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

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

And viewers like you.

More than building bicycles, the Duke City Lowrider Bike Club gives Albuquerque youth a space to express themselves, learn new skills, and connect with their community.

Through a practice rooted in vulnerability.

Artist Ema Ri turns flowers and personal hardship into reflections on the persistence of life.

Honored with a 2025 New Mexico Governor's Award for excellence in the Arts, Nacha Mendez looks back on a long musical journey, beginning with a plastic guitar, becoming a nationally acclaimed singer to where she now empowers young girls through scholarships.

It's all ahead on Colores.

Building better futures.

>>Mia: I always loved the lowrider art.

Like all like the amazing colors.

You know, I love how it's like a big community where everybody can just show off their talents.

>>Evelina: It kind of feels like a second family, almost all just helping you know.

It█s actually really nice.

>>Candi: It's like like counseling for me, you know, as you can, you know, come and, you know, express the way you know how to do things and, you know, be yourself and learn new things.

And it's just like it's like just a stress relief.

>>Rob: So the Duke City Lowrider program is an after school program geared really to keep kids out of trouble, really to get them in here to to really pull out some gifts, some talents that sometimes they might not know that they have.

So, lowrider culture important to this program?

I mean, it's really, you know, it's about family.

It's about culture.

It's about really the art.

You know, a lot of times, you know, it got a bad stigma.

What's the difference between somebody painting on a, you know, a canvas that's, you know, a two foot by four foot versus using a low rider bike for a canvas, >>Mia: Learning how to build a bike, It's it's complicated at first, you know, because I'm not a very techie girl, but being able to learn new skills, getting my hands dirty, it's it's an amazing experience and I absolutely love it.

>>Rob: We're teaching the kids basically what a low rider bike is.

You know, how to send it, how to scuff it, in other words, to get it ready, prepped or it's ready to paint.

We're showing them pretty much the low rider style painting, which to us the canvas is a silver medal flake canvas.

They get to tape, figure out what designs they want, color combos.

What the themes are going to be of the bike.

You know, some got spiderwebs and spiders and some hearts and, you know, whatever it may be.

>>Mia: So my design is based off Monster High.

Jackie Laura, I love Monster High.

It's been my favorite since I was a little kid.

>>Rob: We got a whole setup in the back in the gazebo where we're doing the guitars and the skateboards.

Whether it's a skateboard, a low rider bike, whatever it is, it's like they get to see all their hard work payoff.

>>Rob: The lower rider bike is literally just a tool to get them here, you know, to get them engaged.

I mean, we you have some kids come in hoodies on, super quiet.

Three weeks, four weeks later, they're starting to talk a little bit more or find some mentors that they're connecting with.

>>Aaron: I was always trying to figure out a way to get back and maybe make a difference.

And me building bikes kind of led me to here to where I can get back to, you know, the community and give back to the youth.

mentoring.

It's just being a good example and leading by example.

There's a lot of activity out there.

And you know, the way I see it is like if you're going to make a difference, then this is a perfect way to do that with the youth and hopefully be a good example and teach the kids something new.

>>Stephen: My favorite part about mentoring in this program is just the kind of relationships that you build, both with the students and the kids, but also with the other mentors.

There's a lot to learn from everybody here.

I learned from the students.

I learned from the other mentors.

>>Candi: To have those mentors here, it's it's wonderful.

It's like, you know, soak it up because, you know, they're telling you for a reason.

You know, this, they're teaching you for a reason.

They've been through their experience.

So it's like make sure you listen when they tell you something.

>>Rob: We always looked up to the wrong people.

We thought we were looking up to people that were going to point us in the right direction.

And, you know, it was it wasn't that way at all.

You know, usually got in trouble Here we got a bunch of cool mentors that are here to really help with the kids and share their experience with them and, and really just point them in the right direction.

>>Stephen: I think programs like this are really important because, you know, if you look at traditional education, a lot of the students don't have a hands on course that allows them to take a bike apart, learn how it goes together, figure out how to put it back together.

And so I think there's there's a lot that you can really learn from that and a lot of lessons and also, you know, skills and trades.

And so I think that's just really key.

>>Rob: We have career pathways that we have people come talk.

And it can be from media to taking pictures to I mean, we could go on and on electrician and plumber or anything connected with this if they want to join the law enforcement, if they want to be a painter, if they want to do welding, if they I mean, I could go on and on.

So, you know, a lot of kids have different gifts in different areas, and we're just trying to bring those out and show them that they can do this.

>>Evelina: What am I most excited about?

My family seeing it.

Definitely.

I really want them to see it.

>>Rob: Today is open house, so all of the students, parents, family members get to come out today, see what they've been working on all year.

I'm excited.

We got a super good turnout.

We got a little car show going on.

And it's just good to see, you know, the kids parents come out, really show enthusiasm and want to be a part of it too.

>>Mia: I'm mostly excited to show it off, to show like, hey, like I'm a girl and I did this.

It just gives me a lot of empowerment.

You know?

Like just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't get my hands dirty.

I can't create all these amazing things.

>>Rob: When it's all put together.

It's like.

And then they're taking pictures next to it.

It's just, you know, it's it's that's when it really pays off.

And then they get to show it at the show.

You know, it's the icing on the cake.

>>Candi: All the bikes that are done are going to go to the show this year.

So now it's going to be cool to see, you know, my bike in the show with everybody else█s bike.

>>Rob: They get to kind of, you know, really create the bike to be really just a part of themselves where it's a piece of art, you know, it's not just a low rider bike.

It means the world to see that, you know, that we're literally planting seeds that will change lives 20 years from now.

>>Narrator: Fragile flowers.

>>Ema: One of the things that I pride myself in is in my resilience to pull through even the most difficult circumstances in my life, and I think that's where the direction of my work is going, exploring and also talking about resilience that I see in nature, but resilience that I also see in the female figures in my life that are here and no longer here.

Hi, I'm Ema.

I'm a visual artist based in Miami.

Conceptual thinking in my practice evolved a lot more without me even realizing it.

Whenever I see a material, I sort of put myself in that material.

And flowers, for me are very fragile, beautiful, delicate things.

But they're very connected to the spiritual realm more than humans could ever.

But I like how flowers in a micro-scale remind me of aspects of ourselves, of the human body and the human spirit.

The work that I'm doing in this residency through Mo-ed at NDC Padron Campus is towards my show, my solo show in the spring, and the work is exploring this idea of resilience and a definitely could foresee now that the flowers that I've been creating are more like weeds.

And when I realized that that was going on, I really liked that idea that these flowers are weeds that just blossom, rain or shine, whether manmade decided to, you know, cover this land with pavements or an architectural building.

Nature will always find a way to to exist in the space where it used to.

Some of the paintings that you'll see here, they're very reminiscent of that notion, penetrating through ground or or being destroyed from the ground and being torn apart, but then creating new life in the process of that.

It's all metaphors.

When you come to think about it, and a lot of it has to do again, with me imposing myself onto these things and seeing myself in a plant that is falling apart, or a plant that you know is still sprouting, even though it's in an environment that's not conducive for it to thrive fully.

But it'll find a way.

It always does.

When I was little, I used to draw with my parents car keys on the wall, and it was something that I discovered by chance, I would do these little small drawings that weren't really noticeable because it was lightly marked.

But then over time, those marks would get darker and darker because the metal rubbing would oxidize.

And so things like that I bring into my practice again, and I now create these abstract environmental drawings only with brass brushes and brass brushes are only used to polish rusted pipes.

But I like using tools or materials in an orthodox kind of manner.

And I think in a sense that has to do with me wanting to, you know, not feel constrained by my limitations, you know, not letting things hold me back and finding ways to keep moving forward.

I feel like it's I'm completing like a full circle.

When I decided to go back to school, I was turning 24.

And in my past I used to have, you know, hold ups about pursuing a an academic career or, you know, just going to college.

I registered at MDC Wolfson campus, and while I was there, I was majoring in environmental science.

They needed a little bit of a break from the math, and so I took a drawing class as a-- an elective and also to like, you know, take a break.

And within a month of taking a drawing 101 class, like my professor Siobhan McBride, she was the one that encouraged me to pursue art.

She helped me build a portfolio.

I applied to New World.

It was the only school that I applied to at the time because my heart was split.

My two passions have always been science and art.

Growing up, I wasn't really sure what direction to go to while I was at New World.

I came into that school with an open mind.

So when it came out-- my BFA work, I decided to look within and where that takes me as to my past.

And so I started to make works using drywall, because for me, walls are an extension of the human body.

When I walk into a space, whether it's a gallery space or someone's home, I often find myself more interested in the footprints and the and the scratches that are left on the walls, the scars, the stains.

Because for me, it tells me the story of what happened in that space without someone having to tell me anything.

And I think that, again, it's like the scientist in me that's always curious to know what existed there before.

The work that I started to explore was all about hiding and blending in as a form of survival.

>>Dennis: The thing I like the best about the work is it always makes you feel something.

And of course, that's every artist█s goal.

When you look at it, it takes you to a place that you didn't expect to go.

For me, for a lot of the paintings, when you're asking yourself, well, who's in there?

The answer is always you.

>>Ema: My work definitely revolves around love and grief.

And so when I started to work with drywall, a lot of exploration had to do with just processing emotions.

And I think the breakthrough with drywall was realizing that when I peeled the skin of the wall for me, it took me back to just being vulnerable.

You know, like opening yourself so that other people could feel and see your pain.

For me, they become windows or vessels into the spiritual realm, and the finger paintings made with oil paints are the places where those things live in.

My work is personal.

But it's because I really want to connect with honestly.

I just really want to connect with people.

I want to connect with the people that I know are not going to be here anymore.

And that could be anyone.

It could be you.

It could be people that I meet here.

You know, I think one of the beautiful things about this residency is that it's allowed me to be more open and vulnerable.

And in doing so, students now could have, like a faith in themselves again, you know, because they some students have felt defeated in their own journey and sharing my, my journey and my struggles with them and how I'm able to overcome them by being real, you know, not trying to be an idea that I that I know I'm not for the sake of fitting in.

>>Fredric: I'm familiar with this work over a long period of time because they were my student in 2017 I think.

One of the things that I think is most important in the work in general is the evolution.

There is tremendous growth from work to work.

Chances taken, experiments.

And so for me, that's the measure of a really, really significant body of work.

So that's what I believe we have here.

>>Ema: The whole intention around these ephemeral flower sculptures are for people to interact with the work, because I want people to experience what I experience when I'm playing around with material.

And so I encourage people to stand on the installation to leave their body imprint.

The whole point of that is to show that we're on the same situation, we're on the same footing, we live different lives, but we're both humans and we're both hurting, and we're both trying to find love and trust and finding our way in this place.

And so Footprints and Body Prints is me trying to tell a viewer that there has been people before us that are dealing with the same journey that we're dealing with today, and that you're not alone.

>>Fredric: There's a sort of this bridge between abstraction and representational.

Maybe the roots of it are in landscape, but it starts to become very, very much about the mark, the gesture, the accumulation of those marks.

From all of that to this comes the void.

So suddenly in the middle of this work is a very mysterious, layered void out of the exploration of the abstraction and the mark making.

Who knew it was going to end up there?

That's super exciting for me.

>>Ema: My HIV status and the virus in general does play a huge role in my work.

I was diagnosed in my early 30s.

After that, the pandemic happened and then I lost my grandma, I lost my studio, I lost work, I was just dealing with so much stuff and not really being able to channel it in a healthy way.

And so flowers came back into the picture, and then eventually I realized that, like, collecting flowers is not it's not doing enough for me.

It's doing a part.

And so I decided to start making these finger paintings of abstract flowers.

And the result was that they would become flowers and distress flowers in constant motion from its environment.

I'm inspired by everything all the time, but that's not why I come to the studio.

I come to the studio to learn about myself, to learn about the things that I'm not aware of yet.

Since my work is process based, I don't really have like a sketch of what I'm going to do.

I come into the studio with complex emotions from the day to day grind, and I just started to let it out.

And so sometimes there are things that subconsciously thinking of, you know, my grandma or a specific moment from my childhood, and I won't realize what I'm doing in the process of making it.

But then once I make the piece and I decide to stop, I just hang out with it for a bit and then eventually the colors sort of inform you know memory and senses.

And then once I start to pick up on on that, then I know exactly where the work was taking me when I was producing the work.

And I find that to be really special and beautiful in its own way.

>>Narrator: Sharing beauty.

>>Nacha: Love is always a great inspiration.

Early on a lot of my music were love songs, and I have this saying that it's like it's not over until I write another love song.

Music is always welcome.

I think wherever you go.

My musical education began when we moved from Chicago to New Mexico.

I was six years old.

My father had already seen in Chicago that I was interested in guitar, so when we moved to New Mexico, that was the first thing he did was buy me a plastic guitar.

So I really took to it.

And then I graduated to a real classical Mexican paracho guitar.

So I'd pick up the guitar, I would write a song, and then I would perform it at barbecues or family gatherings.

You know, I wrote a new song and and everybody would get to hear it.

And so I had that encouragement early on from my family.

Yeah.

You love this thing that you do.

You love, you love your guitar, you love playing it.

And they encouraged me.

So that was a good space to grow up in.

So I ended up going to New Mexico State University and studied music and radio broadcasting.

I had a whole big career.

Later in life of radio broadcasting.

But then right after graduation, there was a small period of time where I didn't know where I was going to go.

So I went to Los Angeles and one aunt had a restaurant and she said, okay, we're going to make we're going to make you a dress and you're going to get your hair done, and, and you're going to change your name.

So I had a stage name.

She called me Ola del Mar, which means wave of the ocean.

And I got my start.

And then I thought, yeah, I really like this.

I really liked this life of of performing, you know, gigging at a nightclub.

Then that was good for a little while.

And then I came back to New Mexico and then I remained in Santa Fe 78.

I played in various bands.

I was in an all women's punk band.

And then it was in 1991, had the opportunity to travel with an opera company and make decent money performing.

So fast forward to 2018, when I received the Lifetime Achievement Award and my brother took me out to lunch and he said, you know, this is a big deal for you to get the Lifetime Achievement Award.

You should do something with that.

And I go, like, what?

And he goes, start a scholarship.

So the Nacha Mendez Music Scholarship is for young girls of color in New Mexico, ages 8 to 15, who really come from financially challenged homes.

This scholarship helps them, and then we continue to award them money even after they've won a scholarship, because we want to make sure that they have our support and we follow through.

I think a career in the arts is much needed today, definitely because you are sharing your essence, you're sharing your beauty.

Do it if it really moves you, if that's what you want to do, if it brings you a lot of joy, if it brings you, you know, a lot of love and do it for those reasons.

Never do it for just for the money.

Although money helps.

But you know, it's it's I think that you can have a career in music.

I mean I have.

[Spanish Music] Funding for Colores was provided in part by New Mexico PBS, Great Southwestern Arts and Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation.

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

And viewers like you.