Today we’d like to introduce you to Bianca Velasquez
Hi Bianca, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born and raised in Pomona, California until I was 12 then moved to Syracuse, Utah in 2006. There was a high contrast between both environments, one being saturating in immigrant and first-gen families and the other being a landscape in which my family and I sorely stood out.
I worked very hard in school, participated and competed nationally in most clubs, became Student Vice President in high school, and generally excelled academically. This was a consequence of my deep desire to make my parents’ migration from Honduras worth it, as they sacrificed everything for us to have these opportunities. I made the most of every opportunity I could find.
After receiving a full ride to the University of Utah I poked around aimlessly for a while until I settled on pursuing Journalism through the communications program. While in college, I started my own arts program called Kaleidoscope Arts SLC (some articles about it exist somewhere), worked in production with Sartain and Saunders, played in bands, made art, managed and went on countless tours, and started my own website and podcast called Localmotive SLC in which I traveled the country to interview bands and artists from all over.
With Localmotive’s success, I caught the attention of SLUG Magazine where I would eventually become Managing Editor. They had written an article about my work podcasting and writing, and so I applied to their Editorial Assistant position as soon as it became available. In two years I worked my way up to Managing Editor and produced the monthly magazine for a few years while also working as Craft Lake City’s Entertainment Manager for two years.
Unable to make ends meet with the cost of living rising and my pay remaining relatively stagnant, I chose to leave SLUG and worked at the Division of Emergency Management as their Public Relations Specialist. Here, I conducted interviews about national disasters, managed their public campaigns, designed billboards, etc. for the last three years. While doing so, my art career had kicked into high speed where I curated, produced, participated in, and managed countless art shows throughout Utah. This includes being Gallery Manager for MICA, Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts, for about a year.
Today, I serve on KRCL’s board and host my own morning show called We Ride At Dawn. I just took another job at Rocky Mountain Power to do their public relations, which was a huge career jump. I play in a couple of bands and continue to follow the momentum of my visual artwork.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I feel like things didn’t click into place until just recently and I feel this weird phantom limb that probably represents how hard I have been pushing upward my whole life. I don’t look back and think “that was so difficult” but when I am asked about how I got through certain challenges my current perspective truly doesn’t believe how I got out alive. Also I have a hard time looking at how challenging things were without considering all of my privileges, especially being born in the U.S. instead of Honduras.
Things were always financially difficult, but growing up as a middle child of five children in a mobile home park in Southern California, I always felt like I had everything I needed even though in reality my financial situation was dire at times. But I always found a way through, picked up gigs, drove Lyft, sold art commissions, etc. And honestly I’m glad I had to really crawl my way through, it made me who I am today. Wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I have some crazy crazy stories about tour, my Localmotive traveling, general silly stories in which I don’t know how I made it out alive0–but that would take forever.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’ll focus on my visual art here.
I have a long history of making work, ranging from digital illustrations, cartoons, animations, painting, beadwork, etc. Recently I feel like I have really found my groove in painting and beadwork.
You can read more about my first beadwork show here: https://www.slugmag.com/arts/art/i-exist-because-they-survived-artists-unpack-assimilation-at-material-gallery/
Last year, I curated and produced my first large art show at a museum called It’s All Just Fun And Games in collaboration with the Springville Museum: https://www.abc4.com/gtu/free-interactive-art-museum-opens-in-springville-for-all-age/
I also produced and curated a year’s worth of work at MICA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch35Lto7BNY
My work interrogates and illustrates the delicate dance between growth and decay and the grief and joy that is experienced through the circle of life. Whether the growth and decay is experienced internally, through relationships to others, or through our relationship to the earth, there is beauty in the idea that living things must experience forms of death and grief in order to grow and thrive. I illustrate this through my beadwork that I do by hand. Beadwork is my medium of choice as it connects me to my Honduran lineage while grounding me through the meditative technique, giving me space to access and express these themes. My most recent piece, Gallows Humor, is about the comradery that can sometimes be found within our darkest of times. While those connections could be toxic and destructive, the untethering of any human bond needs to be grieved and this piece gave me the space to do so.
My pieces take about a hundred hours to make each, and I build and add my own frames.
If you have more questions here I can go on forever.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Honestly, it is pretty quick and simple. My dad worked at a burger joint called Tom’s Burgers, think Apollo’s Burgers, and one day my mom was stuck in her job as a maid cleaning houses at the “nicer neighborhood” nearby in Southern CA and she couldn’t pick us up from school. My dad, working both night and day shift at this restaurant (he had to sleep during the day so we were very quiet and self-entertained kids) picked us up and had to watch us at the restaurant. This was great for us. We got to sit there all evening, eat anything we wanted (fries, ice cream, burgers, onion rings) and watched the Simpsons all evening. We lived like kings that day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bianvelasquez.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biancavelasquez.tv/
