Victoria Ortega is originally from a bicultural region in the border of South Texas. Her cultural-diversity-themed work in photography, sculpture, and environmental art is as eclectic as her educational background: she studied Design, Education, Studio Art, & Psychology.
She incorporates repurposed material, recycled paper, and natural items into her compositions as a way to express her own environmental awareness and to show others, especially young minds, a way to be creatively resourceful. She believes childhood art exposure should be a special time to invent, practice, improvise, experiment and truly enjoy. As a child she would teach other children to create toys and sculptures out of found objects whenever she accompanied her humanitarian parents to areas of great poverty. This type of childhood creativity is what she wishes to maintain and continue to teach. After living in New Mexico and Hawaii, she has returned to Texas where she teaches informal educational workshops and Arts integration classes for all subjects in partnership with schools, businesses, and non-profit organizations.
"I believe artistic activities directly strengthen cognitive and physical skills such as tactile, visual, sensory, and motor skills. Creativity sessions provide the opportunity to gather as a group or to work independently on a special project in a more relaxed environment, but with the same outcome of expressing ideas, enhancing problem-solving skills, appreciating the Arts, and experiencing ingenuity. " -- V.O. of Open Art www.open2art.com
