HEAR YE, HEAR YE: Introduction

Hey there, I’m Alejandro. I love creating art and being surrounded by it. All my life I’ve been an artist, starting with painting and drawing. My mother told me I should be a tattooer growing up. Since I was very drawn to art, I could make it a career. But I felt there were still things I needed to learn about myself as an artist. So I decided to go to MIAD to be exposed to everything about art. Throughout my college career, I’ve explored all kinds of mediums, but I’m still working towards finding my voice, my style, and also learning how talk about art and express myself. For the past couple of years, the type of art I’ve been attracted to has beed abstract, graffiti , realism, and fine art. But there are still things I want to keep exploring, like surrealism. I currently work as a barber and a tattoo artist. I’ve been barbering for 11 years and tattooing for 6. I want to become a successful full-time tattoo artist after I graduate. In the coming months I want to create concepts that could possibly become future tattoos for clients. This will work towards establishing my individual identity.


I struggle with writing, being bilingual - English is not my first language. I often need help from a teacher or tutor. I struggle with translating my thoughts to words on paper. I think writing is important, and I’d like to get better at it. My early memories involve writing poetry in elementary school. In middle school, I wrote lyrics for music, and in high school, I began to write a script for a movie. I currently would like my focus to be more on the art than the writing. But being that is not the case, I hope that this senior writing class will help me improve as a writer.


When I think about interpretation I think about painting, and how it can be communicating multiple different messages, feelings, and emotions. It can be expressed using color, gesture, and the like. Narrative also comes to mind - I like works that have narrative to them, allows me to look deeper into what the artist is trying to say. You can interpret and analyze anything, but I think it comes down to how something expresses itself or how it makes you feel. 


For upcoming projects, I think I would like to focus on mural work throughout the Milwaukee community, as well as the story and context behind it. This past summer, I had the privilege of going to Glasgow, Scotland, where art is more accepted and public art is more common. I found this idea so fascinating, I want to model my final project for the course after what drew my attention in Glasgow. I want to continue exploring this idea with future projects this semester, as well as bringing foreign ideas back to the states.

---