Alfonso “Piloto” Nieves was at a friend’s birthday party—still going strong at almost 4 AM the day before Christmas Eve—when he got a call on his cell from Omar Magaña. Magaña owned the Little Village building where Nieves, an award-winning sculptor, rented a studio in the attic. He told Nieves the building was on fire.
Since most of his real family is in Mexico, that meant a lot to Nieves.
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After the second phone call, he and Marco Tellez, a building resident who was also at the party, ran in the cold to Tellez’s car, then headed west toward Little Village. As they drove past taquerias and shuttered stores on Cermak, they could see plumes of smoke and the glow of flames rising from their block. As they drew closer the scene got worse: firefighters stood on ladders above the disintegrating roof of the building, aiming jets of water at it from fire hoses.
In a sense, the fire was a fitting demise for Nieves’s sculptures, focused as they were on death and destruction. Though he is relatively new to art, Nieves has a lifelong fascination with darkness.
Soon he started studying ceramics at Truman. Encouraged by his teacher and mentor, Jose Garcia, Nieves began spending long hours experimenting with sculpture ideas, and he reached into other media, learning welding and other technical skills from artist friends. But he also needed to pay the rent, so he worked—waiting tables, cooking, coaching football, and teaching art to young kids in after-school programs.
Nieves is putting the new piece together in the basement of his aunt and uncle’s house. At its center is a dejected angel, with wings made from goat jawbones acquired from a local butcher. It sits on top of a life-size human head; from the head’s ear protrudes a metal wheel adorned with wailing skeletons.
Fri 2/8, 9 PM, 2716 W. North, www. expresionesartisticas.org. Donations will be collected to help residents who lost their homes in the fire.
