Cristal Rivera Guest Blog Entry

I am Cristal Rivera and I've been invited to do a guest blog for the lovely poet Radames Ortiz, otherwise known as T.A.B. I've always been drawn in by his poems and creative style, which is why it was such an honor that we collaborated together on his poem entitled, "It's disturbing, she says. Walking out the door. Sleek like a mule".



The majority of the work I do is satirical, skateboard related, or Dia de Los Muertos images (Day of the Dead), so it was nice to have a change and open my mind to the depths of T.A.B's imagery. His writings are tragic, gut wrenching, and beautiful (to say the least), leaving room for creativity to flow with ease. There is a tormented soul that takes comfort in what brings him sorrow in the poem and I wanted to be able to reflect that in the image.

For this poem, I wanted to have an arm reaching upwards to represent the struggle against the addiction and to further capture the feeling of drowning in the "sea of empty bottles" that slowly consumes him.

It was a great time working with Radames because it was so easy to create images from his work. I insist that if you haven't read all of his works you should and then you can get the feel as well as see what else has been unleashed from the mind of The Amplified Bard.

*I urge everyone to contact Cristal Rivera for commissions. She can be reached here.