By Page leggett

Rosalia Torres Weiner makes her living as an artist. Most of her income is generated through selling her canvas work, installing public murals and community arts programming through her Red Calaca mobile art studio – a 24-foot-long mobile gallery and artmaking truck.

But there were opportunities she was missing.

“Digital creatives must work in industry-standard professional applications like the Adobe Creative suite,” she wrote in her application for a 2022 ASC Creative Renewal Fellowship.

Those tools have a high cost of entry and are more difficult to learn and master than traditional mediums, she pointed out.

Torres Weiner had been trying to teach herself digital art using free and low-cost digital art applications, but she was struggling.

Being awarded a $15,000 fellowship allowed her to attend Adobe CreativePro Week in Washington, D.C. in May.

She was excited. And nervous.

“I told my husband: ‘I’m scared,’” she said. “’These people all know Photoshop and Illustrator.’”

She was an eager novice in a room full of experts.

It’s funny to think that a tech conference scared Torres Weiner. This is a woman who recently jumped out of an airplane. (She said, “Now I know I can do anything!”)

“The conference was so eye-opening,” she said. “All this talk of vector lines and pixels and iCloud … it was all new to me. I think I was the only artist there. Everybody else was sent by their company. I was proud to say I was there because of an ASC grant.”

The conference did exactly what she’d hoped it would.

“I’m getting new clients now because I have this new skill,” she said. For instance, she was awarded a highly sought-after mural project from Central Piedmont Community College.

College officials were looking for paint alternatives for the Parr Center, CPCC’s brand-new, 183,000-square-foot hub of student life. Torres Weiner used Adobe Fresco to create a 98-feet-by-13-feet mural using vinyl wrap – something she wouldn’t have known how to do without the conference – for the center, located on Elizabeth Avenue in Charlotte.

She turned out to be a natural for the job.

“I tell stories with my art, and CPCC wanted to tell the story of their history,” she said.

It was a bigger undertaking than expected. The mural was originally supposed to be 30 by 13 feet, Torres Weiner said. But after she and her assistant, Felicia Sutton, interviewed teachers, staff and students, they had more inspiring stories than they’d anticipated. Torres Weiner asked if they could make the mural more than three times as wide as they’d planned.

“Felicia was my right hand during this whole process,” Torres Weiner said. “I taught her how to write a proposal and create a budget. But she became my mentor, too, because she knew the technical side. We traded knowledge.”

The grant covered conference fees, travel, lodging and an upgrade to commercial-grade technology. She can now create digital animation, 3-D renderings and incorporate visual effects into her murals and public art. She’s even creating immersive art exhibits through the use of augmented reality.

“Now, I paint a little butterfly on my iPad, and then I can transform that for flight and move it around,” she said. “It has expanded my whole universe.”

She’s embracing all kinds of technology these days. She invested in a good camera and now takes high-res photos of all her finished art.

“Now, if somebody comes to me and asks if they can use an image in a book – as National Geographic did – I can get paid for the photo.”

Both student and teacher

As a full-time artist, Torres Weiner has to have business acumen in addition to a creative spark. In her grant application, she asserted that learning a new medium would provide a new source of income. Beyond that, she also planned to share her new skills.

The Charlotte-based artist/muralist dedicates 25% of her time to nonprofit wok.

“Through these programs, I have been able to reach the Latinx community and bring the arts to underserved areas in Charlotte and the surrounding regions,” she said. “I have delivered arts programming in senior citizens centers, libraries, laundromats and apartment communities.”

At senior centers, she tells students: “Technology helps our minds. Learning new skills helps our brains.”

“One 92-year-old lady said she never thought she would learn how to use a tablet,” the artist said. “I told her: If I can do it, anybody can.”

Teaching feeds her soul in the same way art does. During the pandemic, she taught art to underserved children in the North Carolina mountains through remote learning programs.

She’s now offering paid internships to students.

“I’m teaching high school and college students about digital art!” she marveled. On a recent Saturday, she had a student from Northwest School of the Arts and another from UNC Charlotte working and learning in her studio.

Artist as activist

Torres Weiner’s public murals often celebrate the rich history and the changing demographics of the South.

“I use my art to document social conditions and raise awareness about issues affecting immigrant communities such as family separation, access to public education, racism and moving beyond stereotypes,” she said.

“It’s important for me to document Latino stories – especially for the Dreamers – those children left behind when their parents got deported,” she added. “At the Mint Museum, I have three large portraits of dreamers that come to life with augmented reality.”

She’s referring to her recently installed show at the Mint Museum Randolph. It’s the latest installment in the Mint’s “Interventions” series. While the show is already on view, the opening reception won’t be held until spring 2023. 

Her Dreamer portraits can literally speak to viewers.

“My husband built the app,” Torres Weiner said. “People can download it for free and then point their phones to my paintings and hear the actual voices of the students I interviewed.”

Torres Weiner has a passion for working with Latino youth.

“I tell them: If you don’t know who you are and where you come from, you’re going to get lost. You have to embrace your heritage.”

While the artist has fully immersed herself in Charlotte’s culture, she’s never forgotten where she came from. Being Latina is an important part of her identity.

And her art.

“I came here in the late 1980s with just dreams and 100 pesos,” she said. “I’m telling you that this technology training is the best thing that’s happened to me,” she said. “Thank you, ASC!”