¡Colores!; 410; Tom Joyce, Kelly Eckel, Virgil Ortiz

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: The Nellita E. Walker Fund KNME-TV Endowment Fund The Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund >>THIS TIME, ON COLORES! CHALLENGING ESTABLISHED IDEAS IRON, SANTA FE SCULPTOR TOM JOYCE'S CUTTING EDGE ARTWORK CONNECTS THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. >>Every forging that I produce a piece of sculpture in many ways everything that's ever been made before it and everything that will come after that. >>REMNANTS OF WAR, SCRATCHED SURFACES, MORPHOGENIC ETCHINGS... KELLY ECKEL CONNECTS HER INSPIRATION TO THE WORLD AROUND HER USING PHOTOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES. >>Art has changed perception for me, the way I perceive the world. I don't see myself as unique, I'ma part of a system and that's what

I find beauty in. >>FROM A FAMILY OF TRADITIONAL POTTERS COCHITI PUEBLO ARTIST VIRGIL ORTIZ HAS EXPANDED HIS WORK TO THE REALMS OF FASHION AND FILM MAKING. >>Everything that I do tells a story of where the Cochiti Pueblo people came from and their ceramicsfrom the 1800's. >>TOM JOYCE EXPANDS >>Tom Joyce: Every forging that I produce a piece of sculpture from holds and embodies in many ways everything that's ever been made before it, everything that will come after that. Knowing that alliron on the planet is really a store of material to be used by somebody else at a later date, also gives me pause

as an artist, knowing that today it's a piece of sculpture tomorrow, who knows? And, this is the way it's been from the beginning of time. And, the beginning of time I'm thinking four-and-a-half billion years ago. For me, that's where it begins as celestial dust that was (piano music) >>I feel as though I've spent a lifetime mining the inherent qualities of the material I work with, that I set up the conditions whereby a formal approach is begun and then I allow the iron to speak for itself by traveling in unexpected and unpredictable ways. And that is, in its very nature, but something that as a human being I couldn't have predicted.

(piano music) >>When iron is first made, when it's smelted industrially into ingots, they are then forged and refined for use, when that happens, when the initial ingot is made, the iron cools over a very long period of time and its molecular structure is formed at that moment. With Aureole, I put the steel through a very rigorous I would associate not unlike meteoritic iron, when it's coming in from a super chilled state out in space, it hits our atmosphere, through friction it heatsto super high temperature and begins to shed skin and it expands and contracts in that moment in a very violent way so that by the time it reaches Earth it shows properties that were a part of its subatomic

structure but not able to be seen through the naked eye. So with Aureole, by going through asimilar kind of process of extreme heating and cooling over and over and over in some cases hundreds of times, that porous grain is exposed through the expansion and contraction, the inherent qualityof that material. (piano music) >>Since 2005 I've been working in a factory outside of Chicago and the factory is an industrial forge that produces over 250 million pounds of iron a month, and the forgings that they make are for aerospace industry, for offshore drilling rigs, it could be big hydroelectric dam turbine shafts. I watch from start to finish the forging being made, and I take the offspring, I take what's cut from either end

of the material. Sometimes it can be a thousand-pounds, sometimes 10,000 pounds, and it's precisely that stock that I retrieve and then make Like the Greek Omphalos where we are birthed from a specific place, but that symbolically our umbilical cord is tied to us as we move out into the world and traverse the planet in different ways. The Greeks believed that that weaving of all of our lives coming into full bloom, that we are always somehow symbolically connected to that place. Berg provides an example of the importance of the parent, and the title of course makes reference tothe tip of something much larger than what it is that you're seeing. I would love nothing better than to be able to show the work in its incredibly hot

molten state, right after the forging is complete, so the one can feel the intensity of the heat radiating out from the sculpture. The color of it as well, the white-hot aspect of it cooling down to what we consider acherry-red, those temperatures are something that we don't encounter I can come to being able to show the supple nature of iron in this molten state, or in this very hotmalleable state, is to is to render the sculpture as clay-like as possible, so that it's soft. You feel the kind of supple softness that can be approached when iron is heated to 2,600 degrees. (music) >>There's something quite

curious about the fact that I was introduced to iron at such an early age,that at thirteen I felt as if I had always had a hammer at age 60, I find the material to be inexhaustible in terms of how the ideas can be manifested using this very basic material. The fact that that gift of training was given to me by a man in El Rito, New Mexico, I feel a kind of indebtedness to the passing on of information, to to the emblematic aspect that any tool in the hands of a maker has the same potential as material has in the hands of makers, that when I look at a hammer what I see is a whole world unfolding. I don't see a tool that has limitations, I see an absolutely open-ended

possibility, and the fact that every day when I wake and walk into the studio, I see the same kind of potential tied up in every moment and that for me is the kind of unquenchable thirst and curiosity that has driven the work for all these decades. (piano music) as an artist, I feel, is to is to look where I haven't gone before, and of courseto investigate things that I don't know, and ripe for investigation is all kinds of new technologies that are available to be able to realize different forms, different processes, and for me that is the next challenging frontier, how best to use the foundational

understanding of the certain medium and being able to explore in many different aspects and ways, how to incorporate these technologicalinnovations in ways that haven't been seen before. (piano music) >>KELLY ECKEL HAS DISCOVERED NEW WORLDS. (Music) >>Kelly Eckel: As far as inspiration, as an artist it changes all the time. The way I look at art it's kind of the glasses you put on, so I look at everything as if it's art. Right now I'm very much inspired in as home. I view everything as home. (Music)

The initial start of the Remnants of War starts with splattering because I was really angry. I kept reading about all these wars everywhere and then I had to read about history and hearing the suffering, it became too much. I lost myself. It was like looking at yourself in the mirror, but you no longer have eyes. You're gone because, it becomes looking at a car violence but you're not, if you're not doing anything, then what's the point? You're just looking at the grotesqueness of it. I started painting and throwing coffee, wine on paper as if they were explosions and just drawing the explosion, because my anger was expressed

on the paper that way. It eventually turned into throwing developer on the surface of the paper. of War and the Scratch Surface series was necessary, I think I was there too long. It was a little dark for me, andI just needed to get out of that series, because also for the Remnants of War series, I actually physically, I wanted a contact with people that were suffering in war, because I'm here. I'm not in the middle of it but I want to have empathy for people that are in the middle of war and touching the surface of the paper with developer is not really healthy and so I was being physically as mentally, even though I want to understand, but I don't think that it's positive to be there too long. The Scratch Surface series,

I've learned through those works itwas my anger and my frustration, which I don't necessarily want the anger and the frustration to always be the only thing out there. I don't want that to be my only voice. What happened is it moved into what voice do I want in the world? Process is so integral because I wouldn't do this if I didn'tlove the process, because I'm never going to get paid for the amount of time I put into these. It'sabout the love of doing the work. When people say, "Oh, you could do it easier." Doing it this way and doing it in the computer, the first initial process of Remnants of War was I cut hundreds of negatives of hands out. It was the process of cutting and it's reflecting, because when I'm doing the process I'm also thinking about the process and I'm putting those negatives on the paper. I'm physically touching. It's the touch

important. (Music) One of the things that I would like to see with this work is to see that we are a part of the system, and not outside of it. Right now what I'm series, I do it because I loveit. I have a Genetic Memory series that kind of came out of it and it was very playful. It's, I thought, "Oh, I'll just play with these little miniature creatures that are in the Book of Hours or illuminated manuscripts". And so I started reading about those because, we always mix creatures together

and I was like, "Oh, maybe it's some evolutionary understanding of our changes over time and it's some memory," and as I started reading about evolutionary genetics it, instead of feeling distant from it, I felt connected with everything on this planet. So the one thing that I love about it is, bylooking, it changes who I am. Reading about pollinators, knowing that those weeds that are outside have flowers on them and that the pollinators need them, I no longer pick those flowers, because they need them. It's this relationship and question of what is everything around us for? When I get into reading about genes and how everything has a body and everything that has this part that extends from the body, that all an extension, it's the same gene. It brings everything

together for me. It doesn't separate. And, I think when we look at things similarly we don't want to destroy it. When I tell people that I, you know, it's my family. at insects or these creatures as family. I find beauty in that. The Fragmented series, you don't see things. It's just photos put together and they're changed around. That has to do with not seeing. You don't see what's in the blackness. Nobody knows everything. We're trying to understand. It's getting a sentence and not fully understanding everything, and it's the frustration of not knowing. I don't want to communicate untruths. I get

really excited about photographing nature and photographing under a microscope is just seeing things in new ways, but also seeing the beauty of things I don't normally see, or in seeing the relationships I don't normally see. I really just find it so fascinating how a patterncan arise in our genes and how it can look so similar to something in theother, if you see yourself in all the things that are around you, then you want to take care of it as well. Art has changed perception for me. The way I appreciate the world. I don't see myself as unique. I'm a part of a system, and that's what I find beauty in. That I have these feelings means there are millions of other people that are having these feelings. I'm just putting them in a visual context, because visual art is

my voice. >>VIRGIL ORTIZ REVIVES >>VIRGIL ORTIZ REVIVES THE TRADITION OF SOCIAL COMMENTARY IN COCHITI PUEBLO POTTERY. (music) >>Kamerick: You knew at a young age you were inspired you to work in clay? >>Ortiz: Growing up in a family of potters, like on my Mom's side, Sefarina Ortiz, her mom, Laurencita, they were all potters. My siblings and I kind of grew up in the world of clay, clay

always surrounding us on a daily basis. >>Megan: So, talk about when you were young, and you started making figurines, did you know that youwere tapping into a long tradition? >>Ortiz: I didn't, just us, and I learned from my mom the subjects and the different painting styles on those traditional pieces. The Cochiti Pueblo people, of the storyteller figure, which is a mother, or animals that are carrying their kids, <And they're seated> They're seated, yeah. So, then I started making pieces that were standing, and I started paying attention to more how they're dressed, and that kind of led to, like, me thinking about the fashion side of things. When I was about 15, a collector from Albuquerque, his name is Robert Gallegos, would always come and look at my mother's pieces and check to see what she was working on on my brother and my sisters, what we were doing. But when

he saw thatmy work was changing, he was asking my parents were is he getting these design ideas from, or the subject matter? And they said we don't know what he's doing, but <laughter> and I didn't either, but he had invited us down to his office and to his showroom here in Albuquerque, and it turned out thathe had the largest pieces of the historic Cochiti Pueblo pieces from the late 1800's and we walked in and all of our mouths dropped open, because all those pieces looked like those pieces, so. >>Megan: Pieces that... >>Ortiz: That I was creating <wow> yeah, so at that point both my parents pulled me aside and they said now you see with your own eyes that the clay has chosen you, so at a young age, like around 15 or 16, I knew exactly what I was going to dedicate my life to. Most people don't know the whole backstory of the historic pieces and they were all based on social commentary, because all of, at that time when the railroads were being laid around this area,

the people were being exposed to a lot more outsiders, such as, or like shows, like operas or the traveling circus sideshows that were coming around the area, so when the pueblo people went to these shows, they really looked at all the characters, and then in turn went back home and created like So, you see really cool pieces from the 1800's. >>Kamerick: How are you sort of taking that tradition and carrying it forward and making social commentary now? >>Ortiz: Another part of what I dedicate my life to is to really tell the story about the pueblo revolt of 1680 and everything that happened to our people here in New Mexico. It's not taught in our schools, it's not in our history books, it's been swept under the carpet, because of the genocide thathappened when the first non-natives arrived here, but in fact it's the first American Revolution and what Cochiti people and their pottery do, there are the storytellers, so I've written a movie script

about the pueblo revolt seventeen years ago, and I base it when it happens in 1680, and also in the future, 2180. The whole story revolves around and that's what the grandmothers and the granddaughters addressed each other in the pueblo as. I wanted the central figure to be a powerful woman figure. She's the leader of the blind archers, and it's just a way of paying homage to all the pueblo women of how much work they do in the pueblo and a lot of the times they're notthanked, but they are really the backbone of our pueblos. (music) >>Kamerick: Are there specific Cochiti motifs and designs that you incorporate

in your pieces? >>Ortiz: Yeah, I used our family designs but some of them are geometrical designs, so the geometrical ones I take and I kind of tweak them so I don't use the real traditional ones but they tell the same story, because you could get in trouble doing the real sacred designs. Those designs are for sacred pieces or art that stay at home. >>Kamerick: So, do you worry about cultural appropriation, people taking sacred designs and puttingthem out. >>Ortiz: That often happens and like, you know, I just really want to let people know that if they are sacred family designs keep them sacred they belong, but you always can add your interpretation to it and that you can put on the internet, because once you put somethingonto the web, you know, it's like a free-for-all and you, most likely, you will get ripped off. >>Kamerick: What do you see as an artist is your job? >>Ortiz: Everything I do tells the story of where the Cochiti Pueblo people came from and their ceramics a piece of the timeline, trying to carry on that

tradition, and the real geniuses or the creators are the people that did the social commentary back in the day. And I'm only reviving it, but you know it looks a lot newer nowadays, because it had died out, that style, so I'm just really pushing it to, you know, tell the next generation, this is, look at these pieces from 1800's. You'll learn a lot from them, and you know, hopefully encourage them to, once they startbuilding real contemporary looks, to encourage them to get into the art world. >>Kamerick: Why is that important to you going forward? >>Ortiz: That's how we were raised. I mean, it's just instilled. We have a small pueblo in Cochiti and, family, so we all had to take care of each other and that's my way to contribute to the pueblo, is through the art world and education about the art world, and, you know, all the kids and so to give them a backbone to go out there and do what it is that they want to do. If I can open doors and knock them down, basically, pave roads, then I'm willing to do that The traditionally made pottery

from Cochiti, it's very important and it is as important as our language and I'm still learning my language too, on a daily basis. There's so much to learn out there andespecially the stories behind them, like gathering the family together to go dig clay, go dig the temper, go make the paints that we use. to keeping the community together and your families together, so I really want to show that you can do it as an artist. And you can educate people through it, and use it as an educating tool. >>Kamerick: So, it's all part of keeping tradition and culture alive so more isn't lost? >>Ortiz: Yeah, there's a lot of things being lost on a daily basis and it's like, you know, if I can, I was born into a family of potters and that came want to stick with that and use that medium to make it strong and pass it on and really make sure that it lives on for forever. >>Funding for COLORES was

provided in part by: The Nellita E. Walker Fund KNME-TV Endowment Fund The Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund