Jeri's World

Meet Stormie Parker. As a ceramic artist, Stormie Parker is an often overlooked small business owner who, due to the nature of her work, will receive nothing from the forthcoming stimulus package. But Parker like all entrepreneurs has a product to sell so she needs to get that product into the marketplace. Her work is not "essential" in the big scheme of things. Her market is closed until some date in the unforeseeable future. It takes Parker months to prepare for a show, her latest is a one-artist show entitled  Endangered Americas. It has been set up at the Fort Worth Stockyards' Artes de la Rosa Cultural Center for the Arts, Rose Marine Theater. And is ready for a viewing that isn't going to happen except in this video. Watch as artists Stormie Parker and Bernardo Vallarino discuss  Endangered Americas .

I open with a story... No, this is more of an experience than a story. It might take a while to share this experience. But with the COVID-19 lurking outside most of us have some extra time on our hands. I introduce you to two artists whom my husband, Kelly, and I met on the beach in Corpus Christi. Their names are Cora Rose and Jose Luis Vilchez. They are traveling 30,000 miles in a Funky painted bus labeled Art We There Yet . Because Kelly and I drove the scenic route to Corpus on Hwy 77 through Waco, Rockdale and Victoria, where the churches are almost built one atop another, I had in mind that the occupants of this odd bus were on some sort of religious pilgrimage; That they were parked on the beach passing out pamphlets and saving souls. I personally was having my own communion with Nature, on the beach in Corpus Christi, surrounded by sand, sea and so many beautiful birds all trying to get our attention. So at first site of the bus, we just walked on passed. Later bac

Jose Vilchez and Cora Rose Parked the Art We There Yet  bus on the beach in Corpus  Christi for three days in March . This is about two artists heading south in a funky old school bus, to Mexico and beyond. It sounds like another counterculture icon of the 60’s; the educated white middleclass western youth with sufficient leisure time to focus attention on social movements. But visual artist Jose Luis Vilchez and musician, songwriter Cora Rose don’t exactly fit those stereotypes. Rose is a country girl from rural Southwest Wisconsin. Vilchez is a Nicaraguan immigrate and recent U.S. Citizen. They’re both over 30, with college degrees and yes, this latest venture is a movement in the sense that they are moving southward to address conventional social norms of the 21 st century such as: increased poverty, lack of school funding, and economic inequality. The venture christened, Art We There Yet Is a four-year, 30,000 mile journey through 23 countries of North, Ce