Featured Article - July 2010
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PEOPLE
True Colors
George Mendoza is among Las Cruces’s most versatile and accomplished artists. Besides his zeal for painting, which has led him to exhibit his work on both coasts, he’s the author of The Spirit Man Trilogy of fantasy novels (iUniverse, 2000), a former motivational speaker who has inspired others to overcome adversity, and a former long-distance runner who competed in the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes Olympic games.
Mendoza’s accomplishments are all the greater because he is legally blind. At age 15, he began to lose his vision from a genetic disease that causes macular degeneration: loss of sight in the center of the vision field. Today, Mendoza has about 20 percent of his peripheral vision and the ability to perceive color, which explains the nature of his paintings. His canvases are distinguished by their bright, swirling hues, similar to what he’s able to see with his “kaleidoscope eyes.”
Last September, the Art of Possibility Studios—an organization based in Santa Clara, California, whose mission is to bring the work of disabled artists to a wider audience—selected 30 of Mendoza’s paintings to reproduce as fabric designs. “It started in 2006, when I had a show in Loveland, Colorado,” he recalls. “The recession was just kicking in, and my art was not selling. So I got an art-licensing agent, and the fabric idea immediately caught fire. The fabrics are all based on original paintings, and there is now a huge interest in using the cloth for quilts. It’s been receiving rave reviews, and it is something that has never been done before: original art to quilts. It’s a first—using bold, bright, color-saturated designs for quilts.”
Mendoza’s Free Spirit fabric collection began with cotton, but will soon expand to include vinyl and fleece flannel. The fabrics sell particularly well in Korea, where they’re made. Mendoza has been told that women are having the brilliant designs made into apparel, such as sundresses.
Mendoza’s creative process is understandably different from those of other artists. He uses a form of finger painting to begin many of his works; only later does he switch to brushes. “Since I can’t see the outside world, I paint what I dream. I have a great relationship with my dreams, and I don’t ever copy other artists’ work, so since my source is my dreams, my work is filled with originality. My blindness has led to unique dreams and inner visions.”
Although his output has slowed a bit in recent years, Mendoza is not too worried about selling his art. “That makes it more of a quest than a profession. I feel that I have an obligation to show the world what I see. But I’m still painting and writing, and this [fabric collection] is a huge feather in my cap, and offers a lot of pride to the disabled community.”
Mendoza laughs. “A second collection is coming out this summer; this has been so successful that I’m like a blind guy gone wild!”
See George Mendoza’s fabrics online, and locate a retailer near you, at Art of Possibility Studios, http://aopstudios.com/. See his paintings at www.georgemendoza.com; (575) 522-1074
