Armando de la Torre’s “On the Blue Line”

Armando de la Torre stands near his work in progress.

The thematic idea of trolleys has been spinning around for years in Armando de la Torre’s mental rolodex of ideas. “It started when I was teaching kids at Father Joe’s about where they live and their stops on the line. I thought it was an interesting framework to talk about knowing their place in space. There were all sorts of opportunities to tell stories within that.”

“As I move around my space in the world, I start developing a story. It’s as simple as paying attention to certain things that give me a clue–seeing an osprey with a fish. With that image embedded in me, it gets me thinking of another idea. Then all these images start assembling and I have a story to tell.” 

“It’s as simple as paying attention to certain things that give me a clue–seeing an osprey with a fish.”

It’s also a collaborative process for Armando. “I invite people into my idea and then we work together to realize the installation, which functions as a backdrop for storytelling. It allows me to develop a story and deepen its meaning by actually producing the scene. I give myself the role of a theater director or film director so that I can develop my voice as an artist.”

Armando describes his art as performance art. “I see it as a performative process. It’s rituals, theater, visual arts–it’s a little bit of a lot of things. And there are a lot of elements that are either going to come together or not. There are economic constraints, time constraints–in one sense, design is simply a matter of solving constraints.

Pictured here with Jorge Mendoza, Armando sees himself as a theater director or film director during the creation of installations like this.

While On the Blue Line has been developing for a long time in his head, Armando only had one week to turn his vision into reality onsite at the Athenaeum Art Center. You can view his site-specific installation from February 11 - May 5 in the Catherine and Robert Palmer Gallery.