Arts, Culture, and Community Impact
At the Alamo Colleges District, connection, creativity, and community come together to nurture growth, healing, and our shared humanity.
Through storytelling and the arts—rooted in practices of healing and wholeness—we cultivate spaces where every voice is seen, heard, and valued, empowering students and employees to thrive together.
Our work reflects compassion, reciprocity, and a deep commitment to collective flourishing.
Common Ground Gallery
Location: 2222 N. Alamo St., San Antonio, Texas 78215
La Línea/The Line: Works by Vincent Valdez
Exhibit will be on display from October 7, 2026 – February 26, 2027
Opening Reception: Wednesday October 7, 2026, Doors open at 5:30pm, Remarks at 6:00pm
Monday-Friday, 8am – 5pm
Common Ground Gallery Closures:
- Friday, October 30, 2026
- Wednesday, November 11, 2026
- Thursday, November 26, 2026 & Friday, November 27, 2026
- Monday, December 21, 2026, through Sunday, January 3, 2027
- Monday, January 18, 2027
La Línea/The Line brings together a constellation of works by Vincent Valdez that reflect a deep and enduring meditation on lineage – personal, cultural, historical, and artistic. Across more than two decades of practice, Valdez has returned to the question of inheritance: what we carry in our blood, our memory, our communities, and our collective imagination. Through painting, drawing, printmaking, and sculpture, the exhibition moves across scale and time, tracing the visible and invisible lines that connect generations.
At the heart of the exhibition is Valdez’s ongoing series La Línea/The Line, presented prominently for the first time. Created in lithograph crayon on vellum, these drawings map the artist’s familial bloodline while opening outward into a broader reflection on the layered histories of Chicano, Mexican American, and Latinx communities in the United States. The works function simultaneously as archive, testimony, and act of remembrance – illuminating stories too often omitted, fragmented, or forgotten. In Valdez’s hands, the line becomes more than mark-making; it becomes ancestry, border, wound, resistance, and continuity. Each gesture carries the weight of those who came before and the enduring presence of those who continue to shape the cultural and social fabric of this country.
Programs and Initiatives
Story, Healing, Hope
Through storytelling, education, and collective reflection, we create spaces where individuals can show up as their full selves and feel seen, heard, and valued.
- Truth, Community Healing, & Transformation
- Community Media and Storytelling
- CompassionateUSA
Culture, Collaboration, and Community
Through workshops, artistic expression, leadership programs, and inclusive events, we center impacted voices and support both student and employee flourishing.
- Student and Employee Experiences
- Retreat and Workshop Facilitation
- Visual and Performing Arts
The Inaugural Artist in Residence Program
About Vincent Valdez
Vincent Valdez blends large, representational paintings—the scale of which recall Western traditions of history painting as well as mural painting and cinema—with contemporary subject matter. He focuses on subjects that explore his observations and experience of life in the twenty-first century. The results are powerful images of American identity that confront injustice and inequity while imbuing his subjects with empathy and humanity. Valdez states, “My aim is to incite public remembrance and to impede distorted realities that I witness, like the social amnesia that surrounds us all.”
A recipient of the Ford and Mellon Foundations Latinx Artist Fellowship (2022), Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors (2016), as well as residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting (2005), the Vermont Studio Center (2011), the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency (2014), and the Arion Press’ King Residency (2023), Valdez currently lives and works between Houston and Los Angeles. Exhibitions and Collections include: The Ford Foundation, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and The National Portrait Gallery, among others. He lives and works in Houston and Los Angeles.
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Árbol de la Vida: Revolución de la EducaciónOn Display in the ACCESS Lobby The Árbol de la Vida: Revolución de la Educación serves as a living testament to who we are as a district and a community. Molly Flores, a Palo Alto College student, had the opportunity to contribute to the art piece. Watch the Making of Árbol de la Vida Documentary
About Verónica Castillo
Verónica Castillo is an internationally acclaimed artist from Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, México. At a very young age, under the tutelage of her parents, renowned artists Don Alfonso Castillo Orta and Doña Soledad Martha Hernández Báez, she was exposed to the artistic technique of working in polychromatic ceramics. Verónica continues to build upon these traditions while focusing on contemporary issues of injustice and inequality. In 2013, Verónica Castillo received the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship Award. She is the owner of E.V.A. (Ecos y Voces de Arte), a gallery on the Southside of San Antonio. Together with an international network of artists, E.V.A. offers the space and support for various forms of cultural art to thrive. |
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Alamo Colleges District Unveils La Aula at Westside Education and Training CenterThe Alamo Colleges District unveiled La Aula, a monumental outdoor sculpture created by acclaimed artist Olaniyi Akindiya, also known as Akirash, at the Westside Education and Training Center. Located in the circular drive near the facility’s main entrance, the sculpture serves as a welcoming focal point for learners, employees and community members. The work reflects the West Side’s history, culture and natural landscape while honoring the Westside Education and Training Center’s role as a place of learning, workforce development and community connection. |
