Skip to playerSkip to main content
LegalDramaDaily
  • 21 minutes ago
Americart 2019 2020 2020
Transcript
00:00:11Anything that comes from the soul is art.
00:01:05I would like art to be back in our schools.
00:01:32There's only 50,000 people in the entire county.
00:02:05There's only 50,000 people in the entire community.
00:02:05There's only 50,000 people out there.
00:03:27We have a very elevated view of what some things should be.
00:03:33And in the artistic realm, I think paintings in galleries and things that are far beyond us rather than within
00:03:43us are what we think of.
00:03:47And so we don't even aspire to artist. It just is like astronaut, you know. It's way far away. And
00:03:59most of us won't get there. When in fact, it's already inside us and it's a matter of having it
00:04:06nurtured out of us.
00:04:37Hello.
00:05:08She allows us to put our hands in it and touch it. Or go out to the beach and just
00:05:13draw something. Or build a castle and decorate it with nature that was around.
00:05:19I didn't think it was that important. And as I grew up and saw other people's art, I was like,
00:05:24oh, I can do that. Maybe what I see in my mind doesn't get on the paper.
00:05:32But it's what I feel. And sometimes people see it too.
00:05:38Sometimes our schools are taking away the art classes. We still need this. We don't only need math, reading, science.
00:05:51These things are important. But science can also be found. Math can be found in art very much.
00:06:06But science can also be found in art.
00:06:15Blendstone is a post-war and contemporary art museum that really focuses on an art collection that really challenges your
00:06:24opinion on what art is. Sort of setting the boundary of sort of surprising you with what you might see
00:06:31and how you might experience it.
00:06:34We're hoping to offer something different here at Glenstone. A lot of museums that you go into, there are crowds
00:06:41and there are people and they have their cell phones out and they're taking photos.
00:06:44And we wanted to really scale that back and create an experience where when you come here, you might feel
00:06:50like you're here alone. And you can spend as much time with the art as you want or as little
00:06:54time as you want.
00:06:56We are so lucky here that we get to say to artists, what do you want to do, dream big.
00:07:02And we're able to give them the resources, the time, and in particular the space. We have about 300 acres
00:07:08that we're working with. Most museums don't have that luxury.
00:07:15I grew up in this area. I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia just outside Washington. So my folks were the
00:07:21type of parents that were always looking for free stuff to do. We didn't have a lot of money. So
00:07:26they would dump us at the Smithsonian like at least twice a month.
00:07:30So I grew up going to those museums and really taking advantage of the programming that they offered. And I
00:07:36knew I wanted to work in museums at a really young age, but I didn't know exactly what I wanted
00:07:40to do.
00:07:48You know what I wanted to do.
00:08:50I was a survivor of a cult called Faith Assembly with a particular minister named Hobart Freeman.
00:08:58And during that time, from like age 11 to age 14, I suffered medical neglect and didn't get medical treatment
00:09:05for what I was suffering with, which was asthma.
00:09:08And I think I have my inhaler here, so this is proof.
00:09:14One of my brothers passed away.
00:09:17Our grandmother ended up taking us in.
00:09:19And during that period, I started finding my voice.
00:09:25I started finding how I felt about things, how I was experiencing life.
00:09:30And the disappointments that I was going through, songwriting gave me a voice.
00:09:35And I was able to start telling my story and experiencing or expressing what I was feeling through music.
00:09:42You know, when you grow up the way I grew up, people didn't talk about how we felt.
00:09:47We didn't talk about our feelings.
00:09:49We didn't talk about our emotions.
00:09:51We didn't talk about our disappointments or fears or hopes or even our dreams.
00:09:56We were really a very quiet family.
00:09:59And so there was not a lot of expression or a lot of affection.
00:10:02Even though I knew my parents loved me, I knew my brothers and sisters loved me, we weren't doing so
00:10:07well showing it.
00:10:11So part of finding that voice means, you know, I finally started speaking up for myself, started standing up for
00:10:18myself.
00:10:22I'm really glad that music gave me that ability and helped me find that.
00:10:29When I started turning 13, 14, 15, the music really gave me the ability to escape.
00:10:40To me, the art is just, it's the individual way that they find the way to express themselves.
00:11:04I've always been a songwriter since I'm probably six years old, I started writing songs.
00:11:09I grew up in a musical household and everybody was always playing something.
00:11:13And I kind of, I didn't take music lessons, so I taught myself.
00:11:18Not knowing other songs, I just made up my own songs.
00:11:21So the first songs I played were like stuff I just made up.
00:11:27A lot of times I like to write when I first wake up in the morning before you're like fully
00:11:31awake.
00:11:32You know, you just kind of, sometimes I wake up with an idea in my head.
00:11:39Anything that comes from the soul is art.
00:11:43Music and art, it all comes from your soul.
00:11:46It's like any creative thing that you're creating out of nothing.
00:11:50There's a blank canvas or there's no song in the room and all of a sudden there's a song in
00:11:54the room or no art on the canvas.
00:11:57It's all the same really.
00:11:58You're just creating something from nothing, from a place in your heart.
00:12:02And that's just the coolest thing in the world, I think.
00:12:06If someone really wants to do it, you can't talk them out of it.
00:12:09That's the thing.
00:12:10It's like, and you have to want it that bad if you want to do something in music.
00:12:13You have to, you can't be talked out of it, you know.
00:12:17And sometimes, I guess maybe that's foolish, you know.
00:12:19There's a lot of people doing it that have no business doing it full time or whatever.
00:12:23And it's very hard even for pro writers these days to, gets people to record their songs.
00:12:29The music business isn't what it used to be.
00:12:31But I would just say go, follow your heart and do, you know.
00:12:35You have to want to do it just for doing it anyway.
00:12:38It's not about making money with it really.
00:12:40You've got to really want to write songs, and I would do it whether or not.
00:13:03Most music is made by vibrations.
00:13:06So in other words, on a piano, if you're playing piano inside,
00:13:10there's the hammers that are hitting the strings.
00:13:12The strings vibrate.
00:13:13If you were analyzing a trumpet, and you started out on a trumpet,
00:13:17the sound starts out here with the vibration here,
00:13:22which goes into here,
00:13:26which goes into here,
00:13:28which makes the sound.
00:13:29So you go from here.
00:13:41And what do I do for a living is I make my living in the music business,
00:13:45which means that I produce festivals and work in the studios playing trumpet,
00:13:52which is my main instrument,
00:13:53and go out on the road with different artists,
00:13:56such as Kenny Chesney or Delbert McClinton or Leonard Skinner,
00:14:00and go out and play shows throughout the country doing that.
00:14:06You know, what I try to do with kids when I'm working with kids is turn them on to music
00:14:11and turn them on to the arts.
00:14:13You know, I try to teach them,
00:14:16since I'm teaching them trumpet,
00:14:18I try to teach them about any kind of trumpet that they want to know,
00:14:21whether it be rock and roll, whether it be jazz,
00:14:23whether it be classical.
00:14:24You know, we get down the basics so that they know what to do
00:14:27and how to make sound out of it
00:14:29and get it down and be able to play in their school band,
00:14:32but also develop an overall love for music
00:14:35because a lot of these kids aren't going to be professional musicians.
00:14:38You know, 99 out of 100 of them aren't going to be professional musicians,
00:14:41just like the kid playing basketball down the street.
00:14:44He's not going to be in the NBA, but he's still getting a lot out of it.
00:14:46And that's one of the things we're trying to also teach kids
00:14:48is not to just become great musicians and great artists,
00:14:53but to become fans of music.
00:15:11And that's one of the things we're trying to teach kids.
00:15:42I've been painting these pictures
00:15:47Since I was teething
00:15:51I've been worth a million dollars
00:16:01As a mid-sized regional museum,
00:16:06we're really eager to bring the world of art
00:16:10and have our community very knowledgeable
00:16:13about the world of art in Wichita, Kansas.
00:16:16We are a museum devoted to American art.
00:16:19We have over 10,000 wonderful works in our collection.
00:16:25The first artwork that came into the collection of the Wichita Art Museum
00:16:29is John Stuart Curry's Kansas Cornfield.
00:16:33It was purchased in New York from a gallery there.
00:16:38John Stuart Curry is a Kansas artist.
00:16:39This is an iconic Kansas image.
00:16:43I grew up in a large family that traveled all the time.
00:16:47I lived in Europe for three times before I graduated from high school.
00:16:53My father was an English professor
00:16:55and all of that had a profound impact on me.
00:17:00So I was having really mind-transforming art experiences from early days.
00:17:09And it was when I was in college and living in Vienna
00:17:12that I determined that I loved being in art museums so much.
00:17:17I was going to craft a life in art museums.
00:17:24The representative who was helping us acquire the collection
00:17:30was in New York
00:17:32and Edward Hopper was at the top of his game at that point.
00:17:36We are so very blessed to have four Edward Hoppers in our collection.
00:17:49A mural is something that is painted directly onto a wall.
00:17:55The public function of a mural is creating a story to unite the community.
00:18:01So the mural behind us is a way to tell the story of who Wichita is,
00:18:07who Kansas is, and explain some of our history
00:18:11that unites the people here together.
00:18:14You know, we get a lot of simplified forms and shapes in our pieces.
00:18:18So we try to keep it, you know, simple, straightforward, to the point,
00:18:21something that, like any good typography, you know,
00:18:26just catches you right off the bat, you know.
00:18:28It's something that you don't have to fight for to see the meeting.
00:18:30But, you know, and it could take you to deeper levels
00:18:33if you spend some time with it, too.
00:18:37I do view it as a responsibility to help those
00:18:41that don't have as strong of a voice in the community at large.
00:18:46I think, you know, there are some communities here
00:18:48that don't have as many opportunities.
00:18:51So part of our responsibility is giving voice or shining a light
00:18:57on some of those artists that maybe don't have as many chances.
00:19:00Hopefully we can bridge gaps in the community
00:19:03by recognizing each other's voices.
00:19:14I really enjoy this piece
00:19:17for making art even more accessible to those communities
00:19:22by bringing the pieces from the museums out into public art.
00:19:27It eliminates that distance between, you know, people and the museum.
00:19:41This painting is my favorite in the whole show
00:19:44because there's a lot of textures and movement that's happening.
00:19:48There's a lot of colors that are unexpected.
00:19:51I'm an emotional person, and so I'm looking for something
00:19:54that makes me linger and look a little bit longer than I normally would.
00:20:00And to me, that makes a successful piece.
00:20:02So when I'm going to new shows at museums or galleries,
00:20:07then I'm looking for something that just makes me go,
00:20:10Oh, and usually it's some kind of connection.
00:20:13There's something personal.
00:20:15So with this piece, I'm an outdoors type of person.
00:20:19I grew up in north central Kansas, and I just love being outside.
00:20:24So this gives me that feeling of being by myself.
00:20:29I think art is such a personal thing in that you can find beauty in so many ways.
00:20:34And so I think it's what makes a community unique, what makes it vibrant.
00:20:39And it plays a huge part in my life.
00:20:42So I'm thrilled to be able to live in Wichita
00:20:44where we have an abundance of art offerings for everybody.
00:20:47Our Keeper of the Plains, which is iconic for Wichita,
00:20:50it's our own Statue of Liberty.
00:20:51To the Indians, the East is where knowledge, the days start.
00:20:57So the East is very spiritual.
00:21:00So everything relative to the Indian culture, all of them.
00:21:05Tipis, mainly the tipis, the tipis is always to the East.
00:21:10That's where the day starts, the sun rises.
00:21:14And so everything starts from the East.
00:21:18And this and here, we face him to the West.
00:21:21The day's gone.
00:21:22So now he's facing the West.
00:21:24The day's completed.
00:21:25He's finished his journey to the West.
00:21:29So anybody who is cognizant of that starts the days every day.
00:21:35Say a prayer to the great Creator.
00:21:37And that's a gesture that he's in right there.
00:21:40It's a prayer gesture.
00:21:43And it's a prayer to the great Creator.
00:21:47I'm a three-quarter Kiowa and a quarter Apache.
00:21:52And my whole life has been here in Wichita.
00:21:55My parents came here when I was about three years old and never left.
00:22:02Been here.
00:22:03Wichita's been my home.
00:22:07Wichita treated the Indians quite well.
00:22:10There's 70 different tribes represented by 70 different flags right here.
00:22:15But they have one thing in common.
00:22:17The great Creator.
00:22:20Any way you look at it.
00:22:21Any way you feel that belief down in the middle.
00:22:26There's a great Creator.
00:22:30He's still there.
00:22:31He'll always be there.
00:22:38When you bid farewell to somebody in the non-Indian, in the non-Indian world, you just tell them goodbye.
00:22:47Well, in the non-Indian world, there's no such thing as a goodbye.
00:22:53You say,
00:22:58It means I'm going now and I'll see you again.
00:23:22It means I'm going now and I'll see you again.
00:23:39Most of the people that live here work outside of town.
00:23:43A lot of people work in Hutchison, Wichita, McPherson.
00:23:46A lot of them even drive to McPherson or Salina.
00:23:49Usually our daytime, a lot of the traffic is just local farmers that have to come into town for fuel
00:23:54or to eat at the restaurant or get their mail.
00:24:00And I try to offer kids classes that it's inexpensive enough that all I'm doing is I'm not making anything.
00:24:10I'm covering the canvas and the paints and they come in and they do have that opportunity to create something.
00:24:21I would like art to be back in our schools.
00:24:25Like I said, it's been almost a decade since we've had that.
00:24:29And I know the grade school teachers, they try to incorporate something every month pretty much into their curriculum,
00:24:36but we don't have arts.
00:24:38And I know that it's not in our budget.
00:25:19I teach art.
00:25:22At McPherson Middle School, I teach 6th, 7th and 8th graders.
00:25:27When we get them as 6th graders, especially at the beginning of the year, they're still
00:25:32just kids, you know, and about halfway through the year then they turn into middle schoolers.
00:25:37Their attitude towards art becomes better because they see success and they want to keep
00:25:43going with that and they just find a place where they're comfortable and they can make
00:25:51choices of their own.
00:25:54I think the most important thing about learning art is that you learn to make decisions.
00:25:59You learn to be yourself.
00:26:04And I think that's a really important thing to do in school-age kids because all day you're
00:26:11trying to be like your peers.
00:26:12You are trying to get the right answer on tests.
00:26:16You are trying to do things right.
00:26:19And I think when you come here, there's room for exploring what you want and what's right
00:26:26for you instead of what's right for everyone else.
00:26:31I think that success in art is hard to measure and it's hard to sell that as success.
00:26:41Budgets get tight.
00:26:42It's just one of those things that is an extra.
00:26:59There weren't very many opportunities for students to take part in music or the arts after school
00:27:07here in McPherson and so we felt like that was the best place for us to use our building,
00:27:13to use our skills, to use our interests to be able to create an after school program for
00:27:19students that age.
00:27:21But we wanted to create a space where they can be in a safe environment to continue to
00:27:25grow.
00:27:26And a particular skill that they wanted to work is the arts is you're kind of sharing a part
00:27:32of yourself.
00:27:33When you put yourself out there, it's a risk that you're kind of exposing yourself.
00:27:38I know that for anybody who does performance art, you're kind of putting yourself out there
00:27:43in a vulnerable situation.
00:27:48I'm Sean Yates.
00:27:50I'm 14.
00:27:51I'm a freshman in high school and I like music and arts and stuff.
00:27:59So I feel like I'm lost in music.
00:28:00I love it.
00:28:01I mean, it's, it's just great.
00:28:03It's a, it's a great escape for me from just normal life and stuff.
00:28:09Staying up till like sometimes one in the morning doing homework and stuff, I feel like
00:28:14I can get overworked and depressed and feel like I can't do it, but I pick up a guitar
00:28:19and I immediately forget all my worries and stuff.
00:28:30If they have a passion to pursue that they can, anyone can call themselves an artist.
00:28:42Well, I technically am a professor, but it's a lot more fun than it sounds.
00:28:48I teach sheet metal and I teach the history of automotive design.
00:28:51Well, they learn all the different processes that a person needs to restore an antique automobile.
00:28:56So that would involve all the different mechanical processes as well as things like paint and soft trim and sheet
00:29:05metal shaping and woodworking.
00:29:06It's a very comprehensive program.
00:29:11I think of it as a compulsion for us who do this kind of work and that could be because
00:29:17you, you want to fix something or heal something.
00:29:23We're looking at these objects as these really important artifacts and it's very satisfying to be able to basically heal
00:29:31this object.
00:29:33But there's also creativity involved.
00:29:36If you, if you're the one sewing the seat or shaping the metal, it's definitely like traditional art in that
00:29:46sense where there's a lot of craftsmanship involved.
00:29:51The art comes from the drive of the people doing the work.
00:29:55It's like a tribute to the craftsmanship of the people who made it the first time.
00:29:59With the cars that were handmade cars, you're basically walking in their footsteps, recreating, like with the rolls, the exact
00:30:07same process as using the same tools that they did to make this thing beautiful.
00:30:21This room houses the USD 418 art collection.
00:30:25It's was at one time the second largest art collection for a school district in the United States.
00:30:31It started in 1911 and it was collected by students.
00:30:36They would save their pennies and nickels and dimes and would buy art for the, for the school district.
00:30:46And there was a gentleman here in town, name of Carl Smalley, who actually worked for his father's seed company.
00:30:53And even though he was supposed to be working, selling seeds for his father, he really was a patron of
00:31:01the arts.
00:31:02And so he talked his father into letting him have a small corner of the seed, of the seed store.
00:31:07And Carl put some prints and some books and some little pieces of pottery and so forth and started selling
00:31:14art from his father's seed store.
00:31:20Eventually this grew into his own store.
00:31:23And at one time it was said that McPherson had more art per capita than New York or Los Angeles.
00:31:35Yesterday I noticed that when we were out on the prairie, it had rained.
00:31:41You can smell the grasses.
00:31:47Maxwell Wildlife Refuge is a home for a very large bison herd.
00:31:52And those two are our main attraction of the refuge.
00:31:59It sits on 2,800 acres of native prairie.
00:32:03There's art in just about everything.
00:32:05There's seed pods on, on our plants out here.
00:32:08The close ups, you can't maybe tell that it's a seed pod off of a piece of grass.
00:32:15But it's beautiful.
00:32:18When there's a lot of dew and moisture, I have seen webs that have been made in the grass that
00:32:25is so artistic.
00:32:27Yeah, I mean really it is a big painting.
00:32:37Beautiful though, mate.
00:32:57There's a long mix of grass that will help us through the Eenà®®'
00:33:37Welcome to TikTok Pueblo.
00:33:39What we do at TikTok is we are an anti-cafe, which is a pay per minute social space.
00:33:44And what we do is we check people in and from that point they pay 8 cents per person per
00:33:49minute and everything else is free.
00:33:51So, the coffee is really incidental.
00:33:54We say, you know, pay per minute coffee shop because anti-cafe is not a word.
00:33:59We have art in here because this is intrinsically a creative space.
00:34:03Whether that creativity is writing, whether it's building your own business, whether it's
00:34:09actually doing physical art, we're a creative space.
00:34:17I think that fear is a really big kind of demotivator, both in terms of making art like I was
00:34:25talking
00:34:26about with myself and that fear of I'm not going to be any good at this, but also fear
00:34:30of kind of looking at your own motivations, looking internally because art makes us look
00:34:36internally and not wanting to confront anything about yourself.
00:34:43In any sort of world that wants you to conform, that wants you to be the same as every single
00:34:48other person, do the same as every single other person, anything artistic at all is an act
00:34:53of rebellion.
00:34:58I love this piece.
00:35:01It says, I am a follower of rude people.
00:35:04Many people have no clue what outsider art is.
00:35:10They've never been exposed to it before.
00:35:14Many people, when they consider art, they consider, as I said, our beautiful Western collection, Western
00:35:21landscapes, you know, much more mainstream art.
00:35:28This is a completely new experience for many people.
00:35:32People can walk in here and say, oh, you know, my four-year-old could do this, but that's
00:35:36not the point.
00:35:37Yes, your four-year-old can do this.
00:35:38Everybody can do this.
00:35:39Everybody can explore their creative side, create something that, yeah, it's not for anyone
00:35:47else.
00:35:48It's just for the artist creating it.
00:35:53An outsider artist is someone who is not formally educated in art, and it's more of a passion.
00:36:02It's something they need to do.
00:36:04It's something that they are compelled to create.
00:36:07It's something within themselves.
00:36:09I think all art has its place.
00:36:12It does.
00:36:13I mean, it's all expression.
00:36:15It's all creating.
00:36:27Everybody that walks by anywhere in the world, everything around you is art.
00:36:32You know, everything from architecture to advertisements to the design of cars to, you know, anything.
00:36:40Everything in our society revolves around design.
00:36:45I'm a silkscreen poster artist.
00:36:48I'm a pretty vocal person, so, you know, for instance, when I was playing in the band, that was my
00:36:54focus.
00:36:54I really didn't do anything else outside of that until I kind of got into the artwork side.
00:36:59And nowadays, kind of similarly, I only focus on artwork.
00:37:03I really don't do anything else outside of this, just because I like to put my whole heart into what
00:37:11I'm doing.
00:37:11And so anybody who finds something they love to do creatively and pursues it wholeheartedly, you know, and it could
00:37:19be anything, whatever you choose, as long as you do it with everything you have.
00:37:27Well, I think there's a lot of people who have the ability to create wonderful things, but they're not willing
00:37:32to take the chance to pursue that to the end.
00:37:37You know, I think a lot of the I think a lot of society is going to try and keep
00:37:45you from doing that, you know, again, back with financial reasons and family reasons and lots of different stuff.
00:37:51So, yeah, I think it's it's very against creatives, but at the same time, I think it's important for creatives
00:38:01to dig their own hole and make their own place, not to be deterred by any exterior circumstance.
00:38:11I think art is the most integral part of life.
00:38:22This is my gallery, the John Doe Art Gallery.
00:38:25I represent about 25 local artists.
00:38:33I try to tell artists it's not so much talent that's important, but perseverance.
00:38:40You know, the more stubborn you are about it, the more successful you may be.
00:38:44You know, sometimes it's a struggle for all artists, but it's quite rewarding, too.
00:38:50You know, I can't imagine not having art on my walls or in my life.
00:38:55You know, I think people that don't have it are really missing out on something, but they don't know they're
00:38:59missing out.
00:39:07From 1980 till really about five years ago, so several decades, this quarter of a million square feet meatpacking plant
00:39:18was abandoned.
00:39:20Art has been used prolifically throughout generations here in Pueblo, especially when you look at tagging, graffiti art, mural art.
00:39:29You look at large self-expression works.
00:39:33The Pueblo Levy is in the Guinness World Record Book as the longest continuous mural in the world.
00:39:39So we have this tradition of self-expression in a lot of different formats.
00:39:45So Water Tower Place is iconic in a lot of different ways.
00:39:49One, it's imposing because it is 250,000 square feet adjacent to I-25, to the interstate here,
00:39:57with two million bricks in a very gorgeous kind of mid-century modern design.
00:40:04And the water towers are iconic because you can see them from the north, from the south, from the east,
00:40:10and from the west.
00:40:11But it's iconic in the sense that we have this actual physical meatpacking plant that represents one of the great
00:40:20industries that brought fortune to this community.
00:40:24But now because of its design, it's iconic in the sense that it allows us to be really thoughtful in
00:40:30the way that we create very meaningful spaces for artists, for creatives, for makers to actually do what it is
00:40:39that they do best.
00:40:39They feel a big andسperience them like they do best.
00:40:44Today is focused.
00:40:45It's also called looking at the water í—ˆam.
00:40:59The water are very pleasing now.
00:41:03Thank god Stephanie.
00:41:08This is a country that holds a heart-assurance � hairs, as it is.
00:41:09He'd be a great member of little work at all.
00:41:41I passed on when you came and took your things around this town here, so it must have been real
00:41:48exciting for you, though.
00:41:50Oh, my goodness, it was. Again, if my mother ever knew some of the things I got into. I am
00:41:56Mrs. Eleanor Malaby. I came to Glenwood Springs in May of 1885, a new bride from Columbus, Ohio.
00:42:06As Jasper Ward, I was born in 1850 in Franklin County, Illinois. My brothers and I, my mother and my
00:42:16sisters, came west after a civil war when our farm was burned.
00:42:23This specific character, Mrs. Eleanor Malaby, is fourth generation. Her great-granddaughter happened to have her handwritten, Eleanor's handwritten memories.
00:42:35I got to meet her great-granddaughter, and she could hand me down the oral history of her family to
00:42:43know who this woman was.
00:42:44People don't have the whole story. We're trying to give the background, the everyday feelings that these people had.
00:42:55We have today. We shared the mistakes that were made. Perhaps we can help make it better for the next
00:43:03generation.
00:43:03Jasper represents that part of the West that the story has really not been fully told yet.
00:43:12My job is to keep history alive, and Glenwood Springs has a very rich history. So it's not a difficult
00:43:18job at all, and part of that is portraying, as a portrayalist, a character that I can identify with that's
00:43:25part of the history of this area.
00:43:28We're right at the verge here in Glenwood Springs of losing our soul. What made this a community is the
00:43:34history that tied it together.
00:43:36When you're tied to an electronic device that you become, not addicted may not be the word, but if you
00:43:42become dependent upon, if you can get them away from that back to just free time for the imagination to
00:43:49run wild, the arts then bring that alive.
00:43:54And we lose that. And we lose that. You lose the soul of who you are, as a culture, as
00:43:59a town, as a country.
00:44:05Some people will say, like with fine art, what do I do with this? It doesn't have a purpose. And
00:44:15I always say, well, I really don't need my art to be functional, but I love my functional items to
00:44:22be art.
00:44:23So I like everything. And I feel like everything is, oh, you're just blessed if you're an artist, you know,
00:44:30in every way.
00:44:31And everything is, everything comes from creativity, problem solving, enrichment, enjoyment, you know.
00:44:38I think everybody is an artist. I really do think you are, you know. Yes, I don't think it has
00:44:45to be one thing.
00:44:46And sometimes I'll meet artists who are really talented, but they don't have like the business aspect of it.
00:44:54And I try to explain if you're not just really passionate about it and it's everything and you have to
00:45:01do it, don't do it as a business. Just do it for joy.
00:45:11We do, we specialize in making these barrel-aged sour beers. And so that is really my favorite, one of
00:45:18the only forms of art expression that I do is the blending aspect.
00:45:22So the best part of my job is when we're able to start tasting barrels and seeing what flavors we
00:45:27get and what happens when we add those two or three or four barrels together.
00:45:31So that the idea of the blending process is that one plus one equals three.
00:45:35We're trying to create a blend that's greater than the sum of its parts.
00:45:42We can compare the blending process of what we do to make these beers with painting.
00:45:48So we try to create as many different flavors as we can, kind of the same way that a painter
00:45:55might want to have a lot of different colors to use what they're trying to do.
00:45:58So that's kind of how we describe it, is we want to have tons of different flavors in the barrels
00:46:02so that we're not limited by what we can achieve with that blending process.
00:46:06Similar to, I would assume, how a painter wants to have as many different colors as they can get to
00:46:10make what they're trying to do.
00:46:12What is an artist for me?
00:46:13Somebody that works with their hands, somebody that creates something from ingredients that the average person wouldn't be able to
00:46:21make something to that level of skill.
00:46:25It's easy to, if you don't understand something, to have a negative view of it.
00:46:29But the more you begin to understand a product or a process, the more you'll be able to see that
00:46:34there is definitely a lot of art that goes into what we do here.
00:47:40In Northeastern Nevada, where we live, there's only 50,000 people in the entire county.
00:47:48The towns are far spread apart.
00:47:52Many people think 50 miles outside of the Great Basin is an overnight trip.
00:47:59But 50 miles in Northeastern Nevada is what you do with a six-year-old kindergartner to go one way
00:48:07in a school bus to go to school five days a week.
00:48:09And we think nothing of it.
00:48:12It's just the way we live.
00:48:15And we don't regard this as unusual because you're never a good tourist in your own backyard.
00:48:22And you don't realize that this is unique.
00:48:27It's just the way we are and the way we live.
00:48:30And we're fine with it.
00:48:33The heritage of cowboy culture is one that embraces the old traditional ways our cowboys still go out on the
00:48:45range on horseback.
00:48:46And they camp out in cowboy teepee tents just like their predecessors did 100, 170 years ago.
00:48:56It really hasn't changed.
00:48:59But yet the ranchers nowadays have different ways of tracking their livestock.
00:49:07They keep computer records.
00:49:09They have cell phones.
00:49:11Although cell service is a little sketchy in places around here.
00:49:15But cowboys love to embrace those, those traditions that have gone on for 150 years.
00:49:32To start making the knitting, I have to cut what is a piece of paper first to put it here
00:49:43below.
00:49:45Then they put three pieces of paper on the line, rebajing it, rebajing it, rebajing it, rebajing it up until
00:49:56it stays.
00:49:58So that it doesn't bother the person who is going to be able to do it.
00:50:03It's needed several years to learn how to do this work.
00:50:10There are no many people who do it right now.
00:50:13They are not going to be able to do it at the time.
00:50:15No se, no se porque das unseedad, pero hay muchas personas que ya no les gusta.
00:50:20Trajero mucho, ¿verdad?
00:50:23Mis papas, mi papá era, era zapatero, por decirlo así.
00:50:29Él trabajó, él era zapatero en México.
00:50:32Zapatos de mujer, o sea, toda clase de zapatos.
00:50:34So maybe I brought the tradition or something of him.
00:50:45And all my brothers work in Pierre.
00:50:50I have a few brothers in Guadalajara, they also do montures and all kinds of work in Pierre.
00:50:59The part of the art, let's say that it's all the work.
00:51:07But the art, I think it's the design of the flowers.
00:51:14Alguns montureros make them different.
00:51:17I think doing the design of the flowers and working them, I think that's the art.
00:51:33I am a first generation Basque American.
00:51:37So the Basque people in the time of the war, back in Spain and France actually, were very repressed.
00:51:45And that repression led to a lot of families having to immigrate to other countries for survival really.
00:51:51And so Nevada became a hub of many of the Basques because they came here as sheep herders.
00:51:57And so that immigration started in the 30s and really became even more prominent in the 60s, the early 60s.
00:52:05The things that we are trying to preserve most are dance, the tree carvings.
00:52:11So if you go to any of the mountain areas in Northeastern Nevada, you'll see these tree carvings.
00:52:18And the tree carvings can be anything from how they felt about politics at the time,
00:52:22to like their love for their homeland and them missing their families back home that they love,
00:52:28to what life was like out in the open.
00:52:33My mom didn't know English when she went to school and my dad never went to school in America.
00:52:38But their goal was that we knew English.
00:52:40And so it's very typical, you know, the Basque language was almost lost because of this story right here.
00:52:46They so wanted their children to be able to integrate into American culture.
00:52:50So happy to have the opportunity here that that Basque language was almost lost here.
00:53:01I like mechanisms. I like seeing the way things move and the way they work.
00:53:07And I always have. Since I was a little kid, I wanted to be an inventor.
00:53:12And I've kind of incorporated that into my art with the kinetic art aspect of it,
00:53:17where my sculptures actually do move and do things.
00:53:24I'm inspired a lot by the mechanics of machinery and the mechanics of nature
00:53:30and how we can put those together to make weird mechanical robot animals and whatnot.
00:53:40Everyone has their own opinion on what is and is not art.
00:54:28Check out a lot over here.
00:54:50When I first started working at a foundry, I didn't, I didn't know much about art.
00:54:57I mean, I just needed a job, right?
00:54:59I'm 19 years old, I needed a job.
00:55:01I ended up being good at it.
00:55:03And the longer I worked at a foundry, then I got exposed to different types of art, you know, anything
00:55:07from, you know, regular wildlife type art, you know, realistic figures.
00:55:16The second foundry I worked at did more contemporary work.
00:55:19And that was my first exposure to contemporary artwork, which is quite different.
00:55:29And it took me a little while to understand it more, talk with the artist, ask them questions.
00:55:39And it was a real learning experience.
00:55:46When the cup's full, he'll just move on to the next one.
00:55:52No excitement, guys.
00:55:54Our work can be a lot of different things.
00:55:56I mean, it might be somebody painting a mural on a wall.
00:55:59It might be, you know, like some of the old buildings, they have an old billboard on there.
00:56:04And, you know, in Baker, it's important.
00:56:08We keep that stuff, you know.
00:56:09I mean, it's for people to see.
00:56:12You know, I know that it comes at an expense.
00:56:15And so you have to weigh, you know, is the expense of the art worth the return?
00:56:21And so what's the return?
00:56:23Is the return people spending money here?
00:56:25I don't know.
00:56:26You know, I mean, the return might just be the fact that people are pleased and they like to see
00:56:33it, you know.
00:56:34So and maybe they come back again because they enjoyed the experience.
00:56:58We saw a big sort of shift in the community into believing.
00:57:09I mean, that arts had a place in a rural economy.
00:57:13We had seen an artist that was in the Catskills that had an old elementary school as his home and
00:57:19his studio.
00:57:20And we thought that would be a really cool thing for a place like Baker.
00:57:28So, I mean, we're really not motivated by making a lot of money, but we're motivated to make sure that
00:57:36we pay our bills here.
00:57:39So we're trying to make sure that, you know, that happens.
00:57:42But we are always super excited to have artists producing artwork here.
00:57:52My background is in the fashion industry.
00:57:56So I did hair and makeup.
00:58:00Well, first started out as owning a couple of salons in Chicago and then moved to New York and I
00:58:06did hair and makeup for pretty much every magazine.
00:58:10So when living in Chicago, I used to produce and direct a live music show that was part of cable
00:58:18access.
00:58:21We have artists in virtually every space when you're able to do something that's a creative outlet.
00:58:29It helps you deal with whatever issues you might be having internally.
00:58:34The arts sometimes give you the opportunity when you're not feeling good to express yourself in a way that's constructive
00:58:40versus destructive.
00:58:42And to be able to provide spaces and be in a place where creativity is sort of championed and celebrated,
00:58:52like, that's an important thing.
00:58:59I give a $100 bill for him, give him $100, $100, $125, $125.
00:59:03I'm Mellerman Baker for the Salt Lake auction.
00:59:06We auction off Salt Lake's as art.
00:59:09And I've been doing this for 13 years.
00:59:11It's a charity event for Parkinson's, which I got 19 years ago.
00:59:19And I just wanted to do something for the disease.
00:59:2350-pound blocks of salt.
00:59:26And the deer sculpted it with their tongues.
00:59:30And it really looked just very attractive.
00:59:32It had just very nice lines to it.
00:59:34We started auctioning off the blocks.
00:59:36The first one went for, like, $125.
00:59:39And I thought, boy, this is going to fly.
00:59:42And at the end of the night, we had, like, 40 people in there who do raise $3,500.
00:59:47It's never gone down.
00:59:50We're up to, like, $140,000 now.
00:59:53And you kind of think that's a spit in the ocean.
00:59:57It's a small amount comparatively.
01:00:00But when you think of it, there's 16,000 people in the county and 80,000 cows.
01:00:08Well, they participate, too.
01:00:10We have to have the cows.
01:00:15Contemporary art, it does test the limits for some people's tolerances.
01:00:20I mean, as Witt was saying, the two pieces of metal, you know, kind of a minimalist piece.
01:00:26You know, people wonder why that would be considered art.
01:00:32I think that there are kind of two different levels.
01:00:35I think that there's kind of an intellectual level.
01:00:38And there's almost a body response to forms.
01:00:40It's like a body response to a beautiful sunset.
01:00:43You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to know about great painters doing sunsets or any of
01:00:48that other stuff.
01:00:49All you have to do is be in front of it and feel a certain way.
01:00:52And that is art.
01:00:54It's not the intellectual art.
01:00:56It's not the historian's art.
01:00:58It's not that.
01:00:59And those, and then we have stacks and stacks of books about those things that give reasons why those two
01:01:05sheets of metal are so profound.
01:01:10And Baker City actually here has turned the corner into a very artistic town, very art center.
01:01:22It's amazing to me how much energy is in town for the arts now.
01:01:30And when I was a kid and lived here and went to school here, it wasn't so.
01:01:36You know, there was a certain style.
01:01:37You did the mountain to look like the mountain and you didn't mess with it.
01:01:40And if you did, you're doing something wrong.
01:01:51What I love about clay is it is a very tactile medium.
01:01:55It's also very forgiving.
01:01:57It's been a frustrating journey because I've had a lot of you, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
01:02:04But that also has been very good for me because it's nice to learn to live with not always being
01:02:10in control.
01:02:11And that's probably what I like most about art is just the process of creating.
01:02:23Once I have it conceived in my mind, then it's just a matter of executing it and dealing with the
01:02:32material and how the material is going to react to what I want it to do.
01:02:36Art is so many things.
01:02:38It's so many things to so many different people.
01:02:41But for me, as an educator, I think it's all about being able to communicate and express yourself in a
01:02:54unique and individual way with no right or wrong answers.
01:03:00You get to art.
01:03:03Art measures what I think it measures our culture.
01:03:07It determines, it communicates to those around us and it does so.
01:03:12And lots of times there are things that we know that we can communicate with art, but we can't express
01:03:17it verbally, but we can express it in music, we can express it in theater, we can express it visually.
01:03:27And that's what art is.
01:03:29I don't think art will ever go away.
01:03:32I think we need it as a culture.
01:03:34I think we need it as individual people.
01:03:42So many of the things in school today say there's a right answer and a wrong answer.
01:03:48And I think we need to, particularly rural communities, your education is the key and we have to have it
01:03:58in our public schools to help children learn to think that way.
01:04:03And to not learn to think that way, but be allowed to be creative.
01:04:09I've been looking, oh majestic, all my wandering days, searching God's creation, for the answer to prayers I've prayed.
01:04:35I've been looking, oh majestic, seems like all my years.
01:04:56I've been looking, oh majestic, seems like all my years.
01:05:03I always say that arts is a way you package a city.
01:05:07It's the way that you bring personality.
01:05:09It's the way that you bring passion.
01:05:11And so this council has been incredibly supportive of making sure that we are really infusing art in the city
01:05:20of Reno.
01:05:20And I think that was something that was missed for a very long time.
01:05:24Whether it's planning infrastructure within streets, right, or within buildings.
01:05:29And so we always like to, as a council, ask those developers, where do you see arts and culture fitting
01:05:37into this project?
01:05:39And so we start to educate them why arts and culture are so important, not only for economic development, but
01:05:47for bringing a community together.
01:05:49If you can imagine a building that has no personality, no arts and culture embedded in it, you really, it
01:05:57doesn't really take on any life of its own.
01:06:00And it really sort of, I say, it doesn't have a soul.
01:06:03So we want to bring sort of the soul and personality and passion into those projects.
01:06:09And we believe that that comes through art.
01:06:11I think more than ever, public art is critical.
01:06:17Remember, it brings communities together.
01:06:21There's many times I can walk outside to the Believe sign or to the Whale.
01:06:25And there will be people gathered around it, taking pictures, talking about it.
01:06:30And I think that is important when it comes to public art.
01:06:34And it's something that you can give back to your entire community if you plan it correctly.
01:06:44And that's another thing that I love about art.
01:06:47Politically, we don't see it becoming a Democratic or Republican issue.
01:06:51We see it, you know, something that we can all come together on and support one another on.
01:06:57And so I think art also plays a very big role politically.
01:07:04I had been here for about 10 or 12 years with a business.
01:07:08And I noticed that there was starting to be an influx of new young professionals coming over from California with
01:07:15the higher taxes.
01:07:16And we've got Tesla and Switch and Google.
01:07:21And I could see that there was a rebirth coming.
01:07:24And I decided I wanted to participate.
01:07:30Art gives people a new way to look at their downtown.
01:07:36The area that we're in was a very difficult area with a lot of problems.
01:07:41And so people kind of looked at the western half of downtown Reno as an area they didn't want to
01:07:47visit.
01:07:47They didn't want to have anything to do with.
01:07:50It was a doormat, so to speak.
01:07:52And art enlivens the soul.
01:07:57And it gets people excited and interested and activated.
01:08:01And all of the above is what it's helping to bring to downtown Reno.
01:08:08You know, when we started putting art up on 4th Street, when this art came about, people were looking at
01:08:14it.
01:08:15They didn't understand what I was doing, you know.
01:08:16But within a couple of days, selfies are coming out and people, they're making that art part of their life.
01:08:24They're interacting with that art.
01:08:26And art enlivens the soul and folks are enjoying it.
01:08:32Well, it's going to be a 30-year overnight success story.
01:08:35You know, it's not going to happen overnight.
01:08:37But we did this in Cleveland as well.
01:08:40And so we think it gives people a chance to look at their life and their community a little differently,
01:08:50a little more uplifting.
01:08:57Public art is a specific idea or concept.
01:09:00So I think it depends on what role it's playing in its community, if it's meant to be, you know,
01:09:07a social dialogue, if it's meant to be a pop-up exhibit to give excitement or life to a community.
01:09:14So you have to kind of understand the integrity behind the piece before it.
01:09:18So I guess it's more about the idea than it is about the specific piece.
01:09:23With my own personal public art, I wanted to share my voice and also share that I wanted to be
01:09:32a part of the community and share, you know, that expression or that joy that art can give.
01:09:37I think it's very inspiring to see a community and not just the arts community, but to see the community,
01:09:46you know, the neighborhoods be so acceptance of a little bit more color or a little bit more dialogue through
01:09:54the visual aspect.
01:09:57I do think that murals, sometimes it's this, I don't know, it's like a fine line.
01:10:04Like, what is it exactly?
01:10:05Is it a commissioned billboard or is it a tag where an artist is expressing maybe a political or social
01:10:14view, which is where murals kind of started from?
01:10:19I was born in Philippines and I grew up in Stockton, but now I've been here in Reno for about
01:10:2725 years.
01:10:28There's no employment where I came from.
01:10:31I came in when it was around 1990s.
01:10:35We need more artists and we need to try to give them more benefits because I know art is not
01:10:47really a month-to-month income, but we need to encourage the young generation to express through art.
01:10:55And you can make money, and you can make money, but I know it might take a while.
01:11:04New generation nowadays, they're so busy with their phones or gadgets and all that, but I think we need to
01:11:11put our cell phone down or any gadgets down,
01:11:14and just go out on a weekend and just go to the museum, but I think that's what we lack
01:11:20of, is time.
01:11:26When I started, when I was eight, I had a Paiute buckskin dress that was handed down, made by my
01:11:31great-grandmother, so buckskin is the height of a deer, and at the time, I thought I was the most
01:11:37boringest thing.
01:11:38There's no shiny on there, the beads were like basic colors, red, green, no shine.
01:11:43And then I would see some other girls dancing with their fancy shawls or their jingle dresses, and I was
01:11:48like, wow, that's what I want to do.
01:11:51But in my family, handed down my family, air room was not that, so I was like, okay, well, I
01:11:56guess I'm stuck dancing this then.
01:11:57I used to watch MTV as much as I could.
01:12:00I would watch Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul.
01:12:03I was a big MC Hammer fan.
01:12:05That was my first concert I went to, so we had no more outfits, and so I kind of threw
01:12:10myself into watching those entertainers all the time.
01:12:14Like, kind of go into our soul.
01:12:17Then I came back to my culture after having been classically music trained.
01:12:25After doing classical music so long, it wasn't fulfilling me anymore.
01:12:29Going into other countries or even on reservations where they've had a lot of suicide or things like that,
01:12:35we would use these dances somewhat in a modern way because it's a healing dance,
01:12:40and I'd still wear the dress, whether it's plain or really just decorative.
01:12:47The purpose behind the dance is for healing at that moment.
01:12:52The purpose behind the dance is for healing at that moment.
01:13:22The purpose behind the dance.
01:13:24It's not kay about.
01:13:37NEIGH S Whiskey
01:13:38Then the tune, oh, majestic, rose among the thorns,
01:13:50In the sunrise
01:13:53In the canyon
01:13:57In the thunder
01:13:59Before the storm
01:14:05In the cathedral of the mountain ridge
01:14:11Where the wind and trees unite
01:14:19Looking for majestic
01:14:24Searching all my life
01:14:39Love was part of the first show
01:14:42that the Boy Foundation arranged for us.
01:14:44There were 80 weddings
01:14:45that occurred in the letters of love.
01:14:51Artists are a unique group of people on the planet.
01:14:5599% are wonderful, decent, intelligent,
01:14:59very capable, and very progressive in their thinking.
01:15:05The most important quality of art is to please our species, and whatever does that is good art.
01:15:17If it's dancing, if it's writing, whatever, those forms are most successful when many, many people enjoy them.
01:15:27And the famous artists and the non-famous artists are equally skilled in my opinion.
01:15:34Well, we've been having a sculpture garden for 23 years, and we mostly have local artists.
01:15:42Some are from a little bit further away, and most of them are local artists that I got to meet
01:15:51and invite to show in our garden.
01:15:56I believe artwork is something that should be interacted with.
01:15:59When we're children, we're raised to sort of stand back from art and look at it in a museum,
01:16:04and we're not really encouraged to really interact with art.
01:16:07And it gives them a different idea of what art means to them.
01:16:10It's not something that's removed from you, but it's a part of you.
01:16:12And I think that that's really the essence of what art is here in the Sculpture Grove, and hopefully in
01:16:19other places around the world.
01:16:21Food is an art form. Obviously, taste is in another sense that you want to, it's important.
01:16:30And more and more, food is more than taste. It's appearance and smell.
01:16:37All of those things go to make food obviously an art form.
01:16:42For sure.
01:16:51I think, you know, the job of most art is to create almost like a language, whatever it is.
01:17:04And, I don't know, I think, at least for me, I'm trying to say something through my art.
01:17:10And if you end up kind of pulling that out of me, hopefully that adds to the artwork.
01:17:17But sometimes, like with art, there's like a, like I always think of art and its reaction similar to like
01:17:26a relationship.
01:17:27And that sometimes people have like this instant mutual kind of spark or attraction and they kind of get together
01:17:36and then it builds from there.
01:17:38So, like, the more you learn about the piece or the person, the more you fall in love with it.
01:17:44Art just always kind of held my interests.
01:17:48I ended up moving a lot as a child, like, I was born in Miami, then moved to Canada, then
01:17:56we were in Oklahoma, then Nicaragua, then here.
01:18:00And so, just moving around a lot, I always had art to just kind of hold my interests instead of
01:18:06like, it was just something that I always kind of felt safe with and at home with.
01:18:12I think there's an easy, like, mental exercise you could play where you just say, how would the world look
01:18:21if you eliminated an artist?
01:18:23It's hard to explain how the, why the world would need art, but if you think about how it would
01:18:29look when you, when you remove it,
01:18:31I think that's an easier argument to kind of convince people of how important it is.
01:18:38Well, I started out in L.A. as a very traditional black and white photographer and for decades loved working
01:18:47in a dark room and only fairly recently made the transition to digital.
01:18:54So, definitely there's a lot of emotion in my work.
01:18:58I bring my own intention to the work, but I also know that any viewer, any visitor, is going to
01:19:04bring their own baggage with them, their own perspective, their own emotions.
01:19:08So, I leave it open to the viewer.
01:19:14Some people would say no, but I know some of my work has been social issue oriented, and I absolutely
01:19:21believe that it can be art and it can have political statements.
01:19:25But I also always want to leave room for people to bring, the viewer to bring what they want to
01:19:31bring to it.
01:19:40I came from Mexico like about six years ago, and I started working here in this barbershop about like about
01:19:48a year ago.
01:19:49When I started going to college, I wanted to become like an artist, like an animator, artist, doing more like
01:19:57stories and drawings at the same time, like making books, because I like to write too.
01:20:02Barber actually like changed my mind totally.
01:20:06Now my dream is like as a barber, as an artist barber.
01:20:15Most of the barbers nowadays, it's just like, they just want to like cut hair and get money.
01:20:21But this, for me, is more like a passion.
01:20:25I do it because I like it.
01:20:29I didn't even expect the money at the beginning.
01:20:33I was just like, I just wanted to become like good.
01:20:37My best version, pretty much.
01:20:40And I've been like, practicing every time.
01:20:44I've been staying pretty late, waking up early.
01:20:48And then, I've been practicing a lot.
01:20:51No, not everybody can be an artist.
01:20:54I think it's a passion.
01:20:57You got to feel it.
01:20:59It's not something like you just want to do art and then start doing it.
01:21:03I feel like they need to be motivated.
01:21:07They got to start looking at life in a better way.
01:21:14You actually can become an artist if you really like, compliment yourself and like, putting time on it.
01:21:25Because I've seen like, people who used to drop the thought, but then I start taking like, classes.
01:21:33And then like, it's actually a long way.
01:21:37But like, after like, five, six years, they become pretty good artists.
01:21:41Like, so everyone can become an artist if they really focus on it.
01:21:57Like, so everyone can be a musician.
01:21:59Like, so everyone can be a player.
01:22:00Like, so everyone can be a person, and I'll be like, I'll be like, maybe you'll be like, huh?
Comments