"Souls on the Road" heads out and leaves Austin TX to New Mexico

The start of the tour around the U.S. has begun with the traveling artists Alyssa Flores & Joaquin Allen on their Art & Film Tour. Filming and creating art and the lives of Artists along the way, these two start off leaving their home base in Austin TX with the art co-active organization at South Austin Soul.

I, Alyssa am filming this whole crazy gypsy adventure with my buddy Joaquin and it's been from the first minute we got into the car a week ago, an instant in pour of change to both our worlds. A destiny that not many people get to experience and wow I get to be in the passenger seat to the "Driver" Joaquin who gets geared into seeing it all starting with his past in Ojo Sarco, NM. As I transition my mind into spinning me around once more; Joaquin takes on the long stretches of the desolate roads out Austin and beyond Dallas all the way out to the flat lands, through wastelands, and mountainous freeze outs. Everything here from out is forward.

Joaquin hit a rush of passing on once we stepped foot into that cemetery to say goodbye to his good ol Marine buddy from his early manhood years. We walked around that cemetery searching over grave over grave over grave that then came to notice the fresh grass that lined out the graves of newly passed on bodies. All I could see was bodies everywhere near us in a different parallel. These new patches of earth made death seem more so visual to me by the earth caskets that lay underneath. My mortality became an ice bath to my senses that my life, Joaquin's life are moving forward into a new movement. Here I have to presume the untold story. Here it better be a moveable notion.

I walked by rows after rows of flowers and found a bundle of Yellow Roses that had the Virgin Mary painted on them that appeared so peaceful for whomever's grave they were for placed for. The statues of angels seemed more so giving off their sincere stares to all that came close to their footing and we never found his buddies grave.

It's an underling truth that I fear death and it's unsure ending of my life's chapters too soon. My waking days are a combination to strive to stretch out every minute to get me further into my future, which causes continuation of fulfillment. Perhaps to fool a mind into believing that it's living multiple changes of life in order to make our deaths more so worth it's burial it a foundation of most Artists. For Joaquin it was a symbol of good luck to his journey. He took each memory to his friends death at an important growth into his next journey. A journey as big as this one, as important as this one, it was a necessary parting or rub on the Buddha's belly to his journey to the conquest.

Oh and then there was the shoot that got away. Trial two to get Moving Atlas the band from Dallas in a last minute stoke of luck shot for their music video I am filming. The last time I scheduled this shoot, it ended up to be one of The Biggest Flops of Unfortunate Events. (behind the scenes video coming soon) I am filming and co- starring in this video with the guys which creates a challenge to get an entire band and myself at the same place at the same time with the opportunity to get production in before I head out of Texas. Awesome, we get them in at their weekly band practice and we nail the shots needed to make this diverse, 4 day production, in multiple locations a possible successful shoot!

Off we go into an already some possible hang ups with the trailer's weight that my little Kia Rio has to endure as we set off into the mountains. Our worry of hauling around glass for Joaquin to paint on, loads of spray paint, canvas, and everything else tends to lead into future depletion of supplies for drag & haul equalization reasons. See that there might not be a possibility to drive into the mountains...  do we make it... how slow will we go and how badly will we back up a single lane of traffic up into an elevation of 7,000 pulling a 4 ft x 8 ft trailer?

The Traveling Souls,
Aly & Joaquin

So much ART, so little time!

Four great events you should attend this weekend!  Pick your faves and join our myriad offering of artists around town!

EAST (East Austin Studio Tour)
http://www.eastaustinstudiotour.com/

Oxblood Art and Music Fest
http://do512.com/event/2010/11/13/oxblood-music-and-art-fest

Guadalupe Get Down
http://www.spiderhousecafe.com/upcoming-events/nov-13th-2010-guadalupe-get-down.html

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST!
Join our Resident Artist, Aly Flores and Featured Artist, Joaquin Allen for their FINAL ART SHOW before hitting the road on the South Austin Soul Documentary Tour at The Crow Bar this Sunday, 7p-2a.  Help fill the gas tank by purchasing some beautiful art or dropping off a donation. 
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=109203545813834

Crap you might need Yard Sale!

Welcome to our NEW ART HOUSE located in SOUTH AUSTIN!

We are cleaning out and moving into our new location to bring in our fellow Artists and Collaboration of Art, Yoga, Music, Food, Backyard Fire Pit, and Workshop Space. 

There will be a MaSSiVE Yard Sale this Sunday, October 17th starting at 8am lasting all day with food, art, and you! 

Looking to donate your love to the new SOUL?
We are wanting your crap to put in with our crap to sell for our fundraiser to get us what we need to successfully build this Art House and get the traveling Art Gypsies on the road for the Art & Film Tour.

Come by and drop off your items anytime this week or the day of and join us for a gathering to welcome in our new home! Also, you might find yourself getting lost into some really cool finds in our BiG OPEN FiELD of a yard sale!

Keep a look out when your here because you might be the next Artist we feature in this art space… so please come get a feel of our inside display areas, back yard space, & free floating walls that stand 7ft tall as well as our front yard jungle that makes this place seem like a space away from spaces.



Items

Entertainment Center
Computer Desk
Speakers
Lamps
Coffee & End Tables
Stools & Office Chairs
Armoire
Piano
1920's Radio Desk
Peavy Amp
Guitar Petal & Cords
Mach 5 Guitar (need of repair)
Mixers (2)
Action Figures in case (40)
Model Cars
Fish Tanks (2)
Futon
Clothes
VHS
CDs

plus more!


Please send us an email or message post if you are going to drop off any items to the Art House for donations!

We love and appreciate anything you could do to help us!

Essential Support

As a student at UT, I am thrust onto the emotional roller coaster of what the events on campus today mean.  In the coming hours we will hear more about the personal life of the man who killed himself and created a scare all too familiar to college students across the globe.  I sit here safely in my own home and feel deeply saddened for this man, his life and his family and friends.  And I cannot help but think of the missing support in his life while I am constantly overwhelmed with it.  Since it's infancy, South Austin Soul has been a place of refuge for me, a source of encouragement and a feeling of comfort.  Many of our members are completely unaware of the circumstances that were created in my life in our first few weeks.  Events that left me feeling unsafe in my own home yet completely safe in our gallery as friendships were being built and creativity unleashed.  You were my pillars of strength and continue to be to this day.  We are blessed to have each other and I am thankful everyday to have you all in my life.  It is not always easy to stick by each other, emotions sometimes become flared and we are all open books.  But our openness is our savior.  To know you have by your side the hearts of South Austin Soul makes it easier to fall asleep and wake each morning.  Thank you, you are all my angels.
-@mBeRgUeSa

Admin & Researcher Position ($50 + Commission)

South Austin Soul is posting up an Admin & Researcher Position. This position is a $50 a month plus commission. This is a very "important" and "powerful" position. We are looking to expand our talents to a person that will be able to follow with us to our future of success. With you... as we grow, this position too will grow!

What we are looking for: 

I, Alyssa am looking for a teammate in my abilities to do "All" administration duties and preparing proposals. This upcoming Film Tour will be taking a lot of my attention away from hours I spend on the research and writing side of the home base of SAS. I will enjoy working with a person that has great writing talents and a diligent passion to a fast pace work ethic. I move quickly and I will be working with you on in a close week to week basis... so to say... we will be growing very close! 

The responsibilities are:

*Research Websites, Grants, & Sponsors

*Find and Compose Grant Proposals

*Light Website Updates

*Admin: Emails & Phone Calls

All this can be done from home via internet & phone. Must have reliable access to internet!

Expectations:

All I require from you is your devotion!!! I am extremely organized and hard working, I would like for this position to have some of that responsibility of your expectations to make things move forward. The quicker and the more efficient we get things to happen together for SAS... the quicker we get to our success... and the better we can return that right back to you!

Please send your resume to Alyssa Flores~ inkflores@yahoo.com

Call for Artists!

South Austin Soul is proud to be gathering artists for a special event, The Paige Haas Benefit at Screaming Goat (home of the Austin's best drowning flautas) on Sunday, September 26th.  We are seeking artists filled with a connection to their local community, able to sell their art and donate a portion of their sales to this cause.  If you want to help out, please email us at southaustinsoul@yahoo.com.

Paige Haas, a close friend of The Screaming Goat, was diagnosed with
Leukemia in April 2008. She was 18 years old when she was diagnosed.
 
Since then, she has withstood numerous rounds of chemotherapy and a
stem cell transplant she received from her brother Drew in February of
ʻ09. Fortunately, as a result of her unbelievable strength and resolve
enduring these treatments, she is currently in remission for the third time.
Our goal with this benefit is to ease the financial burden placed upon
Paige and her family throughout her treatment, allowing them to
celebrate Paigeʼs health.
 
So please join us for a day of music, food & friends Sunday September
26th from 12-8pm at The Screaming Goat, All proceeds will go directly to
the Paige Haas Benefit Fund.

Design Our Logo Contest

South Austin Soul encompasses a community of visual artists, musicians, fashion designers, performance artists and writers. We encourage community, support, networking, collaboration, passion and growth. HOW do you fit it all into one little JPG? We want to see your interpretation of our organization! Would you like to design a logo for us? Doodle it on a bar nap? Create it in Adobe? Glue some construction paper together? Build it out of popcicle sticks? Whatever you decide, we want to see it! Contest will run through the end of September, so allow the creativity to flow to you when the time is right! The winner will become our first Featured Artist of the Month with the launch of our new website...and I'm sure you will receive much more...we're just not sure what you want yet :) Send us your design via the web or come over for a beer and show us what you got...can't wait to see what South Austin Soul means to you! Visit our Website www.southaustinsoul.org and Facebook www.facebook.com/southaustinsoul for pictures and graphics we have had in the past.

GOOooo ARtists!!!

Film Tour Road Map

Hello my fellow artists and art lovers out there. As you might have heard we are planning a Film Tour that will take place here in the next couple of months and we are putting together the most interesting places we hear about on the map for our journey.


We need more places for our map. Please do share with us any artsy people and places from around the US to put on our itinerary. This can be someone you know personally or have heard of. Also, this includes awesome Art Galleries that are involved in their community as we are. We want to travel around the US collaborating with as many artists as we can from all types of mediums. This includes music and performance as well. 


As the Filmmaker, I want to follow the motivating message that these artists are setting way for the future of the art making world. I will be piecing together not only a world tour documentary, but individual short films about these warriors who continue the movement in their own inspiring creations. 


For Texas Artists view my projects thus far:


Inside the Bolts & Pins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvvbR15ccqI

LaPaso at Morgan's Wonderland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg7elWwW-a4

Day In The Life of...Alyssa Flores:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7aBsiFNWxc

*********************************************************************************
Check out our Promo Trailer for the FiLM TOUR & Building Project that we are sending out to Pepsi for their grant give away!



Thanks to you, this is why we do what we do.

Alyssa Flores

aka A Flo

What favorite Stories do you have with us?

Had another inspirational night at Open Mic?

Met someone rolling through that influenced your art, your mind, your soul?

Did something really nuts happen with us and you felt like it might have blown your mind as to what just happened?

What outta the box idea did you get while hanging out with the SOuth AUsTIn SOuL CReW?

So it was a full moon, we just had Open Mic NIght and I tell you... something was in the air. Mood swings might have been on the breeze that night, but some weird energy set some wild beasts in all of us to wanna jolt out and slay one another. Once the Open Mic had ended, Amber, John, & myself did our usual meeting back at the crib with beers and long talks. I remember most of that night had us at first ready to smash some things, but I do remember that as usual we were all cracking up laughing like our silly selves... me drawing all over everyone with sharpies... random bicycle rides to the street... setting into the 3am hour. Towards that time was the time Amber suggested the best way to settle any day of unusual energy was through Yoga. After a case of beer in me, Ms. Amberguesa got my big ass to attempt to hold up side down, on my elbows, knees bent into a "Scorpion" pose. After many a failed attempt on my behalf... I finally got halfway there as Ms. Amberguesa held it together with her tight skinny ass! Ohhh 4 am Yoga! ~ A FLO

What the beginning of September has brought already!

Already we are busy busy busy with getting our Artists out there!

First we had one of our very own Open Mic followers who has been joining us regularly have his CD Release at the United States Art Authority Sept 10. Richard Sanguinetti is a unique tribute to classics and his own jive! He makes us all happy to have around for Open Mic.
Check him out at:

www.sanguinettirecords.com

Then a very amazing show with our boys who run Open Mic, Southern Envy took us out to San Marcus @ the Triple Crown to rock it out for us! This trio is what makes the soul hit our boots on the way into the room!

Check em here:

 www.myspace.com/southernenvymusic 

Just this past weekend an Art Collaboration went down with resident artist, Alyssa Flores and newly joined artist, Matt Mason for a LIVE ART painting @ the Crow Bar on South Congress. These two made their "crow marks" on the outside patio tables that will forever live at the newly opened neighborhood bar.

http://masonography.blogspot.com

http://artbyalyssaflores.blogspot.com

Where to Find US!

The newest waves of keeping us all connected is via internet like it or not... your on there! Well so are we, and we are becoming to spread our name all over to where you like to be the most. We would love to stay in touch with all you in the best ways for everyone. Since we have our wonderful website up www.southaustinsoul.org, and our favorite to use facebook, www.facebook.com/southaustinsoul, we are now up and using of course YouTube by resident Filmmaker's link, www.youtube.com/inkflores and just became Twitter Fans, www.twitter.com/southaustinsoul.

We want to keep in touch with all the artists and communities that grow via Web Space since it is now the quickest and easiest way for us to keep connected. Face it... we are "all" leading into the new way of internet space nuts!

So here is the place where we can discuss more in depth about the amazing people we get to meet during our journey as a growing art community. Please do feel free to share with us your stories as we meet our new guests and fellow artists and don't forget to follow us on our upcoming big projects via our other web spaces!

Every Wednesday Night:
OPEN MIC ~OPEN MIND
@ The Spider House & Art Authority
500 West 29th Street
Austin, TX 78705

Contact Us:
Visual/Performance Artists:
art@southaustinsoul.org


Musicians:
music@southaustinsoul.org


General Information/Questions:
info@southaustinsoul.org


Donations/Gallery Coordination:
Amber Mitchell- aspiringyogini@yahoo.com

Filming Tour:

Alyssa Flores~ inkflores@yahoo.com

Our Residents that make all this happen!

We are ourselves artists in many ways and we believe and support the arts that we create and live for the artists that create with us.

Amber Mitchell 

The Soul's Worker Bee, Treasurer, Yoga Teacher, and Art Curator.

Alyssa Flores & John Weber

The Soul's Media Mecca, Artist, Filmmaker, & PR.

John Weber

The Soul's President, Metal Sculpture Artist, & Man With The Plan

 

John W. & Sara Shellard

Sara Shellard, Artist & Community Supporter. 

Jacob Rivera

Open Mic's Host, Musican, & Artist

Omar Reyna 

The Man of Sound & Artist.