Artist Archives 1990's-2009

In going through my files and archives I realized not many of the announcements for art exhibitions and sales I participated in over the years survived. The first group exhibition was for Dia de los Muertos at Galeria Olvera in 1990. The last was Ofrendas 2009: Calavera Fashion Show and Walking Altars at Tropico de Nopal.

Griffith Observatory: Face Lift or Slap In the Face?

Don't know about the rest of you but the Griffith Observatory has been a trusted fortress over the years -- a place to retreat when feeling like taking a break from the gridlocked streets below; a place to take first time visitors to L.A. for a spectacular panoramic view of the city from the valley to downtown and out into the ocean; a place to make out like crazy teenagers with a date no matter your age; a place to obsessively stare out wondering where in the hell your mate is on that star glittered night; or a place to reenact the famous knife fight scene from 'Rebel Without A Cause' -- come on Angelenos...you have to know what I'm talking about. I can't tell you how many times I came upon a spontaneous impulse to make a sharp turn up Vermont from Hollywood or Sunset for a visit to the Griffith Observatory. Most of the time it was to clear my head of some dumb situation I was in or it was to get my son out of the house on and off the sofa on a Friday night. Part o...

Life As A WiFi Vagabond In L.A.

In mid-August of this year I decided to cut living expenses by canceling my land-line phone service along with the ridiculously expensive and seemingly unknown long distance carrier I had. It occurred to me that I was spending upwards of $100 a month for the sake of reporting spam to my email providers only to find the same messages in my box the following day. Seeing how I had access to the Internet at work I figured I could live without the nightly and weekend habitual mindless logons to email and Myspace. How was I to know that in a short couple weeks I would be dismissed of my position at Tu Ciudad thus finding myself without access to the Internet. Anyone in their right mind would be freaking out over the fact that they've just been "laid off" but that's where I'm different. When I was sitting in the office with my supervisor and the general manager going over the formalities of being let go all I could think of was how I had just been blindsided off the Inte...

Going Cold Turkey on Thanksgiving

Some traditions need to be broken. You may disagree with me but Thanksgiving is one of them. At least in the sense of how and why the day is celebrated. I mean, do we really believe the Wampanoag people had a three day celebration of feasting on harvested crops while dancing with the English colonists in 1621, or have we been following the US narrative without questioning it? My earliest recollection of decolonizing the elementary school teachings of the first Thanksgiving is from the time my 6th grade class broke into a paper mache food fight on stage during our pageant. Half the class was made up as Pilgrims and the other as Indians . That was during the politcally incorrect 1960's. It also coincided with the birth of the Chicano movement where us children were becoming aware of the untruths we were being fed. We were part of the Reading, Writing and Assimilation generation and many of us were breaking free from the hyphonated identity of Mexican-American. In doing so we beg...

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