By M.G. Perez, Senior Reporter
If Pride has a texture, Leo Chiachio and Daniel Giannone have contributed to its progression. They are married Argentinian artists trained as painters who now use threads and fabric to create hand embroidery and textile mosaics. They “paint with needles” and a genuine understanding of family — not a traditional family, but their own.
Their current residency at the Lux Art Institute in Encinitas often features mosaics of themselves and their dogs filled with humor and fantasy sewn from a strong LGBTQ legacy in Latin America. Now they are looking for collaborators from North County to continue their passion for a rainbow flag imagined through a Latinx lens.
No artistic experience needed, just a desire to create community. They are also asking for contributions of cotton textiles like bed sheets, tablecloths, and old T-shirts. The cloth will be dyed into colors of a Pride flag and then used as the canvas for personal messages of love and support unfurled in the form of a Latinx flag.
The community flag event is a partnership with the North County LGBTQ Resource Center, where the collaboration will be held on Saturday, March 14, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Once Chiachio and Giannone have completed the creative collaboration, it will stay in North County through June. The Center’s Pride by the Beach celebration has been granted permission to display the newly created Latinx flag during the event Saturday, June 13, near the Oceanside Pier. “It’s an honor,” says Pride by the Beach Director Lisa Nava, “we heal through art, we understand through art and it’s a perfect setting as part of our 14th annual family-friendly festival.” Nava points proudly to the fact that the North County event in June is free and safe for children with a no-alcohol policy within the festival’s confines. This year’s theme is #BESEEN2020 and features the annual Queer Variety Show on the main stage. Applications for the show are now being taken at https://www.pridebythebeach.org/queer-variety-show
