Life & Work with Aileen Reyes of Hillcrest

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aileen Reyes

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born in New York City , raised on the borderline of Bushwick and Ridgewood. My passions for visual art and the written word have existed since I was a child. I was always able to find comfort in solitude while making art and exploring the answers to any curiosities that surfaced . After graduating school and being accepted to several schools like the School of Visual Arts which , I could never afford. I went straight into the full time work field. It was around that same time, I turned 18, that a friend of mine, was going to this place called the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in the lower east side of Manhattan. She and a couple of her friends tricked me into bringing a few of my poems with me so I could share them. What they didn’t say, was that they were signing me up to go on stage and read it to strangers in a poetry slam. My hands and voice were trembling so much I could barely see the letters , I was judged by 3 audience members, in a room full of strangers and I came in second. with some deep depressing post suicidal poetry. I had written the previous week when I tried to kill myself.
It took me a year to go back there, on my own but not too long after that revisit I was be hosting the same open slam. and that changed my life quite a bit.
The Nuyorican Poets Cafe became my college experience, I couldn’t afford to attend college, but now they were paying, to hear me read poems , it was wild.

I was representing the cafe throughout the city, at schools and different venues in the country and shared stages with voices like Pedro Pietri, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez before I even knew how special they were. Through the cafe I became acquainted with Steve Cannon, founder of A Gathering of the Tribes , a Small nonprofit Gallery that was created as an off shoot to the cafe, Tribes had art shows, festivals, poetry readings, jazz shows all kinds of art all in a little apartment space. the doors were open to everyone and anyone. Sometimes it was beautiful, sometimes it was pure Loisaida chaos.
Steve Cannon was blind, so, when you walked into the space , he would immediately tell you to ” go look at the artwork and tell me what you think” , and one time ,I sure did, to which he replied , “You think you could do better?” and I jokingly said yeah give me a date I’ll put a show together. and in 8 months , at 21 years old with very little money and no art degree I made 93 sculptures out of recycled paper and glass vessels, mostly wine and liquor bottles collected at events there. I sold 14 pieces , 5 in the first night. That is where I found my confidence in the visual art. All because somebody gave a scrappy kid a chance.

After 9/11 arts funding in New York was changing drastically and it was time for me to grow elsewhere. When I moved here in 2004, I met several writers and artists like former Prof. D.J. Watson, and I read at places like City College , R-spot Barber shop which was in North Park across from the former Claire de Lunes ( for the old schoolish folks ) Then I met artists like Carlos Beltran and Stephanie De la Torre at Voz Alta, and which from what I remember was one of the only, in not the only Latino Art spaces in the San Diego’s East Village.
My first San Diego exhibit was there, in a duel show with local talent Selina Calvo, who is now part of Xoque that fabulous group of badass ladies who just restored the Chicano Park Mural. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to have had curated several shows, a couple of solos and participated in many of the group shows that San Diego is known for . But the best part is ,I have also learned how to hibernate and grow my ideas organically, which is where I’ve been now patiently getting closer to completion of several projects. My current collection A tribe of mixed media sculptures is currently growing, they are an evolved revisit to the repurposing theme , “to the tenth power” as a friend claimed when she saw some of my latest pieces. I am looking forward to completing this collection soon and planning a landing space their debut.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My life has been about survival. I had very little familial support as an artist. My father was murdered in Williamsburg, Brooklyn when I was 1, My mom raised me with very little money and in poor mental health and she was never really supportive to my life as an artist. she said I would starve , when I told her I was an artist at 5 years old….she was still a good mom , just a little broken and raised differently. I understand now that she just wanted me be able to eat but it was a dream killer. No parent should be that honest to a child with a dream.
I’d say the biggest obstacle, though, was that when I moved here , I had the intention of returning to school , because I had a little money for it ,but was unaware of a ticking time bomb planted in New York called identity theft which basically left me penniless, a year and a half in, working three jobs to stay afloat. Because as bad as it sounds its even worse when it actually happens to you. It took me seven years to be able to have a bank account with no issues, seven rough ones.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am an opinionated and blunt visual artist and writer. I am currently and have been for the past few years leaning more toward my visual side, which is raw and untrained. I have been called abstract , Neo-expressionist and have been compared to Picasso , which folks consider a compliment , but it makes me cringe as a woman.
In the mid 90s to early 2000’s I represented the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and A Gathering of the Tribes as a poet at colleges, museums and other cultural institutions as well as local venues and dive bars as a poet and playwright, that is how New York/East coast folks might know me.
from 2004 until about 2014 in San Diego. I had 2 solo shows, one big one was in Barrio Logan at a Space called the Spot, that was run by real local artists. Between 300 line drawings, and multiple sculptures canvases and murals I had 500 pieces in that show, I sold many of the line drawings. I have curated a couple of groups one at the former , second location of Voz Alta in Logan and another at a local business.
One really big different experience was Exhibit Ambush Curated by Antoinette Ransom, as cool as the first incarnation of fashion designers and artists was, the second one in 2014 on Broadway Pier was a massive incredible, experience , the indoor pier space was huge yet we filled it to the brink with art , which was not easy in a space with no walls .I cannot tell you how many times I ran up an down that escalator trying to get a couple of 14 foot paintings to hang straight.
and If you had ever seen the simple black and white 18 foot mural Oliver’s hair salon in South Park from 2010 til about 2022 and then seen one of my line drawings or greeting cards you know right away it was my art.

I am most proud of my latest work I have a huge collection of unexhibited art due to creative hibernation, which include my my growing tribe of sculptures and e an illustrated novel I have also been coddling. It is historically sprinkled time traveling New York tale to be completed by the end of the coming year.
I have also recently done a little graphic art work for a new San Diego based record label, Electric Blanket Records, as well as a couple of promotional posters for Arcos Entertaintment and Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in New York.
I think that because I am self taught and tend to freelance more than anything, I have had the freedom to be creative enough to discover my own techniques and use of materials and the drive to continue to create on a daily, almost hourly basis because there is no other way for me.

It has also allowed me to find a happy peace in being unseen for a while , in an age where everyone fights for attention on every avenue they find, at the expense of their ideas . Its ok to be quiet with your craft. It is the most peaceful time ever in my personal life and therefore I am able to listen and articulate my ideas in order to clearly see how to execute them. I had never actually spent so much time on my art, and had become really good at pumping ideas out rather quickly and haphazardly as I always squeezed it in between shifts of survival , life is different and very clear to me now, its time to rock!

Who else deserves credit in your story?
I have two older sisters who basically filled in the void left by my deceased dad, as I was a baby and they were teenagers , They are the reasons I was exposed to great art at a young age . I was lucky enough to see all of Manhattan through my sister, Bessian’s eyes as I walked all over the city with her and her big camera before I was even in school. I remember the roller skating disco line in Central Park , The Easter Bonnet Parades, the Puerto Rican Day parades on Fifth avenue, it was a blast.
My other sister Ivette took me to legit ticketed cultural experiences, She took me to see both my first off Broadway and Broadway show and it was magic,
to see so many different talents at work, because before then I had only been mesmerized by the talented visiting artists in elementary school.
They helped me see artists at work, one of my greatest art memories as a child is walking by Keith Haring, while he was on a scaffold painting the Crack is Wack mural, the summer I was 10 and thinking to my self how easy he made it look. “I can probably do that too one day” I thought to myself .
My non related mentors would be Prof. Steve Cannon who passed right after my sister, (two huge blows to my universe) , he was the one who gave me space to grow and the encouragement to pursue all my new projects .
One of my best friends, Reg E Gaines, who was the one that pushed me to make the second and third sculpture with confidence and find root in my visual talents at a time where, I wanted to give it all up.
Miguel Algarin who has also passed in the recent years , the founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and professor at Rutgers University , was a colorful person and poet full of charm and dance moves. He heard me read and plucked me like a flower and helped plant me on stages I never dreamed of being on. When someone believes in you like that, have long lasting rooted confidence in what you do.
Ms ShutUp Shelley, wherever she is, for passing the torch, to the open slam to a very green me at the cafe back then, she opened that first door for me. I’ll never forget her.
More recently, my fiancee’ who hates spotlights more than I do, so I won’t say his name, inspires me on a daily basis, with his own creativity, projects and drive for success, He is a constant reminder of what having a purpose and dreams entail and what actively pursuing goals embodies.

Contact Info:

• Other: https://linktr.ee/aileencreates

Image Credits
These were all taken and edited by AileenCreates Aka Aileen Reyes