My Art Projects
Luminaria Contemporary Arts:
Narcissus and Echo
Background: Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival is the City of San Antonio’s premier arts event featuring over 50 artists local and international artists. Over 20,000 people visit Luminaria every year.
Our collective created a proposal using the ideas and photography of surrealist photographer and our co-founder Nain Leon. The proposal called for the use of 3d holograms and theater performance to recreate the story of Narcissus and Echo in a digital age.
Artist Statement by Nain Leon and Ron Garcia
How often do we take selfies and don’t like what we see? How often do others feel the same way? How often are these images used to judge our fitness for job, a partner, a service?
All these implications are the consequences of technology in our social relationships. Our social image has become the new reality. Our devices have become both our window and the mirror from which we reflect our filtered and edited lives.
We have an obsession for image, as in the myth of Narcissus and a Pavlovian response to likes, shares, and messages. We look for perfection and connection in an increasingly lonelier world, echoing the last good post, photo, or meme that reinforces our own thoughts and decisions.
Much of my work has been surrealistic in nature, and it is through the lens of the absurd that we try to not only explore or current reality, but to help break it.
ARTISTIC MEDIUMS USED
- 3d Holograms
- Video Production and Motion Graphics
- Photography
- Sound & Lighting
- Acting
Mural Project: The LINK Santa Anna California
Background: In 2018 Federal Judge Carter ruled that the cities of Orange County could not prosecute homeless people for vagrancy if they could not provide emergency shelter for them. This landmark case created the impetus for cities to begin building new homeless shelters. Many of the cities said it would take years to build such facilities.
Judge Carter worked with the City of Santa Ana, Mercy House, and developer Ryan Ogulnick of Vienyard Partners to create temporary homeless shelter in a warehouse development park. Their goal was to create a 200 bed facility in 28 days to help the homeless before winter set in.
Republic Arts was given the privilege to work on the project. With less than 2 weeks to the opening of the facility, we were contracted to create a mural that was representative of the homeless and the City of Santa Ana.
With this short timeline we went out into the Santa Ana community to talk and photograph the homeless. Our goal was to showcase human dignity and empower those less fortunate with a message of hope.
My Daily Gratitude Journal
8finity Press
I have always loved writing and started my own publishing company to self publish books on to Amazon.
My Daily Gratitude Journal, offers daily, weekly, and monthly gratitude exercises to help you cultivate an attitude of gratitude that empowers your life.
Scientific studies have proven that the act of writing, reflecting, and demonstrating gratitude has positive effects on mental and physical health. Gratitude improves empathy, happiness, self-esteem, sleep, and interpersonal relationships. People have also reported a positive change in their luck, fortune, and opportunities simply by writing and vocalizing their gratitude.
So, what is “Gratitude” and how does it bring us love and happiness? Gratitude is the quality of being thankful, and the ability to show appreciation for and to return kindness. It’s a heartfelt expression that gives us the fuel to endure and enjoy our lives.
By beginning our day with gratitude, we move our emotions to a more joyful and energetic state. This sets the tone for our day increasing our capacity for empathy and patience.
I didn’t want to go
30 poems for the Tricentennial
I was asked by the project director Rigo Luna to be part of The City of San Antonio’s Tricentennial. 30 Poems for the Tricentennial: A Poetic Legacy” is an exhibition that combines poetry with graphic design to commemorate the more than 300 year history of San Antonio from the Pre-Columbian era to the Present Day. It features the winning poems submitted by San Antonio poets in honor of the Tricentennial.
The poems were interpreted by visual and graphic artists and transformed into two-dimensional vinyl works of art. Exhibit is on view through April 25, 2019.
I was given Carolyn Chatman whose poem was based on words by Susanna Dickerson one of the only women to have survived the Battle of the Alamo. I choose use typefaces that were similar to those use during the era.