Photo by Bill Diven
Signpost featured artist of the month
Artist Paraná-Rodrigues envisions cultural center in Bernalillo
—BILL DIVEN
—Ben Forgey
On a recent late summer evening in Llanito, the Brazilian
artist Tony Paraná-Rodrigues prepared the famous Brazilian
dish feijoada while listening to his muses Bob Marley and
Miles Davis and speaking about his own life and work. Feijoada
is a hearty black-bean, sausage and pig's-knuckle soup with
African and European origins—Brazilian soul food. Tony spread
the ingredients on the counter, appraising them in their raw state
almost as if they were colors on a palette. Slices of moon-white
tripe and bright orange peppers from the garden were added to the
dark purple stew. Tony sniffed from jars of spices he knew only
by smell, not by the English labels. He added pinches of those too,
and the thickening aroma conjured memories of Brazil and thoughts
about art in Bernalillo.
“I like to paint boats. My dad had a boat, a very old boat.
He was always working on that boat—always. And when he goes
fishing, he never gets fish, never! He always gets back home saying,
'Where are the fish?' 'I didn't get any. Well, I got a few, but
I gave them to the poor people.’”
Tony is from the coastal city of Bahia. His father is an electrician
and his mother is a teacher. Being part of the Brazilian middle
class means that the family has one car and his mother has to ride
two buses for over an hour to get to her school—crowded buses,
both ways. All around is a backdrop of struggle. He is very conscious
of being from a third-world country where, “if you want something
you got to really fight for it.”
In the US, it's been anything but a struggle. Though he drew henna
tattoos for a living in Bahia, he did not consider himself an artist.
Within seven months of coming here with his wife, Angel (originally
from Bernalillo), Tony put together a sell-out show at the Arte
Loca Gallery. Co-owner Alvaro Enciso, described Tony's art as "refreshing".
"Tony is self taught," he said, "an outsider both
to the art world and to the US, so he gives us color and vibrancy,
he gives us Brazil.”
A bit later, he joined the Albuquerque drum group Concepto Tambor,
which went on to win the citywide Battle of the Bands. He learned
to speak Spanish and English simultaneously while working at the
Range Café, where his wife was a manager. His handsomeness
and winning personality draw people to him and open doors. When
Angel got a job producing the show Trato Hecho (a Spanish language
Let's Make a Deal show) for Univision in Los Angeles, Tony went
along and got a job as the cue-card holder, and in a hilariously
“Hollywood” story, he became the only person on the
set that the host of the show would talk to.
A year in Los Angeles was enough for Angel and Tony and they moved
back to be with her parents, Julie McGaharan and Brian Lang, in
their restored adobe in Llanito. Something in Bernalillo again stirred
Tony's creative urge. He celebrated their return by putting together
an epic garden-wall mosaic for Julie and Brian. With shards of broken
Fiesta ware from the Range, he began by making portraits of each
of his American family.
Currently Tony has been making a more public mosaic in the main
entryway of the Range Café.Two large, colorful lizards brighten
the drab stucco of the south wall, while a desert landscape enlivens
the walls surrounding the door. Curious patrons and fellow Range
employees stop to chat with Tony as he sits amid a multitude of
bowls filled with the cheery Fiesta chips. A few have brought their
own broken plates to add to the mosaic.
But Tony has found that he has returned to a much different art
scene in Bernalillo than the one he left. The Arte Loca gallery
is gone, as is the Katrina Lasko Gallery and Siete Nombres. The
Bernalillo Arts Trail hasn't been put on since 2004. “Right
now, nobody is doing anything. There are no galleries and there
are so many artists.” He called together a meeting of some
of his friends and other artists to talk about what to do. Perhaps
out of his sense of such great opportunity in America, he would
like to instigate a movement here. Tony's group has met several
times and is working to propose some sort of cultural center for
Bernalillo along the lines of the South Broadway Cultural Center
in Albuquerque.
“You know when a bunch of artists get together, only great
ideas come out. We need a place to show every month, a place maybe
to teach classes. It would be beneficial to the artists. It would
be beneficial to the town, to the whole community. It's like we
have a salad and we just have to find the cucumber. That one place,
that one guy, or that government support to pull it all together.”
The next meeting for area artists or anyone interested in developing
a cultural center in Bernalillo will be on Monday, October 2, at
7:00 p.m., at Textures, in Bernalillo. For directions and further
details, call Teresa Muñiz at 238-8290.
To view Tony’s Web site, visit: www.tonyparana.com.
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