#72 Surviving Columbus; Sc72; Interview with Alex Seowtewa (Zuni Pueblo), Part 2

And translate directly from Zuni to English as if you were telling Zuni who doesn't speak Zuni. Okay. You spoke technical. Okay. Could you repeat that again? No, no, no. I got it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. What did you think about minutes? Three hours. I changed your life. Well, I know I went through this hangover period. It's a lot to shake it off if you get some juice up. That one Sunday morning I remembered it was pretty close to noon that I went down to visit my friend at Outhouse. Okay. I sort of just reevaluate my life which direction I'm really heading to leak my own grave, to

damage my kidney, my liver, sources of liver, and then I sort of just recall how my grandfather used to emphasize the meaning of life, how I should really try to go over certain obstacles. And I sort of laid myself on a floor to look at Alex and other Alex. I know some sensitive areas I didn't really want to get the answer out of the bed. But just to generalize, I look down. I must have sat in there for three hours at most to try to make that turning point. And I also was a parent at that time at about six, seven month old son. And I said, I was once my son's age.

If I continually to bring him under air call, air call, somewhere down a certain age level, he may come home drunk. And it'll upset me. It'll hurt me. I may just punish him, ground him, or even spank him. But he just looked up at me and said, Father, heal yourself drinks. So why should I? And what works would I give my own child? He'll put me in a corner. So I think I've suffered long enough. I came back all right to my Indian country, to my family, to my wife. When I make that simple decision, and I tried to make it stronger, as I left that art house, went back, my dear wife tried to reheat my play.

But I told her, you know, I just, I think I drank tomato juice or whatever. As I went to visit, tell my good news to my late auntie. She was sweeping her front room. She looked up at me and, you know, I greet her when I walked in. And I told her what a decision I came to. And she just gave me a snot type of smile, said, Son, I brought you up. How many thousands times you already told me the same thing? Who wants the time for me to believe you? And she continued to sweep her front room. I didn't argue with her when I left my old birthplace. I know I shed a couple of tears. I had a lump in my throat, but I said, I'm going to prove it to Alex, not to anybody.

I think that kind of just made me to the point because from that time on, two weeks later, I didn't touch a job. Month later, I didn't touch a job because I had a pretty good decent job with civil service type, this government, preventative maintenance. It went on. I was tempted. I went through a whole lot with my own peer drinking buddies to offer me. But there are certain ways that I resist, not to really give them anything more, but just to back off and go easy with resisting. And it's all nothing but trying. When I was a child, I was a child. I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child,

I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, I was a child. There was a school inought, there was a temple and a lot of good food there, a lot of good food, it was good food. There was a child of the youth road that appeared. That's something... Stop being there for a bit. I used my language to stay to my young zooni people. So the life is a valuable thing that with this alcohol, including drugs, pot, it's not the answer. There's only one path of life that we can fulfill our lifespan regardless of what it takes. I know it's affecting our village here at this

time and age, not only in Zuni, but it's everywhere. People try to find answers through this, which I personally experienced this, otherwise I won't state it. I'm not ashamed afraid to admit my weaknesses. Because if I utilize my little gift to paint, I'm somebody special, I can lick my own weaknesses. It's very good. I had a suggested question over some of those most memorable times that come to mind where you're working on your words. There you go. Go ahead, doctor. Can

you tell us anything incident that was difficult or funny or something that's memorable out of that time? Well once I remember it, I forgot what year it was, I came into this church when I was still by myself, underbind. I think a lot of Bill Collector's world might tell financially. And I just tried to pass the time to paint in one of the figures. Instead of feel sorry, instead of feel that pain and hatred, anger. I just went without realizing the next day, I must have came up with a different mood changes. When I look at that area before I went up to the scaffold, I said, hey, Alex, what happened yesterday? You wasn't in the right act.

You put your problems up there. I kind of lucked the door momentarily when I've been cutting back off with tripping time because these are oils, I wash it off. And then I just redo it, took me 20, 15 minutes to redo the whole thing. Ever since then, when I'm underbind mentally, I don't force myself to hit the wall. One interesting thing happened several years ago when I toured the group of Swedish artists from Switzerland. One of the ladies, they hit their French interpreter, asked me, I'm going to tell her, interpreted to ask me, if Alex is not in the right mood, what does he do? And then with a smile, I told the interpreter to tell her, like if I'm in the right act, I have to do a good

positive move. But if I'm underbind, and if I can't put my act together, who wants his problems on the wall or on a wall for a world to see it, I won't. There was first and last time I've done that. So it's a self -discipline, when you want to really fulfill something you have to self -talk and try to really work out the system the best possible way so your work continually will flow with beauty. Which was the most difficult figure to paint for you? I can't really pinpoint, I know some are hard because to do a mural is pretty hard other than the small scale of artwork, because I'm commissioning sometimes to do a smaller painting for other people. But to do a mural, you have to really be more open to do a lot of studying from both angles as well as below, because it changes the

anatomy, the costume. So sometimes even the sketch of an outline, what I put out, I have to come, but certain areas, you know, I push it back in or bring it out. So I have to read a just nod of this. Do you have a favorite figure, or a favorite spot? The whole two walls are favorite, including the three panels that will be completed later that are displayed up here in the corner. How many more years do you have to work here in your son? Looking at another, maybe three and a half to four more years, because the skies will go out. The spring type of clouds will go where spring is into summertime of thunderstorm, into four type of clouds. North wall will be nothing but sub -zero weather, blizzard time. So mentally I sometimes do try to capture it and review my idea how the clouds would go on my smaller painting, so I'm pretty well prepared.

A lot of artists throughout the world seem to point out that clouds are one of the hardest to capture, but I think I'll challenge myself to do it. Can you talk a little bit about how creativity is interconnected with Indian way of life? I'm saying how Indian people always create, can you talk about that, how that goes hand in hand with public life or Indian life creativity? You'd also talked about the same little kids in the schools and their joy with colors and painting. Well, just about any native youngster, if you come across or elder to build, or you know, middle age, they feel for art, they feel for crafts, because if you see the present work that they put out to share with the world of their creative

lifestyle, it's impressive. How well certain people, but when you see them, they're just ordinary people. They don't brag, they don't just put out to be anywhere like here. I think it takes, again, self -study to practice patience and confidence, because you have to feel relaxed and good in order to... Excuse me, excuse me, sorry. Turn down the noise a little bit and we'll start again on the same question. Yeah, okay, the uniqueness of how you see, because they're not all identical, but it's the same, like I've worked and discussed this inner way how we do our art with other native artists. And I think liquid or take good

cameras, we recognize any little area that we have it. It started to utilize, that use it open up, not more to feel for it, the bound to just tumble up. That's one has it that we native people may leave with, because some of us are not competitive. Are we set, Ron? Yeah, I think they're going to stay. Okay. Okay. Let them know that we're rolling. Okay. Just two last questions. Okay, again, on the creativity that you were talking about, particularly in relationship to kids. Well, I think if you're more to see what your specialty is, is a person young, I think if you feel for art, for one, and what type of imagery that exists in your mind, your feelings,

and if you adopt and develop creativity, lifestyle, thing that you may grow up with, like on my part, I have a photographic memory. What I used to witness when I was about six, seven years of age already, it takes a few seconds of studying, any impressive event, figure, landscape, sunset, sunrise, whatever. You know, I just do the studying 15, 10 seconds, and close my eyes, and if I captured every color that will make this beautiful artwork someday, and if I need to do more studying, I open up my eyes again to study, to get, to grab it, and it's just like a computer that registers into my mind. Somewhere in my brain cell, I have that special gift. I carried that rest of my

life 20, 30, 40, 50 years later. If I feel like painting something from way, way back, I just review it maybe a few seconds, 15, 20, 30 seconds, and the whole picture comes out, and I'll just hit the canvas. Same thing with the costume, same thing with all the landscaping that you already witness inside of this church work. So I utilize that, I help that because if majority of all native people or other non -Indian youngsters have this special area in their brain cells, they can do what I'm doing. I mean, this is what I open up the doors to help them with. I know that I don't sketch, but what I studied, what I captured, it's in my mind, when time comes, I just let it open and it comes out. Just like I don't prepare to talk, because I'm not a psychiatrist.

I'm not any special person, I'm just down to it. Just like when I open my mouth, my heart comes out. That's the whole beauty of my life, I think. What are your hopes for Zuni in the future? For Native Americans. Well, I always start, or I always put this idea to my Zuni people and to other Indian people, to accept the changes of life, what's really happening in our everyday life, but not to ignore their language, forget their language, their cultural practices, their idea, their way of life, and balance this with their modern way of learning, through high school, upper learning, into college, university, because Indian can become easily just like anybody

out there in the world. We can become scientists because our ancestors were scientists. We can become a biologist because our ancestors that relied on native plants, some are edible, some are medicine. We can easily become some, you know, if you look at the constellation, the galaxy, I was taught how to read the stars. And I respect the universe that they can easily become astronomers, astrologists, whatever, Indian has this unique, but we should hold ourselves in a limitation. They were nothing. I can't do this. I'm a person that likes to still learn a lot of things in the world because life is pretty interesting to live with because it is so short and precious. The nature is all right out there, but the only person that makes it bad is me. I think, do you expect Zuni to be here in another 500 years? Let's hope

so, not only Zuni, but other native people. Could you give me that one again, but don't? I respond to my question and say, I hope that Zuni will be here for another 500 years. Well, I know that it depends on our marriages. If there's more mixed marriages, eventually we'll adopt more into light -colored skin because of non -Indian married to our Indian or maybe Indian to Indian, but that's a good question. It's a tough one too, but if we kind of maintain to carry some of our cultural practices or language, we still can exist. We'll survive. Can you say that in Zuni first and translate it to English right afterwards? I hope for the future for Zuni. Well, look, this can add to the deck, you know. Let's hope so. I hope for the future for Zuni. I hope for the future for Zuni. I hope for the future for Zuni. I hope for the future for Zuni. I hope for the future

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