Q+A with Alumnus Jaime Salvador Castillo and Michael Anthony García

Longhorn Jaime Salvador Castillo and his friend, co-curator and artistic collaborator, Michael Anthony García, discuss their artistic and curatorial careers, current exhibitions and arts organizations, and their mutual appreciation for Austin’s supportive artistic community. Callie Anderson, Gallery Teaching Fellow for the UT Austin Visual Arts Center and master’s degree candidate in Art Education, leads the interview. 

The artists’ installation whereABOUTs is on view at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art from August 12 - Dec 9, 2017.

Jaime, I know for prospective and current students at UT, it’s extremely inspiring to hear about the successes of fellow Longhorns. Can you tell me a little about the path your career has taken since gradating from UT?

Jaime Salvador Castillo: Before graduating in 2005, I had been approached by the next curator for Mexic-Arte's Young Latino Artists series, as well as some friends from Blue Genie Art for an outdoor art show. And like every art graduate, I lost my studio space (among other resources) upon graduation. With a couple of shows on the horizon and attending gallery openings for friends, I knew that I wanted to stay active and involved in the Austin art community.

I wasn't sure which direction my career would take, but I wanted to be prepared. I didn't think I was ready for grad school, so I started an art review blog, 'Bout What I Sees, in order to hone my writing and critical thinking skills. This led to me contributing to the Austin Chronicle for a couple of years. In addition to writing art reviews, I was driven to give back. In 7th & 8th grade, I was still in Chicago and attended MARWEN, an organization offering free art classes for inner city youth. I realized how much this organization encouraged my path. I found my way to Arthouse (what later merged with Austin Museum of Art to become The Contemporary Austin) and got involved in their program, Young Artists at Arthouse. As the portfolio adviser, I helped guide teen artists in building strong portfolios and learning how to pursue their artistic interests after high school.

Not long after I became known as a “critic” (a title I am reluctant to wear), Michael Garcia and Hector Hernandez invited me over for a couple of chats and we became Los Outsiders, the Austin-based curatorial collective. We started showing together and then came our opportunity to curate a show in Mexico.

It was around this time that I joined the Art in Public Places panel for the City of Austin and was invited by the Art Alliance Austin to speak at their East Austin Studio Tour event. All of these experiences combined culminated in an invitation to curate at Pump Project and, finally, the formation of my current project Eyes Got It! an art competition. While I’m no longer a part of Los Outsiders, I now serve as the Arts Commissioner for District 2 after serving six years on the Art in Public Places panel.

Wow. It’s encouraging to hear how your participation in those organizations’ youth programs both in Chicago and here in Austin not only served those communities, but helped to propel and inspire your own career as well. 

Michael, you’ve also worked with youth. Can you talk a bit about how your role as an elementary school teacher has converged and diverged with your career as a multi-disciplinary artist and curator? Do you consider yourself more of a maker, a curator, an educator, or is it possible to be an equal combination of all of these things?     

Michael Anthony García: I wouldn’t say that I’m each of those things in equal measure, but I am attracted to curatorial endeavors of various kinds and like to challenge myself when possible. I think Jaime would agree that there is so much overlap with creating and curating art, that the line is blurred for me. However, after 16 years as an educator, I feel like that may be the field out of which I may transition in the near future. I enjoy working in education, but I am taking on more and more artistic projects.

Many of our students hope to one day become curators. How did each of you begin independently curating?

JSC: I blame Los Outsiders! My friend and fellow artist Hector Hernandez was invited to show in his hometown of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and proposed a group show of work by Los Outsiders. However, when we learned it was a 20,000-square-foot warehouse, we decided to curate Hasta La Basura Se Separa: artcrush, a show of sculptors and installation artists. The experience of inviting artists, selecting artwork, installing the show and working closely with the artists was overwhelmingly positive. The curating bug bit me hard!

MAG: I first curated an exhibition of paintings by landscape artist Richard Crozier when I was an adjunct at my alma mater Austin College in Sherman, Texas. In this position, I often took on various duties, including installer, for the College’s Art Department. For this Crozier exhibition, the department afforded me the opportunity to choose the work and decide how the work should be hung as well. 

From that point on, I have looked at curating through the lens of a found-object artist, often seeing the work of other artists as objects to distribute within a space as I would other materials. It’s about creating conversations between them, just as I would objects I use in an installation or sculpture. It just so happens these objects are already formed and come with their own contexts and ideas.

What does success in independent curation look like for you?

JSC: I pursued curatorial opportunities by myself, as another way of giving back. It replaced my art-making practice. Being able to continue curating is the success metric. The respect and admiration I have for the artists and organizations I work with has been ever-present. The highest praise I have received for my curatorial projects has come from artists. The next highest come from the organizations that continue to trust me in associating their name with my projects.

MAG: I have built upon the experience I gain from each curatorial project, learning and shifting my practice as I go. After years of promoting my curatorial aspirations through conversation and proposals, having offers come my way is a nice gauge of how I’ve progressed in the field. When there aren’t opportunities, though, you have to create them for yourself.

Congratulations on your installation whereABOUTS at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. From my understanding, the work was created for UMOCA’s Art Truck and explored ideas of place, identity, and community through participants’ mapmaking. How did this idea come about? 

MAG: When we were approached about the project, it was presented as an opportunity to bring art to underserved communities. UMOCA wanted to expose these communities to artistic experiences and create connections across these disparate areas surrounding Salt Lake City. We decided that each community defined itself differently—especially spatially—so, we decided maps were the best way for them to express that. 

JSC: Also, it just made practical sense that instead of researching Salt Lake City ourselves in an extremely expedited timeframe, we would invite Salt Lake to tell us about who they are throughout our time as ArtTruck guides.

How is Austin a character or catalyst in your work and how did that translate to this project?

JSC: In the past, Michael and I had collaborated on a couple of projects that explored Austin's identity and community. I continue to work on understanding Austin's relationship to and within the “art world”, both as its own microcosm and its relationships to other cities. Together, he and I have a number of years exploring and researching Austin's identity and its communities.

MAG: Right. Even as a rapidly growing city, Austin still has quite a small town feel for the most part, which is what I think what Jaime and I realized makes Austin unique. It’s still a quite friendly place to live. I think approaching this project with the idea that that feeling could be translatable to any city—including Salt Lake City, which neither of us had been before—helped us to develop this project without hesitance or trepidation. I also feel that as we cut our teeth artistically in such an open and community-focused city, it just seemed like a natural progression to extend that idea of community outwards.

How do you both see mapmaking contextualized as social practice? How do you frame those conversations for younger students? 

JSC: From my observations, students that participate in extracurricular activities perform better in academics. Regardless of activity (chess club, student council, the arts, or athletics, etc.), they all claim better academic success because the students are engaged. They are given agency to create their own understanding of life and of their surroundings. Mapmaking is another way of defining your surroundings. Both maps and defining your surrounding can be approached on an individual level or aggregated to present an averaged overview.

MAG: Through whereABOUTS, participants were asked to create maps that show where the important places in their lives are located. As students from kindergarten through high school took part in the work, we had a wide range of interpretations and creative skills represented. Some came with preconceived ideas of what maps were, and others—especially the younger ones—might not have ever seen a map before. One of our goals was for this project to meet the students where they are, both literally and figuratively. They approached the maps with whatever skills they had. They spoke their truths through their maps and were able to learn about each other’s stories through the work. We could look at a map and see how a child was affected by their parents' divorce, with mom’s house and dad’s house on opposite sides of the map, bisected by a big black line. We learned about deep connections immigrant students had to their homelands. It was a very moving and powerful experience going through almost 10,000 maps. As we were only in Salt Lake for the installation of the final work, we were unfortunately unable to connect with any of the community that participated. However, the stories they told through their maps spoke volumes!

What kind of feedback have you gotten from participants and community members?

JSC: As Michael mentioned, some of these maps were incredibly powerful. I could tell that the educators who brought their students to participate valued getting to know their students better and also seeing that their students were opening up. During our installation I came across a note from a school teacher to the museum educator. They appreciated the discussions this open-ended project generated. We were also mindful of allowing some integration to their academic curriculum. 

Since you’re both still based here in Austin, you must see something of value for artists here within the local community. How have Austin’s unique (or, as some say, “weird”) qualities influenced, supported and/or directly contributed to the success of your work? Has the city posed any unique challenges to your work as well? 

MAG: I wouldn't say that the value I've found in Austin is in its weirdness (if it even can be considered weird anymore), but rather from the warmth and supportiveness found in the art community in particular. I know for a fact that the work I do couldn't have been possible without the chances were taken on us and our work by the Latino institutions like the Mexic-Arte Museum and the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. They shone light on our efforts for the rest of the community to take notice of what we were doing. They nominated us for awards and added credibility to what we continue to accomplish in and for our community. Friends throughout the art world here in Austin happily lend us spaces, time and equipment to help make our exhibitions and events successful. We are very grateful to them for all they do!

JSC: Absolutely. The openness and collaborative nature of the community is what makes Austin weird – in the best way possible – as compared to other more established art markets (and other cities as well). People are friendly and willing to help out, consider the armies of volunteers making events like SXSW possible; organizations share resources to produce stellar work (look up Trenton Doyle Hancock's ballet Cult of Color); and folks are willing to try new things, both producers and audiences. All these elements have allowed me to meet new people, create partnerships, and start new projects.

But to address the city’s more challenging qualities, Austin has this interesting problem of the “missing middle.” There is a lack of mid-sized art organizations and therefore middle-management-type art jobs as well. Artists, like art organizations, are either scrappy bootstrappers, learning as they go, or they are ever-present stalwarts in the community. What happens when you have matured beyond your part-time art job? Sure, it may be fulfilling, but it’s just not paying the bills and, yet, many don’t have the experience to be a Director or Head Curator. Larger cities with a fuller range of opportunities will begin their “siren's call”.

Although Austin's a sizable city, it still has a “town and gown” effect. This separation of locals versus adjunct staff and student bodies of local universities have been exacerbated by the popular events and attractions that have made Austin hip. Gentrification and the short-term memory of a transient population that transitions every three to six years creates a complex push and pull of new development and staying true to the character of this place.

Absolutely. The issue of gentrification has been an issue Austin has grappled with for a long time, but especially within the last ten years. However, it seems there’s been a lot of interest generated in the idea of Creative Placemaking, which I think is something a lot of artists and art organizations at all levels are exploring in order to address these concerns.   

Jaime, what advice can you give prospective and current BFA students at The University of Texas? What experiences within that program have been most influential on your current research, projects, and career?

JSC: For students, I would say to take advantage of the university experience. Make friends, have road trips, study abroad, etc., but also take advantage of the city of Austin. Within the art community, it is easy to make your mark. Just prove that you are dedicated to your work and support your fellow artists.

There are a few influential experiences from my time at UT: 1) The rigorous critiques of Dan Sutherland; 2) Watching a group of graduate students get permission to occupy a downtown development for temporary exhibition space; 3) Being introduced to the role of city government and policy in the arts; and 4) Receiving encouragement from classmates, graduate students, and professors to keep pushing ideas.

What’s next for each of you? Will there be more collaborative work in the future?

MAG: Well, there’s nothing set in stone for us to collaborate, but the door is always open. Jaime and I have always had a great working relationship and our ideas often dovetail into one another quite well. We're very fortunate to have such a strong artistic connection and friendship. It makes the work that much easier and enjoyable.

JSC: Agreed! While I’m no longer a part of Los Outsiders, I'm open to the idea of more collaboration. Michael and I always find ways to work together. Currently, I’m in the midst of my 8th year conducting an art competition called, Eyes Got It!. The open call for our 2017 competition has been extended through October.