Posters

When I arrived to Altos, there were several art galleries, a few great restaurants, and countless high-end boutiques. Because the village was being run by non-artists, things were being done in a non-artist way. Formal invitations – the kind you send for a high class affair– were being mailed out to people that the administration deemed worthy of the boring, safe, exhibits that were going on in the village. I followed protocol and sent out the first one and no one came, so, had to do something.

I was lucky enough to have been there when Aurelio Grisanty had his exhibit. To promote it, he pulled beautiful silk-screened posters in brown wrapping paper… brilliant. We had a silkscreen studio! Knowing this changed everything. We had tons of ink, a beautiful studio, and the guys with the know-how to do all the posters we wanted. The rest is history.

The first thing I did was to create a limited edition, hand-pulled invitation, signed and numbered. It was sent out to all the same group that never came before and voilá, the gallery opening was a major success. Next, I started designing posters for each exhibit and a miniature for the invitation. We would do a 300 poster run for marketing and 100 in good paper to sell in the boutiques. It worked. With the sales of the 100 posters, we were able to pay for all the rest and more. Ironically, people everywhere stole the ones we put up around the country so a lot of people kept the cheap ones too. Soon, we were having people come from everywhere to the exhibit openings. And collecting the posters!!

The Artist In Residence Program (AIR)

Later I became  the director of the Artist-In-Residence (AIR) program which brought artists from all over the world to stay in the village a few months, teach workshops and exhibit. I became the liaison with the Dominican Art Scene to create a cultural exchange with the AIR artists. This brought quite a few famous local artists to live and/or exhibit in Altos, and the opportunity for more posters. I did posters for Prats Ventos, Alberto Ulloa, Jorge Severino, Daniel Henrriquez and more.

A few months later, French toast, a jazz group featuring Dominican jazz virtuoso Michel Camilo, played in Altos. I was asked to design a poster to promote the concert. The poster was a big hit. By the the time I left, I had designed posters for Santana, The Producers, French Toast, Bob James, and many more. Everyone loved the posters and they even got the attention of a few US magazines which wrote nice articles about the posters coming out of Altos. They were very low tech, hand made posters, bBut everyone loved them and they sold Chavon.

Mount Dora

When I left the Dominican Republic, I ended up in Mount Dora Florida. A town that had one of the largest outdoor Art Festivals in Florida that no one knew about. Being one of the few artists in town, I was asked to be the Art Counselor to the festival and try to help them get to the next level. The first thing was marketing. With the Altos experience behind me, I started the Mount Dora Art Festival Poster tradition. I announced a poster contest. The winner received $100 and got to sign a limited edition run of 30 silk-screened posters to be sold at the Art Festival. We only had 3 entries that first year, but, they were very good. We sold all the posters, but best of all, our attendance grew from 60,000 to 160,00. I know that we also did better promotion that year, but, posters are always the best way to go. The next year we had 10 entries, the prize was higher and we had about 200,000 people. After that, the Festival has always great attendance.

The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art

A couple of years later, I worked as an Exhibit/Graphic Designer for the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. There too, we had the need for posters. These were not silk-screened but they were large and beautiful. And, again, they worked. I designed them for children’s festivals, Renaissance fairs, and some art exhibits. I ended up doing whole entire exhibits with silk-screened signage, labels, and banners. It was a great opportunity to learn how to pull silkscreens vertically.

NASA

While at NASA I had the opportunity to create a few posters. I found a great silkscreen studio which no one was using and started pulling all sorts of posters and signage. Unfortunately, I don’t have any to show. I was careless and never photographed any.

I  designed a few more posters in the last few years and have added them to the post.