Dallas’ Latino Cultural Center: Veletta Forsythe Lill, Benjamin Espino, and Viola Delgado
Bruce Bleakley: This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard everyone. I’m Bruce Bleakly and I’ll be your pilot for this Tuesday’s flight of Dallas Love Field’s Lead with Love podcast. This week our guests are Veletta Forsythe Lill, Dallas Arts District Founding Executive Director, Benjamin Espino, General Manager of the Latino Cultural Center, and Viola Delgado, a studio and public artist. As champions of the Latino culture in Dallas, Veletta, Benjamin, and Viola discussed the impact of the city’s Latino Cultural Center on the arts and specifically Latino artists. If you want to be part of the live conversation next time, head over to the Dallas Love Field Facebook or YouTube page every other Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. Central. One last thing before we take off. Did you know that you can park in Love Field’s Garage C for a long weekend for $45? That’s less than you would pay for a round trip ride share from Mesquite and you’ll have your car waiting for you, when you return. Electronic signage at each of our garages informs you about open parking spaces, and with your Toll Tag, paying is fast, convenient and contactless. So, if you’re flying out of Love, there’s a link in the episode description to show you just how much you’ll save by not taking a ride share and instead parking in Dallas Love Field Airport Garage A, B or C. And now we’ve been cleared for takeoff. I’ll turn the microphone over to Veletta Forsyth Lill, Benjamin Espino, and Viola Delgado.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: Hi everybody, welcome to Dallas, Love Field Airports Lead with Love, where guests have an opportunity to talk about how strong leadership, respect for diversity and inclusion, and celebration of local culture makes a difference in our community. I’m
Veletta Forsythe Lill, I have a lot of formers in front of my name. Former Dallas CitC council member, former and Founding Executive Director of the Dallas Arts District. And joining me today, Benjamin Espino, the General Manager of the Latino Cultural Center and the Assistant Director of The Office of Arts and Culture who wears a lot of different hats. He doesn’t have all of them on today, but he also serves on the Cultural Tourism Committee for Visit Dallas. These are the folks that try to get you to come into town and see what we’re doing. And Viola Delgado, my dear friend and internationally acclaimed, public, and studio artist whose studio art has been seen and included in exhibits around the world, obviously, Dallas/Fort Worth, which we’ll talk a little bit about. New York City, Munich, Prague down in Mexico et cetera. And she’s working on some very large pieces at this very moment. Locally, she can be seen at that other airport DFW Airport, Terminal D or International Terminal and at the Lake June and Raul stations at the Dallas Area Rapid Transit stations and the Latino Cultural Center. She’s currently working on a five piece sculpture. which will be located at Dallas City Hall, and designing the arc for DFW North DART station, and a 35-foot glass Mosaic ellipse for another one of my favorite buildings at Trinity River Audubon Center. Benjamin, it’s great to see you.
Benjamin Espino: Great to see you too.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: We love being together and talking about culture and you know, as part of our branding, they sent us around these Lead with Love masks and when we go to the airport remember we got to wear our masks. So we’re leading with love today. Oh you guys look fabulous.
Viola Delgado: They’re really cool.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: They’re- cool and they’re really soft I like that. Viola, fabulous to see you.
Viola Delgado: Good to see you too, I haven’t seen you in a while.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: I know. And you got a new knee.
Viola Delgado: I have a new knee. Thank goodness. I’m sure a lot of people are real happy about that.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: Well, welcome to all who joined us on Facebook and on YouTube, we want to hear from you today. Make your comments known, you have that ability. So let’s get this party started. I’ve got about four favorite buildings, in Dallas, the Latino Cultural Center is one. The Winspear Opera House is one, the Hall of State at Fair Park and the Trinity River Audubon Center all owned actually by the City of Dallas. Benjamin, you get to work every day in one of those beautiful buildings. What’s your favorite aspect of the beautiful Ricardo Legorreta designed building?
Benjamin Espino: Well, architecturally speaking, I really think the natural light at sunset is probably one of the best aspects of the building. The way the sun hits the portico is just absolutely stunning. From a programmatic perspective whenever we have a large festival, like, say, our Day of the Dead Festival. You have several thousand people from diverse backgrounds, reflecting the beautiful cultures of our city of Dallas I think would probably be one of the best things.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: You know, when actually, when it was opened and David Dillon, who was the architecture critic from the Dallas Morning News at the time did a review he said, I think the city had put in 10 million because their were obviously private private funding as well. He said it was the best ten million the city of Dallas had ever spent. And I would, I would agree with him. It’s a fabulous space.
Benjamin Espino: Well, I believe 17 years later. Mark Lamster said it was one of the top 10 buildings of the last 40 years. Remember, as you might recall, David Dillon’s original essay back in 1980’s “Why is Dallas Architecture So Bad?” And so, he obviously make a splash with that one.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: But in this case with the Latino Cultural Center, we had not one, but two architecture critics, who thought this was a good building and you have the opportunity right now that it’s going to be expanded. Can you talk to us a little bit about when that’s coming? And what that’s going to do?
Benjamin Espino: Sure. So in the original master plan, the original planning for the building begins in 1995 which the city council authorized the feasibility study for that. So Phase 1 or the original part of the building was completed in September of 2003 with grand opening festivities of September 16 to 23rd 2003. It was a private/public partnership as Veletta just mentioned. So we’ve actually 5.6 million dollars in city funding and 4.2 and private contributions. Phase 2 is part of the master plan that was designed by Ricardo Legorreta in 2006 and with Bond funding, we were able to activate those funds for our Dallas cultural plan which we’ll talk about later hopefully in the broadcast in order to build a 5500 sq foot black box theater that is a wonderful addition to the center part of the master plan and desperately needed.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: We kind of found out when we did the master plan for the City of Dallas, the Cultural Master Plan, that a lot of folks were asking for the those small intimate theater spaces, so, you’re at the forefront in, in creating a new one. How how have your exhibitions and performances kind of changed over that time?
Benjamin Espino: So I think the LCC has grown, obviously, we pre-pandemic we were at about 500,000 individuals, but even during the pandemic, we were able to continue innovative programming that was outside, utilizing the plaza or the parking lot last summer, that [indecipherable] November outside in the plaza and [indecipherable] theater company did an interactive more performance art piece in late November, early, December 2020. So continuing and trying to keep the center alive and going while a pandemic was going on. We do six to eight exhibits annually. Viola also plays an integral role as an independent curator and advisor to me. I would not be here to work were it not for her, so I always tell her. And so, then we are also seeing that since I’ve been manager, almost 10 years, we’ve had an additional 20 groups that now utilize the center. So really there is a need as you said, Veletta for the secondary performance hall or sorry, the black box, which is our secondary performance space.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: I have to say that you guys were pretty innovative in the use of your space during the pandemic. I went, I went to see the cube and we got to chat and I got the peek a little bit about in the construction, but I also came to your first performance kind of outdoor/indoor performance, which had a lot of a very indigenous feel as well, which is part of your, what you do, you’re covering a lot of it’s not our city is made up of it’s about 40% non-anglo, so Hispanic but that is a that is largely a Mexican American descent here in Dallas, but we have a very broad spectrum beyond that and you’ve done a good job with with, with broadening that reach to different communities. Right now you’ve got two exhibitions. I came to see Marine Park which is street photography, right?
Benjamin Espino: Actually, he actually has a BFA from UNT but was actually a skateboarder and continues to skateboard. And so it’s actually based on a skateboarding park in one of the suburbs I think North Richland Hills but he did receive his BFA in studio art from UNT. So it’s great to find these young up-and-coming artists who are building on the canon of photography and putting their own flavor to it especially of Latino or Latin X if you will if we’re still going to use that term since 20 years from now, I wonder how that will evolve compared to Chicano and Chicana obviously fell out of vogue at some point.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: Yeah, Viola and I are old enough to remember when it was was Chicano
Benjamin Espino: I didn’t want to say Chicano dinosaurs but that might be the term
Viola Delgado: Um, thank you Benjamin..
Veletta Forsythe Lill: There was a nice piece actually in the Morning News over the weekend about the exhibition. So yeah, get over there and you want to talk for just a second about the, the other exhibition.
Benjamin Espino: So the other exhibition, the second exhibits actually Jose Villalobos. He’s a San Antonio based artist who actually right before COVID happened, we met on February 13th of 2020 to discuss exhibition for June of 2020. And at that point, he actually had received the Joni Mitchell Fellowship and was headed to New Orleans. The Joni Mitchell Foundation was generous enough to let him, keep the grant money and hopefully he’ll do the fellowship. And he actually is one of those young artists that have started to really appear both nationally, I believe Tucson art museum is picking up his work and another Museum that I can’t name yet, it looks like is going to give him a major focus a museum of contemporary art is pretty well-known in North Texas and that’s all I can say there. And so he really plays with the ideas of masculinity and toxic masculinity within Latino or especially Mexican culture especially as it does with- or for those who actually have horses. And so it’s actually really more Jose’s work is intellectually challenging at the same time and it can be a little bit hard. He did a performance art piece where he talked about how we have to hide part of ourselves as LGBTQ if you are LGBTQ and then he had high five hats on stage. And then he ate dirt between each part of it, as he said, “Silence, you have to change. Silence, you have to change.” So I was sitting with Mark Castro, Jorge Baldor, Curator of Latin American Art and Giovanni Valdados in the front row and part of the dirt was hitting us so it’s really rather powerful.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: Well, I will say, I didn’t see that that performance, but the exhibit was extremely well done but it, it, it is a little jarring. But I encourage folks, whenever there’s go and see the exhibitions at the Latino Cultural Center. Use your Latino Cultural Center. Viola?
You know, some of the analysis in the past have shown women artists, in collections were certainly a lot fewer than men actually the collections in most museums are about 87 percent male, and 85% Anglo and that’s changing. Yeah it’s accelerated and but you have been an artist and curating Latina artists for decades way, way ahead of your time how have women artists and artists of color changed over that year and over those years in terms of what they were focusing on and how they felt about their artwork.
Viola Delgado: Well, I think that the women, the artists that we have now are so integrated into so many different galleries. Especially right now, you have several galleries that have been around for a long time, but are now bringing in a lot of women of color. I want to go back to the Latino Cultural Center because I think, I really believe that the Latino Cultural Center has played a big part in making women Latina women, be seen or Latinas be seen in in gallery spaces in. not just the park, not just the rec centers, where we used to go, you know, we used to be known as the Cinco de Mayo artists, you know, they would call when these festivals would come around and want us to go exhibit our work. My my thought was always, I don’t care if I exhibit in a restroom. You know how many people go to the restroom and they get bored. So if you want to see art put it in there, I don’t care, just put it somewhere. But we started, I started doing more women because I was looking to find women to exhibit through the Latino cultural. Benjamin and I had talked about in previously Alejandria Drew and I had talked about bringing in women but then Benjamin was real big into let’s get this going. And so when I was trying to do my research, I couldn’t find that many women to or Latinas to exhibit. They just weren’t out there are there was an information they were out there there just wasn’t information on them so we start I started really calling people. [indecipherable] was very helpful and down in Kingsville and giving me information, Judy Baca (?) out in California, you know, Martha Sanchez out in the Northeast. So I started to turn to women that were not just in Texas, but outside of Texas to and started bringing them in. We started doing an exhibit called Cinco Latinas and we started with five women that were local but they were all women that were from different countries or they were Tejanas, you know, but they had been around for a while so their work was the was up to par. We wanted a Class A you know exhibit. So we wanted to really show and shine. So we did the one the Cinco Latinas a couple of years later. Later we did the Dies Latinas which is 10 Latinas and we expanded and got even more women interested in. By this time, we were beginning to be known and people were beginning to come, collectors were coming. They were Gallery owners, were coming people from out of town were coming. It just became really big. So for us, the Latino Cultural Center, It’s really been a big conduit in getting these names of these women out into the public. So, it really helped me. I didn’t really know much about curating, but I would call Joanna Roundtree over in, at the, when she was alive, but over at the Museum and I [indecipherable] at the Nasher , I would call Phillip Collins. I would, you know, call anybody who is at my fingertips to come over, take a look, tell me what I’m missing here or what I need to do. But yes, the Latino Culture Center was very helpful in that and I don’t want us to ever forget that, but now I’m seeing that more women are going through Talley Dunn, they’re going through bringing in more women and [indecipherable] they’re bringing in women over at at [indecipherable] Cooley Yes, thank you I’m sorry Nell, very good friend of mine and I keep forgetting her name Nell Langford who is really, really dedicated to bringing in women of color. So I think that people are beginning to see, you know, that we’re out here and we need a place to exhibit.
So I said earlier that it was happening very rapidly, but from where we were to now it seems like it’s everybody’s jumping on or more people are jumping on. So we’re seeing more retrospectives of people, women also in Texas and outside of Texas, so, you know, but again, the Latino Cultural Center was very, very supportive of of getting women on board.[indecipherable]
And we just got a grant, we got the Kaleta Doolin Grant to do to continue doing this Benjamin, and we will be doing it at the Latino Cultural Center. So it will be called The Quince Latinas and I think that’s where I’m stopping. I’m not too sure, but I think that’s where I’m stopping 15 women to deal with is a little bit too much for me but I think that’s where I’ll stop. But we’re really looking forward to it but Veletta on another note to that, also, YouTube has we have now gone through YouTube and all the interviews that we did with the artists are now on there individually so you can tap into any, you know Yvonna [indecipherable] oh you can tap into any of the women [indecipherable] you know, all of those women and you hear their interview from where they started to where they are now, and, and good news on those two women is [indecipherable] has now exhibited at the Contemporary in San Antonio. And Yvonne just had a piece bought by by the museum. So, with the Dallas Museum of Art. So they’re beginning to hear about the women, all through the articles that were written for the Dies Latinas and through the Latino Cultural Center. So yeah, to answer it’s kind of a long answer but but yes, I think that we’re beginning to be noted now.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: And I think Benjamin’s going to need an even bigger space. He’s already going to expand with with the black box and a hundred and twenty five seats. And he will, and you Benjamin the Latino Cultural Center is the only city I think municipally owned building across America with not one but two Latin X theater theater companies, which, which is your claim claim to fame and these are theater companies that have been around awhile and had made a splash, and they’re doing their own, you know, writing some of their own work and yeah.
Benjamin Espino: It’s really great to watch Dallas set the national standard for Latino/Latina theater. Teatro Dallas was founded in the mid-80s by Cora Cardona. And then the Cara Mia theater company was founded in 1997 by Alberto Gonzales and I forget his partner, the name is escaping me right now but both have been running these have been continuously operating since their start date, so that’s actually really great to see Dallas is actually setting that national standard for Latino/Latina theater.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: And in addition to opening up this one hundred and twenty-five seat theater, the expansion to open in 2022, you’ve got more plans on the books. You’ve got what
five more acres?
Benjamin Espino: The total campus right now is five acres, there is a master plan, but I mean, the master plan was drawn up in 2006, I’m sure that we will revisit that as we reach the five-year mark of the cultural plan will be referred to back in 2018. Dallas City Council, unanimously approved, a cultural plan for the city of Dallas when we took the input of over 10,000 individuals saying, what do you want arts and culture to be over the next decade? And that was led by Director Jennifer Script. So I think probably around year five in 2023, we’re going to evaluate what priorities have worked. It’s kind of like if you think about FDR sorry, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal sort of certain aspects of the New Deal worked and are here with us. Other aspects of it, did not work. So we have to sit down and probably at year 5 and evaluate the cultural plan and say, hey these following, priorities [indecipherable] strategies. Some of those strategies may not have come to fruition, or were more on a wish list and then we take the one to have actually worked for instance LCC, phase two or several other ones like equity and ensuring that we continue to fund organizations that reflect our city. Not predominantly, look [indecipherable] five. Major organizations [indecipherable] they have been Anglo per se and so I think that’s going to be very important to look at about 2023 or so.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: How do how does the listening audience, find your schedule of both exhibitions and and performance. What website do they…
Benjamin Espino: That’s actually a great question. So one of the things that we’ve started doing at the Office of Arts and Culture, so the Latino Cultural Center is a division of the Office of Arts and Culture. If you go to Dallasculture.org, just how it sounds Dallasculture.org There’s an event calendar that has listings of all the Cultural Centers. There are four neighborhood Cultural Centers [indecipherable] being, the Latino Cultural Center, the Bathhouse Cultural Center, South Dallas Cultural Center, and the Oak Cliff Cultural Center and [indecipherable] technically considered the Moody Performance Hall which is actually city run and operated in the arts district to be a cultural center so they do have a gallery space too and so you can find out everything there.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: And we kind of click on, we go to culture and then then it has the subdivisions. We kind of click on that. I want to go to the Latino Cultural.
Benjamin Espino: So yeah. Yeah. And so they all populate from the art and seek calendar, which is actually one of the best tools that usually has listings of all art and culture in the city of Dallas. Most Arts organizations are really good about utilizing the art and seek calendar. So that feeds into that
Veletta Forsythe Lill: And arts organizations love free advertising.
Benjamin Espino: I think according to [indecipherable] arts reporter, still at this time, even in a post print world. So, yes, actually really, really nice
Veletta Forsythe Lill: Still to have a few folks out there doing these stories, not only about Dallas, but frankly about Fort Worth and some of our surrounding communities who are doing work. Viola you and I have been friends for 30 years when I first got to know you, you were working with at-risk youth painting murals. and murals are the thing now and in fact you for listening audience, you heard about Tex Moton’s mural at the Love Field parking garage when we opened and he was one of the original podcast that you can go back and look into. He also owns Yums brand, but that that you were ahead of your time that so that that is probably 30 years ago.
Viola Delgado: Yes. At the time I was with Junior Players and with Kirsten Brandt and we were doing murals in elementary schools and high schools or middle schools. We hadn’t tapped into high schools just yet but so we went all over the place. I want I’ve always liked color. And I think that color has always, you know, with children. It’s always a good thing. It’s a feel-good thing. So what I ended up doing is doing rain forests in different colors, like there would be like a leaf would be purple or magenta or, you know, aqua or you know, they weren’t always all just greenery. So we ended up doing a lot a lot schools with rain forests where I became known as the rainforests artist, you know, because we were just painting so many of them, but in doing all that we also found out and this is why I didn’t mention the high school, later, we got a call from Mesquite High School and from one of the administrators and wanted us to come in and do graffiti Art with them because they were having a big problem with tagging. And so these students were being put in a class but they weren’t doing anything. They were just sitting in these after-school classes doing nothing. So this administrative person decided that it would be good to have them doing something and he came up, well, they know graffiti, why can’t we teach them art? You know? So, I got a call to go, teach them how to transfer their graffiti in, I mean in yeah and they’re tagging in to an art piece and so we ended up going into Mesquite High School and doing a whole section of the school into a mural by taking their tagging and their graffiti into doing that. But I was telling you, one day, Valletta that I was calling people that I didn’t even know, like, in New York these were legendary people that had been graffiti artists and were very well-known books were written about them and all that and asking for advice and got some really good advice from some of the street artists in New York and it’s to how to do that. And so, we got a lot of kids that actually three of the kids that went in there, when I ended up going to North Texas University to, to follow up with their art. And they are now doing in their field as artists so. So yeah, it, it was an early start for me because I had to go from painting on a small canvas to painting on a large wall and any artist will tell you that that it can be a challenge. Especially when the schools are old because there’s a lot of cement that has that has pores. So you had to learn how to treat it and how to prepare it, you know, so that you’re able to do canvases on there. I mean paintings on there. Later, I came up with an idea that maybe we need it to do them on canvas or board because a lot of the schools were being torn down and so and new schools were going up and so they could transfer the art to the new place. So that’s the new thing nowadays that people are beginning to to do, but I wanted it to just talk a little bit about the graffiti artist and the muralist because I’m beginning to see a little bit of the tagging going and being integrated into the mural, the mural that that they’re working on and it really excites me because I think it really gives a thumbs up to some of the kids to go ahead and start working that way. It’s still their mark, you know, they still have the bubble, the bomber, you know, lettering and things like that. That I think are really good.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: You’ve been a public artist? You’ve been hired by cities by by other institutions airports etc how does one become, how do you get into that line of City of Dallas Public artist and, and Benjamin, feel free to kind of jump in on that as well.
Viola Delgado: A lot of that is getting registered through the city of Dallas, but they now have it a lot easier. Benjamin, and correct me if I’m wrong on this to where you can tap into a cafe call for entry. And a lot of the Public art activity is is on there and so you it’s anybody can register with them. The problem is how it.. go ahead Benjamin.
Benjamin Espino: Okay, thank you, Viola So we actually public our program is part of the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture. Actually public art is funded through the our bond program. So anytime there’s an improvement, whether it’s a fire station or library or streets, where you have a median, I believe a certain percent goes to public art. So there is a process. So you go to Dallasculture.org and click on public art program on the homepage. Actually, we have there are several levels so there’s public art for emerging artists. So there’s a program for that and then there’s a program for more established artists but it is a public process and we encourage everyone to apply for that program. And on there, you can actually click on public art program and it has all the details about whether you’re an emerging artist, or a more established like artists like Viola such as her work that you’ve done is as Valletta mention at DFW airport and also with public entities like DART Dallas Area Rapid Transit. So it’s right there.
Viola Delgado: You know, it’s encouraging for everybody that is interested in that too to apply because if you’re an emerging artist, not necessarily emerging in just your artwork studio art work. But you know emerging trying to get on through public art, there’s always people that can guide you through that. The City of Dallas has an incredible Department of Public Art, people that can help you with [indecipherable] and I forgot the who’s the other one Benjamin, there’s several people on there, but that can give you information and guide you through everything. So, don’t get intimidated by, you know, it being City things because I think as artists sometimes we do that. But but jump on board, you know, jump on board. Anything can be changed into public art.
Benjamin Espino: [indecipherable] process takes a while [indecipherable] 24 months to completion. So a lot of people may get frustrated when you’re working with a municipality so one has to have patience. [indecipherable]
Veletta Forsythe Lill: [indecipherable] here that when we are in that in that bubble at the moment is what Love Field is a community partner and in many cases through their initiative and initiatives like this show and other things they do [indecipherable] that says true for our cultural institutions, our libraries that so so you see that these institutions kind of leading with love and that leads me to and and this is just sort of an open question. What does that mean to you when you hear “Lead with Love?” You know, we kind of I feel like I These are times when the positive isn’t always there and so leading with the positive with with love and inclusivity and participation, is is something that I think is important in a community and I think that that kind of is like come to me.
Viola Delgado: And I think that what you just said in the community and I think that’s where we should lead with love is start with a community like you know, where you live gathering people around to do artwork seeing more into your community and in expanding, from there. We have some great neighborhoods that that are very open to.. I’m over at Victory Park, I mean, Victory Meadows, so I know that here there’s so many of such a diverse group of people living here and there’s so much art all over the place but not enough. So I know Benjamin has always encouraged also, to go out into the community and do that. So, hopefully, I would think that lead with love would be leading your community first begins at home.
Benjamin Espino: First, you know, I would I would say putting the needs of the community first is most important and I believe that that’s one aspect of leading with love, especially if you’re in public service considering that we’re here to serve the public and I think that’s [indecipherable]
Veletta Forsythe Lill: That that is perfect. And we want to, we want to remind a, we’re going to go in a moment to our questions from the audience. So I just want to remind people when they’re at the airport, check out Level 2 Garage C showcasing graffiti artist Tex Moton and see some of his work, and that’s all part of this Lead with Love discussion. Let’s see if we’ve got some questions out there. Okay, this is great. Viola, this is yours. “What advice do you have for women artists for getting better known?” And and you jokingly say I we originally met because I said you need to get out there.
Viola Delgado: Um well one of the things that that I always joke about is that, you know, somebody stopped me one day and said, are you running for office? And I said, no why? They said well we see you everywhere. And I think that’s the key is that I would go directly from working from Junior Players or before a class in my overalls and in my work clothes and everything and I would go to a meeting at at the city hall to see what’s going on. Even if it had nothing to do with with art, but I would go see what was going on. Just so that people would know that the Arts were out here. We’re out here. Working in your community you know, so that and I always tease Veletta that she used to call me and she’d say, oh, I’m going to be at a reception at so and so meet me over there and I’d go straight from work again in my overalls and and go to work. So, I would say to this person that go to as many things as as you can. And and, and let people know that you’re an artist and you’re out there working.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: I know of an artist here in here in town. Well, I know a number of them here in town and every opening I go to it every gallery and I told my son, when he went to college, go to Gallery openings, they’re always free and you learn things and you your introduced [indecipherable] And there is always food and so and artists are always starving. So this is a, you know, it’s a great way to meet people and meet other artists. So go to those Gallery openings. And they’re always, you know, they’re noticed in the paper and and that sort of thing in the art press you can find them on Art and Seek and it’s a great way to meet people for them to learn about you and learn about the work that you’re doing. And then that sort of
Viola Delgado: Get to know your City Council people?
Veletta Forsythe Lill: What’s your favorite public art installation? Rapid fire. What’s you
Benjamin Espino: The Henry Moore at City Hall
Viola Delgado: Definitely definitely.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: [indecipherable] did a profile on me back when I first started on the Council and that’s what I chose as my background was, the Henry Moore, The Dallas Piece
Viola Delgado: Also, another piece that doesn’t get seen very much, but it’s a Jesus Moroles piece that is over by the [indecipherable] or somewhere over there. It doesn’t get seen very much but a lot of skateboarders are over there and it’s kind of a, I don’t know, like a Tibetan archway or something like that. It’s really beautiful. I don’t know if you know that one Benjamin but I think you do, it’s really pretty and it’s a very strong piece.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: We’re going to start to wrap things up. I want to thank my guests. Viola Delgado famous artist curator, activist, shall we say, in terms of getting getting our artists out there? Benjamin Espino, who is the man with many hats, The General Manager at the Latino Cultural Center and the Assistant Director of the Office of Arts and Culture. He reminds you to visit Dallasculture.org and find out what’s happening with our artists and arts institutions.
Benjamin Espino: Well, Veletta, thank you so much, it’s always a pleasure to see you.
Viola Delgado: Thank you. It’s good to see y’all. Hopefully, we’ll see y’all soon in person
Veletta Forsythe Lill: And I love the piece behind you, and then we’re going to see that in the future at the Oak Hill [indecipherable]
Viola Delgado: It’ll be a 24-foot a 24 foot by 6 foot piece.
Veletta Forsythe Lill: We look forward to seeing that and we’re looking forward to the opening of the next phase of the Latino Cultural Center in 2022. Okay, thank you. Bye.
Bruce Bleakley: This is your Captain speaking. As we begin our descent into Love Field, I’d like to thank you for flying with us on the Lead with Love podcast. We know you have many options when podcasting, so we appreciate you choosing to listen to us. If you like our show, please subscribe, give us a five star rating and leave a review about why you love the Lead with Love podcast and tap the share icon to send it to the people you love. As always, I’m your Captain, Bruce Bleakley. And if you’ll return your seat backs and tray tables to the fully upright and locked position, we will see you aboard our next flight in two weeks.
