Conversations with Susan & Jairo Prado

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan & Jairo Prado

Hi Susan & Jairo, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Jairo: I was born in Cali, Colombia (South America) and spent most of my childhood in Bogotá, where I was exposed to an incredible world of art, from the country’s pre-Colombian past to the seeds of the contemporary movements. There I enrolled in ceramics, art history, and fine arts classes at several institutions, including the District School of the Arts, National University (Bogotá) and the Museum of Modern Art. I earned a commercial art degree from the Academy of Pittsburgh in Bogotá and started my own business designing clothing, hats, shoes, purses and other leather goods. At its height the business employed 40 people, and my collections were being sold to stores throughout Colombia and exported to surrounding countries. The business was successful, but the driving force of my work was the originality of each design rather than the industry of mass production. In the early 80’s, the economies of those once-wealthy countries, particularly Venezuela, began to unravel due to political and economic unrest, so I closed my factory and started painting still lifes, landscapes and portraits.
In 1984, I moved from Colombia to the United States. I made my home in Nashville, TN, drawn to the slow pace of daily life and the proximity to family members. I soon immersed myself in the American culture and language, enrolling as a student at Watkins Institute to continue my studies in drawing, printmaking, and painting. I devoted myself to the process of understanding color as an emotional and psychological element in art, creating a large body of abstract work. Then I felt the need to transmit those feelings and experiences into more literal content. Representational people, places and symbols began to emerge in my paintings, infusing social, political, spiritual and cultural commentaries. In my three-dimensional work, I began working with a range of materials, incorporating plaster, stone, metal and wood, creating multiple bodies of figurative, monolithic or constructivist work. Local artist galleries such as Windows on the Cumberland, the Striped Door Gallery, and In the Gallery on Jefferson Street featured many of my earliest works. I was also actively involved in Nashville’s artist community, exhibiting with the Nashville Artist Guild during the 80’s-2000’s and VAAN (Visual Arts Alliance of Nashville) during the 90’s. Over time I was offered more opportunities to exhibit regionally and nationally, and to create painted murals and other large-scale commissions.

My work has since been featured in solo exhibitions at the Parthenon Museum Gallery, Vanderbilt Divinity School Gallery, Leu Gallery at Belmont University and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. My work was chosen for the Biennial Best of Tennessee Craft Artists at the Hunter Museum of American Art. A career-spanning retrospective exhibit, Between Two Worlds, featuring over 80 works surveying four decades, was recently hosted at Monthaven Arts and Cultural Center. Many of my paintings, sculptures, mosaics, and other artworks can be found in public and private collections, including the Millennium Collection at the Tennessee State Museum, the Band Box at First Tennessee Park, and Nashville’s Music City Center.

Throughout my time in Nashville as a full-time artist, I have also been educating and sharing my passion for art with others through partnerships with dozens of community organizations, public and private institutions. My community-based work began in the 90’s, when my role at Watkins shifted from student to instructor, and I began teaching adults and youth in the community education program. In 2000 I was invited to serve as a founding member of the Artist’s Council at the Frist Center, as well as a community artist, bilingual educator and mural facilitator through the Frist’s outreach program for close to a decade.

Susan: And this is where I enter into the story! I should start by saying that I am a native Nashvillian and practicing visual artist, writer, and arts facilitator. A proud graduate of Hume-Fogg Academic High School, I went on to receive a BS in Interior Design from Middle TN State University before working in the design industry for several years. When Jairo and I met in 2003, he was teaching at Watkins and actively partnering with the Frist, painting neighborhood murals with families at several local community centers, as well as creating his personal works. I’ve always been an artist at heart, so it didn’t take long for me to jump into the action and start working with him on the community outreach projects. In 2005 we established Prado Studio and began fabricating large-scale artworks, hosting workshops and apprenticeship programs in our own location and at partner sites throughout the city.

One significant partnership has been with Conexión Américas, an organization serving the needs of Latino families in Nashville, and lead partner of the Casa Azafrán Community Center, a nonprofit collaborative hub located at the gateway to Nashville’s International corridor. Together Jairo and I helped facilitate multiple cultural artmaking projects with Hispanic youth and families from 2010-2019. It was also there that we also had the opportunity to design and facilitate a mosaic making project for the façade of Casa Asafrán, engaging more than 350 neighborhood participants during the 2-year process. The architectural mosaic mural, named Migration, is an abstract representation of the story of Casa Azafrán and its vital role of creating community through the unification of both native Nashvillians and immigrants, offering a space to celebrate the colorful and unique stories that collectively form the composition of our beautiful vibrant city. Unveiled in 2013, this distinctive work has been called the crowning jewel of Casa Azafrán, and has become an iconic, award-winning piece of public art for our city.

Migration was our first opportunity to create with mosaic tile, and you could say that we dove headfirst into the deep end. We decided on mosaic because of its long-term durability, knowing the permanent exterior application would need to withstand Nashville’s freeze-thaw winters. The mosaic medium allowed us to incorporate the insights harvested from decades of Jairo’s painted abstract color studies, mural compositions, mixed media and recycled wood sculptural craft constructions. The work was a massive undertaking, a 30-foot W by 12’6” H three-dimensional design that would prove to become a life-altering creative path for us as artists. Supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the TN Arts Commission, Migration was named a Best of the Southeast travel destination by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Casa Azafrán’s construction project partners received an Excellence in Development award from the Urban Land Institute, as well as an Excellence in Innovation for Creative Placemaking award by the Nashville MPO. Migration was featured alongside Roots and Routes, a site-specific mosaic and international coin mural created for Azafrán Park, in the 2019 American Mosaic Summit hosted in Nashville by the Society of American Mosaic Artists. This became a groundbreaking work for us as public artists, establishing our capabilities for crafting high-quality custom installations and opening the door to more mosaics and permanent works of public art that shape the urban environment.

More recent projects by the Prado Studio include Better Home Awaiting, a 23-foot terrazzo floor medallion design referencing the places, stories and songs of Nashville’s music heritage, commissioned by the Nashville International Airport for the node of Concourse A/B. Also, we designed an artistic bus shelter, installed at the corner of Glenrose and Nolensville Pike for the Envision Nolensville Pike project, collaborating with local and national partners including Metro Arts Nashville, Transportation for America, the Kresge Foundation and Artplace America to develop creative placemaking strategies addressing transportation and safety.

Together we have collectively facilitated the creation of more than 100 public art murals, mosaics, and other culturally-informed craft works, working alongside dozens of businesses, nonprofits, and industry partners. As an artist team, we have also curated exhibits, conducted artist residencies at regional universities, led summer mosaic apprenticeship programs for teens, offered public artist talks and hosted national tours of our public art for Smart Growth America/Urban Land Institute, Society of American Mosaic Artists, and Americans for the Arts conferences in Nashville.

My training and experience in the field of design, architecture, and urban planning has been an important part of my work for team Prado as an artist, community arts instructor, and project design coordinator for our large-scale works. I focus on the management and implementation of hands-on workshops, apprenticeship programs, public art projects, commissions and architectural installations, while Jairo is usually the lead artist in the conceptual design and fabrication process of each project. Our skillsets uniquely enable us to engage and impact the local community in significant ways as a team as we partner with schools, organizations, institutions, arts agencies, builders, city planners, architects, designers and contractors.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Jairo: There have been many barriers I’ve experienced throughout my life and work as an artist. The first struggle is the internal battle of choosing to pursue the lifestyle of an artist, making the choice every day to keep working even when the future is uncertain, moving through the self-doubt and accepting the unconventional journey it requires. As an immigrant I also had to overcome the language barrier and other cultural and economic barriers that existed in Nashville particularly for artists of color in the 80’s. The Nashville art scene was still developing, and there were very few opportunities for artists to be established at the time. But that caused me to participate in building up the artist community alongside other artists, to educate the community about the value of the arts, and help develop the cultural voice of the city through my work as an art instructor and community facilitator. I’ve had to sacrifice a lot to pioneer a path, but I see the opportunities that are here now in Nashville that weren’t available in the past, and that is encouraging. At the same time, my creative work is still in process, and the struggle of exploring new mediums and overcoming new challenges helps make the work stronger. My work now is focused on leaving a cultural legacy, and there is still much to do, explore and learn from along the way.

Susan: I think the most defining part of anyone’s story is the moment you decide that giving up is not an option. It does seem like the struggles we have faced together during the past twenty years have strengthened our fortitude and made us more resilient. When all the other doors were closed, we kept looking and knocking until we found an open door. So, in the process we’ve forged our own unique path through challenging circumstances, and now we get to see the fruit of that. Now others can hopefully follow in our footsteps. At times it feels like that path has been formed for us, perhaps less intentionally than what we had in mind. The pressure of the flood water carves out its own path of least resistance through the rock as it moves toward a place of resolution. But when I look back, I see all the wisdom we’ve accumulated and how it informs our current work and our process. I say life has a way of sandpapering all the rough edges off and polishing us up for a higher purpose. We are in uncharted territory, which is both exhilarating and rocky, but all our best work has come from being out on a limb and leaning in to the “I don’t know how to do it yet, but we’ll figure it out.”

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Jairo: My work reflects a fusion of colliding worlds: ancient and modern, Colombian and American, urban and rural, abstract and representational, fine art and cultural craft, external and internal, agony and ecstasy, protest and celebration. I consider myself both a fine artist and a contemporary craftsperson who pursues work at the intersection of these two creative worlds.

My creative influences include the city and people of Nashville, my home and source of inspiration for 40 years, but also the art, culture, and history of Latin America, as well as the contemporary art movements. In my work I seek to reveal the commonalities of the human experience. Recurring themes throughout my work include community and environmental issues, native traditions, cultural identities, spiritual illumination and metaphorical transformation. The freedom I have to incorporate a variety of methods, materials and influences has been important in my creative process, and I am always exploring and pushing the boundaries of what I already know and do as an artist.

Color is a key element of my work, and my paintings and mosaics are often recognized for their vivid color palette. Movement is another essential element in my work, sometimes referring to music or dance, as diagonal lines and repeating or overlapping geometric and organic shapes encourage visual engagement and discovery through each composition. Sculptural works include wood carved and inlaid monoliths (Totems), anatomical construction wood sculptures, elaborate sculptural frames and wall reliefs, as well as emotive plaster figures (Harapos), kinetic wire figures, and colorful rope textile installations (Quipus). My paintings, watercolors and etchings range from abstract to representational, incorporating influences in cubism, surrealism, expressionism, and constructivism. Representational works include the Indigenous Portraits series, documenting the fragile existence of native people of the Andes region of South America. Glyphs resemble contemporary artifacts, with primitive symbolic figures painted on deconstructed textural canvas fragments. The constructive, “flat sculptural” process of mosaic making has inspired a new method for painting color relationships and shape development in more recent works, applied to both Glyphs and Spirit Series paintings. I think my unique personal journey as well as this versatility of my past work sets me apart as an artist and helps me innovate and invent ways to express the new vision.

Susan: As a painter, illustrator, author and singer/songwriter, my personal work focuses on creative, cultural and spiritual identity, as well as the process of healing and transformation. I always seem to have several creative side projects which feed my soul and help me find connection with my creative community.

Through projects at the Prado Studio, our engagement-centered work helps strengthen creativity, personal reflection, and confidence in community members of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. For the last 20 years, Jairo and I have built a history together of facilitating youth workshops, mosaic apprenticeships, and large-scale collaborative installations with schools and universities, community organizations and institutions. Our creative leadership produces outcomes that support a shared vision for unity and meaningful connection. Sometimes incorporating education, conversational engagement or hands-on creation, our projects celebrate the history, culture, and creative expression of those who inhabit the city. These collaborations have a significant impact upon participants and neighborhoods, creating vibrant, positive environments and experiences that help increase quality of life, and in turn, our personal artistic work becomes informed by this creative exchange. We are proud for the opportunity to serve as creative contributors to Nashville’s changing cultural landscape, leaving a legacy through the meaningful creation of permanent public artworks for our city and beyond.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Jairo: Art has always been part of me for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is standing in the courtyard of my grandmother’s house, with dirty hands and face, seeing for the first time a student from the university painting on an easel, and being totally captivated. “Go wash your face and then you can come back and watch me work,” the student said. This experience, when I was about four years old, planted a seed in me. I knew then I wanted to be an artist.

As a child I was always making something from nothing. I would use old car parts and leftover paint from my father’s mechanic shop to make toys or little sculptures. I would collect old bottlecaps, painting and transforming them into little treasures I could sell to my friends during recess. I used my creativity to invent new ideas, and I had to be resourceful with the little that I had access to. I recycled leather shoes from the trash, cleaning them, disassembling them and turning them into jewelry and wearable art. In fact, learning how to work with leather gave me the idea to launch the factory. So much of my work now still reflects that idea of finding the potential in otherwise overlooked things, people, and stories. I think also I was very determined to be an artist even if that wasn’t the easiest or most acceptable path. When there were no funds for me to enroll in art institutions, I would sit in as the guest of friends who were enrolled, on the back row of lecture halls and studio workshops, taking every available opportunity to grow my skill. Art became the purpose for my daily existence. Soon I realized that art could be a tool for expressing all my emotions, life experiences, and viewpoints. There was no going back.

Susan: I’m a native Nashvillian, and grew up in the Inglewood community, which felt like the perfect idyllic suburban middle-class utopia at the time. As a kid, I was very inquisitive, always with my nose in a book, learning and absorbing all I could about the ideas and topics that interested me. I remember being somewhat of an anomaly, more interested in having conversations with my friends’ parents than playing outside or doing typical kid stuff. Our neighborhood library was a short bike ride away, and most of the time I’d rather spend the day there than anywhere else. My books felt like faithful friends who always had interesting things to share with me. I remember being particularly interested in the art, people and customs of world cultures, ancient art and artifacts, comparative mythologies, and created things that carried their own story in them. Huge full-color photographic coffee table books about art and nature and National Geographic magazines were my go-to. I saw artmaking as a way to process through ideas and communicate truth about my own internal world that otherwise felt isolating and easily misunderstood. I was particularly fascinated by surrealism and symbolism, cultural folk art and assemblage, any art that presented itself as a mystery. It was exhilarating to dig through the layers of visual and cultural clues for embedded meaning. This introspection and self-reflection also spilled out on the paper in journals, poetry and songwriting from a young age. I was also very much a detail person, and could get lost for days in a huge puzzle on the dining room table.

Also, I was (and still am) also fascinated by nature and its intricacy. It was not unusual for me to have a pocketful of rocks, shells or violets I had meticulously collected from the playground while the other kids were playing kickball or running around. Still today I have little collections of seedpods and bird nests, shiny rocks and wood fragments squirreled away just to be inspired by. I feel happy and energized on a forest trail, taking in all the sights and sounds, and I’m always up for deep conversation, but you might not want to try power-walking with me, because I will inevitably stop to stare at trees, pick things up or take pictures! Nature provides for me the little God winks that keep me connected to His voice and to my own. I learn a lot about how to be a better person, artist and storyteller from the metaphors of nature.

Pricing:

• • A variety of original paintings, sculpture and limited edition prints are currently available for purchase at the Prado Studio. Please contact us to schedule a personal visit.
• • We are currently accepting inquiries for portraits, murals, mosaics, and sculptural commissions for your private residence or public space. Interior and exterior installations can be custom designed according to your project vision and budget.
• • We welcome future collaborations with organizations and institutions, as well as providing design concepts that provide value and enhance the ongoing work of architectural and design industry partners.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jairoprado.com
• Instagram: @prado_studio
• Facebook: @pradoartstudio or @susan.prado1
• Youtube: @pradoartstudio3313