Author: refic
artsy
My Brother and the Dragon
The Things I Lost
Sunset To Darkness
All of My Anxious Friends
Sunrise to Darkness
Dark Spaces
Suicide Awareness
Dark Entities and the Heart
“Dark Entities and the Heart” Explores the ways in which the ways we are thinking about relationships with people of even things actually represents our actual relationship with them.
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The Shadow is a new show that I have been developing where I aim to teach the ways in which art and creative processes can help to deal with mental health issues. If you like the show please let me know. And if you really like the show feel free to donate to the cause for me to make more episodes, teach more classes, and create more art.
Support The Shadows
The Shadows is an art therpay program aimed at helping the world to learn to express and let go of the dark parts of ourselves through art and creative processes. Donations help to further the video project, work with inmates and youth, and create art of my own to share the message.
$5.00
Find Your Words
Suicide is a topic that has for many years been near to me. Through my life, I have known several people who have killed themselves. My community and the nation at large is facing an astounding rate of suicide. The topic even hit home when my stepbrother killed himself. Experiencing passive suicidal thoughts for many years of my life lead me to have many deep feelings on the topic. These suicidal thoughts have receded as I age and learn to cope with life better. The thought of suicide is a concept we get exposed to and then either carry with us or let go. For me, I carried these thoughts for years and from time to time the idea still comes to my mind. Now the thoughts are of sympathy and of ways to alleviate these thoughts and feeling from our community
“Find Your Words “ is a public art campaign created by Kaiser Permanente with the goal of raising awareness about mental health and suicide. The city of Pueblo was chosen to host an installment of this campaign. The painting is sectioned into three parts all repeating the phrase “WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER”. The artists involved in the project were The Creatures Crew and Mike Fudge and then we worked as a group with The Boys and Girls Club, The Daisy Girls and other local children to create the third section of the wall. It was great to work with Kaiser Permanent on a project related to suicide and mental health awareness. Pueblo suffers a high suicide rate. It was a great honor to use my voice and my art skills to help remove the stigmas surrounding the talking about mental health and suicide. Continue reading Find Your Words
Worthless
Failure
Nervous Wreck
Sad Sad City
Sad Sad City, The state mental case, Pueblo: A love story, tragically.
A city with depressive tendencies.
Symptoms include: recklessness, passively actively suicidal, manic, anxious, drug addictions likely.
A DANGER TO US ALL!!!!!!! Continue reading Sad Sad City
Dusk to Dawn
It took nearly two years for the project to come to fruition, but it finally happened; I painted a mural with a group of inmates from Florence Prison Camp outside of the prison walls in the town of Canon City. As a group project, we painted a 45-foot long mural inside of the Prison Museum. Working on this project was the incredibly fulfilling and also an educational experience like none I have had. Spending a total of six days with the guys, we accomplished an impressive mural to the benefit of the public. Continue reading Dusk to Dawn
HI-LO
Guns, drugs, anti-authoritarian dragons give chase, destruction, death, and peace. Spray paintings, clouds of smoke, the rumble of the bass, the broken window trespassing, dark figures in the alley. These are elements of events that occurred this week, in an alley and on a wall, with my main man Vogey.
The Villagers: Layer1 Artist Talk
SwitchKnives Reversed
Pull the blade, reveal the shank, grasp the shiv, unsheathe the knife, prepare for penetration; behind, behind, further behind, all the way back, the furthest way around. Sting, burn, drip, drip, drip goes the blood. The tip enters, thoughts occur, feelings follow. The pain, the deepest feelings. The out of sight slicing, cutting, slashing, sticking, shanking, the stabbing in the back. Continue reading SwitchKnives Reversed
Home Less
The Construction of a cardboard village had my mind running, my imagination turning. First, the excitement of making new things and then the sadness of the state of our community would come to mind. From seeing all the trash that we discard daily, to confronting issues of use and re-use, and each of our “places” in society. Building cardboard houses most notably lead me to think about homelessness.
The Villagers: Layer1
Cardboard dwelling of the darkest figures in a part of town that you might not want to wander through by happenstance. The dark alley’s, the graffiti, the buff squad, the war on free speech vs. the war on the property. The characters, the villains, the heroes, the village has stories written on the walls and stories written in the hearts.
The “Villagers: Layer” is a collaborative art project designed by Matte Refic, with Olms and Vogey taking the lead on giving the piece the style street credibility needed to make a piece of art like this have relevance.
The “Villagers: Layer1” is a found art project constructed almost entirely out of recycled materials. All of the structures are made from cardboard and leftover paint. The only materials purchased were tape and razor blades.
Being made out of cardboard, the idea of homelessness was brought to mind many times. Our community faces much homelessness. From those who wander to those who have no place to go. Ages, races, and genders of all types face this issue, we as a community face this matter. If it were up to me, all the abandoned buildings could house those with no other place to go. I would make villages free of charge so all those who need a shelter can have one.
Cardboard has so many possibilities of use with its versatility and ease of manipulation. With minimal effort, we constructed an entire miniature village out of the material in two weeks. All of the cardboard is recycled, most of it was found in the area surrounding the gallery.
The villagers themselves are the characters in the story. They are made out of cardboard and loosely represent a few of the characters that live in our community. Nothing inspires me more than the streets of Pueblo, and from that point of view, I see an authentic side of the city that often goes unnoticed. These are those characters and watch how these stories unfold and shape up.
The Village tells a story of rebellion and suppression, of resistance and an unspoken war on free speech, vandalism, property, and neglect. We see throughout our village, graffiti and the dulled paint squares that cover these marking. Then more graffiti, and until this day, so the story goes. And when the final government cleaning crew has been sent the final tags will be thrown up. We don’t often pay attention to this scene, but if you look close, you can see an entire story taking place.
The villagers: Layer1 will be on display until Wednesday, October 11th at songbird cellars 129 e.Abriendo Pueblo Colorado. The piece will re-emerge as part of another installation in the near future.
Check out the new “Vagosprayer” Teeshirt and support the art and the movement.
https://teespring.com/vagosprayer
The Crystal thief
Stealing the magic of our days this little thief appears out of thin air. Taking our days and our nights and making our time worth less than the breaths we forget each day. Depression, anxiety, stress, all these names, perhaps one monster, perhaps many. All the forms of darkness take one form and take the forms of many. Continue reading The Crystal thief
The Birds
Up in the sky, through days and across the night, these winged creatures dominate the skies. All shapes and sizes, interacting with the wind in such a fashion as to experience a freedom that few humans can or could ever understand. Continue reading The Birds
The Villagers
Look… Look Closer…
The Villagers are there along with rising and setting of the sun and the moon in a cycle of light and dark.
When the worlds get reversed and the daydream walkers sleep and the night walkers begin to rise. The underworld becomes the outer-world as the dream world washes over. DMT trips silence the sight, and the Devils run free.
This city has characters that live in the shadows Continue reading The Villagers
Dreamy
While you were sleeping the nightmares showed up.
When our eyes were closed the monsters moved in.
Our village is consumed with terror.
We are the villagers, and we must wake up.
We must arise.
It’s in the places that we don’t look, at the times when we can’t see that the darkness has set in. We pretend it’s fake like it’s invisible like it’s not real. We wait for a source of light to manifest and remove these evils, but it never comes. Not in years of waiting Continue reading Dreamy
Drippy Pueblo Fundraiser
Pueblo Colorado is our Village. “The Village Walls” is a public art project in which numerous murals will be painted throughout the city. The goal of the project is to address many of our cities problems through art and to create more interesting public spaces. Proceeds from sales of these shirts will go towards making murals throughout the city of Pueblo. Murals range in price from $100 to several thousand depending on the size and complexity. With your help we can work together to make Pueblo a more beautiful place for ourselves and future generations. Keep up to date with the project at www.matterefic.com “Drippy Pueblo” is available in 3 styles, women’s, men’s, and a hoodie for the cooler winter and fall which is quickly approaching.
The Village Walls
If these walls could talk, they might tell a different story. If we had laid our eyes on what these walls had, we might a hold a different vision. If you had given ear to what they had heard, you might feel a different feeling. Echoing sounds upon their sheer faces, reverberating stories of pasts, presents, and futures. Cracks upon their faces reveal lifetimes of growth and learning. Smile lines and wrinkles reflecting time itself upon the flat vertical surfaces. The entire range of emotions shown through the sun-beaten patches of paint and plaster. The love these walls have felt, the violence they have experienced. T he moments of human expression they have been a part of and worn so proudly. Beacons of our community, standing proud, holding firm. Generations have passed, times have changed, and here have stood these walls. Grasping our community, holding us together. Creating labyrinths which dictate the directions we travel and the places we see. They so often are exactly, the things we see.
What are walls? Walls are the spans between pillars that support our roofs. They are made to support our art. Walls shield us from the wind. Walls have the ability to keep the unwanted out and hold within the things that we hold most dear. Walls contain within their confines worlds mostly unknown to those on the outside. Inside these walls are where ideas are born, where family’s are grown, where secrets are kept, and babies are made. They hold our secrets and allow us the comfort and privacy to be ourselves truly. Walls help shape our neighborhoods, our communities, our nations, and our world. Walls have the ability to separate and divide us, and at the same time they hold and group us together.
These walls, our walls, the village walls, constructed of brick, wood, concrete, plaster and a multitude of other materials. The walls are as diverse as the communities they stand within. Look just beyond the surface, and you can begin to piece together a story of these walls and their involvement in the world. Spills, crashes, gunshot wounds, chalk lines, graffiti, graffiti removal, the good times, the bad times, through rough weather and calm. Each mark, another experience, another story that otherwise would go untold if not held and carried on by these walls. So many stories unheard so many memories are unseen. Stop, look a little closer, and you can begin to understand the stories put on display. Like detectives at work, we start to look closely and observe, a story starts to unfold. A more clear picture of what our community consists of begins to show itself. Visual and structural parts of a community that change simultaneously with the community itself. Tough enough to take bags of nails to the face and keep standing, sturdy enough to be the thing that no matter what, alway and forever has your back.
Stop. Look. Listen, the walls do talk, they show the whole story, in a language all their own. A language all of us see and understand, but not all of us choose to give our attention. Layer upon layer of paint, plaster, pollution, and caring. The natural decay reveals the days of the years that have passed. You have to look close, at the scratches, the scrapes, the drips of paint that reside below, the south facing, sun faded story of how life once must have been. Look right there and listen close for the stories. The story starts with a purpose, of love and beauty, the attitude of growth with the aim of comfort and function. The walls share and experience the same growth and failures as the individuals in the community.
Standing as representatives of the community, peering at all newcomers face to face. They are often the most visible part of a neighborhood. It is with this in mind that we can aim to uplift a community through communicating through the walls. Through allowing the walls to carry our expressions, and our messages. Through thoughtful decoration and intentional manipulation, the village walls can be a tool in shaping our communities and expressing our deepest thoughts. We can begin to create a community with an uplifting presence simply by paying mind and giving attention to the walls of our community. Thoughtfully, publicly, by the way, and by what, our walls display.
New paint, new colors, applied to a few walls is often all it takes to change the appearance of an entire neighborhood. Murals are an even more powerful way of modifying walls to create more aesthetically pleasing and appealing environments. An entire city full of blank canvas. Art is language, a universal language which can be used to create a dialogue between members of the community and the city itself. mLet us create clear communication and begin the conversation. Let’s us look past the many socio-economic barriers which often divide us as a community and furthermore as a species. Embrace the art, the surface, the walls. Let these walls bring us together and divide us no more. Pueblo is our village, and these are our walls.
Support The Shadows
The Shadows is an art therpay program aimed at helping the world to learn to express and let go of the dark parts of ourselves through art and creative processes. Donations help to further the video project, work with inmates and youth, and create art of my own to share the message.
$5.00
THE STREETS KEEP CALLING
The silence between the buzzing sound of rubber on the road. The smell of asphalt stitched together with tar, exhaust, pollution, blood, sweat, and tears. The cracks widening, flowers pushing through the stone reaching for the sun, the black on black. The rough rock, sticky gross, bubbling hot slabs through the city and the townships. The streets are calling, and this is what they have say:
Welcome to the house of horror where daily the blood enters the drains to the rivers flowing. Beware of the drugs for they surge the hungry who guard my corners like light towers; actual warnings. Business hours are all hours.
Where shall we begin? Terrifying tragedies daily pass along this route. Steel and plastic clash, wrapped, in scenes of gore that the darkest thoughts could not imagine. While most of the world passes above, the view from below is a much better vantage point. The streets know how to steal people, how to deal people, and how to consume people. Look too close, and you may never look away.
From close and from afar you can see, hear, and feel that this is not the safe place which you seek, but rather a death trap that should be approached always and forever with caution.
The roads are veins, and the alleys are arteries where the drugs flow in and out with the consistency of human life itself. Gang members and affiliates stand at guard where the streets meet to deliver destinies both wealthy and poor. Perpetuating a culture of carelessness and blindness that only those who venture into these pathways dare to see.
We travel on the streets in steel buggies casting blind eyes over the destruction that inevitably fills our peripherals. The windshields block not just the fast-moving air but all the world around us. These streets are cut-off from the rest of the world. Humanity exists in set places like workplaces and shopping centers, but the streets have become the place where the lost wander, or so it seems.
We see a gallery of graffiti, scribbles, vandalism; street art becomes the voice most widely heard. In the meantime, the masses see the beginnings as chaos and noise before the development into the beauty and the real aesthetic of this town. Layers of egos atop advertising for larger egos on top of structures of yet more massive egos have become the truth of our surroundings. The stacking of ideas of lives past lived have emerged as the predictions of the future. Shall we care to look now?
Scratch the surface and look and these are the just the beginnings of the layers that you see.
While they lie sleeping, lying dead, avoided, ignored, here exists the streets. These here lanes are horrifying, look away and do not see how the abandonment of growth for the past half-century or two.
Then it happens, captured by the grimness, the freedom, the escape routes, the bicycling space, the found objects, the routes of exploration.
Passageways for us all, the rich and poor, the straight and crooked, the old and young.
Crumbling concrete creates boundaries for decaying black asphalt to contain the blood spilled in countless misfortunes that come with the karma of this towns past.
We all use these streets and experience them on a daily basis. They are one of the most important parts of civilization, and they dictate the places we go and the people we see. These hot and sticky messes of an invention make our ways of life possible.
Joshua Soto and I collaborated on this mural “The Streets” in which we expressed conceptually, a moment in the streets. The inspiration is from on our experiences as graffiti writers and explorers. We began with a single layer, and then layer upon layer of flowing decisions became this painting. We had some other influence and artists making some guest scribbles in this mixed media mess. “The Streets” were painted inside Kadoya Gallery in Pueblo Colorado in spring of 2016.
Art is a form of therapy for individuals and cities. Pueblo is destined to be an arts destination within the state of Colorado as well as the nation.
These streets of this city will be fixed by changing the culture of poverty and scarcity to one of creative abundance. Pueblo is to become a creative and thriving city not based on money but on the richness of the culture.
With your help, we can elevate Pueblo and increase the level of peace and prosperity through addressing its problems through art.
Donations help support art to make Pueblo an arts destination within the state of Colorado and the United States through massive amount of community art and cultural participation. As well as by encouraging artists local and abroad to come and participate in the reshaping of our community.
Support The Shadows
The Shadows is an art therpay program aimed at helping the world to learn to express and let go of the dark parts of ourselves through art and creative processes. Donations help to further the video project, work with inmates and youth, and create art of my own to share the message.
$5.00
Violence in Pueblo, Violence in Art
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Our city is on fire; the dragon has laid it breathes upon us and the inferno is raging furiously. This dark cloud of terror has come to call Pueblo Colorado “home’.
Pueblo has all the drugs, the guns, the opiate epidemic. We have poverty and homelessness and welfare culture. Penetentary life is pop culture, and gang activity is business as usual. If a city can have and social disorder, Pueblo probably suffers from it.
Gangs, corrupt cops, cartels, biker gangs, absentee parents, hustlers and low lives, all live here. So much so that we consistently make national news for just how far we have slipped.
LOCALIZED RADICAL
In February 2016 I was honored to paint a Mural within the gallery at CSU Pueblo as well as give an artist talk as a part of a curated art show titled “Localized Radical” Localization, and how art and artists interact with environments and communities was the topic. Choosing to confront the issue of violence in our community, the above pictured mural was my expression. In this article, I will discuss briefly my ideas and experiences with the topic of violence in the community, and also how art can affect it.
REFIC
When exactly it happened, I’m not sure, but very early on I heard the streets calling out for me. In 1992 I discovered graffiti art, and it became an outlet for my creativity and an inspirational force behind my love for exploring. Often graffiti artists venture to the hidden and obscure places of the city. It is here that we see much of the darkness. The undersides of bridges where the homeless sleep and drugs are in constant use. Dead bodies get found in our artistic playgrounds. Tunnels, trains, abandoned you name its ,all get looked over.
Graffiti artists get to pass through the world both high and low. Being involved partially in gang culture and partially in the culture of high art. Making for a very unique perspective on the world.
As a mural artist, I’m always on the streets with my eyes and ears open. This perspective gives a unique experience of the cultures within the places I paint. It is from the streets where I gain my greatest inspirations.
The Painting depicts a community of monsters and other items engaged in various acts of violence. The wound’s drip blood which then evaporates into floating hearts throughout the painting. The idea was to express the transmutation of violence into love. The painting is done with acrylic and took a week to complete. The composition draws from many experiences that I have had with violence both real and imagined. This is one artistic interpretation of these ideas about the condition of our community and always of myself.
IN PUEBLO
Pueblo Colorado has a distinct culture, one with vibrant characters and mysteries shrouded in glossed over stares. A culture where darkness and despair have been commonplace, and for so long, that this misery has become the mascot of the city. The gang members display tattoos like billboards to inform the on-lookers that this may not be the safest place sit still. Pueblo experiences trouble and fear and all of the misfortune that any American city could know. Pueblo has been stricken with the opiate epidemic, which has come to define our city. Day-Drifters lay sleeping in unseen locations, precarious orange lids line the gutters of the highest profile streets like glitter on cupcakes. Syringes scattered upon the alleys, underpasses, playgrounds, schoolyards, and churches outside. Murders and thefts give this community an infamous reputation throughout the nation, the gaping wound in the state of Colorado. The complacency over the generations has made Pueblo the place to be if you dare to enter the underbelly and the shadier side of things.
One disastrous event after another brought us here and the rest has belonged the devils that took hold soon after. A long documented history of violence and corruption plagues this city. Attracting to it, all the forms of violence both inside and out. Outwardly violence directed to others or the inward violence directed at ourselves. These two are partners, and they influence each other and help one another grow. Self-hate mutates into hatred for others. And the hatred we have for others becomes the disgust we have for ourselves.
Pueblo is the village of broken hearts, broken families, broken promises, broken systems; a broken fucking city.
Domestic violence, child abuse, physical and sexual assaults, drug related violence, money related violence, suicides all happen regularly in this city.
Making Pueblo the perfect place to incubate creative culture.
The Energy in this city is intense, and it has become very dark. It is time for us to reverse this energy and fill this city with light. And I aim to do this by shedding light on some of the most taboo topics, through art, which our community faces at this very moment in time.
Injecting art into communities is a form of medicine which forces its viewers to use their minds and often their imaginations. Art is a bridge which spans the gaps between our differences. Art allows communication between different classes and different origins. Art is one of the greatest forms of communication for making impressions upon people. Art can be a healing force, and it is important to use art to convey these ideas to one another
The ability to bring people together is the power of art, and it is used for both good and bad.
Inwardly art allows us to confront our deepest struggles and move past them. Outwardly art shows that humans share the same anxieties and struggles and that these problems can be dealt with.
My artwork tends to express the high levels of energy which come from angst, depression, and narcissism. In many cases, my art displays outright violent acts, and in other cases, it shows the ideas of violence subtly.
My goal is to work on art which reflects our communities current situation to bring attention, awareness, and education to these topics. Through public art, community participation, and the conversations that art gives rise to, we can bring a new aesthetic to Pueblo. which will help us to realize our potential and move out of the hole, the dark vortex that we are sucked into.
If you would like to contribute to mural projects in the city you can donate via paypal.
Support The Shadows
The Shadows is an art therpay program aimed at helping the world to learn to express and let go of the dark parts of ourselves through art and creative processes. Donations help to further the video project, work with inmates and youth, and create art of my own to share the message.
$5.00
Ghosts
Deep in our guts live terrible ghosts that disrupt our very beings in each and every moment. The ghosts, these invisible sources of power that influence our every behavior.
These beings come as gifts from loved ones and neighbors, from lives past, and circumstances historic.
So much despair is driven by the artist! The pain becomes the most powerful emotion, the highest form of inspiration. The transmutation of feelings into realization is the result of this tremendous strength gained.
Creativity exists within many circumstances two of which being anxiety and necessity. In anxiety, we create to escape the discomfort of reality. In necessity based creativity a problem is being solved.
While one affects the way we feel emotionally, the other often affects how we interact with reality.
Art inspired by anxieties have the most feeling and deal with the most ghosts.
The ghosts which affect us most are those which we ponder continuously but never actually see manifest.
A few ghosts to consider; which may be best not to consider; but mostly should be considered, especially in the making of art.
Anxiety, the devil delivers the vibrations of the death rattle of invisible morbidity about unknown circumstances.
Fear, makes our greatest opportunities seem like poison to be avoided at all costs when in fact the fruit is as sweet as you thought it would be.
Insecurity stabs from the genitals up a pervasive all consuming demon of bad decisions and deteriorating fundamentals.
Sadness, the dark-dark-darkness from the place unseen yet always present behind the curtains of ideas that may not accurately reflect reality but instead reflect ideas that we create to give rise to emotions so that we can feel.
Depression, the driving force for the desperate within the look at me look at me culture that has become the pop culture of our times.
Daily reminders that advertising is god.
This darkness is the kind one, the revealing of the dust swept under the rug.
Always we must feel-feel- feel. That is humanity. As we prepare for the rise of mechanization, we must always remain with our humanity. For it is with our humanity, with emotion that the greatest ideas come to be. The fear is that within perfection we shall cease to find purpose.
To seek ghosts, to find failure, is the highest form of living, for only in failure shall we ever know success. Always seek the fears that bind us. For it is within our moments of defeat that we can find the strength to carry on. And it is with this strength that we can be free to create all that we could ever desire.
While ghosts take many forms, in this case, one form always remains the same, that of the teacher. For it is our ghosts which reveal to us our biggest fears and our greatest opportunities for growth.
Our Brains are Being Eaten on The Internet
Is the internet a data machine creating the pulse for intelligence far greater than any one person can express?
Loops are like my mind running around in circles!
IN ALPHABETICAL DISORDER
In Alphabetical Disorder
How reading the wrong way made me an effective artist. Continue reading IN ALPHABETICAL DISORDER
Refic vs. The Brontosaurus
Want to Learn how I battled and conquered a brontosaurus from a 40-foot ladder?
THE CHAINS OF ADDICTION
THE CHAINS OF ADDICTION; BREAKING OVER THE DRAGONS BACK
ADDICTION, THE BATTLE:
As some of you know, or as many of you know I am a recovering alcoholic. Alcohol has been but one of many of my vices over the years, but it by far was the one that had the greatest impact on my life. Alcohol induces me to make poor decisions on purpose seemingly. And through all of my many years of drinking I learned a lot of lessons, I created my fair share of enemies, and lost numerous friends along the way. Continue reading THE CHAINS OF ADDICTION
unFUCK THE WORLD
THE WORLD IS FUCKED,
Am I contributing to the problems or helping to solve them?
How do we untuck the world? I don’t really know.
I do know Continue reading unFUCK THE WORLD
FUCK
WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING, you may ask?
Well, THERE WERE NO FUCKS GIVEN,
Or what better way could we say this?
It’s almost a delicate way of saying an impolite thing.
Do you often find yourself not saying the things you need to say?
Do you ever hold your tongue?
Do you speak differently around different people?
Have you ever burst out with a naughty word and an incredibly awkward moment?
“The Fancy Book of Curse Words” is a celebration of these awkward moments. Inside Continue reading WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING, you may ask?
Graffiti my Heart, Pueblo.
http://www.chieftain.com/news/pueblo/pueblo-police-on-the-lookout-for-mop-taggers/article_732cd07a-9b68-571f-8ad8-c01945a05720.html My town has graffiti; I love graffiti, I love to see graffiti. As a youth it was graffiti that gave me my outlet, it gave me my voice, my freedom. Graffiti gave me my closest friends and my greatest lessons. Graffiti has defined me since my youth, and I am proud to call myself a graffiti artist. Continue reading Graffiti my Heart, Pueblo.
Bessemer locals, locos.
I had the absolute pleasure to be able to paint with two of my greatest friends I’ve known. Vogey and Grips, are among my favorite artists and crewmates. The painting is located in a part of town known for is lively characters, vibrant nightlife, exotic culture, and gourmet cuisine. The part of the city is Bessemer, Pueblo. My town, Creaturesville, the hood we claim, and the community that supported our rise. Continue reading Bessemer locals, locos.
Cruisin Pueblo Street Art Ride
The Cruisin Pueblo Street Art Ride on Thursday was incredible. We had nearly 60 riders come along for the experience. It was such a great pleasure leading a group to view murals and some of my favorite parts of the city. Giving the tour on bicycles was the perfect way for experiencing the murals. Bicycle exploration of the city is such a large part of my creative process. From my bicycle, I find inspirations and new locations for paintings. Continue reading Cruisin Pueblo Street Art Ride
Meet Your Monsters
“Meet Your Monsters” is a coloring book/self-assessment that I created in 2016. My intention was to create a book which gives’s people an opportunity to be self-reflective in a fun, non-judgmental way. The goal is to encourage growth and healing in a way which is fun and inspiring. Confronting problems is the best, and perhaps the only way to ever defeat them.
The Village Walls
Pueblo Colorado is our Village, and the walls in our village are special. Our village takes pride in their walls; our village supports the arts. Over the past several years I have been painting murals throughout Pueblo. The vast majority of the work has been donated by my friends and I. Much of the work many have you have seen, and perhaps much of it, you have not. I am aiming to raise money through sales of this shirt to finish up a couple of projects that I currently have in the works and to make a map so that I can show the rest of you where all the murals are.
Lake Havasu Mural Video
Lake Havasu, Arizona, is the location of a project that I completed in late November of 2016. The mural is painted at the vacation residence of my cousin Dawn. Dawn was a very kind relative that housed me during my transition to California from Colorado in the early 2000s. It was always the deal that I would paint a large painting in exchange for the housing. And 13 years later I finally was able to deliver my end of the deal. Continue reading Lake Havasu Mural Video
Wall Of Wonder
In 2015 a call for artists was issued for an artist to paint the south facing wall of the Sangre De Cristo Arts and Conference Center and Buell Children’s Museum. In October 2015 I was awarded the commission, and in late October 2016 the Mural began its construction and was completed in the early part of November. Titled the “Wall Of Wonder,” the painting was completed over the course of 16 days. The original concept of the work formed a year earlier when I met with museum director Jim Richardson. After the call for artist went out and I received selection as the artist, then Jim and I went back and forth on the design until we arrived at this final version. Continue reading Wall Of Wonder
Refic
Being my first blog post, I thought that I should dedicate it to describing a bit about myself to begin getting used to the process of blogging. This blog will be utilized as a means to distribute my art and also as a part of my collective body of work itself. I will be showcasing projects through essays, videos, photos, and any other relative medium. I will also be creating content exclusively for the web and distribute the work through this site.
As an artist, my artwork varies widely in applications and mediums. For the past few years, I have focused mainly on painting murals in the city of Pueblo Colorado. I am also a multimedia artist using cameras, computers, and various programs to create books, videos, and sounds.
Blogging and sharing culture has of recently has been the primary focus of my interest. I hope to use this medium to grow as and artist and to share my ideas, opinions, and creations publically. I hope that you all find some interesting things here. Thank you for looking.
Refic