Funding for Colores was provided in part by Frederick hammersley Foundation the Nita ew Walker fund for knme TV knme TV endowment fund knme New Mexico PBS great Southwestern arts and education endowment fund and viewers like you this time on Colores over the course of his prolific career Albuquerque's Raymond Johnson Champion abstract painting he held the Deep belief art could transform and uplift the world I thought he was this incredible Mystic this picture of a 19th century romantic genius who uh was all about esoteric religion and I couldn't really believe that he was a modernist painter comic book artist Jason Aaron is fast becoming known for turning Thor into a woman and co-writing the new Star Wars comic I got a call from my editor-in chief Axel Alonzo who said do you want to write Star Wars I just said yep you know I'm down for doing Star Wars textile designer Kate deara believes in the power of Simplicity and design she walks us through her process each process has its own special sort of Quirk or trademark and I like to celebrate those it's all ahead on Colores Raymond Johnson's paintings are symbols of how art can be spiritually uplifting inspired by a visit to Santa Fe 19 19 22 Charles Raymond Johnson left Big City Life in Chicago relocating to New Mexico in 1924 first in Santa Fe and later in Albuquerque I think Johnson probably saw some potential with the university Albuquerque had more of an edge still does so if an artist was installed in Albuquerque there were no limits Albuquerque was booming the railroad shops had just made a major expansion post World War I it's sort of becoming a real City it's expanding the university is expanding there's a lot of brand new energy to the city um by the 1920s a profit for Modern Art over the course of Johnson's prolific career he championed abstract painting he had a deep conviction that art was the noblest calling for any human being I thought he was this incredible Mystic this picture of a 19th century romantic genius who uh was all about esoteric religion and I couldn't really believe that he was a modernist painter but as I got to know him better I began to understand that he was actually a very pragmatic fellow that he wasn't about religion so much that he was about the spirit as a way of communicating with reality and he had a much broader conception of what reality was all about and it's kind of hard for most people to see past those amazing eyebrows of his they look like these antenna that are reaching out from his eyes allowing him to see things that other people couldn't see the art program at the University really didn't get going until the 1920s and it wasn't until 1934 that Raymond joneson came down from Santa Fe and taught at the University Raymond Johnson found inspiration from the land during a camping trip to Santa Fe in 1922 saying this was a turning point and a new beginning was necessary spreading out in every direction is material marvelous material work for a lifetime he felt a kind of internal rhythm a living presence in the landscape Johnson was also among the generation of artists who saw the war sweep away the promise of the new century he felt the world needed to decisively break with what were Obsolete and terribly destructive values and beliefs impressed when he saw the Armory show during its Chicago run Johnson was inspired by Russian born painter vasel Kandinsky Kandinsky believed the 20th century was the dawning of a great spiritual age in which mankind would be transformed through the Arts dinsky thought that the spirit or the inner life of the artist was far more sensitive to aesthetic stimuli than any other sense he also elaborated on the fact that color and line and form could play with a person's emotions equating representational painting with the failure of traditional thinking Johnson explained my works are really contrast to the environment in which they exist around us we have real M Strife pain and greed I wish to present the other side of life namely the feeling of order joy and freedom it is the inner significance of things that counts and that is a quality that is abstract settling in Santa Fe in 1924 he said in expressing my idea of this country I struggle especially to obtain a Unity a Unity of all the means used such as form design color rhythms line simplifying the underlying structure his early Earth Rhythm peblo series and Grand Canyon Trilogy exhibit the excitement he found in the southwestern landscape the Grand Canyon Trilogy it moves there is that succession of going from one panel to the next it's large like a theater screen so it's immersive the shape Center panel is very clear in its sense of wanting to bring the Via down into the depths of the canyon he wanted to carry across the feeling of being in the presence of this Monumental fact of nature it's masterfully done Johnson's work became progressively more non-objective saying the Hope has been to arrive at a state of pure feeling to create through the spirit rather than the physical in about 1936 he was completely into abstraction at that point and to try to convey emotion through a landscape was not important to him anymore along with Tal's AAL bom in 1938 Johnson helped form the transcendental painting group to broaden the Public's knowledge and acceptance of non-objective painting the nine members turned their gaze inward seeking a type of art vitally rooted in the spiritual need of these time times in 1936 the 17-year-old Florence Miller later Florence Miller Pierce arrived in tal to study with painter Emil bistram returning in 1937 she was surprised bistram was no longer doing representational work but was focused entirely on abstract art he had a vision of this new abstract art the art of the future and he said the art was going to be from the spirit and the head a pure mental or spiritual image Miller said in 1991 her affiliation with the transcendental group was tenuous but the manipulation of light was a major emphasis in her transcendental painting noted biographer Lucy leapard and would remain the focus of Pierce's art in 1935 Johnson began to leave the Earth and leap into the cosmos as seen in his Universe series and the cosmic theme Series so artists coming to Albuquerque were heavily influenced by the environment they could get in a car and drive 5 minutes in any direction and find themselves out in the middle of the desert it was incredible they've created New Visions based on light and space form perhaps the biggest star from this period was Richard deborn who would become one of America's best late 20th century painters his reputation was already Rising when he entered the unm's Masters program in 1950 while some might consider Albuquerque a mere stopover on his journey into the art Stratosphere it was not the case he and his paintings were never the same after Albuquerque biographer Mark lavatelli told the Albuquerque Journal in 2007 here was a new freedom for him things really started to come together for me there it was a very good situation for me because there was none of this fear of painting de corn told interviewer James chevel in 1957 but not everyone appreciated deban Korn's Talent when Deon Korn presented his abstract expressionist graduate show in 1952 unm's conservative faculty failed him so joneson threatens to quit the faculty reconsiders and deborn finally graduates he's not quite good enough for a UNM master's degree but he is good enough to become one of the best American painters at the end of the 20 Century Devon Korn scholar Jane Livingston saw he came to New Mexico to get a master's degree in Fine Art and he found his voice much lamented by Von hosler and many other artists over the years Albuquerque had a major problem to overcome the lack of a permanent place for the community to see the great work being produced 1950 there was nothing else available here in town this is the first by the 1950s Raymond Johnson was en sconed on the UNM campus in a combination residents studio and gallery intended to be a permanent art laboratory retiring from teaching in 1954 his Gallery became a Lifeline for artists it was kind of an energy center it was like the sun and the solar system and it affected everything else around it there was something special going on here the art community at that time was extremely small there was nowhere else to go well when you walked into the joneson gallery he always met you he was always in his white in smok and these eyebrows unbelievable eyebrows that wiggled as he talked and as he talked to you he danced around and he kind of giggled and he he he cackled a little bit as he talked and you always knew that you were welcome he was so full of life how could you not be taken with a man like that what Raymond gave you the freedom to do was to experiment was to think Beyond limits to walk into Raymond's Gallery was mindboggling none of us had ever seen work like that before you never knew what to expect was always a new and exhilarating experience sometimes a mind-blowing experience it's kind of an aesthetic shelter for me I was getting these critiques and all I you know I didn't pay for it or anything else he just took me on on the basis of my being interested he believed in art as a social activity that it was crucial and Central to the proper functioning of a society and we talk and talk and talk and then all of a sudden uh he he'd act like he was being interrupted you know and he say well I I must go now I have to go to work on a jonesen uh Johnson produced his last painting and he gave materials away I know people who got his his paints uh his canvases his brushes and metaphorically that's that's a nice uh image uh to say that his Spirit just kind of spread out uh throughout the city and has remained he gave uh a lot of artists who were working individually in various parts of the city a kind of focal point to connect with to feel kind of uh importance in what they were doing he died in 1982 at the age of 90 his paintings remain a fixture in our lives and symbols of how art can be spiritually uplifting it was really important to do the work he really believed that if you painted the painting it went the energy of that went out into the world and that's kind of what Albuquerque does it it's the place where people work and that energy goes out into the world even though they might not get recognized they're they are influencing everything around them that's happening in Albuquerque people aren't so interested in becoming an artist with an adjective in front of it in Albuquerque artists are artists artists make art I think in Albuquerque it's a care for the work and what it what it really says and what it really means I think it's just a care for what an artist does that matters Jason Aaron is Making Waves as a comic book artist for Marvel it's my office it's where I get to sit and make up stories every day kind of what I had I had always wanted to do since I was a kid but it's um It's A Hard business to break into so I just never really knew how um and I you know I I grew up in Alabama in the in the Deep South in a small town and then I moved to Kansas City um about 14 years ago and I always figured you kind of had to live in New York to to work in comics and you know for the longest time you did but um things are very different these days and that doesn't really matter where you're from um you know a lot of the stuff I do I work with people who are literally from all over the world like the the book scalp that I did which was one of my first big big books um that was an international team that put that together and that the guy drawing the Interiors was uh Croatian and lived in Barcelona the guy drawing the covers was Scottish and lived in England the lady who colored it was Italian and lived in London I lived in Kansas City the editors were in New York and then we all worked together to do a book that was set in South Dakota and somehow that all worked and made sense yeah that's usually the question I get when I you know if I'm at a party or something something or just talking to an average person um and I tell them I write comics for a living they always ask oh so you can draw you know if you think of it in terms of making a movie I'm basically the the screenwriter and that um I write a full script that has the dialogue the action everything uh just like you would see for a movie the only difference is that it's broken down into uh specific images so yeah I mean I'll say you know this page for panels the first panel we see the ship heading towards the landing Bay second panel ship's Landing we see this guy waiting with a bunch of Stormtroopers third panel tight on that guy and he says this stuff fourth panel the doors start to open so you know just like he would write for a movie script you're you're saying everything that happens well I've been writing Thor for a few years now I did 25 issues of a book called Thor God of Thunder this uh Thor number one which was the first appearance of the new uh female Thor I knew pretty quickly that I wanted that to be a woman for a couple of different reasons one that's it's a story we haven't really seen before over the course of Thor's you know very long publication history at Marvel um what about 60 years at this point um over that that course we've seen a lot of different people pick up the hammer from time to time uh very rarely have those characters been women this is where she first picked up the hammer and the women who did pick it up usually only picked it up for an issue or so and and you know slung it around a little bit and put it down and carry it on so I didn't want to do that story I wanted someone to come along and pick up the hammer and carry it for an extended period of time and really become the new Thor this is kind of a continuation of what I'd been doing in the or God of Thunder the previous Thor book so I knew I wanted this new Thor not to be a a brand new character we've never heard of but to be someone from Thor's corner of the Marvel universe so given that you know it all kind of made sense that this would then this new Thor would be a lady so yeah you know what is to open just like the movie and yeah even though the book shipped a million copies which no comic has done in over 20 years uh it's still sold out I got a call from my editor-in chief Axel Alonzo who said do you want to write Star Wars I just said yep you know I'm down for doing Star Wars the Star Wars comic that we're doing this this first new one takes place in the timeline of the original trilogy so it takes place right after the original Star Wars right after the death star blew up so it's got you know all the characters that we fell in love with as kids all the characters from those original movies Luke and Leia and Han and chewy and the droids and Darth Vader um and that's an ongoing Series so we'll be following all those characters for the foreseeable future when I first got the email that the book was going to sell a million copies uh that did give me a little pause cuz that's that makes it the highest selling comic book in over 20 years uh but I'm I'm really proud of how it came out you can see that the you know the audiences are out there beyond the one that we've had for so long you just got to One reach them and two give them something they respond to I'm really lucky that I get to do work from home and get to do something you know that I really enjoy Kata deara reveals the ins and outs of creating find Fabrics I originally wanted to become a textile artist to develop a holistic approach to designing traditionally a textile designer will create the textiles and then clothing designers will come to Market and purchase already printed or already design Tex stle but I thought how do you really create a vision of your own using someone else's artwork my name is Kate deara and I'm a textile designer a textile artist is someone who essentially applies color and texture to surfaces textiles are materials that are derived from fibers and Yarns so we have woven textiles knitted textiles and what we call non-woven what I love about textile design is that I can start from anywhere I can start from a drawing a painting a photograph working digitally you can exercise a lot of different creative Outlets my textile designs are inspired by everyday occurrences in objects whether it's a color or a texture or pattern or just an ordinary object I started designing patterns and garments after having been in grad school for a few years and studying fibers and material development so strictly textiles and textile design so it was a really natural progression for me and also I felt like I saw a lack in the marketplace as a consumer and as a woman my step-by-step process always starts from a place that I can't necessarily predict it's always starts with creativity so I go on walks I try to put myself in situations that I'm not normally in I try to travel to have quiet time and think and write so this is where I get my ideas I just try to find myself in a place where I can get inspired from there I settle on a couple of themes so themes that aren't necessarily particularly related to one another whether it's a color or Texture an object and then from there I refine the concept over and over and over again I edit editing is such a huge part of the process from there I actually marry the color and the texture with the textile and try to decide what will be a good fit and create the textiles with the season in mind whether it's fall or spring and then once I have the textiles in I kind of reassess everything and feel them touch them see what the drape is like and what I think it'll look like on a final piece and from there I designed the patterns so I I don't start with a muslin I feel like starting with a fabric that has a different hand is really complicated and it is completely different from the final product it would probably be a lot more economical if I did but I start with the silk and the cotton and I go ahead and start cutting and make a first sample and then DRFT a pattern from that and then edit the pattern several times and work with my my pattern maker and Fess on making a good fitting garment I think our textiles are unique in that we are using a variety of different processes so we're hand dying screen printing block printing digital a printing we're trying to use all of the different methodologies in textile design to get really unique effects each process has it own special sort of Quirk or trademark and I like to celebrate those I want people to take away from my designs a sense of confidence definitely comfort and overall Beauty next time on Colores modernist painting lithographer scholar Clinton Adams was a force in transforming Albuquerque's Arts one of the things I most admired was his ability to see the essence of things regardless of the subject and I think that distilling that Essence was something that was very important to him in his art we Shadow art conservator Paul Hanner as he repairs two 500-year-old German portraits we wouldn't try to elaborate or embellish not recreate but just try to reconstruct and unify the artist's original intention artist Jim Sigler looks back at a long and magical career designing for the Barnum and Bailey Circus everything that's happened in my life I didn't plan they all were accidental me being maybe at the right place at the right time creative and ecologically conscious Craftsman Joe Mooney builds guitars from recycled wood part of the guitar came from my grandfather's old house and um from wood around here and so that just made it all the more special to us until next time thank you for watching funding for colores was provided in part by Frederick hammersley Foundation the Nita ew Walker fund for knme TV knme TV endowment fund knme New Mexico PBS great Southwestern arts and education endowment fund and viewers like you