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Press Release
For Immediate Release
January 22, 2003
AWE CONTACT:
Lisa Becker
Executive Director
(414) 933-3877
MILWAUKEE SPANISH IMMERSION SCHOOL CONTACTS:
Wendy Cooper, Art Teacher
Yvette Martel, Principal
(414) 604-7600
Mexican-born Artists Make Huge “Impression” on Students
MILWAUKEE, WI – Pre-Columbian cultures believed covering the face with a mask temporarily removed the wearer’s identity from the everyday world, substituting a new reality. Borrowing from this tradition, students at Milwaukee Spanish Immersion School in collaboration with master artist Juan Flores and assistant artist Jorge Abundis will incorporate traditional Mexican mask making into a ceiling installation that promises to transform an ordinary hallway into an ethereal space. The artwork, titled “Impressions”, will bring together more than 200 students at MSIS in grades 2-5 in collaboration with Mexican-born artists Flores and Abundis. The project is sponsored by Artists Working in Education, Inc.
Students will be casting plaster masks from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. on November 25, 26 and 27 in the school art room. Students will paint and embellish the masks and ceiling tiles on December 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, and 12. The tiles will be installed into the ceiling on December 13 and 16. The dedication and reception opening for “Impressions” will be held at the MSIS on December 17 between 1:30 and 5:00 p.m.
Milwaukee Spanish Immersion School is an MPS school located at 2765 S. 55th St., Milwaukee, WI 53219.
Juan Flores is a sculptor and a painter who hails from Aquila, a small town of Mexico located in the Veracruz region. He studied visual arts at the National School of Fine Arts, La Esmeralda. Juan’s work has been shown in Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Italy and the United States. In sculpting, Flores works in a variety of media, including plaster, clay, sand, concrete, bronze, fiberglass and ice.
Jorge Abundis resides in Milwaukee and is bilingual. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Most recently, Abundis has been working as a visiting artist at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, where he directed a group of children in the creation of an altar for a Day of the Dead celebration. Abundis, an accomplished artist in his own right, is assisting and translating for Flores on the “Impressions” project.
Artists Working in Education, Inc. (AWE) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide youth in the Milwaukee area with arts enrichment programs to enhance human potential, advance learning and cultivate community. This project is supported by AWE and made possible in part by a grant from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund. For more information contact Lisa Becker, AWE Executive Director, (414) 933-3877.
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