spotlight on rick flores
Rick Flores - Labor Artist/Cartoonist
Rick Flores is a retired UAW member, but labor cartoonist
(Hedy Hilburn is a member of UAW Local 862 - this info
and painter is how many of us think of him.
"Labor art," says Flores, "is art out of the total human spirit.
From strikes and labor rallies
to sounds of factory machinery,
to the death of a friend
to the migrant farm workers
to the tragedy of Sept.11
--all of these images and more are labor art.
It's about the lives of workers,
about their work,
their homes and families,
and their friends and enemies."
His cartoons are funny. His paintings are a combination of color,
feeling, seeing, interpreting, style, technique, and his instincts
about what to paint and how to paint it.
"Some people think my paintings are strange or even weird,"
says Flores, "but that's my art. My art is unique because
it gives workers a chance to use their own imaginations."
Flores takes great delight in creating mysterious and
colorful forms with a brush. Then he adds in character to
the forms by painting dark hieroglyphic images that
represent workers throughout American history.
He lets his own experiences--such as growing up
as a child of a poverty-stricken family of migrant farm workers,
his 30 years as an autoworker, and his acute observations
of American politics--influence and color his paintings.
This is the art of Rick Flores.
is taken from an article in UAW Region 3's Moving Forward
Jan/Feb 2002 UAW Solidarity magazine)
Workers Communications Press (WCP)
PO Box 1044 Marion, IN 46952
E-mail:r-flores@laborart.com
Phone: 765-662-6615
Rick, thanks for sharing with us,in solidarity,
Bonaventure and Kevin
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