Lost and Found in Puerto Rico: December 2019

Lorri and Rincon Artist, Edgardo "Gardy" Rodriguez

One of the things we love about Puerto Rico, and especially the Rincon area, is the proliferation of the arts here. There are likely more artisans and artists per capita tucked away in the hills and neighborhoods here than anywhere else we have ever been.

Thursday night Rincon Art Walk. Rincon, Puerto Rico.

Many of them can be found Thursday nights at the Art Walk in the plaza in Rincon, or at the same location on Sunday mornings at the farmer's market. These weekly events are an incredible proving ground for artists and artisans and their work.

Some artists have moved on from the Art Walk scene however, as their work sells as quickly as it is created, or they become backlogged with commission pieces. These are the artists you mostly only hear talked about by locals in the know, and are rarely fortunate enough to encounter as they are tucked away in workshops creating. Edgardo "Gardy" Rodriguez is such an artist.

Our Gardy Art piece.

Driving around Rincon, you will see beautiful mosaics adorning many of the residences. If you ask about them, the locals will say it is "Gardy Art."

We weren't sure what that even meant until we discovered that "Gardy" was actually a local man named Edgardo Rodriguez, affectionately known as "Gardy."

Gardy spends most of his time working on commissioned mosaic pieces he designs and creates from customer concepts. To get a break form the larger works, he creates one-of-a-kind original pieces using a variety of media. Lately, he has turned to utilizing primarily PVC, as he can shape it, form it, sculpt it, and paint it to most closely match the vision is his mind's eye.

His multi-dimensional pieces sell almost as quickly as he makes them nowadays. And he does not deliver. To score an original piece of Gardy Art that is not a commissioned mosaic, you need to friend him on facebook and follow his page closely. When he completes a piece, he will post a picture of it, and the race is on to be the first to show up at his home with cash and claim the prize. And people come from all over the island to get their hands on one too.

Luckily for us, we happen to live about a kilometer away, so when he posted the piece above, we were able to hurry down the road and pick it up before his growing fanbase in the San Juan area could plan the trip.

We had the piece for about ten minutes before our sister, Tena, expressed a desire to have one for her and another for her daughter. While it took some doing, together we managed to convince Gardy to create two more as he does not always create multiple versions of the same style piece.

Tena's Gardy Art pieces, made to order. The pictures really do not do them justice. No two are remotely alike.

Photo courtesy of Gardy Art.

During our time collecting art, one of our favorite parts is meeting the artists and hearing their stories. Gardy is definitely among the coolest artists we have encountered. Meeting him is worth the trip to Rincon, and going home with one of his pieces is just sort of like icing on the cake.

At his home outdoor studio you can smell the ocean in the near distance and almost hear the waves as he talks about the inspiration for a piece. He will tell you about the power of the place, where the Atlantic meets the Caribbean, and the forces of the water and the wind and the sun that combine to make this such a magical and inspiring place beneath the heavens.

Through words and art, he seeks to harness a tiny bit of the magic of the natural beauty and power of the place, and more than most, his work does exactly that.

I didn't ask him why he doesn't ship his art. Maybe it is cost prohibitive or just a pain, or perhaps it is because his work is valued and demanded enough that he simply doesn't need to. But I am glad that he doesn't, because being here and talking to him and listening to what goes into each piece there in his workspace, makes you understand and value the art all the more.

Getting your Gardy Art is an experience to remember.

Edgardo "Gardy" Rodriguez can be found on Facebook through his personal page here:

https://www.facebook.com/edgardogardy.rodriguez

Or his Gardydarttt facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/Gardydarttt/

The following photos are sourced from his facebook pages:

I know. I know. It has been a while since our last report. Apologies all around. But, I mean, we had a good excuse. You see, we were wasting time and talent here in Puerto Rico. Because along with her usual mountain of luggage, Lorri brought our favorite Southern Iowa Watercolor Artist, Nash Cox, home on the plane with her.

Like any lost puppy she brings home, I explained to her that while we couldn't keep Nash, we could take care of him for a while until someone back home claimed him. It took two full weeks, but eventually his wife, Terry, said enough was enough and made him go back home.

All of us being creative types, we did the only logical thing we could think of, and none of us accomplished anything having anything at all to do with art or writing for two weeks. The picture above is of Lorri and I in our new hats, and Nash wearing his out of control hippy mullet (he likes that I refer to it as a mullet and secretly believes the trend is coming back). We are having a drink in Old San Juan.

Here we are having another drink in Rincon. Lorri and I are without our new hats. Nash still has the mullet.

Appetizers. Another Drink. Mullet. Old San Juan again.

Here is Lorri having yet another drink in Rincon. It was basically a coconut filled with straight rum. She made a face like she had just stuffed sour gummy worms into her mouth after every drink. But she is a trooper and managed to get it all down before falling off her stool.

Here is Nash and I in Old San Juan wondering if there was somewhere nearby we could get a drink. Walking there is such thirsty work.

And here is Nash sporting his mullet and new handmade surf board necklace. He doesn't actually surf, but the necklace ensured he would bond with everyone here on the island who drives a VW with a board rack on top so he could score pictures of their cars.

This is a photo from a beach in San Juan. I had literally just told him when we pulled up that he probably shouldn't run out onto the beach or he would be covered in sand the entire rest of the day while we walked around. This was taken of Nash like, ten seconds later.

Finally, on like day 12 of our two weeks together, we got down to the business at hand of finding glass and hanging our collection of hand delivered Nash Cox original watercolor paintings on our wall.

Oh. I'm sorry friends from Chariton, Iowa. Did you dream of owning this iconic original watercolor painting on the Chariton square? Too bad suckers. It's on our wall now.

So is this award winning piece of the street scene in Des Moines.

And this one of the old truck behind the barn.

If you have never viewed Nash Cox art up close and personal, you need to. The details are stunning and practically unheard of in the watercolor world. If you are in the Chariton area, you can see his work in his studio above the square on the same level as the Goldsmith Law Office on the far left. Look for the old truck sitting out front to know the artist is in.

Nash's Truck parked on the North side of the Chariton square

is a pretty good indication the artist is in.

Lucky for you, you can still purchase prints ranging in size and price from $25 to $120 at his etsy shop here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/NashCoxStudio?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=746852748

You can also purchase original pieces or commission a Nash Cox piece of your very own. Original pieces run in the $1,000-3,000 range for most works based on size and details.

We think that is a virtual steal compared to similar works from other nationally recognized artists... especially because there are probably only a handful of artists in the world painting cars with such detail and maybe only one or two on the same level (I haven't found them and I have looked). Here is his most recent piece to illustrate what I am talking about...

That is a watercolor painting. I can only imagine how many hours go into the drops and Nash tries desperately not to keep track or he would probably be forced to triple his prices.

Instead of commissions, we personally prefer to let him paint things, find out which pieces are his personal favorites, and then buy them from his collection because it makes him sort of sad to let them go. Especially if you make him hand deliver them to a far away island and hang them on your wall.

Supporting artists and the arts is important. If you want to live in a world that has nice things, you need to help pay for them sometimes. If they happen to be from an artist on the rise whose work will no doubt soon be rapidly ascending in value, all the better. Better still is to listen to the same artist get choked up as they bid farewell to their favorite pieces because they are on your wall! It's a win/win.

Here is the Nash Cox Watercolor Artist Facebook link:

https://www.facebook.com/nashcoxart/

Here are a few more examples of some of his his work...