- 7 weeks ago
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00:01I've been a comedian and an actor and a singer, now an art collector.
00:07Yeah, that's a nice painting, huh?
00:10We would buy a little bit and get more comfortable and then buy a little bit more.
00:15We have many thousands of tea pies.
00:18There are containers full of ideas.
00:21I know you like this one.
00:23Yes, I do.
00:24The best collectors articulate an aesthetic vision where you go into their homes.
00:28It's as interesting as going into an artist's studio.
00:32I love this.
00:34I work with making things. I live for making things.
00:38If I find artists that have imagination, I give them that little push forward.
00:47I was the only guy buying Chicano art.
00:50Being a collector, what you learn is what is original, what is different.
00:55There's two images of Cheech in here.
00:57You've got to find them.
00:59I love you, too.
01:00I'm very humble.
01:01I know you're comments.
01:02You're all right.
01:03And you have to name it, trochę brotherly, too.
01:06We have the brand new website.
01:07If you don't have to find his technology, you're ready to t eigenen up for example.
01:08How do you want to make a list?
01:10I was born here.
01:11Now, here's my sister looking at me and my friends.
01:13I know you, in my life is from a town.
01:16Oh my geography.
01:17obwohl my friends, they're changing doce.
01:19People equate quilts with hearth and home, comfort, safety and security.
01:39I'm a curator and an artist, but I'm also a collector of quilts.
01:48I taught myself how to quilt.
01:51I have never had lessons, but it just became a passion.
01:59I make narrative quilts.
02:03Either they're about my family or African-American history or the status of women.
02:15To be able to use quilts to tell the story, I feel I'm just fortunate to do that.
02:24I draw out the images first, and a textile company prints it on fabric.
02:37And it's sandwiched with cotton and a backing, and it's then quilted.
02:49This quilt is called Strange Fruit, inspired by Billie Holiday singing the song Strange Fruit.
02:57And it is about the history of lynching in this country.
03:05It's very important for me now to make quilts about these untold stories that are very difficult
03:12for people to hear, see, and deal with.
03:22This is the best part of quilting, when you're doing the last, last little step, putting the
03:29sleeve on.
03:3138 years ago, I founded the Women of Color Quilters Network.
03:38Currently, we have about 500 members.
03:45I ask them to create quilts surrounding a certain theme, some facet of African-American history.
03:55And then I curate exhibitions of their works.
04:01And Still We Rise was a show about events and people that impacted Black America from 1619
04:12to present day.
04:15There's a quilt by Carolyn Crump that depicts slaves on the ship, and she has one that has
04:22jumped overboard.
04:26There were quilts celebrating sports figures, quilts about historic Black women, and the era
04:35of civil rights.
04:39That exhibition traveled for six years to museums all around the world.
04:47That says a lot for the power of quilts.
04:53This is one of the largest quilts that I have in my own collection, and it was made by Sharon
04:59Carey Harlan.
05:01And it's called On the Face of it All.
05:04This is dozens and dozens of these squared patches here, and each one has a different
05:11face and symbols.
05:14And what the artist was trying to depict is the complexity of individual lives.
05:20Dr. Maslumi, how are you doing?
05:22Oh, I love it.
05:23Good to see you.
05:24Good to see you.
05:25Oh, yes.
05:26Yeah.
05:27You have to tell me about these new quilts.
05:30I love Cynthia Lockhart's quilts.
05:34She uses fabric.
05:35She uses found objects.
05:38This is, this is a lot of things going on that kind of looks like it's chaos, but it's
05:43not.
05:44It's dreamy.
05:45Let's see.
05:46It's got that mood of the whirlwind and being in the stratosphere.
05:49Okay.
05:50I love it.
05:51Is it for sale?
05:52Of course.
05:53I keep telling Rizwan I'm not buying any more stuff, but I just can't help it.
06:02Right.
06:03Dr. Maslumi has been incredibly important in my life.
06:07She took me in under the Women of Colors Quilter Network.
06:14She invites you to these shows, but she is very demanding.
06:18And you have to do good work.
06:23But it was just a phenomenal learning process.
06:29I learned how I wanted to approach quilting by telling stories, by being impactful.
06:38Cynthia Lockhart's Levi Coffin Quilt was a part of And Still We Rise.
06:45And then I purchased it.
06:48Levi Coffin was a white pastor who was risking his life to help slaves journey to freedom.
06:56These circles represent the Underground Railroad Stations.
07:01And this would be Levi Coffin's home.
07:03The pivotal point.
07:04Right.
07:05That was the meeting place.
07:07I'm an artist and I enjoyed being an artist, but a lot of times I wasn't selling.
07:14But being in her shows, I helped my work to be accepted by collectors.
07:24My day job is in advertising.
07:32When we built this home, I wanted lots of space for my art collection.
07:39And my wife wanted windows.
07:42Our architect did a really good job of combining both elements.
07:48No matter where we go throughout the house, you will see art.
07:50In the bathrooms.
07:51In the closets.
07:52Down in our workout room.
07:54And even I got some art in the wine cellar, so I'm kind of a crazy collector like that.
08:03I have felt in my collecting that women are marginalized.
08:06Where art doesn't always garner the support that male artists do.
08:13Promoting women artists is kind of what I call my jam.
08:20And so my gallery in our home is only women artists.
08:29This crocheted AK-47 is by a local artist named Jen Edwards.
08:35It's just very soft and very pretty, but yet very violent as well.
08:41I collect things that focus in on issues of today.
08:48A lot of the collection is political.
08:51A lot of the work is emotional.
08:56This piece is by Ashley Carroll, and she likes to bring homage to black woman's hair.
09:05I actually acquired this piece while Ashley was still in grad school at Miami University.
09:11It's just so exciting for me when I collect work by a young emerging artist, and to see
09:17them blossom, it warms my heart.
09:23This beautiful quilt is Cynthia's, and I like that she's telling us to do what we need
09:27to do.
09:28Exercise our voice, our rights, beautiful craft, and yet talking about voting.
09:35Every quilt has a story.
09:36Every quilt?
09:37Has a story.
09:38This is your work.
09:39Meeting these artists just adds to the collection and adds to my whole realm because I love,
09:45I love artists.
09:46This is one of my favorite quilts, and it's called A Lady Sings the Blues.
09:53Many years ago, Cynthia suggested that I be in an exhibition at Cincinnati.
10:00I put it in, hoping that no one would purchase it.
10:04I even raised the price to make sure no one would touch this quilt.
10:09I went on a trip somewhere, came back, and called the gallery manager, and she told me,
10:16well, the quilt was sold before the show opened.
10:19I said, what?
10:20I want it back.
10:21I want it back.
10:23So she says, I don't think you want it back.
10:26Because the person that got it is a well-known collector.
10:30Carolyn and I became really close, and it was through Carolyn that I met Cynthia.
10:38So it's just, it's this, I don't know, this sisterhood of friendship.
10:44I can almost feel, I can hear her singing this song.
10:50We're all under the banner of needle and thread in the spirit of the cloth.
10:55We both collect kind of similar in some ways, Carolyn, because we go after things.
11:01I have a responsibility as a collector to the artist, because I know I can't keep it forever.
11:08I have a surprise for you.
11:12It's going to a special museum, so.
11:15Really?
11:16Oh my God.
11:17That's a huge significance for me.
11:19It's going to be shown, and people will see it, and it will exist so much longer.
11:25than I will exist.
11:26That's just amazing.
11:27So I'll let you know soon.
11:28Okay.
11:29Okay.
11:30Which one?
11:31I'm excited.
11:32I'm excited.
11:33We need our collectors.
11:35We need our curators.
11:37We also need our artists to tell the story of what's next.
11:41What is the next?
11:43The mission of the American Craft Council really has two parts.
12:08The first is to help craft artists make a living and a life in craft.
12:14And the second part is to foster a broad, appreciative audience for the handcrafted.
12:21We all do live in the material world.
12:23We are surrounded by objects, and that has all kinds of consequences, environmentally, socially.
12:30So we, as the American Craft Council, want to get people thinking differently about the
12:35stuff that they live with and to choose to live with things that are well-made and thoughtfully
12:42made to have a craft-centered way of living.
12:46This is brand new.
12:48I just started...
12:49I called it...
12:50Collectors are an extremely important part of the equation when it comes to supporting
12:55the lives and careers of craft artists.
12:57Good to see you.
12:59Can you tell me a little bit about the process that you used for these?
13:03So I use stickers, and then I cut out the outlines...
13:09I collect many things, but primarily jewelry.
13:11I think I have just about 200 pieces of jewelry.
13:15And it started pretty small, just something that I would do at craft shows.
13:19And then it became something where I was following artists and really getting to know artists.
13:24Can I try these on?
13:25Yes, sure.
13:27And from collecting jewelry, I started to collect other objects as well.
13:31Some ceramics, a little bit of glass work.
13:35Being able to come home and see the objects that I collect reminds me of stories, reminds me of memories.
13:40And it makes me feel like my life is decorated in a really wonderful way.
13:47Good morning.
13:49I was astonished to learn how many craft items are made in Baltimore.
13:54So I was proud, because I reside here.
13:57How about the eggs?
13:59The eggs are enameled.
14:00They're silver.
14:01So whether it be visual arts or porcelain or jewelry, I collect them.
14:07Whatever I can afford, I collect.
14:09So now that does have about two carats of pave set diamonds in the center.
14:14Rebecca makes incredibly beautiful jewelry.
14:17We design, make, and set everything here in Baltimore.
14:21Wow.
14:22Oh, Rebecca, this is so beautiful.
14:25Collectors are important to our business, and Dahlia is just a very dynamic person.
14:32So having her in our camp is always wonderful.
14:37I came by earlier.
14:39I collect any artifacts that bring me joy or support artisans that I know.
14:46The cheese board, ingrained cheese board.
14:49Daryl Patterson, a dear friend of mine, is a wood artisan.
14:53Oh, wow.
14:54Eliminated.
14:55He makes cutting boards, vases, furniture, you name it.
15:00It breaks down.
15:01In 2003, I lost my index finger in a car accident.
15:05And the doctor told me to do fine work.
15:08So I got to make a tabletop.
15:10And this tabletop became a profession.
15:13So it means a lot to me when someone invests in my art.
15:19It's perfect.
15:20The object tends to speak to me.
15:23And it gets me excited.
15:24I can't stop thinking about it.
15:26It makes me happy.
15:27And it typically makes everyone else happy.
15:29So it's transcendent.
15:43After water, tea is the most consumed beverage in the world.
15:53And wherever you find tea, you find teapots.
15:58Our collection comprises over 20,000 objects.
16:03We don't live with all of them because the collection is too big for our house.
16:10Of course, they're ours.
16:11So it's like your children and grandchildren.
16:19As an attorney, I did estate planning.
16:22So I learned a lot about objects.
16:25I think Gloria has a better eye than I do.
16:27I was more the acquirer and Gloria was more the appreciator.
16:33Definitely the appreciator.
16:36We have a big antique collection.
16:38Things from the 1700s on.
16:41This one that looks Chinese because of the bamboo is actually British.
16:47And this one came from China.
16:52We have a collection of miniature teapots, particularly from Victorian times on.
16:58I feel like I'm four or five years old again when I look at some of these.
17:03I used to go Sunday morning to the flea markets and I saw these production teapots.
17:11These are made by companies.
17:13There's houses and there's cars and there's people.
17:16I found them fun, Gloria less so, but...
17:19Such sincerity, you know.
17:23We love contemporary, one-of-a-kind teapots.
17:29We refer to them as containers full of ideas because I think what the artist was thinking of or celebrating or worrying about came through in their work and their hands.
17:44Richard Notkin, his works are often very political.
17:54This is from his Broken Heart series, The Chain Around the Heart, a reference to the prisoners of war in the Vietnam War.
18:03Well, this is one of my favorite teapots because years ago I would run seven miles a day every day.
18:10And if you call it a teapot, it's a teapot.
18:13We have a collection of ephemera or paraphernalia.
18:20Things that aren't teapots, but that have tea or teapot images on them.
18:25Sitting down and having a cup of tea with someone, you know, it's a universal symbol of friendship and hospitality.
18:42Many of the pieces in our collection have been commissioned.
18:46And commissioning was a real adventure because you never knew what you were going to get.
18:53It's like a blind date.
18:56You would talk to an artist to say, you know, we want you to do something in your language, your artistic vernacular.
19:06And sometimes we were absolutely amazed with what artists would do.
19:13We have our teapot made of teabags, used teabags.
19:18This is window screen, pistachio shells.
19:22We met an artist who said, I have all these watches and I can put them together and call it the watchdog teapot.
19:31There's probably a hundred different watches on there, none of which work very well.
19:40This is Peter Shire's wonderful teapot.
19:43We have a lot of his work.
19:48Teapot madness, boy.
19:58I come to my studio every day and do different things.
20:02Sometimes it's making coffee.
20:04You guys want an espresso?
20:07I work with making things.
20:09I live for making things.
20:11I'm arguably happy when I'm actually making things.
20:17And sometimes it's making ceramics.
20:23You know, this clay when it fires will be white, but I want this to be very distinct on top, not too transparent.
20:38In the 60s, my direction was towards pottery because it hearkened to a trade, which of course made it declassé in the art world.
20:51But there was a moment in California clay by John Mason and Peter Volkus and Ken Price using ceramic as a sculptural medium and had taken up the flag of abstract expressionism.
21:13I love this.
21:14Peter Shire is a Los Angeles legend.
21:22I'm always attracted to artists who have a vision, a whole artistic vocabulary that's beyond just making the object.
21:34And for Peter Shire, it's through and through.
21:38They're ceramics that are not very expensive.
21:41It's art for the people.
21:49But his vision extends through his sculpture.
21:54His very sophisticated paintings.
21:59It extends to his truck, even to his scooter.
22:03We wanted Peter to bring his special artistic world into the gallery.
22:13I came up with Rumpus Room from that kind of 50s notion of the Rumpus Room as a place where anything can happen that you can't do in any of the other rooms.
22:26These works are a cross of design language, craft language, and what we call art.
22:39The teapot.
22:42The teapot is maybe the ultimate object within the lexicon because it's got the most parts, spout, handle, on an axis, and then there's the lid.
22:57I had an idea of combining sculptural values into the teapot, yet still this hydraulic situation could be operative.
23:13How does the liquid go in? Where does it go? How does it move within the piece?
23:17This is my Mickey Mouse teapot.
23:21You know, of course, the nose is the spout, and one of the ears is the entry for the tea, and the handle is the other ear.
23:32Got its balance.
23:33We talked to him about commissioning a mailbox for us.
23:43It's sort of like a giant teapot in a way.
23:50And he has all these little flying figures kind of oiling the works to keep our mail coming.
23:56But after it was installed, we didn't get mail for a few days because the mailman didn't know what it was.
24:06It was such a funny endeavor, but I'm a collector, too.
24:13My wife, she says, you're a hoarder.
24:18These things I work with.
24:20And yes, there are certain things that don't get used, but we take joy in looking at them and maybe remembering a moment.
24:31These two hammers, one was my dad's favorite hammer.
24:39He used this to frame houses, and this is the hammer that was my grandfather's.
24:44They're virtually the same hammer.
24:53It's so nuts.
24:55Hammers and teapots.
24:58But God bless the collectors.
25:00The Renwick Gallery is the Smithsonian American Art Museum's branch dedicated to contemporary craft.
25:18When people walk through our doors, they get a totally different kind of experience than they're used to.
25:23We're not a gallery full of paintings.
25:26We're objects, and people respond to objects.
25:30We try and keep a pulse of what's going on through the arts fairs, through the galleries, and some of the people that we learn from are the collectors that we work with.
25:41Fleur Bressler is one of the quiet supporters who's had just such a broad influence.
25:50She's given many, many objects to the Renwick and other museums.
25:56Collecting for me is like a high.
26:07I was born in 1926.
26:11Washington was really a small southern town when I was growing up.
26:17My family had a jewelry store, and on the top floor was the engraver.
26:30And that was where I would be deposited to be quiet and stay out of the way.
26:36And I'd watch them hand engrave.
26:38So I know what it takes to make something perfect.
26:44The most interesting collectors are the collectors that got in before an artist was very famous.
26:51They had a good eye.
26:53They started collecting early.
26:55They found affordable objects.
26:58Well, my husband was involved politically, and I was looking for something that was indigenous to Maryland.
27:06So duck decoys was where I started collecting.
27:11She quickly expanded the scope of her collecting to turned wood objects.
27:18I was in the vicinity of the Renwick, came in and out of the rain.
27:23The guard said there's wood show upstairs.
27:29I had never seen wood in that many different colors, all those patterns in it.
27:36And if I could have taken the tops off of the cases, I would have.
27:41Fleury is a very particular way of looking, and she likes things that are sometimes more avant-garde.
27:52It's got to show imagination, it's got to show skill, and it's got to show that it all comes together to make an object that is attractive.
28:06I like whimsy, and I seem to like animals.
28:18I will buy some wild and quirky sort of things.
28:23Why? I don't really know.
28:32I'm a gastroenterologist.
28:33And I'm an internal medicine doctor.
28:36We were both in medical school, and so I called her up.
28:40That first date turned into four more dates that week, and then got married and took off on our adventure.
28:49We had a house geared toward the kids.
28:53All the rooms were playrooms.
28:56Then we purchased this kinetic sculpture by David Roy.
29:00At that time, the word collector was totally foreign to us.
29:06Well, we started going to the craft shows.
29:11Oh, here's a good wood booth.
29:13Going to the shows was learning about what there is in the craft world.
29:17And this is all manzanita.
29:20And the leaves can be moved around.
29:23Looks like flame.
29:24We were getting to know the artists.
29:26We learn about their latest series.
29:30Is that paint or rope?
29:32About their techniques.
29:34This is wool that is dyed.
29:36We would buy a little bit and get more comfortable, and then buy a little bit more.
29:40Oh, my gosh.
29:42Beautiful.
29:44Over about six years, we found we were leaning towards the wood artists.
29:49The wood artists were very open about their work and explaining it.
29:55The first stage of our collecting was for simple bowls that brought out the beauty of the wood, the grain and the figure.
30:01Eventually, we started to understand the abstract nature of what some artists were trying to do.
30:10We'd like to tell you a little bit about Stoney Lamar, who we've collected in depth.
30:16This is an early piece of Stoney's, and it does not look like a brown bowl.
30:21That's because it uses a technique called multi-axis turning.
30:25You still have the vessel in the center, but the bulk of it is holding up the vessel with the flanges here.
30:34The way that Peter Volkes shocked people in ceramics, I think this was a shocking piece.
30:40So, the next series that he did started introducing metal.
30:45Metal adds attention.
30:47Wood is warm.
30:48Metal is cold.
30:50This piece was done later on in his career, and this is called A Well-Lit Dark Path.
31:02It's a homage to Stoney's experience going through Parkinson's.
31:07We liked the piece to begin with, but once you know the story behind it,
31:12it adds so much more feeling and importance to owning a piece like that.
31:16An artist's life is not easy.
31:27And if I find artists that have imagination, I can start giving them that little push forward.
31:41Fleur Bressler has over 70 of my peculiarly shaped wooden spoons, and she has been the single most active and supportive collector that I've had in my career.
31:56The first piece of Norm's that I bought was a spoon-like spoon with a long handle, but Norm went through a long progression.
32:10I switched from making a variety of things, canes, knife racks, cutting boards, letter openers, shoe horns, to almost exclusively spoons as sculptural art objects.
32:27But I felt some doubt about what I was doing.
32:37I went to Boston three times for a show.
32:40I think I only sold a couple spoons up there.
32:44People would say, this is beautiful, but this is too nice to use.
32:47This is a piece of maple that was extra, left over from the making of Fleur Bressler's huge, beautiful bed.
32:59I knew the woodworker doing it, and he saved some of the wood for me.
33:02I begin by cutting out what doesn't belong.
33:10I'm looking for what the wood has to offer, thinking, what can this be?
33:17I think the best work comes when I'm receptive to, call it whatever you want, intuition or the voice in your head.
33:25It's your head, but is it? What's that voice?
33:34The inspiration comes from his heart.
33:40I am the spoon maker's wife.
33:44For 41 years, I have received a heart for Valentine's Day.
33:50Wow.
33:52I always encouraged him to take it to extremes.
33:58Make a spoon as far out as you can make it.
34:02The less conservative it is, the more successful it is.
34:10This is a pneumatic drum sander.
34:13Using a sanding drum as a sculpting tool to refine the shape,
34:18came from my very first teachers, Phil and Sandy Juris, before I knew anything.
34:25I was a social worker who gave that up to do a woodworking apprenticeship with them.
34:33There are parts of a spoon, you know, there's a bowl and a handle, and there's finials.
34:42These little things on the ends of handles.
34:46It keeps both your eye and your hand in the piece.
34:50For me to go toward unique and different forms, I wanted to see what I think of as sculptural spoons in other cultures.
35:03At the Smithsonian, they store over 3,000 wooden spoons, ladles, or dippers.
35:08They're mostly gathered by anthropologists in the field.
35:14I would open the case, and here's a hundred beautiful Filipino spoons.
35:20Or spoons from the northwest coast of the U.S., where some of the most wonderful spoons are carved.
35:24That just added into the mix.
35:35Once I get it to the depth I want, and have enough wood cut out,
35:40then that leaves marks in the surface that need to be mostly scraped out with scrapers that I make out of old putty knives.
35:54I'm working first to please myself.
36:02It's about an emotional response to the piece.
36:06That's part of how you know when you're done.
36:09Does it do that feeling?
36:11And if it does, then I think probably somebody else will like it.
36:24One of the series Norm did was this series called A Spoon of Forgotten Ceremony.
36:33And this was a commission piece that we did from him.
36:36It gives the implication that it's a spoon that was passed from person to person, so therefore there were two handles.
36:43And that there was some kind of ceremony that was important, but it was forgotten.
36:48We don't know what the ceremony was, but still you have the object.
36:55Our collection got so big that we wanted to deaccession a little bit and we wanted more people to see it.
37:03You can feel how light it is because it's very hollow.
37:06It's so light and I was able to work with them to select 43 works of art in wood for the Renwick Gallery.
37:12Before they left, we took all 43 pieces and put them on tables in the dining room and the living room.
37:21Of course we miss them. We miss holding them.
37:25One wonderful thing about collectors of the craft world is their commitment.
37:31They are able to let go of it and then let it live with the nation.
37:35Jeff and Judy's works were included in our exhibition, This Present Moment, Crafting a Better World, that celebrated the Renwick's 50th anniversary.
37:47When we walk into the room at the Renwick and see our pieces, a smile comes to my face because they're all friends.
37:54But we see the inspiration of people, we see the inspiration of nature, and it all interacts very well.
38:07Mexican Americans don't like to just get into gang fights. They like flowers and music and white girls named Debbie too.
38:32I've been a comedian and an actor and a singer and a writer.
38:39And now I'm an art collector. Chicano art collector, that's what I do. That's my new profession.
38:47I like to surround myself with really good paintings.
38:56And all the things that I've learned about art informs my appreciation of Chicano art.
39:04I discover stuff every time I look at them.
39:08Adios.
39:09Originally, the term Chicanos was an insult from Mexicans to other Mexicans living in the country.
39:21The concept being that the Mexicans who were now living in the United States were no longer truly Mexicanos.
39:27Because they had left their country, they were something less. They were something smaller.
39:31They were Chicos. They were Chicanos.
39:35I was really comfortable with the term because I had never been to Mexico.
39:39I didn't speak Spanish. But I know I'm part of that.
39:43All of a sudden, you stop being defensive about being a Chicano, being very proud of being Chicano.
39:50Because this is who we are. We're original.
39:53I'm of the opinion that all the Chicano artists somehow describe what's going on in their neighborhood.
40:06I always call it news from the front.
40:09This is what my neighborhood looks like. This is what the people in my neighborhood look like.
40:14This is the products that they buy. This is how they fall in love.
40:17This is a painting by Shizu Saldamando. She's the perfect Chicana for me.
40:26She's half Japanese, half Mexican.
40:30And this is one of her friends.
40:32Part of the Chicano definition is a defiance of what the accepted norm is.
40:37And they want to be seen as who they are today.
40:40This is our neighborhood. And these are the people in our neighborhoods.
40:43I went to school in L.A.
40:49And my class took a field trip to the Grand Central Market.
40:53And the teacher told us to draw what impressed us the most.
40:58So I started drawing these giant banana squashes.
41:03And so the teacher walked around, admired everybody's art.
41:06She got to mine. She picked it up and goes,
41:08Well, you'll never be an artist.
41:10And it was like...
41:15During college, I took a pottery class.
41:18And as soon as I got my hands on my first piece of clay, it was just...
41:22This is it. This is what you're meant to do.
41:25You know, you have followed your calling.
41:29But then I joined the Draft Resistance Movement.
41:31And the FBI was after all of us.
41:36So then I went up to Canada.
41:39I lived in a little log cabin with chopped wood and made pottery.
41:44I went to Vancouver and met Tommy Chong, who was running an improvisational theatre company in a topless bar.
41:51And I started writing for the group.
41:53And then I started performing with them and everything.
41:56And then the group fell apart and Tommy and I stayed together.
41:59What do we do now?
42:00How about teaching a song?
42:01That sounds good.
42:02We were very successful and we made records and they were successful.
42:11All of a sudden I had money.
42:12From no money to a lot of money.
42:15And I could start buying art.
42:21I was always interested in art.
42:23I think I was 10 years old when I went to the library and took out all the art books.
42:29And then I started going to museums at that age.
42:36For a long time, I was the only guy out there buying Chicano art.
42:41And buying on a mass scale.
42:45I'm obsessive and so I just let that path take me where you will.
42:50Oh, obsession.
42:53Carlos Alvaraz was kind of the first Chicano painter.
42:58And it really spoke to me, his paintings, and how mysterious and how spiritual they are, you know.
43:07Carlos theorized that the Chicanos were painting something unique.
43:11That if they came together like other groups of artists had come together before, they could make a big impact.
43:17So Carlos founded the group and they called themselves Los Four.
43:20No, the thing is this, that you guys don't want to be hassled with control.
43:25It was collective art with Carlos and myself, Gilbert Luján and Roberto de la Rocha.
43:32Yeah.
43:33No, I mean, the point is I asked for some control.
43:35Of what?
43:36Of money.
43:37Artists, by definition, are very possessive of what they do and, you know, think they're right about everything.
43:44No, I'd rather just go it alone if that's what you want out of me.
43:46So, you know, we were always arguing over the kitchen table and doing drawings.
43:51You don't really want to change what you've been doing all along.
43:55They were serious painters right from the very beginning, but with a sense of playfulness, just like Picasso has a sense of playfulness and Frank has his own sense of playfulness in his painting.
44:07About 50 years ago, Cheech called me directly and I was learning about selling art in those days.
44:17So I doubled my price and, of course, we bargained and I let him have it for half.
44:22So this is actually how I got into working with collectors.
44:32The thing about being a collector, what you learn, is to hone your intuition about what is original, what is different.
44:43I generally only buy something that has been haunting my dreams.
44:49And that's how I know.
44:52When I got the collection up to a significant amount, I made the decision that people have to see this.
45:02And we started the first big touring show called Chicana Visions and went to LACMA and the Whitney and the Smithsonian, 14 major museums.
45:12The city of Riverside has a population of 317,000 majority Latino community.
45:24In 2017, we were able to bring one of Cheech's touring exhibitions to the Riverside Art Museum.
45:34It was a huge success.
45:37We had tripled our normal attendance for an opening reception.
45:40We had lines out the door in Riverside.
45:45Our main library no longer functioned as a library in the 21st century.
45:49So the city had a new library, but what would be a comparable use of this 60,000 square foot building?
45:59The city manager at the time, John Russo, pulled me aside and he said, so what is Cheech going to do with his collection?
46:07And I said, well, you know, I don't know.
46:08We can certainly ask him.
46:12Three weeks later, we sat in a restaurant and in 45 minutes pitched the idea for Chicano Art Museum to Cheech.
46:21And at first I didn't understand what they wanted to do.
46:24And I said, well, you want me to buy a museum?
46:27I'm doing pretty good, but I don't know if I'm museum rich yet, you know, so no, no, we want to give you the museum for the collection.
46:35We were walking out, Cheech and I, and Cheech didn't want to turn around, but he whispered to me, he says, did that just really happen?
46:57There's lots of art movements that have come out of Southern California, but none has a permanent home until now.
47:05We've shown over 300 Chicano artists and we're celebrating 131,000 people coming through our doors the first year of the Cheech.
47:14This is from a young artist, Francisco Palomares.
47:27I fell in love with this right away.
47:29I mean, a piñata in a John Constable landscape.
47:34You know, the juxtaposition of those two images and it looks like he belongs there.
47:41I'm a product of East L.A., the first in my family born in the United States.
47:55My identity and my surroundings influenced me.
48:04That allows me to reflect on the beauty and the celebratory aspects of my community.
48:10The series where I juxtapose a colorful piñata in a classical landscape.
48:17It's just like in our real world where we're Latinos starting professional careers and all of a sudden you look around and it's not your gente, your community.
48:29The piñata is a reflection of all of that.
48:34So when we enter spaces that are new to us and you feel like maybe I don't belong here, but yeah, you do belong and you are this exotic creature that brings that color and flavor into these spaces.
48:48This is a painting by Gronk.
48:55I don't even really know Gronk's real name, but he's just really developed his own style.
49:03Always with a tormenta, la tormenta.
49:06This is this dramatic figure here.
49:09I really like painting as an art expression.
49:14That's one thing that Chicanos are.
49:16They're great painters.
49:17They never gave up the brush.
49:19They don't just deal in concepts, you know.
49:22They deal in actual hand-to-canvas kind of painting.
49:30As a kid, I always did things to shock people.
49:32So I feel with my artwork, I kind of like push it to a way where people don't expect.
49:38I usually kind of start with a central figure, which would be the head.
49:46The head kind of isolates, cements it in a sense where I can build off the head.
49:51I always like kind of focus on my creatures, like the octopus, germ, squid, to be floating in the air, more like a dreamlike snake.
50:00I try to experiment a lot with details, with the Virgin Mary, with the little drops.
50:07And those collectors have told me, from one day to another, they find different little areas where they kind of like find joy.
50:14Jaime came out of lowbrow art.
50:18That's where I discovered him.
50:20But it wasn't indicative of his Chicano roots.
50:23And so I started talking to him.
50:25I said, wait, put some Chicano elements in there and you could be the Chicano lowbrow guy, you know.
50:30It inspired me to push towards more like a post Chicano, pop Chicano artwork.
50:39And now that I'm part of the Cheech collection, I feel like I've accomplished something.
50:45I was talking to you about this the other day.
50:50Yeah, this is a wonderful piece.
50:52Yeah.
50:53I think what makes Cheech unique as a collector is that he understands that the center has a broader mission.
50:59Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like this.
51:01You see the wonder bread flying?
51:02Yeah, yeah.
51:04We launched a research initiative to have oral histories on the artists, to research the works in the collection and identify gaps so that we can expand the collection.
51:14Cheech understands that we do have more work to add and support artists in that way.
51:21I started to bring my paintings off the wall and give them a three dimensional form.
51:39And try to create my paintings but in clay.
51:45The three sculptures that Cheech has were the beginning of the larger pieces to come.
51:55Landa's a very good painter and a ceramicist as well.
51:59I wish I was as talented as her.
52:02But I can sing better than someone.
52:04It all evens out.
52:06I've been creating these lovely ladies with the two chongos on the top of my head which are like pigtails or buns.
52:16Some people say they're me.
52:18I don't really see a resemblance but maybe, maybe.
52:27Cheech has really exposed Chicano art to the world.
52:31Some of my pieces that he collected went to Museo de Aquataine in Bordeaux, France.
52:38He's also commissioned me to create a portrait of his lovely wife, Natasha.
52:48As soon as you walk into the museum, there's a big piece by the De La Torre brothers.
52:54They're the foremost practitioners in the world, I think, of lenticular art.
53:01We had to cut out the floor to fit it in.
53:06With lenticular pieces, the image changes depending on where you stand in relationship to it.
53:14There's hundreds of images in this and that keep revealing itself.
53:20And there's two images of Cheech in here.
53:22You've got to find them.
53:23I love how these, these doves appear and disappear.
53:30But the main image is this transformer.
53:32It goes from an ancient Aztec goddess to the modern age.
53:38Right when we opened, I was walking around and it was this little girl.
53:41And she was standing in the corner and she could see her reflection.
53:44And then, so she was dancing with her reflection.
53:47And she was part of the art piece now and melded in with all the other images.
53:53It was a remarkable interaction with art.
53:55Maybe the most remarkable I've ever seen.
53:57Overwhelmingly, what people have said is that this has felt like a homecoming.
54:08A homecoming for the artists.
54:10A homecoming for community.
54:12To see their culture reflected back to them in this way.
54:15What a great moment for Cheech to have that collection that he built become an international platform for Chicano art.
54:27Yeah, that's a nice painting, huh?
54:32The part that collectors play is what gives an artist inspiration, resources, affirmations, opportunities.
54:43But it's also giving you emotional kind of refueling to give you that confidence that they're willing to put value in what you have been dedicating your life to.
54:56Whee!
54:58Watch all episodes of Craft in America
55:28online.
55:29With additional videos and more, visit Craft in America at pbs.org.
55:35This episode of Craft in America is available on Amazon Prime Video.
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