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Thursday, May 31, 2007

Street Art Exhibit

there's going to be another art murmur coming plus the art walk in SF. i'm thinking of displaying some pieces on the streets of SF and oakland.

my fears:
1.) somebody might get offended and kill me.
2.) if somebody tries to hurt me, i don't know how to defend myself.
3.) the pulis might arrest me.
4.) i'm old and i might not be able to handle the cold weather.
5.) i will smoke a lot.

so will i let my fears get a hold of me or should i just do it? my instinct says i should just do it.

it's a kind of protest against those galleries who require artists to cut their ears. here are some pieces i'd like to show...


'Tiger Ipis' 2006 Mixed media on 3 pieces of cartons.


'White Dick, Brown Chick' 2006 Acrylic on carton


'Hangal' 2007 Acrylic on back of poster board

Sunday, May 27, 2007

'MURPHY' in Datebook

hello guys,

remember the guy i was talking to you about at the oakland art murmur? he's the artist who cannot get his artworks in galleries because he does it in cartons.

i was surprised and got excited when i saw his artwork in the cover of datebook. i rushed and read the article but i didn't see his name anywhere. i recognized his art immediately because i also took photos and published it on this blog.

http://melveracruz.blogspot.com/2007/05/traidor-at-art-murmur.html





i think it's unfair that they didn't mention his name but i guess they could not find him at the scene because when i took pictures of his work, i couldn't find him either. good thing he gave his card to me. that's why i knew his name was murphy.

i also told him if we could show outside the galleries together sometime. i forgot his answer but i'll call him again.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Recent Drawings

i've been doing some comissioned drawings lately. i have a lot of styles in drawing. i don't believe in focusing in only one direction. most people tell me to just focus in one style but i find that boring. if they ask me why i have too many styles. i just tell them because i can.

i really enjoy drawing and these artworks are like my exercise. here they are...









Saturday, May 05, 2007

TRAIDOR! At the art murmur



I was at the art murmur in oakland last night. I have been hearing about this buzz recently and I’m glad to be part of it. Our show traidor is hanging at esteban sabar gallery. I also heard a lot of negative things about this gallery. This gallery they say is too commercial and hangs ‘inferior’ artworks. I walked around art murmur and found out that much of the art hanging at the galleries are pretty much the same so I don’t understand why somebody would degrade esteban sabar.

What I noticed is that a lot of the people who look at the art seem to really ‘dig’ the artworks. I have been an artist for almost forty years but I still cannot understand most of the paintings. If somebody would write heavy stuff about a door I saw leading to a bathroom in one of the galleries, that door could be a masterpice.





I have done my pieces on cardboard boxes mainly because I could not afford a canvas and it really worked for me because I am a third world artist. Those rugged boxes have the appearance of inferiority. I don’t delve too much on drawing anymore. I have proven to myself that I can draw so I turn to subject matter. For me, I can use low quality materials as long as I get my message across. Those expensive art materials conspire with ‘art’ and I don’t have to follow it.

I think the advantage of being a third world artist is that we have an overflowing sense of reality. I can see a lot of pretensions. I’m not saying this is bad. I’m just curious why I didn’t see any artwork that represent oakland. There are drive-by shootings nearby and here we are looking at art that we don’t understand.

I heard people who represent art murmur mostly came from san francisco. Most of them are artists who got evicted from sf because of gentrification and now they are gentrifying oakland because of art. Art is elitist so it attracts people who have the luxury of having time for art. I know as a third world person that most poor people don’t have the luxury of having art in their lives because their priority is to have food on their tables.





One nice thing happened to me last night though. No I didn’t sell a painting. One guy came up to me and blessed me and my paintings because they were done in cardboard boxes. He’s doing the same and his artworks cannot get in galleries because they’re done on cardboards so he spread his artworks outside the gallery. He said esteban sabar must be a cool gallery for accepting my paintings. But it’s not just the cardboards. There’s a lot more to it.

Lian ladia curated our show. Traidor! Also features works by england hidalgo, marcius noceda and carlo ricafort. it will run up to the end of this month so check it out if you have the ‘time’ :-)