Jerry Vigil, Chicano ArtistaChicano art, Santos arté, Muertos arté |
||
media2007 Diversity and Excellence Grant Award RecipientsThe 2007 Diversity and Excellence Grant Awards were given to 12 projects in the University of Colorado System. The University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center was the recipient of six of the awards. O Happy Dia! By The Denver Post Article Launched: 10/28/2007 01:00:00 AM MDT
O Happy Dia! Online at JerryVigil.mosaicglobe.com Series soothsayer or Rockies remains? Denver artist Jerry Vigil made this player, ready to start in the Next World Series, in honor of the Day of the Dead and the Colorado Rockies' prowess in the World Series games played on this mortal coil. Love the concept? Get Vigil's Team Muertos T-shirt: CafePress.com/VigilArt. They're not Rockies-themed, but the purple-and-black hues are right on topic. ********************* Denver Post: 10/05/05: Artist Jerry Vigil, "Dean of the Dead"
You oughta know: Dean of the dead
By Colleen O'Connor Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, is one of Mexico's biggest holidays. Based on traditional Aztec beliefs in the afterlife, Dia de los Muertos is celebrated each Nov. 1 and 2 with candlelight vigils in graveyards and at colorful altars at home. To attract the souls of the departed, family members decorate these spaces with special ofrendas, or offerings. These might include photographs, flowers, toys, diplomas, favorite foods, even cigarettes and beer, if that's what the departed really loved. Particularly popular are skulls made of sugar, calaveras, and "bread of the dead," or pan de muerto. Unfortunately, this colorful, life-affirming festival is often misinterpreted. Denver Post staff writer Colleen O'Connor talks with Jerry Vigil, a Chicano artist in Denver who specializes in muertos - or skeletons - who sheds new light on this ancient tradition. When Dia de los Muertos crossed the border into the United States about the time in the 1970s that the Chicano movement began to grow, altars paying homage to family and friends who had passed away became more important than graveyard parties. Suddenly they became art, showcased in museums and galleries across the country. From toy coffins with pop-up skeletons to dead celebrities like Frida Kahlo serving up tacos and hot sauce, these altars blend devotion with offbeat creativity. Denver artist Jerry Vigil puts his own satirical spin on one of the holiday's most important symbols, the calavera, or skeleton, dressing them in contemporary threads and placing them in settings intended to reflect pride in Chicano culture. Why do some people think Day of the Dead is a celebration of death? That comes from a lack of knowledge. A good way to look at Day of the Dead is like you had a gigantic family reunion with everyone in your family, from today all the way back to the origin of your family. It's a celebration and honoring of everything and everyone. People confuse it with death because the skeleton is used. Well, the fun thing about muertos art is that it's so comical. It's full of frivolity. It's satirical and mocking, a way of lessening the power that death holds over people in the Mexican culture. Western cultures are way more afraid of death than Mexican cultures. People die, you bury them in the ground and stay away. In Mexican culture - death is always looming over everyone, so people mock and make fun of it to lessen the power. Why are Day of the Dead altars in Denver considered more artistic than those in Mexico? Chicano artists are curators of the culture, and it's a way to keep these traditions alive. So the altar becomes a thing of beauty, as well as functionality and purpose. So on this day, the dead are believed to be right here with us? People believe the veil between the living and the dead is pulled aside, and the spirits walk freely past the veil. Being homebodies, they want to go home. The living realize they're coming and set up a celebration. They give them indicators how to get home and what to do. The ancient Celts had the same tradition. Their Day of the Dead, also on Nov. 1, is called Samhain. I know, my wife is Irish. It's incredible how these things are. still alive despite all attempts to assimilate them into the greater Western culture. In the Mexican culture, death isn't an end to life but part of a cycle. Western concepts make death the end, but with indigenous cultures, it's part of the cycle of life. - Colleen O'Connor ******************************
"Some of the coolest Santos and Muertos I've seen... well executed with a great sense of humor."
WESTWORD 9/3/04If the title New World My Eye sounds a tad polemical, don't be daunted: The group exhibit debuting today at the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council may cast a critical Chicano eye on the dominant American culture, but it's intended to educate rather than to incite conflict. With that in mind, a multicultural audience would be just the ticket for tonight's reception. "With new census data coming out showing how Chicanos have become a force in the market, maybe it's time to start revisiting the issue of how we're perceived as a group," says show organizer Jerry Vigil, also a participating artist. Though the ironic juxtaposition of stereotype and reality was a familiar and recurring theme at chac shows, it's the star of this one, revisited in many ways this time around. Vigil, for instance, contributes a simple trio of skeleton carvings that depict standard Mexican-American archetypes: a revolutionary, a migrant worker and a cholo. "They will mean different things to different people," Vigil notes, hoping to encourage a dialogue between those viewing from the outside and those viewing on the inside. Other contributions range from Sean Rozales's staged and digitally enhanced photographic re-creation of Mexican great Diego Rivera's image of a nude with flowers. And painter Tony Diego approaches the theme with an abstract triptych, symbolic of how dominant cultures throw a veil over subcultures, seeing but not understanding their alternate realities. Filmmaker/artist Daniel Salazar uses humor as a tool with his "weselloutsoyoudonthaveto.com" website, and Carlos Frésquez follows suit with his unstretched, grommeted canvas depicting a scene of the Taos Pueblo, where his great-grandfather lived, overlaid with two windows representing credit-card logos. They're labeled "Manifest" and "Destiny." Susan Froyd ********************************************* La Voz Nueva 10/1/06"The next most intriguing group of works comes from Jerry Vigil as reredos, bultos and very imaginative constructs. While devotion to the craft cannot be question, Vigil's works tend to spring from a left end perspective. For example, his death Card portrays Dona Sebastiani sitting on a box within her cart - taking a break by having a smoke. Yes of course, death smokes the two are closely related."
Don Bain Cover of "Advertising and Marketing Review, April 2004 |
||
|
For this Creative Community competition we selected from hundreds of entrants in four categories; photography, traditional mediums, visual art & Design, and Decorative and/or functional art. Below are the sites that we believe displayed the strongest portfolios in their respective categories as well as the honorable mentions. Take a moment to view their work and we think you'll agree.... Traditional Mediums: Jerry Vigil
|
From the Web: 11/07: http://beeinyourbonnet.typepad.com/bee_in_your_bonnet/2007/11/index.html
Last but not least, the artwork at the very top is created by Denver artist Jerry Vigil. A visit to his site will not disappoint. As a Chicano craftsman, he's the real deal and his muertos - that is figures representing the dead - are quite funny. He also creates traditional santos carvings that are beautifully detailed.
