LocalSprout Hosts Mid-Week Market to Connect Chefs, Foodies to Local Growers

Last Wednesday, I visited the Mid-Week Market, San Antonio's first indoor farmers market, located at LocalSprout Food Hub at 503 Chestnut Street.

The Hub, which sells sustainably-grown produce, meats, dairy and more, opens its doors to the public from 3 to 7 p.m. every Wednesday. I was visiting for the first time.

LocalSprout is located in the core of downtown San Antonio, a neighborhood where wholesale and shipping facilities are interspersed with houses and businesses. As I pulled up to the rear entrance to park, I could hear a Roy Orbison song playing inside the two open doors. Outside and over the fence, a group of men were sitting in a circle of lawn chairs in their backyard, drinking beer and playing cards.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was a front desk where a friendly young woman greeted me. A banner advertising Alamo Beer Co.'s locally-crafted brew hung on the wall. To the left, I glimpsed the hub's refrigerator of locally-raised meats, a wall decorated in oak panels bearing the words, "Eat Local," and two glass doors leading into a chilled room of produce.

LocalSprout is an incubator spot for people to come in and figure out their product – how to make it, develop a label or brand, market it and sell it to customers and business owners. The Mid-Week Market gives chefs a place to taste local wholesale and retail foods and directly purchase them, but it's open to everyone.

ModSnap Radio provided music for Wednesday's Mid-Week Market.

The warehouse is committed to connecting eaters with as much sustainable food as possible, both by growing food hydroponically on site and by providing the space for food and beverage companies to make artisan products to distribute across the country.

I soon found Stephen Paprocki, director of the Chef Cooperatives, whom I'd talked to multiple times before about local food. Stephen is very friendly and vocal, not only about his own business, Texas Black Gold Garlic, but the entrepreneurs who've set up shop at LocalSprout to see their own visions come to fruition.

One of those entrepreneurs is San Antonio native James Mireles, a coffee roaster and brewer who founded Pulp Coffee at LocalSprout in December of 2015 after working for 20 years in the coffee industry in California and Texas.

Pulp Coffee is one of about eight coffee roasters currently operating in San Antonio. Specifically, it's a premium, private-label coffee roasting company that custom blends and roasts for other companies.

Once the owner of another private label coffee company, Mireles gave me a tour of the room at the back of the building, which sports a coffee bar, coffee roaster and bags of imported coffee beans. And friends. Lots of friends, some of them working as baristas or sipping coffee at the bar. All have one thing in common: An interest in really good coffee and tea.

Every week, the roasters open to the public for four hours at the Market, during which they've hosted visitors from chef schools to groups from the San Antonio YMCA, he said.

Mireles explained how he'd like to supply ultra-premium roast coffee to third-wave coffee shops – those stores offering specialty rather than commodity coffee.

The company currently sells to retail stores, and customers can buy Pulp Coffee on the roaster's website, he explained.

"My vision is of a shared concept where manufacturers can pull together, under one roof, in a warehouse," he said. "In the City of San Antonio, the next phase is retail, and we would like to help be the designers of the warehouse for these retail operations."

Following this business model has enabled Mireles to pay about half the price of what a typical brick and mortar space would cost to set up and roast coffee. Here, guests can visit and taste all the different blends that Pulp Coffee makes right on site.

"Theoretically, coffee is a fruit, and taste is subjective," he said. "When we bring people for tastings, we brew four distinctive, different coffees – usually including two coffees from Ethiopia. The view at Pulp means it's about you."

After our conversation, I felt the energy boost I typically enjoy from a cup of coffee and decided to peruse the market. I ran into Bryan Pape, one of the partners in Truckin' Tomato, the first vendor to move into LocalSprout and the sponsor of the Mid-Week Market.

Bryan Pape shows off some of the fresh greens grown by Johnson's Backyard Garden in Austin, one of the food purveyors working with Truckin' Tomato to supply produce to the Mid-Week Market. 

The company works with farmers and food purveyors at small to mid-sized farms across Texas to distribute sustainable and organic fruits, veggies and meats to San Antonio restaurants.

Pape explained how he defines "local" as food sourced within a 300-mile radius of Austin and San Antonio.

Truckin' Tomato's business has evolved from a portable farmers market that drove to food deserts, or areas of town lacking in fresh food, to a Community Supported Agriculture venture selling boxes of food. Last December, it became a wholesale operation, and Pape has since helped organize underground dinners at restaurants around San Antonio.

Pape said they'll give the featured restaurant a list of available products so the chef can write his or her own menu around it.

"It's a great way to showcase the chef and the rest of the staff, and I can bring in a new chef as a client," he said. "There is a huge list of foodies who want in on this. We've gotten a flood of emails. People are willing to pay $120 to attend these dinners."

Pape said they always work with Pulp Coffee and most recently featured chef John Rust from the local restaurant, Lüke, at one of the dinners.

I paused to consider this. While I really like healthy, delicious food and all the extra flavor it contains when it's grown by local farmers, I wouldn't call myself a foodie. With no current full-time job, I tend to restrict my food expenses to things I can buy at the grocery store and an occasional farmers market. I buy local food when I can, but only what I can afford.

However, Pape makes the dinner sound so delicious that I ask him to send me the information about the next one.

Next, Stephen and I talked to Mitch Hagney, the owner of LocalSprout.

Hagney has taken growing green to the next level and is responsible for the hydroponic greens grown here. He walked us through the hydroponic room, which is actually a 40-foot-long shipping container equipped with a vertical growing system that runs on solar power. It's a closed loop system where plants can be produced without any soil.

"For about three-and-a-half years, I've sold crops grown in this container," he said. "I use about 1 percent of the water that other farms use. I'm currently working on creating a good supply chain for local businesses."

Outside, we walked along the side of the building overlooking Chestnut Street. I remember driving by here a year ago and seeing a couple bushes and a green lawn, but Hagney has transformed it into a small garden filled with amaranth. Both the amaranth grain and the leaves, roots and stems can be eaten and are currently sold at the Pearl Farmers Market every Saturday morning from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

With all these fresh ideas to chew on, I glanced around the floor at some of the other market vendors. I hadn't had a chance to talk to the fermentation specialists at Madge's Food Co., the vendors from Deep River Specialty Foods, the experts at Southern Grit Flavor, Lil' Red's Boiled Peanuts, Cocina Heritage or the pet nutrition specialist at Pet Wants, but I also wanted to get a better understanding of the kind of space this is.

What's the big idea behind LocalSprout, I wondered? How does it fit into the modern food landscape, and more importantly, how can it change our attitudes about agriculture so that we're not only working harder to grow food, but working smarter?

One key farm practice used here is there are no pesticides and no fertilizer runoff. That's a noble goal for 2017, a year in which most food grown within the corn and soybean-based diet was raised using pesticides and herbicides.

On most large-scale farms, amaranth is known as pigweed – a plant that has developed resistance to glyphosate, the traditional herbicide treatment. While a different species of amaranth grows in farmers' fields, both types are apparently very nutritious, and it's nice to see that someone has turned what's been considered a weed into a nutritious food valued by ancient cultures around the world. Part of the charm of the urban food revival is that it takes food that people grew on this land hundreds of years ago and makes it attractive to current generations so it can thrive again.

Maybe the most exciting thing about the hydroponic farm is that it exists without soil. It's a novel idea because while many people wouldn't think of doing it, it's happening right here in downtown San Antonio.

Last January, Hagney became president of the local Food Policy Council, a volunteer organization that brings together stakeholders from different communities to examine how well the local food system is working for people's health and well-being and then to develop policy recommendations to help improve it.

He'll now work with other board members on community outreach, policy research and communication with policy makers about improving access to fresh, healthy, affordable food for all.

Hagney working in the hydroponic farm at LocalSprout, where he grows kale using solar power. 

The Food Policy Council has been working on several initiatives in San Antonio, from Urban Agriculture and a Farm to School program to a Healthy Corner Stores program.

At LocalSprout, farmers can practice what they can do best while having a community of people to share in the cost of production as well as public outreach.

"Normal farming is boom or bust," Hagney said. "We're looking for consistent demand to help support our product. At LocalSprout, vendors can buy a new space without having to pay for it all by themselves."

Pop-Up Event Gives Local SA Chefs a Way to Help Texas Ranchers

There are plenty of ways that people in San Antonio can support local food producers, but many of those ways haven't been explored until recently.

The local food scene is growing in San Antonio, including through locally-hosted pop-up dinners provided by chefs and sponsored by companies that let guests see what Texas producers have to offer.

From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on May 7, the Chef Cooperatives hosted "Save the Swine," a Pop-Up event held at Alamo Beer Brewery on 415 Burnet St. on the city's Eastside, right next to the historic Hays Street Bridge.

Hundreds of people turned out to see the new brewery headquarters, peruse the grounds with an Alamo beer in hand and sample dozens of unique culinary creations of the local chefs who are part of the Cooperative, all to raise money to benefit South Texas Heritage Pork.

The chefs set up at tents located throughout the grounds and prepared individual portions of their own pork recipes. For a $40 individual ticket that could be bought online, guests could amble from one food kiosk to the next, sipping their drink and trying all the different flavors.

An appetizing array of serrano peppers and flowers on the chopping board at Madge's Food Co.'s Fermented Michelada and Mockalada Stand.

Chef Stephen Paprocki, owner of Texas Black Gold Garlic and director of the Chef Cooperatives, handed out portions of Crispy Texas Drum Throats, Mushroom Escabeche and Black Garlic, his signature creation, with the help of Iverson Brownell of CanSurvive Cuisine Holdings.

Over at Tatu's Food Debauchery, patrons could enjoy Grilled Hen of the Woods on Mascarpone Toast with Sauce Veracruz and Bonito Flakes, courtesy of Chef Tatu Herrera.

Chef Jeff White of the Boiler House offered a steamy selection of Hog Trotter Tankotsu Ramen, Sous-Vide Quail Egg and Spicy Black Garlic Chili Oil.

Those are just a few of about 14 menu items, and on such a hot day, food artisan Mike Miller of Madge's Food Co. made the right move in setting up a Fermented Michelada and Mockalada Bar using Fermented Vegetables and Chicarrons. People could bring their fresh beer over to the table to have it mixed and prepared into a michelada.

A spicy michelada featuring a medium-brew Alamo Beer.

Right next door was Jenn White of Brindles Ice Cream, selling a Salted Caramel and Candied Bacon Praline dessert to help beat the heat.

Mark and Kelley Escobedo, the owners of South Texas Heritage Pork in Floresville, were there all day, laughing and talking to guests, doing interviews with local media and sharing their unique story of bringing heritage breeds of swine back onto the pasture.

Mark and Kelley Escobedo take a break from the day's events to talk to local media. 

Despite their successful business that they now have to move, the Escobedos aren't what you would consider your typical farmers. They moved to Wilson County in 2002 to start a locksmith business. When Mark changed the locks on a farmhouse located on 122 acres outside Floresville, the pair found they loved the land and house and decided to lease the entire package.

While they had no farming background or experience, they shared a loved of nature and decided to invest in a few animals, buying some chickens and hogs from a friend raising show hogs.

Everything they've learned about farming they read about online, Mark said.

They researched not only current farming practices, but the heritage breeds that were once prominent in agriculture. The heritage breeds, including the English Large Black and the Tamworth, were grown more slowly on pastures and open spaces rather than in confined feeding operations. Instead of being separated from the natural environment and placed on concrete, they were raised to coexist with the soil and nature.

Ever since they began raising their hogs, they've abided by the Spanish philosophy of farming: Slow growth leads to real flavor in swine. While the average pig in the U.S. goes from birth to slaughter in six months and most heritage breeds in this country live for nine to 10 months, the Escobedos raise their hogs for 24 to 30 months before harvest.

This practice means more time, lost hog weight and increasing costs for the same net weight of pig, but it's worth it, because flavor develops over time, Mark explains.

With this in mind, the Escobedos are basing their entire operation on the lost art of charcuterie. From the breed selection, pasture management, custom feed blend of peanuts and hay and increased comfort and happiness of the herd, everything leads to the final product – Jamón Tejano, a special cured ham that will hopefully be on the market in the next 16 months, Mark said.

All in all, the Pop-Up Event was a success, with live music from SATX Music, featuring Judivan Roots and True Indigo, DJ Ras of Shashamani Sound and DJ Gabe Garza at Southtown Vinyl and Deep South Collective. Sponsors included FreshPoint South Texas, Groomer's Seafood and Graphic Solutions Co.

This is hopefully just the beginning of what Texas farmer and ranchers mean to the local food movement in San Antonio.

Featured caption: Chefs from the Chef Cooperatives set up outside Alamo Beer Brewery on San Antonio's East side for "Save the Swine," a Pop-Up Dinner to raise money to help South Texas Heritage Pork obtain a new home.

Why I Think Public Art Is Important to San Antonio

While I want this post to be about why I think public art is vital to this city, it's not just public art that I think makes the city great. I think that what makes San Antonio great is that anyone who lives here or visits here can be happy if, for nothing else, perfect moments.

I'm not just talking about the type of perfect moment that can be experienced by stopping before the bridge along St. Mary's Street near the Southwest School of Art to view this mural:


What does this mural show? Like most art, the message is in the eye of the beholder, and the meaning is open to interpretation. We can appreciate this art without knowing about the artist's vision.

What matters is that it's here, that someone with a ton of artistic ability painted it and that we've paused to look at it.

It's a perfect moment.

And that, to me, is San Antonio.

Clearly there's a mix of cultures here, and with culture comes expectation. People say that San Antonio is a small town. Not really. The city is growing, so much so that a drive toward any part of town at rush hour has become a test of humanity. But it is a small town in another sense.

While I was born in San Antonio when Henry Cisneros was Mayor back in 1984, my family moved to the small town of Madison, Indiana, on the banks of the Ohio River in southern Indiana, population 13,000, when I was very young. Despite their difference in size, the two cities continue to grapple with the same dilemma of attracting fresh talent without sacrificing the identity and distinction of people who've lived there for generations.

While San Antonio is a big city, the parallels between here and small-town Indiana are sometimes uncanny. People notice when something new crops up here. Like many other towns, the struggles with racism, nepotism, stagnation, urbanization and decay.

There is decrepitude in San Antonio, sometimes right next door to fancy hotels and mansions.
Fountains and banana trees sit next to deteriorating buildings. The sidewalk grates emit strange smells. The City's homeless population struggles to survive along these streets, often unheard. Here is the back of one of two buildings on St. Mary's Street:

The back of a historic building located along St. Mary's Street.

I know nothing about this building, other than it's in obvious disuse. It hasn't been renovated in a while. There are probably rats and cockroaches inside.

So why does a not-so-amateur flaneur like me find it so appealing?

I read a little about these two buildings when I got home, learning that both buildings were under review by the Historic and Design Review Commission to receive a historic designation through the Office of Historic Preservation. Reading about the City of San Antonio's plans gave me a different perspective than I gained on foot.

I've lived here for four years, and I still get lost downtown. Sometimes, I'll park on one of these streets and take the River Walk southeast toward Houston Street for a cup of coffee, only to find that three hours have passed and I've walked all the way through downtown and back again.

This happened recently. I started at the San Antonio Public Library, where I noticed these interesting limestone walls with blocks of stone removed, giving pedestrians a view looking northwest toward Main Street:

Outside the San Antonio Public Library.

Several hours later, the sun had gone down, and I found myself looking at a statue of the Virgin Mary outside the Ursuline Academy:

A statue in the courtyard at the Southwest School of Art.

This statue was likely created by a San Antonio artist, and while it's located behind the convent walls out of public view, it's still public art for students, residents and tourists to admire.

It's another perfect moment, and the longer I live in San Antonio, the more I find these discrete but fulfilling sights and sounds.

I'll admit that I'll always be a tourist here. Shopkeepers along Alamo Street ask me where I'm from, not just because it's their job to do so, but because I really look lost. It's OK. I don't mind. I'll usually tell them I'm from here and that I'm just out getting some fresh air.

Still, many of them seem mystified that someone who lives in San Antonio would venture downtown to walk along Alamo Street.

The City has made an effort to turn downtown into a place for locals as well as tourists. It employs street guides along Alamo and Market streets to offer information about dining and attractions to tourists. In 2016, it began its official Downtown Street Performer Program, giving artists a public forum to express themselves without the expectation of payment. Life's hard for artists in San Antonio like anywhere else, but the street performer program is the right idea for a city that's looking to widen its interests beyond the River Walk.

I think San Antonio could also benefit from a public touring program in which it hires young people to guide visitors to places they might enjoy – something akin to the Hugman Tour, but for sites that aren't located along the River Walk. This would be a dream job for many Millennials, who are looking for a dynamic and exciting job where they don't have to sit at a desk all day, and there'd be more than enough tourists.

Sadly, many visitors to San Antonio are given the wrong impression of the city and told by residents that there's nothing to do here. That's a suicidal statement from a city whose major industry thrives on tourism, and a discouraging thing for guests to hear. We need to do more to make sure people have the resources to discover everything that makes San Antonio full of perfect moments.

Featured caption: Public street art painted on a historic building along St. Mary's Street. 

Walking Along Broadway, A Visual Journey: Part II: Miraflores

I walked to Brackenridge Park today, camera in hand, to take some photographs of a curious gathering of ruins spanning Hildebrand Avenue west of Broadway Street.

My visit was partly inspired by an eye-catching statue I'd seen out of my periphery when driving toward the US-281 exit ramp the night before, in addition to a conversation I'd heard in the outdoor dining area at Central Market recently.

Three men, who were clearly from out of town based on the part of their conversation I overheard about them returning to Philadelphia, were having dinner together, and as they sat down with their entrees and drinks, one of the men made a joke about existentialism that prompted the other two to laugh.

As I eavesdropped, I heard the older gentleman talking about art and how he thought culture was changing and art was once again going to be a province of rich patrons and families.

Which leads me to the subject of this article: Miraflores.

A small park located at the corner of East Hildebrand Avenue across from the University of the Incarnate Word, it was under the original ownership of one Dr. Aureliano Urrutia who, according to this delicious article by writer Walt Lockley of Texas Escapes, was a Mexican doctor who arrived in San Antonio as a political exile in his early forties in 1915.

Mexico was full of violent insurrections and political unrest at the time, and Urrutia ended up operating on Mexican military gangster Victoriano Huerta's eyes and becoming a close adviser and minister of his government after Presidents Porfirio Diaz and Francisco Madero had their run in office.

Interestingly, the writer points out that Urrutia was known for trying to pass reform legislation under Huerta including a streetcar law and ordering the closing of pulquerias before eventually being accused of a medical assassination without anesthetic.

It was after his arrest by General Frederick Funston (After which nearby Funston Avenue in San Antonio is named) that he was able to exile himself to the U.S. by ship from Veracruz to New Orleans and by train to San Antonio.

While the article ends inconclusively on whether he was a war criminal, an innocent exile or something else, it's clear that he owned the property in and near the park, including 15 acres, from roughly 1925 through 1950, according to the Brackenridge Park Conservancy.

The San Antonio Conservation Society has had its eye on restoring Miraflores for a long time. Work is currently underway to complete the renovation of the entry towers and gates to Miraflores as part of the Mitigation for the Broadway Drainage Project under the Broadway Corridor Phase IIIA – Miraflores Park Mitigation Enhancements. 

As I was walking along an uphill lane from the park onto a sidewalk along Hildebrand Avenue, I noticed a placard featuring photographs of Urrutia's original conception for Miraflores. He created the contemplative garden as a reminder of his native Xochimilcho, Mexico.

Eroded ceramic tiles on the north side of the entry gate towers are being documented and removed, and new ceramic tiles, made in Mexico from the same region as the original tiles, are being installed. The stone wall and metal fence along Hildebrand have also been restored. (Image and caption courtesy of Brackenridge Park Conservancy.)




The city is working with RVK Architects to develop Miraflores as a cultural landscape. It's currently housed in a fenced-in property behind the AT&T Center along Broadway Street and is inaccessible to the public, but I infer from this that because of the plan and the regulations of the Texas Historic Commission, the garden will eventually be open to the public for people to peruse, take photos and admire the curious collection of stone statues that Urrutia procured.

There's no doubt the infamous doctor was a bit eccentric. Landmarks spotted around many other parts of San Antonio – including mid-century artist Dionicio Rodriguez's "faux-bois" structures, made of concrete shaped to look like wood – dot the landscape, along with a headless angel.

I spotted the angel just after turning right onto Hildebrand and heading down the steep sidewalk, passing a sign advertising a "Larger than Life" insect exhibit at the San Antonio Zoo.

The headless angel statue is larger than life itself, and an irresistible subject for a photo. The afternoon shadows cast the angel's wings, shoulders and neck, as well as the ornamental lions abutting her sides, in a lemony light while the statue's bust remains shadowed in earthy gray. The angel's body is sculpted and elongated in the style characteristic of the Italian Renaissance – Sandro Botticelli's lithe-bodied nymphs from "Venus" and "Primavera" come to mind. I can't help but snap several pictures as I head down the sidewalk, stopping to capture some vertical shots before turning back again.

My first photo of the headless angel, taken from directly in front. 

The same subject, taken vertically and facing southwest

Photo taken to the southeast

Something strange happened as I took more pictures from different angles. The headless angel seemed to take on a different character from the composed figure I saw when facing her. Facing southeast, the body was totally cast in shadow, with only the wings touched with light. From this vantage point, the angel took on a tormented look, her body encumbered by twisted garments. It's almost like she's struggling to fly.

Once I'm able to take a surrounding picture of the entire garden and the nearby property, it gives a better idea of what Mr. Urrutia might have had in mind here: Much like a gazing pond, this private domain was clearly meant as a display of not only wealth and artistic appreciation, but something beyond the traditional artwork found around other parts of San Antonio. It could be public art, but it's on private property, giving it a kind of forbidden appeal.

Looking southeast again, the body in shadows

Studying the statue, I wonder what Urrutia's inspiration was for including it in his motley collection. What's more, the staircase leading up to the three statues is disconnected from any permanent structure and is instead floating in a sea of green grass. If the placement of these objects is intentional, it gives the odd feeling that a large building or structure that once existed in the center of them has gone missing, though there are no clues of such a building remaining.

It isn't difficult to see why the city wants to make this park accessible to the park, and with the next phase of restoration including a walkway leading from Brackenridge Park into Miraflores (there was a bridge and terrace in place, but the gate was locked, and water from the river streamed over the sidewalk), it will send the message that Miraflores is a place for everyone to see and enjoy.

View encompassing the faux bois structure, obelisks, vegetation and rear of AT&T building.

A Movie About San Antonio: What Would It Be Like?

What would it be like to make a movie in San Antonio?

I can see the plot unfolding now: Two unassuming tourists leave their hotel to go sightseeing one morning, expecting to come home with some colorful photographs and bellies full of delicious Tex-Mex food. They're in the middle of touring the Japanese Tea Garden one afternoon when there's an unexpected turn of events.

Here's another idea: A journalist who's covering the local arts scene discovers that he or she has inadvertently become part of the story.

It could happen here, right?

San Antonio is certainly not new to the movie scene. Most locals and TV fans remember Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, made in 1985, where Pee-Wee Herman treks to San Antonio to find his bicycle and ends up taking a tour of the Alamo.

Plenty of other movies have been made in San Antonio throughout the decades, and many celebrities make their home in San Antonio.

The city is also home to a variety of outlets for people to express their cinematic skills and creativity. Local non-profits such as Urban-15, which hosts the Josiah Media Festival (Open to anyone 21 years old or younger with a Call for Entries from now through June 1) and the San Antonio Film Festival give artists and filmmakers a solid platform to share and display their cinematic work with a variety of audiences from around the world. (The Call for Entries for the Film Festival's annual contest is currently open with a March 24 deadline.)

Some of San Antonio's filmmakers have been on the scene for quite some time. Erik Bosse, a writer and filmmaker who works with art and cultural centers throughout the city, is involved in a variety of collaborative works with the local theater and dance community. He creates films that explore urban environments and recently contributed video to Mujer Enterrada: Something Happened Here, a multi-media installation located at Centro Cultural Aztlan, San Antonio's 40-year-old Chicano/a arts and cultural center.

The project celebrates the organization's yearly exhibition exploring the cultural implications, both historical and contemporary, of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on Feb. 2, 1848. This year, the staff and curator worked to highlight the treaty's impact on women, naming this year's show Mujeres de Aztlan y El Segundo de Febrero. The project will be on display through March 15.

Bosse worked with ritualist and theater artist Laurie Dietrich, movement artist Amber Ortega-Perez and structural weaver and fiber artist Doerte Weber to complete the installation, assisting with the short movie that played on a loop.

An image from Bosse's video installation. (Image courtesy of Erik Bosse.)

Bosse has worked on other short films, too, including Magical Creatures: The Butterflies, a scene from Urban-15's recent multi-media performance piece, Lucia in the Faerie Garden, featuring dancers from the group's performance ensemble, including me.

Working on the video for this piece was a lot of fun. It began with a trip to Mission Espada with the Urban-15 production team, including artistic director Catherine Cisneros, Sound Design and Music Composition director George Cisneros, Music and Media Assistant Jonathan Anderson and Event Coordinator Marisol Cortez, and continued with an experimental flight through the park in the red and blue butterfly costumes designed by Catherine.

Erik filming me dressed as a butterfly as part of the video segment of Lucia in the Faerie Garden. 

While I've envisioned making my own movies here and along the stretches of South Texas, this was my first time participating in the making of a video in San Antonio, and for that, I'm really proud. Seeing the butterflies in motion afterward was transcendent, and feeling like a life-sized insect gives a feeling that's comparable to nothing else.

Later in the park, stretching my wings. 

Dancing in the Dark, on Concrete

Me in costume after Carnaval de Muertos 2015.

Standing outside Centro de Artes with the Urban-15 Group's performance ensemble after the Dia de los Muertos opening on Oct. 27, I realized how far I was from the tiny studio in southern Indiana where I used to study dance.

The studio in Madison shared space in a strip mall with a flea market, a movie theater and an arcade. It had three dance rooms – a large one for big classes and two smaller spaces for individual study.
I began taking tap, jazz and ballet dance lessons at a young age at downtown locations before transitioning to the new studio on the hilltop in high school. That was when I also began teaching dance to three to 12-year-olds.

Since the director wasn't always in town, she gave me a key so I could open and close the studio after school and at closing time.

Having a key was one of the perks of the job, because I could practice there on weekends when no one else was around. Alone in the main room, I turned off all the lights and did my warm-up stretches, positions at the barre, floor work and routines. Unlike the hardwood surfaces at the former studios, the floor was concrete and hard on the feet, but I didn't care.

I remember practicing in the air-conditioned studio on hot summer nights and hearing people banging on the front door. Kids who'd just gotten out of the movies would cup their hands over the glass and peer inside, trying to see who was dancing in the dark.

In a small, quiet town, a dance studio stood out among the other shops and businesses. I always kept the door locked when I was there alone, though no one ever tried to come inside.

In the winter, the studio provided a respite from the snow and ice. I'll never forget the feeling of wearing wool leg warmers and tights over dry, itchy skin, or the sound of wind blowing sleet against the windows as I stretched my muscles to keep them limber despite the brittle cold.

I worked at the studio for two years before I discovered the secret door in the back room.

The door opened onto a dark hallway behind the theater, and the hall was filled with the smell of popcorn and the ambient sounds of the films playing on the other side of the wall. At the end of the hall, glass double-doors opened onto a huge, empty room that looked like it was once a department store.

Without shelves and clothes racks taking up the floor, the room was as big as a gym. It was the perfect place to spread my wings.

I drove there on the weekends, plugging my little boom box into an outlet on the far wall and warming up to songs by Technotronic. The music sounded metallic against the hard floor and walls, and the room was so big, there was a split-second delay before the beats bounced off the opposite wall.

There were no mirrors or barres, only my reflection staring back at be from the plate glass office windows like a ghost.

Sometimes I stayed until dark, and headlights from the occasional car in the alley behind the mall cast my twenty-foot-tall shadow against the walls.

The place wasn't clean or even safe. Dead bugs and cobwebs lined the corners, and I could tell by the musty smell that animals had been in there. Still, it was my space to practice, and it became a routine and even a ritual over the next several months.

Once I graduated from high school, I was accepted into the dance program at Butler University in Indianapolis, heading to the big city to study ballet. I pursued it during my first year of college before switching to other majors – first English, then psychology and finally journalism.

Being a journalist has been as challenging as being a dancer in a lot of ways, from finding opportunities to receiving funding and community support. It's also unpredictable, with a lot of highs and lows. The old saying used by performers, "Hurry up and wait," applies to journalism, whether it's in waiting an hour for a press conference and a two-minute photo opportunity to meeting strict deadlines.

Still, dancing has followed me everywhere, and I've always had friends who were dancers, from the passionate people at Urban-15 to the street performers who set up along the walls and terraces of downtown San Antonio.

Recently, I ran into a friend who is a dancer while walking downtown. She was waiting for the bus at St. Mary's Street and recognized me. We talked for a while.

"You seem so calm and relaxed," she said. "Tell me your secret."

I don't have one, but if I did, dance would be it. While there have been long periods of time when I've been neither calm nor relaxed, I can't help but wonder if dance hasn't helped me handle stress in other areas of my life. This is one of the main reasons I'm going to keep doing it for as long as I can.
The studio in Madison closed its doors about ten years ago, so all I have is memories of the place. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and be a student there again.

When I think about where my journey has led, though, I realize I'm happy right where I am.

Walking Along Broadway: A Visual Journey, Part I

I went out walking today. It was a beautiful day, with flat, peaceful clouds floating across the sky. I wore my flip-flops down to Central Market and north on Broadway to the coffee shop. I saw some interesting things along the way.

First, there was a slab of sidewalk with impressions of leaves in the concrete. It was just before sunset, golden light was flooding beneath the leaves of the trees.

As I walked farther, I discovered another interesting landmark: a palm tree pushing itself tenaciously between the sidewalk and this telephone pole.

How do trees do this? I've actually see other palm trees growing like this here. It almost looks like the tree is invading a concrete planet. I really hope this tree survives. Its root structure is buried the under the rock, so maybe it's impervious to diseases that would attack it if it were more exposed. You know what they say: Life finds a way.

Closer to home, I found a message written in in an older section of sidewalk.

There are many stories and legends about the origin of the American expression, "Kilroy was Here." San Antonio is home to the largest military retiree population in the world, according to this entry written by Captain Stephen R. Ellison, a doctor specializing in emergency medicine, at www.kilroywashere.org.

One story that appears more than once on the website tells of a man named Kilroy who might have been either an admiral during World War II or an inspector on a ship. The second story relates how Kilroy would sign this message in lieu of a formal written inspection or if the necessary people weren't around.

There's also apparently a story in Earth is Room Enough by Isaac Asimov that tells his science fiction version of the legend.

As with other sightings of the intriguing message, the drawing of the famous Kilroy character is here, too, although it's very faint. You can see it if you relax your eyes over the first two letters.