Rei Luzardo is the co-moderator of Artist Corner.
This is not his first rodeo as a moderator.
He created and moderated the Instagram account called Harmony of Light, which featured creative photography from all over the world and had over 25,000 members when META changed how hashtags worked and destroyed what people could or could NOT see.
As a result the hub is now closed.
Rei has been a high school teacher for 25 years, teaching commercial art, graphics, and drawing.
He has even taught 3-D animation and had students who went on to work on major 3D productions.
Before becoming a teacher he worked as an Addy Award-winning Creative Director at an advertising agency.
For many years, Rei focused on doing black-and-white photography, and only switched to doing charcoal art four years ago, during the Covid lockdowns.
At first he started just doing pencil drawings, but quickly migrated to charcoals, which is what he has been doing ever since.
He became fully immersed in charcoal when he discovered charcoal pencils, which are nowhere near as messy as the charcoal sticks of old.
As a devout Christian, Rei also recently published a book of religious fiction called the Fish and the Snake.
He wrote this book because as a teacher he could see first-hand how we are losing our children to the gods of TikTok and other social media.
The Fish and the Snake is a fantasy retelling of the Gospel story, in which Jesus is a fish, the devil is a snake and God is the great wizard.
It is available through most major book retailers.
He has also written and illustrated another book on his reflections on the Gospel of Matthew, but that book remains unpublished Rei is planning to retire from the public school system in about four years, and hopes he is able to supplement his income with his artwork at that time.
On the more personal side: If you have seen his TruthSocial profile, you might have noticed that there is a handicap symbol on it.
It may shock you to learn that his wrists are frozen in place, yet he draws all of the artwork we are going to see here tonight Rei was born in Cuba and came to America when he was just nine years old.
One of his proudest achievements is that of becoming a Naturalized American Citizen as soon as he was old enough to do so.
He considers himself more patriotic than most American born people he has met.
Rei is currently divorced and has three adult children.
