(footsteps plodding) - I think, like, my journey started when I was born.

(water sloshing) Understanding life and death, I think, is one of my biggest inspirations for creating.

(paintbrush rustling) I think that the moment that I am born, I am dead.

(enigmatic classical music) And the reason why I say this is because when I was younger, my biological dad died in my hands.

(somber orchestral music) And that's when I started utilizing my own creative process to survive.

Most of the things that I was doing was creating little sketchbooks and poetry, and that's how I started sparking my own creativity.

And I realized that there's a lot of hurt there, but there was also a lot of beauty in there, and I wanted to start bringing that up more.

My spark started.

When words fail, art speaks.

(paintbrush rustling) (soft playful music) (soft playful music continues) (soft playful music continues) The Catacombs of Neto is an bilingual art museum and gallery.

You know, I can speak English, I can speak Spanish, and I can call myself a trilingual because I speak the language of art.

This painting represents the magic within.

When I was living in Guatemala, I can see in my mom all the work that she was doing, all of the things that were not spoken, so I thought that, "Oh, she has a magic that can bring life."

And I thought to myself that this is something, like, we all have, but females have in particular more than us as males.

Women have that spark of bringing, caring, and giving life.

The Catacombs has multiple galleries.

One of them is the sculpture room.

One of the things that I like to do with my sculpture is I love found objects.

I think they have a lot of stories.

You know, some of the things that I do is walk around here in the 3rd Ward and then find earrings, find little pieces of jewelry that I connect, and I put in my own sculptures.

This piece represents a shooting star.

One of the materials that I use, I like to go and collect all these kind of different materials.

This is specifically was a gift from my father-in-law.

He knows that I like to collect different types of bones.

This one specifically is the spine of a deer.

And so, the idea of that is for me to think about, you know, like, how would a shooting star look in the daytime?

The idea of the "Stolen Moments" is to explore things that cultivate you the most.

For example, you know, the darkness.

I always believed that darkness blinds you the same way as light does, and so when I understood that, I realized, like, there was a deeper meaning of understanding there.

And I felt like what I've learned is that darkness is a bad place to be, but in reality, in my own way of seeing it, darkness has something to teach me as well, because it really brings me to understanding who I am.

(slow humming tune) There is music in this room as well, and the idea is to see what's stealing from you.

Are you taken away from the painting, does the painting taken away from you, or the room is taken away from you?

So, the idea is to see how can you be present for yourself in the room.

That's the idea of the "Stolen Moments."

(calm ambient music) First of all, I don't consider myself an artist.

I consider myself an alchemist and a revolutionary of color and an alchemist of the paintbrush.

The painting, for me, is my biggest medium, because in there, I can put all of it together.

(door clicks) (door creaks) When I'm in my studio, I have a small ritual that I created for myself.

I clean my hands with cold water.

Clean my face.

It's a very romantic way of doing it.

I'm connecting with the canvas, and I feel invited by it.

If I don't feel invited by it, I don't touch it.

(calm ambient music continues) And through the creative process, we are able to learn from ourselves within ourselves.

Everybody is an artist within themselves.

Everybody has something that is very unique.

And when you bring that strength out, people flourish.

People become like a light bulb, you know, and it's beautiful.

One of my goals when I was living in Guatemala, and I have bring that goal to here too, is to create a more colorful society.

My wife always asks me, "What does that mean?"

What it really means is to learn from each other, to create comradery, to bring togetherness with that.

And so, the idea of this is that The Catacombs is a place where people can come and connect, get inspired, learn from themselves about themselves.

And then when we do that, we can create a more colorful and more beautiful society.

(calm ambient music fading) (soft music) - [Announcer] Thanks for watching "The Arts Page."

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