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00:00Computational origami is quite useful for the mathematical problems we are trying to solve.
00:08We try to integrate the math and the art together.
00:12I kind of like it.
00:14Climate change is scary. It's terrifying.
00:17But artists can translate the science so that everyone can understand it.
00:23Biology is the study of life, and I carve feathers into intricate art.
00:29People say I capture the essence of the birds. I kind of just feel them in my body.
00:34Through generations of passing knowledge from person to person, people in our family make very distinct pottery.
00:42It is a cultural science that 50 years ago we didn't even think was scientific.
00:49My mission was going to be at the International Space Station.
00:52Now that I've tried my hand at sewing in space, I can say it's tricky.
00:59The motto of MIT is Mens et Manus, which is mind and hand.
01:02The motto of MIT is Mens et Manus, which is mind and hand.
01:04So it's not just about thinking about things and solving problems in your head.
01:09But it's also about physically doing things.
01:10My dad and I started doing a business in physics.
01:11As an architect, I started doing a business, I started doing a business.
01:12The motto of MIT is Mens et Manus, which is mind and hand.
01:17So it's not just about thinking about things and solving problems in your head, but it's also about physically doing things.
01:35My dad and I started getting interested in art and craft because we were trying to solve
01:43math problems.
01:45We'd work on a problem, get stuck, and then build something that helped explain it.
01:56Computational origami is quite useful for the problems we were trying to solve.
02:04As we made more and more models to understand what was going on geometrically, at some point
02:08those models started looking beautiful.
02:19Now we try to integrate the math and sculpture making together.
02:24The more we do it, the more we view them through the same lens.
02:28At least I like to think about art also as a problem solving endeavor.
02:37I'm a theoretical computer scientist and usually we're trying to understand what problems are
02:42easy for computers to solve versus which ones are hard for computers to solve.
02:47But I got interested in folding just because it seemed interesting mathematically.
02:51I was curious about becoming a lawyer.
02:57I went to law school for a term and decided I definitely did not want to be a lawyer.
03:05So I headed to Northern New Brunswick, Canada and I built a log cabin.
03:11It made me not afraid to try anything.
03:14I homeschooled my son, I became a single parent before he was three.
03:20What I decided about learning is that it's not what you learn, it's to become excited about
03:27learning.
03:28I think our first collaboration was the Eric and Dad puzzle company when I was five and
03:32six years old.
03:34We made and sold wire take apart puzzles to toy stores across Canada.
03:40I helped design the puzzles, Marty made them all.
03:44And then we split the money 50-50, which was pretty cool as a six year old.
03:49In the beginning Eric wasn't interested in math, so there was no pressure to do math.
03:55I was playing lots of Nintendo.
03:57I asked my dad, how do people make video games?
04:01And a neighbor had one of the early personal computers.
04:04We borrowed it and made a video game.
04:10I took advanced calculus and then I really saw the beauty in mathematics.
04:15You have this ultimate truth, you can prove that some theorem is true and know for sure that
04:21that is true.
04:22I think there's no other aspect of human existence where you have that kind of certainty.
04:31What was it like to be a 12 year old in college?
04:34It was great.
04:36My peers, of course, were much older than me.
04:39They treated me like any other student.
04:41They invited me to parties.
04:43They tried to keep the drugs in another room, I'm told, so I didn't know that was happening.
04:48But I ended up doing undergrad in two years.
04:51And then I was like, well, I want to learn more stuff.
04:54So I guess grad school?
04:57And I saw this world of origami mathematics that seemed really cool.
05:01Finished my PhD when I was 20 and was lucky enough to get a job offer at MIT.
05:08The unusual thing is that when Eric was offered a job, they also offered me one because we
05:14had a reputation for working together.
05:17Well, that's not bad.
05:18That's a good test.
05:19Eric and I have published 100 joint papers.
05:24Interesting.
05:26The most important problem now is to prove that mathematically these curved forms exist.
05:40We use a ball burnisher to put indentations into the paper.
05:48When we first started folding paper, we used a laser cutter, and then we decided everything
05:55had to be handmade, every step.
06:04The paper wants to fold along the score lines, but we have to really encourage it and go around
06:10all the creases.
06:12And as we do that, the paper just pops into this 3D form.
06:19It's a very simple constraint in origami that you're not allowed to stretch or tear the paper.
06:26And so all you're allowed to do is deform it by folds.
06:30It makes it a little bit harder.
06:32It makes it a lot harder, to be honest.
06:38When we started working in computational origami, I think part of the appeal was that it seemed
06:43useless.
06:47But years later, it turned out that if you want to build a structure that can change its
06:53shape, folding is a pretty natural way to do that.
06:57Like if you want to make a giant telescope lens in space, you first need to fold it up into
07:05something small so you can put it in a shuttle to go into space and then unfold.
07:12So origami is actually super useful for engineering and medicine and things like that.
07:16So let's go up.
07:17Yeah.
07:18My dad and I had been trying to understand the mathematics and explain how paper behaves
07:31in curved crease folding.
07:34And we were starting to realize, hey, the geometry is cool.
07:36Let's try to make them even more beautiful.
07:43Around that time, MoMA contacted us and said, hey, we're doing this show, it's about science
07:49and art.
07:50Got any cool objects?
07:51That was quite a surprise.
07:55And so it ended up in their permanent collection.
07:57I guess rarely does an art career start with MoMA.
08:06And soon after, various galleries would say, hey, we're doing a show about paper, are you
08:10interested?
08:11Hey, we're doing a show about book art, do you have some pieces?
08:15And so that became, let's make more and more sculpture and explore that deeper and deeper.
08:21Now, the main idea is we're threading a string or a few strings through a series of disconnected
08:32components such that when you pull the string tight, now this is like a pretty stable structure.
08:40I think I tend to attract the students who are also interested in building physical manifestations
08:46of their work.
08:47That means there's two strings going through that tube.
08:50It's not always easy to do that in mathematics.
08:52Exactly.
08:53Yeah.
08:54But I think it enriches the whole experience.
08:56Yeah.
08:57So the shape of the pieces might affect it, I think.
09:00A couple of years after being at MIT, I get this phone call from the MacArthur Foundation,
09:06and they're like, you've won this award.
09:08The MacArthur Fellowship exists to say, that's cool that you're working on things that other
09:15people don't explore.
09:17That confirmation for me sort of encouraged me to go even more in that direction and explore
09:23the more obscure things and whatever I found exciting was okay.
09:27As an artist in the 60s, I tried different things.
09:37And then I saw glass in a school in England.
09:41I spent nine months there and then returned to my log cabin and started a studio to make
09:47art glass.
09:49I had never seen my dad blow glass before.
09:56It was all before I was born.
09:58Lighter here.
09:59At MIT, we just jumped back into glassblowing.
10:03And then I got to learn to blow glass so we could play in that space together.
10:07We've evolved blowing these hollow forms.
10:14And then the idea was you can't just have a playing glass vessel.
10:20One of the techniques is almost randomly putting cut glass over the glass.
10:28And that produces an optic effect that distorts what you see inside.
10:35We wanted to combine these two interests that we have of blowing glass and paper sculpture.
10:45Those are two materials that generally are thought of belonging together.
10:54This is the complete works of Shakespeare, but only the words that have red in them.
11:00I see Frederick, labored, favoredly.
11:04All of these have red highlighted in the middle.
11:07Here's a folded one.
11:09And we're going to embed this paper inside the blown glass vessel.
11:16Come on in.
11:27Yeah.
11:31Sculpture, I guess, is not a normal activity as an MIT professor in computer science.
11:37Oh, that's nice.
11:39Staying coiled like that.
11:40Whoa, that's awesome.
11:42But I think for us, it's really a benefit to have two careers instead of one.
11:55Doing art, we inspire new mathematics.
11:59And doing mathematics, we inspire new art.
12:01I think some of my most interesting art comes out when I am just pissed off.
12:23Environmental issues have been a theme throughout my life.
12:33And our addiction to fossil fuels has very serious consequences for the entire globe.
12:40Climate change is depressing.
12:42It's scary.
12:43It's terrifying.
12:47But artists must be leaders.
12:49And leaders must be artists.
12:54Clay transmits all of my feelings.
13:01If a person is drawn in by a piece of my art,
13:06maybe the story I'm trying to tell about climate change will reach them.
13:13I did not begin my ceramic journey until I was 30 years old.
13:27I had a career prior to that as a teacher.
13:31And I decided to enroll at Otis College of Art and Design extension ceramics classes.
13:38You want this blended in, huh?
13:42Yeah.
13:43I had no art background when I arrived at Otis.
13:47Zero.
13:48But as soon as I touched clay, I knew that this was going to be something I could do for a very long time.
13:57My mother was actually a beauty queen.
14:00And my father was in U.S. military intelligence during World War II.
14:05He was educated as an architect.
14:07He could draw anything.
14:08He could build anything.
14:10And so when I told my parents I was going to quit my job at Crossroads School in Santa Monica,
14:16my mom looked like she was going to go into complete cardiac arrest.
14:21And my dad said,
14:23You've finally come to your senses.
14:26Otis College of Art and Design has a hundred-year history.
14:31The first campus was close to downtown Los Angeles.
14:37Many prominent Los Angeles artists at some point graced the halls of Otis.
14:44Peter Volkus arrived in 1954.
14:48Volkus could throw beautiful pots and he started tearing them apart, abstracted them.
14:56Pete Volkus opened the doors for all of us to create much more expressionism in clay.
15:02I became a faculty member at Otis teaching English.
15:08And faculty can sit in classes.
15:11I, of course, took ceramics classes.
15:14Ralph Vissera was in charge of the program.
15:18He taught us so many technical skills from glaze chemistry to plaster mold making to potter's wheel,
15:30hand building, slab building, coil building.
15:34It was rigorous on all technical fronts.
15:37It was the Harvard of American ceramics.
15:43But when we moved to the new campus, Otis closed the ceramic program.
15:52Later on, the school decided to bring it back and I was tapped as the ceramic instructor.
15:57The idea is to make this part blue and then cover the whole thing in red.
16:03If you do the bottom side first, then you don't mess up anything.
16:08Joan's biggest influence is her belief in her students.
16:15Her belief is so, matter of fact, so strong that you start believing yourself.
16:21These are going off to your first gallery, huh?
16:24This one just came out of the kiln.
16:26That's sexy.
16:27Really sensitive glazing.
16:30I've been an extension student of Joan's for the past year and a half.
16:34And just from, I think, day one, she really took an interest in my work.
16:38I have met so many interesting extension students.
16:42Wait a minute.
16:43Wait a minute.
16:44Yeah, somebody's going to cut themselves.
16:46You're going to draw a little blood with that one.
16:49I really like surfers because they have strong upper body strength.
16:54I also like dentists and orthodontists because they have good hands.
16:59That's why I...
17:01Wait.
17:02Same problem.
17:03Yeah, I can't sell those, but...
17:05You won't ever do that again.
17:06No.
17:07Definitely not.
17:08Right?
17:09Yeah.
17:10Joan really helped our ceramics department recapture that past prestige.
17:16Her work has appeared in the Smithsonian and just been in a lot of different museums,
17:22internationally and nationally.
17:24Her shows are taking on environmental issues through representations in clay.
17:34My brain and my heart are connected to my fingertips.
17:40That's how I transmit my thinking.
17:45As we create more greenhouse emissions, we have atmospheric tipping points.
17:52So I have one cup that's tipping with SUVs spilling out.
18:02And then I did another one with little sushi that have oil derricks on them,
18:08along with all these contributors to climate change.
18:13Whether it's airplanes, cars, or the way we produce food in America,
18:19overconsumption is what we do best.
18:26About 2009, one of my students came back from Christmas vacation
18:31with a bag full of bleached coral.
18:36And she gave me a few pieces, and she said,
18:38these are all over the shores of Guam,
18:41and our coral reef is sick.
18:45And she said, what used to be the colorful coral
18:49is now just turned white, breaking apart and landing on our beaches.
18:56The warming oceans are creating bleaching events.
19:00And because the coral are so sensitive,
19:03the entire ocean ecosystem is under pressure.
19:10I carried that bleached coral in my apron
19:13for a couple years, thinking about it.
19:18And finally, I decided to switch my work
19:21from flamboyant, colorful theatrics to all-white.
19:26I started thinking of the bleached coral events
19:35as the canary in the coal mine,
19:37warning us of climate disaster.
19:40I think this is the next step in the climate change series.
19:55It's called Water Warrior,
19:57and it is about the future issues of rising sea levels,
20:02but also of potable water for people.
20:15We can all do our part to decrease our carbon emissions,
20:21like growing your own food or buying what you need
20:25and not waste your food and throw it out.
20:30We can avoid climate disaster,
20:33and artists can translate the science
20:36so that everyone can understand it.
20:39Feathers are symbols of our aspirations,
20:56of flight and hope,
21:00kind of our dreams.
21:01Those ideas are why I chose to use feathers in my art.
21:18People say I capture the essence of the birds,
21:20and that's really a compliment
21:21because I like to feel them,
21:24like kind of just feel them in my body.
21:26Biology is the study of life.
21:45Birds shed their feathers,
21:48and I carve them into intricate art.
21:50This feather is from an Asian jay,
21:57and this is about as small as I go.
22:06This is part of the wing.
22:08It's not the main wing feather.
22:09They're little coverts, they're called.
22:11They cover up the other feathers,
22:14and it just has these little bits of blue on them.
22:17I want to support laws that protect birds.
22:25Most of my feathers come from natural shedding
22:28in zoos and private aviaries,
22:31so I can be sure that they're legal.
22:39This is from an Argus pheasant.
22:41Some of the biggest, most heavy feathers in the world.
22:44These are the primaries.
22:47It's what the bird powers its flight with.
22:50And these are the secondaries,
22:51and on most birds,
22:52secondaries help the bird just float in the air.
22:57These are beautifully patterned,
22:58so the bird uses them for display,
23:00kind of like a peacock.
23:03But when its feathers are all tucked in,
23:05it just blends into its forest background.
23:11Feathers are made out of keratin,
23:12which is the strongest of animal materials.
23:15It's like your fingernail,
23:17but then inside it's more pithy,
23:20because the other thing about feathers
23:22is they're really light.
23:26Another function feathers have
23:27is to enhance the bird's sense of the environment.
23:30This is like one big lever
23:33that goes into the bird's nerve-rich skin.
23:36Each flight feather is attached
23:40by a muscle and a tendon,
23:42so they can move those feathers
23:44more or less separately.
23:46They can do things
23:48that we can barely imagine.
23:50I grew up near Seattle.
24:01My father was an eye surgeon.
24:03My mother was a professional artist,
24:05but having three sisters
24:07and no brothers,
24:08mostly I would just go out
24:09and explore the woods.
24:11I was a biologist
24:18and I focused on entomology.
24:20I do know the plants
24:22and the creatures.
24:24And then I worked
24:27with the hydropower industry.
24:29I was sitting behind a desk
24:31in meetings.
24:33So 10 years ago,
24:36I was thinking about
24:37what's my mission in life?
24:42And it appears to be
24:43to foster appreciation
24:45and understanding
24:46of the natural world.
24:51My father used these glasses
24:53for eye surgery.
24:55I need them,
24:55especially as I get older.
24:58And these were my dad's.
25:01Tiny little forceps.
25:03They're grooved,
25:04so they don't slip back and forth.
25:06And these were his scalpels.
25:10They're really sharp.
25:16My mom really encouraged creativity.
25:19She would teach classes
25:20in her home and paint.
25:23After she died,
25:25I got her notebooks
25:26and I'm looking through one of them
25:28and there's birds
25:29that she's just probably
25:31saw outside the window,
25:32went choo-choo-choo-choo-choo.
25:35From her drawings,
25:36I've made some pieces.
25:40I wish she was around
25:41to see the results.
25:52I'm carving these little bugs
25:53from feathers
25:54of the Central American
25:55oscillated turkey.
25:56They're shiny like a bug,
25:58so I'm making
25:59what I call bug bird.
26:00I want to honor the birds
26:02and I want to honor
26:03the feathers.
26:04I could paste them flat
26:05against the background,
26:06but I don't.
26:07I pull them away
26:08so that they have
26:09their natural curve.
26:10I pull them away
26:19so that they have
26:20their natural curve.
26:26Voila!
26:27When I photograph it,
26:36I want to get
26:37the light
26:38just right
26:39so that I can
26:40capture
26:41the shadows.
26:42What I feel
26:45is important
26:47is this feeling
26:48of space
26:49and design
26:50and also a feeling
26:53of motion.
26:59I have a barn
27:00that the swallows love.
27:04In the spring,
27:05there's hundreds of them.
27:09When I'm watching
27:10the swallows,
27:11I have this kinesthetic
27:12sense of soaring
27:14with them.
27:15I like to dance
27:28and I get that same
27:29feeling
27:30of lightness.
27:40My art is
27:41seen all over the world.
27:45and if somebody
27:47can see feathers
27:49in a different way,
27:50hopefully,
27:51it can give them
27:52a new perspective
27:54on the natural world.
27:55Come on in!
28:18Come on in!
28:19Come on in!
28:20Come on!
28:21Come on in!
28:27For me,
28:28everything starts
28:29with the pencil.
28:30The pencil
28:31is the application
28:32of the thought
28:32to the paper.
28:35So you start just
28:36fooling around
28:37with a direction.
28:41And once you see
28:42the direction,
28:42you begin to see
28:43that this could work
28:44in this space.
28:47Then the idea
28:48begins to develop
28:49to be able
28:50to be functional
28:51and build.
28:56I'm dealing
28:57with glass,
28:57steel,
28:58water,
28:59and light.
29:01So all of the senses
29:02can be experienced.
29:04Seeing, hearing,
29:05touching, smelling.
29:12There's never
29:13a boring moment.
29:15That's the beauty
29:16of being an artist.
29:17I've got a lot
29:30of different ideas
29:31going all the time.
29:36I'll be working on something
29:37for 40 minutes
29:38and then I go
29:39to something else.
29:40It's just my nature.
29:45John is like an
29:46overgrown eight-year-old.
29:47It's either
29:48full speed ahead
29:49or stop.
29:51Nothing in between.
29:52I remember
29:56my first week
29:57in kindergarten.
29:58We did drawing.
29:59We did cutting
30:00things out.
30:01We were just
30:02having fun as kids.
30:06Friedrich Froebel
30:07was the inventor
30:08of kindergarten
30:09in the 70s
30:11and 80s.
30:12I spent time
30:12studying his work.
30:16Froebel was born
30:16in Germany.
30:17His father was
30:18a Lutheran minister.
30:19In the University,
30:20he studied
30:21botany,
30:22mathematics,
30:23and he was
30:24an apprentice
30:25of Samuel Weiss
30:26at the Museum
30:27of Crystallography.
30:29Samuel Weiss
30:30was one of the
30:31discoverers
30:32of how crystalline
30:33structure develops.
30:34Drawings
30:35of Samuel Weiss
30:36show how
30:37the cube grew
30:38to the other
30:39crystalline forms.
30:42After having
30:43an education
30:44in sciences,
30:45Froebel worked
30:46as a teacher.
30:47That changed
30:48the rest of his life.
30:58You know,
30:58as a little kid,
30:59I wanted to be
31:00an architect.
31:01But in college,
31:02architecture was
31:03mathematics,
31:04so I got
31:05into majoring
31:06in art.
31:09I started working
31:10in clay.
31:11I loved the feeling
31:12of how you get
31:13manipulated.
31:14So I got
31:15a master's
31:16in ceramics,
31:17and then that's
31:18when I went to
31:19Europe.
31:24I was working
31:25with the Queens
31:25Royal Blue Delft
31:26Company.
31:27They established
31:28a factory in
31:28Delft in 1653.
31:32We built
31:33ceramic murals,
31:33some that were
31:3450 by 150 feet.
31:38In the Netherlands,
31:38I also worked
31:39with Lierdem glass.
31:40I saw transparency,
31:41translucency,
31:42all those qualities
31:45of glass
31:46that everything
31:47else in the
31:48sculptural world
31:49did not have.
31:52I was kind of
31:52wooed into that
31:53glass world
31:54when I said,
31:55I got to do this.
32:02The educational system
32:03pre-1800
32:04was rote learning.
32:06Strict discipline.
32:07The teachers
32:08were dictators.
32:09And then
32:11Feuble published
32:12his philosophy
32:13in 1826.
32:14For him,
32:16the kinder
32:17is the child.
32:18The garden
32:19is for planting
32:20things and growing.
32:21So within the mind
32:23of the child,
32:24that seed would grow.
32:25And he helped
32:27nurture that growth
32:28with his kindergarten
32:29teaching system,
32:30which is based
32:32on the crystalline
32:33structure concept
32:34from Samuel Weiss.
32:37Cube,
32:38cylinder,
32:39and the sphere.
32:42By spinning this
32:43cube,
32:44it becomes a cylinder.
32:47And this one,
32:48when you spin this
32:49cylinder,
32:50it becomes a sphere.
32:54Feuble began to
32:55break it down
32:56into its elements.
32:57The solid cube
32:58becomes a fragmented
33:00cube.
33:01The children
33:02begin to arrange
33:03it in the different
33:04ideas.
33:05So this is
33:06the gift of knowledge
33:07like mathematics,
33:08halves, quarters.
33:10The gift of beauty
33:12is to take the shapes
33:14and to arrange them
33:15into any kind
33:16of a pattern.
33:17And the gift of life.
33:19The children create
33:20buildings out of blocks,
33:22chairs out of blocks.
33:25After the block system,
33:26they play with
33:27parquetries,
33:28paper cuts,
33:29paper cutting,
33:30paper folding,
33:32peas and sticks.
33:35So Feuble was
33:36presenting objects
33:37for the children
33:38to learn through
33:39sense perception,
33:40experiential contact
33:43with the world.
33:49When I got back to
33:50America,
33:50I didn't have a job,
33:52but I found a teaching
33:53position in L.A.
33:54and I liked it
33:55because it was fun.
33:56My approach
33:57to teaching
33:58is actually
33:59Froeble derivative
34:00because it deals
34:01with opening up
34:02freedom of expression
34:03and freedom of
34:04feelings,
34:05but in order to
34:07express that freedom,
34:08you have to have
34:09the techniques.
34:10And I always felt
34:12that you must
34:13understand your media
34:14in order to
34:15create anything.
34:16anything.
34:20I made a series
34:21of small blown forms.
34:24I played with this
34:25idea.
34:27I thought,
34:27that's kind of cool,
34:28that's fun.
34:30But once I took
34:31this apart
34:32and I looked at this
34:33form,
34:34I saw it standing
34:3610 feet tall.
34:37Now in order to make
34:39that 10 feet tall,
34:40you have to have
34:41furnaces that are big
34:42enough to be able
34:43to be able to put
34:44the glass in
34:45to bend it.
34:48So I built
34:49a walk-in kiln.
34:53You start with a
34:54flat piece of glass
34:56and you put it
34:57into the kiln,
34:58suspend it over
34:59the mold.
35:00We used steel
35:01pipes.
35:03We run that up
35:04to a temperature
35:05of about 1,100
35:06degrees,
35:0714 to 16 hours
35:08to get to
35:09the bending point.
35:11Then the cooling
35:12takes 3 to 4 days.
35:13Once those pieces
35:16are bent
35:17in the large kiln,
35:18then we transfer
35:19those to the
35:20taping table.
35:24He does all that
35:25taping single-handedly,
35:27freehand,
35:28and they're perfect.
35:33From the taping process,
35:34I wheel them
35:35into the sandblast booth.
35:40Once the piece is
35:41sandblasted,
35:42surface is etched,
35:43then we bring it
35:44into the studio,
35:45remove all the tape.
35:46So the pattern
35:47then is finished.
35:54In 1817,
35:55Freud built a school
35:57in Kilhow,
35:58and then in 1837
36:00the kindergarten
36:01in Bad Blankenburg,
36:02which is over the hill.
36:04And he would hike
36:05back and forth.
36:06It's about 9 miles.
36:08From there,
36:11Freud's system spread
36:13around Germany
36:14and then around the world.
36:17England, Japan,
36:18Russia, the USA.
36:21Can you open the door
36:22and put your finger in?
36:25I open it.
36:28What can we do
36:29with these blocks?
36:31The Freud's system
36:32was kind of lost
36:33in the mid-20th century,
36:34but it's really
36:35coming back.
36:38Freud's USA
36:39is trying to get
36:40this into the
36:41kindergarten system
36:42today.
36:43This is awesome.
36:44I'm in a rocket ship.
36:45I'm in a square rocket ship.
36:46I'm in a rocket ship.
36:47I'm in a rocket ship.
36:48I'm in a rocket ship.
36:49It's the rebirth
36:50of freedom
36:51in education.
36:55Now, this is controversial,
36:57but Freud's kindergarten
36:59is the origin
37:00of modern abstract art.
37:04Children learning
37:05that system
37:06became 20th century.
37:07Painters,
37:08sculptors,
37:09designers.
37:10Frank Lloyd Wright
37:11wrote,
37:12in 1876,
37:13my mother went
37:14to the Philadelphia
37:15World's Fair
37:16and saw
37:17the presentation
37:18of the kindergarten system.
37:21And he says,
37:22when my mother introduced
37:23these blocks to me,
37:24they changed the way
37:26I saw the world.
37:28Piet Mondrian
37:29began as a teacher
37:31so he knew
37:32the Freud's system.
37:33I think that he
37:35integrated that
37:36totally into his work.
37:38Another perfect example
37:40is Buckminster Fuller.
37:41He said,
37:42I discovered
37:43my geometric structures,
37:44my geodesic domes
37:46from Freud's
37:47peas and sticks.
37:48Goldie and I went
37:57to Germany in 2019.
37:59We went to his birthplace.
38:01We went to where
38:03his schools were.
38:04John's got Freudville
38:06on the brain.
38:07So,
38:08we tracked
38:10the Freudville trail
38:11and went up the hill.
38:14And on the top
38:15is a monument to him.
38:17The cube,
38:18the cylinder
38:19and the sphere.
38:20Ten feet tall almost.
38:22I'm getting goose pimples now
38:24because it was just something,
38:26this really exists.
38:27Go ahead.
38:28Go ahead.
38:29You're up.
38:30We got it.
38:31We got it.
38:32Go up.
38:32Perfect.
38:33Perfect.
38:34Perfect.
38:35I learned so much
38:37about life
38:38from Freudville.
38:39His ideas connected me
38:45to a whole new world,
38:47a visual world.
39:10Pottery is such an integral part
39:12of our family.
39:15And things like
39:16where to dig for clay
39:17and the polishing method,
39:19how to fire pieces.
39:22Those traditions
39:23have been in our family
39:25every single generation
39:27for the last thousand years.
39:30I knew it was important
39:33when I went on a field trip
39:35to a museum
39:36and my mom's pot was in there.
39:39And her mom's pot
39:40and my great-grandmother's pot.
39:42And my teacher was like,
39:44oh my goodness,
39:45that's your family?
39:49Sergio and Joseph are brothers.
39:52They come from Santa Clara Pueblo.
39:54Each Pueblo has
39:55a different style of pottery
39:56that they traditionally make
39:57and it really is based
39:58on the type of clay
39:59that is in the surrounding area.
40:02New Mexico has so much variety
40:04and types of clay.
40:06What is that?
40:07Oh, that's cool.
40:09Yeah.
40:10So this is really pigmented stone.
40:13So this we would pulverize
40:15to make slip.
40:18And we'll find different color ones
40:20and that's why you get variations
40:21of different types of reds.
40:26I've been working with clay
40:27since I was about three.
40:29I was told by everybody,
40:31you're going to be making pottery.
40:32It's kind of, it's expected.
40:37When we build the pots,
40:38we use what we call Pukki
40:40and it's basically just a pre-made bowl.
40:44It's all coil built.
40:47And a lot of the process is dependent
40:49on the weather.
40:50You don't want it to be humid
40:52because if your piece is too wet,
40:54it will collapse.
40:55It won't be strong enough
40:56to hold its own weight.
40:58But if a piece dries out too much,
41:00the coil will crack.
41:03A lot of it is just feel
41:05and knowing from experience.
41:09Joseph Lugo, his pieces are thoughtful.
41:13And he really thinks about Pueblo culture,
41:16Santa Clara culture in particular,
41:18as the foundation for the pieces that he makes.
41:24Unlike pretty much every other tribe,
41:26we make our pieces very thick.
41:28So we are able to carve very, very deep
41:32and create a lot of dimension.
41:37I had my first show when I was seven years old.
41:41It wasn't something I really wanted to do.
41:43And I took a break for a very long time.
41:47And one day I just,
41:48I fell in love with it again.
41:52It's really cool to show people
41:54what you can create with your hands.
41:59Sergio Lugo is part of this younger generation
42:01that take traditional aspects of the work
42:04and make it part of their contemporary world.
42:07The abanyu or the water serpent
42:09is a protector of water.
42:13I created my own water serpent.
42:16I wanted to make it more modern.
42:20I've always thought that, um,
42:22polishing is the most technically difficult part.
42:26We're using just basic materials.
42:29A mixture of clay and water to make slip.
42:34And polishing stones.
42:36No glaze at all.
42:39Everything's traditional method.
42:42We all use in the family
42:44her grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's stone.
42:47And just knowing that it's passed so many hands,
42:50it gives me a lot of confidence
42:52to do the same thing that they did.
42:57At Santa Clara Pueblo,
42:59the people were farmers.
43:01So typically the women made pottery.
43:03Men might paint or design pieces,
43:05but they didn't necessarily make pottery.
43:08Pottery was meant for utility and for ceremony.
43:14But in the late 1800s,
43:16when the railroads were developed,
43:18they would stop at every Pueblo
43:20and there would be people selling pottery.
43:24About 50 years ago,
43:26the men began to make pottery as well.
43:29Generational knowledge is passing information
43:33from person to person.
43:35One person that did a lot of that was my great-great-grandmother,
43:40Serafina Tafoya.
43:42She had different types of impressed pieces,
43:45painted pieces.
43:47And she was a massive influence to the next generation after her.
43:51Especially my great-grandmother, Margaret Tafoya.
43:57Margaret Tafoya is one of the most important Pueblo potters
44:01of the past century.
44:02She's one of the few potters that won Best of Show twice
44:04at Santa Fe Indian Market,
44:06two years in a row when she was already in her 80s.
44:09So they come from a lineage of extraordinary potters.
44:13Joseph and Sergio's mother, Nancy Youngblood,
44:16is also one of the leading potters working today.
44:20We still ask her for input,
44:22all three of us, my brothers.
44:25She's taught us to make everything handmade,
44:28hand-carved, hand-polished, traditionally fired.
44:34It is a cultural science that is about Pueblo life,
44:37Pueblo art, and it's all learned knowledge.
44:40That's something that we're starting to understand
44:42is a really important part of science today
44:45that 50 years ago we didn't even think was scientific.
44:51There's so much time and effort you put into a piece of pottery
44:55that you don't want to lose it to the wind
44:57or a major temperature change.
45:02My mom created the shed to control all of that.
45:05Each pot is red before the firing,
45:10and the firing dictates if the pot is black or red.
45:14When we started the fire, the pieces were getting sooty.
45:25Once we put the boards on, the fire gets really hot,
45:29and all of that soot starts to burn off.
45:32You have to look in and see exactly when the soot is burning off the piece.
45:41I'll get it.
45:42I'll get it.
45:43Yeah, it's still sooty on Joe's.
45:47If it gets over-fired, the piece will dull out.
45:51It's starting to burn off here, too.
45:52Oh, yeah.
45:53When it reaches that perfect temperature, the finish is very shiny.
46:05Yeah, my pot's done.
46:07Once it kind of reaches that molten stage,
46:10that's when we cover it with manure.
46:12The shredded manure keeps all of the smoke inside.
46:20Beautiful.
46:21That's how the color change is happening.
46:25It's a chemical reaction of the manure and all of the smoke.
46:32We've covered the fire now, cutting off the oxygen.
46:35If you didn't cut off the oxygen, the pieces turn brown.
46:40And they're just sitting in, like, a cloud of smoke right now.
46:44Let's get it nice and packed.
46:47Just making sure that temperature goes down slowly is the key to a successful piece.
46:53We don't know the scientific detail of it, but we know what happens when you do certain things.
47:05And we know it works.
47:12Swipe it a little bit.
47:14It's a whole lot of work, but when it comes together, it's magical.
47:20After everything's clean, we've got to sign the wall.
47:27You know, I look around and I see dates and history and relatives.
47:33I can add my name to them and keep it going.
47:41I think that 500 years ago, they would have had no idea that we would still be doing this.
47:46But it is because of the resilience that they had that we have continued to pass it through every generation.
47:55I remember the first time I saw the full curvature of the Earth.
48:10I could not believe what I was seeing.
48:13The vibrancy, the colors, just how thin the atmosphere is against the blackness of space.
48:20In 1978, NASA selected the first group of astronauts that had women.
48:37I had just turned eight years old, and that's about the time I said, I want to be an astronaut.
48:42I grew up on a lake in Minnesota.
48:46I was drawing and crafting when I was little and asking my mom, can I use the sewing machine?
48:51Can I use the sewing machine?
48:52Apparently, I was a little bit annoying about it.
48:55In college, I studied mechanical engineering, got a PhD.
49:00NASA hired me as an engineer, and I was selected into the astronaut class of 2000.
49:05My first flight was on the space shuttle Discovery in 2008.
49:12When those solid rocket boosters ignite, it's like, boom, a kick in the pants, and it's like, okay, we're going somewhere now.
49:22After about eight minutes, the main engines cut off, and we're in space.
49:29I'm like, I did it. I'm here. This is the goal I had when I was a little girl.
49:38Unbelievable.
49:41We rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station.
49:46Then there's so many tasks to be done.
49:49With the robotic arm, I had to take the Japanese laboratory out of the payload bay of the shuttle, get it onto the space station.
49:56And then, after two weeks, we landed at the Kennedy Space Center.
50:04I remember thinking, somebody could convince me I'd never done it, you know, if there weren't pictures, because it seemed so dreamlike.
50:12It was just so fast and surreal.
50:13All the way through my time as an astronaut, I would do drawing and sewing as a kind of relaxing outlet.
50:25I even went on a couple quilting retreats to learn techniques and just started dabbling in it and trying it.
50:31And now it's my favorite thing to do, to turn a picture into a quilted art piece.
50:46My second flight was five years after the first.
50:49I was now married to Doug Hurley, who was also an astronaut.
50:54We had a three-year-old son.
50:58I was launching out of the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, getting to the space station on the Russian Soyuz.
51:06My mission was going to be six months long rather than two weeks.
51:13The International Space Station orbits Earth every 90 minutes.
51:19It is a collaboration between the United States and Russia, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency.
51:26The interior part of it is about the size maybe of a five-bedroom house. It's quite spacious.
51:36One of my favorite things to do was go to the cupola, which is a set of seven windows.
51:42There's a round one that faces directly towards Earth.
51:46From there, I really liked taking photographs.
51:50I would see a view and try to get the different textures of Earth, from the mountains to the deserts.
51:56The coastlines and farmland.
51:59You notice the cloud patterns and the different colors of water, like in the Bahamas.
52:05It was amazing.
52:08The space station is mostly used for science.
52:13We probably had at least 150 different experiments on board.
52:19And we would do maintenance on all the different hardware,
52:21because we had a life support system running, thermal systems running.
52:24We also do two hours of exercise every day.
52:30When we were living there for so long, there was a little bit of downtime.
52:34This is Mission Control Houston.
52:35One of the things that astronaut Karen Nyberg has been doing on board the space station.
52:39She took up some sewing supplies to make a piece of a quilt.
52:42Now that I've tried my hand at sewing in space, I can say one thing with certainty.
52:48It's tricky.
52:49You know, you can't lay things down and measure and cut.
52:53The fabric doesn't.
52:54I found myself taping the fabric to a surface.
52:57I'm almost done with one single nine-by-nine quilt block that has taken me quite a while, a lot longer than you would expect.
53:05I'm inviting all of you to create your own star-themed quilt blocks.
53:11We'll be combining them with my block to create a quilt for next year's 40th anniversary International Quilt Festival in Houston.
53:18The Houston International Quilt Festival ended up getting enough blocks for 30 king-size quilts.
53:31They got over 2,400 blocks from people all over the world, over 30 countries.
53:38There were space enthusiasts who had never in their life quilted anything that made a block.
53:44And there were blocks from quilters who were now excited about space, which I think is pretty cool.
53:59From space, there are no borders.
54:03Every border on Earth is imaginary.
54:09Everybody on Earth, we have so much more in common than we do different as human beings.
54:13And it makes me just empathize with people more.
54:19Even if I don't know them, I never will meet them.
54:23But they're my neighbors.
54:24We're all neighbors here on this planet.
54:26They're all neighbors, too.
54:27They're so busy about living space.
54:30They're all neighbors.
54:31That's been their last moment for the world.
54:42They're all neighbors.
54:44They can be married.
54:49For the future, it's been a long seusalf.
54:51They've had a hard time to live in...
54:52watch all episodes of craft in america online with additional videos and more visit craft in
55:02america at pbs.org this episode of craft in america is available with pbs passport and on amazon prime
55:10video
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