A new River Walk art installation went in last week. The piece is called Compass Rose.
“Compass Rose is a 4 ft. by 3 ft. glazed ceramic mosaic that is situated in the geographic center of San Antonio on the River Walk,” said Alex Rubio, the Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum’s Artist in Residence for their mosaic program.
As Rubio detailed, the mosaic program mentors high school students that they recruit from art programs all around the city.
“Teaching them studio practicum. Getting them involved in community work, and of course, public art,” Rubio said.
Mosaic students commit to 15 hours of after-school work a week from 4:30-7:30 each evening.
“Mosaic offers them a safe environment after school to experiment with those ideas," said Rubio. "Another thing that happens here is that they build their portfolios.”
Hands-on collaborative art creation develops their talents and even results in actual portfolio-building commissions that they create. Compass Rose was created by student Zoe Palacios.
“Zoe joined our program when she was 16, and she graduated just this semester,” Rubio said.
"So she started here being mentored at 16 and by 18 she’s got three major public works of art?” I asked him.
"Four major works in public art," Rubio corrected.
Palacios has installations at the H-E-B on East Houston, a bench at the Mirabella Apartments and is working on a Mural on the Nolan Street Bridge.
"They (like Palacios) are the next generation, they are artists to watch," Rubio said.
- For more on Blue Star’s mosaic program visit: www.bluestarart.org
