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Armando Romero, a local artist who is a guidance counselor for several elementary schools in the Douglas Unified School District as well as at Loreto Catholic School, said doing this kind of artwork is relaxing and rewarding.

“I was born and raised here,” he said. “I attended Faras (Elementary), Ray Borane (Middle School), graduated from Douglas High School, from there went to NAU, graduated from there, went into the Army as a medic for my four in, four out. Graduated from Grand Canyon University with a master’s degree. I wanted to come back and help make a difference.”

Romero said it was about a year ago he became interested in wood-burning art.

“There are pictures that I have burnt onto birch wood,” he said. “I have a laser that imprints the image and from there I epoxy it. The epoxy is meant to help it last forever. From there, I use wood glue and finish nails and apply a router on the side. I put it all with a backing.

“Each one comes with an inscription on the back called the Kiddos Club ,which is a mentorship program I am starting here in Douglas. It has my name, a serial number and a little description. I have them cataloged. My goal is to eventually have these on display in Tucson, Phoenix, hopefully Las Vegas with the ultimate goal being New York.”

Romero said he has more than 50 pieces on display this month, along with some pieces he’s selling foir $10 that have what he calls defects because the glue didn’t adhere right, or something else occurred.

Most of Romero’s artwork sells for about $100 per image.

“To make these images takes a long time,” he said. “Just the printer takes six to nine hours. The epoxy takes a whole day. From there it takes three days to clear. Then I come back, and hand make the frames. That takes another day or so. I usually do one or two at a time. I typically start one on Monday and will hopefully finish it on Friday or Saturday.”

Romero’s images on display range from wild to domestic animals, religious, scenic and military. He even has a few images of Poncho Villa as well as the Gadsden Hotel.

“I bought the rights to many of these pictures,” he said. “I make one of each image. I don’t mass copy.”

Romero said David Velasco has been very helpful in helping Armando refine his art.

“The first day I came in here I was lucky enough to meet him,” he said. “He saw my original one and helped me refine some of my pieces. He also does custom work so if someone gives him a picture he will do it for them.”

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Eric Braverman exhibited his collection called “Last Supper Museum” The exhibit includes more than 55 last supper depictions and is guarded by two suits of armor.

“I was born in Buffalo, New York, but have lived my whole adult life in Phoenix until I moved down here to the Douglas area,” he said. “We consider this place ‘The Disneyland of the Wilderness.’ I’ve been to Portal many times as well as the other side of Ramsey Canyon because I was in caving with the National Forest Service. When Phoenix got to be too much for me (I lived in a farming area), I wanted to relocate to the safest place with the best weather in America, and that’s the Douglas area. We moved here in March.”

Braverman recently purchased the old pharmacy building on the corner of 11th Street and G Avenue that up until a few months ago was a flower shop. He said while walking around town and getting to know people, he stopped by The Gallery and was informed that it did not have a show for December.

“So, I offered to share my collection of my Last Supper Museum,” he said. “I started collecting Last Supper displays in 1972 after seeing a very scary Last Supper in a wax museum in Phoenix. And now I have the largest and most noted collection in the world. I hope to put it downtown and help augment things like Art Car World, which is a world-class museum that not enough people know about. Most of these ideas come from the art world itself.”

September’s Exhibit Of Francisco Moreno Photography

Francisco Moreno shared this with us  “I’ve always asked myself what the purpose of art is. I have learned that art allows for a better life and humanizes us because art is an essential part of a person. in these works, I attempt to use a language with the image to produce meaning. This meaning creates a dialog with which we communicate among us. The communication it creates is one of the most important aspects that take place when standing before a work of art. The works I selected for this exhibition are the most stunning. Perhaps viewers will feel that these works are not beautiful or lack meaning, but they may awaken the need to converse.”

Francisco Moreno and his wife Virginia are both retired city employees of the Douglas Post Office.

“I lived in Douglas for 24 years and moved to Tucson after retiring,” he said. “I graduated from the University of Arizona with a fine arts degree. For me, photography is just another media to create. My last exhibition was in 2020 at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. Due to the pandemic, it was a virtual exhibit and viewed by many countries around the world. This exhibition was called ‘Picturing 2020: A Community Reflects.’ A picture of this exhibit, titled ‘Mardi Gras,’ is currently on display at The Gallery.

Francisco says the exhibit at The Gallery consists of three groups of photos: retrospective, iPhone, and the use of a super telephoto lens, creating varied, interesting images.

Art Awakenings

DOUGLAS — After having been closed the past 15 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Douglas Art Gallery on 10th Street is back open and once again displaying exhibits.

The Douglas Art Association, which manages The Gallery through volunteers, recently elected a new board of directors. Pat Geymont is the new president; Lucinda Gonzalez, vice president; Susan Molina, secretary; Jim Geymont, treasurer, and Onitz Nieves, director of DAA.

“We are happy to announce that The Gallery is reopen,” Geymont said. “We anticipate having some kind of grand opening next month.”

Geymont said despite being closed for so long, the bills continued coming in to the point it was getting fairly expensive to remain closed.

“We also had to re-clean the entire building because it got so dusty,” she said. “It took some work getting everybody back together again just so we could open the doors. We’re thrilled to be back open.”

Nievas said as director, it is her responsibility to schedule artists for upcoming shows.

“We’re hoping to start having receptions again where the artists can meet people and talk about their work,” she said.

There is an art exhibit on display at The Gallery courtesy of April Zevenbergen Hudgins, who is new to Douglas.

“She actually attends my church, she’s new to town, and when I found out she was an artist and I saw her work I invited her down to The Gallery, had her fill out a membership card and we set her up with a show,” Nievas said. “Her work will be on display here until the end of the month.”

Zevenbergen Hudgins, who describes herself as a “Christian artist” was born and raised in Hawaii. While attending high school there she was discovered by her high school art teacher and recommended for an apprenticeship with legendary Hawaiian artist Herb Kane.

She says it was through this apprenticeship she gained exponential skill as she worked for months on a large mural with Kane in her high school gym. She says she was taught many techniques on the mural and to this day has the style and ability to produce very large mural sized pieces of art. She says she loves the freedom of painting on a large canvas.

Zevenbergen Hudgins lived in Okinawa, Japan, for three years where she focused on her art and further developed her artistic talent.

Her art bio reads she recently married Pastor Ben Hudgins of Silver Creek Church and is in the process of finishing up her master’s degree in nursing leadership and administration of healthcare systems.

“I really enjoy painting flowers, landscapes, horses, things that inspire me,” she said. “I also do a mixture of abstract and realism. So I will mix my subject matter with things I see in real life mixed in with things from my imagination.”

Zevenbergen Hudgins has exhibited her art in other cities. This is her first time showing in Douglas.

“This is my first time having this big of a display,” she said.

In July, an exhibit by Joan Crockett with Art Awakenings will be featured at The Gallery, a program that allows developmentally challenged people (to) create through art.

“It will feature both adults and children and will be here the whole month,” Geymont added. “It promises to be a very interesting exhibit.”

Geymont and Nievas said they are happy The Gallery is back open.

“It was sad seeing it closed with the lights off for so long,” Nievas said. “I wondered if we were ever going to reopen.”

“We’re trying to get new artists in here, something people haven’t seen before as well as our regular returning artists,” Geymont said. “We had people that were scheduled before COVID hit and then had to cancel. We’re hoping to get those exhibitors back on the schedule here real soon.”

The Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Receptions normally take place on Saturdays. Face coverings are optional.

“We’re still taking precautions and cleaning everything and keeping everything sanitized,” Geymont said. “We invite everybody to come and see us. We do things that are of interest to the community. We get both in-state and out-of-state people visiting us.”