PATRICK MEDRANO
Born March 3, 1973 -    Victoria, Texas

"If I had anything to say about myself and my art, I guess it would be this. There are four happenings in my lifetime that are thought
about most often. The further I get away from these memories it becomes more apparent
why I hold them so dear."


# 1 :
At whatever age it happened, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She would take me to the local grocery store to ask for cardboard boxes and butcher paper. She would always have a ton of tape and markers in the activity closet. So…I would spend hours and if the weather provided, sometimes days building space ships and strange houses in the huge backyard. I remember by the end of the day the yard would be covered by odd structures made of cardboard and tape. I don’t remember much else accept that they were huge and well taped together. I think about that sometimes when I am building something bigger than myself and it is always comfortably familiar.

# 2 :
I grew up across the street from a catholic church called Our Lady of Victory. I have a lot of memories going into that church when no one was there and praying. While I would pray my eyes would often wonder admiring the sculptures of Jesus on the cross and his mother Mary. In Our Lady of Victory, all the art was profound. The wood pews had beautiful dark grains and the organ pipes were massive. The stained glass murals were dark red and detailed. As the years went on, I would go there like a second home and had fallen in love with being surrounded by meaningful art. I admire how the dead silence gave way to the constant flow of clear thoughts and prayer.

# 3 :
My grandmother was a art and activities director in a retirement home called Manor West for as long as I have known her. As I got older I would go to work with her…you know, playing games and painting with the old folks. I remember being surrounded by elderly people desperately seeking an open ear. I recall a lot of those stories made me secretly cry. Hundreds of stories about life in a different time, all about people of different race, minds and backgrounds, all of them first hand. I went there long enough to see my favorites pass on and until I was old enough to be saddened by the true meaning of retirement home.

# 4 :
A few years after that happening happened, my favorite happening….happened. I used to go on top of the roof of my room whenever I was in bad spirits. I remember one particular time I had gone out and I was furious about a conversation I had with my father and I instinctively began to pray. So with all the conviction of an innocent child I told God if I wasn’t put on this earth to do say or create something meaningful or at least moving….then I had no business being on it. As I began to lay down on top of the roof I looked up at the giant dark sky and every cloud is what’s now planted in my memory as a perfect image of random souls. One after another, each different from the next. Each extremely apparent. I remember it being too much and running back inside. Now… rather you believe that God was personally answering my demanding question or that I was simply seeing things in the clouds, either way….I was respectful that my mind was creative enough to make out those faces.

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