Arts Alive San Antonio

By BERIT MASON, Contributing Writer

517 Stieren St. is the address of a charming and modest house south of downtown San Antonio, tucked inside of an old and gentrifying neighborhood. Right off of S. St. Mary’s, the white, one-story frame dwelling is nicely shaded, decorated with flowering plants and strings of lights. But in 1995, this simple home was transformed into the SALA DIAZ Art Gallery.

The gallery’s current exhibit is showcasing the works of Alethia Jones, mostly large, colorful canvases that light up the place of white walls and dark wood floors.

“I’ve always loved color,” says Jones, “I love mixing patterns and symbolism.”

Titled “Floating Between Chaos and Peace,” the show is the artist’s second solo exhibit at the gallery. She explains that her use of bold yellows, pinks, blues, red and black are inspired by her background – Jamaican on her father’s side, and New Orleans, a city known for its appreciation of color, on her mother’s side. “So, it’s combining those two worlds together,” says the artist.

But, despite her paintings being large and fun, the themes are serious. Jones sees a topsy-turvy world out there and her interpretations of it declare themselves on her canvases.

“A lot of what I am inspired by is my spirituality, current events, and internal frustrations – just whatever moves me at the moment,” she explains. “Sometimes, my art reflects a sense of helplessness. What can I do? How can I help? It is an expression of that angst, frustration; my way of criticizing the way things are.”

Jones experiments with painting on leather, canvas and a combination of the two. A large mobile that dangles in the center of one room is titled “Self-Care.” Its brass combs and pill bottles hanging from a bamboo shade, reflect her concern with mental health. “It is something that’s happening to a lot of people, regardless of background, and it is a growing problem,” says the artist.

Another work, “Out of Destruction,” shows a burning car sitting on top of green fir trees. She explains that the piece expresses her fears about our environment. And yet another work features boldly painted guns on an old American flag. She admits that she had to pause before tackling that piece. But there are joyous works, too, done in light, bright hues that mirror her heritage.

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Back in 1995, San Antonio was still mostly undiscovered as an arts center. The Blue Star Arts Complex was only ten-years-old while 517 Stieren Rd. was just a house. Still, SALA DIAZ founder, Alejandro Diaz, saw something more in the little structure. He saw an art gallery that he wanted to devote to local artists. Diaz is a contemporary artist who lived in San Antonio for many years, explains Casie Lomeli the PR rep for Artpace who is also lending a helping hand to SALA DIAZ. Diaz, who lives in New York now, established SALA DIAZ as a non-profit to benefit other artists.

“So, we don’t sell art to profit the gallery,” says Lomeli. “All sales go straight to the artist.”

Art is a fickle field and not everything sells at a show, so allowing artists to keep all of the revenue from sales is most welcomed by the artists. Lomeli says the gallery is truly a space that serves artists.

The house used to be part of what was called “The Compound” because there were houses next door and the owners of those properties would rent their properties to artists at very reasonable prices, creating a big hub for San Antonio artists.

Stieren Street neighbors the Lavaca Historic District where most buildings are “smaller-sized homes built during the late 1800s and early 1900s,” according to information on the City of San Antonio’s site. Along with other galleries and the nearby Blue Star, it is part of the “Cultural Arts District.”

Over the years, SALA DIAZ has had several directors. Today, a volunteer board is in charge of day-to-day operations, and its current director, Ethel Shipton, has long been involved with the gallery.

Curator, Barbara Felix, is an artist herself who showed her work at the gallery earlier in the year. Felix met Alethia Jones in 2017 at the San Antonio Ethnic Art Society that displays works of black artists. Jones had studied fashion and was selling her handmade jewelry before taking up art, but after seeing her early paintings, Felix started to pay close attention to Jones and her work. “I thought, there was something about this girl that is special,” says Felix.

She describes Jones as “an interdisciplinary artist” because “she fuses her fashion sensibilities and her jewelry-making sensibility with her painting, and she’s completely self-taught.”

“She makes spirituality accessible, along with her social and political ‘commentary’ and I thought that her work was very strong,” noted Felix.

As curator, Felix says that SALA DIAZ art gallery strives to reflect the times and it’s a space that’s always experimenting. For example, after Juneteenth was declared an official holiday in 2020, Felix suggested to Shipton that future June shows be dedicated to works of African Americans. “So, I’ll curate three June shows and this is the first one,” she says. Her career as a curator of local art shows began after Felix earned a certification at the Southwest School of Art. She has also organized shows for the City of San Antonio.

The current exhibit is especially meaningful to Jones. “I enjoy people coming up to me and saying how it affected them and what they thought about it. I really enjoy that,” says the artist.
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To see the exhibit, you must make an appointment by calling 210-275-4903 or email: info@saladiazart.org.