Professional Practices Talk with Roberto Benavidez and Calder Kamin

Join artists Roberto Benavidez and Calder Kamin, who were recently featured in Craft in America’s Play episode, as they discuss their respective strategies to promote and build a successful art practice. Their work is also featured in Spirit of Play; Craft and Imagination on view at the Center through March 2, 2024.

This is a perfect opportunity for emerging or mid-career artists to get some tips and inspiration. They will speak about how they built their careers and continue to create opportunities, as well as the pitfalls along the way, and what they learned from hindsight.

Come early to connect with other attendees, meet and greet the artists, and view the exhibition from 6pm on.

Fee: $25

Roberto Benavidez is a figurative sculptor originally from South Texas specializing in the piñata form. After moving to Los Angeles, he rediscovered his passion for the visual arts and studied figure sculpting and bronze casting at Pasadena City College. Benavidez later switched to paper, a more accessible material than bronze, deciding to focus on the piñata technique, a familiar form from childhood. Benavidez plays with underlying themes of race, ephemerality, beauty and sin, layered with his identity as a mixed-race queer artist, with a focus on impeccable craftsmanship.

Calder Kamin, artist, educator and advocate, transforms trash into beautifully crafted creatures and opportunities to inspire others to be creative and courageous about the future. Nature’s endless ability to reuse and adapt motivates her to eliminate waste and reimagine it as art. Kamin’s creative reuse art projects and public workshops have traveled to museums across the states including the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art American, the American Museum of Natural History, the Contemporary Austin, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. She was the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art’s Art Truck Artist, and artist-in-residence at BreckCreate, Landmark Apartments, the Currier Museum of Art, SiNaCa Studios, Camp Stomping Ground, and the DoSeum, San Antonio’s Children’s Museum. Kamin is a board member of Austin Creative Reuse, a non-profit that diverts community waste to artists, crafters, and educators as resources.

Before committing to her art full-time, Kamin advised artists on career development through positions at the Kansas City Art Institute, City of Austin, and the University of Texas. The City of Austin continues to offer a 6-week course that builds local artists’ knowledge of City resources, networking and business skills that was created by Kamin.