one part color

I became an artist because I love color and culture. Lydia Mendoza was my first Mexican girlfriend; we worked together in the garment industry, a job that I despised but was forced to find work and eight years afterwards, I developed a business mind learning great lessons from master marketeers. Downtown Los Angeles was a sprawling large setting; concrete and homeless, vacant store fronts peppered with markets, discount outlets and eateries. Later on, I lived in the loft district, called Little Tokyo, and immersed myself in this community. I loved that part of the city because it exuded a romantic industry; it was there that I grew up, spirtually and mentally as a fine artist surrounding myself with serious thinkers, poets, composers, designers, performance artists and the like.

There was chili, salsa, hot sauce and burritos. I met Lydia's family and I remember her father was warm and sun browned. It was a different neighborhood called East Los Angeles. This was a new place to add to my existence and after twenty years of living there, this Mexicana/Hispanic culture crept into my soul. I felt their taken land, the dry desert, looming catus and vast reservoir of space. Today, I miss it - the heat, their passion and deep humanity coupled with humility.