A pair of new mosaic sculptures looking into San Antonio’s past were revealed to the public in recent days.
Artist Luis Lopezcreated them, called Orgullo Tejano, or Texan Pride. One is at the River Walk Public Art Garden downtown, and the other is a 37th Street and Old Highway 90, which he calls the "main piece."
“The main, it's built with very heavy-duty stainless steel. It's on a base that is on a three by three round base, covered with mosaic,” he said. “Real bright and nice colors. The upper torso is tilted to the back.”
That tilt suggests movement. It’s a man playing accordion, and in fact, the accordion is the one element both sculptures have in common, and they are referencing a very specific music.
“Exactly. Tejano Conjunto music. And also an Accordion is an instrument that a lot of people love, especially in Texas,” he said.
There are many references in the sculptures. The obvious one is to a relatively recent bit of history: the building of San Antonio, and those who did the backbreaking labor.
“The migrant population that came from Mexico and from other countries to work on the fields,” Lopez said. “So it kind of symbolizes that production and hard work and pride, basically. The music was their pay-off on the weekend.”
Lopez said that the voracious demand for Conjunto on the West Side made the music and the night life grow.
“Old Highway 90 was like the place to go, because there used to be lots of bars playing the accordion and their Tejano music, but also some of them became kind of legendary,” he said.
The sculptures are also an homage to the melding of cultures that produced both Tejano and Conjunto music, and how San Antonio is home for both. Polish and Eastern Europeans brought accordions to South Texas, but natives used the accordions to devise their own kind of music: Tejano and Conjunto.
Both sculptures are static, but Lopez said doesn’t take much imagination to conjure the figures playing accordions.
“It's suggesting the movement because it's tilted to the back and the right. The left arm is like pushing their accordion. Then, pulling that to create the noise,” he said.
There is also a reference that goes far back to antiquity, a reference seen more completely on the sculpture at 37th and Highway 90. It shows the tall figure of a man, with dark features and hair.
“The face of this sculpture and their features are symbolizing Native American, people. Coming out of his mouth is a scroll that, we use in Mesoamerican cultures,” Lopez said.
In the days since the sculptures have been permanently installed, he’s dropped by a couple of times and has been pleased with the city’s, and peoples’ reactions.
“I'm overwhelmed by the way they're responding to this,” he said.
