Jesse Amado American, b. 1951

Dr. Colpitt took an interest in the work of Jesse Amado, especially during his inaugural Artpace residency in the spring of 1995. Take-out April 23 utilizes virgin felt wool and familiar, everyday objects and references - like take-out food containers and other mass-produced items - as metaphors for how society processes, consumes, and packages its identities, desires, and experiences. In a 1995 interview by Colpitt, Amado was asked, “One of the things I was going to ask you is whether your work responds to the place of its making. And now I see that although the work appears very cool and conceptual–and appears to be homeless in a way–there are reference points in your living in San Antonio,” to which Amado responded, “Yes, that is very true. I made the commitment to stay in this town a long time ago, but I also made a commitment to art, so I had to find a way of making substantial or meaningful art. One way of doing that was to refer to what San Antonio is and the pleasures that San Antonio has to offer in terms of its imagery and the kind of things that surrounded me when I was a child.”