No Virgins, No Velvet

The shows provided scant support for local Latino artists. "They were really focused on individual personalities and their precise work; they weren't giving you an overview of the culture or market per se," explains art consultant Sally Reynolds. "…[F]rom those exhibitions, I don't think people are going to jump out and try to embrace the contemporary artists. Some do, but I don't think they are tantalized in the same way as from exhibits like the one in 1987."

At least partially as a result of the shows, Espada's gallery sales wilted. To support himself, he landed a prestigious, one-year artist-in-residence position in 1995 at the MFAH, teaching children and producing a large mural. But his works continued to sell poorly, and his next job at the MFAH was as a laborer responsible for setting up and taking down exhibits. He worked there for two years, piloting mechanical dollies, before he was fired over an argument with his boss. A building contractor friend later gave him the job installing countertops. But it was tough work -- overly tough for Espada, who at 53 is too old for hard labor. He injured his back last month and briefly stopped working.

Adding to the painter's woes, the neighborhood around his White Oak studio has morphed from a significantly Hispanic, low-income barrio 20 years ago into a hotbed of gentrification. When the rent went up this spring, he couldn't afford it. He's now between studios and is scarcely painting. He lives in a windowless former liquor store on Houston Avenue, where a single bottle of Kahlúa sits on a shelf near an old Morales Latin Dance Party record.

With good cause to be bitter, Espada nonetheless blames himself for his sales slump. Dance has been an important influence in his work, but he quit the hobby in the 1990s because of health problems. And in 2001, his close friend New York artist Mark Lombardi committed suicide. Espada's work became more minimalist. It feels reflective and less youthful and unruly. Driving his red pickup down Allen Parkway recently, he seems to be grappling with how to connect his work to his life's readjusted reality. "I've got to find that special art," he says, "reactivate my talent, my uniqueness, my visuality."

Houston's Latino arts scene has been similarly down and out. Besides Espada, most gallery owners are hard-pressed to name even one well-known local Latino painter. And they're stumped as to why. Spotty interest from the MFAH is hardly a sufficient explanation. Cities such as Miami, Los Angeles and even San Antonio are hotbeds for Latino artists, despite lack of supportive major museums in some cases. And the Houston area has produced a respectable share of nationally known artists who aren't Latino, such as the Art Guys, Manual and, of course, Robert Rauschenberg.

Much of Houston's shortfall is to be blamed on the city's demographics, says University of Houston Latin American art professor Rex Koontz. Compared to Latinos in San Antonio and Los Angeles, who have lived in those cities for generations, most of Houston's Hispanics arrived more recently. Many come from rural areas in Texas such as the Rio Grande Valley. Unlike the wealthy Cubans who settled in Miami, they tend to be low-income and uneducated. "They are more recent immigrants, who don't necessarily come from cultures that have connections with contemporary art," Koontz says. "All of that has to wind its way through the system."

At a recent exhibit for young Latino artists at the east side's Talento Bilingue cultural center, for example, a bohemian Hispanic teenager is attracted to a Kahlo-like painting of a woman next to a rose. "I love this one so much," she says to a friend, "but my dad would be like, 'Are you hungry?' "

Latino teenagers would have picked up on visual art more quickly if Houston took arts education seriously, says MFAH director Peter Marzio. "You have to realize, first of all, that in the city of Houston, you cannot get a master's degree in art history," he says. "It is also possible to go through the entire Texas educational system and never once take a visual arts course, from prekindergarten to post-Ph.D."

Given the obstacles to success in Houston, Espada might have found more enduring patronage elsewhere. Other painters featured in the MFAH's Hispanic show benefited from moving away: Kingsville-born painter Carmen Lomas Garza relocated to San Francisco, where her paintings of tamale-making parties and other Texas scenes sell well. And the peripatetic Roberto Juarez bounced from his hometown of Chicago to Rome and New York, where he receives wide play in the cities' galleries.

Yet despite Houston's shortcomings as a destination for Latin artists, the flow of creative energy is shifting. Houston is becoming a trans-American crossroads -- and no longer just for oil, shrimp and the clothing section of Wal-Mart.