We’re excited to introduce you to Alexander Porter a member of a new east Austin art collective called “Black Collar Party” and a few members of the collective Willie O’Marra, Maria De Jesus Torrez, Charlotte (Arlo) Kretzler, and Isaiah Devon Rogers.
Oh man, where do I begin? I could start with my late Aunt Nell who use to pay me a dollar for a drawing on Sundays. That taught me the value of an artist. I could talk about my Aunt Anna who made many financial sacrifices for me to live out my dreams. I remember late summer nights with my cousin Johnathan watching him play on his Sega genesis and I fell in love with Sonic the Hedgehog and drawing him, everywhere. I could speak about my elementary school friends giving me their lunch money for a drawing or talk about being born into a family of artist and story tellers of various disciplines. All of these things had an impact on me. I played basketball for 15 years and I only started taking art seriously in high school- which led to long nights with little sleep but by the time I graduated, I simply fell in love with storytelling.
I attended the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri to pursue a degree in animation, and upon graduating, I had grown significantly as both an artist and a person. I entered college as a sheltered boy with some talent and a desire to tell stories, and I left with improved skills, a clearer sense of direction, and a wealth of stories to tell, thanks to the diverse people I met. I learned to pay attention to the stories around me through the appearances and conditions of people and my environment, and I am deeply grateful to my friends in Kansas City for their positive impact and the lessons I learned. In college, I had another moment of self-discovery when a friend introduced me to a church on Troost Boulevard, a street marking the divide between the suburbs and underserved areas of Kansas City. We taught art to kids after school while they waited for their parents, which eventually became a program called “Art Play.” This experience, working with children from various backgrounds, fostered my love for community. Then, on my cousin’s recommendation, I moved to Austin where she connected me with her friends, and I began working as an independent artist. Despite finding consistent work, I felt unfulfilled until I discovered Creative Action, a nonprofit supporting the community and the AISD school district’s after-school programs through the arts. This discovery felt like a full-circle moment for me, and I became a teaching artist for Creative Action. Fast forward and now, as a site coordinator, I lead a team of teaching artists, continuing my journey in the arts and community engagement.
As my time with Creative Action and as an independent artist in Austin grew, that feeling of discontentment returned stemming from common issues plaguing others in the art community like not making art that I wanted to make, unpaid work / getting paid in exposure, and pay disparities for creatives of marginalized groups. Conversations with other artists revealed a troubling landscape with outdated practices like “social exclusivity” “suffering for one’s art” and “paying your dues” which is crazy in this economy. I envisioned a future where the art world isn’t driven solely by profit and investors, but by collaboration and community. It’s comforting to see many artists and collectives in Austin offering services and opportunities, but access remains a challenge. I wanted to create a bridge to these resources, envisioning a cohesive art community free from the aforementioned struggles artist struggle to navigate. When I shared this vision with my creative peers, we all saw potential in Austin’s art scene. Collaborating with artists and other collectives, we aimed to leverage Austin’s resources for a more financially inclusive community. This vision led to the creation of Black Collar Party—an art collective focused on collaboration and community for all. Though we’re in our infancy, we’re laying the foundation for something empowering for all creatives, regardless of their stage as an artist.
I had an idea of creating a collective since college. I don’t remember exactly what moment inspired the idea then but I do remember the negative experiences I had in art school still. For the longest time it was an idea I kept on the back burner. There are so so many collectives out there and I wanted to make a more informed meaningful decision about forming yet another collective. I even had the name figured out! Funny story– when I had the name I googled it to see if anything would turn up in results. At the time, nothing came up. A year later, I checked again and a clothing brand formed an LLC using the name! (Don’t sit on your ideas folks.) Anyway, what was originally “Black Collar Collective” became “Black Collar Party”. The new name fit our modus operandi better anyway. I got ownership of the name, claimed the domain “blackcollarparty.com” and even swept up black collar party as a handle on all major social platforms about 7 years before the collective formed.
Alex, can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Isaiah a member of Black Collar Party (BCP) says, “There’s been a lot of imposter syndrome- struggling with the image of ourselves as individual artist, as well as a collective.” That’s true, you don’t wake up one day and decide let’s make an art collective or maybe you do. I’m not knocking it. We tried to do our due diligence while in the process of putting our collective together, but there’s no real road map out there for how to make a successful art collective. You actually end up just finding art collectives who have been successful who may share insights of what worked for them and mostly collectives who have come and gone. Arlo, another member of BCP added, “Then there’s struggling with working together as an art collective.” I feel like there should be a college course on collaborating cause it’s not easy! BCP member Maria said, “The amount of time and resources members are able to commit is always changing.” We have members still finding/reclaiming their identity as an artist. Isaiah continued with saying, “Brainstorming practical ways of changing common artist practices to find something that works better for any artist has been rough.” Willie concluded with, “There’s also the everyday life struggles with artist block, motivation, financial problems, scheduling, and communication.” Some advice we’ve been getting from creatives we’ve met is that we gotta be able to embrace big changes in personnel and what direction we go in. We have to be comfortable with experiencing plans falling through. What’s most important is that we have that desire to see this through- “Black Collar Party will always be here” is something we constantly remind each other.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. Alex, what should we know about your work?
I’ve mostly done designs and logo work in the past. Mostly cause that’s what I limited myself to doing. I specialize in animation but my current creative focus is storytelling through character design and concept art. It may have always been what I want to do as an artist because the work is really satisfying. Its kind of brought me back to my love of storytelling. My first job as a character designer was designing a character named “Val” for a play called “Tales of a Blerd Ballerina”. The play premiered July 8th – 23rd back in 2022 at The Vortex Theatre in Austin. It was my first time having my artwork publicly displayed on billboards all over Austin. I’m pretty proud of that job and the work I did there. What sets me apart- I guess I have a level of experience when negotiating contracts for work that has been helpful for clients in the past. I have been told my approach takes a lot of the stress off of hiring an artist. Another aspect of my work that sets me apart (I’m stealing this from Arlo) is I want to make art that is financially accessible for Small studios, and local artist and businesses.
In regard to Black Collar Party we are artist working to build community with other artist and advocate for them. Collectively we have artist of various experiences and disciplines, our collective specializes in providing opportunities for artist to make art. Members have individual accomplishments but as a collective we’ve only been around for a year. We are proud of the values we have defined as what our collective works to be. One of our main focuses is that we just want to have fun as active artist. Honestly the representation is pretty broad in our collective. Our backgrounds lends to a variety of artistic expressions and interesting results when we work together.
If you like what you’ve heard about our collective so far, please visit us at blackcollarparty.com to meet the rest of the artist in our collective and give us a follow on instagram to stay up to date with future events and opportunities!
Alex, can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
My mom would say– I was quiet, I didn’t speak much at first, and I had a terrible knack for people pleasing. Honestly, I have never taken myself seriously I was the class clown and comic relief at home which allowed me to brush off conflicts with classmates and my siblings pretty easily. I’d like to think it made everything easier to deal with for my family times were rocky. My interest were Basketball (Space Jam… was my Jam). I love and have so much respect for Japanese fine art, pottery, manga, and anime like the series Fooly Cooly (FLCL) which caused me to fall in love with animation and decide on Animation as a major.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://blackcollarparty.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackcollarparty?igsh=MWdwaG1pYXVtd3VzYg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562468774867&mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Twitter: https://x.com/BlckCollarParty
- Other: https://madisondoesart.com/concept-art
Image Credits
Black Collar Party, Alexander Porter, Charlotte Kretzler, Willie O’Marra
