UT Permian Basin art student heading to Paris for unique opportunity

ODESSA, Texas — Art is a journey.

“When I was little, I always just carried around like pencils and paper,” UTPB Art Student Madison Guerrero said. “I didn’t really play with toys a lot. It was always just drawings.”

For Guerrero, that journey is taking her to The City of Light.

“With the residency in France, that’s going to be a trip that me and my professor are going to take and it’s going to be strictly for undergrad research that we’re going to be conducting over there,” Guerrero said. “And then once we do that down there, we’re going to come back and also finish out the research. And that’s going to consist of making different materials from natural things like plants, dirt, water just making and extracting the pigments from stuff from France over there and we’re going to use those materials to make pieces out of them.”

As a senior in college, this month-long opportunity to work with all sorts of artists from around the world doesn’t just fall onto anybody’s paint palette.

“So usually people my age don’t do residencies until they’re like in their 50s and 60s when they’re like established,” Guerrero said. “So for me to go at 22, it’s kind of like unreal and unheard of.”

Something else that’s unreal is Guerrero’s award-winning pieces.

That vivid talent will definitely be painting an impression on the city of Paris in June.

But before she climbs the Eiffel Tower and tries some escargots and macarons, Guerrero is working at Stone Tower Grafix, a custom graphic design and screen-printing shop in Odessa.

After working there for the past three years, she’s definitely caught the eye of owner Santiago Solomon.

“And she’s been nothing but great, you know, for our staff,” Solomon said. “She’s able to learn a little bit of everything. And she’s definitely not afraid of getting dirty. She’s an artist through and through, so she’ll get in there, she’ll clean things. She’ll get in the with the ink and stuff. So she’s definitely a great asset to our company.”

And in turn, Solomon has taken Guerrero under his creative wing.

“So he definitely has helped me progress my artwork, and then I always ask him, like, ‘what do you think about this or, you know, how would I make this better?'” Guerrero said. “He’s always helping me on my designing part and then that also plays a big factor in my finished products too.”

And for Guerrero, she wouldn’t be going on this voyage across the world without this print shop on Andrews Highway.

“I love working here,” Guerrero said. “They’re just– they’re so great. They’re so generous. They’re amazing. They’re just great people and they are like family to me.”

And families help each other out.

“Santiago pitched the idea like we want to help sponsor any way we can,” Guerrero said. “And then he came up with like, ‘hey, what if we just design a shirt for you’, you know, and just have people help you that way so that they get to wear this shirt, they get to show your artwork in another way while you’re over there doing more.”

And the design she drew will help her remember her print shop family and home in a place that’s so far away.

“It’s going to be like a really big culture shock for me going over there,” Guerrero said. “And I think that it’s going to be a really great experience to combine everything I know here and then just go over there and learn something like totally different and still be able to be like, well, I’m still a Texan.”

So let’s just say Guerrero will be showing France the West Texan way.

To see NewsWest 9’s past story about Guerrero, click here.