- Will you consider this?

Look out John, Paul, George, and Ringo, Central Illinois has its own Fab Four.

Wait, what?

Yep, Alex, Bob, Miguel, and Rick.

Stay right here and I'll have this quartet explain.

(upbeat music) You relocate, you love elderly old homes, stately old homes, you find plenty of room to set up an art studio in your home.

And that abode is in a neighborhood that for at least a century has had many, many people curious about the well preserved places.

Take a lot of work.

But you're world-renowned artists and you invite folks into your homes and studios at ArtHAUS.

You've met the artists of Moss Avenue on "Consider This" before, but here they are not individually, we have Bob Doucette and Rick Dienzo Blanco and Alex Carmona and Miguel Rocha, Roja.

A lot of different explanations, but welcome, gentlemen.

- Thank you.

- How fun.

- Thanks for having us.

- And you're friends of mine too, which is really, really quite an honor to have you here.

Let's start with ArtHAUS, spelled A-R-T-H-A-U-S. We had had a lot of Germans here back in the day, but that doesn't have anything to do with the name of this event you put together, Bob and Rick.

- Yeah, the name was a point of discussion, definitely.

We put it to the team to, you know, kind of brainstorm some ideas for it, and ArtHAUS was actually kind of inspired by Bauhaus movement, you know, the intention of combining art and the homes in a way that also felt artistic, so to speak.

- Well, that is, yeah.

- So, yeah.

So, I guess that won on the vote.

It was a close call.

- Yeah, we were trying to get something that really, very succinctly kind of told you the whole story in one word.

So it's hard to, like, make decisions when you have four artists in a room, because- - [Christine] Well, creative people, yeah, exactly.

- But we democratically voted on it, and now we're all used to it, so it all works for us, but it says it all, art and house, so.

- So when did you incubate this idea?

Was it first the two of you, or, I don't know, there's been some discussion about that too, so.

- Well, yeah, well, the story is that ever since Rick came here, so Rick and I know each other from California, so it was like having, you know, an art buddy here, it was a real touchstone for me to know that there was someone that I could go and who would understand my background all without having to say anything.

So, we kind of decided early on that we have to do something artistically together.

And then this guy, Alex, comes from Colorado, and he brings his art buddy, Miguel from Colorado, and they have a similar relationship, and so we knew that the four of us would be a powerful combination, just to see everybody and the variety of work that we have, we knew that that was an important thing.

- And all on Moss Avenue within five blocks of one another, which is also incredible.

- Absolutely, yep.

- Exactly.

- Convenient.

- Yes.

I think that there was a real element of this in the beginning of talking about how it was kind of destined to be, and Chelsea, Alex's wife, who is not with us, but is actually what I call the brain of the organization- - [Christine] She was the organizer, yeah, she was.

- She is one of our most important members in that she really held us all together, you know?

- She got it.

- Absolutely.

- Well, I think, you know, artists like to come up with big ideas, but it's like that- - How's it gonna work?

- Who's gonna keep produce us, keep us in line, yeah, and putting it together.

But I had heard of art studio visits, and I had never done that before, and people had asked me since I moved here, "Are you gonna do an art studio tour?"

And then just about the beginning of the year, I was talking to Rick and I said, "You know, they do these holiday home tours.

We all have beautiful historic homes.

Wouldn't it be great to combine a studio tour with a historical home tour?"

So that's where it started.

- Well, and so, four houses and Alex, your house was the first one on the tour, followed by Miguel, so.

And your wife is the brains behind the operation, and you listen to her.

- (laughs) We all do.

- Yeah.

You know, if you get four artists together, and like you said, we have a lot of ideas, but we need somebody to wrangle us in, hit the gavel and say, "Be quiet for a sec.

We weren't talking about that, that's later."

So, logistically, and very creatively as well, she helped out with a lot of...

I mean, this would be impossible to do without her, so she was really not only the brains, but really structurally held all of us together for this thing that we really pulled together in, what, three months?

- Yeah, how many months?

- And being the first event, we were like, oh, man, maybe we'll be able to get 50, 100 people maybe to come, and it was- - [Christine] Over 300.

- It was over 300 people I think.

- And you found sponsorships, you got sponsorships.

So, after your house, the next stop was at Miguel's, and that gave you the impetus to move from the main floor and get your studio done on your third floor.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- 'Cause I was working out of the second floor, our spare bedroom, and Bob and Rick are like, "Hey, we're gonna do a studio tour."

I'm like, "I really don't have a studio.

I have a blank space upstairs, but that's it."

So yeah, just really getting everything done to meet the timeline.

- So you two are print makers.

Much different than they are painters.

Let's talk about the 300 people who came through.

And it was a three day, two evenings, one afternoon thing.

All walks of life were represented.

- Absolutely, yeah.

We had a good variety.

Yes, surprising.

And what was great about it is, I think we discussed this in our postmortem, was maybe 50% of the people were there for the art, and the other 50 were there for the homes.

- For the homes.

- But those who came for the homes enjoyed the art, you know?

So it was like, overall, the pull was there in two different directions, and we got people from, I think all walks of life going through there.

Some people who were not capable of getting up the staircase to our studios.

- Right, because, well, you're on the second floor.

You're on the main, well, the main floor.

You got a couple steps to get in the house.

But the third floor, third floor, second floor.

- Second floor, yeah.

- And there's no elevators in these homes that are over 100 years old.

- Not yet.

- Not yet.

Oh, that might be next year.

- I can't commit to that.

- Okay.

All right, so, 300 people came through.

What were any big surprises that maybe you didn't anticipate?

- Honestly, I was just surprised, you know?

You have faith in this and you trust that, you know, okay, if we build it, they will come sort of thing.

And I think the first indicator was when we did a... For Friday night, we did a VIP experience.

And we had allocated something that was gonna be pretty small, we wanted like 20 people, 'cause that's what we thought we could manage in each home.

And then that sold out pretty quickly, and we're like, "Oh, okay, that's cool."

So then more people were interested in doing that and we thought, "Well, maybe we should add another one."

So we ended up doing two sessions in the VIP, which logistically was quite challenging.

- [Christine] Because you were running back down to the first house, right?

In between?

- Right, so we had to do a cycle for each.

And what was different about the VIP tour was that we each personally curated it through our homes, so we gave a guided tour.

But we had, you know, cocktails and hor d'oeuvres, and we ended at my house, which has a bar in it, so we had a little- - That Alex built for you.

- Yes, well, he helped.

- I helped.

- It was definitely a collaborative effort, as many of the projects that we work on are.

- [Christine] I need you at my house.

- No, but then by the time general admission came around, I was just like, "People keep coming in."

And I'm like, I waited for a break, and they would come in waves, and I was just like, "Thank goodness, we did it."

- So, that wasn't surprising to you at all?

- I guess I'm... Now that we talk about this, I'm surprised as to how well everything went.

I mean, the VIP tour was logistically pretty... That was the hardest part about it, I think.

The other days are very easy 'cause you're just mingling, talking to people.

But having two groups that you have to coordinate, okay, we don't want these groups bumping into each other, 'cause then there's 40 people in a house plus all of us.

So, getting that whole timeline down, and I feel like we needed walkie-talkies or something, you know, it's like, get over here.

- Next year we're doing walkie-talkies.

- FaceTime.

- But yeah, it still, even with a few hiccups, worked out really well.

- Yeah.

- I think that, A, Chelsea, I'm gonna say that five times fast.

Chelsea truly had a vision in mind, because, like, any time you thought of something, she thought of it 10 minutes earlier and twice as in depth.

- [Christine] And had it already figured out.

- [Alex] She would have it written down somewhere.

- She was really smart about that because- - [Rick] Clipboard, go for Chelsea.

- Yeah, exactly.

There were times when we were like, "Ugh, I don't know," and she had already thought it through.

But it was complicated, and I think that the other thing that was great about this is, I said this to these guys over and over again, my greatest pride was going to their houses, because I was like, oh my God, they not only stepped up to the plate, they surpassed anything that I expected.

And it was, I mean, as an outsider, if I had not had my house involved at all, I would've thought it was an awesome event.

But it was great to hear that from the public, you know?

To have people say, "This was my favorite event this year."

- That's awesome.

- So that was a very good compliment.

- And then Miguel, you have Mira, so she cracked the whip on you as well, right, too?

And did she crack the whip on anybody else, or?

- Nope, just me.

- Just you.

She didn't work with Chelsea to goose anybody along the way?

- There was a few times they worked together, but for the most part, she was cracking the whip on me, just trying to get everything done.

You have an idea and everybody's putting in work in their homes, not only also their artwork.

So, one idea turns into another, which turns into another, so just trying to wrangle all those ideas into one and making sure that it's done by the timeline.

- The melting pot, yeah.

So, sponsors were not necessarily part of VIP night.

They were two together, right?

- Some of them were, and some of them chose to come on the other evenings, but they were certainly welcome.

And the response was fantastic.

Now, when you're planning a first event, no one knows who you are, they don't know...

I mean, with what little goodwill we have, it doesn't amount to, like, "Can I have your money?"

You know, that's not something you do to people.

So it took a great deal of trust to go to people that we really knew and- - And worked with.

- Worked with.

So, I mean, we had some, they were fantastic, and I would name them all, but I would be afraid that I'd forget one of them.

- Forget some.

- So I'm just gonna say we love them all for helping, and it was wonderful.

- We'll make sure that there's a picture of everybody.

- Awesome.

- But then for general public, it was $25 a person?

- Presale, and then 35 at the door.

- At the door?

All right.

And you had a lot of volunteers to help.

But publicity-wise, you didn't do a whole lot, and then with that money... Oh, well, you had merchandise tables too, so you were able to sell some of your wares.

Was that pretty successful as well?

- Yeah, I mean that was really kind of, you know, of the two levels, that's what we often do.

So, Bob and I have done the art fairs here, the Riverfront Art Fair.

Alex did it as well.

The Peoria Heights Art Fair, which are great.

And so we had started to build some sort of rapport already locally.

And so rather than, you know, focusing on those for this year, we thought, well, we can try this other sort of event, and that's the type of work that we were selling.

So, we sold originals and we sold prints, some other merchandise.

Like, you have your books.

- Books.

- Which are amazing by the way.

And, you know, just multiple little things, really.

And it's not high pressure, right?

It's just kind of, we wanted something that felt immersive and that people could kind of see and get a point of view, 'cause when you're looking at the art, you know, there's so much of our personalities in the houses, and so you can kind of see, okay, I get the vibe, you know?

- That works.

- So that's what we were kind of going for.

- Yeah, it's very interesting, if you follow the lines of our work as well as our houses, there's like a theme there.

We start with Alex and Miguel, all light and cheerful and happy, and then we get to Rick's house.

- Creepy and dark.

- We're in a haunted house.

(all laughing) And I would like to say at this point that one of the things in our planning stage that we really considered was, it was not just about doing an event to make money, because in the end, we're all gonna find ways of making money.

What was important to us is to do something that was good for our community also, and that was kind of...

I always say this was like our love letter to Peoria, because we love it here, we love our homes and we're proud of our homes, and we have probably the best studios we've ever had, you know?

It's a great environment.

But we love our neighbors, and we wanted to bring them in and have them see why we love it so much.

- What's going on in there, yeah.

And you're all transplants, that's the best part.

And yes, your house is light and airy, a lot of windows.

Yours is too.

And you've only been in town how long?

- We've lived here about three and a half years now.

- [Christine] Okay.

Then you came a year later?

- Two years, year later.

- Two years?

And Rick, you came in- - 2020.

- [Christine] And you've been here about five years, right?

- Five years, yep.

I'm the old timer in all kinds of ways.

- Veteran.

- Yeah, veteran, thank you.

Well, so, you know, people did buy tickets to get in.

Now, at some point, year number two, are you already in the planning stages?

And any profits where you got ideas where you'd like those profits to go?

- Well, absolutely.

I mean, again, we're surprised by how it did, and that's just given us more reason to say, okay, we gotta do this again.

And we're already, I think it was the next day we're like, "Okay, so for next year, here's what we're gonna do," you know?

It was very much like, this is definitely something that we wanna annualize, we wanna make it bigger.

We had talked about wanting to integrate, like, a scholarship for art students, something to that effect.

- So at the high school level or at the college level, or have you thought about?

You haven't gotten to that part yet.

- We haven't got the details, but we're working on that.

- Yeah, and anything, there was also several families that came with their kids and interested in art, and I thought, this is a great way to say, like, art can be a living.

- You can do it too.

- You know, this is what you can do, and this is how you can live.

It's something that for us is so important to communicate, that people understand that, you know, it's not some far off thing over in Los Angeles or Colorado or New York.

It's right here.

It's wherever you are.

So, being awesome is just where you are, and we just happen to be in Peoria.

- And you're awesome.

- So we're gonna make it awesome here.

- Yeah, okay.

(laughs) So yeah, the California awesomeness and then the Colorado awesomeness.

What do you think, I mean, and you've probably, you know, decompressed then with Chelsea, what would you do different?

What will you do different next year?

- Well, specifically, I can't answer that 100%, but we do know that we don't, as artists, whether it's working on a project or something like this, it's always better if you're not doing the same thing, right?

So we are gonna challenge ourselves to make this different every year, even if it means us not being the featured artists and we bring other artists in.

So we have a lot of different ideas.

We just don't quite know exactly what that's gonna look like yet, but we all have a lot of creative ideas for- - We have more than three months to figure it out.

- [Alex] Yeah.

- But you'll keep it in your homes on Moss Avenue and invite other artists in, or you don't know that yet?

You're still incubating that one.

- Yeah, we didn't wanna limit it to Moss.

I mean, this was really proof of concept.

We know each other, we're practically family now, and it was something like, if you're gonna take a risk, do it with people you trust, you know?

So, if there were gonna be sort of obstacles in the road to figure it out, this was the team to do it.

I think now, we've pretty much agreed that we want this to be bigger.

And there are so many other artists on Moss, but also beyond Moss.

So, kind of like the holiday home tour, it's not just on the street, it's other parts of Peoria.

So we definitely think that's an important aspect.

- Yeah, we made a point at the beginning, too.

'Cause we had talked about this, you know, at first we were, like, talking about, is it art on Moss?

And the only reason why I liked that idea was because we wanted to say it's homes, our homes, but I think Alex was correct when he said, "Let's not limit it", and we tried to always keep things open, because like he said, artists always wanna improve and come up with new ideas or they get bored, you know?

You know, they gotta come up- - Well, it's that creative brain, that right brain, you gotta keep- - Feeding it.

- Right, exactly.

- The curse of creativity at times.

- But now that we have ArtHAUS as a thing and we have lots of pictures and film, we can package this and just say, you remember ArtHAUS?

ArtHAUS presents, and then we can pull in whatever idea we have, you know?

- What did you hear from other artists in the area?

And they attended and they knew it was going on, so what did you hear?

- I think artists and people in general were just overwhelmingly very happy.

I mean, I don't think we had hardly any criticism at all, it's like, "Thank you so much for doing this.

This is incredible, it's amazing."

And we were told over and over, like, "This is the best event we've been to in Peoria."

And we're like- - Okay.

- And that's one of the things we set out to do at the beginning of this, was we don't want this just to be a regular event.

We wanna find ways to make it special.

- [Christine] Yeah, and not same old, same old.

- And especially if we're charging people to come in, they have to have some sort of benefit.

So, something that they get out of it.

And everybody was just very, very happy to be there.

- And supportive.

They're like asking us, "Please do this again," you know?

And that sort of reciprocity of response is just something that fuels us, 'cause then we're excited and we're motivated, you know, to like, oh, wait till next year, we're gonna top this, it's gonna be...

I think about that for Halloween.

This is just another application of that.

- Right.

That's so fun.

And you guys are very verbose.

Now, we need to hear something more from Miguel.

He's always so quiet, you know?

And you, I can't remember, did you learn some of your craft from him?

'Cause you are a printmaker.

- So we traveled the country to different car shows.

I saw his artwork but I never really understood it 'cause I was...

I love cars.

As soon as we got to a car show and helped set him up, I'm like, "Hey, I'm gonna go check out some cars.

I'll be back later.

Call me if you need anything."

So, the majority of my stuff I learned from my printmaking professor.

So, taking everything that she's taught me and then just improving on that and learning from others, like, some of the stuff that he does, so just adding more to it is how I keep learning.

- Okay, we got him to talk.

All right, so, what is, each of you, what is maybe the most interesting question that you got about your house or about your art?

- Oh, boy.

Actually, it's easy for us.

We get interesting questions about our artwork all the time 'cause it's kind of unusual.

So, we basically have to carve a piece of wood and then turn it into a stamp, and then that's what we stamp our paper with.

It's the easiest way to explain it.

And it's a very old art form, but people don't really see it anymore.

- [Christine] Right, you're old school Alex.

- Yep, that's it.

So, I constantly keep getting, always get questions about, are these paintings or are these drawings?

And so I always have to explain to them, and so I'll have, like, examples of, okay, here's the woodblock and then here's the print, and here's how it works.

So, I would say that for me was, you know, the common- - That was the thing?

And then Miguel, you had the cassette tape wall.

Did people notice that?

Did they question anything about that?

Or what was your question in your studio?

- Yes, that was a big hit for people coming in.

They're like, "You still listen to cassettes?"

I'm like...

So I have a small, like, cassette collection that my mom kept, so I show 'em the ones that I still listen to, and then the other ones that I just found at a garage sale.

So I had people like, "Hey, if you want cassettes, I can drop them off."

- All right, okay.

So Rick, what kind of weird questions or interesting questions did you get?

- I thought, really, people were fascinated by the house, you know, because I have kind of a darker vibe.

The thing that really drove me to move here and sort of connect is that the house was in such a great shape.

And so they're like, "What have you done since you moved in?"

And I was blessed in that the previous owners had pretty much done all the heavy lifting, and also that, like, the wood had not been painted or anything like that, so really, I got to just paint the walls and decorate, and that surprised a lot of people.

The bar was probably the main thing, so I enjoyed telling the story of how that was created, but for the most part, I just loved how people were, you know, in a sense, attracted to the house, which is one of our absolute intentions.

And then pointing out all the little details.

Like, I have the spiderweb window that's visible outside and that the house was black and white, and you know, so it was all these things that, like, just sharing that connection that I have with the house made it more of a connection for them.

- [Christine] Right.

- Everyone on the street always peers into the windows.

It's like, "Oh, I wonder what it looks like in there?"

- Yeah, exactly.

- So now they have the chance to see it.

- Got a light on and people are always looking.

Then Bob, what interesting questions did you get?

- Well, kind of since I've moved here, people have always been interested in knowing why I moved here from California.

And I kind of try to turn the table on that and say, why did I choose Peoria?

Because I find, like, the old Peoriaites who've been here for years and years have kind of a negative response to, "Why would you wanna move here?"

And my answer is always, "Why would I not wanna move here?"

And then I talk about all the things that I love about it here.

And I always say, "I've come here for the architecture, but I stayed for the people."

Because what I found is that the people in Illinois are the warmest and kindest people, and that's our neighbors and our friends.

- And you're an east coaster and a west coaster, so figure that out.

- Yes, yeah, I've tried both sides now.

- Okay.

And you have stopped in the middle.

- That's right.

Yeah, I kind of love the middle though.

It's not as extreme.

I find, like, this is a place where, actually, there is a middle, you know what I mean?

Where you see both sides of the coin come together.

Way more balance here.

And it's just a good... And look, these guys, I know we're all from outside, but we know what we have and we love what we have here.

And I think that we might all be naturally drawn to that because we love being around people, and so we found the right place for that.

- Sure did.

Well, thanks for, you know, for going through everything.

Look forward to next year.

We're gonna advertise it a little bit more.

We'll have a little bit more time, is that it?

- Yes.

- Absolutely.

- [Christine] So it'll be online, it'll be... We'll figure it all out, right?

- [Rick] We'll do print and... - And we're gonna keep our, yeah.

- The same date?

- We're gonna keep our internet, we're gonna try and stay in the same weekend for whatever our event is called.

- [Christine] And that was in April.

- April.

- April, 3rd week of April.

And the other thing is we're gonna keep our website open and we're gonna update it.

We'll add pictures of the stuff that, from the show, first of all, but then also what we're working on, try to keep that alive so that we can start dropping hints of what might be coming in the future.

- There you go.

And what website is that?

Arthaus.com?

- That is arthaus.com.

- Arthauspeoria.com.

- Peoria.

- Arthauspeoria, and H-A-U-S is all capitalized.

- Correct, yeah.

Yeah, you gotta be careful.

There's a lot of art houses out there.

- Okay, well, we don't wanna offend anybody again.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you so much.

- It was a wonderful event.

Hope you liked this response, yeah?

Just this banter about what went on.

Hope you can join 'em next year.

And thanks for joining us this evening, stay safe and healthy, and be well.

(upbeat music)