They say “Ponce es Ponce, y lo demás es parking”. But Ponce is Ley too! When I found out that the Santurce Es Ley art festival, which is celebrated in the Metropolitan area of Puerto Rico every year, was coming down to the south, I couldn’t be more excited. Having the opportunity of bringing to my side of the Island national and international famous urban artists like Bordaloii from Portugal, was definitely amazing news.

This Portuguese artist, moved by spreading social awareness about sustainability and other ecological topics, uses what some people would call “waste”, and transform it into beautiful art, making recycling an art form. You can find out more about Bordaloii’s unique art on his website Bordaloii.com.

I was also very proud to see the art in the making of some amazingly talented up and coming local artists like Luis Pérez, Josue Pellot, Nicole Sheez, Jean Carlos Ortiz, Rafael Enrique Vega and Javi Citron.

As the colorful mural junkie that I am, seeing the work of Mark Rivera in person and his characteristic and unique splashes of color on big walls, or in this case an entire abandoned gas station, was extremely hypnotizing. Watching him paint this entire gas station with buckets of paint and an old piano as a catapult was definitely the most unique way I have ever seen an artist paint his work.

One of my favorite parts of attending these festivals, aside from watching the artists paint their work in person, is actually getting to know the artists themselves. It was extremely fun getting to know the youngest artist of the bunch, Andrés Cortés from Culebra, who at the age of 15 is already causing a lot of buzz with his geometric round figures style.

Now, some of the local artists that have become my favorites, I met in this arts festival. And I am talking about the one and only, Damaris Cruz (or Dama Lola, as the urban art world knows her). This photographer and muralist is known for her amazing talent of wheat pasting pieces of pictures that later become a beautiful scene. She uses mostly herself as model, and her canvas or murals are usually abandoned houses or buildings. After meeting her at Ponce Es Ley and seeing her art, I knew I would become a fan from there on.

And to finish a very fun and interesting weekend, I had the chance to do something I had been wanting to do for a very long time: visit an abandoned hotel (supposedly haunted) at the top of  a hill in the city of Ponce, called El Intercontinental. This hotel has a pool that has been transformed by local graffiti artists into a huge urban art canvas. You can find anything from Puerto Rican flags, to the the giant frogs made famous by graffiti artist Monster Zoniko Master. The walls of this hotel are anything but colorful: totally creepy and eerie. But the graffiti on them and other surrounding areas make this abandoned hotel at the top of the hill a visual show you can’t miss in the south of Puerto Rico.