Casa Circulo Cultural and Yerba Buena Cultural Center for the Art, held the “Represent-Art” gathering of local artists, which showcased how diverse, complex and wonderful the Bay Area is in terms of art, where men and women of different ages demonstrated their abilities.
The event called Represent-Art ‒Represent-Arte in Spanish‒ took place at the Casa Círculo Cultural facilities, in the heart of Redwood City, a space that welcomed artists who requested to participate in this unique meeting that embraced art as its pillar.
Fiorella Arias, 13, has been singing for as long as she can remember, and with great fervor and delight she decided to participate in the gathering attended by residents of the city and its surrounding areas.
"I love singing, dancing and acting. I am very excited to present the song “Alma Mía” to you," she said just before her performance.
The artist Lorena Segovia joined the meeting, who despite having only recently begun to develop her art and continuing to learn, acknowledged the support of Casa Círculo Cultural in its development.
"Here they have helped me to express what I think or to copy some drawings, because I don't know how to paint, I'm still learning, I haven't been here for long," he said.
Alonso Sicairos, who was present at the meeting, is a globetrotter. He performs in São Paolo, Brazil, as well as in San Francisco, California. However, the opera singer, theatre actor and radio host is originally from Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico.
Teaching is also an art and children are a perfect canvas.
«When children are taking the class, you really see the person they are going to be. Because that shy child who comes and doesn't want to talk to you, you start to see him develop more self-confidence. Sometimes you see a child who really says: my mom told me to come here and here I am, and then he is the first to say that he likes this song or “I like to sing,” or you see him walking and singing,» said Iris Lezama, from Casa Círculo Cultural, who also delighted the night with her voice.
The event was attended by the mayor of Redwood City, Jeff Gee, who recalled that art is a mixture of culture, legacy and everything that surrounds the artist.
“This whole night, the art, the music. This is about culture, history, the legacy of families. This is why I love Casa Círculo Cultural, because it’s about culture and family, and it brings it here to Redwood City. I want to thank them personally and on behalf of the City Council. Thank you, what you do is fantastic,” she stressed.
Gee also thanked Casa Círculo Cultural founder and CEO Verónica Escamez for her work with the City Council and all the volunteers here at the multidisciplinary center “because they keep this alive and we need to keep art and music alive.”
Also participating in the meeting was Lorena Casas Cortina, a visual artist who from a very young age showed a love for drawing and painting in her native Veracruz, Mexico, where she studied in local workshops and since then has learned as a self-taught artist experimenting with different materials such as acrylic, ink, pencil, gouache and others.
Itzel Ángulo Blancarte, from Tecate, Baja California, Mexico, decided to participate with her acrylic paintings on textured canvas that she creates with sand and marble dust, and colored pencils.
"I am passionate about colors, nature and the human body. I believe art is all about portraying pieces of your mind and soul into something that represents you," she said.
She currently resides in the Bay Area, where she and her husband and children explore and discover spaces that inspire her to create her art.
“My art is not only a representation of myself, but it also represents the love of art that my grandfather, who was also an artist, taught me and that I hope becomes a family legacy that my children and future generations of my family and the Latinx community can experience.”
You can watch the video of the “Represent-Art” meeting on the channel YouTube by Peninsula 360 Press.
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