March 17, 1985-San Antonio Express-News

Get ready to read a new perspective

Beauties and beasts, the arts and culture, problems and good works-such will be the stuff of this column.

All, if not most, of the writers I have known have always wanted to write a column. I am no exception to that dream, for writers want a platform, a solid and valid launching pad for their dreams of what social and cultural meaning can be. I come to this column with a set of understandings forged by my intellect and experience, as well as with a predilection for looking at the world from a wide perspective as I strive to make sense of life and the human condition.

My travels and writings have taken me to different cities, states and continents, all with the hope of finding and creating statements verging on liberational themes. It is with that hope of exploring the worlds of art and culture that I have taken the position of columnist.

My personality shall be part of my writing, but it will be there only as one ingredient in the stew.

Many events come and go unnoticed daily in San Antonio.

Arts and money

This is a city of great diversity, one wherein the arts compete for exposure and funds. It is a city of different understandings of pride. I will seek out those artistic and cultural phenomena that are off the beaten track and approach them with a poetŐs sensibility.

It will also be my expressed purpose to visit and experience as mush as possible the wide spectrum of events. Anglo, Chicano, black and all other cultural presentations, in order to write about them. I will seek out quality and write truthfully, while also speaking out about those concepts of art which are dear to art lovers.

It is my contention that art is foremost a statement about our human condition, that we cannot separate ourselves from our values nor from our responsibilities as thinking beings.

Artists inherit those responsibilities when they set out to create works that move and transform human society. Liberation thus becomes a strong and moral response to our humanity, one which will address beauty and problems, celebration and pain, and it is with this sense of humanization that I will write this column.

There are no axes that need to be honed, but there is a need to observe the arts and then either rave about the excellence or point out failure in a positive manner. There is also the responsibility that all persons have our sense of justice and our obligation to demand quality in our lives.

Artists are working persons, and, as such, they must provide quality and clarity through their work--if they are to make a living at their craft.

Artists who live from public coffers have even greater responsibilties than do independent artists, for they must create and perform in accordance with their guidelines and the needs of the public they have agreed to serve. Public patronage is simply another way of saying that the public--ALL CITIZENS-- must receive quality art for its monies.

Private, independent artists must hustle for every cent they make, while publicly funded artists have the luxury of knowing that their rent will be paid on time during the life of their funded, subsidized program. Thus do funded artists have an implicit and explicit responsibliity to respond with respect and concern to the questions of the public they were mandated to serve when they accepted public monies.

My responsibilities

As a columnist, I, too have responsibilites, and those are to write with integrity, to inform, and provide the reader with all the clarity I can muster for my writings. Integrity must be the keyword, for the product will either be read or not only when the reader can find it worthy. If interesting things are happening in the community of arts, I will seek them out. This column shall respond as much as is possible to questions and information.

This will be a column on the arts, written by a Chicano who has worked as a poet and writer for close to 16 years. It is not a Chicano arts column, for the arts are expressions of our humanity filtered through our individual definitions. Bound as we are to and with one another, a writer uses particularized language in explaining human phenomena so that it can make sense to others.

Our social diverity demands responses that make sense to as many of us as possible. These responses must therefore implicate us within the festival of arts as co-participants, for by sharing our unique views about culture and art can we create a rational dialogue that will add quality to everyday life.

This writer will come to know you better with time, just as you will come to know me. Your responses, questions and comments, as well as your criticisms, shall surly pinpoint the effect or worthiness of this column, and it will be my responsibility to reply with dignity, coherence and sensibility to you.

I have lived in San Antonio since August of 1983. My profession has been that of poet, writer, educator and owner-manager of PAPERBACK...y Más! Book-store and Gallery.

San Anto you amaze the poet in me, you surely do. You puzzle all newcomers with your beauty and your passions, for poetry is more than words on paper here. It is all the nooks and crannies of your myriad barrios and the colossal structures of your banks.

Extreme poverty and great wealth promenade by the Alamo. City politicians speak in two languages, and artists weave their magical imagery with a cross-cultural flair. These are but a few of the things that this column will focus on, the arts from a cross-cultural perspective.