The spotlight is on the arts and the talent that’s transforming Miami’s creative landscape. Well, Oolite Arts is here. along with Emmy Award winner Jose Bonilla. Thank you for being here on South Florida Live. Plus, we also have Jon Abodeely, who’s joining us to talk about how these grants are shaping the future of visual art in South Florida. So first of all, congratulations. Thank you. will be receiving this award. i want to hear about how things like this really help you get past your creativity and put everything out there. You know, first of all, I feel very proud and honored to receive this award. and for me, it’s a recognition after all these years of my work for the community and dealing with the community, and also going to permit me to be participate in certain trips where i had to do in relation with my work to visit certain communities around the world, because i make a work related with anthropology, i have to visit communities and establish a relation. So this is going to be a big help for me. It’s a beautiful thing. And Jon, what is it for people who might not be familiar with the Allies? The Allies are South Florida’s only visual arts award program. Allied Arts is an organization that’s been around for about 40 years, helping artists make art. The Allies are named after our founder, Ellie Schneiderman, and they’re the only opportunity that many artists in Florida get to receive both recognition for their work and funding to help them complete projects. I mean, that’s an amazing thing to be offering somebody, and especially with so much beautiful artwork throughout Miami. Tell us about yours. okay. Well, I bring two little pieces related to some of the field work that I do, especially in Mexico. I’ve been looking for a specific type of paper making with bark by the Otomi people in the Sierra de Puebla in Mexico. So I work on that paper. This is the same material that they used in the pre-hispanic stories in the past, in the pre-hispanic time. So I make my own iconography on top of that bark paper. It’s a female character, and the male character is related to some of the nature. And they did some beans. This is a female deity and the male deity with the Afro-Cuban names on top.
