28 Photos from Mini Art Museum's Road Trip from LA to SA

By San Antonio Current Staff

Collaborating with Los Angeles-based artist Mario Ybarra Jr. and his esteemed collective Slanguage Studio, SA-based creative reuse organization Spare Parts and its mobile Mini Art Museum recently expanded its curatorial and educational scope via MAMx, a program inaugurated with the compact yet wide-ranging California showcase “Slanguage: Chicos Pero Locos.” In true DIY fashion, Mini Art Museum co-founders Mary Elizabeth Cantu and Gabriela Santiago traveled to West Hollywood's LA>here.

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Co-founder Gabriela Santiago took along Mini Art Museum's internationally traveled exhibition "Deep In The Heart: A Texas Trilogy" (featuring works by Vincent Valdez, Angela Fox and Christiana Puente) and set it up for a photo op in Palo Duro Canyon State Park.

The Spare Parts Mini Art Museum road trip was meant to be! Mary Elizabeth Cantu found this miniature Texas license plate right before the journey began.

Future art: items picked up by Cantu from a walk along the beach in Santa Monica, California. Don't forget: "Trash is the failure of imagination." — Aaron Kramer

While on a tour of Los Angeles communities and arts organizations, Cantu and artist Mario Ybarra Jr. stopped at a Boyle Heights vigil in memory of Jesse Romero, a 14-year-old who was shot by the LAPD the night before.

Community offerings left in honor of 14-year-old shooting victim Jesse Romero at a vigil held in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Since the goal of Spare Parts is to become a full-time community resource for San Antonio, Cantu visited two creative reuse centers while in Los Angeles. Here's a colorful character made from reusable materials she found while touring T4T. Their mission: "T4T believes manufacturers throw away tons of useful materials teachers, students and artists consider treasures.

Gabriela Santiago interviews Slanguage artist Mickey Everett in West Hollywood.

Four of the 11 "Slanguage: Chicos Pero Locos" artists and the Mini Art Museum co-founders pose with the exhibition in West Hollywood.

Look! Cantu and Santiago point at the title wall where the "Slanguage: Chicos Pero Locos" exhibition was first showcased.

At the suggestion of the Slanguage team, Cantu and Santiago visited the Noah Purifoy Foundation Outdoor Museum in Joshua Tree, where they installed the MAMx exhibition just before sunset.