Luminaria, San Antonio's annual night-time arts festival, spotlighted the East Side on Saturday.
Luminaria has been held in various downtown neighborhoods over the last 16 years. Festival-goers were happy to see it come to the historic St. Paul Square on the East Side and celebrate its rich culture.
"These are the most African American-centric pieces that I've seen at Luminaria," Christina Harris said as she toured the show. "We have a lot of Latin culture here in San Antonio. I'm Afro-Latina, so I love to see that represented."
She added, "But in San Antonio, I feel like there is a divide between the Black and the Brown community. So whenever I see the merging of those cultures, I think it's really cool."
For visual artist Kaldric Dow, this was his third time presenting at Luminaria. "I enjoy Luminaria. I did it in 2016 in Dignowity Hill and in Hemisfair in 2020," he explained.
This year, Dow set out to honor women and men of San Antonio's East Side and beyond. Dow's process involves drawing out a portrait and filling it in with vibrant skin tones, intense lighting, contrasting shapes, and bold compositions.
"They're collages — pieces of representation of African Americans," Dow said. "I feel it's important to show that in places like this, make people feel like they belong in different places, but also show a different technique and style, which I'm having fun with experimenting."
DaeJona Gordon came to San Antonio from Detroit to show her exhibition on the evolution of Black music.
"The evolution of Black music is really important to me because it did bring us out of the struggles that we have faced," Gordon explained. "Our exhibit goes all the way up into modern hip hop, the evolution of racism from slavery all the way up into police brutality and things like that. So it's super important to tell our story, and also it helps soothe us, and its a way to express our frustrations."
Amarice Moreno said viewing this art was extremely powerful for her — and she appreciated the way it confronted a painful history and its impact on life today.
"Being someone who has been oppressed for what has come from decades and decades and decades of oppression, it's phenomenal to see that laid out on the canvas. And to see that articulated in such a beautiful way, it's hard to even put fully into words," Moreno said.
Another crowd favorite of the night was an installation at St. Paul Square that featured a mythical landscape of illuminated animals.
Krista McCloud, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, was one of three artists who worked on the animal sculptures. She said the intention was to bring to life the Alebrije sculptures, a traditional Mexican art form created by artist Pedro Linares.
"We're kind of reimagining the dream he had," Mcloud said. "And we wanted to make it a real life, immersive experience using papier-mâché animals, using UV paint to make them glow."
Isabelle and John Timms have lived in San Antonio for more than 30 years, and this was the first time they attended Luminaria.
"We heard about it, and we cannot believe how much beautiful art we have here. People can express themselves, and we can enjoy it," Isabelle Timms said.
"We saw the stage. We had performers out there that were so catching. There was some beautiful music. All of those artists were able to expose the wonderful items they make. We saw a couple of people read poetry. It was amazing," she added. "It's great that people who walk around here are mixed ages. It's not just young people."
The couple plans to attend Luminaria again next year, and they were eager to learn which neighborhood will host it.
"So I'm a little older, and I've traveled around the world. There's no place like San Antonio," John Timms added. "When you want to come around and you want to eat good food and be with good people and have a great time, why would you not come here?"
