Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS, Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers Like You PRINTMAKER AND ACTIVIST STEPHANIE WEINER, USES HER ART TO DOCUMENT STRUGGLES FOR JUSTICE AND CELEBRATE THE COLLECTIVE POWER OF COMMUNITY INFLUENCED BY HER PERSIAN HERITAGE AND EARLY EXPOSURE TO ANCIENT ART, MEHRI YAZDANI CREATES PAINTINGS THAT EXPLORE HOW MEMORY AND TIME SHAPE THE PRESENT PAINTER BRAIGHLEE EXPLORES FEMININITY THROUGH A SERIES OF ABSTRACT REALIST PORTRAITS THAT WEAVE TOGETHER THE INSPIRING VOICES OF WOMEN IN HER LIFE IT'S ALL AHEAD ON ¡COLORES!

ART FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE [soft piano music] >> Faith: Stephanie, thank you for joining me today on Colores.

It was so great to meet you at the Downtown Growers Market, and have you tell me all of the stories behind these amazing prints that you've made.

And I'm so happy that you're here to share this with us as well, thank you.

Looking back, what was the first piece of art that you made that you realized could be used for justice?

>> Weiner: I'm not sure, but I certainly did a lot of art about wrongful conviction that I was involved in -- one case of Detective Renaldo Guevarra.

But I also did art about the strike of Republic Windows and Doors.

I helped some secretaries that were in a union fight, and we made tabletop protest signs for their desks.

The University of Alabama -- shuttle bus drivers -- in that situation, I was fast enough that they wore my shirts, Justice Express while they signed their first contract.

So I had a lot of examples where it was connected to what was going on around me.

In fact, some people would even stop at my place to suit up, knowing that I would have something of that issue before they went to a demonstration downtown.

>> Faith: That must have felt great to know that your art was being used in that way, right?

>> Weiner: It took me a while to realize that sometimes even a refrigerator magnet can really be meaningful for someone, and part of the activism that everyone is doing.

>> Faith: So yeah, you often bring a lot of your art to the communities that you're making the art about.

Why is that important for you, and how does it shape the way that you create?

>> Weiner: Well, that example where a magnet or culture can actually be of use, not just commemorating but of use, is clear in the Downwinder art.

The Downwinders had been affected by the radiation of the Trinity Site bomb, back in World War II.

So one thing that's incredible is they had been fighting for 80 years just to get recognition.

I had never even heard of what is a Downwiner until I got to New Mexico four years ago.

So -- and I saw the movie, First, we Bombed New Mexico and they ended with that song, It ain't over till we've won, So I wound up making this art that said, It ain't over till we won, Paul Pino's song.

Kind of an anthem for the Downwinders.

And then I was able to give it to them, Paul, and the other Downwinders from Tularosa.

And then I wound up being able to go to the gate and actually leaflet with them, and it was so meaningful for me and for them to feel it.

And so that brought me to this art, which is after we went leafleting at the Trinity Site gate, we went for a ranch party in Carrizozo at Paul's house.

So that art, wound up being me at the very household of the person that had influenced me.

>> Faith: Why was it important for you to capture this scene instead of just, like, focusing solely like on the protests and stuff?

>> Weiner: I think sometimes you can get -- oversaturated by thinking that only marching, marching is the way for politics.

So this really showed the community of that day.

>> Faith: I want to talk about the Welcome Home series because, you've done quite a lot of work about that.

Can you tell me what the Welcome Home series is about, and why was it important for you to create these prints about this situation?

>> Weiner: Before New Mexico -- Lucky, New Mexico, I lived in Chicago, and I lived in Logan Square area by Fullerton and Central Park, and I was an activist, and I was able to participate in this case about one detective in the gang crimes unit.

And there were just started to be more and more mothers and daughters and wives and sisters coming through and saying, my son, my brother wrongfully convicted.

And then we started to go to police board meetings, and pretty soon we were up to 20-30 cases.

We went to the mayor, the governor, the Feds the UN Amnesty, and no one really paid much heed to what we were saying.

But now the tide has turned, and the guys that we told them about are getting out.

And now, we're up to 57 of the guys are exonerated.

So this print is one of the mothers, it's called, Rose Speaking at the CEJ rally, Comite Exigimos Justicia which was our committee.

Although she's alone in that print, it has that same spirit of just regular people who didn't set out to go to a protest, didn't get paid to do what they were doing, but just circumstance found them doing the right thing.

One of my prints was one of the early guys that got out Roberto Almodovar, and we worked with his sisters and his aunties -- when he finally got out, I made a print of him at the gate and all of us hugging him and we'd been calling saying, "are you okay while you're waiting in the jail?"

And he goes, “oh yeah, they just gave me my first fresh orange in 23 years.

“Like, I'm okay.” And, so the print has him at the gate and everyone hugging him, but then this giant orange.

>> Faith: Why is it important for you to focus on the achievements?

>> Weiner: Some of the art -- needs to be told so people don't forget the hardships of Gaza or any situation.

But, I want my art to be kind of uplifting and show them hanging all over each other.

And that strength and solidarity that it wound up transforming their lives in such a positive way.

Most of all my art has -- even though it's a little heavy-handed, the details of the case, whether it's a medallion to say the exact name of the union, the exact date so that people can Google and find out more.

>> Faith: Can you tell me a little bit about the National Miners Union?

It was such an interesting story and history as well.

What's going on in this scene?

>> Weiner: It's just -- I read a lot about it.

It was kind of hard to piece it together.

But one thing that struck me was, there was five months of Martial law in Gallup, because of this activism that was brewing, and they weren't even allowed to have any -- meeting or gathering of any kind of more than three people in a room.

So, the miners and their family, in order to call for the strike and have their first meeting, walked to Arizona to cross the border into Arizona.

They walked 21 miles and they had their first Strike meeting in the Red Rock Caverns.

So this is a print of Martha Roberts, who was there looking at the meeting in the Red Rock Caverns on the Arizona border.

And sure enough -- I posted it just two weeks ago and someone said, “Well, come on down to Gallup and I'll give you a tour.” and you'll get to see where the riot happened or where the deportations.

So on Tuesday, I went, as I thought, a whole tour, standing right outside the courthouse.

It's just been an honor.

And it shows you that these stories aren't that far removed.

>> Faith: Can you tell me about the Empire Zink strike?

What's the history behind it, and how are you bringing that to life through these prints?

>> Weiner: The basic part of it was that the Hispanics, had a completely different reality.

Only Hispanics were the ones going down into the mines.

Only the Hispanics whose housing had no indoor plumbing.

It was such apartheid segregation that they had even a separate window to pick up their paychecks, which were completely different scale.

So when they went on strike, it was a big deal.

And then there was an injunction that the men weren't allowed to picket anymore.

And the women went and said, “well, we'll have to take over.” And the men said, “no, it's too dangerous.” The women hadn't even been to the union hall before, so it was such a big deal for women to be on the picket line.

The women took over the picket line for five months, and when the strike.

A lot of my art tries to name some of the women, so that you can relate to it.

In many places, it's the women who step up, the mothers, the sisters, the daughters.

I did some art about -- the Harlem Rent Strike, where 13,000 people withheld their rent in 1964, and same things, all women in the picture in my print you know, and I'm a woman, so I guess that's kind of part of the voice that I want to tell.

All of them being changed in their life by their sense -- their new sense of community and strength.

A lot of my art has them hanging over each other with that swagger and that confidence.

That's what I experienced in my activism, and that's a lot of times what I try to convey.

My parents were activists, so this has been my background since I was a little kid, in elementary school, high school and college, student organizing.

So, this idea of contributing to social justice, you know, make things better.

[laughs] Be a part of where you are, has been in my life my whole life.

>> Faith: You share so much of this history with the people who come by just to look at your art.

Why do you think it's important to share this history with people?

>> Weiner: It's dire times.

Anything that can build bravery or courage or communication and unity, is very, very needed.

So, it's -- I think this is a valid voice.

I sometimes I forget it and I think it's not it's just the gift shop of the movement.

But then I remember no, it's culture to remember the victories, to learn from them.

>> Faith: Yeah, and maybe inspire, like, this generation and the next generation to take up the fight.

>> Weiner: Absolutely.

A PLACE IN TIME >> Yazdani: I start with an idea, but the idea, while I'm making the forms go together and the colors relate to each other.

The idea is not there anymore.

And then it gets to a point that I'm just -- having a conversation with paint, forms, colors Artist Mehri Yazdani had never initially considered art as a profession.

It was simply a part of her life, shaped by growing up in a family of talented artist.

>> Yazdani: It was part of my life, like breathing, eating -- and because of my artistic background with my family.

But, when I was studying at UCLA, I had a professor who understood I could do art.

It would be her literature professor that encouraged her to take art more seriously.

>> Yazdani: She expressed that she also does art.

She encouraged me to do it because I was working hard on my exams.

She said, "you should do some art to relax."

And I thought, "who could relax at this time?"

Mehri began painting on weekends and taking night classes with an art professor while working to complete her Master's degree in literature.

After graduating from UCLA, Mehri struggled to find an advisor to pursue her doctorate in literature.

That delay became an opportunity to apply to the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Pennsylvania, one of the Nation's oldest art institutions, where she was accepted.

>> Yazdani: They accepted me and I went there.

In my mind, I said, "okay, I go there for one year, and then I continue my education my academic education."

But in that year, the professors at the academy -- loved my work so much.

They exhibited all those works and the paintings that I had painted prior to going to the Academy that encouraged me.

And they gave me a studio, they said, "you can work here.

And if you want to draw, you can go to the studios and draw from live models and do anything you want."

So then that was the time I decided this is a better -- life for me in terms of the experiences I had -- the expression of my soul that people were sharing with me and they could communicate with that.

So that encouraged me to become a professional artist.

And so from then on, I have been painting for the last 36 years or longer.

I don't know, maybe.

[laughs] Usually when I see it -- a scene or an -- a piece of art or whatever, visually, I see, I'm affected by it.

I take it in -- it becomes an obsession How do I translate that?

How do I interpret that?

Honoring her Persian heritage, from childhood, Mehri Yazdani often visited many of Iran's historical sites and studied others in Greece and Egypt.

There, she could see many ancient works.

Their surfaces worn and peeled with age.

She began blending these influences into her own work, creating art that not only honored the past, but also reflected how history, the worn and faded continues to shape the present.

>> Yazdani: So I was influenced by that, and I started creating these images.

But one thing that brought me to that -- choosing that part of history was that -- the texture that was very important for me.

As a child I would see these paintings in Iran, that they were old, like, 16th century, 13th century.

And then they had this texture on them.

Texture shows the effect of time on things that the time doesn't really destroy whatever is destroyed.

It gives a new life.

It's similar to painting, but when you start painting the new life.

From her extensive collections, Mehri's art has gained acclaim from collectors around the world with exhibitions in Greece, Germany and across the US.

She continues to uncover new depths to her expression and life experiences, while finding new conversations to have on canvas.

>> Yazdani: There's a need, I think, is more than that.

I expect a lot from myself to be a better artist, to be more truthful with my art and to find truth in my art.

And hopefully other people would find it too.

BEING A WOMAN [gentle piano music] >> Rainey: When I'm diving into each painting, it's like this puzzle to solve.

I think colors really excite me.

I think the way people's faces and the way the light hits your face is really interesting.

There's something about painting that there is no limitation between colors and values and compositions, and it is all really exciting and you can create anything that you want.

Hi, my name is Braighlee and I am an oil painter, and artist living and working in Sparks, Nevada.

I like to say that I paint abstract realism, feminine figures and portraits.

I do love, like, the puzzle piecing of putting a portrait together, but I also love the freedom that abstract painting allows me to do and kind of dive into larger brushstrokes and kind of have this ethereal vibe alongside the portraits and the figures that bring everything together.

I like to think that I create poetry, but based in a series.

I love to have pieces that all work together to create a larger storyline.

So the series that I'm currently working on is a collection of ten paintings showcasing women in my life that are inspiring to me, my friends that have beautiful yet traumatic stories, and showcasing a lot of themes and motifs in their life that are reoccurring as women.

All of the paintings together are going to be the entire color of the rainbow.

And I'm doing black, brown, white.

This one is blue, as you can see.

I'm hoping that all of them together create this harmony of voices of each woman, individually.

[gentle guitar music] >> Rainey: I try to include a lot of symbolism and a lot of, like, authentic motifs from each person and each woman that I'm painting.

>> Ren: Hi, my name is Ren, and I was a model for one of Braighlee's artworks.

I haven't been painted before or been part of something like this so closely.

>> Rainey: I did not have this series in mind at all when I painted her.

She was the first and she had this beautiful blue hair and I put her in a beautiful blue dress.

I took her outside and there was a beautiful blue sky behind her, and I kind of all came together in a way that those ideas don't really come from me.

>> Ren: Blue is very significant to me, blue being everywhere in nature, reflected in the sky and water that's all around, but also really hard to find in nature, like finding blue flowers or fruits.

The idea that two things can be true at the same time is, I think, necessary for finding peace.

>> Rainey: The blueness is a representation of the vastness and the beauty -- the boldness, but it's also this, like, such a soft element in our day to day.

>> Ren: Another significant element of the painting is butterflies.

That's something I connect with, and having them in the painting makes it a little more personal, a little bit more symbolic for me.

[peaceful music] >> Rainey: The reason I choose art every day, is because it's a place where I can feel safe.

It's a place where I can explore safely.

Be curious about, like, what if this color and this strip, you know, meet each other?

What's going to happen?

>> Ren: It's an honor, really, to have that image of me preserved by hand.

It started out as a photo, but has evolved into so much more.

It becomes not just me.

It's super fun and it makes my heart happy.

>> Rainey: I paint womanhood and femininity because it's something that I'm still processing.

There's a duality in men and women, you know, there's this duality of trying to be like a soft, feminine figure and also be this strong, courageous woman.

My voice as an artist comes from a place of balancing the boldness and the softness, and you can be both at once.

That's what I'm trying to do, is marry the two in a way that is not coming from the masculine point of view, it's coming from a feminine -- eye.

>> Ren: I find that subject matter important, especially as a woman myself, having this -- feminine perspective that is a little bit different from what's been done in the past.

It's a little bit rebellious and also something that I'm not sure there's enough of yet.

>> Rainey: It's not that I don't want to paint men, I do.

I think I'm still just processing being a woman.

I love my husband so much and I want to paint him eventually.

I want to paint the wonderful men in my life, and people, because I do love painting people.

It's like a little puzzle that I get to put together.

But I think for now, I'm focusing on women so that their voices can be heard so that my voice can be heard, so that we can kind of speak collectively.

The award winning Arts and Culture series, ¡COLORES!

is now available on the PBS app, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and at NMPBS.org.

From classic episodes to brand new shows, ¡COLORES!

is everywhere!

Watch now on your favorite NMPBS platforms.

Funding for ¡COLORES!

was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS, Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

and Viewers Like You