167. Building a Creative Life in San Antonio: Lionel Sosa, Kathy Sosa, and Andi Rodriguez on Art, Infrastructure, and Opportunity
This week on bigcitysmalltown, Cory Ames moderates a live panel from Creative Futures, a two-day summit in San Antonio bringing together creators, builders, entrepreneurs, and civic thinkers. The conversation centers on what it looks like to build a creative life and creative career in San Antonio — and what the city still needs to get there.
Joining Cory are Lionel Sosa, founder of what became the largest Hispanic advertising agency in the United States, a consultant on multiple national presidential campaigns, and a portrait artist whose work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian and presidential libraries; Kathy Sosa, co-founder of one of the Southwest's largest independent Hispanic ad agencies, a veteran of national political campaigns, and a mixed media artist whose work exploring the Texas-Mexico borderland has earned national recognition; and Andi Rodriguez, Vice President of Cultural Placemaking at Centro San Antonio, whose Art Everywhere project has placed hundreds of commissioned works by local artists throughout downtown since 2020.
They discuss:
- How San Antonio's arts infrastructure has grown — from grant programs to the 1.5% public art provision in city building projects
- Why strong mayoral leadership has historically driven the city's creative identity, and what a leadership vacuum means for the arts community
- What the Art Everywhere project has taught Andi about building a supply chain for public art in the private sector
- What Lionel and Kathy have observed in Querétaro, Mexico — including a program that lets artists pay income taxes with their work
- The mindset differences between artists who thrive and those who don't — and why shameless self-promotion is a survival skill
- How the discovery of a Querétaro church's role in building San Antonio's missions led to a documentary, a binational art show, and a student cultural exchange
RECOMMENDED NEXT LISTEN:
▶ 64. Kathy Sosa and Antonio Arelle Barquet: The Other Side of the Mirror — Kathy Sosa and Antonio Arelle Barquet, director of the Museum of Art in Querétaro, discuss the binational art project that grew out of the historic connection between Querétaro and San Antonio's missions — the same story Kathy and Lionel recount in this episode.
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