Call them transient. Call them reclusive. They are those those who go through this life like the elusive yellow dello. They are an enigma wrapped in a riddle hidden in a mystery served warm over a hot bed of brown rice. Yes, there are those who live lives as mysterious as Mickey Mouse is arrogant... and then there is Hector LaVéta!

Hector LaVéta is a paradox wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a Mexican blanket under a suspicious overpass. He is eccentric, yet collectively calm. He is emotional, yet intellectual. He is a dreamer, yet suffers from chronic insomnia. In short, Hector LaVéta is an artiste!

Divorced with no children, Hector LaVéta still keeps residence in his birthplace of San Luis Potsi, Mexico where he owns a mobile home of humble stature. For thirteen years, Hector wasted away his youth trying to create a fertility/growth hormone for chinchillas to no avail. It was during the end of that trying period, however, that young Hector began dabbling in the visual arts. Unbeknownst, his long time neighbor, a sheep farmer known as Carlos Table, had unexpectedly dropped by to show off the manuscript of a book which he "accidentally" wrote. Nevertheless, he was going to seek publication and was wondering if Hector knew of any freelance illustrators to provide imagery for his project. Hector shared with Carlos a portfolio of his most recent passion and their collaboration began immediately! The fruit of that partnership was published as Small Figments of Another Time.

Selling his lot of chinchillas for bus fare, Hector and Carlos migrated to the States to promote their project. They began by circulating Small Figments underground by passing it on to friends of friends. The book - a cavalcade of short stories weaving in and out and through one another - served as a discourse on the eccentricities of humanity. The buzz of the book's genius and hilarity caught like wildfire. A slowly evolving multitude of curious folk began asking about the book and it seemed the boys from San Luis Potsi couldn't give enough copies away... until, that is, the day came when it seemed that they had. They had given away more copies than they could afford until Carlos got hungry for his wife's jack rabbit stroganoff and returned home to his family. Though the book was hailed as a critical success, Hector chalked it up as another in his long list of failed endeavors. He moved to Laredo where he earned his keep filling numerous unethical job positions and wandered the streets, looking for love in all the wrong places. He was lonely and desperate and three weeks late on his Highlights magazine payment.

Then Mr. LaVéta had an encounter that would forever change the direction of his life. "As I walked out in the streets of Laredo," Hector recalls, "I spied a young cowboy all dressed in white linen, dressed in white linen as cold as the clay. I then said to this strapping slack-jawed yokel, 'I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy.' At which he replied, 'Yup!' I then followed that cowboy on horseback to the nearest Texaco station, bought myself a blue smoothie and a moon pie and hitched a ride to Muncie, Indiana. It was there, during unauthorized late hours in the Ball State University Fine Arts building that Hector forged a life-long friendship with a sixth year art student on the threshold of graduation. That student was future youth ministry equipper and architect of the Mustard Room, Joel Rockey. Hector LaVéta secretly collaborated with Mr. Rockey on his senior project which was showcased alongside the work of Stuart Matthew Godfrey in one of the first art exhibitions to be held in the Mitchell Place Gallery in Muncie, Indiana.

Hector has since spent his days lending his expressionistically agitated mind to the visual design elements of many projects for the Mustard Room, a creative hotbed where imagination and ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ meet. Some such projects include CD designs for Broken Records and Heading up the design team for themustardroom.com.

Hector LaVéta continues to push forward in the underground arts scene, denying mainstream opportunities and appearances. He is a man of low profile and high hopes. Women want to be with him. Men want to be him. He just wants to be.

Gurn Blanston

Greenwood, Indiana - Winter 2003