Overview:
As part of Denver's ongoing Month of Photography, "Café con Leche" artists hosted a talk on Mach 6 about their work and the art industry.
“Somebody’s got to do the laundry, someone’s got to cook—because this one doesn’t,” Sylvia Montero joked, turning toward her partner Tony Ortega at an artist talk in Denver’s Convivio Café at the opening of their exhibition “Café con Leche,” featuring images of their travels across Latin America.
A playful quip, but it also encapsulates the symbiotic relationship the couple has in their long line of work together, both in domestic life and professionally navigating the Denver art scene.
The pair met at Chicano Humanities and Arts Council (CHAC), a non-profit organization that supports Chicano, Latino and Native American artists of a variety of mediums in the local Denver community. After years of friendship, they eventually began dating, and today they not only share a life together but a son who is in the creative realm as well.
Their latest collaboration, “Café con Leche,” is part of the Month of Photography (MOP). With their exhibition on Feb. 18 through Apr. 7. at Convivio.
The MOP is held every other year in Denver and was founded in 2004 by artist Mark Sink. The Colorado Photographic Arts Center (CPAC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the spread of photographic knowledge and appreciation, hosts this biennial festival. Spaces in and around the Denver Metropolitan area, such as Convivio Café, contribute to this effort by hosting events and displaying work.
“We think it is fantastic that we have that month now, given that we have been doing this work for 40 years,” Ortega said. Both photographers challenge the norm and what is celebrated in museums; as Montero puts it, she does not want to be a “Frida.”
Montero’s photos at “Café con Leche” include one of tomb cleaning during the Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, México, as well as a hand-colored solar etching of a woman’s back profile. Ortega’s photos on the opposite wall include a photo of a pedestrian walking in front of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix murals, as well as photos that are stylistically similar, such as a woman cooking in her kitchen in El Salvador.
In their artist talk during “Café con Leche” on March 6, connected to the ongoing exhibition at Convivio Café, both Montero and Ortega discussed the art they amassed in their travels to places like El Salvador, Mexico and Cuba.
They were surrounded by a small group of artist friends, including painter Arlette Lucero and jewelry designer Rosa Chavez. During the open Q&A session on a variety of topics, attendees literally sipped “café,” or, in English, coffee.
While the artists’ travels may bring them together thematically for “Café con Leche,” they compete for creative grandeur in vastly different ways: Ortega uses his phone; Montero uses a 35mm film camera. Montero uses a combination of solar plate etching, UV exposure and hand coloring with watercolor. Meanwhile, Ortega manipulates his photos using an app called Snapseed, which allows him to achieve an antiquated, film-like look without the hassle of a dark room and a limited film roll that comes with analog photography.
“I have a friend of mine who is a professor at the University of San Diego and he does these beautiful images and he uses a lot of AI,” Ortega said when asked about future art methodologies. “But he’ll use his images, upload them, type certain prompts, and it spits it out. He’ll take it even farther and re-manipulate. He’s almost using a team of unknown artists or photographers to manipulate so I think that’s kind of where [art’s] going now.”
“But my hope is that young people will want to try the old way again,” Montero added. “I think as a true artist you research both the past and present because that’s what gives you inspiration to do your work. And my concern is that we won’t do that research anymore and rely on AI to do it for them.”
As AI seeks to disrupt the art world, the visual arts industry is currently in a state of flux. Bill Thomason, owner of Bitfactory Studios on Santa Fe Drive in Denver, who is currently showing photographer Jeff Fierberg’s “MRKT” as part of MOP, reflected on the market’s recent struggles.
“[The market’s] been down in 2024,” Thomason said. “I jumped during the pandemic when I did an online store and it stayed strong until December 2023-January 2024. Starting at the beginning of 2024, art sales ticked down month by month. Traffic-wise and sales-wise, everything’s down.”
Both Montero and Ortega agree that the art market, particularly for photographers, is fickle.
“It’s a hit-and-miss business,” Montero. “It took me five years to sell this one piece, and it’s like they have to keep on seeing it. Like, ‘Oh, that’s Tony;’ you have to have a distinct style. People want to have all these shows in Denver, but they’re not thinking about how to sell them. I’m doing it more to sell because getting exposure doesn’t necessarily pay your rent or your mortgage.”
According to ZipRecruiter statistics, the average hourly pay for an artist in Denver is $29.41. However, pay can vary dramatically, with top earners making up to $56.91 per hour, while those in the 25th percentile earn closer to $15.10 per hour.
“I’ve been doing this for 40 years now,” Ortega said. “What’s really changed now is that it’s expensive to live in this city. I used to rent this space at CHAC for $60 a month, but when I did get my first storefront, I was paying $800 dollars for an 800-square-foot studio space, and it included heat.”
As of late 2024, the average price for retail space in the city was about $20.56 per square foot. While this was a slight increase from the previous quarter, it’s still lower than last year’s price. Even so, it is still arduous for artists to afford the space they need to showcase their work.
“It’s very complicated because you as the artist have to be everything from the bookkeeper to the janitor to the framer to the provider; you have to multitask,” Ortega said.
To alleviate their concerns about finances, contracts and other challenges, the couple decided to take out a second mortgage and move the studios into their home rather than renting. However, their artistic journey isn’t entirely without challenges.
“How do I get the audiences, the collectors and the people to show?” Ortega said. “Obviously, the Month of Photography, Instagram, Facebook, commercial galleries, art spaces, art centers and online magazines help, but in the commercial economy that we live in, we have to figure that out unless you want to keep art in your closet.”
There are many upcoming MOP events in addition to “Café con Leche” that shed light on artists who are dealing with this difficult situation. This includes an exhibition at Union Hall Art Space that runs until this Saturday and features work by curator Nathan Storey about queer histories. Another is Angela Faris Belt’s exhibition at Michael Warren Contemporary, which ends on March 29 and features experiments with orotone, a late nineteenth-century photographic technique.
During the couple’s artist talk, however, questions about how younger artists will continue to create emerged most frequently. Both artists have taught for a living, with Ortega at Regis University and Montero sharing her expertise as an art teacher.
In the talk “Café con Leche,” they urged younger artists to think more practically about the business side of the profession, despite society’s tendency to downplay it. And, given the current political climate, Montero was open about her unwavering belief in the societal importance of art.
“I cannot imagine a world without art, film, dance, freedom of speech and all that,” she said. “It seems that the more progressive we are and the more conservative we are, there is censorship. We’re going to have to find a balance and disagree to agree.”
