#borimix

This weekend I had my meetin' wif da peeps from the Clemente Soto Velez Center on the Lower East Side. I checked out the Borimix festival and stood captivated by the work of painters, photographers, and other artists. I'll post a few photos soon.

I'm squeeing like every five minutes. Everyone there is so talented, and so wonderful and open and passionate about their community.

The city just gave a multi-million dollar grant to help update the Center and make way for new projects. So far the Center is home to multiple studios, galleries, theaters, community classrooms, even a bar @.@ I don't mean to sound obnoxious but its all in the name of Puerto Rican culture preservation :3 And yes, I really shouldn't ignore the fact that my mother is Ukrainian, Italian, and Irish but its Puerto Rican Heritage Month in NYC!!! WEPA <3

We have yet to set an exact date, but the directors of the Center and I agreed that it will be the second week of December. I know it sounds selfish, but this means that my boyfriend gets to come :3 Speak of the devil I get to fly down to Orlando and see him tomorrow....DEFINITELY BETTER THAN MCNUGGETS.

I'm so excited that the Center is letting me take on somewhat of a junior "producer" roll with this show. Me and the two other guys are trying to work together on organizing it, but I've consistently been the one liaison between us in the center, and I've been curating the show from the beginning, which is a job in itself!! @.@ I'm learning a lot about this whole exhibition business, and I love it. Definitely will not be my last time curating/organizing. I've already been brainstorming about feminist animation show with one of my friends/coworkers. I think its important as artists to give back to our community by providing safe and reputable places for young up and comers to show. If we don't get a break, then who will? In this day and age, its so important to our own livelihoods to make an effort to get out there. And its fun :3 I'm not making any money off of this, I'm doing it because my mother never had the chance and neither did my grandfather. I hope that he's watching me now. Maybe someday I'll put a show together for deceased artists that never got their chance? He was a sanitation worker for the greatest city on Earth, and one of the greatest cartoonists I ever met. Its such a shame that I didn't get to see his work until AFTER he passed.

Ah yes. The elusive blog post.

This past hurricane has knocked me on my behind.

Last weekend I participated in a group show at the Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg, PA called "Art After Dark". It was a blacklight responsive show. My piece "Agony of Ursa Major" Made it, but I didn't. Because I live in NYC and a hurricane happened. My neighborhood in Queens was spared, but of course mass transit was completely disrupted for an unfortunate amount of time.

I checked out the Gallery (Called the Living Room, and its right next door to the Theater. Megadeth is playing next Monday, that place is legit) and I saw my piece. My first gallery show as a professional and I couldn't even be there for the reception. Still it felt good to have myself on the wall like that.

I stopped by the Main Street Jukebox, another local treasure that I frequented my last year of highschool. My college admissions portfolio is a part of their rotating art gallery, and even after four years they still have them as part of the collection. They even remembered who I was when I went to visit!

And now the big one...Me and two other artists from Pratt were selected to be a part of the MoMA's Borimix festival, which is a celebration of Puerto Rican heritage during the month of November. We're calling this group exhibition "Proxima Generacion" (excuse the lack of proper accents) which means Next Generation in Spanish. Due to lots of crap that has happened from Hurricane Sandy, we are currently in talks to reschedule the event. You can learn more about the Clemente and find out how to get there here. We haven't been able to advertise like we would have liked, but we did create a facebook event. Its hard to get these things done and organized while your city shuts down for almost two weeks! But this is only my second real show, so next time I'm sure I'll be better organized, all of this seems like a job within itself T.T

This is really the first time ever that I've printed my digital work. I'm so excited to see these pieces that I've worked so hard on in a physical form!

I'm so grateful that I can finally embrace illustration as my hobby, and find places that like my work enough to share it with the world via exhibitions and shows. I don't think I'd be able to do this without my full time job and random little freelance things, I'm just as busy as I was when I was in college @.@