Eric Calvillo interview, June 18, 2019: transcript

i AN INTERVIEW WITH ERIC CALVILLO An Oral History Conducted by Monserrath Hernández and Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2018 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcribers: Kristin Hicks, Maribel Estrada Calderón, Nathalie Martinez, Rodrigo Vazquez Editors and Project Assistants: Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez, Maribel Estrada Calderón, Monserrath Hernández, Elsa Lopez, Nathalie Martinez, Marcela Rodriquez-Campo, Rodrigo Vazquez iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Eric Calvillo was born into a Mexican American household in San Jose, California in 1980. As he recalls, it was there that his fixation with the colors and recurring themes of his family’s Mexican roots told hold of his imagination. Today, this is core to his growing art career. Art has not been his sole ambition. Before moving to Las Vegas in 2005, Calvillo attended a San Francisco culinary school. He relocated to Las Vegas to complete his culinary internship at the prestigious Picasso restaurant at the Bellagio. v Eventually, he began to pursue a professional art career as a painter of Día de los Muertos motifs and beautifully portray the Mexican tradition of celebrating the lives of the deceased. Through his use of acrylics and oil on canvas, Calvillo conveys the emotion of his culture and then, being a skilled carpenter, crafts his own frames. Calvillo is a favorite of the local art scene. He believes in making art accessible to all. To achieve this, he personally creates print copies of his original masterpieces and sells them at art fairs and online at affordable prices. These paintings capture the artist’s warmth and colorful emotional devotion to his Mexican influences. At the time of his interview, Calvillo’s culinary talents find him at home lovingly cooking for his family and friends. Florecer by Eric Calvillo vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Eric Calvillo June 18, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Monserrath Hernández and Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………..iv Eric describes his identity, being raised in San José, going to culinary school in San Francisco, working as a line cook at the Picasso restaurant inside the Bellagio, his mom being from Chihuahua and his father from El Paso. Talks about his father’s work for General Motors in the Bay Area, his brother’s passing from arrhythmia complications at a young age, and the life after his brother’s death. Shares memories of his brother, family vacations in Mexico, Christmas traditions, and his time working at Victoria’s Secret where he met his wife [Wendy]. Explains his extensive love for cooking and describes ingredients……………………………………….1-5 Talks about his culinary internship at the Bellagio, moving to Las Vegas and comparing Las Vegas life to the Bay Area. Recalls what the city was like when he first moved to Las Vegas and how he always loved art but giving up on art because of the “starving artist” stereotype. Shares how he finally decided attempt to become a professional artist, his artistic training, making his own frames, learning woodworking from his father. Describes his first professional painting “Float”, the meaning behind it, the inspiration, composition, and method used. Talks about his favorite Picasso painting and what becoming a professional artist entailed…………………..6-10 Shares his fascination for skeletons, Dia de los Muertos, discovering his family’s roots and colors, educating people about his culture and how it inspires his art, and attending Frist Friday in the Arts District. Talks about his first show, his success, making his art accessible for everyone, and travelling for art shows with his family. Elaborates on making art accessible, how he makes his prints at home to sell at art shows, the type of people that buy his art, and the commission work he does…………………………………………………………………….11-15 Talks about his artistic process and the time it takes him to finish a piece, brainstorming with his wife, dealing with artist’s block, his studio at home, the miscellaneous work of artists and being a stay-at-home dad. Eric describes his son’s interests and family life, the music he likes listening vii to, the material and paint he likes using, exploring his culture, the diversity of the Latino community, the poetry he writes (both in English and Spanish), and the romanticism attached to Spanish………………………………………………………………………………………..19-20 Expands more on his identity, his father serving in Vietnam, his father’s work in the orchards of San Jose and at General Motors, and the Latino population in San Jose during his time there. Recalls how Las Vegas has changed since he arrived, his love for the kitchen and cooking, the relationships he developed with his co-workers at the Bellagio, and how Latinos have a hard time expressing their love for one another. Talks about transitioning from kitchen work to the art world, his wife being Salvadoran, Salvadoran food, thoughts are the term Latinx, and the art scene in Las Vegas………………………………………………………………………….21-25 Eric talks about his hopes for his career, his favorite art pieces, his wife being his muse, exploring his artistic themes and alebrijes, and the effect the movie Coco had on how people perceive his art. Shares more on his high school experience and the challenge he faced after his brother’s death, working at Victoria’s Secret, thoughts on Latino men and women when it comes to gossip and his aspirations for his children. Shares his thoughts on the Latinx Voices Project, what makes Las Vegas home to him, and final thoughts on the interview…………………..26-33 viii 1 Hello. Today is June 18, 2019. We are in the Oral History Research Center. My name is Monserrath Hernandez and today I am with… Laurents Banuelos-Benitez. Barbara Tabach. And our narrator today is Eric Calvillo. Eric, can you spell out your name for us? E-R-I-C, C-A-L-V-I-L-L-O. Thank you for being here today with us. Thank you for having me. To start off, I always ask this question because I want to know before I go in, how do you identify? I’m Latino, male, Chicano, Mexican American, Pocho, however you want to call it. I’m very laidback. Where did you grow up? Where were you born? I was born in San Jose, California. I was born and raised there. I lived there about twenty-three years. I lived one year in San Francisco and then I moved out here in 2005. What brought you to Las Vegas? Work. I studied culinary school. When I lived in San Francisco, I went to culinary school. I did my internship out here. Las Vegas interested me. Then I got hired over at the Bellagio. I stayed on for many years. My girlfriend at the time, she moved down here and we got married and we’ve been here ever since, since 2005. What restaurant did you do your internship at? Picasso. 2 Did you stay there for your job? Yes, I stayed. They hired me on. What was your position there? Line cook. What kind of food is Picasso? Mediterranean, a lot of Spanish and French influence, fine dining. What was the clientele like? High end. It’s called Picasso and they have original Picassos up on the wall. It’s really, really nice, a very elegant restaurant. What was your childhood like? My childhood was good. I grew up in a nice, happy family. My mom is from Chihuahua. She worked at a bank, but she was a schoolteacher when she was younger before she moved out here. My dad is from El Paso, Texas, but his roots are in Guanajuato. My dad is a Vietnam veteran. He worked the assembly line over at General Motors in the Bay Area for almost fifty years, forty-something years, until they closed down and now they’re Tesla. I had a nice childhood, nice, loving family. I have great parents. Everybody is still very supportive of me in everything that I do. Things were good. I had two brothers. Everything was good until one of them passed away and things got a little rocky there. I started getting into trouble. I started doing drugs. It was hard on my parents. Now as a parent I know that it’s pretty much the worst thing imaginable to lose a son. I don’t know how they coped with it. I had to deal with it, too, but it was as a teenager and I just dealt with it in terrible ways, getting into drugs, getting into trouble. It was kind of hard, but, at the same time, we all pulled through and we’re still supportive of one another. My other brother is very supportive of me. I just came back from 3 the Bay Area. I did a trip down there. He’s always helping me out. He always comes out and helps me. Yes, things were good up until the teenage years. I was fourteen years old when he passed away. What did he pass away from? Pretty much natural. He had an arrhythmia. Looking back he was autistic, but not severely autistic. He was high-functioning. It’s what they used to call Asperger’s. Now they label everything as autism. It wasn’t very noticeable. They can pass off as kind of quirky or introverted. But that had nothing to do with his passing. He did have severe anxiety. With the heart rate escalating and with having an arrhythmia, I guess it all kind of…It put him into a coma and a few weeks later he passed away. Did your brother influence your art in any way? Not necessarily. He was more into computers and electronics and robotics, anything that was nerdy. He was very into robotics. He used to take apart radios and make radios out of all these little electronic components. He was just totally into that type of stuff. He was finally starting to come out of his shell in his later years. He got into dancing and that really opened him up. He’s like me; he had two left feet. But then out of nowhere my mom enrolls him into Arthur Murray, the dance studio, and so he learned ballroom dancing and he totally got into dancing and music and that was his thing. It was just such a tragedy when he passed away. It was hard on all of us. Any favorite family traditions or celebrations growing up that you remember? Not necessarily. We were just a typical family. We would do vacations or trips to Mexico. Where in Mexico would you go? Chihuahua mostly and later years we went to Cancun and all the nicer places. Yes, we would go down to Chihuahua mostly. We have a huge family out there. Those trips were always fun. 4 We would always celebrate Christmas. My dad would always make paella on Thanksgiving and things like that. My dad would always make plum pudding on Christmas, this really fancy dessert. He would turn off the lights and he ignites it and it comes in flames. It was fun. We used to do a lot of fun stuff. Every Christmas we would go down and cut down the Christmas tree at the Christmas tree farm. We had a lot of fun; that we did. What inspired you to go to culinary school? I was working retail management at the time. I was working at Victoria’s Secret. That’s where I met my wife. I was a manager there. I started off as a stock boy and then eventually just worked my way up. I just wanted a change. Cooking always interested me. I just got into it and I loved cooking. I would make a habit of cooking every day just to learn and let myself grow. It’s something that I still do to this day. I cook all the time. I’m technically still employed at the Bellagio. Every once in a while I’ll pop in, but it’s rare. They just have me on call, but I love cooking. It feels good to get in there and just…you know. What’s your favorite cuisine or favorite dish? Mexican food. Pipian is my favorite dish to make. How do you make that? It’s just like mole, but instead of peanuts you use pepitas. I do green, pipian verde. It’s just really good. I love roasting everything. I love grilling things. I love a little bit of char, a lot of color in the food. That is definitely my favorite dish. But I love doing grilled foods more than anything. I grill almost every day, every day. On the grill or on the stove? On the grill, yes. I cook on a grill almost every day. Going back to Victoria’s Secret, why did you apply there? 5 Before then I was working at the shoe department over at Sears, working retail. My manager from there, she went over to Victoria’s Secret. I quit my job at Sears to go work at the assembly line where my dad was working. Nine Eleven happened right during my hiring process and then they pretty much shut down production. Production slowed down and they weren’t able to bring me on. I was left without a job. My friend from Sears said, “Come down here just for stock or something.” I said, “Yes, that’s fine.” I just went over there and I liked it. I met my wife there. She was also one of the managers and I was just a stock boy. Yes, we had great chemistry. How old were you? I think I was twenty-one at the time. How did you go about applying for your internship? What was that process like? Pretty much just applied. I just called the restaurant and I spoke to one of the sous-chefs and he said, “Yes, we’ve got a spot open. Come on down and check it out.” He said, “Normally we do an interview.” But since I was all the way in San Francisco, he said, “Eh, that’s fine. Just come down.” He just asked me a few questions. I just did my internship there. I was a little miserable when I first moved down because I was just by myself and I missed my girlfriend. You had no family here. No, nothing. I just wanted to kind of get away and check things out. Once she moved down, a few months later, because she wanted to get away from everything, too, we just bought our house here and got married. What made you stay here? I don’t know. I just liked it here. Life was a lot easier. Everything is kind of hectic in the Bay Area. Everything is expensive. There is a lot of traffic. We wanted a change, too, just kind of get 6 away from everything. Not necessarily get away from everything, but a change of scenery, try something else out. Where did you settle when you got here? What part of town? In the northwest area near Cheyenne and 215 when we bought our home. When we first moved down here, we got an apartment over in Southern Highlands. What was that neighborhood like when you arrived? Empty. There was hardly people there. Then little by little it started growing. It is diverse pretty much everywhere. I think Las Vegas community is probably the most—I thought San Jose was diverse, where I grew up, but out here it is way more diverse than over there. Over there is a huge Latino population and a huge Vietnamese population and then you see a lot of Filipinos and Middle Eastern and everything, but over here you see everything. It is so eclectic. It’s different. I have a hard time imagining a more diverse community than Las Vegas. They say we look like what the U.S. might look in 2050, so we’re heading that direction. Yes, I believe that. How did you get into art? I’ve always loved art and doing drawing, painting. I stopped painting for a long time, but I was always artistic. It’s something that I always wanted to do, but I bought into the stereotype. Oh, you’re going to be a starving artist; you’re not going to be making money or anything. I just kind of gave up on that for a long time. It wasn’t really up until I had my kids that I said, “I have to at least try. I need to set the example. I really need to go for it.” And I started working towards that. Shortly after my son was born, I started saying, “Okay, I need to start leveling up and painting more professionally.” Do you have any painting training or did you self-teach? 7 I took a few courses in community college, nothing serious. I didn’t go to art school or anything. I didn’t even have any painting courses in community college. It was more the basics, understanding. I had a few tutoring sessions in Mexico when I was fourteen or fifteen, and I probably learned more there in that tutoring session because she showed me the basics of oil painting and that’s what I’ve gone back to now. That’s how I’ve gotten my work to be more professional. For the most part, you’ve got to get in there and learn on your own more than anything. You still pick up tips from people. It’s hard to say self-taught because you do learn a lot from your environment, but not from a professional environment. I’m not academically trained. You also make your own frames, right? Yes. My dad always had us in the garage. We were always into woodworking and just tinkering around with tools. He just left it all open, just like, just get in there. Thinking back, I could have lost a finger at any moment. It’s scary because now I see all these power tools that I have and I’m like, “Don’t touch it. You’re not ready for that yet.” Crazy. You’re going to lose a finger. I still get worried that I’m going to lose a finger. Yes, I learned a lot from him. He’s always working on projects. He’s always working on something. I learned how to work on cars, woodworking, everything, you name it. He’s a jack of all trades. My mom is also artistic, too. She dabbled in watercolors a little bit. She never did anything serious, but she still did some really nice work. What was the first professional painting that you made? This one called Float. It’s the skeleton of a rabbit and he’s holding three balloons and each balloon is a lightbulb. Down on the bottom you see an industrious city and it’s just kind of black, like a silhouette of the city, and there’s smoke rising up above. It looks kind of eerie down on the 8 bottom and there’s clouds up above it, pretty much from the industry. Above those clouds there is a clear blue sky and that’s where the rabbit is and he’s holding the lightbulb balloons. Up above those balloons there’s another set of clouds and the stars are above. That one is called Float. Oh, and he also has a briefcase with him. Essentially this rabbit, he is rising above industry. The lightbulbs represent his ideas. I’ll show you a picture of it. He’s going up towards the sky, reaching for the stars, and he’s being carried by his ideas. He has the briefcase because there is still something that he was able to take from industry, his work ethic. Let me go ahead and show you the piece. What inspired that? Pretty much what I wanted to do. I wanted to actually go for it to become an artist and I wanted to pursue it professionally. I knew that was the first piece that I had to do. Here we go, this one. But I made a nicer frame for it. It’s a little blurry. The reception is spotty. BARBARA: Is that available to see in a public place? Yes. That’s fantastic. Thank you. I really love that. Oh, thank you. It’s an autobiographical painting. Yes. It’s in oil? No. That one is acrylic. That was when I was first starting. But you prefer oil? 9 Yes, I prefer oil now. Why? Well, it is just more workable, a little more translucent. You can get more realistic with it and less illustrative. By illustrative, I mean a little less cartoonish. You can get a little more real with it. The colors, they tend to not fight against one another so much with oil in the method that I use. The colors are a little more subtle, so it looks less tacky. If you use the colors all too bright, it looks like tie-dye or something. You can do something a lot more colorful and have it look more aesthetic, more appealing if you bring the tones down a little so it’s not as saturated. I’m curious. Working around so many Picasso paintings at that restaurant, did that influence you in any way? A little. Not necessarily because I worked in the back in the kitchen. One of the first paintings that I fell in love with was in my third-grade social study book; it was a painting by Picasso called The Three Musicians. I remember I would always go to that picture in my social studies book and I would try and draw it in crayons. I loved it because it was different and it is just such a beautiful piece. Thinking back that influenced me more than seeing the paintings over there. They’re nice and everything, but that was something that stuck with me all this time since third grade. That’s great. Becoming a professional artist, what did that entail? What sacrifices did you have to make? In the beginning more than anything it was just setting time aside to paint. I gathered my thoughts. Sacrifices…I was still working full-time at Picasso. It was more than anything not giving up. I had the luxury of planning it out for a few years before I actually took the plunge. 10 There were financial sacrifices just because for a while I was the only one working. My wife stopped working for a few years just to take care of the kids because it’s hard in the beginning. It’s expensive, too. Yes, it’s very expensive. Lots of financial sacrifices. We pretty much never ate out. We would just cook at home and save money. We had no big expenses. We didn’t take any fancy vacations or none of that. Luckily we did all that before we had the kids. More than anything just take it easy and not take and not make any big expenses, not buying any new cars or anything. Being financially responsible helped a lot. After a few years of painting, I built up enough work to start trying to do it professionally. I actually quit my job. When I approached them with giving my notice, they said, “No, don’t quit. At least let us keep you on in case anything happens.” I don’t know if they just didn’t think I would make it. I really believed in myself and I was sticking to my guns, but they said, “We’ll keep you on call.” So I popped in every once in a while. The first event that I did was the Dia de los Muertos show at the Springs Preserve and I did really well in that. It took a while because at the beginning of the show nobody buys anything. Not until they’re on their way out until they start buying stuff. The first few hours I’m like, oh my God, what was I thinking? I’m not going to make it. It was terrifying. Then people started buying and I was like, okay, this is going to work out. LAURENTS: When was this first show? That was November of 2017. I think we might have been there because I remember buying one of your prints, the one with the wings. Oh okay, Florecer, yes. 11 Yes. We might have been to your first one. That was my first one. How did you get involved with Dia de los Muertos? I’ve always been fascinated by skeletons. The memory that sticks with me—we lived in Kansas City for about a year when the General Motors plant closed down in the Bay Area. We lived over there for a year and we actually had cable TV over there, so that was exciting. It’s like, oh, we have the Disney Channel. There was this old Disney cartoon called the Skeleton Dance and it’s this old black and white one. It’s really simple and really short. It was just these skeletons kind of dancing around. I fell in love with that and I was always fascinated by skeletons. Once I started learning more about my culture and started learning about Dia de los Muertos, I was like, this is perfect; I feel this; these are my colors; this is everything. My family’s roots are more from the north. They don’t celebrate it as much as in the south, like in Puebla and Oaxaca where they celebrate it more. I started getting more and more familiar with it and I just fell in love with that style right away, the colors, the culture of it, how it’s death, but it’s not. It’s not morbid. It’s not something to be afraid of. I would try to not get too defensive when people would say, “Oh that’s morbid. That’s so deadly.” Some people even said it was demonic. I was like, “No, it’s not. You don’t get it.” Once Coco came out people are like, “Oh, I finally get it. I understand it.” It finally kind of clicked. It made it a lot easier for me instead of trying to explain every last thing about how it’s not— How would you educate people about your paintings at first? I would just tell them that it’s about Dia de los Muertos. It’s a part of our culture. It’s not something that’s morbid. It’s not something to be afraid of. I always have to remind them that deep inside of each one of us, we all have a skeleton. That’s just part of our structure and part of 12 our form. It’s probably the most permanent form of us. When the worms eat everything off of our bones that’s all that’s left and it could remain here forever. The skeleton can be a symbol of the soul more than anything else because it’s something that can last forever. You started off doing tent events, right, like at First Friday? Yes. Can you walk me through the process of being involved with First Friday? Yes. The first time I attended First Friday was when I first moved down here. That’s when I had Fridays off. I loved it. I said, “This is awesome. I’d like to be doing that some time.” I just kind of gave up on it just because I got so comfortable at the restaurant. It was easy. I think I got lazy for a while. I got used to an easy life. After I had the kids I went back to that and I said, “Okay, there is a cool scene out here. It’s a really nice art scene. I need to investigate it.” It was one July before I quit the restaurant, I had enough paintings and I did a gallery show. I pretty much showed my paintings, but I didn’t sell anything because I didn’t have prints available. Everyone was asking for prints. “How come you don’t have prints?” Then I said, “That’s what I need to do is have prints.” Once I did the prints, I said, “Okay, the outside I don’t have to give a percentage; if I’m in a booth, I don’t have to give a percentage to the gallery. It’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier. I’ll start there and see how it works.” The Dia de los Muertos was my first show. Then after that I did a First Friday and it was successful. I love it. I love setting up a booth outdoors. It’s nicer. I do like having a spot in a gallery, but being outside feels like it’s more for the people. People get excited. It’s like, oh, I can afford this. This is a ten- or twenty-dollar piece and they don’t feel intimidated. They go into the gallery and see pieces going for thousands of dollars. I still have the elegant pieces, but I 13 have something for everybody. I like being outside because it feels like it brings out the more everyday crowd and not just the big spenders. I know you’ve had some gallery shows. How did you move into the gallery? The gallery just pretty much shows my work. They were very accepting of my work. They liked my work right away, so it wasn’t difficult at all. I like it. I still like it. I have a gallery show coming up in July just because it’s going to be too hot to do the booth outside. I do prefer the booth, but I’m not going to deal with that weather and I have to go to Colorado a few weeks later. I’m just going to be doing a show. It just feels good to get in there, especially more when I have a new piece; I like showing it inside the gallery sometimes. Now you’re traveling across the Southwest, right? Yes. What’s that like? It’s fun. I love getting familiar, getting to see new places. It’s cool. I get to work and everything, but at night I tear everything down and then just go look around a little, just see what’s in town. As my kids get bigger they’re going to be able to come out and do things with me in other cities. We just came back from California and I took the kids with me because all my family is still down there, so they can help out with that. During the week we just went all over the place and saw things around the Bay Area that I had never seen before. It was like a working vacation. I mean it’s perfect. It’s good that my kids get to have fun and see that I’m doing something. Sometimes they come out to the art festivals. I just like that they get to see different things. They love exploring and I love showing them that there’s different things out there and they embrace it. It makes me happy to see them not be afraid to get out there and look at things, not be so tied down to one location. 14 Do you plan your tent visits? Absolutely. I’m still new to this. I’m probably just over a year and a half in, so I’m still learning different markets and planning different shows, trying some out, see which are good, which are not. This is going to be my first time doing Colorado. I’m going to do three consecutive shows. My wife has family out there, so it makes it easier. We get to see family and everything. We make a big trip out of it. My kids are coming with me again. My wife is going to fly down for a few days and spend some time with us because she has to work, too. Where is she working? She works retail management over at the Forum Shops. What store? Breitling, the fancy watches. RODRIGO: I wonder if you can talk a little bit more about making art accessible. You talked about working in a restaurant where there was Picassos there, but it was high-end and you had to have a certain level of income to eat there, right? Yes. Versus now you’re artist and you said, “I want to have something for everyone.” Why is it important to you to make your art accessible to people? Because I know what it’s like to be tight on money and to see something that you like and not be able to have it. It’s not that I think people should be entitled to everything they want, but it’s not difficult for me to make something to share, the art, with somebody. If I can inspire them or they can get something from my painting, something personal from it, it makes me feel good that I was able to share something with them. If they’re influenced by it or if they feel at peace; that’s 15 more important than the money. That’s what I want more than anything is to feel a connection between people. I think that’s important. Where do you make your prints? At home. I’ve got this big fancy printer. I planned everything, so I made a big investment initially and it’s paid off tenfold. It was so worth it to do things on my own. That and I’m a bit of a control freak, too. I like to adjust the colors and everything. I am in complete control in printing running everything from home. Can you tell us a little bit more about your clientele? When someone buys your paintings or your prints, what do they ask you, or do they talk to you? Do they tell you why they’re buying your paintings or anything like that? It ranges. It’s different because all the pieces are different. I get a lot of Latino clients, a lot of Caucasian, for the most part, and I get a little bit of everybody else here and there and in between, but for the most part Latinos and Caucasians. I sold some original pieces and it felt good that Latinos spent the big money on original pieces. Probably the Latino community is the ones that buy more. I’m grateful for that. I’m glad that they appreciate art in that way. What about your commissions? I know you do commissions, too. Yes, the commissions, too. A lot of Latinos do it. Sometimes I do portrait work. There are a lot of things I don’t show at the galleries, but I love doing portrait work or pictures of families. I always feel good when I can do something personal for them. They can have a family heirloom, something they could pass down. Some of the best responses is when I do a portrait of a relative that’s passed away. Right away they get choked up when I give them the piece and they get emotional. It makes me feel so good that I made the right choice in doing this because they feel the piece; they love it. 16 How long does it take you to paint one of your pieces? Anywhere from twenty to eighty hours; it depends on the piece, including making the fram