Graphic Art, Tortillas, Comics, and Troublemaking
rioyanez.com
I’ve busted my brain, body, and creative skill to create the brand new mural/billboard at Galeria de la Raza in San Francisco. I have plenty of profound things to say about but at the moment I’m just so excited that it is up. Ghetto Frida’s Mission Memories can be seen at Galeria de la Raza. 2857 24th St (at Bryant) San Francisco, CA 94110-4234.
For a gallery of images of the mural, click here.
Rio
Reporting on the scene from Burger King. ¡Que ghetto!
Peace,
Rio
Dang! I’m feelin’ good today! A new comic book store just opened in the Mission District. It’s been almost two years since the Mission District has had a comic book shop. Both the legendary San Francisco Comic Book Co. and the mediocre Scott’s Comics have perished in the face of gentrification in the last four years.
I was blown away today to see that the hipster economy of the Mission District has returned comics to my hood. Caffeinated Comics is a a hybrid comic shop and cafe located right on Mission Street at the intersection of Valencia (where the old Taco Bell used to be). They’ve only been open for a month; even still, I can’t believe I let something like this slide under my nose. I didn’t try the coffee but they had a small but decent selection of mainstream comics and graphic novels. Since it’s only two blocks from where I live, best believe I’ll be hitting it up again soon.
Check ’em out at http://www.caffcom.com/
I also got to hang out with my homegirl Cary Cordova today and we got a chance to engage in some serious discussions of identity politics.
Peace,
Rio
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
This post is a test of flickr’s new HD video and how well it fits into wordpress. In this video, recently shot with my new flip mino HD, Audra and Rocky wax on Culture Clash’s show at Brava and Herbert’s party. Then Herbert and Richard call us out on the street! It was on and crackin’!
Peace,
Rio
Recently my homegirl and esteemed peer Cindylu came into town. Cindylu has been a subject of a good number of portraits I’ve created in the last couple of years. I credit the autobiographical narrations on her blog and flickr page for inspiring me to becoming active with my work online. I’ve always wanted to do something collaborative with Cindylu and her afternoon in the city was the perfect opportunity.
Our original concept was to photograph Cindylu with a deck of Loteria Cards amidst the backdrop of the Mission District. We spent a lot of our time dodging the rain. After ducking into the Revolution Cafe to hide from the weather we quaffed some ale and brainstormed on what to do next. We came up with an idea to do a Loteria scavenger hunt in the Mission. We hit the streets and shops looking for analogs to what each card represented.
The results can be seen in our Loteria Scavenger Hunt series: Part 1 and Part 2
Our other series Loterialu features Cindylu and symbolic combinations of Loteria cards: Check it out here
Peace,
Rio
About a month ago, on a routine trip to Flax in San Francisco with Rene, I bought myself a sketchbook. The last time I had bought a sketchbook was when I needed a dedication book for my Eddie Guerrero Day of the Dead altar in 2006. I realized that the art that I had drawn for my comics is terribly disorganized and not well kept and I thought having a solid central book to contain my new work would be exciting.
Things didn’t exactly work out as planned. I’m starting to realize the limitations of the bootsy-ass printer/scanner that came with my computer. It prints great but the scanner bed is too small for my sketchbook. I was still able to scan two of my drawings and color them in Photoshop as a late night escape.
I drew this portrait of Mariela very loosely and inked it using a set of pens I’ve been meaning to use. The result is something I’m very happy with, it’s simple and reminds me a little bit of Nancy Hom’s work.
This second piece is much more in the style of my comic strips. I’ve been thinking a lot about Jughead and my strong identification with him lately. I think the whole crown motif is really appealing to me. The background is my Photoshop freehand take on the infamous Chinese Food and Donuts on the corner of 24th and Mission. I love their food, especially the Egg Foo Young, but you need an iron stomach to digest most of the menu options.
Peace,
Rio
Graphic Art, Tortillas, Comics, and Troublemaking 