Hispanic Heritage Month to close out with SACtacular.
Alejandro Diaz
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
Illustration by Alexandra Nelipa
San Antonio Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero and Texas State Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla will be honored during the Canto Mundo poetry reading and reception Oct. 22.
The event, part of Hispanic Heritage Month that celebrates the work outstanding Hispanics have done, will be at 6 p.m. at Koehler Cultural Center.
“The whole event is highlighting Latino artists in our community,” said Gerard Robledo, program specialist for the writing center who spearheaded the event.
The event will open with Carolina Quiroga-Stultz, an award-winning writer-storyteller from Colombia. In May 2014, Quiroga-Stultz was awarded Outstanding Performer of the Year by East Tennessee State University.
The event will continue with a musical performance by the band Femina-X featuring Daniela Riojas, lead singer and composer. She’s also a multimedia artist specializing in performance, photography and videography. Femina-X is an avant-garde electronic band.
Canto Mundo readings will feature Octavio Quintanilla, professor at Our Lady of the Lake University; Irene Lara Silva, a poet from Austin; and Lupe Mendez, a poet from Houston.
Canto Mundo is a national organization that cultivates a community of Latino poets through workshops, symposia and public readings.
This is the first time Canto Mundo will be involved in a poetry reading at this college.
The main event will focus on honoring individuals for their contributions to the community, Robledo said.
Two other Texas visual artists and San Antonio natives Vincent Valdez and Alex Rubio will also be honored.
Valdez is a Texas artist who at age 26 became the youngest artist to have a solo exhibition at the McNay Museum. His work has also been exhibited at venues such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Mexican Museum of National Art Chicago, the Parsons Museum in Paris, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, OSDE Buenos Aires, the Bell Gallery and others.
Rubio, Valdez’s mentor, is an artist famous for painting murals. His work has been featured in venues such as the McNay Art Museum, UTSA Art Gallery, South Texas Institute for the Arts and the San Antonio Art Museum.
Rubio received the Joan Mitchell Foundation award for painters and sculptors in 2007 and he was commissioned recently by this college to paint a mural at the McAllister Fine Arts Center.
