Java.May.2017

Caraveo has kept to his geographical roots. Up until
recently, he and several other artists had a home at
the Allery, which functioned as both a gallery and
artist studios and was located just across 4th Street
from the former Planet Earth. “The landlord just gave
it to me. I did a big mural back there with the guy in
a gondola and a Victrola. He really liked it, and one
day he came into the Lost Leaf [where Caraveo was
bartending] and said, ‘We really need to get you a
studio.’ I said, ‘Nah, I’ve got a studio at my house.’
He said, ‘No, you need one down here. Here’s the key
to your new studio.’ I said, ‘I’m not renting a studio.’
He said, ‘No, you’re not paying me, it’s yours. The one
thing I ask is that nobody dies there!’ And then, yeah,
I just brought everybody in. I handed it over to JB
[Snyder] a few years ago. We were there for maybe
five years.”
The Allery had its last opening back in February
before it officially closed its doors. The farewell show
featured works in which participating artists used
old archive drawers once belonging to Frank Lloyd
Wright as their canvases. Caraveo’s pieces for the
show included up-close perspectives of a cartoon-like
eyeball, an ear and a set of pursed lips.
Although Caraveo’s time at the Allery has come to
an end, that environment led to many collaborative
relationships, especially one with Snyder. Several of
Caraveo’s mysterious faces are colorfully encircled by
Snyder’s geometric patterns. “I’ve been collaborating
with JB for five or six years. The Pueblo [on 2nd
Ave. north of Crescent Ballroom], the big one behind
Modified Arts, the alley one that we did about five
years ago, and one we worked on behind the original
Bud’s Glass Joint. It’s worked out really well. We give
each other input. He’ll tell me what he’s seeing, how
he’s envisioning certain projects. I’ll suggest some
colors for him. We just give each other feedback. He’s
easy to work with.”
The process of conceptualizing the Crescent Highland
murals was a change of pace for Caraveo. “It was
a collaboration between me and Graham Carew,
an artist from Charlotte. He flew in and we sat and
discussed what we were gonna do. We started with
a few ideas and then called it a night. The next day
we came back and refined it a little more, and just
kept hacking away at it until we were given the
go-ahead to start.”
“We came up with the idea of a woman holding a
birdhouse. Symbolically, birds don’t have a home.
We wanted the woman to be their home. In one of
the other murals, there’s a tree with a birdhouse in
it, but the woman is really the tree. I wanted to keep
the transition of the growth of the woman through
the murals. In the big one, she is younger. In the taller
second one [outside the leasing office], she’s a little
older—a young lady. Then the one in the leasing
office, I was going for the mature woman feel.”
Since Caraveo is extremely prolific, with traditional
canvases as well as murals—completing large,
surreal public pieces and immediately switching to
hyperrealistic charcoal drawings or reproductions of
famous paintings—it’s tough to tell what direction he
will pursue next. After the Crescent Highland project
was completed, he took only a few days off before
beginning three more large commissions in South
Phoenix. “The long-term goal is to do the new style
and bring back something similar to the elongated
jazz guys I used to do, but refine them using slightly
different themes.”
As a veteran of the downtown art scene, Caraveo
has seen more of its transformation than most. But
rather than waxing nostalgic, he seems to be working
harder than ever. The Crescent Highland murals also
bear a slight stylistic change for the artist. “I’ve
worked with several artists who are just stuck doing
the same thing over and over. I think it’s important to
not pigeonhole yourself into one certain style. I want
people to see my work and wonder who did it. I try to
experiment and do something different all the time.”
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