Yo Soy Oro

Yo Soy Oro is a state of mind, a feeling and a destination. I Am Gold means as good as it gets, the best that money can buy, constantly increasing in value. El Centro de Oro is all that and more. Third generation family owned businesses thrive, while new investments bring change to the streets. Lovely long haired ladies in shiny gold outfits stride confidently down clean sidewalks where bright yellow big bellies on every corner keep trash where it belongs. Taste the rich flavors of tropical dishes and rock to the sounds of solid gold hits from the best of Latin music.

Obsessed with the Obsession

As many of you know, I am obsessed with our collective obsession with Frida Kahlo.  And with all of the never discovered before photos, writings, and found artifacts, the internet is a playing field for all new things Frida. I try to catalog as many of these things as well as Frida inspired art, photos as Frida, Frida tattoos, and Frida products on obsessedwithfridakahlo.tumblr.com.

 

Mommy’s Boobies

Nursing day and night is no joke. But hey don’t take it from me.

I’m just providing sustenance to a human being.

Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez

Rio Yañez never ceases to amaze me…  This time it’s through his (FIRST!!!) solo exhibition, Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez.  Just look at this dual punk rock meets hip hop (ghetto) Frida… Clearly, Rio is an artistic mastermind.

WHAT: Pochos and Pixels: The Art of Rio Yañez.
WHEN: Wednesday, April 11 – Friday, June 15 2012
Monday-Friday: 8:00AM – 10:00PM,
WHERE: UCSB Multicultural Center
University Center room 1504
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6050

Acciones Plásticas プリクラ collaboration with Rio Yañez (2009)

Digital. Creative. Conceptual. Think Tank Team.

Ladies and Gents, life is good.  I am the Creative Director for New Futuro.

New Futuro provides Latino families with fully bilingual resources and tools to get students into college and beyond! We are committed to making you an education rockstar!  We will  teach you how to get into the college of your dreams with money to pay for it.  It’s all about making the right classes at the right time, knowing the right people, and getting involved with the right groups.  College is your future,  so why should it be a challenge to get there?  New Futuro will help you achieve your dreams through education! 

Read more about my #awesome creative team here.

Schachter’s Pocket Tzedek

ATTN: transient digital native Jews, the ever so talented Ben Schachter has come up with another brilliant Jewish pop culture piece, Pocket Tzedek. 

Ben Schachter has entered a competition that asks, “Where do you give?”  Sponsored by the American Jewish World Service whose mission is “to realize human rights and end poverty in the developing world.”  Support his design by voting for him here:  www.wheredoyougive.org

Charity and Philanthopy are major parts of many religions.  Judaism gives it a unique character.  As the contest describes, “The word tzedakah (Hebrew: צדקה) comes from the Hebrew word tzedek, meaning righteousness or justice. It refers to the Jewish practice of giving money in order to help those less fortunate—using our financial resources to create a more just and righteous world.”

Schachter’s design, “Pocket Tzedek,” combines wireless technology – a debit card reader – and a traditional “pushke,” or piggy bank. Instead of dropping in coins, the donor dips his card.

Find Schachter’s design under the web interactive category on the third page at www.wheredoyougive.org/voting and vote for him every day until April 1.

 

Love is never too late.

I know it’s almost April, but I would be remiss if I didn’t share Rio Yañez’s 2012 crop of valentines amazingness.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of my friends and lovers! El Rio’s Valentine’s Day Cards are back in the ring to take another swing! This is the 6th year of my cards and it’s turned into my longest running project. Enjoy!

As always, please post these cards on the pages of your online friends, real life enemies, booty calls, baby daddies, friends with benefits, people you’re stalking on facebook, and people you would be stalking on Google + but don’t want to go through the hassle of signing up with a new social network. 

Calavera Elotera at SOMArts Gallery

ESCOBAR-MORALES PRESENTS:

Your favorite fame whore Elotita aka The Fat Free Elotera is back…  and this time she has taken it to a new level…  she has faked her own death… and has returned as CALAVERA ELOTERA.

Calavera Elotera in Illuminations: Día de los Muertos 2011
Curated by Rene and Rio Yañez
SOMArts Bay Gallery, 934 Brannan St. (between 8th & 9th)
San Francisco, CA 94103
Tues–Fri, 12–7PM, Sat 11–5PM, Sun 11–3PM.

Opening Reception
Friday, October 7, 2011, 6–9PM
Opening will feature music, interactive performance and the unveiling of over 30 altars and installations. The evening includes a special performance by Herbert Siguenza, of Culture Clash fame. Siguenza will perform and live paint as renowned artist, Pablo Picasso.

The exhibition continues to examine the ways technology shapes the celebration of Day of the Dead. Once again, a Flickr group enables the exhibition’s curators to accept digital photos as offerings to those who people want to honor. The public can upload their digital contributions here. Selected images will be printed and displayed as part of the exhibit.

Negotiating Latina Identity through Performance Art on the Web

Andria and I will be presenting  Are You My Other? next week at the 2011 National Popular Culture Association Conference in San Antonio, TX.

Negotiating Latina Identity through Performance Art on the Web
with Maya Escobar and Andria Morales

Challenging mainstream and academic representations of Latina identity, performance artists Maya Escobar and Andria Morales publicly negate, deconstruct, and reconstruct their individual histories, identities, and conceptions of self. In their current project Are You My Other? a self-portrait dialog exchange blog, Escobar and Morales draw from popular culture, Latino/a cultural iconography, and their lived experiences to create and virtually perform conflicting representations of Latina selves. From devoted homemaker to hockey player, reggaetonera to construction worker, conceptual artist to human corn on the cob, the artists model the multiplicity of identity.

Due to their shared physical similarities, followers of their online exchange often mistake Escobar and Morales for one another. The merging of their identities is further perpetuated through their activities on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. By locating these performances within the space of the web, where they are free from restrictions of time and place, the artists are able to concurrently enact multiple personas while simultaneously forming a unified (Latina) hybrid self.