How did you get involved in Art? Specifically, get involved with Chicano American Art?

I was always interested in art from a very young age. I started studying it when I was about twelve or thirteen. I would go to the library and look at art books. By the time I was in high school I had knowledge of basic art history. I never had any talent graphically but I really liked looking at the pictures, paintings, studying the techniques, and learning the history. I schooled myself in that sense. Years later when I had enough money to actually buy some pieces, I discovered Chicano artists here in Los Angeles.

What is it about Chicano art that connected you to it?

Part of it was the Chicano experience. Something I could relate to and something that was very familiar to me. Part of it was that the level of expertise was so high. I knew a good painting by that point in my life and these groups of painters were exceptionally good. So it was those two things; I could connect with it emotionally and technically I marveled at their ability to put paint on canvas.

Did you grow up in an environment that helped foster this interest?

Yes and no. It wasn’t really my immediate family but my little group of cousins.  Young Chicanos that did well in school and pushed each other academically. Art was my forte. People had history, languages, math, and I excelled in art.

There is something about Chicano art that is immediate as much as it is dealing with the past and the future. Do you think that is unique to Chicano art?

It definitely encompasses Chicano art. It started in the late 60s in the political sphere. It was the visual face of the Chicano civil rights movement. At first Chicano art was extremely political. There is always that element that relates Chicano society to the mainstream. There was that immediate examination of current events that gives it a vibrancy that some other art doesn’t have.

How do you think the Chicano art has evolved over the years?

It is not exclusively political. At first it was categorized as folk art and as such it was a little tiny niche in the art world. As time went on these artists developed in their own sense devoid of any political context. What they come to now is that they can include politics, they don’t have to, it can be spiritual, gender based, historical, sociological, or abstract. There are a lot of different avenues besides being strictly political.

Their art wasn’t shown in galleries until recently, why do you think that is?

They didn’t really have a lot of experience in the art world. The argument was that this was not fine art, it was folk art. The movement had to get over that. Ironically, overwhelmingly all the artists in the collection were university or school trained. They would incorporate all of the world art techniques into their work. Chicano art can be extremely sophisticated and very naive at the same time but the naivety is used in a very smart meaningful way.

What does Los Angeles mean to you?

I love this city a lot. It is just so spread out which I like. It is multicultural. It is as multicultural a city as you can possibly get. I grew up in south central and downtown Los Angeles and was exposed to many cultures simultaneously. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Mexican. That was the neighborhood I grew up in. Los Angeles embodies that more than any other city that I know in the world.

What was the goal of showing the artwork to people?

My goal, mantra was that you couldn’t love or hate Chicano art unless you saw it. My goal was to show it to as many people as much as possible. Let them make up their mind as to whether they liked it or not. I was very confident they would once they saw it. I tried to get as many eyeballs as possible. It was a way to show the people that the establishments were talking to them. When you go into a museum and you don’t see work of your culture on the wall they aren’t talking to you. It was a way of starting a dialogue with the institutions.

Did you expect to be this involved in Art?

No (laughs). It just happened. One thing led to another. I was always a collector of some kind. Marbles, baseball cards, when I was a kid. When I got some money I started collecting antiques and then I started collecting art. I would start to buy a couple of paintings to go over the couch. The more I looked around; I started noticing artists and saw a dialogue that needed to be told. More people need to see this work. That’s where my celebrity helped.

You have accomplished so much yet you still seem to want to evolve and try different mediums. What keeps you motivated?

I am curious. It was engendered at a very young age through my cousins to learn about things. To find out more about things I didn’t know about. As an artist, it’s just fun. That is the bottom line. It is fun to be involved in some medium of art. Being involved in the arts is way more fun than anything I could think of doing.

Many kids feel that the life of an artist is very hard. Any advice to them?

Being an artist doesn’t really cost a lot and that is its savior. It doesn’t cost a lot to pick up a pencil and paper and draw something, write something. That’s how Chicano art started, with just the basic tools. Making your living as an artist from any walk of life, ethnicity, economic group, is difficult. Those doors are open and it is possible for them if they have the desire or motivation.