|
|
|
 Vallarta Living | Art Talk | February 2008 
Art That's the Sum of Spare Parts
 Aaron Claverie - North County Times
go to original
| | Lake Elsinore artist Chad Mora specializes in Day of the Dead themed work made from a variety of items some would call junk. In Mora's hands, the 'junk' is transformed into works of art. (David Carlson/NCT) | | |
Lake Elsinore - In the hands of artist Chad Mora, doorknobs, old furniture parts and pie tins become headlights, cacti and flowers.
Dice from the Circus Circus hotel in Las Vegas are the eyes of a Day of the Dead skeleton.
A cheese grater is the grill of a hot rod.
The skeleton hipster with the pompadour and sideburns was carved out of a table leg.
While the 37-year-old Lake Elsinore native has been using garage sale finds and spare parts in his art for years, he has recently blended this distinctive style with the traditional artwork associated with the Day of the Dead, the November holiday devoted to remembering dead loved ones and Catholic saints.
Day of the Dead art features skeletons that represent family members, flowers and caterinas, feminine skeletons inspired by a famous print produced by 19th century Mexican artist Jose Guadeloupe Posada.
Mora's mashups, on display in a gallery he built earlier this year in the back of the family-owned Mora's Antiques on Main Street here, put the traditional Day of the Dead skeletons in Ed Roth-inspired hot rods. A rockabilly skeleton plays a slap bass. A skeleton fisherman holds a huge carved skeleton fish. One of the larger pieces depicts a gun-toting skeleton soldadera, a female Mexican soldier during the revolution.
Late last year, Mora's art was included in the Hollywood Forever-sponsored Day of the Dead art show in Los Angeles.
Contacts he made at the show - he said he passed out more than 200 business cards - have turned into sales and some buzz within the Day of the Dead art world.
One of the pieces he made to honor his grandparents, a skeleton farmer, recently sold for $400.
The co-owner of Mora Antiques, Chad's mom Vicki Mora, said interest in her son's work is booming.
"Big time," she said. "Since the show, we have a lot of people who come in here because of his art."
The inspiration for the Day of the Dead pieces, Chad Mora said, was a caterina purchased in Puerto Vallarta on his honeymoon 15 years ago.
Walking by it one day about a year and a half ago, he decided to try and re-create it.
As he worked with the skeleton form that makes up the base of the work, his personality started to take over.
"I look at a piece of wood and it tells me what it wants to be," he said.
It takes about three or four weeks to finish a piece. Much of the time is spent on the details, such as the Model A spark plugs that he used in one of the hot rods.
His job as a street sweeper in Hemet gives him time in the afternoons to work on his art, but he also has family demands, such as taking his children to basketball practice.
He's hoping to build up a collection of 20 or more pieces for a show and he's considering taking his pieces to art and tattoo conventions. He said he also would be honored to be included in this year's Day of the Dead show in L.A.
J.J. Swanson-O'Neal, a Lake Elsinore-based real estate agent, said she found out about Mora's art while visiting the antique store, which has some of his older works - a Christmas tree made with rolling pins - on display.
"There's a lot of Day of the Dead art, ceramics and paper mache, but I've never seen anything like his work before; each little piece has soul," she said.
Also, Swanson, who lent one of her Mora pieces to the gallery, said his choice of materials - old furniture parts and discarded items - makes sense in the context of the work, which is meant to honor the past.
"You can almost see the life that the skeletons were meant to represent," she said.
Contact staff writer Aaron Claverie at aclaverie(at)californian.com. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us