Craft in America - Season 16 Episode 02- COLLECTORS
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00:00Now, an art collector.
00:02Yeah, that's a nice painting, huh?
00:05We would buy a little bit and get more comfortable and then buy a little bit more.
00:10We have many thousands of teapots.
00:13There are containers full of ideas.
00:16I know you like this one.
00:17Yes, I do.
00:18The best collectors articulate an aesthetic vision where you go into their homes.
00:23It's as interesting as going into an artist's studio.
00:27I love this.
00:28I work with making things.
00:31I live for making things.
00:32If I find artists that have imagination, I give them that little push forward.
00:42I was the only guy buying Chicano art.
00:45Being a collector, what you learn is what is original, what is different.
00:50There's two images of Cheech in here.
00:52You've got to find them.
00:58People equate quilts with hearth and home.
01:27Comfort, safety, and security.
01:34I'm a curator and an artist, but I'm also a collector of quilts.
01:40I taught myself how to quilt.
01:45I have never had lessons, but it just became a passion.
01:51I make narrative quilts, either they're about my family, or African American history, or the status of women.
02:08To be able to use quilts to tell a story, I feel like I'm just fortunate to do that.
02:17I draw out the images first, and a textile company prints it on fabric.
02:27Then it's sandwiched with cotton and a backing, and it's then quilted.
02:38This quilt is called Strange Fruit, inspired by Billie Holiday singing the song Strange Fruit.
02:51And it is about the history of lynching in this country.
02:59It's very important for me now to make quilts about these untold stories that are very difficult for people to hear, see, and deal with.
03:11This is the best part of quilting, when you're doing the last, last little step, putting the sleeve on.
03:26Thirty-eight years ago, I founded the Women of Color Quilters Network.
03:33Currently, we have about 500 members.
03:39I ask them to create quilts surrounding a certain theme, some facet of African American history.
03:48And then I curate exhibitions of their works.
03:54And Still We Rise was a show about events and people that impacted Black America from 1619 to present day.
04:09There's a quilt by Carolyn Crump that depicts slaves on the ship, and she has one that has jumped overboard.
04:19There were quilts celebrating sports figures, quilts about historic Black women, and the era of civil rights.
04:31That exhibition traveled for six years to museums all around the world.
04:38That says a lot for the power of quilts.
04:45This is one of the largest quilts that I have in my own collection.
04:52And it was made by Sharon Carey Harlan.
04:55And it's called On the Face of It All.
04:58This is dozens and dozens of these squared patches here, and each one has a different face and symbols.
05:07And what the artist was trying to depict is the complexity of individual lives.
05:15Dr. Maslumi, how are you doing?
05:18Oh, I love it.
05:19Good to see you.
05:20Good to see you.
05:21Yeah.
05:22You have to tell me about these new quilts.
05:24I love Cynthia Lockhart's quilts.
05:28She uses fabric.
05:29She uses found objects.
05:32This is a lot of things going on that kind of looks like it's chaos, but it's not.
05:38It's dreamy.
05:39It's got that mood of the whirlwind and being in the stratosphere.
05:44Okay.
05:45I love it.
05:46Is it for sale?
05:47Of course.
05:48I keep telling Rizwan I'm not buying any more stuff, but I just can't help it.
05:56Right.
05:57Dr. Maslumi has been incredibly important in my life.
06:01She took me in under the Women of Colors Quilter Network.
06:07She invites you to these shows, but she is very demanding.
06:12And you have to do good work.
06:17But it was just a phenomenal learning process.
06:22I learned I wanted to approach quilting by telling stories, by being impactful.
06:32Cynthia Lockhart's Levi Coffin quilt was a part of And Still We Rise.
06:39And then I purchased it.
06:41Levi Coffin was a white pastor who was risking his life to help slaves journey to freedom.
06:50These circles represent the Underground Railroad stations.
06:55And this would be Levi Coffin's home.
06:57It's a pivotal point.
06:58Right.
06:59That was the meeting place.
07:00I'm an artist and I enjoyed being an artist, but a lot of times I wasn't selling.
07:07But being in her shows helped my work to be accepted by collectors.
07:22My day job is an advertising.
07:25Want a snack?
07:26Yeah.
07:27Yeah.
07:28When we built this home, I wanted lots of space for my art collection.
07:33And my wife wanted windows.
07:36And our architect did a really good job of combining both elements.
07:42No matter where we go throughout the house, you will see art in the bathrooms, in the closets, down in our workout room.
07:49And even I got some art in the wine cellar, so I'm kind of a crazy collector like that.
07:57I have felt in my collecting that women are marginalized.
08:00Their art doesn't always garner the support that male artists do.
08:07Promoting women artists is kind of what I call my jam.
08:11And so my gallery in our home is only women artists.
08:23This crocheted AK-47 is by a local artist named Jen Edwards.
08:29It's just very soft and very pretty, but yet very violent as well.
08:34I collect things that focus in on issues of today.
08:41A lot of the collection is political.
08:44A lot of the work is emotional.
08:47This piece is by Ashley Carroll and she likes to bring homage to black women's hair.
08:59I actually acquired this piece while Ashley was still in grad school at Miami University.
09:04It's just so exciting for me when I collect work by young emerging artists and to see them blossom.
09:12It warms my heart.
09:13This beautiful quilt is Cynthia's and I like that she's telling us to do what we need to do.
09:22Exercise our voice, our rights, beautiful craft, and yet talking about voting.
09:28Every quilt has a story.
09:30Every quilt?
09:31Has a story.
09:32This is your work.
09:33Meeting these artists just adds to the collection and adds to my whole realm because I love artists.
09:40I'm like an artist groupie.
09:41This is one of my favorite quilts and it's called A Lady Sings the Blues.
09:47Many years ago, Cynthia suggested that I be in the exhibition in Cincinnati.
09:54I put it in hoping that no one would purchase it.
09:58I even raised the price to make sure no one would touch this quilt.
10:03I went on a trip somewhere, came back and called the gallery manager.
10:09Then she told me, well, the quilt was sold before the show opened.
10:13I said, what?
10:14I want it back.
10:15I want it back.
10:16I want it back.
10:17So she says, I don't think you want it back because the person that got it is a well-known collector.
10:27Carolyn and I became really close and it was through Carolyn that I met Cynthia.
10:32So it's just, it's this, I don't know, this sisterhood of friendship.
10:39I can almost feel, I can hear her singing this song.
10:44We're all under the banner of needle and thread in the spirit of the cloth.
10:50We both collect kind of similar in some ways, Carolyn, because we go after things.
10:56I have a responsibility as a collector to the artist because I know I can't keep it forever.
11:03I have a surprise for you.
11:06It's going to a special museum, so.
11:09Really?
11:10Oh my God.
11:11That's a huge significance for me.
11:14It's going to be shown and people will see it and it will exist so much longer than I will exist.
11:21That's just amazing.
11:22I'll let you know soon.
11:23Okay.
11:24Okay.
11:25Which one.
11:26I'm excited.
11:27Yeah.
11:28We need our collectors.
11:30We need our curators.
11:31We also need our artists to tell the story of what's next.
11:36What is the next?
11:37The mission of the American Craft Council really has two parts.
12:02The first is to help craft artists make a living and a life in craft.
12:09And the second part is to foster a broad, appreciative audience for the handcrafted.
12:15We all do live in the material world.
12:18We are surrounded by objects and that has all kinds of consequences, environmentally, socially.
12:24So we as the American Craft Council want to get people thinking differently about the stuff that they live with and to choose to live with things that are well made and thoughtfully made to have a craft centered way of living.
12:41This is brand new.
12:43I just started.
12:44I called it.
12:45Collectors are an extremely important part of the equation when it comes to supporting the lives and careers of craft artists.
12:52Good to see you.
12:54Can you tell me a little bit about the process that you used for these?
12:57So I use stickers and then I cut out the outlines.
13:03I collect many things but primarily jewelry.
13:06I think I have just about 200 pieces of jewelry.
13:09And it started pretty small, just something that I would do at craft shows.
13:13And then it became something where I was following artists and really getting to know artists.
13:18Can I try these on?
13:20Yes, sure.
13:21And from collecting jewelry, I started to collect other objects as well.
13:26Some ceramics, a little bit of glass work.
13:29Being able to come home and see the objects that I collect reminds me of stories, reminds me of memories.
13:35And it makes me feel like my life is decorated in a really wonderful way.
13:40Good morning.
13:42I was astonished to learn how many craft items are made in Baltimore.
13:49So I was proud because I reside here.
13:51How about the eggs?
13:53The eggs are enameled.
13:55They're silver.
13:56Whether it be visual arts or porcelain or jewelry, I collect them.
14:01Whatever I can afford, I collect.
14:03Now this is...
14:04So now that does have about two carats of pave set diamonds in the center.
14:09Rebecca makes incredibly beautiful jewelry.
14:11Wow!
14:12We design, make, and set everything here in Baltimore.
14:15Wow!
14:16Oh, Rebecca, this is so beautiful!
14:20Collectors are important to our business, and Dahlia is just a very dynamic person.
14:27So having her in our camp is always wonderful.
14:32I came by earlier.
14:34I collect any artifacts that bring me joy or support artisans that I know.
14:41The cheese board, ingrained cheese board.
14:43Daryl Patterson, a dear friend of mine, is a wood artisan.
14:47Oh, wow.
14:48Eliminated.
14:49He makes cutting boards, vases, furniture, you name it.
14:54It breaks down.
14:56In 2003, I lost my index finger in a car accident.
15:00And the doctor told me to do fine work.
15:03So I got to make a tabletop.
15:05And this tabletop became a profession.
15:08So it means a lot to me when someone invests in my art.
15:13It's perfect.
15:15The object tends to speak to me.
15:17And it gets me excited.
15:19I can't stop thinking about it.
15:21It makes me happy.
15:22And it typically makes everyone else happy.
15:24So it's transcendent.
15:25After water, tea is the most consumed beverage in the world.
15:33And wherever you find tea, you find teapots.
15:34Our collection comprises over 20,000 objects.
15:42We don't live with all of them because the collection is too big for our house.
15:43Of course, they're ours.
15:44So it's like your children and grandchildren.
15:45As an attorney.
15:46I did estate planning.
15:47As an attorney.
15:48I did estate planning.
15:49As an attorney.
15:50So I learned a lot about objects.
15:51So I learned a lot about objects.
15:52As an attorney.
15:53As an attorney.
15:54I did estate planning.
15:55So I learned a lot about objects.
15:56I think Gloria has a better eye than I do.
15:57I was more of the acquirer.
15:58And Gloria was more of the company.
15:59And Gloria was more of the company.
16:00I learned a lot about objects.
16:01I think Gloria has a better eye than I do.
16:02I was more the acquirer.
16:03And Gloria was more of the appreciator.
16:04Definitely the appreciator.
16:05We have a big antique collection.
16:06Right.
16:07We have a big antique collection.
16:08And Gloria is quite all of the
16:28Well, there's a lot of mortgage.
16:32collection things from the 1700s on this one that looks Chinese because of the
16:40bamboo is actually British and this one came from China we have a collection of
16:49miniature teapots particularly from Victorian times on I feel like I'm four
16:56or five years old again when I look at some of these I used to go Sunday
17:02morning to the flea markets and I saw these production teapots these are made
17:07by companies there's houses and there's cars and there's people I found them fun
17:13Gloria less so but such sincerity you know we love contemporary one-of-a-kind
17:25teapots we refer to them as containers full of ideas because I think what the
17:34artist was thinking of or celebrating or worrying about came through in their
17:39work in their hands Richard Notkin his works are often very political this is
17:49from his broken heart series the chain around the heart a reference to the
17:55prisoners of war in the Vietnam War this is one of my favorite teapots because
18:02years ago I would run seven miles a day every day and if you call it a teapot
18:08it's a teapot we have a collection of ephemera or paraphernalia things that
18:16aren't teapots but they'd have cheap or teapot images on them
18:23sitting down and having a cup of tea with someone you know it's a universal
18:28symbol of friendship and hospitality
18:37many of the pieces in our collection have been commissioned and commissioning
18:44was a real adventure because you never knew what you were gonna get and we
18:49would talk like a blind date you would talk to an artist to say you know we want
18:57you to do something in your language your artistic vernacular and sometimes we
19:03were absolutely amazed with what artists would do we have our teapot made of tea
19:10bags used tea bags this is window screen pistachio shells we met an artist who
19:20said I have all these watches and I can put them together and call it the watchdog
19:25teapot there's probably a hundred different watches on there none of which work very well
19:32this is Peter Shire's wonderful teapot we have a lot of his work
19:40teapot madness I come to my studio every day and do different things sometimes it's making coffee you guys want an espresso I work with making things I live for making things
20:07I I'm arguably happy when I'm actually making things and sometimes it's making ceramics
20:17you know this clay when it fires will be white but I want this to be very distinct on top not too transparent
20:32in the 60s my direction was towards pottery because it hearkened to a trade which of
20:43course made it d class a in the art world but there was a moment in California clay
20:51by John Mason and Peter Volkus and Ken Price using ceramic as a sculptural medium and had taken up the flag of of abstract expressionism
21:06I love this
21:09Peter Shire is a Los Angeles legend
21:16I'm always attracted to artists who have a vision a whole artistic vocabulary
21:26that's beyond just making the object and for Peter Shire it's through and through
21:34they're ceramics that are not very expensive it's art for the people
21:39but his vision extends through his sculpture
21:48his very sophisticated paintings
21:52it extends to his truck
21:56even to his scooter
21:59we wanted Peter
22:03to bring his special artistic world
22:06into the gallery
22:07I came up with
22:13rumpus room
22:14from that kind of 50s notion of
22:17the rumpus room is a place
22:18where anything can happen that you can't do in any of the other rooms
22:25these works are
22:27a cross of design language
22:29craft language
22:31and what we call art
22:37the teapot
22:38the teapot
22:39is
22:40maybe the ultimate object
22:43within the lexicon
22:45because it's got the most parts
22:47spout
22:49handle
22:49on an axis
22:51and then there's the lid
22:55I had an idea of combining sculptural values
22:59into the teapot
23:01yet still
23:02this hydraulic situation
23:05can be operative
23:07how does the liquid go in?
23:09where does it go?
23:10how does it move within the piece?
23:12this is my mickey mouse teapot
23:15you know of course the nose is the spout
23:18and the uh
23:20one of the ears
23:21is the
23:23entry for the tea
23:24and the handle
23:26is the other ear
23:28got its balance
23:33we talked to him about
23:35commissioning a mailbox for us
23:39it's sort of like a giant teapot in a way
23:41and he has all these little flying figures
23:49kind of oiling the works to keep our mail coming
23:53but after it was installed we didn't get mail for a few days
23:57because the mailman didn't know what it was
24:02was such a funny endeavor
24:04but i'm a collector too
24:06my wife
24:10she says you're a hoarder
24:14these things i work with
24:17and yes there are certain things that don't get used
24:21but we take joy in looking at them
24:24and maybe remembering a moment
24:27these two hammers
24:30one was my dad's
24:31favorite hammer
24:34he used this to frame
24:36houses and this is the hammer that was my grandfather's
24:42they're virtually the same hammer
24:49it's so nuts
24:51hammers and teapots
24:54but god bless the collectors
25:01the renwick gallery is the smithsonian american art museum's branch dedicated to contemporary craft
25:14when people walk through our doors they get a totally different kind of experience than they're
25:19used to we're not a gallery full of paintings we're objects and people respond to objects
25:25we try and keep a pulse of what's going on through the arts fairs through the galleries
25:32and some of the people that we learn from are the collectors that we work with
25:39fleur bressler is one of the the quiet supporters who's had just such a broad influence
25:47she's given many many objects to the renwick and other museums
25:51collecting for me is like a high
26:03i was born in 1926
26:07washington was really a small southern town when i was growing up
26:13my family had a jewelry store and on the top floor was the engraver and that was where i would be
26:26deposited to be quiet and stay out of the way and i'd watch him hand engrave so i know
26:36what it takes to make something perfect
26:41the most interesting collectors are the collectors that got in before an artist was very famous they
26:47had a good eye they started collecting early they found affordable objects well my husband was involved
26:55politically and i was looking for something that was indigenous to maryland so duck decoys was
27:05where i started collecting she quickly expanded the scope of her collecting to turned wood objects
27:15i was in the vicinity of the renwick came in out of the rain the guard said there's a wood show upstairs
27:25i had never seen wood in that many different colors all those patterns in it and if i could have
27:32taken the tops off of the cases i would have
27:40flurry is a very particular way of looking and she likes things that are sometimes more avant-garde
27:48it's got to show imagination it's got to show skill and it's got to show that it all comes together to make
27:58a object that is attractive i like whimsy and i seem to like animals
28:13i will buy some wild quirky sort of things why i don't really know
28:20i'm a gastroenterologist and i'm an internal medicine doc we were both in medical school and
28:34so i called her up that first date turned into four more dates that week and then got married and
28:41took off on our adventure we had a house geared toward the kids all the rooms were playrooms
28:52then we purchased this kinetic sculpture by david roy
28:56at that time the word collector was totally foreign to us but we started going to the craft shows
29:07oh here's a good wood booth going to the shows was learning about what there is in the craft world
29:13and this is all manzanita and the leaves can be moved around looks like flame we were getting to know
29:20the artist we learn about their latest series is that paint or a rope about their techniques this is
29:29wool that is dyed we would buy a little bit and get more comfortable and then buy a little bit more
29:36oh my gosh beautiful over about six years we found we were leaning towards the wood artists
29:44the wood artists were very open about their work and explaining it the first stage of our collecting
29:52was for simple bowls that brought out the beauty of the wood the grain and the figure eventually we
30:00started to understand the abstract nature of what some artists were trying to do we'd like to tell
30:07you a little bit about stoney lamar who we've collected in depth this is an early piece of stoney's and
30:14it does not look like a brown bowl that's because it uses a technique called multi-axis turning
30:21you still have the vessel in the center but the bulk of it is holding up the vessel with the flanges
30:28here the way that peter volka shocked people in ceramics i think this was a shocking piece
30:35so the next series that he did started introducing metal metal adds attention
30:42wood is warm metal is cold
30:50this piece was done later on in his career and this is called a well-lit dark path
30:57it's a homage to stoney's experience going through parkinson's
31:02and we like the piece to begin with but once you know the story behind it it adds so much more
31:09feeling and importance to owning a piece like that
31:20an artist's life is not easy
31:22and if i find artists that have imagination i can start giving them that little push forward
31:38fleur bressler has over 70 of my peculiarly shaped wooden spoons
31:44and she has been the single most active and supportive collector that i've had in in my career
31:55the first piece of norms that i bought was a spoon like spoon with a long handle
32:01but norma went through a long progression i switched from making a variety of things
32:11canes knife racks cutting boards letter openers shoehorns to almost exclusively spoons as sculptural art
32:22objects
32:28but i felt some doubt about what i was doing
32:33i went to boston three times for a show i think i only sold a couple spoons up there
32:39people would say this is beautiful but this is too nice to use
32:43this is a piece of maple from that was extra left over from the making of fleur bressler's huge beautiful
32:53bed i knew the woodworker doing it and he saved some of the wood for me
33:02i begin by cutting out what doesn't belong
33:06i'm looking for what the wood has to offer thinking what can this be
33:10i think the best work comes when i'm receptive to call it whatever you want intuition or
33:20the voice in your head it's your head but is it what's that voice
33:30the inspiration comes from his heart
33:32i am the spoon maker's wife
33:40for 41 years i have received a heart for valentine's day
33:49i always encouraged him to take it to extremes make a spoon as as far out as you can make it
33:57the less conservative it is the more successful it is
34:06this is a pneumatic drum sander using a sanding drum as a sculpting tool to refine the shape came from
34:15my very first teachers phil and sandy jurus before i knew anything
34:20i was a social worker who gave that up to do a woodworking apprenticeship with them
34:32there are parts of a spoon you know there's a bowl and a handle and there's finials these little
34:38things on the ends of handles it keeps both your eye and your hand in the piece
34:45for me to go toward unique and different forms i wanted to see what i think of as sculptural spoons
34:55and other cultures at the smithsonian they store over 3 000 wooden spoons ladles or dippers
35:05they're mostly gathered by anthropologists in the field
35:08i would open the case and here's 100 beautiful filipino spoons or spoons from the northwest coast
35:17of us where some of the most wonderful spoons are carved that just added into the mix
35:30once i get it to the depth i want and have enough wood cut out
35:36then that leaves marks in the surface that need to be mostly scraped out with scrapers that i make out of
35:45old putty knives
35:52i'm working first to please myself
35:57it's about an emotional response to the piece that's part of how you know when you're done
36:04does it do that feeling and if it does then i think probably somebody else will like it
36:23one of the series norm did was this series called a spoon of forgotten ceremony
36:28and this was a commission piece that we did from him it gives the implication that it's a it's a spoon
36:34that was passed from person to person so therefore there were two handles and that there was some
36:40kind of ceremony that was important but it was forgotten we don't know what the ceremony was but still
36:47you have the object
36:51our collection got so big that we wanted to deaccession a little bit and we wanted more people to see it
36:59you can feel how light it is because it's very hollow it's so light and i was able to work with them to
37:04select 43 works of art in wood for the renwick gallery before they left we took all 43 pieces and put them on
37:14the tables in the dining room and the living room of course we miss them we miss holding them
37:22one wonderful thing about collectors of the craft world is their commitment
37:26and they are able to let go of it and then let it live with the nation
37:34jeff and judy's works were included in our exhibition this present moment crafting a better
37:38world that celebrated the renwick's 50th anniversary when we walk into the room at the renwick and see
37:46our pieces a smile comes to my face because they're all friends
37:50but we see the inspiration of people we see the inspiration of nature and it all interacts very well
38:10i've been a comedian and an actor and a singer and a writer
38:34and now i'm an art collector chicano art collector that's what i do that's my new uh profession
38:48i like to surround myself with really good paintings oh yeah
38:53and all the things that i've learned about art informs my appreciation of chicano art
38:59i discover stuff every time i look at them adios
39:09originally the term chicanos was an insult from mexicans to other mexicans living in the country
39:16the concept being that the the mexicans who were now living in the united states were no longer truly
39:22mexicanos because they had left their country there was something less they were something smaller they were
39:28chicos they were chicanos i was really comfortable with the term because i had never been to mexico
39:35i didn't speak spanish but i know i'm part of that all of a sudden you stop being defensive
39:42about being a chicano being very proud of being chicano because this is who we are we're original
39:49i'm of the opinion that all the chicano artists somehow describe what's going on in their neighborhood
40:02i always call it news from the front this is what my neighborhood looks like this is what the
40:07people in my neighborhood look like this is the products that they buy this is how they fall in love
40:12this is a painting by uh she's the perfect chicana for me she's half japanese half mexican and this is
40:26one of her friends part of the chicano definition is is a defiance of what the accepted norm is and
40:33they want to be seen as who they are today this is our neighborhood and these are the people in our
40:38neighborhoods i went to school in l.a and my class took a field trip to the grand central market
40:48and the teacher told us to draw what impressed us the most so i started drawing these giant banana
40:56squashes and so the teacher walked around admired everybody's art she got to mine she picked it up and
41:03she goes well you'll never be an artist and it was like in college i took a pottery class and as soon
41:14as i got my hands on my first piece of clay this is it this is what you're meant to do you know you
41:21have found your calling but then i joined the draft resistance movement and the fbi was after all of us
41:30so then i went up to canada i lived in a little log cabin and chopped wood and made pottery i went to
41:41vancouver and met tommy chong who was running an improvisational theater company in a topless bar
41:47and i started writing for the group and then i started performing with them and then the group
41:52fell apart and tommy and i stayed together what do we do now how about teaching chong that sounds good
42:00we were very successful and we made records and they were successful all of a sudden i had money
42:08from no money to a lot of money and and i could start buying art
42:16i was always interested in art i think i was 10 years old when i went to the library
42:22and took out all the art books and then i started going to museums at that age
42:31for a long time i was the only guy out there buying chicano art and buying on a mass scale
42:40i'm obsessive and so i just let that path take me where you will oh obsession
42:46carlos almaraz was kind of the first chicano painter and it really spoke to me his paintings and how
42:56mysterious and and how spiritual they are you know
43:02carlos theorized that the chicanos were painting something unique
43:06that if they came together like other groups of artists had come together before
43:10they could make a big impact so carlos founded a group they called themselves los four
43:18no the thing is this that you guys don't want to be hassled it was collective art with carlos and
43:24myself gilbert lujan and roberto de la rocha yeah no i mean the point is for some control of what of
43:32money artists by definition are very possessive of what they do and you know think they're right about
43:38everything no i'd rather just going alone if that's what you want out of me so you know we
43:43were always arguing over the kitchen table and doing drawings you really want to change what you've
43:49been doing all along they were serious painters right from the very beginning but with a sense of
43:57playfulness just like picasso has a sense of playfulness and frank has his own sense of playfulness in
44:02this painting about 50 years ago cheech called me directly and and i was learning about selling art
44:12in those days so i doubled my price and of course we bargained and i let him have it for half
44:18so this is actually how i got into working with collectors
44:22the thing about being a collector what you learn is to hone your intuition about what is original what
44:36is different i generally only buy something that has been haunting my dreams and that's how i know
44:45when i got the collection up to a significant amount i made the decision that people have to see this
44:58and we started the first big touring show called chicano visions
45:01and went to lacma and the whitney and the smithsonian 14 major museums
45:08the city of riverside has a population of 317 000 majority latino community
45:22in 2017 we were able to bring one of cheech's touring exhibitions to the riverside art museum
45:29it was a huge success we had tripled our normal attendance for an opening reception
45:37we had lines out the door in riverside our main library no longer functioned as a library in the 21st
45:46century so the city had a new library but what would be a comparable use of this 60 000 square foot building
45:56the city manager at the time john russo pulled me aside and he said so what is
46:00cheech going to do with this collection and i said well i you know i don't know
46:04you know we can certainly ask him three weeks later we sat in a restaurant in 45 minutes pitched the
46:12idea for uh chicano art museum to cheech and at first i didn't understand what they wanted to do
46:19and i said you want me to buy a museum well i'm doing pretty good but i don't know if i'm museum rich yet
46:26you know so no no we want to give you the museum for the collection we were walking out cheech and i
46:32and cheech didn't want to turn around but he whispered to me he says did that just really happen
46:46there's lots of art movements that have come out of southern california but none has a permanent home
46:59until now we've shown over 300 chicano artists and we're celebrating 131 000 people coming through
47:08our doors the first year of the cheech
47:19this is from a young artist francisco palomares i fell in love with this right away i mean
47:25a piñata in a john constable landscape you know that the juxtaposition of those two images and it
47:35looks like he belongs there i'm a product of east l.a the first in my family born in united states
47:50my identity and my surroundings influence me that allows me to reflect on the beauty and the
48:04celebratory aspects of my community the series where i juxtapose a colorful piñata in a classical
48:13landscape it's just like in our real world where we're latinos starting professional careers
48:21and all of a sudden you look around and it's not your your gente your community the piñata
48:27is a reflection of all of that so when we enter spaces that are new to us and you feel like maybe
48:35i don't belong here but yeah you do belong and you are this exotic creature that brings that color and
48:41flavor into these spaces this is a painting by gronk i don't even really know gronk's real name
48:55but he's just really developed his own style always with a tormenta la tormenta this is this dramatic
49:04figure here i really like painting as an art expression that's one thing that chicanos are
49:11they're great painters they they never gave up the brush they don't just deal in concepts you know
49:17they do actual hand to canvas uh kind of painting as a kid i always did things to shock people
49:28so i feel with my artwork i kind of like push it to a way where it's like where people don't expect
49:37i usually kind of start with a central figure which is will be the head the head kind of isolates
49:43cements it in a sense where uh i could build off the head i always like kind of focus on
49:50my creatures like the octopus germ squid to be floating in the air more like a dreamlike state
49:57i try to experiment a lot with details with the virgin mary with the little drops
50:04and there's collectors who have told me from one day to another they find different little areas
50:08where they kind of like find joy jaime came out of lowbrow art that's where i discovered him but it
50:16wasn't indicative of his chicano roots and so i started talking to him put some chicano elements
50:23in there and you could be the chicano lowbrow guy you know it inspired me to push towards more like a
50:30post chicano pop chicano artwork and now that i'm part of the cheech collection i feel like i've accomplished
50:39something i was talking to you about this the other day yeah this is a wonderful piece yeah i think
50:49what makes cheech unique as a collector is that he understands that the center has a broader mission
50:54yeah yeah i like this you see the wonder bread flying yeah we launched a research initiative to
51:02have oral histories on the artist to research the works in the collection and identify gaps so that
51:08we can expand the collection cheech understands that we do have more work to add and support artists in that
51:16way i started to bring my paintings off the wall and give them a three-dimensional form
51:34and try to create my paintings but in clay
51:39the three sculptures that cheech has were the beginning of the larger pieces to come
51:50london's a very good painter and the ceramicist as well i wish i was as talented as her but i can
51:58sing better the song it all evens out
52:00i've been creating these lovely ladies with the two chongos on the top of my head which are like
52:10pigtails or buns some people say they're me i don't really see a resemblance but maybe maybe
52:22cheech has really exposed chicano art to the world
52:26some of my pieces that he collected went to museu de aquataine in bordeaux france
52:34he's also commissioned me to create a portrait of his lovely wife natasha
52:44as soon as you walk into the museum there's a big piece by the de la torre brothers
52:50they're the foremost practitioners in the world i think the lenticular art
52:56we had to cut out the floor to fit it in
53:01with lenticular pieces the image changes depending on where you stand in relationship to it
53:09there's hundreds of images in this and that keep revealing itself
53:15and there's two images of cheech in here you got to find them
53:18i love how these these doves appear and disappear but the main image is this transformer it goes from
53:28an ancient aztec goddess to the modern age
53:33right when we opened i was walking around and it was this little girl and she was standing in the
53:38corner and she could see her reflection and then so she was dancing with her reflection and she was
53:44part of the art piece now and melded in with all the other images it was a remarkable interaction with
53:50art maybe the most remarkable i've ever seen
53:59overwhelmingly what people have said is that this has felt like a homecoming
54:04a homecoming for the artist a homecoming for community to see their culture reflected back
54:10to them in this way
54:14what a great moment for cheech to have that collection that he built
54:18become an international platform for chicano art
54:21the part that collectors play is what gives an artist inspiration resources affirmations opportunities
54:39but it's also giving you emotional kind of uh refueling to uh to give you that confidence that they're
54:47willing to uh put value in what you have been dedicating your life to
55:06you
55:17watch all episodes of craft in america online with additional videos and more visit craft in america
55:27at pbs.org this episode of craft in america is available on amazon prime video
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