Betsy Casañas on Her Process, Parachute Cloth, and Collaboration - Ep 06
ON THIS EPISODE
This week on First Coat we have Betsy Casañas. Betsy Casañas is a Visual and Public Artist, an educator, a community activist and an organizer based in Philadelphia and Puerto Rico. I spoke with Betsy about how she does community-based public art projects, how she uses parachute cloth, and how she leads a creative life.
You’ll learn about collaboration, large-scale mural projects, and what it’s really like to run an art studio and gallery.
Read the full transcript here.
This interview was recorded in June 2020.
LISTEN & SUBSCRIBE HERE 👇🏾
LINKS
Hispanic Mural Project Dedication video of Betsy’s mural
Sing Because It Is Heard mural by Betsy in Philadelphia, PA
Off the Canvas Mural Arts Program video by LaSalleTV featuring Betsy
Betsy’s Facebook album — check for her process photos and videos
Sanctuary City, Sanctuary Neighborhood collaborative mural project by Betsy Casañas and Ian Pierce
Guest | Betsy Z. Casañas, Artist
Betsy Casañas is a Visual and Public Artist, an educator, a community activist and an organizer. She is the director of A Seed on Diamond Gallery (S.O.D.) and founder of Semilla Arts Initiative. Casañas has 24 years of experience in the arts and has created over 40 murals worldwide.
As a Latina artists who has been working in communities of color around the world I understand the importance of the people in these communities to see themselves reflected in the artwork and in the leaders of the their communities. We have been depicted in a negative light on social media, news and television as second class citizens who should be feared. I believe it is our obligation as artists to reflect the times we are living in and to highlight the people’s story and change the narrative that has been created for us. By normalizing and humanizing our collective stories we create communities that are more tolerant.
Follow Betsy on Instagram (@bzcasanas, #betsycasanas) and check out her website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.
Your Host | Stephanie Echeveste, CEO & Founder of Distill Creative
Stephanie Echeveste is an artist and art consultant based in Brooklyn, NYC.
Follow Stephanie on Instagram (@distillcreative or @stephanie_eche), Twitter (@stephanie_eche), YouTube (Distill Creative), LinkedIn, and check out her art website.
Support First Coat by backing us on our Patreon.
Learn more about Distill Creative’s services for real estate developers.
Are you an artist? Sign up for our Distill Directory and you’ll be considered for art commissions and future projects.
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Stephanie Eche 00:02
Welcome to First Coat. Where we explore public realm art, how it's made and why it matters. I'm your host Stephanie Eche, an artist and entrepreneur based in Brooklyn, New York. I run Distill Creative, where I curate and produce site specific art projects for real estate developers. I focus on creating more equitable and inclusive projects and I want to get more exposure for the artists and developers doing this work. This week on First Coat we have Betsy Casañas. Betsy is a visual and public artist, an educator, a community activist, and an organizer based in both Philadelphia and Puerto Rico. She is the director of A Seed on Diamond Gallery and founder of Semilla Arts Initiative. Casañas has over 26 years of experience in the arts and has created over 40 murals worldwide. I spoke with Betsy about how she does community public art projects, how she uses parachute cloth, how she got started as an artist, her first job in the arts and how she leads a creative life. You'll learn about collaboration, large scale mural projects, and what it's really like to run an art studio and gallery. Here's our conversation.
Stephanie Echeveste 01:02
Thank you so much for being here today and being a guest on First Coat. If you can tell us who you are and what you do and what you've been recently working on during this quarantine time.
Betsy Casañas 01:13
My name is Betsy Casañas. Start off with that. I'm a public artist. So I've been doing community art, public art around the world. I was based out of Philly, now I became Philly and Puerto Rico. I have a space called A Seed on Diamond Gallery in Philly, and Semilla Arts Initiative is just me wherever I go, right. Semilla is a grassroots initiative that uses art as a catalyst for underserved communities. Yeah, so basically, my work has a lot of community involvement. I've been teaching for a really long time, I started teaching maybe 26 years ago. I started doing public art around the same time. I had a baby around the same time. Yeah, so everything for me kind of started when I was about 19 years old. Community art, public art, using art as a voice, a voice for underserved communities for, just to show folks of color in a dignified life.
Stephanie Echeveste 02:04
What's your earliest memory of creating something?
Betsy Casañas 02:06
This is really silly. When you, when you sent me that question, I was like, I used to do these things that I was like in second grade, that's the earliest thing I remember doing. And they were nothing. I used to draw a bunch of dots on a page, you know how you had those numbers, those numbers that would create like an elephant or something? I would do that, but it would be very abstract, very- and I would do that often, it was like obsessive. Nothing, you know, very interesting, actually, that's probably my first youngest memory of creating some kind of art. But, I started actually painting and drawing when I was about 14 years old. When I was about 14 years old I went to a Catholic High School for girls in Philadelphia, called Little Flower, and yeah, we had an option, we were able to get a music or a drawing class, a music or an art class. They chose it for you, you weren't able to choose. So they put me in drawing and I mean, I guess if, I feel like if I would have been put in music, I would have probably been a musician. So, it's like, okay. I started painting more or getting into art more focused when I was about 14 years old and my neighborhood became really dangerous. So my parents, they were restricting how much time I was able to spend outside, just outside was really, really dangerous and it was a lot of shootouts, there were just a lot of stuff going on in the neighborhood.
Stephanie Echeveste 03:30
And this was in North Philadelphia?
Stephanie Echeveste 03:32
I was in North Philly, yeah. Yeah, it was on 4th and Cambria. And it was just open, open drug market on the corners and yeah, the neighborhood was just really, it was like the Fourth of July outside all the time.
Stephanie Echeveste 03:46
Wow.
Betsy Casañas 03:46
Yeah, so, at 14 I started drawing and painting more because I really wasn't able to go outside as much as I had when I was younger. And then I started doing public art when I was 19. I was really, really, really young when I started doing all of this. I started teaching at a community center, I started- everything, everything for me started around the same time. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember.
Stephanie Echeveste 04:10
It's interesting you say that your first memory is- were you literally connecting dots?
Stephanie Echeveste 04:15
Yeah, I want to, I would say I would take a loose leaf paper and draw dots, it was never recognized as anything impressive. I wasn't considered the artist of my classroom or anything.
Stephanie Echeveste 04:27
But it's interesting that that's something that I feel like your work is all about connecting and finding relationships between people and places.
Betsy Casañas 04:35
Absolutely. Absolutely. Interesting.
Stephanie Echeveste 04:37
What was your first public art piece? Whether it was a mural or activation or something else.
Betsy Casañas 04:42
I was actually 17 years old when I did my first public art piece. I was working at this Cuban pharmacy. And I was really young and I was always interested in drawing and the owner of the pharmacy gave me the front of his building, it was like this gate. And he was like, ‘oh, why don't you paint a mural for me?’ And then from that I got two other projects.
Stephanie Echeveste 05:06
Oh, wow.
Betsy Casañas 05:06
Yeah, I mean, I was so young and they were bad, they were terrible. They were so bad. Yeah, I ended up doing that, and then, you know, I was in school and just kind of, you know, doing whatever. And then at 19, I actually got, really got into murals, the first one was just, you know, by chance, oh you want to do this, I was a kid. But at 19, which I was still a kid, I was pregnant. I was pregnant with my son. I was about four months pregnant, and I was in school at the time. I was like, yeah, I need a, I need a job. I need a job, so, I ended up, somebody had recommended one of the cultural organizations in my community, called Taller Puertorriqueño, and I called them, and I'm like, ‘hey’, you know, ‘I'm an artist’, you know, 19 years old. ‘I'm an artist, I, you know, I need a job’, and the lady, you know, invited me, her name was Catalina Rio, she was a poet, and she was in charge of the educational program. And she invited me to Taller's gallery space, to the garden, that's where we had our first, our first interview, and I brought her some of my work, and I showed her, you know. It was really nice that she even gave me the time of day because I was really like a baby. And I didn't tell her that I was pregnant, I was, I was four months pregnant. I didn't tell her anything, because I wasn't sure if that would affect whether I would be brought in or not. It was funny, because I was there, we had a really good first conversation, then she invited me over to the educational building. And she was like, ‘why don't you come over to the building so you could see the space’ and she hadn't given me the job yet, but when I got there, she was late. She was late for the meeting and the person that was normally the secretary and would have some sense, wasn't there. It was this other guy, another young teacher, and I came in, I was like, ‘hi, my name is Betsy Casañas, I'm an artist, I have an interview today with Catalina’. He was like, ‘oh, thank god, you're an artist’, he was like, ‘there's a classroom of kids in the back, there's nobody there’. The artist never showed up. He's like, ‘just go back there’, and he just threw me in. And she came 15 minutes later, really apologetic, and was like, ‘I'm so sorry’, but then she looked around and all the kids were working. So it's always really natural for me to be in the classroom and work with kids and kind of lead workshops. So I got that job. From there, I was recommended within the month. So I was four months pregnant, within the month, I was invited to the Village of the Arts and Humanities, because the executive director of Taller recommended me for the Village. I was at the Village for a month and then they recommended me to this public art and science program that was called Networkarts Philadelphia, and they were mostly mosaics. And I was, I was totally a kid, and, but I was, I was teaching and I was working with teenagers at the time, and two weeks before I had Archangel, my first son, I finished my first mural.
Stephanie Echeveste 08:08
Wow.
Stephanie Echeveste 08:10
Yeah, so it was just like one thing right after the other, and then, you know, once they did find out at Taller that I was pregnant, I mean, they just bumped up my hours and paid me really well for somebody so young. So I was able to kind of set everything up and, and get the place in order and, and move into my own space and have the house ready for the baby, and I was in school at the time. There was, yeah, there was a lot of stuff happening, all at the same time, but that's kind of how I started working in the classroom with students and then doing public art. But it's always been integrated with some kind of workshops that I was giving or workshops, there never was a moment where I was creating public art just on my own. I was always- it always started with a classroom or with a group. And that's, I mean, it's continued like that and I really enjoy, I really enjoy teaching. I was a teacher for a long time in Philadelphia at the Charter High School for Architecture and Design for about nine years. I integrated my public art into the classroom. So I would teach you know, painting and drawing and community arts and I would take them into the neighborhood and we would do a series of projects and they would work on murals on parachute cloth. Because in Philly we do, most of our murals are done on parachute cloth, so they could be done in a studio and then when you're ready to install, then you go to the wall with all the fabric.
Stephanie Echeveste 09:30
Can you explain that process a little bit because I've heard of this done in Philly and I've had some other artists propose it but they hadn't done it themselves yet.
Betsy Casañas 09:41
Ah, I've been doing for about 20 years. Basically, you get a roll of parachute cloth, we use parachute cloth and Nova Color paint or Golden, mostly Golden now. I'm talking about very specifically with, when I, when I was working, when I'm working with the mural arts program, we're using mostly Golden and Nova Color. The sheets get broken down. Usually when I'm painting a mural, I do a small sketch, and then I make the grid of five inches by five inches. So I make a five inch grid and that transfers to a five foot by five foot square.
Betsy Casañas 10:15
So you basically lay it out, set up a grid on the wall, on the fabric, on your computer, and you label everything, you know. Usually letters go from top to bottom, numbers go from left to right, depending on how long the building is, and then you kind of just start attaching. So in my studio, I have the capability of creating, of working on about 100 feet of parachute cloth, 100 feet by like eight feet, so I can work on two pieces. So I work on one piece and then attach it right to the next, so I just keep sliding it over. You never see the entire mural, but you're able to do large sections about eight feet by 20 feet. I have eight by 20 feet walls on four sections in my studio. So the process with the parachute cloth, it looks like stretched out cotton. When it's not primed, it feels like fabric, it's really soft, it's beautiful to paint on it because it doesn't wrinkle.
Stephanie Echeveste 10:15
Okay.
Stephanie Echeveste 10:58
Hmm.
Betsy Casañas 11:10
Like you would expect a parachute cloth.
Stephanie Echeveste 11:17
Is it nylon? Or is it cotton?
Stephanie Echeveste 11:19
No, it's not nylon, they call it parachute cloth, but it's not really nylon, it has nothing to do with parachute cloth, I have no idea. I think the real term is tabby cloth.
Stephanie Echeveste 11:27
Okay, so it's just like a plain weave.
Betsy Casañas 11:31
Yeah. It's just- it kind of looks like the lining for flags.
Stephanie Echeveste 11:35
Okay, yeah.
Betsy Casañas 11:36
So it's very similar to that, but then, when you prime it, it takes on more of a paper, you're able to tear it. So it becomes a little bit more hard. So with the parachute cloth, you have to prime the parachute cloth at least twice, what I'm used to, once or twice, and then on top of that, you know, you have the grid on top of your computer, your design, your full design on the computer, I usually break it down into steps. Like if I'm working on a figure, I'll do like eight variations of light, and then on top of that, I'll actually go in and paint full color. But I usually do a grayscale initially or a sepia tone initially, and then on top of that, I'll start adding really bright colors.
Stephanie Echeveste 11:52
And this is all with acrylic that you're building up?
Betsy Casañas 12:23
Yeah, I'm doing everything with acrylic.
Stephanie Echeveste 12:26
The golden, right?
Betsy Casañas 12:27
Yeah, and we’re not using oil at all, it’s way too messy. So, you project the image. Once you're done projecting, then we label. So we label everything so that other people can come in. The nice thing about working on parachute cloth is that you can have large groups of people coming into your studio at different times and work. I mean, what, what makes parachute club ideal- and I've done both I go directly on the wall and I use parachute cloth, but what makes parachute cloth ideal is that you could have more hands on it. I have groups in my studio that come from different classrooms, sometimes I work with reentry programs, sometimes I work with just community members, sometimes I do a call for volunteers and then folks just come to my studio. When we're working on a project that has a very short, condensed time and the project is really massive- there's a video up on the project that I did in Buffalo, New York, on my website you could see that one and that one will show you- I mean with that particular project, we created the mural, and it was about 120 five by five foot sheets that wrapped the entire building, so it was a three story building that wrapped around with 120 sheets, and we did it in 34 days, which is insanity. Usually with a project like this with community involvement it takes you know, with mural arts, I'm talking very specifically now with mural arts, because I've done murals where I've done them for 10 days and just kind of whip it out, that are, that are fairly large. With parachute cloth, you could get a ridiculous amount of detail, like patterns, I do a lot of pattern, really intricate pattern work in my designs. So being able to create the patterns in really small, small designs and then kind of, like I create a lot of mandalas, just I'm really interested in talavera style tiles and how it kind of connects. I'm interested in a lot of patterns. So it's always in my, it's what I identify as, color and patterns are what people know most about my work. So, it's really nice because then you could have a lot of people come in to work on these designs and with the patterns, it's usually, the color layouts are usually already set up. I design everything and I set everything up so that I have usually a main crew, I usually work with like five to six people during any project and those five to six people, I trained them so that they could lead groups that are coming in. So if I have 60 people coming in each person gets, you know, five to six people and then they can zero in and focus so it's not chaos. That's kind of the nice thing about kind of working with the parachute cloth. It is- because we're doing so many patterns and because we're working on so many details, I mean, it is labor intensive. If you look at my, on the website, you can look up the Spring Garden Street Bridge, and that particular mural is massive, it was, it was larger than a city block. It was only five feet tall, but it was 194 10-foot panels, it was, you know, massive. We, with that particular mural, worked with, I would say 800 to 1000 people because we were working- I had folks that were taking panels- if you look at the mural, it has a lot of tulips, designed talaveras sections that were with, with this tulip design. The community, the Spring Garden Street Bridge, the Spring Garden Street Bridge was a mural that coincided with artists of the Mexican Revolution in Philadelphia. So, it was called Pinta La Revolución, the exhibit. So it was a collaboration with the Philadelphia Mural Arts and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. And then the museum, there's a bridge that connects them to a neighboring community called Mantua and they had a campaign against violence that was called Bulbs Instead of Bullets. So they had been planting tulips all over the city and they were really adamant about having tulips all over the mural, so, to honor that I did a bunch of things to make sure that we really honored the importance of that message and the work that they had been doing. Aside from creating the five foot by 94 panels of intense pattern work- I mean, imagine, the bridge, the bridge is bigger than the city block and our brushes are this little. They're tiny little brushes, because we're working with a lot of detail and every single section of the pattern needs four to six quotes to be finalized, for me. For me to be happy that it looks clean and it's finalized and it's, you know. So we had consistently folks in the studio, morning, noon and night in the beginning of production. I was working early, early, early in the morning till late, late, late at night, like midnight, like nine in the morning till midnight. Sometimes we would come in early. I had an assistant that would come in, we set it up so that we would take breaks in between but then you get in there and you're working on adrenaline because there's so many people constantly in the studio and there's so many people in and out of the space that you just don't get tired. Then you crash completely once the project is done. I went off track there.
Stephanie Echeveste 12:32
I have a lot of questions about that particular project because I actually watched the, I think it was,
Betsy Casañas 17:44
The video with..
Stephanie Echeveste 17:45
The video, yeah, by LaSalleTV.
Betsy Casañas 17:47
LaSalleTV, yeah.
Stephanie Echeveste 17:48
Yeah, they did a great job on that.
Stephanie Echeveste 17:49
They did a wonderful job, they were students, there were like six students and that was their assignment for the semester.
Stephanie Echeveste 17:55
Wow, it was so inspiring, as I'm starting to do video, I'm like, okay, I guess they figured out. Just to finish off on the parachute cloth, so how is that actually attached to the wall?
Betsy Casañas 18:05
Attached to the wall? So once everything is done, what we do is we, we create rolls, right, we have all the rolls for the letter A. So A1 to say 20. Like, for example, the Buffalo project was like A to F from A to 20, A1 to 20, so there were 20 five by five foot squares that went across the entire building, on each section. Once you have everything, basically, when we're creating the work and we're cutting down the parachute, the parachute cloth comes in a roll, and it’ll cut exactly 150 five by five foot panels. So when you cut them, we, what we try to do is make sure that the part that's coming directly off the roll is the side that we use so that when we're installing on the wall, the imperfections even though we try to be really really organized, when we cut the fabric, we try to have the perfect section side by side so that everything lines up, right? So that when we go back in- because once everything is installed, there's usually rocks on the walls, there's holes for windows, there's- and we, I design for the entire building and then I just cut out later. So there's always scraps of pieces that are left over. So once everything is done, I usually start right from the top left corner and I gel the wall, we usually have two people on the floor gelling the fabric and then about three people up top squeegeeing it. So you squeegee, you add the gel to the wall, it's like a, it's a medium. It's a gel medium, you put it on the wall and you put it on the fabric. And then we just kind of line it up and then squeegee from, we create a star and then kind of work our way around and then hope that everything lines up, and if it doesn't, then we have to paint right on the wall. So there's- I have the process of every single one of my murals, most of my murals on Facebook, I usually do an album. So you can actually see what the mural looks like while it's actually being installed and you can see some of the crevices or if the walls are, like if the fabric starts moving, sometimes it starts separating from the design. You try not to do that because you level it first, right? Sometimes the walls aren’t level, everything is usually crooked. Not the murals, but the walls. We gel it once everything is on the wall and gelled, we squeegee all the excess. I always reuse everything, some people don't, some people, once they squeegee it off the wall, they throw that gel away, which I don't like doing, I just keep using it on the wall. Then, once that's done, then we go back in and we touch up. So we usually have a small crew of depending on the capacity of the lift, and what kind of floor we're on, you know, we're able to use a scissor lift, usually allows me to take up six people, which is great when you're touching up. A boom lift only allows you to take about three. Usually I, I work with, if we're working with two lifts than we have two people going on different areas, sometimes people on the ground floor, if we're only using one left, then it's just me and three people we kind of just go- after everything is up I make a list of everything that needs to be touched up. Everything is super organized, you have to be super organized, I kind of, you know, I definitely, I go with the flow, when I change things if I don't like them, like if I have a wall that I've set up a certain color, and I've mixed everything and I put it on, and I'm not really, really happy with the color combination, then I don't mind changing certain things. So it's like, I feel like with this kind of work, there has to be a level of flexibility to be able to create the work and, and not go crazy because anything could go wrong, you know, anything could go wrong. And then you have, you have to be really comfortable with at least parachute cloth and teaching a community and integrating that into the public art. If you are working with community, then it's really about how to navigate all of these different personalities while you're in the space and making sure that you're working on everybody's level, you know? So- and really identifying who does what, you want to definitely get people with really crisp lines on the detailed sections. There are some people- and usually the majority of people are cool, you know, you may have one or two folks, one or, one or two individuals that might not be able to do like edges, you know, but usually that's not the case. I'm sorry, I'm, I know that was very long winded.
Stephanie Echeveste 21:20
No, it's fascinating. And does the parachute cloth just- do you coat it at the end? Is there a final layer of something?
Stephanie Echeveste 22:40
Yeah. So once everything is, is on the wall, then you get sections that haven't been painted. I always do detail, I always have some kind of border, I always have some kind of border, usually the tops of buildings have those intricate, I don't know what you would call that
Stephanie Echeveste 22:58
Like molding?
Betsy Casañas 22:59
Molding. Yeah, like old row homes have great molding up top. Otherwise, we create a really straight line and I usually just create a black or some kind of- for the Buffalo mural, I did a purple wrap around for the building. Yeah, so you, you install everything and then you get the edges that you weren't able to get in the studio for whatever reason, like sometimes doors, or, or the building is on an angle and you're working this way. So you either clean it up and extend the mural, or you, you frame it out. So, and then after that we seal it. So you do just a, an acrylic seal and that's it. It's a long process. I really enjoy it, I enjoy the process, I like every part of the process because I like, I like teaching, I like being in the studio, I like the energy that that brings, I like having folks come into the studio that have absolutely no experience. I don't usually work with just artists, I work with community members. So I work with all kinds of folks. So people come into the space and, and they work with me, and it's exciting. I get excited for them to see the process because it's so much, it's so much fun. So I really enjoy it, and then it's just, I don't know, I feel like working in community, teaching in community, and being involved in a project that's so big and it's going to make an impact on such a large group of people in every stage of it is really beautiful. I like how much I get from it emotionally, right? It’s really, really healing. But it's also really healing for folks that get to experience that, which is really nice. I don't have to do that. I don't, I don't have to, what I'm when I'm working with like the Mural Arts Program, we're usually required to paint murals and in the duration of the project they ask you to do maybe one or two painting days, right, where they open it up to the community and people come in and they get to paint, but I do that from the beginning of the project. So once the design is done, once it's approved, and we start the process of projecting, that's when I start inviting people in. So my studio is usually open from like nine to six, if I'm working on a regular, standard mural with a good amount of time to finish, otherwise, we're working crazy hours, you know, we're working morning, noon night, and then we take in various groups, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes we take interns in the evening, it's just a rolling out of all kinds of folks in and out of the space. I think that kind of, that kind of process for me is just such a beautiful way to be able to connect with folks from the community, really a beautiful way to connect with folks from other communities, and it's a great way to bring people together that normally wouldn't be together. Yeah, this process of the parachute cloth is, it's definitely, it's definitely lovely. With murals that you paint directly on the wall, you get, you impact folks seeing you right there, they’re watching you put the work up and obviously, anytime- I love watching people work, so I always go and I'm like, can I help, you know. But, I really enjoy watching other artists work, I love watching other artists process, but I think the parachute cloth definitely has something special because you have more involvement.
Stephanie Echeveste 23:39
It seems like it's more accessible also, because people can probably sit down while they're doing it, or they're out of the heat or the sunlight, the weather extremes.
Stephanie Echeveste 26:27
Oh, absolutely. It changes completely the idea of mural making, because you're no longer, you're no longer restricted, you know, you're no longer restricted, you're no longer worried about a heat wave or rain or snow. I mean, I could work throughout the winter, now. I mean, I'm in Puerto Rico right now, so that I can work whenever I want. But, being able to work at like two o'clock in the morning sometimes is necessary, you know, I mean, last July, I worked with a Chilean artist, Ian Ekeko, and we worked on a mural that focused on, on the crisis happening on the border, right, on the people crossing over, and the hardship of that, right? The hardship of letting everything, leaving everything that you know to be home to make this journey and really humanizing this experience. And so we both came in, he came from Chile and he had a very limited amount of time to do this project and he came to my space and we kind of worked together, we both were working on every step of the project, right? Every step of the project, beginning, middle and end, we did it in under seven weeks and you know, it happened, while we worked on that particular project, it was the second mural that he had done about separation of families. And then the second year when he came was when they had found the father with the little baby, do you remember that, in the water? And it was definitely very, very impactful, right. I mean, obviously, as a Puerto Rican artist, we don't have the same experience, but it's not that, but we feel that solidarity with those communities, and offended at the dehumanization of folks. So it was really important to us to place this particular mural in a prominent Puerto Rican neighborhood in Philadelphia, as a way to show that solidarity and that welcoming in and it was called Sanctuary City, Sanctuary Neighborhood. Yeah, so projects like that, like when, when he, when Ian and I were working on that particular project, we were working from eight in the morning ‘til two o'clock in the morning, most nights. And we had teenagers that were about, that were, some of them had crossed the border, some of them had escaped Hurricane Maria from Puerto Rico, all of them were on different, there were different forms of migration that were happening there, and we were working together to create this piece. So they, those kids were with us in the morning and then we worked with a reentry program with the Mural Arts in the afternoon. So we worked with folks for about, you know, two and a half hours, two and a half hours with the kids in the morning, two and a half hours with the folks from the reentry program, and then in the evening, we did interns, and then when they left, we continue working. And it's like, you know, the day before the mural, we worked almost 27 hours, we worked straight through the night. We went home and slept maybe two hours and we're back on the wall by five in the morning that day because the dedication was at like 11. So it is, sometimes it can get really intense but it's like, again, you go on adrenaline.
Stephanie Echeveste 27:00
And that was done on parachute cloth as well?
Betsy Casañas 29:48
Yeah.
Stephanie Echeveste 29:48
Yeah. How long does that last?
Stephanie Echeveste 29:51
How long does it last on the wall?
Betsy Casañas 29:53
I would say that, they say that it lasts about 25 years. 25 years on the wall. I have a mural in Philly that I did in 2007. That's I think my oldest one- is that my oldest? I think that's my oldest one in parachute cloth. I've worked on parachute cloth with other artists before that point, but that was, that in Philly was my first one. No, it wasn't, it wasn't my first one. It was, it was, I don't remember what- I've done a lot of murals. So I don't remember- that was the first time I rode a lift. I'm confusing my first, but I had done parachute cloth before that. But,
Stephanie Echeveste 29:53
On the wall, yeah.
Stephanie Echeveste 30:35
But it still looks good?
Betsy Casañas 30:37
Yeah, the 2007 one still looks great. It's under direct sunlight most of the day, so it's faded a little bit, but it's still in great condition. But then I have another one that was done a year later, where it doesn't get any sun and that's just as vibrant as the first day I put it up.
Stephanie Echeveste 30:57
Wow.
Betsy Casañas 30:57
So it depends on the, the quality of the paint.
Stephanie Echeveste 31:01
Okay.
Betsy Casañas 31:01
On the quality of paint and the quality of the seal and how well you install. So if you're installing and you're leaving bubbles on the wall, that's a problem because water will get in it. So you have to be really, really meticulous with how you, with how you study, you know, artists with, with a process like this, you have to be organized, you have to be organized, you have to be meticulous in order to have a mural that's going to last.
Stephanie Echeveste 31:25
Is it possible to restore them?
Stephanie Echeveste 31:27
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, well, you can't take it off, once it's on the wall it's not like you can peel it off.
Stephanie Echeveste 31:32
Okay, so you have to restore it directly.
Betsy Casañas 31:35
Yeah, yeah, you, you restore right on it. It takes the form of the wall, so if the wall looks like it's bricks, then it actually just takes the form of the wall, you can't see it. You can't see like paper or the seams at all. You can’t, like if you get really close up and you're looking for it then you'll be able to see it, like oh, this is where they had it, but usually you can’t see it, it's pretty seamless.
Stephanie Echeveste 31:58
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Stephanie Echeveste 32:11
You've talked a lot about working late nights, having people in and out all the time. How do you balance just, your fine art practice, your social practice, which seemed to be very much integrated, but also living your life and take time for yourself?
Stephanie Echeveste 32:28
Usually projects like this are done in a really condensed period of time. I'm usually working like four weeks. So in those four weeks, I don't have a life. I basically am not reachable. I might escape for the occasional rumba. Normally- I paint constantly with my, with my own work. Sometimes I have a mural and I have paintings that are on the wall that I'm doing at the same time because I'm in my studio. So I'm used to painting a lot of work at once. So with my own practice, I sometimes have about 15 to 18 pieces going on at the same time, on canvas, on paper, on whatever, I do a lot of grids. Last year, I had a solo exhibit in one of the galleries, one of the galleries in Philadelphia, and I think I had over 80 some pieces that were, or that particular, some small, some large, that I was working on while I was still creating other, working on public art. I'm in the studio and sometimes if I have a large enough group of people that are in there working and they're working on details, sometimes things, like once it gets to a core group of people that are consistently in there, don't really need much direction, then I go to my work but, I mean, I have, I'm constantly working on my own stuff. And yeah, I mean as far as social life, my house is right behind my studio. My studio is so close to my house that when I first, when I first got the studio, I had a landline, a phone line and one of the things, I was able to take it to the studio and not have to get a new line. I didn't have a cell phone at the time. So yeah, I mean, I have a lot of stretches of time where I don't have public art projects that I'm working on. This here right now, being in Puerto Rico has been difficult. I'm really happy that I'm here but I don't have access to my space, I don't have access to my studio. I do have- I brought a lot of material, not paint but I brought charcoal and paper and you know some stuff and I went to the local store and I bought cheap paint and it’s very bad. So my practice here has not been- I feel like I'm focusing on other things because I have, I have a space here that I would eventually want to create something very similar to what I have in Philly, but much larger. I have 17 acres of farmland in the middle of Puerto Rico, it was my grandfather's, and I want to transform that into a combination of communal space, residencies, and Airbnb. Basically, that's how I live. I bought my house in 2010 and, you know, I have friends that have lived with me and that have helped with, you know, the payment of my house, so being able to do Airbnb and, and have folks that live in my house has been definitely a way for me to survive during slow periods, you know, because sometimes you have a project- like if I do two murals a year, that's a pretty, that's a pretty good amount. And that usually happens with, from June ‘til maybe November. Not that they can't happen at other times, but usually, that's how, that's how it goes. So I have long periods of time where I am home and I have the gallery. So we have, the gallery hasn't had anything since I've left. But we usually have, I collaborate with different folks in the community and we have concerts in the space, we have exhibits, we've had- we opened in 2010. I say we, I mean me, I opened in 2010, my kids were still really little, so they helped me. And, you know, I've partnered with AFROTAINO Productions, you know, with who are really, really dear friends of mine, and they bring in, they work with NPR’s Latin Roots in Philly, and they bring Afro Latino independent groups from all over the place and you know, sometimes they, they always make a stop in my house. So we always have concerts in my house, we have rumbas in the house, we have bombas in the house, we have exhibits, you know, some, we always, we always have something happening, right. And the idea is collaboration, a lot of the work that I've always done has been about collaborating with other community members in order to create these sacred spaces and give voice to what's happening.
Stephanie Echeveste 37:22
Do you think those collaborations come from just you being in a place for a long period of time? Or is there something specific about Philly, and I guess, Puerto Rico, to that degree that allows people to have more time to collaborate?
Stephanie Echeveste 37:37
Yeah, I think so, I think definitely being in a place for long periods of time definitely helps, because people know you and they trust you. But I've done stuff, I've done stuff around the world, and I've worked with other groups, and I've worked with other community members that also have been really open to this idea of collaboration.
Stephanie Echeveste 38:00
I guess I'm curious about your lifestyle and how that, how that happens. Because I think...
Stephanie Echeveste 38:04
Yeah. I think with the longer term collaborations, I feel like I have to work with folks that I trust, right, folks that are really on the same page with this idea of community development and community work, kind of have the same vision that, you know, this idea of, of competitiveness is not really what, I'm not really interested in that. So I'm working with folks that have been really doing this kind of stuff, this kind of work, where you combine the community work with being in the classroom, I think all of that makes a huge difference. So like with Marángeli, we've known each other probably for about 20 years, from AFROTAINO Productions. You know, with AFROTAINO Productions, they run the Philadelphia Film Festival, the Latin Film Festival, they work with NPR’s Latin Roots, they bring concerts to the major museums, like the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, but then they also bring it to the community and we collaborate and bring artists to my house to either give a concert, a private concert, or sometimes just to come be in the space. So with folks like that, I feel like yeah, definitely being in one space makes a difference because of the nature of the work, like murals are really inviting, right? When you work on murals, people want to be involved. So it hasn't been difficult, it hasn't been difficult to go to other communities and integrate myself. It makes a difference if you don't know anybody, obviously, you can't just go to a spot and hope people are going to, you know, trust you. So every time that I've gone anywhere, I always have somebody on the ground that I've worked with, and I think that's more because I've done a lot of, I've done a lot of public art graffiti festivals. One in particular, I feel like that's made a huge impact was one that I was in called Latido Americano and it was in Peru. And there were 45 artists, 45 artists from all over Latin America, the Caribbean, and different parts of Europe that came, and we all stayed in a hostel. We all stayed- there were five women only. So five women and 40 men, graffiti artists, and that's just, that's the standard, right? When you're thinking about public art and this gender. It's never- I'm always in the minority.
Stephanie Echeveste 40:32
Why do you think that is?
Stephanie Echeveste 40:34
I don't, I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure. I guess it's, it's definitely like a, graffiti art and it's definitely dominated by men. It's definitely dominated by men. I have been in Peru with the American Embassy, they had invited me to do a project in 2013. November of 2013, I was invited to do a project and they sent me to three different cities in Peru to work with three different communities. And because of that, I ended up meeting key people that had been linked up with Latido Americano, which is a festival and then the guy, Entes, reached out to me and asked me if I would consider doing one of the murals. And because of that, now, I have folks all over the world, right? I have folks- I could go to any part of the Caribbean, or South America, and I have people that can link me up with folks that are doing stuff, right, if I want to go in and I want to work with a community of women, if I want to work in a community of whatever. I have been able to, to do that, another way has been with professors, I've had professors that have continued to follow my work and have moved on to other places. It's just with a lot of the work that I've been doing, I've always been around a lot of people. So those people continue to move to different parts of the world and they continue to follow my work. So I was recently invited to India, to start up a public art project with a professor that I used to teach with at CHAD, the Charter High School for Architecture and Design, and now he's in India for a two year residency, and he invited me over to do a semester to work with students. I mean, that's still, you know, we've kind of talked about it, had a couple of conversations, nothing's come to fruition with it, but it's usually folks that have known my work, or have followed my work that have been able to create spaces, in communities where they're trusted, and then bring me in. And once I'm in and I create the space in the community, then it's a little bit easier to really dive in deeper, closer to what I want to focus on, if I go back, right? And that's really beautiful, because then you get connected to folks all over, right, all over the world, and those are usually short, short things. I've done like month long projects in various countries. I was in Paraguay for a month, I was in, in Peru various times doing, I've done a lot, I've done like five projects in Peru, and in the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico and Cuba. I've done a lot of stuff in Ecuador, and Paraguay, Mexico, and these projects, for the most part, have been set up by folks that know my work and have invited me to do a project. So in a sense, yes, it's a collaboration, I feel like the deeper collaborations where you really dig in and really create something that's more sustainable and really makes a huge impact on communities, definitely, when you're in a space for a longer period of time. With the nature of my work, I mean, I'm a public artist, I do, you know, I do that, so I'm always jumping around, I'm not staying in one place at the same time. So I'm constantly in different spaces, but people, people kind of come. So that's always, you know, that's always nice. And then with the gallery, it's no different than the studio it’s the idea of creating safe spaces in the community where folks can come and feel heard. Right, and feel like it's- for some it’s like an escape, you know, you go away for a couple of hours and you're able to paint and you're able to contribute to something that's going to be around for the next 30 years, you know?
Stephanie Echeveste 44:24
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Stephanie Echeveste 44:37
How do you maintain relationships? Do you have any kind of tips for other people maintaining lots of different types of relationships with lots of different people from different places?
Betsy Casañas 44:46
I mean, I don't- I feel like for me, I just try to be really honest. I try to be really honest with everything. So I've, I still have relationships with- like in my, I told you I had the solo exhibit back in April, the woman that hired me for that job when I was 19 years old at the Village of the Arts and Humanities came to that exhibit. I still have relationships with the people from Taller Puertorriquño, I have relationships with folks because I am very honest with what I'm able to bring, and I work hard. So I really, I feel like I, I work really hard when I'm doing these projects and I'm present in those spaces when I'm there. You know, and I think that's really important, to really treat people with, with dignity, treat people with respect when you're, when you're in these spaces, but also, being honest with what it is that you want, and what you don't want, you know, I like a certain kind of environment, in my space, so that I'm making everybody feel comfortable. You know, when I'm in my space in my studio in Philly, I try not to have people, I really try to help people be mindful of, you know, sometimes it was cursing, you know, I mean, I'm not trying to censor folks, but I feel like there, you know, we have to realize that there's a time and a place for different things, and when we're in a community space, trying to create a place where people feel comfortable sharing, creating an environment that's a little more hostile, it makes it more difficult. And you know, my dad is in my space, my dad works with me in my studio, my mom comes in all the time. And, you know, I have some folks that are just older so, so I mean, I have, it's pretty intergenerational, I'm not working with just, you know, 20 year olds that are interested in becoming muralists. I’m working with teenagers, I'm working with high school students, I work with university students, I'm working with community members, and I'm working with seniors. So I'm working with people that range in age from, you know, young to old. So, really trying to create this space where people feel safe and respected.
Stephanie Echeveste 46:52
On the relationship maintenance, though, do you keep an email list? Or how do you remember everyone?
Betsy Casañas 46:59
I do Facebook, I'm terrible, I'm so bad with that. The only way that I connect with folks is usually Facebook and Instagram. And you know, I have my website, and obviously, people that need to get in contact with me can get in contact with me through those mediums, right. But what I try to do is I always show what I'm working on, I always show, you know, the process. So people that have, that have worked with me in Peru can see what I'm working on in Boston, people that are in Boston can see what I'm working on in Puerto Rico, so I always show it because they, you know, a lot of people have been involved, so that's been a way to kind of connect with folks and people reach out to see how I'm doing or to talk about another project. You know, the project that I did with the American Embassy in Peru linked me up with an AmeriCorps type project, like Peace Corps, but focused in Latin America. So I was able to work with a lot of young, young folks that were working in these indigenous communities and kept in contact with me. So from that I was, I've been invited to Haiti and Paraguay. So I mean, I was able to go to Paraguay, I haven't been to Haiti yet. But it's because of these folks that worked with me and they were part of my main crew, because I trained them during, you know, a 10 day workshop and sometimes 10 days is all you need to have that, to build that, and I have relationships with folks that are like decades long. And obviously, I don't, I don't, I'm not talking to people every day. I'm not sending, I'm not sending emails to let them know what I'm doing, I'm bad at that, I need to work on that. But I do try to keep my, when I'm working on projects, I do try to keep that current so people can see what's happened, what's going on. And they like seeing the process, so I like sharing the process.
Stephanie Echeveste 48:43
And it sounds like your work, just the nature of it, because it's so intense, that you really do build a relationship with them, even if it's just a day thing, or someone's just coming to you for an afternoon. So they get that high touch from you and then it just kind of continues. How does funding work on these projects? Are people usually coming to you with I have this budget or I have this funder, or are you having to fund them? Or is it a combination?
Betsy Casañas 49:09
No, I don't, no, I haven't, I haven't funded anything. Like with my projects with Semilla, right, what I was telling you earlier was when we have projects for Semilla we're required to do like two days of programming with folks from the community. Well, I open my studio up for the duration of the time, so I'm actually teaching and I'm working with the community, that I'm not charging for but that's because I enjoy it, and we end up getting a lot of hands and help on a project like that. But, as far as funding, I mean, right now I'm applying for projects, like on Call for Entry, it’s a website online, where they have large budgets for different projects and airports in different, just a bunch of universities, different cities. So that's one main stream that I've been applying to projects on. I've been a Philadelphia mural artists with the Mural Arts Program for 20 years now, so they've consistently given me work, and they usually have a pretty good budget. A lot of the projects that I've done in other countries, like in South America and the Caribbean, it's different, I feel like the U.S. has money. When we go to the, to these other countries, the budgets are significantly smaller and, and that's fine. I feel like- there's a lot of work that I've done that has been for free, but they pay for materials and housing and food, and I've been able to work those things but those are usually more projects that are dear to my heart, right, it’s more projects that are, that are really about offering resources and this other alternative to creating beautiful spaces and communities that struggle, right, communities that are really, really, really underserved. I mean, like with Peru, I was in spaces where there was no running water. It's like on the hill- there are certain things that are, that I definitely do for for charity, but then there's- a lot of the projects that I do do to survive are usually with mural programs that are running, like usually museums have projects, like the Buffalo was a, was their public art. It was the Albright-Knox Public Art Program. The Philly Mural Arts Program has been wonderful. Definitely I've been invited by festivals by- so there's always a budget that comes with it. There's always a budget that comes with it, so I haven't had to do that myself, unless it's a personal project that I'm interested in doing.
Stephanie Echeveste 49:36
And how do you think every- I mean, I hate even bringing it up, but with COVID-19 and just the inability for us to be enclosed in close spaces or close proximity with people indoors, how do you think that's going to impact your work?
Betsy Casañas 52:00
I think definitely it’s going to impact the- I mean, it's impacted it already. I mean, I've had all of my work completely canceled. I had- because I run alternative- I've given you so much information. I run an alternative spring breaks.
Stephanie Echeveste 52:15
Oh, wow. Okay.
Betsy Casañas 52:19
Yeah. So I work with universities from around the country and they come to my house, and they stay with me for a week. And in that week, I cook for them, well, we cook in community. I cook for them and I take them out in, either into my studio or the gallery and we do some kind of community project that they help with setting up of some part of whatever we're working on. I had one in March that was completely cancelled, all my Airbnb's in Puerto Rico were completely canceled. My- I had a mural in Springfield, Massachusetts for a festival that was completely canceled, I was working on more graphic stuff, all canceled or postponed. So, it's like, right now I have no idea. Right now, it is just a little bit, you know, I mean, I'm a finalist for one project in Philadelphia, and I'm applying for two other projects, one in Jersey and another one in Allentown, but it is, it's a little bit- my work is community based. I mean, I could do it without, without folks and I could just have a small crew of people that I work with. So I mean, it's not like we have to stop but the level of community involvement has to be limited just for everybody's safety until this all calms down, you know?
Stephanie Echeveste 53:33
Yeah. And I wanted to know if you have any resources that have helped you along the way.
Betsy Casañas 53:37
Definitely the Call for Entry. I like- resources, I feel like I go to other people's studios, I go to other people's spaces, I go to other people's- just to see how they're kind of working on projects, how they work in their spaces, how they set up their spaces. Definitely, resources, the Call for Entry has been a really great one, it's really competitive so to get to a final round sometimes it takes a long time, it's a matter of just continuing. I've just, I've been consumed with news. Everything that's been happening, like with Black Lives Matter, everything that's been happening with Coronavirus, and I feel like that's been the, all I've been consuming and at the moment I feel like I'm totally- it is super inspiring to see everything that's happening right now, obviously, it's necessary, you know, we'll see, we'll see how we all kind of move through this and you know, hopefully it's not another thing that gets muted after a couple of weeks and people get tired of listening. You know, we fall asleep really fast. Yeah, I think definitely I've been just consumed with every day and how everybody's doing and the other tragedy and loss from, from the pandemic, losing folks that definitely were important people. That's it, you know, I'm kind of ready for, for the summer and hopefully, you know, things will get better. And then, you know, you let me know if you need anything, if you have any other questions, or reach out, come to Philly or Puerto Rico.
Stephanie Echeveste 55:03
Yeah, I would love, I'd love to visit both. I really enjoy talking with you. It's really inspiring that you’ve built a life around this and I think that- I'm excited to share this because it's just, to share that it's even possible, right? I think this is the dream for so many people, it's definitely the dream for me.
Betsy Casañas 55:19
Yeah, definitely.
Stephanie Echeveste 55:20
And just knowing that you're still doing it and it's- I think, also, it's not always going to be, I feel like with a lot of street artists or public artists, there's a lot of ego involved, and so it's really refreshing to just talk to you and learn more about how you approach this and it's so integrated and community, you really can't pull the community out of the work, right?
Betsy Casañas 55:38
Yeah, no, this whole thing intertwines. No, thank you. I really appreciate the interview and let me know if anything.
Stephanie Echeveste 55:44
Awesome. Yeah, I'd love to. Where can our listeners find you online?
Betsy Casañas 55:48
I'm BZCasañas everything. It's bzcasanas.com, LinkedIn, Facebook and Gmail, it’s all the same. Www.bzcasanas.com.
Stephanie Echeveste 55:59
Perfect. Well, I'll link to everything in the show notes and I’ll link to everything we talked about, too. And thank you so much for taking time.
Betsy Casañas 56:05
No, thank you. Absolutely.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:07
Good luck with coming back to Philly, I hope everything goes well.
Betsy Casañas 56:09
Thank you. You too, good luck.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:11
Thank you. Bye.
Betsy Casañas 56:12
Bye.
Stephanie Echeveste 56:13
Thanks for listening to this episode of First Coat. If you liked this podcast, please leave a review. Make sure to subscribe to the First Coat podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. And follow us on Instagram @firstcoatpodcast or @distillcreative. First Coat is a production of my company Distill Creative. Check us out at distillcreative.com.