Exhibition Catalogs
In the summer of 1999, I participated in the Mayor's Summer Art Institute. I was an employee of the City of Albuquerque and joined a group of other art students to work on public art projects that were going up across the city. I was part of the group tasked with designing and creating a bus stop bench. We made and fired handmade ceramic tiles and created a mosaic to cover the bench. It was in the middle of this project when the Mural group had a problem, OSHA regulations did not allow anyone under the age of 16 on to the scaffolding that was used to paint a facade that had been mounted on a frame outside of the Downtown Public Library. There was a request to have someone old enough, with some mural experience to work on the mural. I answered the call, having done some pieces at my former High School. It was at the mural that I met my soon-to-be mentor A.G. Joe Stephenson. We connected over Ska music, which Joe remembered hearing in Jamaica as a small child. Joe taught me about mural techniques as well as about the history of mural making, including the Mexican Muralists. Between the two of us, we thought of ways to fill some smaller blank spots in the mural, including an area that had an Aztec figure holding a codex. We schemed on some designs and came up with a brief history of Aztec contact with the Spanish. The main image painted was of a conquistador stabbing a Native in the chest with a crucifix, while this image was small it caused an uproar, which led to the mayor's assistant personally going up and painting over the "offending" image. It was intimidating having enter the artistic territory of individuals like Diego Rivera and Bob Haozous, who had both individually been censored in public art works. I later asked where the mural ended up, but the library said they had no idea and that it wasn't stored in their location.