Raza Day Mural

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This 40"x150" portable mural was painted in the space of four hours with the help of high school students at MECha de Stanford Raza Day Conference. The mural still needs a final run through to incorporate shading, stylized color selection, and a thumb on a diploma, but the basic intention I feel was captured.

It should be done in time for An Art Affair.  :)

RGB Wheel

Final Project : Art & Electronics

After some many hours of soldering and couple of burnt fingers, the final project is complete. 

The paradigm that occurs with skill acquisition has several distinct characteristics; most notably the effect prior knowledge can have on the form, content, applicability, and belief in a hypothesis. Anything barring the title of Traditional is subject to this paradigm. As such, these different standards inhibit further progress and innovation. This project aims to address this concept of the traditional, the very core of the influence of prior knowledge, and turn it on its head, in the head. 

Automatically, the piece is expected to produce a aural cue based on the identification of the piano keys. Instead, the system attempts to present the spectrum as a compilation of its three component parts - red, green, and blue.

Each pod has binary wiring to account for the over 21 input streams and reduce them to a manageable eight to allow for the Arduino microcontroller to send the proper serialized signal to the RGB matrix.

Each key represents a certain intensity of a component color and "mixes" with the others to produce yellow (high red, high green), teal (high blue, high green), magenta (high red, high blue), and every color in between. 

The modular design is an abstraction of the Aztec sun calendar. 

Larkin Mural

Made over the weekend with Larkin dorm in Stanford, California. The RAs are the foosball players.

Formaldehyde Uterus

Fetus!!!

So this was my first Art & Electronics piece for class. I made the fetus out of some dinky clay I had, pierced its center with solder to act as an umbilical cord, and embedded a couple of transistors and IC chips into half its body.

The base was crudely constructed from some foam core and painted with a circuit board-like design. The electronic component is a couple of warm colored LEDs attached to a potentiometer that controls light intensity (there is a knob on the side that makes it almost glow)

I wish the glass was a bit more beaker-like, but alas the cafeteria cup had to do. I was experimenting with different ways to catch that light and found that a salt solution (technically a suspension which allows the dispersion of light) captures the light and gives this piece an ominous effect.

The overall idea was to comment on the turn towards a biotechnological emphasis on industry. The piece is intended to stimulate a person's reaction to the intersect between human and synthetic devices.

Sun Mural @ Home

This is a special mural created for my mother's Christmas present. It is located on the back porch area and once GoogleMaps updates, I'll post the aerial view.

The design was inspired from my parent's collection of suns and moons amassed from their travels in Mexico. They certainly have a fascination with the sun and moon duality, and this mural serves to acquiesce the inner Nahua in each of them.

The moon will be part two of this operation.

AP Art Portfolio

Mural @ Lee & Beulah Moor Children's Home

Can't believe it we pulled it off. Americas HS Art Club in collaboration with an NHS project pulled this one off in one fast-paced 10 hours.

The design for the mural was centered on one of the main activities of the main gym - rock climbing. The composition consists of the Franklin mountains and the many flora and animals that inhabit the region. A couple of silhouettes hang precariously off some of the rock-climbing walls.

The entire mural was completed during a Judo Competition that they were having in the gym.

The children's home is licensed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services as a General Residential Operation and Child Placing Agency. It is a member of the Texas Coalition of Homes for Children and the Southwest Association of Homes for Children. Please donate to the shelter here.

Torres, Cesar A., Dorian Clouser, and Americas Art Club. A Rock to Hold on to. 2009. Acrylic on Concrete. Lee & Beulah Moor Children's Home, El Paso.