History of Hola Amiga/"My Style":

During my first year of college, I got a job at a copy shop where I had access to many different types of Xerox machines and computers. I loved that I could mass produce my art and share it with people, but not every copy was always identical. Some were smeared with toner ink; others with artifacts left from dirty photocopy belts. I dug those unpredictable imperfections. I assumed I picked up this appreciation for rough, bold, black and white images somewhere in my childhood. Maybe from looking at the black and white photocopied punk posters and flyers stapled to telephone poles around Berkeley or/and it could be the huge Mexican influence in California, specifically the bold wood printed day of the dead art and wrestling posters.

After working at an advertising agency, I was hired by Microsoft as a web designer and eventually became an art director, marketing high-tech video games and managing the art direction for Xbox.com. Everything was 3D rendered and highly polished. All our marketing efforts were extremely strategic. In that kind of hyper-corporate environment—where ROI (return on investment) is king—finding a way to measure a campaign’s success is extremely important. We ran usability tests, held focus groups, reviewed eye tracking studies, analyzed statistics, tracked youth macro/micro trends, and much more. It was all very interesting. But still, I felt we put far too much emphasis on things that were easy to measure, and not enough on things that were less calculable and more intuitive—things that live on the subconscious level.

And so, in response to this deliberate environment, I launched my own zine. Hola Amiga was about doing exactly what I wanted—for some or absolutely no concrete reason at all. And it was about not having to explain why I did what I chose to do. It was about nurturing and exploring the subconscious realm, all in a very low tech way.

Then I decided to take it a step further and not only apply this approach to my art, but also to my life. I decided to make a huge change in my life and invest in the less tangible things like learning a language, living in another country, learning about history and nature, and most of all, just having the free time to experience, think, wonder, and discover.

6 months later ... I quit my job, sold my house and moved to South America.

What is Hola Amiga?

Hola Amiga is a zine I publish every few months. Its a collection of random pictures, illustrations, patterns or anything I happen to be thinking about. I tend not to use many words so it may seem very cryptic .. but there is no intentional hidden message.

I named the zine “Hola Amiga” because I’m fascinated with Spanish/Latin/Brazilian Culture. This was before I had ever been to a Spanish speaking country or could speak a word of Spanish. My main influences/inspirations were Mexican food packaging, Mexican Wrestling Posters, wood cut prints, working at Kinko's Copies and playing on copy machines, Brazilian Jui-Jitsui, the art of Marisol Escobar and the music of the Brazilian singer, Atrud Gilberto. With Luck, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go Spain where my interest in Spanish/Latin culture grew exponentially and I decided I had to live in Latin America. I have been living throughout Latin America countries since Oct 2003 (Argentina, Chile, and Costa Rica) .. while looking at Hola Amiga, you can see Latin cultural influences and my very gradual process of learning how to speak Spanish.

I create Hola Amiga because I like to make art and I find it fascinating how people are influenced, including the manifestations of my own influences.

Hola Amiga consists of three main components: Input, Output and Reflection.

Input

are the things going on in my life at that specific moment in time. Input are things ranging from music, environments, letters, emails, cultural learning's to things people say, concepts, observations, food, books, weather, mass media, relationships, inspirational people, experiences, exercise, etc .. basically anything a human experiences.

Output

is Hola Amiga .. the disregarded, impulsive, spontaneous, unconsidered, unplanned, unstudied by-product of life's daily influences. These are my drawing, sketches, thoughts, etc.

Reflection

is something I just do in my head. This is when I try to bridge the gap and explain the relationship between the Input and Output. Most of the time I don't realize why I decide to use specific imagery at the time. Eventually I track down the source/influence. In life a lot of the time you have an idea and then you execute it. With Hola Amiga I do the opposite ... I execute it and then sometimes successfully track down the idea. Really not much different than trying to explain the odd events of a dream.