¡Colores!; Michael Naranjo, Interview, Hakim Single, 2 Shot, B Roll

All right, so are you going to hold on a second, your choice, and then you should see a red light ring. And so I'm going to get out. Okay, show me where you're going to clap, clap picking. Okay. I've got you. Go ahead and clap, and then give us about 10 seconds. Michael Naranho. It's good to have you in the studio today. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Good to have me in your studio. I'm sorry. How are you doing? I'm so excited about you coming in and being here. And just listening to you and talking and getting to him. Absolutely. Thank you for having us in your home. Really. I want to begin by asking you what inspires you to work as an artist. Life. We are all living creatures and full of life experiences. From the time we can go back and remember the first things. And it doesn't matter where you're

from, what you do, everyone has a story to tell. So as we go through life, these different experiences, moments that we remember, things we want to know and learn about, all settle down and eventually, some of these things end up in my work. And I guess that's what inspires me is just kind of living in life itself. Beautiful. You lost your sight in Vietnam. How do you see? I see my three fingers as people would say, how do you see what do you see? With my three fingers on my left hand, because they're the ones that work. So everything I work and do, I see, according to the general description of seeing, since I'm totally blind in my world, is that of some of us in touch.

So seeing, I see what I want to see, I guess, in that I don't see things that people don't want to see. They drive me down the highway, the garbage, the burnt buildings and towns or those kinds of things. So I kind of lived in, I believe, in a rather sheltered way of seeing, because what I perceive and which comes into my inner eye, my mind's vision, is what I see and what I allow in, unfortunately some of the stuff comes in. But for the most part, what I see is one, be happy, want to see good things. So why not? Actually, the way I want to see it is soft, gentle, nice and good. That's beautiful.

I want to go a little deeper there because we were talking earlier about how your artwork helps us to see, which is brilliant, but how they come to you in visions and in pieces. Like you see flashes, could you talk some more about that? When the first times I remember, it really came across a flashback and seeing things in my mind's eye. So when my fingers look at things, I get this visual imagery happening in my mind. And quite often I can actually put color on a body or on something that I'm looking at skin color. And I remember looking at one of my plan's little pieces. I think it was at the National Gallery in Florence and was just looking at the box. And we left there, I was in there for about three hours, my mind was very tired. My fingers still wanted to see, but my mind couldn't see anymore. And so walking down the street, all of a sudden, I get a flash,

very strong picture in my mind's eye of this arm that I was looking at. So it was just kind of a flashback and seeing that arm. And seeing, seeing in dreams, what's so amazing is that the mind never stops creating. I have visual imagery in my dreams. I can see, I can create things. I can see sculptures on rare occasions. And what I do, it's magical because generally I put them into bonds. And I had one few months ago. And month later sat down and created it. So seeing how do I see through the sounds, through the voices of people and how... Yeah, I guess sometimes you can pick up on emotions

of people. And in a crowd, you see a crowd gathering for anything. Any subject around or they're out there protesting or whatever. But you get the feeling of the crowd, whether it's a good temporal purposeful crowd or if there's this anxiety, hostility, floating through it. So seeing flows through the air as well as through the touch of things and the way we perceive. What would you say in all these years of creating art and creating beauty? What would you say is the most important thing or the most influential thing that you've learned? If you want to do it, I guess you have to sit down and do it.

When I could see, I always wanted to be a sculptor and I thought I would be able to do that. But then I suddenly discovered that I could do that with one hand, creating a very simple piece. And the moment I made that, I knew that I had my life, I had my purpose. And just made my life so much more full and rich. I've got your question. No. I know it's a moment too. Keep rolling. I don't know. I need to look at it. I forget the question. It's not like I'm bleeding. No, you were good. Am I answering your question? No, the question, no. I think you were going there. The question is what is the most important lesson you've learned essentially in creating art? Is it all fine? No, in your years of creating art, more about as an artist, what have you learned? The most important thing you've learned

in your years of creating art. In 40, we talked about 40 some other years. And I like where you were going because you were answering it almost from an elder artist to a younger artist. And what you've learned about not just the process of creating your own art, but in the practice of being an artist. Do I change a shot now since I stopped? Yeah. They stopped us though. They stopped us though Michael once said. We're like, what kind of life, you know, lessons we've learned by living as artists. Like what do we learn? Because our life is different. It's different. Okay. We're still rolling. Okay. And actually maybe pan this thing. I will. I will, Michael. Okay, so everyone's rolling? Okay. Go ahead. Michael,

what in all of your years of making art, what is the most important lesson that you've learned? The so many different lessons you can do a thing, but there are so many different kinds of lessons that get you to that point, I believe. The very first lesson of, so often when Laurie and I are telling kids, if you don't try, you don't succeed. And if you don't ask, you'll never know. And so, sitting down, finding out that I could still create pieces. As time progressed, whatever I was creating something, the energy in my younger days was like, the fire is blazing internally. And it's just burning so hot that we sit down. I would

sit down, and I would create a piece in a week, sleeping three, four hours a night, and just going through it, and total exhaustion at the end of the week. And I would find myself sitting there thinking, well, I ever have another idea for a sculpture, but they come again. They always come. And then as time progressed, with life, changes of life and time, marriage, children, work habits changed, and also finding out now that I'm older, I'm going to make it. It's going to get done. I don't have to work 23, 24 hours a day for seven days. I can take you here, if I want. So, I have the freedom now of not being held

hostage for days by this driving force of creation. We're completely enormously powerful, and at times I still find myself walking through a studio and picking up a piece and I've lost again in time because time doesn't exist. And so, the whole process of creating this is just changes, I think, with our life as we go through our life and all. And there were times where I think I'm going crazy, because I'll sit there and I'll laugh to myself, working, laughing, and laughing. Because I'm happy, I'm excited. It's beautiful, it's wonderful. Other times I'm spending my wheels and everyone else's life isn't quite working the way it goes. You want it to go.

So, you change place, paint space, pace, or something, and then come back, and it works. Sounds freeing, sounds like sage advice from an experienced artist to an emerging artist. I wanted to ask you, what is the experience, or can you describe the experience of creating art? When you are creating these pieces and you are quite literally feeling your way through it, can you put words to that experience? Idea, first I have to have an idea. I've received ideas from dreams, from reading books, from people talking, things I've seen in the past. And so, once I get this idea, then it sits inside, and there's sometimes on rare occasions I can turn around, sit down, and create it. Other times I

can't do that, so it all varies. It never works out the same. I can make the same piece twice, and both of them will be different, one right after the other. I was going to say I noticed that, even in the warriors, even the tassels of their belts. They have the same kind of posture, but the tassels of their belts, the tassels of their braids are different. So, the question was, what's the experience? Could you describe the experience of creating for us? The process, the creating, is different with each one as well. There's this word answer that I was creating, and I started working on it, and I used to find the silence of the night. There's something magical about it. I used to love it when I lived alone. I

was sitting there working on this piece, and after about several hours, I knew it wasn't working. Though I could see it in my mind's eye, my mind and my fingers just were connecting, and with material that I was working with. So, I put on a shelf, and about six months later I came back to it, and I started working on it. I knew right then that the time had come, and so I sat there again for days, and that was the one time that I was really afraid I'd gone crazy. Because in the middle of the night, knowing around, my head is thrown back, I'm laughing out loud, and I scared myself, because I didn't intend to throw my head back and laugh. There was just suddenly, I don't know who that person was, and so I got up, and what the living room sat down, and together, like, what's about me? And I

thought, oh, I guess it's okay because I was just happy, creating what I was making, so it varies. And then there's this other piece that I was working on that's about, oh, it's never been cast, it's maybe 15 -20 feet tall, and it's of a dancer. I would go out at 10 o 'clock at night, and I would start working on it, and I was putting molding plaster on this steel frame, and dipping burlap in this molding plaster and wrapping it around. And working away, going up and down the scaffolding, all of a sudden I hear the birds singing, and I said, oh, the sun came up, it's morning, and I was working all night, didn't know it. And with that same sculpture, dreams, I guess even in my dreams I'm working sometimes, I was on the scaffolding with that same sculpture, that's a 15 -20 feet tall,

and underneath the arm, the left arm, and the scaffolding was right across the chest of the sculpture, and squatting on my heels, and trying to reach up under the armpit of the sculpture. And I couldn't quite reach it, get to where I wanted, all of a sudden I saw through the sculpture's eyes, his head was kind of down, and I could see Michael on scaffolding trying to reach up under the arm to fix that molding. And I had a little section of the plaster there, and within the sculpture, looking at Michael, I started to move my arm, and felt like it almost started feeling the steel to move, and I found myself sitting up in bed, and said,

it's kind of like, whoa, what happened here? To be inside your sculpture, that was the only time that it happened, and I probably didn't happen yet, but I was actually inside looking at myself now, that's what I found magic. That's what I called describing the experience of carrying the piece. Fantastic. Okay, I'm cheating real fast. No, I love that story. Was it my phone? Is it your phone? No. I don't think it was mine. I thought it was mine, but you would have heard my keys rattling. That's

the airplane right now. I know, I know, I'm going to have to invite you to coffee as well so we can have a longer conversation. That was a good idea of you being inside. I like it when you said I even work in my dreams. So every artist has obstacles. What are your obstacles and do they frustrate you? Obstacles, disabilities, yeah, they can interfere, definitely. If I could look at a picture or look at something that I was trying to create, it would be so much easier. I could just, one glance and I can look at the whole thing step back and look at it. But as it

is, it's the touch, fingertips touching thousands, thousands of touches. And so that process is slower, but then maybe there's something nice about it. Frustrating, there's so many things that I would like to see, but I can't. There's so many things that I would like to do, but I can't run up the mountain again. Simple things in life that we take for credit. But then by the same token, how important is it in my life to be able to run down the street? It would be nice, but it's not important. My wife and I used to go running, we go walking, we go hiking, you know, going to movies. I

have a disability, my left hand, my right hand doesn't work pretty well. I'm able to take certain views and I can't see a dark thing that blinds about. But I think the way I see it is, a way back there is somewhere, I came across this whole thing up. Rather than it being a problem, it's a challenge. And so it's really nice and fun. It can be fun to see how I can get it done and work around it. So yeah, I think of difficulties and difficulties when I'm spinning my wheels and I can't create the piece. But that simply solved, I put it down and make something else and come back here later. I really are occasions,

I walk into walls and it's a really awakening, yeah, I'm blind. So I kind of have one more question, but I'm going to stick one more in there. Cool, we talked a little bit about earlier the movement in your piece, there's so much movement in your pieces. Can you tell us a little bit about why that's important to you? I have to move slowly, if I move too fast, it's dangerous, just because I'm blind. But for so many years, for so many years, I guess, my brother and I, we used to go out to get

fishing off there, and we would sit on top of the mountains and we would watch the river by. It's a very gentle, peaceful way, place. Birds come floating into this little grassy man on top of the peaks. Down below, you'll see a deer gently walking by, a blade of grass weighing with a breeze. And you look up and you see the clouds appearing and dissolving and reappearing again on the other side of the peaks. So everything is moving, but it's slow and it's gentle, and so it doesn't take a very strong movement to create something beautiful. You don't have to have a volcano, you don't have to have a

physical contact and a very aggressive form to create movement in all sorts of ways, but in a world of gentle, I say, think, and it has to be that way or it doesn't work. I live in a world of gentleness. So, let me back up, excuse me. So what drives you to continue? What drives you to continue making this work? I guess there's a need inside. It's like I love it. If you love something, you take care of it. If you love it in nourishing, and it grows, there's a fetus inside the room.

You're nourishing it. It's growing, and when the time is right, the fetus comes into this world, starts living. My creations, my bronzes, live inside me, sometimes for a lot of periods of times, for years, sometimes for days, weeks, it varies. But with the time, its old time comes, it too has to be born, it has to come out. And I find that at times I'm fighting a peace from coming, and it's like prolonging child labor, we're going through that procrastinating. I know I want to make it, but I'm afraid there's fear in

it. Can I make it as good as I think I can as I want to make it? Maybe, maybe not, you know. But it's when a time comes, it comes out, and I start creating, and there's nothing in the world. Like it, because it's another world in itself, that I'm so fortunate to be able to experience. Yes? That's really nice. I love it. I love it. I love how you start it with, I love it. Do you think that we could zoom the cameras out, and kind of talk about that question again? Even if you say some of the same things, there's anyway that we can talk about that question one more time. Just what drives you to continue? I'll ask it a little bit differently.

Once we're zoomed out, are we zoomed out? So, I'll ask it, Michael, differently. Yeah, no, you answered it beautifully. We just want to get another look of it, so we got to close up of us answering it, so now we want to get a long shot of us answering it. And then we'll make a match, make a stew. But what pushes you to wake up every morning and continue to create these beautiful creations? The need inside, I guess, that has been their almost only life. They need to create, they need to live, they need to experience, they need to maybe understand something. But it all revolves around

my work so often, and Lori, my wife, is so amazing because what she does, if she makes it possible for me to be able to do what I do. And creating is my world, my thing. We all have our story, and I think what I found has given so much, so added so much beauty to, and in which our lives to an enormous degree, because we never know where we're going, what we're doing, what experience we're going to happen across, come across, be it good or

whatever. But it's part of living and part of my being is art and sculpture and appreciation of other forms of art as well. I don't know what I'm saying. You know, the first time you really answered it was magical, and so I was just trying to see if I could get a different camera angle. It's not necessary. I don't even need to say it again, I already have it, so that's fine. I didn't mean to make you repeat yourself, and you didn't, which is good. Chili, it all goes up different.

So I think now we should, we need to stop the cameras, but we need to get one more shot, and of you answering the phone. What inspires your work as an artist? Sun rising. Because then it's a new day, a new day to create new thoughts, new ideas. New places to go, and now telling what's lying around the corner, and it's just living. It's part of living, and all of that inspires the work up from bringing the book to listening to you talk to the man down the street, hearing someone's story creates a sculpture. So they come from the air.

That's cool. That's a great way to start it. I like that. And they come back. We should not touch this.

Okay. Let's put that down. And there's one more shot that I want. That's really good. I like that. Okay, I think something really quick. Could you tell it

up just a hear? Yeah. All right.