Meet Perry Vasquez | Artist and educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Perry Vasquez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Perry, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking?
Without risk there is no reward. My sifu Rich Robson, would say to me – Don’t be afraid to take a risk. And if you fail, invest in failure. Reframing failure as a chance to grow takes the pressure off and lets you see it as more than a lack of success. Increasing risk becomes an indirect way of increasing knowledge. Of course, if you succeed that’s awesome, too. The point is to get over your fear.

In 2018, I collaborated on a risk-heavy guerrilla art project called #ArtTrumpsWalls with Andrew Strum, Jill Holslin and my drawing students. The presence of Trump’s border wall prototypes, that existed between 2017-2018 along the San Diego/Tijuana border, was an irritant to a lot of us but also offered a rare opportunity – to appropriate one of these structures and turn it into a projection screen with images of our choice.

My students and I came up with funny, insightful and joyful messages and Andy and Jill helped us project them onto one of the prototypes from the Mexico side of the border. Jill and Andy were responsible for all the technical stuff like getting a strong projector, a power source that wouldn’t run out of juice and a platform that would let us shoot comfortably above the fence line.

I was responsible for educating, and motivating my students, and teaching them how to craft a message suited to the context.  I spent two weeks showing them work by guerilla artists like Billboard Liberation Front, the Rebel Clown Army and Robbie Conal. They learned how to make simple black and white images that communicated quickly from a distance.

Meanwhile, we went out to scope the site a week or so beforehand just to see what we would be dealing with. You don’t just show up and do something like this without lots of planning. Fortunately, Jill lives in Tijuana and had been photographing the prototypes so she knew the terrain well.

The afternoon of the shoot we crossed the border and set up the gear. As evening fell, we were able to project the images and shoot the results. It went smoothly and we were so happy! We got local media coverage, so the result went out into the world afterwards.

The risks paid off. The students, many of whom cross the border daily, made beautiful designs. The only unexpected moment came when the denizens of the neighborhood blocked our exit at the end of the evening. They thought we had kidnapped their dog. After several tense movements, they let us go.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Oil painting kept me busy during the pandemic. In 2021, I completed almost one hundred paintings for two exhibitions, including Sparks Gallery and the San Diego Art Prize, and a mural commission for the new County Probation Offices in North Park. In 2022, I’d like to continue painting, teaching and working on collaboration with Lianne Mueller. For the San Diego Art Prize, Lianne animated a piece of music I composed. It was a great success. I’d like to do more with her.

As a young boy, my answer to the question, what do you want to do for the rest of your life, was to paint pictures. Color, canvas, pigments, brushes and the smell of linseed oil attracted me. I would get lost in the surface texture of paintings. I could see time frozen in the brushstrokes. I also loved the stories behind the pictures in the many artbooks my mother kept around the house. That’s how, as a teenager, I became fascinated with the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. His religious intensity combined with his artistic journey was something I could relate to at the time.

The Chinese say that you pass from boredom into fascination. I am good at finding passages between boredom and fascination and painting is an activity that helps me do that. But then so does standing in line at the grocery store. Boredom is the purgatory I pass through before I can reach a state of creative grace.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My ideal day would begin with an order of chilaquiles for breakfast at Jimmy Carter’s Mexican café on Fifth Avenue. From there I would walk over to Balboa Park and visit some of the many museums and attractions like the Timken Museum which is free to the public. In mid-afternoon, I would head over to Barrio Logan for a walking tour of the historic murals at Chicano Park. The galleries, cafes, and shops up and down Logan Avenue offer chances for window shopping, eating, and drinking as well. In the evening I would head over to the Rady Shell in Jacobs Park to catch a performance by the San Diego Symphony. Dinner at the Shell means ordering a gourmet meal from Chef Blaise’s kitchen or tacos from Lola 55, pizza from Biga, or a salad from Cucina Urbana. The night would end at Athens Market in downtown San Diego where a Greek coffee and an order of baklava would set me right. The rest of the week we would spend at the beach swimming or landscape sketching in Borrego Springs.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It starts with my parents and brother who always encouraged me. From there it radiates out to my favorite Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Argo, who taught me how to read a text closely. From there I must acknowledge my sensei David Boyles and sifus Rich Robson and Mario Mayorga who helped me understand and develop the relationship between body and mind. I owe my passion for painting to the legacy of Vincent Van Gogh, who was an early inspiration. My first art teacher, Mr. Robbins, was there at the birth of my artistic awakening in high school. Beyond these people, I am thankful to the sceniuses that nurtured me over the years including the alternative art scene in the Bay Area from 1977-1987 and the border art scene in San Diego.

Website: perryvasquez.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/this_is_not_a_pope/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/perryvasquez/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/perry.vasquez.520/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2WOeFyxPS4IgHqfoT9fxdA

Image Credits
Photo of #ArtTrumpsWalls projection by Jill Holslin. Photo of camera and projector pointed across the border by Marcello Maltagliati. Photo of artist in the studio by Perry Vasquez. Photo of Perry standing in front of billboard by Kinsey Morlan. Photo of Perry in front of Keep on Crossin’ wall by Michael Elderman.