Arte in the Arizona Aire

’Tween the moun­tain chic of Santa Fe and the wannabe trend­set­ting of the City of Angels, where is there a crit­i­cal mass of art gal­leries and a vibrant, cre­ative com­mu­nity? In the Val­ley of the Sun, of course – Scotts­dale and Phoenix! So it was des­tined and so it will be. What was less aparente was a new lugar más trans­par­ente. Advo­cates for Latin@ Arts and Cul­ture (ALAC) has made that aire a real­ity. On Decem­ber 4, 2009, its Gale­ria 147 debuted in an invit­ing spot in down­town Phoenix, and so our ener­getic Latin@ art com­mu­nity has an out­post in the Sun.

ALAC brings together young tal­ent and vet­er­a­nos who I have respected for years. These include the dynamic duo Car­men de Novais-Guerrero and Zarco Guer­rero, whom I spot­ted as Don Dia­blo, and Stella Pope Duarte, who gave a poetry read­ing. Mar­tin Moreno is from the good old days, decades ago in Michi­gan (Michoacán del Norte). Joe Ray’s art­work graces the front cover of The Cisco Kid: Amer­i­can Hero, His­panic Roots pub­lished by the Bilin­gual Press/Editorial Bil­ingüe. From Tuc­son, Cristina Cár­de­nas and Alfred Quiroz participate.

With Phoenix Mayor Phil Gor­don and a panoply of lumi­nar­ies at the rib­bon cut­ting cer­e­mony, it felt like a home­com­ing. With­out space to acknowl­edge all the movers and shak­ers, I’m going to plow into seri­ous nos­tal­gia. Marco Albar­rán worked for our His­panic Research Cen­ter to help minori­ties, and he has devel­oped into both a splen­did artist (Marco, I love what you’ve done with the lotería mex­i­cana!) and an effec­tive orga­nizer. He’s a major force in ALAC and also of the Calaca Cul­tural Cen­ter (check them out! www.calaca.org). Jim Covar­ru­bias, first VP of ALAC, has major roles – both orga­ni­za­tional and cura­to­r­ial – and his paint­ing and involve­ment in the opera Guadalupe are impor­tant mile­stones. ASU film­maker and Pro­fes­sor Paul Espinosa works tire­lessly and effec­tively as a board member.

Rubén Hernán­dez is a great pub­li­cizer of cul­tural events in the Val­ley and sec­ond vice pres­i­dent. ErLinda Tor­res, a long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor on var­i­ous ini­tia­tives, is the ALAC board pres­i­dent and effec­tive spokesper­son. ASU Pro­fes­sor Rául Yza­guirre, founder of the National Coun­cil of la Raza and our new Ambas­sador to the Domini­can Repub­lic, helped ALAC estab­lish itself.

The Latin@ art show mounted at Gale­ria 147 for the grand open­ing was the most poignant I’ve ever attended in Ari­zona. I’m still wowed by it. ¡Vatos y cholas, se aven­taron! There are so many won­ders that I can’t men­tion every­one, but I did put my money where my eyes were, pur­chas­ing Quet­zal Guerrero’s new CD and a lovely work by Genaro Gar­cía, La vir­gen de latte, that I look at in my office every morn­ing. I invite you to the ALAC web­site, www.alacaz.org, to check out the pho­tos of the open­ing taken by our mae­stro fotó­grafo, José L. Muñoz!

ALAC has seri­ous objec­tives, includ­ing an effec­tive Latin@ arts net­work and advo­cacy for resources and fund­ing already well on their way. Two key goals to work on – and I’m sens­ing that together we are going to make them a real­ity – are: 1) to ini­ti­ate a cam­paign and strat­egy to cre­ate the first Latino cul­tural cen­ter in Phoenix, and 2) to pro­vide art resources to Arizona’s edu­ca­tional sys­tem. These goals are are achiev­able, so let’s all jalar jun­ti­tos to make them a real­i­dad.