Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

In terms of styles, everything I do has a surrealist foundation, but I also love abstraction and Impressionism. In terms of media or materials, often my paintings come out a mix of collage, sculpture, I even use dirt or rocks sometimes in order to get at the right texture and balance. I mostly paint in oils and am working on a series of sculptures of ballet dancers morphed with different animals. Surrealism is the ultimate expression for me: dream, but not without vision and beauty.

Where do you find inspiration?

Music. Symphonic music astounds me, folk music fuels me. Folk, I include everything from mariachi to klezmer, blues/jazz to bluegrass. I like that my paintings should have the same rhythms, textures and sounds as well. Of course nature is a big part of my life; my garden, the sea, the desert and the mountains all have special effects on me. Books and poetry inspire me as well. A line from a novel or a poem will turn into a painting—birds on a wire, punctuations to an invisible sentence.

What would you do with $25,000?

Buy seed. Make a garden. Watch it grow. Earnestly, I come from pretty modest means and I am greatly fortunate to have a place to work that I can afford. $25,000 is almost a years salary for me and it will afford me another year of work. My studio could also use a set of proper windows to keep the cold and dust out. I would come to spend more time with the artists of Mexico City, and would probably travel there more often than I can now. Mostly I will live to work another year.