Chuco Artist Network helps creative types spread the word in El Paso
Think of the Chuco Artist Network as a social media site for artists -- with a distinctly El Paso flavor.
More than 800 artists, musicians and writers, many working outside the mainstream, use chucoartist.com to network and gain recognition beyond their usual circles. About 80 percent of them are from El Paso. The rest are from elsewhere around the country, but many have ties to the city they call El Chuco.
The site's creator -- photographer and metal sculptor Luis Rodriguez -- started Chuco Artist in 2011 with about $200 and a desire to give local painters, photographers, sculptors, musicians, comic book artists, airbrush painters, poets and other writers a place to share stories, promote events, ask questions and showcase
Rodriguez, 34, had grown frustrated with the limited options available to him in El Paso. The local arts and entertainment scene, he said, can be overshadowed by larger competitors from outside the area, such as traveling exhibitions and touring bands.
"I know I've had difficulties knowing what to do in the art scene or where to go or where to get noticed, and the Chuco Artist Network essentially became a platform for every artist to start from the ground up and to build their own thing," Rodriguez said.
The Chuco Artist Network will celebrate its second anniversary in May.
It has quickly gained recognition and members and has drawn interest from former El Paso artists
Among the network's higher-profile members are border reggae band Radio La Chusma, rockabilly group the Hillside Gamblers, painter Gabriel Marquez, sculptor Ho Baron and author and poet Lawrence Welsh.
Welsh may be one of the most celebrated network members outside of El Paso. He has published eight books of poetry and is a winner of the Bardsong Press Celtic Voice Writing Award in Poetry. He won the 2012 New Mexico-Arizona Book award for his newest collection of poetry, "Begging for Vultures: New and Selected Poems 1994-2009." He also has won several journalism awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists' Bill Farr Reporting Award, the Copley Los Angeles Newspapers Award and the Women in Communications Endowment Award.
Welsh was one of the first to join the network in 2011. He uses it as an outlet for his poetry. "It's a real democratic outlet for the artists in town," he said. "I think as writers and artists, anything that will help get the word out there helps."
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Chuco Artist Network helps creative types spread the word in El Paso