This article was updated throughout at 11:24 on April 2
By Gloria Petit/@gloripetit
The Texas Size Breach project, a large-scale printing project, that traveled through El Paso finally made its way to the community of Texas A&M University-San Antonio on Feb 14.
Artists of Art to the Third Power spearheaded the Texas Size Breach project, which is an art project that is now featured in an exhibition at the Educational Cultural and Arts Center.
What is the Texas Size Breach Project?
The Texas Size Breach project is a signature event for Art to the Third Power that allows for a community of artists and volunteers of the community to create artwork related to recurring U.S.-Mexico border issues.
The project began in El Paso and San Antonio is now its second stop on the map.
Kim Bishop, Luis Valderas and Paul Karam, founders of Art to the Third Power, along with local volunteers helped create the artwork for the exhibit that opened at 6 p.m. on March 12.
At the volunteer event, artists pressed the woodblock images onto bed sheets to create images. Artists used steam rollers and woodblock images carved out of routers to create the large-scale print art.
Collaboration of a community defines the Texas Size Breach Project
Collaboration of a community defines the project.
Alicia Viera, director of cultural programs and curator of the exhibit, said this is a “type of event that brings people together.”
“The project was an overall performance by people in the community and the exhibition is a documentation of what happened,” she said during the opening of the “Texas Size Breach Collaborative: From El Paso to San Antonio” exhibition.
Message behind the artwork
All images pressed onto the bedsheets from the volunteer project had a purpose behind it, Bishop said.
“For this exhibition, the art that was printed onto the spreadsheets are used as a symbol of healing,” Bishop said. “The sheets symbolize a covering over the damage that has been done at the border.”
The largest work of art is a Breach, a wall of colored bed sheets with print ink images supported by wood, at the center of the installation. The meaning behind it shows why Valderas and Bishop chose this large-scale project as a branding for their organization.
“It addresses the breaching of our borders and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people who have struggled along with the border,” Valderas said.
Valderas also noted one of his featured pieces of artwork, in a theme of “Hallucinations.” Hallucinations is a theme that he printed in El Paso that is now featured in the exhibition.
“On some of our print images, we created types of hallucinations that relate to the hallucinations seen by people who have traveled across the border in the heat,” he said. “The mariachi skull man represents my father, who played (mariachi).”
Visitors can now see the large-scale art in the “Texas Size Breach Collaborative: From El Paso to San Antonio,” exhibition that runs from 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. on Tuesdays-Sundays until June 14.
For more information on the exhibition, call or e-mail Alicia Viera: (210) 784-1105 or
alicia.viera@tamusa.tamus.edu