Patrick Castro​

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What started as a simple formal exercise in creative wandering became something else entirely in its final moments.

 

At first, the title—Patrick’s Pu Pu Platter—was meant as a self-effacing joke. As a 55-year-old, sometimes artist, I chose a name that would signal not to take any of this too seriously. After all, my sense of humor hasn’t strayed far from that of a 14-year-old boy.

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But the phrase carries more weight than the joke suggests. The pu pu platter—popularized in 1930s tiki bars—is a mix of mostly Polynesian and American-Chinese dishes, with other Asian influences folded in, a catchall of identities under one banner. Growing up in rural Southern Louisiana, I was called this, among many other less lighthearted names—exotic at best, a threat at worst.

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That history is what surfaced unexpectedly through this work. What began as play revealed something more personal, something unresolved. This feels like a thread worth following. And if it took this exercise to arrive at a new trailhead, then perhaps this is exactly what creativity looks like.​

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