a silent, yet deafening communication able to undeniably penetrate the soul of a person willing to see or just look at that object. An object being something that doesn’t even need to have an intended meaning or purpose,” said Quinn.

Twenty-nine years after his educational career started Ray Parish is hanging up his professorial title in sculpture. He leaves UTEP this month after teaching thousands of students over the course for almost three decades. “I tried to impress upon my students the importance to understand the history of art. One should respond to artwork in respect to the context. They relate, one must physically, emotionally, and intellectually connect to their own work,” Parish stated.

Over the years he dabbled in conceptual installations, photographed dissolving parts in the Pacific Ocean, and presented a collection of hay bales in an art museum. “There was just something to be said about the thought of a pristine environment now tainted with by hay,” laughed Ray.

It was during his exploration of several mediums that Parish became exposed to sculpture, his main genre, and began to discover the multiple facets that could be achieved in his works. He experimented with grafting trees, currently a living installation piece in front of the Don Haskins Center; constructed pieces large and small while utilizing cedar, stainless steel, oak and most recently, concrete and steel. “I am obsessed with trailers. In Art In, I took an old camper and pulled everything out of it, revamped it, and then created a live installation with wax people inside and had the television on. It made the viewers feel like they were intruding on something. In Undeterred, I took another steel camper and dropped a piano on top of it, that was great,” he satisfyingly said. There seems to be no size limitation to his projects fabricated steel.

When asked of the legacy he built, he replied, “I am afraid it doesn’t matter what I want to leave. In a couple of years, you are gone and that’s sad, but I am prepared to deal with that. I think I have created an effective arena where students can express, learn, and develop their creations. You can’t teach a person to be an artist, but you can provide the necessary conditions.”

Parish feels he is graduating UTEP with a degree of his own, “I think I covered it all. I brought in artist that needed to know how to express their technical aspects. I’ve nurtured students through commission work and job situations, I have covered the bases, and I will continue to be a part of the BAR. “ Parish refers to the Border Art Residency which was founded in 1997 by Parish, his wife Becky, and in conjunction with the El Paso Community Foundation to help support artist. He designed the program to offer a selected artist a spacious creative living and studio space in La Union, New Mexico. The artist can use his/her specified time at the BAR to cultivate their creative talents.

As UTEP’s spring session closes, so does one door for Professor Parish, yet his path to another avenue allow him greater time to vacation in his favorite spot, Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. “I just love it there. It’s not all day at the beach, believe it or not, I work on projects. I am building a wall right now at our house and inserting blue glass bottles throughout the concrete walls. It’ll stand as an installation of its own,” Parish excitedly says. His story as an educator may end but the knowledge and inspiration he imparted carries on even as he leaves the university.

Photographed by Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek, Peter Svarzbein, and Victor Beckmann

Laura Bustillos gets an exclusive look behind the scenes of Mexican sculptor Sebastian and his latest work, La Equis in Ciudad Juarez.

Photographed by Laura Bustillos

By Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek and Kyle Alvarado

Billingsley said El Pasoans who supported him through the Border Art Residency program helped him realize that contemporary art matters in the region. In a more intimate note they showed him that his work is relevant and capable of generating interest.

Billingsley said. “There was a moment in there where I became aware of how many people really seemed to care about contemporary art, whether they liked my stuff or not, and it made me feel like I was making some sort of difference.”

Billingsley’s paintings strike the viewer in a unique way. He utilizes a piping bag, like one used on a cake, with a mixture of acrylic and house paint. He notes that the consistency of this mixture is almost like painting with water. As the paint leaves the controlled confines of the bag and settles onto the wide-open canvas, something interesting happens—gravity will affect the line. It will spread out and settle in an unpredictable manner. This unpredictable thread carries into Billingsley’s striking sculptures.

Utilizing expanding foam and plaster bandages he constructs colorful abstractions of the human form. “The decision making process has to be fast. Foam is going to be in an organic form and bubbly. It expands 18 times its size. You can’t always control it,” He said. “Its unpredictability creates growth in terms of actual sculpture giving mass. You can put together a whole human form through blobby noise. Your mind puts the rest of the body/art work together.”

Read more in our May Issue.

Photographed by Kimberly Rene’ Vanecek and Peter Svarzbein