Today we’d like to introduce you to Juan Gonzalez.
Hi Juan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Following college in ’78, I moved to NYC per suing a career in Fashion Design. There, after working for other labels and production houses, I started “ERMAN”, my eponymous brand.supplying better dresses of my own design to specialty stores like B Altman’s, Bonwitt Teller and boutiques in SoHo like Macondo and La Rue de Reves, as well as throughout the USA. In 1990 we, my wife and newborn, moved back to Miami and I was accepted as a studio resident artist at Art Center South Florida then South Florida Art Center and now Oolite Arts. From my studio I pivoted into made to order couture, bridal and experimental one of a kind pieces in vintage and antique fabrics as well as manipulated fabric constructions utilizing artesian methodology, for which I became better known. And bridged into an Art to Wear career with representation in galleries such as Julie Artisans Gallery in NYC. Today from an at home full studio, I continue that work mainly on commission and have added accessories such as shawls, one of a kind quilted fabric handbags utilizing reclaimed textiles… but around 1996, I was invited to be a member of South Florida Fiber Artists. This led into presenting hands on seminars,traveling to teach guilds and small groups of enthusiasts on how to do what I was doing. Such efforts led to being invited guest lecturer at FIT, Colorado State University and Edna Manley College in Jamaica, among others . By then I was already starting a concurrent career in visual arts where the 2 and 3D works, installations and public interventions were informed by my fashion design and sewing abilities as well as the introduction of clay works, wood fabrications and reclaimed/ recycled post production goods combinations and started working with DVCAI, a collaboration still active today. With Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, I traveled throughout the Caribbean with their ICE ( International Cultural Exchange) program, sponsored by the Miami Dade Cultural Affairs Department and expanded my curriculum to include museum permanent collections presence, solo traveling and catalogued exhibitions and teaching.
Presently I am engaged in the series Memorial Embroideries, an ongoing project consisting of machine embroidered “drawings” on 16 x 16″ white cotton handkerchiefs some of which are included in Libertad, a permanent installation at the newly refurbished Freedom Tower, opening to the public on September 27, 2025; celebrating its centennial and presented by Miami Dade College.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
A mixed bag…early on, a lack of funds to pre produce and deliver orders was a struggle that was overcome each time, thankfully. But when my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer we had two small children and no family support. Mounting hospital and treatment bills were massive. I went to work as a freelance pattern maker for other local brands and It was then I was invited to exhibit what came to be known as The Book Pages, a series of mixed media drawings and a venue I was utilizing to record the daily situation confronting our new reality. This lead to “a concurrent career” in visual arts and SHE is still with us!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
In fashion design what always separated me from others was a certain exclusivity due to very small production and my own prints. Later I developed a bespoke method of fabric manipulation and fabric treatments that made each garment unique even when the same pattern. My use of vintage fabrics and buttons was also a marker as well as hand dyed and hand painted pieces or jackets made via handwoven ribbons.
In the visual arts, I’ve always used a very personal autobiographical narrative, that alone sets me apart but I also create art via sewing, weaving, quilting and embroidering and developing a personal iconography to tell my stories of hyphenation, uprootedness, displacement and life at large. I am proud to have worked with what life has handed me and turned it bright. I am proud I was independent of bank loans and my decision to keep my business small and cottage industry like, employing my immediate very diverse community, to have been represented at Julie Artisans Gallery, that pieces I’ve created have been focal in family weddings and love filled affairs. I am also extremely proud of my inclusions in permanent museum collections. None of which would be valuable nor possible without my immediate family and their support
What matters most to you? Why?
That focus has never waiver: to give my output 3000%, all I can, while staying vigil, current, engaged and learning still and giving back whether tutoring students in fashion illustration or presenting how to seminars in community centers to children and adults with personal needs.
