First Friday to feature Frijol Boy

By Allison Duck

Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009 | 6:53 p.m.

“I never called myself an artist before,” explained local artist Frijol Boy, “I thought that word was thrown around way too much like ‘love.’” After many showings at First Friday, Frijol Boy, aka Juan Muniz, was ready to put his own show together.

“When I first started getting involved with First Friday after moving here from San Diego, I got accepted so quickly by such great people.” This deep appreciation of the local arts scene led him to create a bigger, more comprehensive show that incorporates other artistic expressions. Always being impressed by the vibe and turnout at The Gypsy Den, this venue seemed perfect for his brainchild, Frijolero Fest.

In addition to a plethora of works from Frijol Boy (he cranked out about 100 pieces for this show), First Friday fans can enjoy body painting, psychic readings and live music from Menores, Dr. Hiztera and Zach Ryan. Fellow artists like Miss Cupcake will have paintings and accessories for sale as well, featuring her signature adorable cupcakes on barrettes, bows and framed canvases. Read on to learn more about Frijol Boy’s evolution as an artist and his unique mediums.

What do you do when you’re not painting?

I started tattooing about six years ago and after a while the passion wasn’t there anymore but I still wanted to be around that type of place so when Vince Neil Ink opened I took a job sterilizing the equipment.

What made you stop tattooing?

After a while, it wasn’t about creating the art I wanted to create; it was about creating other people’s art. I’m really ADD with my art to where I need to jump from one medium to another. With tattooing, it restricted me to do just one thing when one day I want to draw and the next day I want to paint, the next day I want to do acrylics, watercolors or whatever.

How did you start painting on glass?

One of the artists at the tattoo shop where I work paints on glass and I wanted to learn because I thought my stuff would look really cool on it. I kind of figured out my own way of doing it and all of a sudden more and more people started liking my stuff.

What is it like working with glass?

I recently started using plexiglass too, even though it’s more expensive because plexiglass doesn’t break and I break a lot of paintings on the way to shows. It always happens at least once per show. I still use both glass and plexiglass, which is a lot less forgiving than glass. If I get the paint a little bit outside of where I want it to be, I can use a knife to scrape it off the glass but with plexiglass I can’t really do that. I’m still experimenting to see what I really want to do with this. Sometimes I use two plates of glass to give it depth and dimension.

How did you get your start as an artist?

I was always the kid in class who was drawing. All the girls would ask, “Can you draw me something cute?” I used to want to be a cartoonist and that’s why I went to school for animation. As I grew up, more people kept asking me to draw cute stuff and I got kind of annoyed but I was good at it. I basically started destroying these cute things and tearing them apart in my drawings. As I got older and started listening to punk rock, my art came to represent one of the strongest things I believe in and that’s the idea that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Sometimes it will be a bright, colorful, cartoony image that attracts you then if you look at it and see the real message, the deeper meaning.

What are the origins of your artist name, Frijol Boy?

The whole Frijol Boy thing was just a joke. My friends called me Johnny growing up and that turned into Johnny Boy. The I got into the whole rebellious phase and the punk rock phase and people would look at me and say that I didn’t look or dress or talk like a Mexican. I was thinking that I didn’t know I was supposed to. So I started writing Bean Boy as my name and from that it became Frijol Boy.

How do you think that name plays into how your audience perceives your work?

It’s just funnier trying to have people read it off of my paintings. I don’t do a lot of Hispanic imagery. People don’t see my work and think that a Mexican kid did it. You can’t really tell and I think that’s how it should be. I’m not a Mexican creating Mexican art. I’m just me creating my art.