Super Hero

When I began blogging through my myspace page all the way back in 2005 my blog was essentially a personal journal that talked about living life between art school in Southern California and San Francisco. Once I graduated from Calarts and returned to the Bay Area it transformed into a soapbox to talk a lot of shit and chronicle all the changes that had taken place in the Mission District in my absence. Once I found my footing as a professional in San Francisco and began to launch my art career it turned into a forum to present my latest artworks. The shifts in my blogging haven’t been planned or consciously thought out and I sometimes question if I’m on the right track. I seldom write about anything too personal anymore and I wonder if it’s for the better or worse now that my life is now a little more public as an artist.

Tonight I’m going to drop all pretenses get into some chismosa subject matter.

This past weekend Mariela and I met up at Good Vibrations for a night that changed our lives. We were attending a party to celebrate the recent releases and collaborations from artists and sex-positive super heroes April Flores and Carlos Batts. I’ve been following April Flores work and writings for about a year now and her public persona is fascinating to me, she’s a sex-positive, politically active Latina that approaches her work as art. Latinas can have such a strong cultural stigma of shame when it comes to sexual pleasure and I think the work and activism of April Flores is revolutionary. In order to show my appreciation for April Flores’ work as an artist I created the portrait above to portray her as the prolific hero she is. I started and finished it during the hours of 3:00AM and 6:30AM after getting home late from a long day at work. Despite those short crazy hours, I’m really happy with the end results.

When April approached Mariela and I at Good Vibrations and chatted with us, I presented her with a framed print of it. To my dorking-out fanboy delight she loved it. She even showed it to the crowd that gathered for her Q&A session later on in the party. Hearing April and Carlos talk about working together and the story of how they met and fell in love was inspiring. Apparently they met over ten years ago while Carlos was shooting images for his book Wild Skin. The book’s editor selected April for the cover without knowing that she had just started dating Carlos. Hearing them relate their story, and seeing some parallels in my own relationship, I couldn’t resist plunking down the $75.00 it took to buy the book.

The rest of the night was filled with great music, hanging out with Carlos & April, and people coming up to me and talking about the print. It was a night of inspiration and accomplishment for me that I won’t ever forget.

Peace,

Rio