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Passionate Pursuit

San Antonio artist Bárbara Miñarro takes her art out of the studio with new purse line, Breakfast Friend

BY JOAN KENNEDY

veryone has different philosophies on friendship—from Taylor E Swift’s model squad to Aristotle’s ideal of “friendship of the good.” Bárbara Miñarro keeps it simple: The best kind of friend is the one you want to go to breakfast with. Hence, Breakfast Friend, Miñarro’s new line of hand-painted purses.

Born in Monterrey, Mexico, and raised in McAllen, Miñarro comes from a long line of artists and makers. Growing up, she would run to her grandmother’s couture design studio after school, where she was a fly on the wall during conversations about clothes, urban and interior design, and how people move through, influence and exist in various spaces.

A 2017 fine arts graduate of University of Texas at San Antonio, Miñarro has participated in exhibitions and residencies across the country, including locally at Artpace San Antonio and Blue Star Contemporary. In her work, she often explores the body as related to immigration through soft sculptures that evoke the human form while using the tactile memory that clothing carries. Her purses, some of which depict her original paintings, are not all that far removed from her studio work.

Miñarro says she’s had a fascination with purses for as long as she can remember, buying her first handbag—a glittery number with the image of a cat on the front—as a preteen. She’s since collected and altered vintage purses for years. In early August, she decided to turn her passion into a business. She describes the purses she sells now as a new kind of study in still life. They often depict items that would usually be hidden inside of a purse or bag, from Chapstick and bobby pins to Topo Chico, fruit and breakfast tacos. Whatever the design, the purses are colorful, playful, witty and quirky.

Shortly after she launched the business, one of Miñarro’s friends spotted someone out and about wearing a Breakfast Friend purse. She took a photo to send to Miñarro and listened as the customer gushed about how she formed her entire outfit around the purse. Used to working with textiles in the studio to create haunting and powerful bodily images, Miñarro says this venture has allowed her to express her interests in a different way by using her art to help people shape how they present themselves for display in the world. Plus, they bring a piece of fun to a society that can always use another reason to smile.