I'll have a few questions about your background. The rest will be about your art (your inspiration, that type of thing), Open Studios, and being an artist in San Francisco. Your background: I’m a self taught artist from Arequipa Peru. I started painting when I was_______. I studied with a master watercolorist : Palao Berstain I exhibited in several places in Peru & the US (museums, galleries, universities, embassies, etc) I’ve been working on a series of large size paintings, especially immigrants from the Mission district and very recently I started painting Your Art (inspiration, etc) I consider myself a preservationist I try to preserve houses, buildings and also people against the forces of the so called irrational progress. Before I moved here, I lived in Cusco, Peru and my main concern as a painter there was to preserve the beauty of the old buildings, and houses and the traditions of the people, their celebrations, their daily lives, their work in the fields, as farmers, also as fishermen, as street musicians, as day laborers, etc. Here as a painter in the Mission, I want to preserve the people against the forces of gentrification, that’s why I am painting them,in a big format, I want them to be visible I want them to be seen. They belong here, they are the Mission. When I lived in Peru, I mostly painted farmers and indigenous people. Here I’m painting the their children, grandchildren who came here to look for better opportunities but it’s the same people.So what I paint is a tribute to them. Open Studios Being part of SF Open Studios is a great way to connect with other artists and interact with the public. It’s a unique opportunity to share my stories and culture through my paintings. This is my third year doing open studios and they are a wonderful experience. It’s a lot of work, if you want to do it well, but it’s worth it. Being an artist in SF SF has a very diverse and vibrant artist community. It’s great to be an artist here but with all the problems we have is also very challenging. Very high rents, evictions, etc. There are great organizations like ARtspan that provide lots of support and opportunities to artists like professional workshops, different events throughout the year, information about grants about call for artists , etc. etc. that can really help artists
( There are artist of all levels, you have well-established artist and emerging artists. So it’s a very interesting artist community. )