Vallarta Food Bank - The BIG BUS Raffle!

Click Picture For Link To The Facebook Event

The BIG BUS is the most recent and largest painting in the series titled “The Boleto Project”, which was born of a completely accidental collision of events.

At the start of the 2018/2019 High Season, Puerto Vallarta made the switch from the old iconic refurbished buses to the new Unibuses. It was a big change. Cambio Grande! From the hot and sweaty to the promise of AC. And a rise in fares from 7.50 pesos to 10.00. I was an avid bus rider and I still miss riding the old buses. There was something special about them. Every bus ride had a story.

At the end of January, that same High Season; an unopened jar of acrylic medium that I hauled back from Canada had been sitting on the shelf in my studio for over 2 years when I attended a workshop given by Yvan Genest, (Canadian artist). I finally knew what to do with it. When I opened the jar to check if it hadn’t dried up, (no plan) I didn’t know what I was going to do. And then I saw some bus tickets I had just thrown on the desk when I came to the studio. My very first bus ticket painting was in Jan 2019. Small, 10cm x10cm, and titled “Change”.

Next thing I knew fellow Q artist Cassandra Shaw had the girls in her shop collecting boletos for me. And that in turn, turned into a whole bunch of folks collecting for me. There are stories. And many, many bus paintings were born. It’s been really fun creating them and meeting all the people who stopped by to drop boletos off. And of course, the best part is deciding where all these buses are going. No two alike. I’ve completely lost count of how many I’ve done so far, well over 20 though.

I’m not certain what inspired me to make the BIG BUS. Perhaps just to see how many tickets I could collect. But late January of this year, I had the idea to make a big one. As big of a canvas as I could fit in my car and haul to the Q.

I sent out a message that I needed boletos and lots of them. And lots came. Some came nicely flattened out in tidy little stacks and in envelopes. And some did not, there was a lot of flattening involved. There’s an antique one in among the rest, donated by a lady who found it in an old book and happily pasted it onto the canvas. And even one or two from Guadalajara. Plus a bunch of other interesting stuff. Lot’s of folks participated by bringing in their boletos and taking the time to paste some on.

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Grateful to Marcia Blondin for a wonderful mention she gave me in her February 9th column, “From Here’ in the Vallarta Mirror. And lots more tickets were collected and donated to the project. 117945137 10157650058003932 2455583723933119581 n

Marcia also shared with me a story about another “Boleto Project” bus painting at Arte Viviente. A family visiting from the US was in the store when one of the kids saw one with an Ixtapa bus and was very excited as that's the bus they needed to take to Grandma's house. They bought the painting.

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There are well over 2,000 boletos on the BIG BUS. That’s a lot of bus rides. Collected by everyday people in Vallarta, locals, and visitors. Without them, this could never have happened. And now that it’s done, it’s only fitting to help out and give back.

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