Dr. Raphael Ortiz was the founder and first director of the El Museo Del Barrio on 5th Avenue & 93rd St. in New York in 1969. His sculptures are included in many museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he has twice been included in the Whitney Biennial.  Ortiz is famous for his exploding piano of his "Destructivism" movement as displayed on the Johnny Carson show, and his art "Happenings" later picked up by Yoko Ono and others in the 1970's.  Born to Nuyorican, Rosicrucian & Masonic Parents in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, (later coming of age in LES & East Harlem) Raphael's parent's esoteric leanings later would influence his work in both holistic healing & kabbalistic art.   He has created mixed-media ritual performances and installations for museums and galleries in Europe and Canada and throughout the United States. His computer- laser-video works are in numerous museum collections, including the Ludwai Museum in Cologne, Germany, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, France. His video, Dance Number 22, won the Gran Prix at the 1993 Locarno International Video Festival of Switzerland.  Raphael's first showing for the Rose Circle was at the premiere Rose Circle Conference in Bayonne, NJ in April of 2006 when the Salon de la Rose Croix was adorned with large scale kabbalistic paintings and vinyl posters from Ortiz, adding heavily to the environmental ambiance.