Jesse Trevino’s art and healing post-war journey
There is no better way to celebrate Memorial Day and honor the fallen than to recount the story of Jesse Trevino, one of San Antonio’s most prolific artists.
Credits of the belong to Jesse Trevino. The image is from The Smithsonian exhibition: Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975
Trevino’s powerful and inspirational story of overcoming the odds in the midst of a struggle for survival is as captivating as his art.
Trevino was born in 1946. Four years later, his family immigrated to San Antonio, Texas, from Monterrey, Mexico. Trevino, a young man of prodigious artistic talent, earned a scholarship to the prestigious art school, the Art Students League of New York. During this time, Trevino sketched portraits of tourists to earn money while in school.
Life was good. He could never have imagined the direction his life would take when he received a military draft notice.
Because Trevino was not a U.S.-born citizen, he was not technically required to serve in the military. However, this was not an option for him and he proudly accepted the draft and entered basic training.
Shortly after basic training, Trevino was deployed to Vietnam. One day, while patrolling a rice field, the unthinkable happened: He triggered a booby trap and suffered a shattered femur, a severed artery and other shrapnel wounds.
“I fell face down in the mud,” he said. “As I looked out and I could see the water, it was like a real dark red." He expected to die that day, but as the medics worked on him, he thought of art and the subjects he would paint if he lived through this. If silver linings are real, one might say that art saved his life that day.
The trauma Trevino sustained ended his career in the Army. He was sent home a broken man, with devastating injuries to his right arm, the one he used to create art. After several surgeries, it became clear that his painting arm would have to be amputated.
The repercussions of these events sent Trevino into a state of depression. He now faced an uncertain future. During his recovery time in Fort Sam Houston, Trevino developed a friendship with Armando Albarran, a patient who had lost his legs in the war.
Albarran relentlessly urged Trevino to paint again, but Trevino refused time and again.
It wasn’t until 1968, when Albarran again asked Trevino to paint him, that he finally agreed. Although it was a challenge to paint with his left hand, Trevino finished the portrait after a week and a half. Albarran was the influence that reignited Trevino’s artistic fire.
Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, Trevino enrolled in art courses and learned to paint fully with his left hand.
His most prominent work of art is “Mi Vida,” or My Life, which he painted on a wall in his home. When he sold the home, he left the painting intact and the owner preserved the piece. The painting depicts the symbols of Trevino’s life: a self-portrait of him as a soldier, his car, his Purple Heart medal and his prosthetic arm. The painting is now on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in an exhibition titled, “Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975.”
Since then, Trevino has won national awards and been commissioned to complete many landmark pieces, including a 3D mosaic mural, “La Veladora of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” and his most notable piece in San Antonio, “The Spirit of Healing,” a nine-story tiled mural of a guardian angel at a hospital.
Now, at age 73, Trevino is still determined, despite health issues, to create unique art that tells stories. “In each piece, there’s a story behind it,” he said.
He is currently working on a commissioned piece in San Antonio to honor veterans: a 100-foot steel tower at Elmendorf Lake.
Trevino’s incredible story of survival and triumph continues to manifest itself through his artwork today and is the pride of the San Antonio community.