Jose Luis Rivera-Barrera was born September 2, 1946, in Kingsville, Texas, and raised on the King Ranch.  He earned a BS degree in all-level art education from Texas A&I University, Kingsville, Texas, and worked as an art instructor in the California public schools, at Casa de La Raza in Berkeley, and at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.  Mesquite wood has been his primary medium in forty-nine years of work as a sculptor.  The transformed mesquite is the force through which he reveals his impressions of the social and political issues concerning the Chicano community and of the spiritual forces involved in nature.  His sculptures have been exhibited throughout the US and in Mexico and are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the San Antonio Museum of Art, and the Chicago National Museum of Mexican Art.