+ Esau's Artist Statement

Esaü Garcia Alday is a self-taught Mixed Media street artist, originally from Cuatlan Del Río, Morelos, Mexico. He spent most of his early childhood traveling with his mother, Patricia Alday all throughout Mexico until they crossed over into the United States at the age of four, where they traveled throughout the East Coast until they reached Asheville, North Carolina.

He began his artistic career on the streets of Miami and spent many years in the Asheville Area. He currently operates a 1,000- sq. ft. art studio with a private request fine art gallery in the Fletcher, N.C. Smiley ́s Flea Market with his wife Sarah Alday. The artist has also worked in the urban environments of California, Arizona, Texas, throughout North Carolina using varied mediums (including stencils, spray paint, epoxies, varnishes, markers, graphite, newspapers, gold leaf, pyrography,) to depict various creations.

Esaü is a self styled mix media artist. However, over the years, his inner push to make art has taken him throughout a series of periods: abstract, illustrative, figurative, narrative and planning to explore more. The rhythmic influence of music is an important part of his artistic process. Many of his paintings were created listening to loud, vibrant rhythms.(Trap, hip hop, alternative R&B, Classical, music of Mexico, electro,dance, jazz, and much more).

Alday’s work has been purchased by a variety of customers from local restaurants in North Carolina like Ole's Guacamole’s Black Mountain and Asheville location (where you can fine his original Emiliano Zapata painting) to private collectors who commission him.

+ Sarah's Artist Statement

I am a mural and fine art painter, working with acrylics, oils, aerosols, and incorporating mediums such as resin, dried plant forms, and gold leaf. My works focus on themes of life, death, mortality, reality, dreaming, nature, seasons, time of day, consciousness, gratitude, joy, kindness, plant spirits, perspective, shamanism, meditation, parenthood, family, animals, and the universe.

Other themes of particular inspiration are my home, the farm, woods, and ponds where I grew up as a child, my parents and family and their appreciation of nature, love, plants, building, music, and art, and my travels with family and school within the magnificent landscapes, architecture, and cultures within the United States, Canada, Italy, Panama, and France. I am incredibly grateful for my education throughout life, as well as from the teachers and peers at Kerr-Vance Academy (especially Latin Pre-Nom-Latin IV, Ancient Civilizations, and Writing & Literature, National Honor Society, Brain Game, Cheerleading, Independent Art, and completed a Senior Project on the Cultural Origins of Bellydance), the Duke TIP Program, the Meredith College Leadership Conference, my uncle who so very kindly taught me to meditate at fifteen in the Japanese Garden in Fort Worth, Rainbow Family and Gatherings around the country, my own research into Dreaming, Shamanism, Consciousness, Creativity, and Nature throughout life, Warren Wilson College (from which I hold my B.A. majoring in Painting & Drawing and had the honor of traveling abroad and focusing on ecology and illustrating medicinal plants in Panama, working in Residence Hall Maitenence, Landscaping & Design Crew, and completing a Senior Service Project on Community Gardening), the Davidson College Plant Symposium, the Shamanic Journeying Conference held within the Warren Wilson Garden Cabin, night classes at WWC on Meditation & Meaning, Ayahuasca Ceremonies, for which I forever hold a humble gratitude for life and reverence of the universe, creativity, and consciousness, and the ATIH (Awakening the Illuminated Heart) Meditation Workshops, for solidifying, further awakening and clarifying my understandings of Unity Consciousness and the Creation Process.

Other favored subjects of focus include, illumination, filigree, floral forms and botanical illustration, light, transparency, calligraphy, architecture, art history, impressionism, magical-realism, surrealism, art nouveau, installation art, visionary art, astronomy, science, practical problem solving, self-sufficient and efficient flow systems creation, creating lists and cards, environmental science, ecology, animal and natural resource conservation, traveling, culture, landscapes, symbolism, mythology, medicinal plants, biodiversity, biology, neurology, botany, anthropolgy, the importance of holistic healthcare services and childhood education, highlighting the connections of society and nature, and the congruent connections of land and people, permaculture, landscaping & landscape design, seed gathering, floral arrangements, water, music, dance, hiking and adventuring, and laying in the grass, the dancing of the cosmos, and perhaps most importantly: creating imagery which inspires connection of the heart, its wisdom, connection to all of life, and concepts of infinity and now.

With infinite gratitude for the ability to create, I enjoy sharing my artworks publicly, so as to engage with viewers, within a multitude of contexts, encountering them within their more day to day experience. Works presented in this public manner serve to induce questioning within the viewer of their experiences, their consciousness, and their connection within the universe, local and global communities.

There are a many adaptive potentials of creating holistic connections within one's perspective and consciousness. By exploring and meditating on our interconnectness as individual entities, we strengthen the neuropathways within our brain, and most preciously, our connections with our heart. In turn, this supports our own abilities of gratitude and healing, and helps one to appreciate a joyful healthy life. The presentation of symbolism causes a physiological effect within a being. I hope to create imagery which bolsters the joy, wisdom, and peace of the heart. Sending to You All: All the Love, Cheer, Magic, Gratitude, and Joy of the Universe Infinitely Always, Brilliant Spirits, Magical, Infinite Beings!

+ Azul's Artist Statement

When asked what he wanted to create, our Azul said: "A painty sky!”

We said, "You want to a paint?" To which he replied: "Yea A PAINT!!!"

He also says:

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