SNP Episode 109 - Evita Tezeno
SNP Episode 109 - The Power of Passion w/ artist Evita Tezeno
Evita Tezeno takes a break from selling out shows to talk with the Noize! JBarber caught Evita before she flew out to the closing of her solo show “Better Days” at Lois De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles to talk about new series of work and her long career in art. She tells us about the dream that changed her work, the courage it took to go full time as an artist, and how she gets all the wonderful textures into her collages
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Jamaal Barber: Yeah, so Studio Noize, your boy JBarber is back with you and this time we get to talk to the amazing, amazing, long time coming this conversation, Miss Evita Tezeno. All the way from Texas. How you doing?
Evita Tezeno: Hey, it's actually Tezeno.
Jamaal Barber: Tezeno oh my fault.
Evita Tezeno: Yes, yes. Hello? Hello. Hello?
Jamaal Barber: Yeah, you know, we want to make sure we get your name right Evita. If you're listening to this podcast, Evita will be shortly on her way back to Los Angeles, where she's at the Luis De Jesus gallery. Her show 'Better Days' sold out show over there and you're going to close down , wrap it up. Yeah, so good luck with that and you know congratulations with all the success that you've been having over there and this new level of work you have. Let me ask you this ,right here in this moment, when you're about to load up go on a plane to your sold out show in LA, driving all over, what do you feel like? What does it make you think about? When you think about the journey that you've been all and getting to this point in this kind of success you having?
Evita Tezeno: Well, right now I feel like I'm floating, I'm on a cloud because it's been so long for me to get to this point, I've been working for approximately about 20 plus years to get to this point. And now since it's happening, it happened so quickly. I feel like I'm dreaming.
Jamaal Barber: Wow.
Evita Tezeno: Yeah, I feel like I'm dreaming. It feels real. And you know, I have to preface this, that I remember when, Luis contacted me back in November of last year. He contacted me from Instagram he sent me an email and he asked me if he could speak to me about my work. And I got all excited because of course, you know I looked at his gallery before I answered the email.
And then once I, saw the magnitude of his gallery. I mean, I was skipping and hopping in my studio. I was so excited. I said, wow, this is a really nice gallery in LA, and that was on my bucket list, that was on my goal list to get into a gallery on the East coast, I mean, on the West coast. So I was so excited and first he asked me for just, four pieces and we was going to have a little small showing of my work. And then it turns into a solo show over the next couple of months. And I had to, like the old people say, make hay while the sun is shining. I had to get some work together because he wanted all a large-scale and I had never worked at that big before.
Jamaal Barber: So, what size was he asking for?
Evita Tezeno: He said as big as I want, I mean, as big as I could. As a big as I was comfortable with. So I've worked at work, on 30 by 40 before. And so I did some pieces that size and it was so funny Jamal that I had previously bought a whole bunch of, canvases from an artist. And there were four by four 48 by 48 and I said, I don't know what I'm going to do with these, but it was such a good deal I'm just going to buy it. So, I bought about maybe 15 and then I told him, I said, well, you know, I have some canvases in my studio. I said, well I could work on those. And I had never, I had never worked on canvas before, never collaged on canvas. And he said, okay. He said, can you do a couple of pieces on canvas? And then a couple of pieces on board? I said, yeah, then he call me back and he asked extra eight and then he said, how many can you do for a solo show? And I, I almost fell out ;I said, you're giving me a solo show in LA? And I didn't sleep for the next four months. I can't even remember sleeping.
Jamaal Barber: Wow. So you made all the new work in a four months.
Evita Tezeno: From November and a truck came to get the work in February.
Jamaal Barber: Okay. Yeah, that's a good pace there. Yeah. Like it was 14 pieces you did.
Evita Tezeno: 14 pieces. Well, I did a series within the work it was called "I am a Black Man" and those pieces were 15 by 20, it was six of those. So six was small, but the rest of them were large. What, 30 by 40 and 48 by 48.
Jamaal Barber: So, how much did you have to adjust your process to work that size? Well, let's go back a little bit. So in your process when you work and now when I look at your work and almost it makes me really think about, two things, one quilting. The way you're taking all these different fabrics and patterns , in different ways, it's not fabrics. These are patterns that you're making, but you're putting it together, piecing it together and it makes me think of Jacob Lawrence. The way that you handle the figures, like you basically take it down to the essence of it. The simplicity of shapes and you fill it with texture and color and all the other things. In your process, when you're working, how did you come to that revelation in that method of working,
Evita Tezeno: They came really organically to be honest. So, first when I first started doing art, I was painting and then I had a dream that an angel came to my door and gave me a book of sketches and said, if you would change your style, you would be successful. I mean, seriously,
Jamaal Barber: That's a dream right there.
Evita Tezeno: The work, the work was totally different because I was doing, I was painting impressionism and this was totally different than anything that I had done. So I started experimenting with these sketches I started drawing and, I mean, this book kind of laid out on how I should do it. In my dream, I went through this book and it kind of told me what to do. It had all these textures and it was kind of, I would say Cubist kind of feeling and it had references in this book, I mean, I'm serious, it was a very detailed dream. And I know it came from God. It had a dream to reference Picasso, reference Romare Bearden, reference Elizabeth Catlett, it had all these references in there. So I started to study and this is what came about.
Jamaal Barber: Wow. What year was this? I think the earliest work I remember of you is this poster for the jazz festival? And this was 99. So, was it like that far back?
Evita Tezeno: It was 1998 when I had the dream, it was 1998 and I started doing the work that year and I started showing it to people. I said, do you think that this is pretty good? And I was just really skeptical because I've never done anything like that before. And because all the work was kind of conceptual I just, you know, pulled out drawings. I mean, sketches out of my head. Before I had to have reference material but this time it was really conceptual and Frank Frazier called me and said, this guy in new Orleans is looking for an artist for his festival for the poster. And he said, why don't you submit something? So, I said, okay so I submitted this piece and he went crazy over it. And I was the first female to do the poster for Congo square; all the time it had males, but I was the first female. And that year I got that poster and I also got the poster for Essence.
Jamaal Barber: Oh, wow. Yeah. Nice.
Evita Tezeno: This was after the dream. So it was an incredible year.
Jamaal Barber: What do you think the found foundation of the practice has been? Like was it making the materials, was it shifting the design, like what was the major change that you had to wrestle with?
Evita Tezeno: Well, when I first started out, I used paper that was already machinery done, or some of the papers were handmade paper from different parts of the country and all those different things. But, when I shifted to painting my own paper, what happened I took printmaking.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. You know what I'd like to hear that I liked it. Yeah.
Evita Tezeno: It was so funny. I ran into some artists I can't remember where I was. I can't really... I didn't remember how I learned about Brookhaven College in Dallas, but somebody told me, he said, you need to, you need to go to Brookhaven because if you want to do some printmaking, I just needed a shift. I think I needed to shift. This was around 2007 and I went and I took printmaking and it kind of opened my eyes. I said, Oh my gosh, I could print my own paper.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. Yeah. That's how they make all those crafts.
Evita Tezeno: Exactly. And I said, it just kind of opened my eyes. And my prints that were misprinted and stuff I started to cut them up and use them in my collage. And I said, Oh, this is going to be amazing
Jamaal Barber: Yeah, you on to something now.
Evita Tezeno: Yeah, I said this is totally shift. So, now I use very, very little commercial made paper. I hand stamp ,I mano print, I do all kinds of different other things to the paper to get the effect that I need. So, I don't buy really don't buy paper anymore.
Jamaal Barber: What kind of paper is this that you use?
Evita Tezeno: I use Stonehenge and then I use basic scrap more because when I collage on canvas Stonehenge is a little bit too thick ... because I want it to look like I painted it. And so, Strathmore still has it too and I mean, it's not a very expensive paper, but it's acid free, it has a good tooth, it has cotton in it. So I use a Strathmore when I do it on canvas because it just gives me... when the people see it far-off, they're thinking that it's a painting, not a collage. Yeah, and it doesn't have a lot of, I guess maybe texture. The Stonehenge is a little thicker, so when I do on glass, I usually use Stonehenge. I collage on both, I mean, I, paint on both papers, but I really like doing the thinner paper just my preference.
Jamaal Barber: And so, what is the breakdown of the different processes you using to make all these different textures?
Evita Tezeno: Okay, so I use a gel plate. I do gel printing, that's one that's mono-printing. I use... this is a cheap... this is a poor man gelli print but I get better a better effect...the wax paper.
Jamaal Barber: Oh yeah. Oh no. Yeah. That's what I use for it. You make it little stencils out of it and stuff. Yeah.
Evita Tezeno: Well, no, no, if you take wax paper and you put it on a surface and then you take paint and you just water it down and you just smear it on it, it gives a resist. And so when you put paper on top of it, you get all of this amazing different effects on the paper. So, I use that a lot just for hair... I use that a lot from my hair because you get all of this reticulation and yeah, it's just amazing that's one of my favorites. I also use glass and you get this [inaudible13:15] so you put a paint and you smashed glass with glass. And then you do like a glass sandwich, you paint in the middle and then you have one glass, you know a glass sandwich, one on each side. Then when you pull it apart and put the paper on, on either one of the glass and then it tracks that. So, you get all of this, it looks like dendrites this almost like tree roots. So, I use staffing,...
Jamaal Barber: Is this all water-base or is it oil base?
Evita Tezeno: I use all water-based. I use acrylic. I use wash. I use watercolor. I use alcohol inks.
Jamaal Barber: I love it. Yeah, that's awesome.
Evita Tezeno: And also, sometimes I draw my faces. So, I use, Lumographic pens, I love Lumographic pens. So, I use everything that's almost in my studio. Almost everything, I have almost every media, now I don't use oil because when I seal it on canvas, I use varnish, Liquitex varnish water-base varnish. So, that doesn't do well. So I don't use, any oil, anything, oil base.
Jamaal Barber: No, that's awesome. And I hope people, I hope people listening like this kind of stuff. That's kind of detailed that I like about it.
Evita Tezeno: I do all this craziness, I'm like a mad scientist in my studio.
Jamaal Barber: I love it, yo.
Jamaal Barber: That's the fun stuff. So do you have periods where you're just making just the papers without any idea how you're going to use them? Or are you more specific or, you know, Oh, I need some hair. I want a little red texture for this, and then you make it like, which way do you go?
Evita Tezeno: It just depends on how I'm feeling. So, sometimes I do papers to know, like I said, I have to do skin colors, so I spend a whole day just doing various colors of skin colors. Because you know, sometimes my people are blue and they're brown, they're dark brown. So I do all of these different varieties and then I do just do hair one day or sometimes I know I have to do clothing and I just do clothing. I just do different patterns and I don't have any idea on what I'm going to use them for. I just do... I just experiment.
Jamaal Barber: Right. Yeah. But you sound like you have like a general sense of, alright, I'm going to use this for skin. So do you have like a certain thing that you do for skin. Like, do you know that, something might be too textured for skin or like, it shouldn't be,
Evita Tezeno: Yeah, I do. Like I do like washes. I do watercolor washes, sometimes do mono-printing and I just do one color on the gelli print and use that for skin. It just dependents, because I like texture. So, if I'm doing like several figures, I don't like all the skin to look alike. I want different textures in the skin, not a whole lot, but you know, and I might use different colors on top of each other to get a contrast in the skin. So, I have to wait for the paper to dry and then I print on top of it.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. No, that's awesome. And ....
Evita Tezeno: So, it’s a lot of different experiments that I do
Jamaal Barber: Now that leads me into, thinking about, how you're planning these out, like how much of it is planned and how much of it is kind of just an intuitive sense of ... because you have like a certain shape that you're using for your faces because you can see how they all kind of related and then certain forms that you use for the dresses. Like, do you plan out and sketch the entire piece or is it just like, this girl is going to have a purple dress on and holding like something in her hand. Oh, you know what I mean?
Evita Tezeno: All my, all my, all my pieces are planned. I sketch every day, every single day, I devote at least an hour to an hour and a half on sketching; I know I have about maybe a thousand sketches. Sometimes I spend a week and I just don't do anything else, but sketch, creating ideas, working on different series. And I sketch on graph paper, I read something somewhere that Romare Bearden sketched on graph paper and he's my hero. So, I started sketching on graph paper and to me it gives me a better balance. And it keeps my work in line with the lines. So, I use sketch paper, I mean, graph paper. So, I have, I have bins of sketches bins.
Jamaal Barber: So, you never run out of ideas.
Evita Tezeno: Yeah. I never run out of ideas. Never, never. Because I sketch every single day.
Jamaal Barber: And are you sketching in just black and white, or are you starting to think about color early on?
Evita Tezeno: No, because I like the intuitiveness of my work. So, I'm old school, so I take the sketch and then I reduce it down and then I projected it. I have an old projector that somebody came to my studio way back in the nineties and handed me this big, huge monstrosity of an old paper jacket. I mean, it works, why should I get rid of it? So, I use this big, I mean, it's huge and I project it on whatever matrix that I'm going to use, whatever surface I'm going to use I projected on that and then it speaks to me. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but then it tells me, okay, the character start to say, I want a purple dress. I want a red dress or whatever. That's how I come about. I have no plan until it gets on the surface that I'm going to use. And then it starts to tell me how to do it.
Jamaal Barber: I like that and you can't trust an artist that don't talk to his work. Well, definitely with that, one thing that I always love, and I'm gonna ask you about this. Is not just your sense of color, but also the sense of detail within the color that you put into it. So, you know, you'll have like a piece, I can't think of a name of it right off, but you have a piece where there's a woman in a dress, but she's wearing these bright red texture glasses. So, you either really texture like the earrings or the, or the eyeglass rims or the necklace or the clothing, like, so tell me where you, where are you getting that sense of color or is it all intuitive?
Evita Tezeno: Well, I'm a graphic designer, you know, back in the day I graduated when there were no computers, so everything was done by hand. And, one of the things that we had to take was color theory. And so, I think I pulled from that class and learning that sense of color and also texture, because I know we had to put things up against ... because everything was cut and paste then. So, we had to do that by hand. So, I think that's from my old graphic design days, that's when I got it that the sense of texture, but I like things to be interesting. So, to me, me using all these different textures creates a visual story and so I liked all the textures because every, every part of the piece kind of speaks to you, the glasses talk about, you know, they have a story, the earrings have a story because it has all of these different nuances in it. So, you know, not just a plain color or a plain flat color, but it has all of these different textures and all of these different histories. So that's why I like to do it.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. I love, I love it and I think it does add so many layers to your work because it's not just crisp and clean and finished, like it's lived in and anybody, that's a... you know, you're from Texas, you're from a small town in Texas, right?
Evita Tezeno: Yeah, from Port Arthur.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah, Port Arthur. I'm from Littleton, North Carolina and if you have anybody that's grown up in small town South know, it's a lot of stories going on, like everything has a story. Like the old church we used to use the old church; that's why they call it Old Church Road. You know what I'm saying? So, it's like, like everything has a story and everything has a history. And I think that texture brings in that sense of history. Like, it's not just some newfangled thing you just picked up off the street. Like it was touched you and I think that's a good word. It was touched by somebody.
Evita Tezeno: Yeah, and I know one of the things I like to do, and I like to walk in like maybe warehouse districts are, are where there's abandoned buildings because they have all of these little rusty little trinkets you can find on the ground. Pieces that people discard and I like all the different patterns and stuff. So, I pick those up and I try to borrow from those and to reproduce them in my papers. So, I'm always looking for, you know, a rusty piece of tin old battered piece of wood. So, I'm taking that, that'd be my reference material and I take that back and I tried to reproduce that as well.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. That's awesome. So, we're gonna move down to talk about subject matter a little bit. Where do you get all of these stories from? Because all your work seems to have, like, just to kind of these glimpses of a narrative of people sitting on a porch or playing banjo or a girl in an Easter dress, it's like all these, all these different subtle stories that you're telling. Where do you get these stories from? What inspires them?
Evita Tezeno: Family, family, that's it growing up in a small-town Port Arthur Texas. I was surrounded by family surrounded by kinfolk and church and all of these stories come from, you know, family. So, I just, remember one of the pieces I did long time ago it's called 'Ms. Pearl' and Ms. Pearl was I had picked another, she was not really a relative, but she wore her little pearls because she was called Ms. Pearl and she was just a little simple lady. So, I did her, I had another piece called 'Ms. Devine she was my next-door neighbor and I did a piece called ' Hey Lucille'. And she was my great aunt I think my great aunt. I mean, I can't remember. She was my great aunt and she was so fascinated to me because she would wear her pearls to mow the lawn.
She was an amazing lady. She was an amazing lady. She would dress up, I mean, she would have Pearl earrings and she would be mowing the lawn. And so, things like that, I remember as a child and I remember playing Simon says and ring around the Rosie and one, three, one, two, three red light in the backyard. So, all of these little experiences that I had as a child, I bring that into my work.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah, and I can feel that Lucille is a good name for a great aunt too. That's one of the old folks’ days right there. I love it. And so, all these stories, like were you collecting them as a child? Like, did you do like a lot of writing where you being creative and making stuff like back then?
Evita Tezeno: Well, as a child, I used to just do a lot of stuff. I always wanted to be an artist. So, I told, my family long time ago when I was little, that I wanted to be an artist. So, I guess mentally I collected those stories you know, I guess I'm a writer too because I write poetry. I don't know if you go back into my feed a long, long time ago. I did a, I you'll see a poem that I wrote. It was called my black man and it's a really silly poem that I wrote in high school, but I did write and I wrote some, I guess journaled, I would say about some stories of my family, but most of the things are in my selected memory that I have kept into my adult life. I didn't write a lot of different stories behind; you know, I just remember things that my grandmother would tell me and I experienced as a child. And then these things just come out when I'm drawing. Oh, and while I'm sketching, I'll say, Oh, I remember this lady, or I remembered this experience and I jotted down in my margins and then I start to sketch out that experience.
Jamaal Barber: That's good. One of the pieces in a... I don't want to say ...one of the pieces at the gallery in LA that I looked and really like what's called 'Shotgun Boogie'. What's the story behind that piece?
Evita Tezeno: Yeah. So, in my town, they used to be a street called seventh street and they used to have all of these shotgun houses. And I remember as a child, one time bad, we used to have these big boom boxes, those big boombox people used to carry on their shoulders. And I remember that there was a group of kids out in the front yard, I mean, out in the front of the house and they were dancing and I just remembered that as a child. And I said, okay, when I started to draft that piece, I said, I remember this experience and I want to recreate it. And I remembered that it was, it was a distressed part of town, but still these people were happy because they had their music, they had their dancing and they enjoyed life. They may not have had much, but they had the joy of this experience. And so that's what Shotgun Boogie means. [inaudible29:00] you boogie in front of these shotgun houses and you enjoying the moment. You don't have another care in the world. You might not have money to pay your bills for tomorrow, but you have this moment, you have this time, you have this music, you have the sense of bogginess' in you.
Jamaal Barber: Wow. That's awesome yo. Do, you have a piece that you think about that that was kind of the perfect piece that came to you? Like,
Evita Tezeno: Mm,
Jamaal Barber: I ask that because it sounds like that process of... it's all in the practice, right? Like your memory and then in the making is all like tied together. Like, well name me, one piece that you had that was that you felt like was just inspired, like out of nowhere.
Evita Tezeno: Okay. So, I did this piece a while ago. It's called 'The Visitation' and it was a woman and she was kind of dressed in Victorian garb and she was feeding the birds. And I remember I went through a painful period in my life and I would go to the park and I would just walk and the birds would come and I would feed the birds. And I pulled from that experience I wanted to narrate the experience that I was feeling at the time. And the story was that this woman in all her sadness, she would go to the bird... I mean she would go and feed the birds and the birds would come and bring her joy. They would come and visit her and bring her peace. And in her in a time of loneliness, her bird, the birds were her friends.
And this is what I did the piece. And when I sold that piece and I really was going to keep that piece for myself. But this lady came into my studio and she saw it and she said, you know what? She said, I was not coming to buy anything of this magnitude. because it was a pretty hefty ... it was a large piece. And she said, I came here to buy only a small piece, but you changed my mind because I told her the story about the piece. And she said, I need to have this in my life and that piece I look at it all the time because that piece is very, I mean, it's very important because it reminds me of a time in my life that I had sadness and it was nature that brought me joy. The birds came and they gave me a sense of peace and it grounded me and knowing that even though things were difficult in my life, I had these little creatures to come and bring me joy.
Jamaal Barber: That's an awesome story yo.
Evita Tezeno: Thank you, thank you.
Jamaal Barber: For sure. That makes me think about the path that it took you for you to get to this point this level of success. I mean, you have celebrities collecting your work. You know what I'm saying? You got a picture with Sam Yale [unsure if this is the correct name] hanging a piece up in his house.
Evita Tezeno: Can I tell you that story.
Jamaal Barber: Go for it, go for it.
Evita Tezeno: Because I still can't believe the story. So, I did a live on IG and I was talking about my experience and one of my collectors called me and said, you know, I want to tell you how I heard about you. Because this woman bought 12 of my pieces.
Jamaal Barber: Oh wow.
Evita Tezeno: You know,
Jamaal Barber: Shout out to her. Yeah.
Evita Tezeno: She bought 12 of my pieces from Framed Art gallery in Ohio and she said, I just, you know, I was watching an interview with Samuel Jackson one night and he mentioned you, I said what! I said how in a world? She said, well, they were talking about, some of his passions and he said one of his was artwork. And he said that either he had some of your work or he wanted to collect your work. She said, I just don't remember. I said, well, I don't think he has any of my work because I said, my galleries would have told me if he would have bought from me.
I said, just like Denzel Washington bought my work and he bought it from Peg Austin's gallery. She called me as soon as he left the gallery, but I said, I don't know. So, you know, me being, I am fearless, I'm a fearless person. I said, okay, how am I going to find out how this man, if he has my work or how did he find out about me? So, I, called my, social media guy and I asked him, I said, what do you think I should do? And he said, well, why don't you go to IMB and contact his agent? I said, okay, I blew him off and I said, that's just too much work. I went to Instagram and I looked at his Instagram and this man post himself.
He was in a barbershop filming himself, walking down the street, filming this stuff. I said, so I sent him a DM. And in 24 hours he wrote me back.
Jamaal Barber: Ain’t that something.
Evita Tezeno: I know, I said Mr. Jackson my name is Evita Tezeno. I said, I understand that you saw my work at Denzel Washington's house. And I, said, it was told to me that you have some of my work or you admire my work? I said, I just want to confirm. He said, Hey, yes, that's all your work at the Washington's house. He said, I am an admirer. And he said, I don't have any of my work but he said, it's going to change. I said, wow. So, he started to follow me. And then he started to comment on my page and my work, and then [inaudible35:21] started a conversation.
He sent me a message and said that he wanted to buy his wife a gift for their 40th anniversary. I posted a piece of a couple he said he liked it. I said, well, you know, I have this other piece, which was a very large piece, I said, it's called ' Ain’t no woman like the one I got' he said, Oh, I like the O Jays I send him the image. He said, how can I buy it? I said, well, I'm going out of town. He told me, no, you're not going out of town in the midst of a pandemic. I said, my ticket is bought i’m going. I said, I'm gonna be okay. I said, I'll call you when I get back. When I called him, he sent me the check the next day. And now it lives in this house.
Jamaal Barber: I love it.
Evita Tezeno: I mean, it was just amazing and now I mean, we're friends. I mean, we, text each other all the time I mean, I’m just kind of blown away. I asked him how he's doing. I said, I'm coming to LA. I mean, I treat him like he's a partner. I said I'm coming to LA, I said I want you and your wife to come by the gallery. I said can we see each other? You know, it's so cool.
Jamaal Barber: Oh man. That's crazy. That's awesome yo. That's awesome. And I think about that story the joy of it, right? The experience of it, like compared to how long this journey is, because I think when people see like you in this moment, selling work and selling out shows, they don't see like the 30 years that you've spent, like doing all the other stuff. Like what, what was kind of, what was, in your opinion; kind of the lowest point that you got to, what did you have to do to get by. And get to this point,
Evita Tezeno: Man, I'm going to be very vulnerable right now because it was a journey for sure. I had to do a little bit of everything. I was a caregiver for an elderly white lawyer attorney that he was in a car accident, I cared for him. I would do sketches on my downtime. I was an administrative worker and right before I quit it, I was a chef. I'm a vegan. So, I've been a vegan for almost 30 years as well and I was a vegan chef for 15 years, and I remember working 13, 14, 16 hours as a chef. And you know, right before I remember I do this vegan brisket, it was a ten and my boss took the credit on national television that he created this and I got so mad, really mad.
And that's the same year that Denzel bought my work. I did that bought eight pieces of my work from Peg Austin's gallery. And it was a very nice check, pay day and I said, you know what? I said, I can blow this joint. I don't need this anymore. So, I quit. I didn't even give him a, a 30-day notice, I gave him a week notice. I emailed him and I said, I am quitting. I went to the restaurant and got whatever supplies I had there and the next day I went and got I think it was a seven... and that's the same studio I'm in now an 800-foot studio. And I said, I'm going to do this thing it's going to happen. And I never looked back since 2017, I've been doing art full-time.
Jamaal Barber: Nice.
Evita Tezeno: Yeah, and I mean, I've had my low points, but I would never give up. I never, never...I have been wanting to do artwork ever since I was as they say a little, a little tack, I always wanted to be an artist. I remember telling my family that I want to be artist. I wanted to travel the world. I want everybody to buy my work. And I believed that that was going to happen. And it took me a while, it was a journey, I can remember a couple of years that I couldn't even do artwork because I was working all these different jobs. I had to move to Houston and work for a nonprofit I had to do a lot of different things to make it happen, but I always came back to art, but now I don't have to do anything else, but I can do my passion.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. And I think that's important for people to hear because you know, it does get really tight sometimes.
Evita Tezeno: Yes, it does.
Jamaal Barber: But like you said, when you stick to that, when you stick to... what you...when you committed to it, right. When you committed and you know that this part of your life, at least is something that you enjoy more than anything. Like you can't let it go by no matter what happens. Like even if you do take some time off, you always come back to it and you always invest in that part. Cause you never know. What's what it can give you. Because ultimately if that's your blessing that you got, that's your talent, your, your passion, that your joy is going to get you something eventually. And you just have to like be able to wade through. And sometimes people hit it big, Jordan Casteel, you're 30 years old you can be on Vogue. Or sometimes it takes a little while. You know what I'm saying?
Evita Tezeno: It does. It does. But the main thing is to not to give up, not to give up no matter what. And you know, I remember I talked to an art advisor one time and it was, this was several years ago. And this was before I, I was introduced to Luis de Jesus and I told her, I said I want more. And she kind of reprimanded me, she said, do you know how many artists die in obscurity Evita? That they never, never get known she said, do you realize that you're selling your work? And I think I had just quit my job and this was back in 2017 or 2018. And I mean, I was, I was doing full-time. I said, I just don't want to sell my work though. I said, I want to leave a legacy behind. I said, I want to be in museums. I want to be written up in history books. And she told me, she said, well, the video, you can't have everything I say, yes, I can.
Jamaal Barber: That's right yo, she can't put limitations on your dreams.
Evita Tezeno: No, I said, yes, I can. I said, I can have everything and she said, well I'm just telling you; you need to be a realist. And I started to be bold. And I started to just ask people, I started to just email people and ask people, can I be a part of the show or can I be included in this show and what was the turning point was being in Prism at Art Basel, and I just, yeah, it was, I was elected McKayla. And I showed two pieces in that show that was two years ago. And just to be at Art Basel and see the dynamics and everything that made me really want it really, I said, okay, I'm not in the main, I'm not in one of the, you know, like the different other places.
But I said, I am at Art Basel. I am showing, I have my, my work in front of, different eyes. I said I can reach for whatever I want. I said, nobody's going to cut me off or limit me. And then I started to ask people, I started to go up to people and talk to people went up to different people that own different magazines, and I said can you feature me in your magazine? And I got a lot of no's, but now those same people that told me no they're coming back, they're coming back and saying I want to feature you in my magazine. I want to do this for you. I want to do a write up it's happening now. When you get the no's, don't look at the no's out of a hundred no's, you're going to get one yes. But that one yes might be important; it'll fuel you to keep going.
Jamaal Barber: The big yes.
Evita Tezeno: Yes. I got a lot of nos. I got a lot of; what's this work you're doing? You know, I've got a lot of questions. What are you doing? But I never gave up because I know that the work that I'm doing now was given to me by divine hands because it was a dream and how it just came about. So, I wasn't going to give up. I was determined
Jamaal Barber: And that's good. Good thing you didn't yo. Because now your kind of at the spot you are now. A quick question about this one. In terms of galleries, you mentioned a few over the interview. How many... what has been your experience working with the galleries and like how many have you worked with over time?
Evita Tezeno: Hmm, I've worked with a lot. I have... at one time I was with five different galleries.
Jamaal Barber: At the same time? Like giving them all work?
Evita Tezeno: Yeah. I had one in New York, one in Ohio, one in Georgia, one in Maryland. And I had a dealer in Philadelphia. So, I had all of that at one time and I slowly weeded them out you know, because it was just too much. It was too much. And one thing that Peg told me, she sat me down and she said, honey she said, you don't want your work to be over-saturated. You don't want to have your work at so many different places that they just could get your work everywhere; and I listened to her. I mean, she's wise lady, she's been in the business for 50 years to say the least. And she's very, very wise. So, I listened to her and I said, okay, I said, I'm going to start cutting down. And once, you know, my practice has started to escalate.
I don't want to say escalate, but yeah, it started to, to increase over the years, I was able not to have to sell so much work to make a living. So, I started to cut back on galleries and now I am in only two now. I have East coast representation with Just Looking and I will never let her go she was my first gallery.
Jamaal Barber: Eileen Burgess.
Evita Tezeno: Eileen Burgess, I love her. I was at, what's that, oh, goodness. Red cross what's that Red Cross guy named Temple University ... October Gallery. October Gallery show back in the day I had a booth there, Frank Frazier and I used to load up in a van with a bunch of guys. And we used to travel all over the country. This was back in the nineties.
And so, I was at October gallery and Eileen and her late husband came into my booth and said, Oh, this is interesting work. He said, would you be interested in the showing...? And I had never shown in a gallery before I was so excited. And I said, yes and till this day, I'm still with her from 1999 is when I sent her my first work. And I'm still with her till this day I told. And I told, the gallery, I told Luis I said I'm not going to ever let her go. I said, I can't. I said, I have to have loyalty to her because she gave me a chance when nobody else would.
Jamaal Barber: Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Evita Tezeno: And I just, I just love her as a person. She's honest. She's kind, she's a wonderful human being and I just have to have her in my life.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. She can talk too, I love talking to her, have some long conversation when I talk to her. Because she's a pretty big fan. Has she ever sold any of your printmaker work I've seen you done a few prints?
Evita Tezeno: Yes. She, she is the exclusive dealer for my prints. She sells all of my prints. Yeah. My woodcuts and my collagraphs.
Jamaal Barber: That's what's up. That's good stuff. So, as you pair it down, do you think that you have been able to, or do you think you've had a revelation about the quality and texture of your work? Does that make sense? Like instead of putting all your energy to a lot of pieces where you're making this one piece like super textured and layered and all that kind of stuff.
Evita Tezeno: Believe it or not I've noticed that I really have noticed that. I feel that the, the large-scale work and then not producing as many pieces as I usually had to. Cause that would do a lot of work. I'm not going to say how many I did because some people know. But I did a lot and I, I cut that in half maybe even, I would say maybe a third, maybe I don't have to produce as many. But I noticed that I can spend more time with textures and developing more intricacy in my work that I don't have to produce so many pieces. Yeah, I can spend more time they've become a labor of love.
Jamaal Barber: There you go. Yeah. And that's when you get the best results right there. I love it yo. I love it. So, now we're coming to the end of our interview. This is great talking to you. What's next? What do you have planned? What are you working on right now? And what do you have planned coming up?
Evita Tezeno: Well, I have another solo show, which is going to be in the Luis De Jesus gallery next year. And they're telling me that they just recently acquired this space and it's 4,000 square feet. So, my next show is going to be there next year. I'm developing this whole series for that show, but I have a show at Eileen's coming up in July at Just Looking so that's what I'm working on this year and that'll close out my year four shows. I'm not going to have another show after that, but I am going to have another, I forgot about this. I just had a show at the Plano Arts center and all the pieces, plus a couple of more pieces are going to a gallery in Carrollton it's called Masani House. I have that's coming up in June. I have Eileen's show in July. And then after that, I'm going to start working on my show for Luis for next year.
Jamaal Barber: Oh wow., give you that much time, it's going to be pretty incredible. Like whatever you come up with.
Evita Tezeno: Well, they told me that I'm gonna need about 20 pieces and they want them huge. They said, oh Evita, she said we want something that that's eight feet.
Jamaal Barber: Oh, wow. Okay, we talking real math now.
Evita Tezeno: So, in order for me, I'm going to have to even move from ...cause the studio that I have will not accommodate me doing 20 pieces large scale. So, I'm to be looking for another studio as well.
Jamaal Barber: Oh man you upgrading.
Evita Tezeno: In the midst of, yeah, in the midst of all of that. That's why I need a lot of time because I'm going to have to move my studio. I'm going to have to find a studio and then I'm gonna have to get all of this material. I have to make paper bigger than I've ever made before. [inaudible52:25]
Jamaal Barber: That actually was going to be my question in terms of making it something that size. I mean, if you're talking about doing a piece that's 30 by 40 you know, how many rolls of, of texture do you have to make the cover like an eight-foot piece.
Evita Tezeno: I don't know. I have no idea. I've never done anything before, but you know what? I'm not scared of a challenge.
Jamaal Barber: No, don't be scared. This is the fun stuff. This is where you got it, you got to push the limits
Evita Tezeno: I'm so excited. I know, that I'm going to have to at least get somebody to help me to do this because I've never worked that large before, but I am excited about the challenge because once I did the 40, 48 by 48, I've never worked at big before. And I had to kind of work out all the experiences, you know not experiences, but the technical stuff on how I'm gonna do this, how I'm going to adhere it to the canvas and how I'm going to seal it. So, I worked all that out, but now working large and then working even larger. And I think that I'm going to work on panel because I think it's going to be a little more stable of working that big and getting a panel canvas made to work that big. So, I'm just going to have to work it out. It’s going to be an incredible challenge though.
Jamaal Barber: Yeah. If you're doing some stuff, you need somebody to come helps you with some printmaking you know, you call your boy, I'll come down there and I head down to Texas for a little while. I help you make some stuff. It'll be a good time. I can imagine us sitting together trying to make a, you know, a hundred-foot roll texture... some printmaking technique.
Evita Tezeno: That would be interesting Well, I just come to Atlanta too.
Jamaal Barber: Oh yeah. Either way. You're always invited, you know what I'm saying? You a Studio Noize fam now. So, it's all good. Yo, we gotta keep up with you.
Evita Tezeno: Oh yes, yes, yes. And I just have to tell you, I have been a fan of your work, love what you're doing, love what you're doing.
Jamaal Barber: Thank You I appreciate that. I appreciate that. It's always good to see somebody that can see you. You know what I mean? Like you get appreciation for what you do. I appreciate it. So, tell everybody where they can find you.
Evita Tezeno: You could find me on IG it's @evitatezeno. And then, you know, you can find me on the worldwide web on my webpage evitatezeno.com. And I do also have a Facebook page it’s evitatezenofinearts.
Jamaal Barber: That's what's up yo, you got to keep up with her. You better her while you can, she's going large. She's going to have some more stuff for y'all.
Evita Tezeno: Yeah. And you can find me a Luis De Jesus gallery. And you can also find me at Just Lookin’ gallery in Hagerstown Maryland.
Jamaal Barber: That's what's up yo, thank you so much Evita Tezeno I have been saying your name wrong this whole time. I’m sorry.
Evita Tezeno: You got it, you got it. No problem. Now you got it.
Jamaal Barber: Thank you for coming on the podcast.
Evita Tezeno: Okay. You have a great day.