The summer of 2007 was a time of personal achievement for trail-blazing artist, DeROSAart, who, in June 2007, completed a cross-continental art tour of epic and humanistic proportions called simply: 'The Catachismic Tour.' Armed with twenty paintings of social commentary sprung from eighteen years of independent spiritual and philosophical studies, the artist set out on a mission to share their ideas with 'the people.'
With a little spare change and an unwavering, hardcore determination, DeROSAart banded together with their wife Gwen (an aspiring novelist), budding singer/songwriter Miriam (the tour’s intern) and film student Rich, into an old beat-up mini van fondly referred to as 'Betty.' Over the course of thirty one days, this creative collective known only as the “Brain Trust,” presented the artist’s vision in six American cities -- San Francisco, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Tulsa -- before finally reaching the tour’s conclusion in New York City’s fabulous Chelsea District.
“My goal here was to create an open forum for dialogue among people of different backgrounds across the United States through the interaction between the viewer and the artwork… Of the eight pieces and three prints sold throughout the course of this grand experiment, which were actually used to fund the tour, four were to people who had never been to a gallery – a fact that I take no small amount of pride in...”
This tour, which itself was a type of performance art, was about bridging gaps... connecting to people and communities on an individual level and encouraging them to open their minds to different views of a single idea. “In that respect,” states the artist, “I feel that I was tremendously successful.”
