Jeremy Kingg
2021 Luminaria Artist Foundation Performing Arts Grant Recipient
Jeremy Kingg can be seen wandering the streets of South Texas looking for the sacred space he knows is meant for him. His music is heavily inspired by nature, and he is continually experimenting to find and refine his sonic expression. Kingg seeks to amplify the energy transfer that happens between all living beings using his words to mingle his experiences with his listeners’ own inner battles with change and the desire for balance between head and heart. His explorations of the world around him have led him to open mics, house shows, dive bars, as well as the big-name venues San Antonio has to offer. Join this journey of growth, chasing balance and always spreading love and light.
Eddie Vega
2021 Luminaria Artist Foundation Literary Arts Grant Recipient
Eddie Vega, known as Eddie V., is a poet, spoken word artist, storyteller, and educator originally from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Vega’s poetry is known for its direct style, clever word-play, social justice themes, and incorporation of Tejano culture and language. He’s published several chapbooks and one full-length collection of poetry, Chicharra Chorus (Flower Song Press, 2019). Vega was part of the team that garnered the bid for San Antonio to host the 2018 Southern Fried Poetry Slam, and at the 2017 National Poetry Slam, he helped the San Antonio Puro Slam team bring home 3rd Place in Group Piece Finals and won 2nd place individually in the Haiku Death Match. His poetry has been displayed on VIA Buses and downtown San Antonio buildings.
Guillermina Zabala
021 Rick Liberto Visual Arts Grant Recipient
Guillermina Zabala was born in Argentina and is an interdisciplinary artist and educator whose art examines the intersection between the individual and their social-political-cultural environment. Her works have been exhibited in museums and art galleries in the U.S., Germany, Spain, and Latin America. Because of her recurrent use of text in her artwork, Zabala was a guest speaker at McNay’s “Language Is a Virus” while her solo video exhibit I, Me, Light was on display. She’s the Media Arts Director of SAY Sí and the first recipient of the Bishwanath and Sandhya Sinha Memorial Fellowship in Media Studies at The New School, where she is addressing the topics of media, migration, and creativity.
Justin Rodriguez, Filmmaker
2021 Luminaria Artist Foundation Open Category Grant Recipient
Justin Rodriguez was born and raised in San Antonio and started his filmmaking career by creating musical scores. In 2017, Rodriguez created his own production company, Brave Pictures, and wrote, edited, directed, and produced his first film, “LUSH,” which gained multiple film festival selections across the country. In 2019, Rodriguez won the San Antonio Filmmaker grant for his second film “Glossolalia,” which also won the Best Texas Short Award at the El Paso Media Fest and is now on Amazon Prime. Rodriguez was recently selected for the Emerging Content Creator Scholarship for the Latino Media Fest 2020 (Los Angeles, CA) sponsored by Netflix.
Adriana Garcia, Visual Artist & Muralist
2021 Luminaria Artist Foundation Open Category Grant Recipient
Adriana M Garcia is a home-grown San Antonio visual artist, muralist, and illustrator whose works have been exhibited locally and nationally. Her debut picture book All Around Us (text by Xelena Gonzalez, Cinco Puntos Press) was awarded the prestigious 2018 Pura Belpré Honor for illustration, and her second book Where Wonder Grows (by the same author and press) is set to come out January 2022. One of Garcia’s favorite mural creations, Changing the World, is installed at Northwest Vista College and focuses on access to education while her mural De Todos Caminos Somos Todos Uno, completed for the San Antonio River Authority, was recognized in the 2019 Public Art Network Year in Review.
Marisela Barrera, Performing Artist
2021 Kathy Armstrong Contemporary Art Grant Recipient
Marisela Barrera is a Tejana writer, performer, director, and educator with a BFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University and MA/MFA degrees in Creative Writing, Literature, and Social Justice from Our Lady of the Lake University. Barrera’s work provides intersections of Tejana, Chicana, Méxicana, and Gothic identities through the short stories, profiles, and nonfiction essays she writes and turns into performances. Her protagonists are “mujer malas, women who rebel against cultural expectations while at the same time embracing the duality of Tejana-Méx border life and the complexity of female roles of mother, lover, and Virgen.” All of her characters, “to various degrees, are isolated and searching for a place of comfort, a place to call home.” She teaches writing and literature at Northwest Vista College.
DeAnna Brown, Performing Artist
2021 Kathy Armstrong Contemporary Art Grant Recipient
DeAnna Brown is an artist and the Founder/CEO of Forward Progress Arts & Entertainment Center, Inc. Throughout her career, Brown has worked with young talented people for over 30 years encouraging them to pursue their God given talent, believe in their dreams, and prosper in their purpose through such programs as an online talent show, a television talk/variety program, and the Arrows in Motion incubator space for creative writers. A founder of the San Antonio Black International Film Festival, Brown was a producer for and actress in the 2018 film “Breaking Brokenness,” for which she won over 18 awards, including 2 Best Actress awards and 1 Best of Fest Acting Award.
2021 Luminaria Artist Foundation Grants Judges
Kim Bishop
Dallin Maybee
Roberto ‘El Robotico’ Livar
Asdrubal Sierra
Leenda Bonilla
TaRessa Stovall
The Luminaria Artist Foundation’s Individual Grants Program is supported by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts and Culture, Kay and Scott Armstrong in honor of Kathy Armstrong, Rick Liberto, The Lifshutz Foundation, Patricia Pratchett, Guillermo Nicolas in honor of his mother Irma Cortez Nicolas, and numerous individual donors.
For more information about the grant program, please visit Luminaria Artist Foundation Artist Grants.
Working Artist Fund
The Working Artist Fund addresses the impact of COVID-19, the recent winter storm, and other on-going economic hardships on individual artists living and working in Bexar County. The fund will offer support toward a sustainable livelihood for area artists through generous year-round donations from individuals, foundations, government entities, corporations, and partners that wish to support a vibrant arts community.
The Luminaria Artist Foundation’s Working Artists Fund is supported by the City of San Antonio’s Department of Arts and Culture; Guillermo Nicolas; our ¡Viva! Uno Más fundraising partners Texas Public Radio, Nelco Media, and Garrett T. Capps; and numerous individual donors.
