A Burnt Orange 🧡🤎

Record Store Day is coming up this Saturday. And on the one last year, I bought a few albums.  This was one of them. which had this poster inside Which instantly inspired to re-create this poster in two ways.  I got 7”x10” wood panels either from Michael's or Dollar Tree and oil pen markers. After several practices, I decided on these two- one without "hair words", called  Nena Fania  meaning Fania Girl, Fania being the name of  the record company   The second one I chose certain words, lyrics, and phrases that I felt matched with an El Barrio, Nuyorican sensibility. Instead of replicating the poster's original text, which advertises a one-night event in the Bronx, I infused it with lyrics from Willie Colon’s 1989 song El Gran Varón , part of Miguel Piñero’s 1985 poem, A Lower East Side Poem , and Reverend Pedro Pietri’s awe-inspiring 1995 piece, El Manifesto- notes on El Puerto Rican Embassy . I donated it to El Museo with a note explaining why I wanted ...

I love mixed media collages. I enjoy both viewing and making them-- the raw creativity, the instinctive decisions being made, and the seemingly endless possibilities of materials that can be combined. The chaotic aesthetic is so captivating, yet there's always an underlying sense of order and composition. What I truly appreciate is the wide range of interpretations a collage can evoke. Above all, it's just plain fun  piecing it all together. This is my first collaborative collage. Last week, I worked with the talented digital artist  fearofrevolt  from Ireland (I’m based in New York), exchanging ideas and images via email. Without even realizing it, I found myself sticking to an orange theme, selecting two images dominated by that color.  I had wanted to add a splash of paint of a different tone in the upper right corner, maybe something cooler and blueer. Or pinkish. But I was without a color printer that particular day and wanting to maintain our swi...

Playing around with a photo of my new Jimi Hendrix album Orange has been my favorite color since 1997. And it's really all because of Joe. He dipped one of his black and white photographs in orange dye one day and when I saw it, I was compelled to switch my fave from red to orange.  Burnt orange is an intriguing image to me that evokes fierce emotion, passion, and something that both creates and destroys. Joe has been the closest I've ever felt to having a soulmate but ultimately it didn't work out or end up that way. That part is "burnt". But burnt can still be beautiful. So I guess the name itself is my way of honoring that. But "A Burnt Orange" isn't necessarily going to delve into my personal life or relationship details even though much of my art stems from the personal. This is intended to be more of a platform so that I can document my art and the stories behind them. I'd also like to express my thoughts and feelings of other artworks from...