Hispanic Heritage Series – Part II
For a kid who wasn’t expected to do much, Denver artist and native, Carlos Santistevan, far exceeded everyone’s expectations. But not his own. Somehow, despite regularly being told he ‘wasn’t this, or wasn’t that’ or should find something else to do, well, Santistevan turned out just fine.
Today, the 87-year-old Santistevan is known around the world as a talented artist. But if you ask him to describe his art, he’ll chuckle and, very humbly ask you to tell him. In chatting with him, we settled on Chicano Art, an art that has been called bold, primitive and work that holds a gaze.
His work is displayed across the Southwest in some of the most prestigious galleries. He also has work displayed in the Denver Art Museum. The Vatican also owns a piece sculpted by the hands of this once ‘throw away’ kid who grew up in Denver’s Five Points.
But while Santistevan is best known as an artist, it is most certainly not a stretch to call him a human rights activist. He was an important cog in a wheel that fought poverty, stood up for countless men, women and children’s civil rights and helped drop a health care anchor where once there was none. He was also a pillar in Denver’s legendary Crusade for Justice, an often controversial, but necessary force in shining light in places where once darkness reigned.
As the Civil Rights movement began percolating in the 1960’s, Santistevan rode with the movement. He joined the Poor People’s Campaign, a campaign that in 1968 once camped out in the nation’s capital for six weeks. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., often spoke to those who dropped anchor there. Dr. King was assassinated in April 1968.
Santistevan, like millions of others, also spoke out vociferously against the Viet Nam War and participated in some of the nation’s biggest protests. In 1970, Santistevan was part of a caravan that left Denver for Los Angeles to take part in perhaps the West’s most famous protest. It was the protest where the Los Angeles police fired a tear gas canister into a bar where it fatally struck Los Angeles Times reporter Ruben Salazar. Salazar had sought shelter in the bar to escape the clouds of tear gas wafting over the streets. Santistevan, along with 23 others, were arrested for protesting and held in the LA County jail for several days.
Today Santistevan still creates art in his Five Points home. And though he has been creating it for decades, he chuckles that he still has no studio. “I do it in my kitchen or outside,” he says. But wherever he does it, his work stands out for its imagination and precision.
Today, he is known for his ‘santos,’ or saints that reflect the early Spanish who conquered so much of what is today New Mexico. His art can be both deeply religious or, sometimes, even playful. One of his most recognized pieces is a huarache—a sandal—that looks like a hot rod. He calls his ‘low rider.’
Santistevan is mostly self-taught. It can especially be seen in the pieces he has welded. He is self-taught, he said, because the welding teachers at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School he once attended had neither the time nor patience to teach him.
But luckily for him, those same teachers later came to trust his skills and, in a turnaround, asked him for help. Once they saw he had mastered the craft, he said, “They asked me, ‘can you teach my students how to weld.’ His new charges didn’t like him,’ but once they found themselves learning the skill, like his teachers, they came around.
Still, while others, in fact, too many, saw little potential in him, he persevered. While he didn’t make it through some of the Catholic schools he attended, he ultimately graduated and, later, earned a college degree.
Santistevan’s story and images of his art can be seen at the Denver Public Library’s special collections and archives. Santistevan’s work is also a part of Santa Fe’s Spanish Market in late July. Over the years, both Santistevan and his son and daughter’s work have earned many #1 places in art categories at the Spanish Market.
