We were lucky to catch up with Michael Anthony García recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Michael Anthony thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I entered undergrad, writing- specifically poetry and short story science fiction- were my creative goals. I didn’t feel nurtured or understood by the faculty but would later discover the poetics of objects and imagery that opened me up to more varied forms of expression, eventually changing my major to visual art.

I’d always made work and performed in many different ways but had not considered them to be my preferred media because “artist” was a title I’d not yet felt comfortable enough to use. Over time, it was the continual act of making work and immersing myself in the experience of creating it that helped me realize that that’s exactly what I’d been my whole life, whether my work had fit others’ definitions or not.

As my practice has always been born of my own experiences or observations, and especially now that I use it as a means to better express the politics of living in a brown body in the US at this time, the act of making the work is especially meditative and a means of processing the emotion of it all. It was a gradual process of growth from an imposter syndrome mentality to defining the word “artist” on my own terms. When I wasn’t afforded opportunities, I created them for myself and others and that is now a foundation of both my studio and curatorial practices.

Michael Anthony, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

After I finished undergrad, I was hired by my college to be an adjunct to the art faculty, but as I felt somewhat stifled living in a small Texas town for too long, I only stayed one year. I continued to make work, albeit in a more limited way without access to all the tools afforded me in the school’s studios. It was then that I segued more into performance for the first time outside of school. I lived in Dallas for three years and dabbled in traditional theater as a means of learning more about working in front of an audience and all the skills of performance.

It wasn’t until I moved to Austin that my career really took off, in showing work and eventually curating at Mexic-Arte Museum, connecting with and establishing the curatorial collective I work with called Los Outsiders, in addition to creating relationships with other artists and galleries in the city. I am nearing the end of my multidisciplinary graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and find myself opening up the ways I can convey the poetics that have been the foundation of my practice. I have done more curatorial work with the City of Austin in the beautiful gallery in the Central Library, and the Fusebox Festival. At the heart of my practices is the idea of community, so forming relationships with artists through the curatorial process has dovetailed perfectly with my other endeavors.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

For me, helping others look at the seams and glitches in our perceptions of reality and normalcy is such an important part of being an artist. It’s very easy for us humans to fall into routine, take certain things for granted, and suffer from the frog in the slowly boiling pot of water syndrome. Things around us change, often to our detriment and having the power to help people take a pause from the perceived/ received notion of reality is one of the more rewarding aspects of making art. Sometimes it comes in the form of a respite from all the things weighing down their thoughts, and other times it’s specifically about challenging their opinions. As my work has become more political over the years, and I’ve felt more comfortable broaching topics in these ways, opening up conversation.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

These days, the art world is still very much a product and reflection of the capitalist system around it, which can cause you to focus on the wrong parts of an artistic practice and career. I think the same is true of education. When it is run like a business, the human factor goes on the back burner and you pay more attention to the money than the students. Similarly, artists can pay too much attention to their bank accounts or their fame, and take their eye off the work, which invariably suffers. There has to be a full dedication to making the work for the work’s sake versus becoming “successful”, or at the very least, a better balance of both until you can dedicate more and more energy to the creation.

Contact Info:

• Website: mrmichaelme.com
• Instagram: mrmichaelme
• Twitter: mrmichaelme
• Youtube: youtube.com/c/michaelanthonygarcia

Image Credits
images courtesy of the artist