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(8) Esquivel retains a copy of the invitation.

(9) Cantú says he painted Pachucos long before the inception of the group, but that order members had not seen them because his early work was stolen.

(10) Quirarte, Ibid,, p. 176, note 21.

(11) Information located during research of this
article has resolved the matter for most or all
former Con Safo members, although there is
documenation that says Tlacuilo was an early
name for the group.

(12) Esquivel recalls that "Reyes was very 'gung
ho' on getting Casas into the group. He argued
that we needed members with credentials in
order to be taken seriously and get national
exposure."

(13) Esquivel's notes indicate that Almazán,
Reyes, and Ríos resigned from the group in
November of 1971 citing causes that included
dissatisfaction, likely with the second Tlacuilo
show. On December 19, 1971, Reyes called the
meeting that led to Con Safo.

(14) Esquivel's notes state that, in December of
1971, Reyes telephoned Esquivel and said that
he, Almazán, and Rios had decided to exclude
Cantú from the group because of his radical
politics. Evidently, there was no formal expulsion. The same source notes that Con Safo's
December, 1971, roll consisted of the founders
of El Grupo (minus Cantú) and new members
Casas and Jesse Treviño. In January of 1972,
Carlos Espinosa, Santos Martínez, and Vincente Velasquez were inducted. The membership was unchanged through June of 1972.

(15) Con Safo apparently lasted until 1976, at
least on paper. No one I interviewed reliably
recalls or can document its late period.

(16) Although often referred to as "Con Safos"
(even by some former group members), the
group's proper always was "Con Sato, because, Casas says, "that's the way we said it
in El Paso, Where I am from."

(17) Quirarte, A History and Appreciation of
Chicano Art, 1984, p. 11.

(18) Quirarte, Mexican American Artists (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1973, p. 136). In a
more recent publication, Quirarte, Exhibitions,
Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation, p.
176, note 21 states that the name Con Safo
was adopted in 1972.

(19) "Art exhibit draws protests," San Antonio
News (November 23, 1971), p. C14.

(20) David Gonzales and Cantú say this was the
first Chicano exhibition thus combining music
and art.

(21) Casa believed other members were unwilling to cooperate and work for the group. Esquivel points out that other members probably did not possess the skills, knowledge, and experience to make an effective contribution.

(22) I have been unable to determine the date
of Casas's resignation. Nor was I able to con-
tact Treviño for his account of Con Safo.

(23) Almazán, who had conflicts with Quirarte
dating from the latter's arrival in San Antonio,
was perceived to be the organizer of the
protest exhibition, which was to take place at
the residence of Dr. Fabian Gomez, a Con Safo
supporter.

could be challenged with "multiple alternatives
which possessed validity and credibility."

Just before adopting the name Con Safo, the group participated in an exhibition held in the new US Courthouse and Federal Building in Dallas. The show, which was sponsored by the Mexican-American Government Employees Association, was met by picketing protesters. According to Almazán, "It flabbergasted us that paintings could have that effect. We always said that nobody looked at paintings. But here they were threatened by what--by a group of paintings!" It is not clear whetherthe primary objection was to nudity or to political content. A short article in the San Antonio News only mentions the former, though members recall that most of the paintings had political themes, and that the single nude in the
show (which was not painted by a Con Safo
member) was rather chaste. (19)

The Con Safo group exhibited at many universities and community organizations in the southwest and the Midwest. They also collaborated with writers and musicians. The writer Tómas Rivera served as a spokesperson for the group. The invitation to the second Tacuilo Exhibit noted that the musical group Distant Dream would play music composed for
specific paintings in the show. (20) Reyes holds
that one of the goals of the organization was to
form "a Chicano Bauhaus with the original Bauhaus as a conceptual model" in order to create "a multi-discipline Chicano aesthetic." In addition to the artists listed above, a number of Chicano artists who later achieved prominence had been members of the group at one time or another, including Carmen Lomas Garza, César Martínez,
Rudy Trevino, and Kathy Vargas.

The Demise of Con Safo
Determining Con Safo's end is a highly subjective enterprise, since it appears to have had even more endings than beginnings.

In 1973, Casas resigned the presidency of
the group. Casas had been working on a large grant application and was very disappointed that the others did not want to contribute. (21) At this point, he felt "there was no reason to continue." Rudy Treviño, who had joined the group in January, became the new head of the organization. (22)

From one member's point of view, the meeting held on November 5, 1973, determined the fate of the organization. One point of business that day concerned a protest exhibition planned against the Mexican-American Symposium organized by Dr. Jacinto Quirarte, who was the Dean of Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The symposium was to be held on November 8, 1973. (23) In the discussion that ensued, Almazin repeatedly insulted Casa and Trevino. After adjourning the meeting, Trevino challenged Almazin to fight, causing Esquivel to intervene, though not without
the fear that Trevino would beat both of them.
In Esquivel's opinion,"there was an irreparable
split. I could never see them coming together
again after that night. ... the fences could not
be mended. The dream of creating a shared new idiom was ended." (24) Esquivel quit the
group after this meeting

With Casas and half (or more) of the founding members either out of the organization or participating in a greatly diminished capacity, the group took on a considerably different character. Previously, the membership
policy had been very selective and exclusionary. (25)At this point many students and novice artists were allowed to join.

Treviño sought to professionalize the group and its operating procedures by instituting insurance requirements for all exhibitions, formal offices and titles, etc. He also drafted a statement which set out guidelines for making political art. These changes caused considerable dissent, leading some members to leave the group.

The most famous defection was that of three artists from the Valley (César Martinez, Carmen Lomas Garza, and Amado Peña), who are sometimes referred to as Los Quemados. (26)Martínez was frustrated on several accounts: he felt that Con Safo was caught up in endless discussions, that they were not securing exhibitions in the most desirable venues, that the new exhibition procedures prevented artists from showing at community organizations, and that the calls for political content rang hollow. Martínez emphasizes that "it is ironic that those of us who were most deeply connected to the community were not hung up on our art being political. We were already involved in the community....We also thought that much of the political art [being made by Con Safo members] was superficial--just sloganeering."

Martínez drafted the resignation letter dated November 6, 1974, which was also signed by Garza and Peña. (27) It cites "nebulous" and "unstable"
membership, a practically non-existent" level of community activity, and contends that "C/S has not defined itself politically." The letter cautions that "When Arte Chicano becomes a purely theoretical exercise as is frequently the case in C/S, it ceases to be what it purports to stand for. Like art for art's