We had the good fortune of connecting with Rosalie Rodriguez and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Rosalie, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I grew up in Buffalo, New York during the 80’s and 90’s in a mixed race family of first generation immigrants from Puerto Rico and Italy. I always say I am a proud product of a public school art education. My family was very poor and could never have afforded for me to take art lessons or have much in the way of art supplies at home. During my elementary to high school years, art and music were a core part of public school education and has sadly been eroded and eliminated in many spaces. I learned the fundamentals of drawing, painting, shading, photography, color theory and the importance of light and color balance. Public school art allowed me space to explore my creative side through media that my working class family would not have been able to provide otherwise.
I went to college in Pennsylvania to study biology and ended up instead becoming a community psychologist with a fierce passion for social justice that I have spent my career in higher education cultivating. Classes that I taught revolved around immersive cultural and service learning abroad. I took students to Ecuador, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Ireland, the Dominican Republic and more. I also met people from around the world that allowed me to travel to places like Japan, India, and Trinidad. These travels allowed me to develop my voice though photography and weave a sort of multicultural fabric that mirrored my work in higher education.
It was during these adult years that I began to experiment with 3D art like jewelry and pottery and first started selling my work at craft fairs and art shows.
I moved to Colorado during the height of the pandemic in 2020. It has been difficult to find “my community” in the art sector here. I see so many amazing artists here and that can sometimes be intimidating, but I am eager to find space. Currently, I work mainly in acrylic paint, jewelry and photography. All of my art is fueled by my passion for justice and human connection. I want to create pieces that allow people, especially people of color and those who have been marginalized, to see themselves reflected. It is also essential to me that my art remain accessible (meaning both affordable and relatable).
Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I love to try new things. I think one of the freeing aspects of not having “formal” training is that I experiment with everything until I find what works. For me this means textures, color combinations and often times mixing media. The challenge for me is often executing what shows up in my mind and the time it takes to complete a piece. Because I do not have a deep array of skills to draw on, I often make it up as I go, so there may be an immense amount of time poured into doing something the first time and also often difficulty replicating that process.
For the last few years, I have been really focusing on fluid acrylic techniques. For many who use this style, its very abstract. There is less control than I am used to with traditional brush work, so for me it has required alot of patience that I do not often have. It has in many ways become as much a personal and spiritual journey to learn to let go of that control and allow nature, science and gravity to work with me as a partner, instead of trying to make the medium do my bidding. This process has since evolved into taking those abstract pieces and transforming them into portraits. I do this often using negative painting or through shading in the abstract to create the image I want.
At a show once, I had a palette knife painting of a woman dancing in the rain. She was abstract, but still very clearly a woman of color with coily hair and brown skin. A little girl passing my booth at a show one day and was so excited she called her mother over to see the painting shouting “Look Mommy! Look! She looks just like you!” That experience and the ensuing conversation lead me to really make painting women of color a priority, I rarely saw images that reflected the mixed race reality that I grew up in and I want to change that for others. I often start with a simple silhouette of a family member, perhaps just an energy I want to convey. In the end, it is not meant to look specifically like the person I started with, but rather to hold their essence in a way that others can still recognize themselves in the work as well.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Anyone who comes here is getting a trip to the Garden of the Gods no questions asked. I have traveled all over the world and consider it among one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and with a poetically fitting name too!
The majestic pillars and vibrant colors are so inspiring, I still take dozens of pictures every time I go. I love to walk down Tejon St in the downtown area of Colorado Springs. There are so many hidden gems and fun restaurants. One of my favorite places to sip a cocktail ,made with local spirits and grab a bite from their rotating food trucks is The Garden on South Nevada. Its a beautiful spot to watch a sunset or hang with friends after work.
I have also found such an amazing community at Raices Brewing Company in Denver. Its a bit far for me to go regularly, but I had a show there 2 years ago and felt so at home in a way I never expected in a room full of strangers. When life is too busy to make a trip to get one of my favorite passionfruit or manguito beers – I live vicariously through their live feeds and social media.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Perhaps redundant, but Public School Art and my public School art teachers Mr. Sanchuk, Mrs. Tachok, Ms. Rizzo, Mrs. Mosner, Mrs. Venator all get so much credit for fostering my curiosity and love of art and music.
I always have to acknowledge my grandmothers and mother, Carmen, Connie and Nancy who fueled my creative side throughout my life. Whether through cooking, painting, singing – all of them both shared with me their passion and their knowledge as well as supported me in developing my own. They showed me first hand what it meant to create art not for a living, but for a life.
Website: www.revelutionaryartitude.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revartitude/
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/rosalie-m-rodriguez
Facebook: www.facebook.com/revartitude
Image Credits
All photos are taken by me.