Adults enjoyed Lucy's van-load of paintings
rich in Puerto Rican cultural themes and
beautiful carnival masks from Puerto Rico.
The children colored pictures of dancing vejigantes, learned the
signifcance of mask wearing, and the history behind the vejigante
masks of Puerto Rico. The children also enjoyed making vejigante masks
of their very own, and
danced with a "real" vejigante who made a surprise visit!
The Art Showing and Workshop event culminated in a celebration of the PRFDance Cultural Center's first birthday. While our organization has been ongoing in 1997, our physical location opened its doors on Februrary 1st of last year (2003). The children gathered around a big birthday cake and sang happy birthday to the Escuelita in spanish and english. Their favorite part was when they ALL got to blow out the candle!
We are so proud that the Art and Vejigante Mask Workshop was so well received by our community. We plan on having Lucy back to do a more complex workshop on mask making in the future!
Artist Biography:
Lucy Llera was born in Cayey, Puerto Rico. She
received her bachelors degree in art and education from
the University of Puerto Rico, and was an art
teacher for over 13 years in Cidra. In 1982 she
moved to Texas where she studied art at the
University of Texas at San Antonio. Afterwards she
continued her teaching career in bilingual
education, for which she has received awards. From 1984-93,
Lucy studied painting with Warren Hunter, a respected
artist in
San Antonio, and later with Daniel Green and
Dalhart Wingberg. She is a member of the Water
Color Society,
the Calligraphy Guild, and the Coppini Academy of Fine
Arts. In Coppini, she received awards such as
Artist of the Month and 2nd prize in oil painting.
Since 1986 she has been a member of Sociedad
Herencia Puertorriquena, a San-Antonio based Puerto
Rican cultural organization, for whom she has created
cultural-themed posters for their annual festivals.
Photo Credits:
We would like to thank Sasha Haagensen, photographer
from UT Austin's Daily Texan for photographing our event.
She is a senior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in Journalism
with a concentration in photography. Her plans post graduation
(May 2004) are to work for a major publication as a photographer.
Sasha can be reached at aeh1125@hotmail.com.