In 1966, Carlos Hernández Chávez was rocking out with his band Los Esclavos, or The Slaves, at a coffee house in Mexico when he met a woman from Connecticut named Georgianne Nelson.
At the time, he was studying art at The Academy of San Carlos, the first major art school in the continent.
Once he finished his studies, he found himself with an opportunity in the U.S. to audition for the British band The Animals as their bass player. Knowing Nelson lived in Connecticut, a young and in love Chávez bought a plane ticket for New York City.
He arrived with five bags and $100 in his pocket. After a night spent at the airport in Hartford, a cab ride to her house in West Hartford, and a bus ride to the Aetna Insurance Company where she worked, Chávez found her.
Listen: Muralist Carlos Hernández Chávez reflects on love, art and activism
After the two reconnected, Chávez asked her to come to San Francisco with him where the audition with The Animals was waiting for him.
“She said, no, I’m not going. So, I stayed,” Chávez said.
He settled down in Hartford where he and Nelson fostered about 30 children, raising nine of their own children, five of which were adopted. The two were married until Nelson’s death in 2006. While in Hartford, he exhibited murals and paintings and advocated for the rights of artists as an activist.
His active involvement in the arts scene earned him the 2024 Distinguished Mexicans Recognition award from the Consulate General of Mexico in Boston, awarded to him at a private ceremony in Hartford in early December.
“Somebody’s paying attention to what I have done, and I’m glad for that,” he said. “I never work to look for recognition.”
Depicting fortitude and family
Chávez created his first mural in Hartford in 1974. It is called “The Human Condition.” It depicts the trials and tribulations that people went through in the city which he noticed while serving as a social worker, including poor housing conditions like cockroach infestations and health issues like alcoholism.
The mural also shows, however, two male figures: one working with a shovel to represent the working man and one with a clenched fist to represent fortitude.
“It’s a purifying symbol that we have the strength to overcome if we work and we study,” he said. “That was the mural that started springing me up in the activism in art.”
He created his latest mural, “Sugar Beet Workers,” in 2009 thanks to a grant from the Roberts Foundation for the Arts. It depicts migrant workers supplying food for the American Table.
“There's an American flag in the shape of a table, and the legs of the table are migrant workers,” he said.
The mural highlights his own migrant experience, showcasing his family through the generations. A photograph of the sugar beet fields in Nebraska taken around 1925 inspired the mural, Chávez said. His family worked in those fields until his parents were among more than a million people of Mexican descent repatriated during the Great Depression, he said.
Other images in the mural include a map of Mexico before the United States expanded, which Chávez calls “stolen” territory, and a barbed wire which, Chávez said, represents oppression and pain, a symbol he has used in other works of art.
Chávez used a lot of his artwork to send a message about strong subject matters.
“The response that I’ve gotten over the years about some of that work is, ‘Well, it doesn’t fit in my living room.’ Well, it’s not meant for your living room. It’s meant for somebody who appreciates the idea behind the work,” Chávez said.
Art as Activism
Chávez also got involved in artist rights issues as an activist.
Back in the 70s, a festival held in Constitution Plaza in downtown Hartford required artists to pay to be considered for a place at the event to exhibit their work, according to Chávez. The artists, he said, were also expected to give 20% of what they sold to the organization.
“[The organization] paid for the sound system, they paid for the tents, they paid for the staging, they paid for all these things and the publicity, and yet you're asking visual artists to pay to participate. It was very wrong,” he said.
Chávez helped organize a statewide boycott and an alternative artists’ festival that he said brought about changes and the closure of the other festival.
Later on in 1978, Chávez helped draft legislation with a small group of artists that would provide state funding for public art projects.
The 1% for Art legislation requires that the state reserves 1% of funds for the purchase of artwork for construction or rehabilitation projects of state properties.
“There’s a lot of colleges and courthouses and a lot of other places that have artwork generated by this 1%. The State Capitol, the legislative office, is one. You should see the woodwork, the floor work, that they did. There’s a number of artworks in that place that are just amazing, out of the 1% for Art. All for the benefit of the public. Really, a public service,” he said.
He also advocated for artist compensation while serving as a board member for the Roberts Foundation. According to Chávez, he proposed that any art exhibit proposal that comes before the board has to include an item where it shows that the artists are being compensated.
“The exhibit becomes comparable to a concert, because people are enjoying your work, the same way as people are enjoying your concert. And people say, well, that’s apples and oranges. No, it isn’t. It is an artist's product that should be compensated,” he said.
That policy still stands today, something Chávez said he is very happy and proud of.
'Sirvan de Algo' / 'Be Helpful'
Chávez called receiving the 2024 Distinguished Mexicans Recognition award a humbling and emotional experience. It not only reflects all that his family did for him, he said, but it also shows the impact of all the work he did for his community.
Chávez remembered his mother always said to him, “Sirvan de algo.” In other words, make yourself useful and be helpful.
“Those words resonated throughout my life, just by doing what I have been doing,” he said.
Though he may not be as active as he was in his youth, 81-year-old Chávez is still doing work in the community to help improve the services that arts organizations provide.
“The ideal is that if you help others, and others help others and others help others, nobody would need anything,” Chávez said.
