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[Thursday, June 15, 1989]
San Antonio Light

[[image - photograph]]
Photographic credit: Rick Vasquez/San Antonio Light
AN ARTISTIC STATEMENT: Artist Mel Casas stands amid some of his unique art work, which will be going on the market for the first time through an "official" gallery.

Art teacher is prepared to test commercial waters

Mel Casas
What: Local painter agrees to be represented by local gallery and will show new works.
When: Reception 6 p.m. Friday.
Where: Arte Moderno, 203 N. Presa.
Call 222-8620.

By Steve Bennett
Staff Reporter

"Ah, the things I do for fame," Mel Casas, shaking his head melodramatically, says with a sigh, already a bit bored with posing for The Light's photographer.

In just a few minutes, after the photographer has run out of film, the San Antonio artist will do something even more unthinkable.  He will sit still for an interview!

On the publicity-hound scale, Casas is a mere pup.

"I don't do this much," he says later over coffee. "Some artists continually promote themselves.  This is not a put-down, but I'm not like that. I'm not much for being in the news.  Some like it.  I shy away."

But the 58-year-old El Paso native, who has taught art at San Antonio College for nearly 30 years (the last 10 as chairman of the art department), has reached "a change of places or plateaus." And flashbulbs and tape recorders go with the new territory.

In his own sort of laid-back way, Casas is making a push for more exposure for his art. More accurately, he has received some offers, and, rather than his usual turn-down, he has given a thumbs-up.

The artist has agreed to let the fledgling downtown art gallery Arte Moderno "officially" represent him - a first in his 40-year career.  Casas' most recent paintings will be displayed on a monthly rotating basis, and gallery owner John DePaolo will try to sell them. "He's welcome to try," the painter said. "It's a tough market." A reception for Casas is set for 6 p.m. Friday at the gallery.  Recent work will be shown.

And 27 Casas paintings - a retrospective dating from 1967 to the present - will go on exhibit at the Laguna Gloria Art Museum in Austin Sept 3. (The reception is Sept. 10.) There has been talk that the show will tour Texas museums, but logistics have not been firmed up.

"I'm re-evaluating myself," Casas said. "I'm not 18, I'm 58. I'm not being gloomy or melodramatic, but I've got less time than you do. You have to decide what's important, and I've decided I need more time to paint. I've reached an age where I've got to think about doing more art work."

DePaolo, who opened Arte Moderno May 17 with an exhibit of contemporary Mexican art, thinks Casas wants to test his value on the commercial market.

"After 40 years as an artist, I think he wants to see how his work stacks up in the commercial art world," DePaolo said. "The academic world - he's done that."

Casas is committed to teaching - "I have a contract with SAC," he says - but the question is whether he will give up the art department chairmanship.

"It just takes up so much time," he says.

Somewhere in San Antonio there is a mini-warehouse storage unit where more than 100 of Mel Casas' paintings are stacked "pancake-style."

All are labeled "Humanscape" and given a number corresponding to the order of completion.  Each canvas is 72 inches by 96 inches.

"Humanscape" gives a sense of anonymity," Casas said, "and at the same time there is a commonality. The paintings are linked together."

It is a series in which, the artist says, images are manipulated to create contradictory visual questions.  Images and words combine in riddles and puns - both playful and serious.

"Bluebonnet Plague," for instance, looks nothing like the bluebonnet paintings you find at every turn at every amateur art show that comes along, and that is precisely the point.

There have been 149 "Humanscape" paintings produced since 1965. Casas has destroyed 20 early ones "because I just didn't have room." Eleven others are in private collections. The artist owns the rest - more than 100 of his own paintings.

Although two Casas paintings are in the national touring "¡Mira!" show currently in Dallas, and one was in the recent Third Coast Review at the Blue Star Art Space, Casas does not show his work that much, at least for an artist of his stature. He certainly does not hustle to get into exhibits, and frequently says no to curators.

"I paint according to my personal need," he said. "Sometimes the work speaks of political awareness, ethnicity - if I get involved in something, I paint paintings about that. I had a series on the Nixon regime - and now they're calling me wanting to show them. But I'm not interested in that anymore."

"
I've got to thnk about doing more art work
- MEL CASAS
Artist/ecucator
"

Over the years, Casas has tackled several subjects with his painting that have plunged him into "hot water." There was an erotic series of nudes in the '60s. "That one upset a lot of people in San Antonio," he said. A founder of the '60s federation of Chicano artists Con Safo, Casas painted Chicano issues, the plight of farmworkers, women's issues, his strong opposition to the Vietnam War.

"I feel a social obligation. If we are a society, we have an obligation to express. I express through my paintings."

Casas has been able to paint without serious regard to an audience other than himself because he has not had to rely on his painting to survive. He has not had to fit himself into a market nor had an editorial eye peering over his shoulder. So what you get with a Casas painting is Mel Casas.

"The source of my income has come from teaching, so it has given me the freedom to express my views visually. Indirectly, I have bought and paid for my artistic freedom.

"To be successful as an artist - or as anything - is to make money, right? Would I enjoy having money? Yes. Am I bitter? No. If you aim to market your work and make money, you should understand that market and paint or sculpt accordingly. But I do what I want to do and what I do is not everybody's cup of tea."

Casas did not plan it this way. He did not sit down and say, "I'll teach and support myself. Then I can paint whatever I want. It won't matter if I sell paintings." Rather, he calls the way his career has developed a series of "nice serendipities."

After high school, Casas went to fight in Korea. "I was drafted," he said. "I did not go voluntarily. I was taken over there." Wounds left him partially blind and deaf, but he was able to go to college on the GI bill, initially studying psychology and art, then dropping psychology to concentrate on art education. He graduated from Texas Western College in El Paso (now the University of Texas at El Paso), in 1956, then received his master's of fine arts from the University of the Americas in Mexico City in 1958.

"I made the right decisions at the right times. I chose art, specifically art education, at a time when there were jobs out there that are not there now.

"I had a job to support me and my family (he has five children, now grown). Some people might not like to work eight-hour days. I can and I always have. People say, 'I'm not an 8-to-5 person.' I never understood that."

Although Casas says he has re-evaluated himself and at this point in his life feels it's time to concentrate on his own art, perhaps the real reason he is interested in showing recent work and is submitting to interviews is that his art is simply getting better. He just can't keep it in. As he puts it, "The paint screams at you." The latest work is more alive and organic than ever. The paintings seem to be growing on the walls rather than just hanging there.

"I'm involved in a search for innocence," he said. "I'm trying to purge established technique and arrive at something else. If you asked me what, I couldn't tell you. Painting is trying to arrive at the self, and then you have to decide what to do with that. I feel I have arrived at where I want to be. Now I have to decide. What can I do with this cryptic language?"