To deepen your art practice.

The idea that art is simply a way to exhibit and to be seen leaves my chest empty.

The idea that art creates a safe haven to connect with something in you that is greater than yourself makes me hopeful.

To create something that aspire silences rather than buzz. To hold the ideas of the ancient in my right hand and ideas of the contemporary in my left.

Evergreen art is few and far apart. The charming, loud and trendy have long winters ahead of them.

There is so much to learn and respect. Not enough time.

So be in your studio more than you are at the bar, attend to your studio practice more than you do your tv, work in your studio more than your job.

Only then will the waters become clear and the fish will appear.

By |2017-07-12T13:01:37-04:00October 9th, 2015|

I am an artist and I am compost

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I am an artist and I am compost …

Sitting on the floor of my art studio, I am packing and wrapping small objects in a newspaper. Placing them in cardboard boxes. Small fragile objects from past installation projects, experimental playful tests, and mementos. In my hands, I hold a frame with the photograph of the Cuban artist Enrique Martinez Celaya painting in his Miami studio. As I wrap it up it makes me think of the last four years I had in my studio here in Wynwood. I remember my first year when I was working during the night. I will take breaks to peek out of the window at the street below to see if I am safe, it was so dark and quiet. Some nights I will spot a cloaked figure, an incognito artist painting on a building wall, nervously glancing over their shoulder. Not because of legalities – the law turned a blind eye to the colors appearing overnight all over the buildings – but because the street was so dark and quiet.

The soil is being aired…

There was Thomas, with his silver dreadlocks bicycling every day from Overtown to come wash cars for $10. He liked to share a story or two about old “Windwood”.  Mr. López from Puerto Rico sat on his stoop like he did the last 20 years watching, in pure amazement, as hipsters scurry past, towards a coffee shop, some actually carried their typewriters around for writing poetry. I could not believe my luck when I discovered that Celaya had his art studio a couple of blocks from me. I had the opportunity to volunteer and see the inner workings of how a complex artist functions. He taught me as artists we need to take faithful actions. That there is an inherent uncertainty in the choices we make and that one should navigate this uncertainty to benefit the artwork.

The mushrooms start to sprout….

Eventually, I stopped peeking out of my studio windows. The streets were getting less dark as more artists and businesses braved this neighborhood. Clubs and bars sprouted and I started pulling the curtains shut in hope to block the beating bass, pulsating from clubs and vibrating against my windows. I once was carrying some of my artwork down my steps when a lady jumped out of her Mercedes. Excited and hyperventilating, her heart was fluttering like pre-burst hemorrhoids in her neck. Pointing and asking me if my building was for sale. She looked delicate and pale amongst abrasive bright walls.

The last days of fertilizing the soil…

And so it goes. Celaya asked me last year for one last project at his studio, to help his team pack ship his studio across the country to Los Angeles. This was an omen for what was to come. Mr. López just got his notice in the mail. The house he lived in will soon be demolished for storage of building materials for a construction site nearby. Thomas just shakes his head and now charges $20 to wash your car. The building my studio was in got sold to a developing company from New York city. Sooner or later they will break ground as well. The bright painted walls are now full of cavities.  They will be filled with large shiny windows for fashion boutiques, more coffee shops, and breweries. The once large concrete canvasses are giving away to a new chapter.

Watching the new vegetation grow…

I am moving into my new studio.  As I carry the boxes into the empty space I can see through the window in the far distance the skyline of Wynwood. From here I cannot see the colors, the bustle, and hustle. It looks just like another metropolitan outline. One can feel negative about gentrification when caught in the middle of it, but there is one more way to look at it. I try to see it as another service artists give to the community. Art can uplift not only the heart but also that of decayed neighborhoods. Artists are compost that can soften and fertilize the hardest of soil. Artists can take uncertainty and turn it into something concrete. Hopefully, artists will grow to become the leaders that spearhead the process of uplifting neighborhoods instead of just being a tool towards it. Tonight will be my first night working in my new space. I know that I will take a break now and then to peek through the windows to see if the dark and quiet street below is safe.

By |2017-07-12T13:01:37-04:00August 12th, 2015|

between rock and water

When working on the visuals of my project THE BALLAST I was thinking of the peculiarities of the weight of art. The artist carries a unique burden in which he has to work within the world and at the same time has to seek entry points into new worlds. It reminds me of the scripture that advises one to, “be in the world but not of this world.” The artist desperately seeks to carry out the seemingly impossible task of relating simultaneously to his object and subject, and yet being neither subject nor object. It is akin to looking into a mirror and seeing yourself as the object, and as you are thinking of yourself immediately you become the subject (and vice-versa): “now you see me, now you don’t”. It is within this paradox of rigidity and fluidity that I question our place of balance. In THE BALLAST I have taken the point of view not of the experience of a solidified state or a state of fluidity, but of being a witness to the struggle and the feat of being in flux between the two.

Despite the apparent impermeability of a rock and its ability to brace itself against the elements, it slowly and imperceptibly erodes. A rock also presents functionality and stability. If I pile enough rocks in the belly of a seagoing vessel, it will stay below the water level, a compensator for buoyancy. On another plane, a rock brings forth life, if one accepts that our planet is a functional, yet slowly eroding rock. We cannot separate ourselves from the environment we exist in, and on. But as we cling to this rock of ages we are also floating in space, just as the rocks in the hull of an oceangoing vessel – we have learned to float through time and the universe. As any survivalist knows, with nothing to cling to in a rapidly moving body of water, we need to give ourselves over to the stream to stay buoyant and prevent drowning – exactly the situation of faith. But this weight that brings us movement can also bring forth stagnation (or worse) if the load keeps accumulating and the liberty of continuance is stripped away. What is the path of liberation when the ballast is pulling you under the water level? The Buddhists believe that achieving liberation is two-fold, by letting go and letting go into something. Letting go into something, perhaps, has less to do with willing or creating than it does with allowing. For example, leaving home at a young age is akin to surrendering to a rapidly moving body of water, to allow yourself new, future possibilities – letting go, into something.

Allowing myself as an artist to have faith and giving over to my subconscious I can let go of the right amount of weight to keep myself relevant and sturdy in the given moment. To keep this ambiguous balance, I believe one has to, “keep standing in the middle of all this”, to be tucked and pulled without stopping observing what is tucking and pulling you.

THE BALLAST is built from these intermingling dualities of real experiences and it touches upon the domestic as well as the epic. How when we are in flux, our observations of the world are renewed from any new point as it can be regarded as the center, and where all positions are relative. A transcendental trickery where we can paradoxically deconstruct boundaries and unify all divisions. Thomas Tranströmer spoke of the effect of art on the artist and viewer as, ”a house of glass standing on a slope; rocks are flying, rocks are rolling. The rocks roll straight through the house but every pane of glass is still whole.”

By |2017-07-12T13:37:42-04:00September 14th, 2014|

Pockets full of rocks.

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My Notebook Key West 2013

I woke up in the middle of the night and desperately scribbled down my dream in the notebook next to my bed. The next morning I had a faded feeling that I might have had an epiphany. This was written in my notes…

Two women are walking hand in hand in the dark which seem to be on a dry salt pond. I can only make out their silhouettes. As they were walking towards me I recognized them being the writers Virginia Woolf and Ingrid Jonker and I overheard their conversation.

Ingrid Jonker: “Our pockets are full of rocks.
Virginia Woolf: ” It is because Art is like constantly eating delicious cake without ever picking up weight or getting diabetes.”
Ingrid Jonker: ” It is because Art is like constantly having diabetes and being morbidly obese without ever eating cake.”

I can hear the crunch of the salt under their feet and the soft clanging of stones or rocks. The two women now look similar as the physical qualities of Woolf and Jonker melted together. As they passed me they spoke out of one mouth saying:

“There always will be rocks in your pockets, but only if you swallow them will they become cake.”

By |2017-07-12T13:03:43-04:00March 2nd, 2013|

The Body

Notebook Enry: 2007 Key West

What was jointed is disjointed. If only I could do more. If only I could do better. If only I could go further.

If the goddess can cut her throat and feed me her blood, would that help? How is it that we can be so full of desire but so slow to gather dry wood to stoke the fire. And when the fire dies we blame everyone from the shoemaker to the gatekeeper.

We are born smooth and unblemished, hydrated like a melon straining at the edges. Somehow we manage over the years to suck our own juices and, like a toilet with a leaky tank that does not refill, we slowly evaporate. All that is left is the bitter cellulose heart.

I have stoked the furnace of my heart, my spirit, my mind; yet the body splays itself like a concubine over soft pillows with a vulgar, I-want-it-now, gluttonous reign. My opponents are not others, him or you but this treacherous body. If I can split in two, it is “me” against “you” in a boxing match. Who will win?

There is nothing romantic about being an artist. I know about artists who await the “Voice of God” to transcend them into genius. Poor sods. You are a skin encasing meat that generates chemicals for emotions, hormones for behaviours, neurons for decisions. You are, first and last, the body. Better yet, you are your own illusion wrapped in epiderm.

The body is a formidable opponent.

By |2017-07-12T13:03:43-04:00June 27th, 2012|
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