Just a little over six years ago (Aug. 20, 2005), Brownsville woke up to read in the local daily that an up-and-coming local artist had been brutally murdered in front of his mother at a local bar.
Alfredo (Fred to his friends) Bustinza Jr. was killed by two members of the Texas Syndicate prison gang at at El Tucan Sports Bar at 12th and Jackson streets after a misunderstanding that had its roots in an incident that had happened between a lesbian and her lover at a 14th Street bar.
To make matters worse, the beating and stabbing death took place before the horrified eyes of his mother Frances as she sat with him at the same table. He was stabbed 13 times. Another friend who was with him at the time, Jose "Pepe" Rodriguez, was also beaten and stabbed in the neck while he was in the bathroom and the Bustinzas waited for him in the bar.
Fred had achieved fame for his artwork that has eluded more conventional artists. His style can only be called "modern" because his style combined the elements of Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, and even Brownsville resident Julian Schnabel, who he admired. In fact, the Bustinza family home off the frontage road across the US 77-83 Expressway from the HEB on Boca Chica and Paredes road was just a few blocks from the Schnabel home in the Los Ebanos neighborhood across the resaca from Gladys Porter Park.(I took the picture of Fred and his mom Frances at the 123 Lounge a few weeks before he was killed.)
Two men, Arturo Rodriguez of Brownsville, and Nestor Javier Garza, were charged in the murder.
To make matters worse, after Bustinza was killed, the owner of the bar had his body moved outside where his body was found by police.
The police suspected that the fight began after Arturo Rodriguez thought Pepe, Bustinza’s friend, had tripped him while he was walking to the bathroom.
But the word on the street indicated that Fred had become involved in an altercation a few days before where he defended a woman from her lesbian lover and that his appearance at the bar gave the woman the opportunity to incite the two men accused to assault him.
"The woman had beaten her lover and was looking for her when she came upon her sitting at the bar with Fred at the 1,2,3, Lounge trying to comfort her," said a woman who witnessed the confrontation. "Fred told her that she wasn't going to beat anyone there and the woman became livid. She and Fred were standing on either side of the pool table with cue sticks in hand. The woman's girlfriend was cowering in the bathroom and called the police. When she heard that she had called the police, she ran out the back door."
The scuttlebutt was that the same woman spotted Fred sitting at the bar and took advantage of the fact that Rodriguez and Garza owed her money and incited them to attack him as he sat using the tripping incident as an excuse. The facts may never be known.
I used to live off Poinsettia Street in the same general neighborhood where the Bustinzas lived and often they would come over to the house to sit in the secluded ebony-shaded backyard and drink beer. Fred Sr. was alive then and my mate soon struck up a friendship with Frances, Fred's mom.
Fred once hung up a canvas mural depicting the history of rock and roll with Elvis, Marylin Monroe and even Selena depicted among the figures along with Dick Tracy. I am no connoisseur of moder art, but it had its appeal. He enjoyed showing his work as much as we enjoyed hearing him explain it over a cold brew.
At one time actor Abel Salas, Tony Gray, Brad Doughtery, Jerry McHale and other local literati sat in the backyard arguing art and even almost coming to blows with Fred. What did we know?
At one time actor Abel Salas, Tony Gray, Brad Doughtery, Jerry McHale and other local literati sat in the backyard arguing art and even almost coming to blows with Fred. What did we know?
According to art websites, Bustinza’s works have been shown in art galleries from Matamoros to several Texas cities to New York to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Arts in Washington, D.C.
Now I understand that lovers of his art have established a website where his art can be viewed and bought. That site is listed as: http://fredbustinza.webs.com.
8 comments:
My Grandfather taught me many years ago, not to go into bad places, bad parts of town and hang around bad people. Lots of people would still be alive if they followed that wise counsel.
Where is the poor mother?
what was he doing on the 14th and 12 st bars? looking for trouble? poor guy life cut short, a waste of talent.
El Tucan. That's one badassed bar, dude. And within walking distance of the Brownsville Herald. Oh yeah! Spent many an afternoon there kicking back beers waiting for Pale to get the press boys in line.
Rudolpho.
Pobre Fred was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He died for being a gentlemen. That fat dike should have been charged also. Problem is that Fred and his mom who was with him at time didn't know that the bar was an operated TS hangout and that the dike was a liaison for TS members currently paroled. That dike is still running around since the other two would not rat on her for their lives would be on the line. That fat dike bitch will get hers one day!
S/R Free Arturo cool dude met him in allred unit 12building 2013 vato firme que viva el Ts ctr soldado E-E
Deceased artist Alfredo Saldana Bustinza, Jr. leaves legacy in undiscovered collection of last paintings
48-year-old Alfredo Saldana Bustinza Jr., an abstract artist archived in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, was sitting at a table in a sports bar in Brownsville, TX with his elderly mother on Saturday, August 20, 2005. A man walked by his table and tripped over the foot of another man sitting at Bustinza’s table in what the assailant thought was an intentional act. In the next few moments, Bustinza was stabbed to death in front of his horrified mother and his body was dragged to the sidewalk.
These were the last moments of a man who might have died soon anyway from sclerosis of the liver. He was an alcoholic in desperate need of a liver transplant.
He was married only once to Norma Sue Gaskins in Campbellsville, KY. While they were married only 4 years, he was inspired to spend those years painting more than 50 new works. The couple divorced to shield Norma Sue from his significant medical bills, and he left the final collection of works in her care.
The next year Bustinza was dead. His assailants were captured in Mexico and are serving sentences following guilty verdicts at separate murder trials in Brownsville, TX in 2006 and 2008. The assailants were members of the Texas Syndicate and the Vallucos Prison Gang. No testimony was offered at the trials that Bustinza’s murder was gang related.
Dedicated to his art after receiving an MFA from Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1983, Bustinza went on to receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a prize from the Pollack-Kastner Institute which carries examples of his work on the institute's website.
Bustinza wrote of his art:
“Art created would not be the shifting landscape of social-economic realities, but would include the future, not the past generations. My technique of pastiche and discontinuity is in order to criticize established theories about art.”
“I create my paintings by collaging different characters from newspaper and magazine photographs violently marking, rubbing, pushing, spraying and drawing paint on canvas to create the idea of a fragmented world where high and low cultural incongruities collide. My vigorous brushwork and distortion belongs to expressionism.”
Bustinza’s former wife is quite ill and is concerned that Bustinza’s final works will remain undiscovered and unappreciated. She is interested in placing these paintings into the hands of someone who will ensure they are displayed and appreciated.
She is interested in a bulk sale of the paintings.
Following is a partial list of his exhibit galleries:
Smithsonian Museum of American Art Pollack-Kasner Foundation
Lerner Heller Gallery University of Florida, Tampa, Florida
Lachaven Art Center, Florida Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, NYC
Lubbock Fine Arts Center, Texas Blue Star Group – San Antonio, Texas
Midtown Arts Center, Houston, Texas Multicultural Center Corpus Christie, Texas
The Blue Collar Gallery – San Antonio, TX Texas A&M University – College Station, Texas
Galveston Art Center – Galveston, Texas Arte Museum – Austin, Texas
University of Brownsville – Texas Buddy Holly Fine Arts Gallery
Art Museum of South Texas Texas Tech University – Lubbock, Texas
Atlantic Center for the Arts – Florida Texas Fine Arts Association – Austin, Texas
Art Squared Art Museum of Texas All the Glitters Art Museum of South Texas
Kedt Gallery - Corpus Christi, Texas Robinson Gallery – Houston, Texas
Slover McCutchen Gallery – Houston, TX Austin Museum of Art
Snyder Gallery – Corpus Christi, Texas Polk Art Museum – Miami, Florida
Anyone who is interested I possess at least 6pieces of my uncle Fred.Anyone interested email me at ralf13ruiz@gmail.com
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