No Virgins, No Velvet

Garcia hoists out giant paintings from stacks against a wall and gingerly sets them on display. He tries turning some sideways and upside down. A train honks and chugs by a few feet beyond the window, its boxcars flashing almost the same color found on Espada's Isolated Yellow. Garcia drags on a cigarette and paces.

He approaches Espada and stands gazing at a canvas across the room. "Okay, this one," he says. A quick negotiation ensues in Spanish, and the men shake. Garcia's pocket bulges with cash. But why this painting?

He laughs. Walking up to the canvas, a teeming jumble of gestures in yellow and blue, he crouches and levels with Espada. "Here's the mouth, nose, eyeball, cheekbone…then there's this other thing, it's language, I think. You have this whole story… and that could look like an old Spanish galleon…and this looks like smoke…and this is a Rosetta stone…everything is floating. All of a sudden, it's like this is a fish. This is a fish!"

"Art people," Espada says. "Boy, I tell you."

But Garcia has happened upon one reason why Espada's work is brilliant, and why it sets an important example for Houston's new generation of Latino artists. It speaks slightly differently to everyone, evoking powerful emotions, yet breaking down titles and labels.

Garcia wants to know what his new painting is called.

"Heaven and Earth," Espada says. "That's it."

Garcia turns it around. "But it says Blue Mural."

Espada isn't troubled. He takes another drag on his cigarette. "We'll change it," he says.