OCTOBER 9, 2021, FROM 10AM–2PM AT SELECT SAN ANTONIO PUBLIC LIBRARY BRANCHES
For 18 years, Artpace Chalk It Up has been an inspiring celebration of our region’s creative culture, connecting San Antonians from all parts of the city and contributing to the cultural vitality of our community. We are excited to continue to broaden our reach into the San Antonio community by partnering for the second year in a row with the San Antonio Public Library to host Artpace Chalk It Up at select libraries across San Antonio.
While this annual festival is usually held in Downtown San Antonio, we are once again spreading out throughout the city to ensure a safe way for our community to get creative and engage with art. Participating library branches include Landa Library, Carver Library, Mission Library, Johnston Library, Bazan Library, Great Northwest Library, Maverick Library, Igo Library, Encino Library, and Thousand Oaks Library.
On Chalk It Up day, October 9, featured artists will create large-scale murals at each library location about this year’s theme, The Spirit of San Antonio. The public is encouraged to visit the participating library of their choice to celebrate these artists and their visions of the Spirit of San Antonio or spend the day visiting them all! Chalk zones will be available for guests to create their own murals, with free chalk available at each library branch. Appropriate social distancing guidelines and masks are highly encouraged. On this day, Artpace will announce the Chalk It Up TeamWorks finalists, winner, and honorable mention(s) online as well as engage with the community throughout the day across our social media platforms.
During the month of September, school TeamWorks groups in every school district within the Bexar County area will have the opportunity to enter a chalk mural centered on the theme, The Spirit of San Antonio. Participating community groups and school teams will receive Chalk It Up kits with supplies, designate their own mural sites and work schedules, and have up to one month to submit one completed mural for the TeamWorks Competition. Chalk It Up 2021 Chair Cristina Peña Walls will choose finalists from across Bexar County. Registration is free and open to any school or community group serving San Antonio-area residents. Local businesses, nonprofits, and community members are encouraged to participate as a community group.
Artpace encourages all San Antonians to join in Chalk It Up by visiting a participating library or from the safety of their own home and neighborhoods by #ArtpaceChalkItUpAtHome.
PLEASE SUPPORT ARTPACE CHALK IT UP!
Our Chalk It Up downtown festival is Artpace’s second largest fundraiser of the year, but the pandemic has challenged our ability to secure much needed funds to support our exhibitions, residencies, and programs this year and last year.
Please consider a gift in support of Artpace and Chalk It Up as we reach out to all of San Antonio to provide an opportunity to engage with incredibly talented local artists and a day of artistic creative expression with your whole family – all in your own neighborhood!
On October 9, twenty Featured Artists will create original designs in chalk on a sidewalk or pavement capturing our 2021 theme: Spirit of San Antonio. Local artists from around San Antonio will be creating these murals at ten different San Antonio Public Library branches. Each library will feature two artists who will create their murals throughout the morning of October 9. The public is encouraged to visit the library of their choice to celebrate these artists and their visions of community – or spend the day visiting all of them!
District LANDA LIBRARY
KAT CADENA
Kat Cadena is a mestiza artist, educator, and arts administrator born, raised, and working in San Antonio, Texas. Cadena’s current focus is in book illustration, murals, and portraiture. Her works are often emotional responses to news in the U.S. and Mexico regarding racism, femicide, and women’s rights (or lack thereof). Cadena’s artwork is figurative and often designed with a limited color palette that creates a dreamlike, illustrative environment in which the viewer is immersed and able to share in a deeply emotional and evocative moment.
TEEN COUNCIL
Info Forthcoming…
District CARVER LIBRARY
CADE BRADSHAW
Cade Bradshaw’s sculptures and drawings amplify awareness of the the viewer’s surroundings, the act of sensing, and the formation of perceptions. He is interested in the foundational elements of biological life, ecology and evolution, and the molecular origins of objects. His work frequently returns to natural materials. Educated at Trinity University, Bradshaw’s studies were interdisciplinary, working as an ecology researcher and assistant to area artists and designers. His work has been included in exhibitions regionally and nationally, notably the MADI Biennial at the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art, LIFT: An Exhibition of Kites at Artpace, Blue is Not a Color at Ruiz Healy Gallery, and a solo exhibition titled Little Worlds at grayDUCK gallery. His publicly commissioned works are included in the City of San Antonio and Bexar County collections. Bradshaw was raised in northern California, and is based in San Antonio Texas.
RAUL GONZALEZ
Raul Rene Gonzalez is a San Antonio-based artist born in Houston, TX. He received an MFA in Art from The University of Texas at San Antonio and a BFA in Painting from the University of Houston. Gonzalez works as a multi-dimensional artist who utilizes a wide array of mediums through versatile methods of painting, drawing, performance, installation, and dance. He explores topics such as work, fatherhood, gender roles, labor, identity, pop culture, and abstraction. Raul’s artwork has exhibited widely throughout Texas and the United States, including numerous solo exhibitions. His works are in the permanent collections of The National Mexican Museum of Art, The National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum, Mexic-Arte Museum, McNay Art Museum, The University of Texas at San Antonio, and the City of San Antonio, amongst others. Raul has been the recipient of the Luminaria Artist Foundation Grant Award, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Grant, a NALAC San Antonio Artist Grant, a Dave Bown Projects Award of Excellence, a Surdna Foundation Grant Recipient, and San Antonio Art League & Museum 2021 Artist of the Year. Raul spends his time balancing an art career, being a stay-at-home-parent, and managing Werk House SA, a short-term rental Airbnb property. Raul also recently took on the role of Director at Clamp Light Studios & Gallery.
Ruben Luna (b. 1974), aka ‘Gacho Style,’ is a self-taught contemporary artist born and raised in San Antonio’s South Side. Luna creates work exploring the theory of Rasquachismo. He draws inspiration in the creative challenge of generating new mixed-media objects through various techniques, often incorporating crude or the most basic of materials. Luna offers nostalgic tributes to the people, phrases, and things with creativity found in his hometown’s working-class Mexican American communities. His work is often playful, but at its core, it reveals the ability to be resourceful and “make do.” Each piece is a practice in problem-solving, overcoming aesthetics for the necessity of function combining inventiveness, ingenuity, and improvisation.
ASHLEY PEREZ
Ashley Perez is a Texas-based artist who works in a variety of mediums that center around painting and drawing. Her work explores memory, identity, and mental health by personifying elements of the natural world and wordplay. Perez is an alumnus of the national-award-winning creative youth development program SAY Sí. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Texas at San Antonio in painting in 2010. Currently, she runs SAY Sí’s visual arts middle school and high school programs, mentoring the next generation of creative leaders. Her work has been featured at Centro de Artes, Blue Star Contemporary, the McNay Art Museum, and Presa House Gallery.
District JOHNSTON LIBRARY
HAYFER BREA
Hayfer Brea, (1975), Was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Currently lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. Hayfer Brea is an artist and visual researcher. He has made nine solo exhibitions, among which the last two stand out: “#Untitled” (Clamp Ligth Studios & Gallery, San Antonio, Texas, 2019); “Una línea imaginaria” (Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas, Room 8, Caracas, Venezuela, 2016); and the most recent is his second solo show in the United States: “Nothing to say” (Un Grito Gallery, The Upstairs Studios at Blue Star Arts Complex, San Antonio, Texas, 2021). He has been awarded five Honorary Awards and Mentions in his country and his work is represented in Museums, Cultural Centers and important Venezuelan Collections.
Louis Vega Treviño (b. 1972, San Antonio, Texas) attended San Antonio College in 1990 where he studied Architecture and Art before working with Kell Munoz Architects as a designer from 1992-2000. In 2000 – 2012, Trevino opened his studio space, Circle Infiniti, with artist, Ben Mata. Currently has a working studio at Hausmann buildings. Trevino has enjoyed numerous exhibits in San Antonio and around the United Sates, including New York, Chicago, Houston and Austin. He has exhibited at Southwest School of Art, Blue Star Contemporary Art Center, Unit B Gallery and Mexic-Arte Museum. Recently showed with Kenneth Noland, James Little and Cleve Gray at Rosenbaum Contemporary, “Color, Line, Form”. Trevino’s works on paper include drawings on museum board, post-it-notes, and over 60,000 cocktail napkins, which he has translated to a variety of media such as carpet and textile design by manipulating naturally formed geometric shapes to create innovative patterns. Trevino’s line work is mesmerizingly precise, with bright, bold colors that capture and hold the viewer’s attention. Giant sized versions of Trevino’s napkin designs are brought to life in the Kiosks of Main Plaza where each line is tangible and real. Trevino is also known for his oil on canvas “line” paintings that blur and merge color in almost perfect linear fashion. He is obsessed with precision and color, both abundantly present in his drawings and paintings.
District BAZAN LIBRARY
JUAN ESCOBEDO
Juan C. Escobedo (B.1985 El Paso,TX) explores his identity as a as a brown, Mexican-American queer male, raised in a low-socioeconomic community along the US/Mexico border. The work discusses residual class and race shame that arises from living in a predominantly “white” structured United States which favors light-skinned individuals and middle-class and above socioeconomic classes. His work consists of installations, objects and video collages primarily composed of cardboard, a material charged with preconceived notions of crudeness, utilitarianism, disposability and brownness— characteristics which parallel Escobedo’s identity. The work he creates re-enact situations charged with socioeconomic and racial prejudices. This is done to confront the audience with preconceived notions of race and class through humor, symbolism, and material choice. The ultimate goal is for the audience to become aware and question the origin of their own prejudices.
TIM OLSON
I was raised on a farm in southeastern Minnesota. After high school I a BFA in art in the northern Minnesota city of Bemidji. After graduation I lived in several states before landing in San Antonio. Before becoming a full time artist, I had several years of experience working with adults with a wide variety of developmental and physical disabilities and as a special education teacher. Most of my recent work involves a combination of narrative and mixed media illustrations .
District GREAT NORTHWEST LIBRARY
EDWARD HARRIS
Edward Warren Harris is a local interdisciplinary artist that attended the University of Texas in San Antonio and graduated in the fall of 2018. Edward was born and raised in San Antonio, TX. he is 27 years old and works in various mediums. Painting, soft sculpture and performance. Edward Warren Harris started their artistic career back in 2012 when Edward went to Mississippi Delta Community College. During that time, they were gaining college credit. Then they moved back to San Antonio for school at University of Texas in San Antonio. While going there, Edward has studied art for 4 years. Throughout the years they have discovered their voice in their work and have improved their skills and sense of self. Currently in 2021 Edward is tackling Black Existentialism and Racism against BIPOC. He has been in a few local exhibitions around San Antonio. Black Sheep Exhibition, Upstairs Studio, and Blue Star Red Dot Event 2020 and 2021.
HIROMI STRINGER
Hiromi Stringer was born in Kyoto, Japan. Currently she is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Upon graduating from UTSA with an MFA in Art where she studied with multiple merit-based scholarships, Stringer was awarded the 2019-2020 Dedalus Foundation Master of Fine Arts Fellowship. She was selected for artist in residency programs, the 2019-2020 Blue Star Contemporary Berlin Residency Program/ Künstlerhaus Bethanien International Studio Program, Berlin, Germany and the 2021 Summer Arts Faculty Residency program at Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency, MI. In 2014, She won a grand prize for Eyes Got It!. A resident of the San Antonio area, her works are in public, corporate and private collections in Japan and the US.
“I am a queer artist from San Antonio, TX. I work in painting, illustration, embroidery, and other media to explore mark making and color theory, self-image, personal habits, and mental health through a feminist lens. My practice is multifaceted, and I have two main things I focus on: Fine art, and growing my small business Cake Forever. In the transition from February to March 2020, I went through a breakup and my favorite cat Cake died. Then, we went into lockdown. I decided the only thing I could bring myself to focus on was learning digital art, and the only thing I wanted to draw was my cats. So I created some colorful illustrations working through this loss during the pandemic, and my brand Cake Forever was born. I’m still building this brand, but I look forward to incorporating even more of my sensibility (focusing on queer content and fun colors) and bringing joy to others through one of the hardest times in my life.”
RUDY HERRERA
I was born in El Paso Texas in 1985. I left El Paso at the age of 9. My family is of native decent. I spent my youth in El Paso and the surrounding area. When I moved to San Antonio it was a hard transition, but I would later embrace it as my home. I found a family as well as later created one. I left for some time but came back to the city, wanting to be one of the many success stories that inspired me. All the while staying a practicing artist even when it was not lucrative or sustainable financially. Today I still strive to push myself in my artistic endeavors and to put on for the 210.
District IGO LIBRARY
DAVID ALCANTAR
A native Texan, my interest focuses on the ability for art to address what is common in human experience more than to what is particular, and to point to beauty that exists in the world that we forget or ignore. Critical analysis is central to my artistic process and helps to anticipate the impacts of my works and foster substantive dialogue with a broad audience. The fundamental focus of my work, despite the varied imagery and forms; concerns human negotiation behavior, as it is a universal human activity; and the narrative impacts of negotiated choices on relationships (between people, environments, and experiences).
MICHAEL FOERSTER
Michael Foerster creates vibrant cartoony ceramic sculptures known as Floops that talk about the experience of living, the human condition and how to heal yourself. Michael studied at UTSA and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and is a visual arts instructor at SAY Sí where he teaches middle and high school-age artists, who in turn regularly inspire and inform his work. The curriculum he co-creates focuses on creating elevated and original artwork, while also focusing on social justice and community centered action.
District ENCINO LIBRARY
LAURI GARCIA JONES
Lauri Garcia Jones is a visual artist born and raised in San Antonio, TX. Working primarily in illustration, painting, installation, and photography, Jones’ work draws influence from the vivid color palettes and graphic styles of cartoons and graffiti. Commonly seen throughout her work, Jones uses satire to provide an opportunity for serious, and sometimes taboo, issues to be made approachable and relatable. Jones received her BFA from Southwest School of Art in 2018. She has exhibited throughout Texas and has work in both private and public collections.
URSULA ZAVALA
Ursula Zavala is a mixed media artist from the Southside of San Antonio, TX. Their work combines ideas of humor, religion and internet culture to create a dialog of current issues within and around the artist. Their work plays with contrasts of hard and soft, fun and sadness, chaos and order. They are constantly mixing and remixing mediums to create a balance between opposing forces. With work in various types of materials ranging from digital design and painting, to textiles and collage, they are constantly trying to find structure in chaos and familiarity in the unfamiliar. Zavala has had many exhibitions throughout the city and is currently making work in the studio space behind Not For You Gallery which they also work at as director of operations.
District THOUSAND OAKS LIBRARY
CALVIN PRESSLEY
Info Forthcoming…
JAYNE VALVERDE
Info Forthcoming…
TeamWorks
TEAMWORKS INFORMATION & REGISTRATION
Since 2004, Artpace’s TeamWorks groups have played a significant role at Chalk It Up. Over 7,500 educators, students, and community members have contributed 731 one-of-a-kind chalk murals on Houston Street and Main Avenue alongside Artpace’s international resident and exhibiting artists from the San Antonio community and abroad.
Out of concern for the safety of the students, artists, and San Antonio community, Chalk It Up will take a different form this year. For its 18th iteration, Artpace San Antonio invites school and community groups to participate in a remote mural competition for Chalk It Up 2021 and work collaboratively to complete original chalk murals representative of the theme: THE SPIRIT OF SAN ANTONIO.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
Registration is free and open to any school or community group serving San Antonio-area residents. Local businesses, nonprofits, and community members are encouraged to participate as a community group.
Each TeamWorks group will receive one Chalk It Up Kit with two sets of 24-count washable sidewalk chalk (or equivalent), two sets of 24-count soft pastels (or equivalent), Chalk It Up TeamWorks buttons, and Artpace Lesson Plan David Benjamin Sherry: Earth Changes Chalk Mural.
August 30 – October 1: Chalk It Up Kits may be picked up at Artpace (445 Main Avenue) during regular business hours: Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm; Saturdays and Sundays, 12-5pm. Free parking at the Artpace parking lot: 513 N Flores.
Team leaders are responsible for facilitating the completion and submission of their mural; Team leaders will select the mural site and workday(s) and time(s).
August 30 – October 1: Mural submissions open! Judging will be virtual! TeamWorks must submit up to three images of their process and finished mural with a statement describing their artwork, overall dimensions, location, and number of team members. Teams will be judged on creativity, execution, and adherence to theme: THE SPIRIT OF SAN ANTONIO.
October 4-8: Chalk It Up TeamWorks’s mural submissions will be reviewed.
October 9, CHALK IT UP DAY: TeamWorks finalists, winner, and honorable mention(s) will be announced. Only School Teams are eligible for finalist and winner positions; non-school community group(s) may receive honorable mention(s). Each finalist will receive one $125 card courtesy of H-E-B; one winning School Team will receive one $250 gift card; one community group will receive one $125 gift card.
Q: Is there a maximum mural size? A: No! There is a minimum size of 5’ X 5’.
Q: Is there a limited number of members per Team? A: Not this year! We would like for you to involve as many or as little Team members you are comfortable with.
Q: My Team would like to work remotely. Can my Team create a tiled mural? A: Yes! Tiled murals are accepted but must physically exist as whole to compete for an award.
Q: My Team would like to work remotely. Can my Team submit a digitally produced mural? A: Yes. Digitally completed murals can and will be accepted, however, cannot be considered for competition and are not eligible to receive an award.
Q: Can my Team collage several photos to create one or more of the submitted images? A: No. Please only submit up to three images containing one photo each.
2021 THEME: THE SPIRIT OF SAN ANTONIO
