Blog

Burque Unite: Gerald Lovato

The Orpheum Community Hub thumped with the surround stereo sound of an ominous heartbeat, intensifying as onlookers waited to see what would happen next. Finally, in white shorts and a teeth guard, artist Gerald Lovato entered the gallery dressed for a fight; the only thing missing were his gloves. In the center of the room hung a punching bag covered with Lovato’s handwriting that covered nearly the entire surface. These writings read as a stream-of-consciousness journal, narrating the artist’s traumas. The cylindrical shape of the object partly obscured the words, and the tightly packed rows of print reminded me of…

Organizing a Pan-Institutional Exhibition in NYC

In my role as Director of Exhibitions at Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, I proposed a pan-institutional exhibit featuring PCA&D’s artist community for Governors Island in New York City. The proposal for an environmentally themed exhibition was selected for the 2020 season.

East Topics Curatorial Residency in Budapest

I was selected to participate in the inaugural East Calls Curatorial Residency in Budapest, Hungary organized by East Topics. It is an honor to be one of the chosen curators from over fifty international applicants and an immense pleasure to share this intensive experience with my cohorts from around the world. Our group, the twelve (as referred to by the local art community during the East Topics opening reception) seems to have been carefully selected to represent diverse parts of the global art perspective. Ann Mirjam Vaikla, academically trained in scenography, is the Director of Narva Art Residency based in Estonia. Genevieve Farrell holds a Master’s Degree­ in…

Illuminating the City with Art

It was a pleasure being on the 2018 Luminaria Contemporary Arts Festival Curatorial Committee. I was blessed to work with a fantastic team of individuals with diverse discipline expertise in the artwork selection process, along with the amazing staff of Luminaria that manages to successfully put on such a large-scale and fantastic after-dark arts festival every year. The festival which ran Friday, November 9 through Sunday, November 11, 2018, continuously gains more momentum and ground. Over the years, I have enjoyed attending the festival as a patron, but this year it was a wonderful experience to see it operating from…

A New Professional Chapter

After five years at Ruiz-Healy Art as the Associate Director, I started to search for a new position that could further my career development. I loved working for the artists on the roster, gaining more familiarity with artists from Mexico, and wholly devoted myself to the business for a half-a-decade, but at this point, I have extensive experience working in a commercial art gallery. Much of my professional growth was from my projects outside of the gallery. Fortunately, all of my hard work paid off as my portfolio of independent projects (that I worked on tirelessly in the evenings) paved…

Sol Kesseler

Guest curating Thread, an exhibition at Clamp Light Gallery in San Antonio this past March, I conducted a local, national, and international search for artists working in the medium. I discovered the work of Sol Kesseler online and gravitated to her contemporary embroidery practice, which in part, incorporates electronics. We had only communicated via Instagram messages and emails before she shipped the works included in the exhibition. I decided that I would personally deliver them back to her when the exhibition closed. On April 12, 2018, I traveled to the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires in Argentina to visit…

Jared Theis

The original idea for my blog was to write about every studio visit I conducted.  I figured by doing so I would improve my writing and provide transparency for my artist selection process. However, after writing for three publications and co-curating an exhibition that included thirty artists (in my free time) I am quite behind on the blog! I wish to circle back to a studio visit with Jared Theis from August 20, 2017, because this is where I left off, but it also seems appropriate to backtrack to this visit since Theis has just recently opened an exhibition at…

Linda Arredondo

On August 7, 2017, I had the pleasure of a studio visit with Linda Arredondo.  She is one of the artists I have been following on social media.  I was really excited about her embroidery works that I have seen so far and this visit did not disappoint!  From this studio visit, I have asked her to be a part of the upcoming embroidery exhibition and I’m honored that she has accepted. Arredondo earned a BFA in Painting from The University of Texas at San Antonio and her MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University. Although, her CV boasts…

Embroidery Exhibition

I was asked to guest curate an exhibition for Clamp Light Gallery in San Antonio, Texas and I was ecstatic to take the March exhibition slot for 2018.  In San Antonio, March is Contemporary Art Month, otherwise known as CAM, a fun community-wide arts focused calendar aiming to elevate the profile of San Antonio artists.  There are always multiple openings a night, a juried exhibition by a prestigious curator, and Cammie Awards are given to the best exhibitions. I decided that Clamp Light’s intimate space would be the perfect opportunity to execute an exhibition idea that I have had for…