My Art and Myself
My father raised me alone since I was five years old and we often moved to keep up with his occupation as a construction worker. In all i attended over twenty different public schools before graduating High School. We lived in L.A., Dallas, and many many small towns in between.
Following graduation I entered the U.S. military to earn funding for College and as soon as I was honorably discharged I did exactly that. I attended the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor where I had focused my attention to writing in hopes of attaining a BFA in English. During my final semester I had enrolled in a painting class to fulfill my fine art credit and that is where I met John Hancock, and this is also when I chose to abandon my writing (due to the fact that my critics enjoyed the images to my stories much greater than the stories themselves, and I believe i did too). John showed me how to express my artistic voice without apprehension and gave me avenues to traverse the highways of my life into visual narratives.
I’ve grown up knowing my families origin and our cultural oral histories and I juxtapose that with my own experiences in my work.
All Rights Reserved By the Artist
My name is Joseph Velasquez and I live and work in Austin, Tx. I attended the University of Wisconsin - Madison, where I attained my Master’s in Fine Art in Printmaking. In my undergrad I studied under the Amazing John Hancock and was introduced to the power and the viability of the Print. I am the co-founder of the Dirty Printmakers of America, the Co-owner of the Slingshot Gallery, and 1 of 2 in Drive By Press. For the past two years my colleague and I have been touring across the country over 60,000 miles (and 80 Universities) with a printing press, and thousands of prints all in a cargo van.
My Art!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephelcid/
Drawings
Prints
Paintings
My friends and Family
Life on the Road
