By this time next year, 15 Imperial Valley creatives spanning a host of artistic disciplines will have their pieces on display locally as part of a massive public art undertaking by the San Diego Commission of Arts and Culture called Far South/Border North.
A total of 60 artists between San Diego and Imperial counties were each awarded a $43,333 grant last month largely funded by the Conrad Prebys Foundation and the California Arts Council. The program’s goal is to develop different types of media and campaigns to bring awareness related to public health, climate change, and social issues to the communities of the Imperial Valley and San Diego areas.
“This grant will be provided to develop artistic content that increases local awareness of public health, energy and water conservation, climate mitigation, civic engagement and social justice within Imperial and San Diego counties,” said Celeste Alvarez, spokesperson for the Imperial Valley Food Bank, “nonprofit social sector” local representative on the program.
“As a social impact hub for Imperial Valley artists, we hope to provide community engagement opportunities to artists, strategize effective ways to raise awareness, and mobilize the community through creative and captivating visual artistic campaigns,” Alvarez said.
All the artists and cultural practitioners will collaborate with each other and develop creative ways to craft the campaigns. They will be using the California Healthy Places Index, which will indicate the communities that are ranked the lowest and will show which issues are the most prominent and may need the most attention and awareness. From there, the artists will work on campaigns and content to bring awareness to these communities.
This program will last for 12 months, from June through May 2024, giving the artists and cultural practitioners that allotted time to create different projects and content for the community. The Calexico Chronicle sat down with a few of the grant-funded artists, including Calexico’s Angel Esparza and Paul Valdivia, Fernando Reza of El Centro, Ryan Joseph Perez of Niland, Anthony Sigala of Brawley, Holtville’s Jose Eduardo Kintero.
ANGEL ESPARZA
Angel Esparza, who has spent most of his life in Calexico, is well known as the founder of “Mi Calexico.”
From an early age, Esparza has had a strong curiosity and has liked to create and develop: “Growing up I considered myself a type of inventor.” Only more recently has he considered himself an artist.
“I consider myself an artist, an activist, and a new title … chaiwalla, a chai maker,” he said.
For the past 14 years, Esparza has been a “multimedia artist, through photography, graphic design, video production and a community platform called ‘Mi Calexico.’” Being an artist, has been the most of Esparza’s career. It consisted of doing creative artwork for local businesses as well for personal use.
His inspiration of following the route of graphic design and creative artwork comes from his love of creating and learning. And right now, Esparza sees his love of creation evolve into another path; he has started working on opening a chai house.
“The common thread is chai, but the space is intended for people who love to learn, create and collaborate. It’s a different path, but I like to see it as an evolution.”
He hopes to also teach yoga one day, something he believes can help people feel empowered and have a positive impact on people’s mental health. Esparza said he wants to “give tools to people, so they can feel empowered. I want it to be something they can take with themselves.”
Esparza said this was his first grant, and it could not have come at a better time. Part of the grant, which goes to the artist directly, he will use to fund and be able to open up Magic Chai, his chai house. The project is barely starting and is in the early stages, so nothing is set in stone.
But Esparza does have an idea of what he would like the campaign to be about. He would like a campaign centered around meditation, since it can help with mental health awareness. He would like to create “a mindfulness-type of event” that would include speakers that can talk about meditation and help people understand more about it. It could also include interactive magazines and pamphlets with QR codes for people to learn more about meditation and include workshops as well in the event.
Esparza believes that this grant will help that artist community and will open doors and “will help them realize their dreams.” For Esparza, this grant means that he gets to help his community, especially the ones that mean the most. He is also excited to collaborate and work with other artists. “I feel very honored to be part of the project. We can have a bigger impact on the community and those who need it the most.
“I hope to empower people, so they realize that they have control over whatever is happening to them,” he said. “That every problem has a solution and they are not alone.”
JOSE “FERNANDO (FRO)” REZA
Another of the artists is Fernando “Fro” Reza, the creator of Fro Designs. Reza was originally born in Mexico City and moved to the Imperial Valley when he was around 5 years old.
Reza got really involved in poster artwork and the art movement in Los Angeles. He eventually got his work into galleries and started doing pieces for the film industry and public relations, which mostly consisted in doing poster artwork for movies. He did that for 10 years.
Reza said he also worked on animation, including Sony Animation and Adult Swim. Reza eventually came back to the Valley in 2018 and lives in El Centro, where he is currently working remotely.
He still does gallery shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco and even Brooklyn. Concept art, public relations and animation are his full-time job, and he also has his own website with his own designs.
He has “Fro Designs” and “Cactus Figueroa,” where they have different shirts, prints and even licensed artwork for past movies. He has had this business for over a decade.
Reza was inspired to go into poster artwork for films because he had always been interested in filmmaking and directing. His artwork always varies and changes depending on his project, but most of the time it is focused on pop culture. Some of the popular projects that he has worked on are poster campaigns for the X-Men movies and even billboards for Adult Swim.
This is Reza’s first grant. He is happy and excited to have received this grant and he can’t wait to get to work and meet with other artists. “This is just awesome. We are all from different places and different types of artists.”
Since the artists of Far South/Border North are barely starting to flesh out their ideas, Reza only has very preliminary ideas of what he would like to do. But he does wish to focus on climate change and ecological disasters, if given the chance. Reza believes that the Imperial Valley sees a lot of these problems and it’s something that’s very “urgent and imminent” and it’s something that people can “rally” behind.
Reza hopes that this program and the project will create awareness in the community and will propel them to be willing to listen to new ideas and work together toward a solution. “I want people to feel a sense of community, a sense of hope … to be more open-minded about issues here and solutions,” he said.
Reza thinks the grant will do a lot for the artist community. He thinks that arts in the Imperial Valley “feels neglected,” so with this investment to the art community, he thinks it will thrive a little more, especially since it will help contribute to bring awareness to the different issues in the Valley.
“I think finding creative ways to get to people and create a sense of urgency … and having an influx of creative people is the way to bring awareness,” Reza said.
PAUL VALDIVIA
Paul Valdivia lived in Mexicali until around 8 or 9 years old, when he moved to Calexico with his family. He attended school mostly in Calexico but eventually graduated from Southwest High School in El Centro, attended Imperial Valley College and then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, where he did his bachelor’s degree in history and a minor in digital media studies.
Valdivia returned to the Valley during the pandemic, where he then became involved with the Imperial Valley Social Justice Community in a number of capacities. He has done some marketing and freelancing in photography. His marketing includes handling social media, creating graphics and creating campaigns. Valdivia’s interest in photography started when he was young and started taking it up as a hobby and it progressed into something more serious.
For filmmaking, he always had a love for it and since he was young he would always make small videos with his family. He felt inspired by a documentary class. During the pandemic, it was when his photography and filming that really took off when he did some filming about an oral history project. They ended up doing several interviews and it ended up with a gallery at San Diego State University and it opened new opportunities for him.
“Filmmaking is something I am working towards. I want to start my own business pretty soon, a production company. I am in the process … of getting the ball rolling,” he said.
This is also the first grant that Valdivia has received individually and he’s pretty excited and it feels “surreal” to him. At first he wasn’t sure if he should apply for it, but he decided to just go for it. Valdivia sees this grant “as an opportunity to do what I love.”
Valdivia explains that the Valley in general does not have many of these artistic opportunities, so it made him happy seeing this grant come to the artists of Imperial Valley. Valdivia thinks that to the community this grant shows that there are a lot of talented people here “and that we recognize their abilities.” He knows that this will create more opportunities for artists here.
And while none of the ideas are concrete, Valdivia has an idea of what he might like to do as a project, which is to create a documentary on the entire history of Calexico “a whole breakdown, get into the nitty gritty of it.”
His goal is to bring awareness to the social issues in Calexico. He also wants to remind people that solutions can be found and made if people work together. He also understands that people are sometimes busy and do not have time to be informed, so he thinks that this project will help with that too. “The overall goal is to raise awareness of the issues in the community.”
RYAN JOSEPH PEREZ
Ryan Joseph Perez of Niland said he wants to create a documentary, since that is his expertise. The project would center around mental health and well-being. “I really hope it will inspire change and cause an impact on every viewer it reaches; media plays such an important role in our lives whether it’s the music we listen to or the movies we watch. It has so much influence on our thoughts, ideas, and emotions without us even realizing it which makes it a perfect tool for getting points across.”
ANTHONY SIGALA
Anthony Sigala of Brawley is a visual artist who would like to focus a campaign on “social justice and inequities.” He plans on researching and creating a design and concept, as well as a way to get the campaign out there. “I believe we can all be agents of social change and challenge perceptions through the arts.”
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Furthermore, Sigala believes that this will achieve awareness and even some “positive action” in the community. Sigala explains, “By becoming involved we become inspired.”
JOSE EDUARDO “EDUARDO KINTERO” QUINTERO AGUIRRE
From Holtville, Jose Eduardo Kintero has a lot of experience with art, and he would like to create “an art workshop program with specific groups of the community.” He believes that art can be very helpful and “therapeutic and help our mental health.”
He has worked for most of his life as an arts teacher, helping different groups of people from adults to children to helping those with special needs. And he believes that art may be a way to help some parts of the community.
“My intention is to help develop the artistic abilities of each person: creating, recreating, imagining, dreaming, fantasizing, are essential in an educational process and are excellent tools for personal development …The arts help for the inclusion of anyone,” he said.
THE OTHER ARTISTS
The other grant recipients from the Imperial Valley are:
Alma Silva
Amber Green
Carlos Uribe
Darreon “D-Stats” Staton
Elsa Alvarez
Eric “EV93” Vargas
Lissbeth Garcia
Malik “Ptnt Child” Glasgow
Sergio “Takito” Ojeda
(To see a list of all 60 artists/recipients in this first round of the Far South/Border North grant, go here.)
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