Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, 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.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

INSPIRED BY HIS MEXICAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE SCULPTOR AND PUBLIC ARTIST HERNAN GOMEZ CHAVEZ CREATES A CONVERSATION ABOUT HOME, BELONGING, AND DISPLACEMENT.

UTAH PRINTMAKER AND EDUCATOR AMANDA JOY PETERSEN PRESENTS A TRANSFORMATIVE JOURNEY TO HEALING THROUGH GUIDING INDIVIDUALS TO CELEBRATE THEIR LIFE STORIES.

AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN, ARTIST JES MCMILLAN MADE HER FIRST MOSAIC.TODAY, SHE EMPOWERS HER COMMUNITY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE PUBLIC ART PROJECTS.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

WON'T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

>>Faith Perez: Looks like we're all set up.

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: When I made this was actually when, um, uh, uh, they were like all over the news was like, oh, there's kids in cages.

And like, just thinking about like what a, a kid that was like coming all the way from Central America to the border would actually see, it's like, you're not from here, you're not from there.

Just kind of like stuck in this in-between place.

>>Faith Perez: What motivates you to create, whether it's a sculpture or a public art installation?

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: My family's history coming from, from Mexico to here is, uh, one thing that's really inspired me to make work about, uh, the border and what it means to be living here and having the privilege to be a first generation Mexican American here.

>>Faith Perez: So what inspired you to create the sculpture Un Pueblo Sin Piernas Pero Que Camina?

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: I just wanted to make it as a, uh, as a commemorative work for the immigrant community on the south side of Santa Fe.

And, uh, Un Pueblo Sin Piernas Pero Que Camina is actually a line from, uh, Latino America.

A Calle 13 Song.

So what that means literally is like, "Un Pueblo" can mean like a people, a community or a nation without legs, but continues to move forward or walk forward.

So that's kind of what this piece is about.

It's like this quote unquote sleeping giant that has no legs or no roots and continues to move forward and that's why it's like reaching up and out.

'Cause I want it to be representative of like the, the community that lives on the south side of Santa Fe, which happens to be a lot of my family, and how they are the reason why a lot of the things that happen in our city continue to move forward and function.

My, like parents, like they work constantly.

A lot of my family, like they, they work all the time and it's, it's important for me to really pay, like, pay tribute to that.

I just wanna be real about like where I come from and why these things matter to me.

And that's because of my family.

So it's, it's a way to kind of relate to, to my family and seeing the, uh, the real disparity that's not just here but like around the world and in this country especially.

>>Faith Perez: What inspired Won't you be my neighbor?

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: This was actually based on a, a trial, uh, with a guy named Scott that was working for the organization No More Deaths as a volunteer, I believe at that point.

And then he was actually giving refuge to two immigrants that had crossed the border, and then the Border Patrol actually found him like harboring these two people, and because he was trying to protect these peoples like in a very neighborly way, he was thrown in jail.

There's people that die crossing the border just trying to find a better life.

So one thing that you, you'd see videos of border patrol actually digging up these jugs that no more deaths actually put down in the dirt so that people could find them so that they wouldn't die and they'd just be pouring 'em out into the desert.

So this is a, a fence piece, and I wanted to kind of think about like, well, uh, good fences make good neighbors that, that dictum, that's like, yeah, keep some distance between me and you.

But that's something that's very American.

It's not something that like you see everywhere else in the world, but it's becoming more common, this idea of like the private space being separate and you do your thing I'm gonna do my own thing.

>>Faith Perez: Can you tell me about "Querencia" and like what motivated you to initiate a conversation about home and belonging?

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: My family that lives in Santa Fe, the majority of 'em live in trailer parks.

And I, I think that's why it was such a personal work.

Um, I'm, I'm born and raised in Santa Fe, lot of my work is about home and belonging and the fact that I always feel like I'm living in a place that maybe doesn't even want me there.

So the fact that I'm living with my parents right now because I don't have access to a place to live that I can't afford to live where I was born and raised, it's so segregated and like all the trailer parks are on the south side, it's just a history of like, colonization to gentrification that's ongoing So I was like, I want to make this, uh, thing related to where my family lives and to like a mobile home that can actually go around different places.

I wanna pull this with a bicycle.

Querencia is a very important word for a lot of people here in New Mexico, and, uh, it's about home belonging and place and the, the root being there that in Querencia exists the word "querer" so to love or to like.

So when we made this piece, we were really trying to think about like what Querencia meant and trying to move this out into the streets, and, uh, doing it in a way that was very direct talking to people on Airport Road.

So the Airport Corridor is one of the places that's seeing a lot of changes right now in Santa Fe.

And we wanted to do something that would really try to reflect the, the community that lived there.

One of the things that we, uh, would ask people about was like, what is your Querencia?

So kind of trying to speak to people about what home and belonging meant to them.

>>Faith Perez: Well, what does home and belonging mean to you?

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: Uh, my family is, is what I find to be my Querencia more than anything.

If it wasn't for them being there in Santa Fe, like it just wouldn't feel the same.

It's very telling that through this process and when talking to people about what their Querencia and what home and belonging meant to them, it wasn't always about a place.

Maybe it was certain things or maybe it was like a certain food, but a lot of the time it was like it was family.

So that's, you know, that holds true for me too.

>>Faith Perez: Why is it important to have that kind of honesty from the community?

>>Hernan Gomez Chavez: I think safe spaces are really important.

We should be able to be vulnerable and honest, and even if we say something that's not like right, that we can work through that.

That's something that we really direly need.

Because if we have more honest conversations with one another and even like our own family about what that means, and like saying like, that's not right, but I still hear you out... is like, that's something that could lead to more positive change in terms of how we deal with one another.

LIFE IS A WORK OF ART >>AMANDA JOY PETERSON: My teaching philosophy, which is I want every student to understand that they have an individual experience in this world and their individual experience informs how they create.

So I provide them with the tools and the knowledge that I have, and then they use that to make their work and make it their own and invite that in and explore.

We have moments where, yeah, in general we're replicating these prints over and over and over and you get this like muscle memory of the movements that you're using and everything.

But then you also have those moments where you can do like monotype and mono print and it's a one off and you get to see it all come together and see how the colors mix together.

And then you add new colors the next time.

And it's just really fascinating to see how things start to blend and meld in a different way.

And so it's a really great exploration within something that in general has very specific structures in how it works.

But then you still have those moments of like branching out and creativity that gets pushed even further than you initially were planning on, you know, running a proof.

Want to see how it went.

So you can see like it needs to be inked a little bit more, but I can see like that ombré effect that's happening.

So I just need to work on that darker band at the top.

But that's how it goes with the linoleum printing.

[MUSIC] >>HOLLAND LARSON: I met Amanda when she came in as a grad student.

I was teaching up in the drawing and painting department at the time, and then I got a position here in the printmaking studio.

That's when I started working more one on one with Amanda.

And it was really wonderful because she had taken a class that I had created based on research, and it was really nice to be able to see her research come back into printmaking even more.

And yes, I've known Amanda for all my goodness, three years.

Three Years?

Yeah.

>> AMANDA JOY PETERSON: What I have hanging up in the gallery that you'll be able to see is something that has led to where my thesis is now.

So the triptych that I have up, it was like a series of five prints, but I really feel like the three that are up in the gallery are the ones that manifest what I was trying to say and do or try and convey at that time.

And so it was last spring semester that I really worked on that with the idea of removing material and making objects useless kind of in my brain.

It was the idea that defense mechanisms are pointless, that there's no reason to have them.

They're kind of like the these copying because now I was saying defense mechanisms, but I also understand it better now that it's also coping mechanisms.

And so in my brain I was like, Oh well these are pointless because it creates a distance or whatever.

But then toward the end of that semester, so last spring I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer and all of a sudden I'm like, Oh wait, Like these defense mechanisms are important.

I need them to be able to function, compartmentalize, you know, what I'm going through, how my family is responding to it, how it's impacting my work, how it's impacting me, the ability there was just so much up in the air of how do I accomplish this goal that I have to get my MFA, but also I'm going to have to go through chemo and radiation, possibly radiation and surgery and all that stuff.

We didn't know.

Is this something that will take my life like there was so much up in the air at that time, and it was right at the end of the semester, my busiest semester that I've ever had.

I was taking five classes and I was teaching one class and trying to do all of the like individual small theses for each individual class that was required and stuff.

And so there was just a lot up in the air and with that diagnosis, like what I had my thought process before kind of derailed but informed what I'm doing now for my thesis that I'm currently working on it is the idea of working in layers and things are roughly the same size, but it's working with transparent or semi-transparent layers that have body scans.

I've looked at over 2,000 images of my body that's been taken by the hospitals and doctors since I was diagnosed and finding those images and using the ideas of the human defense mechanisms and insect defense mechanisms from Holland Special Topics Class.

Now I've morphed that into what are my defense mechanisms and finding insects that represent maybe certain aspects for me.

So if it's like an executioner WASP and they have a very nasty stinger, but it's like I've been poked and prodded a lot over the last you know, almost a year type of thing, and it'll be over a year by the time my show is up and and stuff.

And so it's one of those that finding what I feel is the representation for me in that moment, for that scan, without necessarily explaining it to the masses.

But having that layered feeling and the idea of shadows casting through as the light hits through and just being transparent of this is what my body has gone through.

And these are the manifests of that.

And so that's kind of where my thesis is, that now that these mechanisms are important, I need them to sustain me and and stuff like that.

But also I think the biggest is that living authentically and in a transparent way makes it easier for me to manage how I am feeling and makes it so that if somebody wants to take it in, they can or they can decide not to, and it's up to them.

But I have put it out there.

[MUSIC] >>HOLLAND LARSON: I think printmaking and the trial and error that happens for makers learn to love it and embrace it and work through it.

And I think I mean, I can't speak for Amanda, but it does help knowing how to how to work through those failures with your personal life and just keeping a positive attitude and knowing that like failure and a diversion and the course that you thought you were going to have is just something that your it's going to happen.

And I would say that's one of the most amazing things was seeing how positive Amanda was through something that would have derailed anyone else I know.

And that just attributes to her printmaking and it attributes to her as a person.

So it was yeah, she's a perfect example of a printmaker.

Yeah [MUSIC] >>AMANDA JOY PETERSON: Art encompasses so many different things, right?

Like there's creation, there's hobbies, there's fine art.

I think the act of creating can be cathartic and help you through, um, whatever life is throwing at you.

Right?

And so I've had to deal with some heavy stuff and a lot of people have to deal with that, whether it's their health, the health of other people, it's trauma or whatever.

But the great thing is, is like with my art, especially with the act of printmaking, because if you think about like what your paper physically has to do, what your matrix physically has to go through to be able to create this beautiful thing, it's a process.

And like us as individual humans are going through a process.

And because that so individual, like again with my teaching philosophy, it's we all have these individual stories that we're dealing with and we're healing from and we're expanding our knowledge about and when we bring that all together and we kind of focus that in on the act of creating, it can be very healing.

BRINGING IT TOGETHER >>JES MCMILLAN: I am a mosaic artist.

I have grown up all around Dayton.

At age 16 I made my first mosaic on a piece of two by four, two feet by four feet plywood from the neighbor's garage.

I went to school at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and after graduating there I moved home to Dayton right after that.

I met Jerri Stanard of the K12 Gallery and began my journey of turning that process of me creating my own mosaic work into teaching and leading the community to create the work.

I left K12 to found the Mosaic Institute of Greater Dayton to become my vehicle for doing good in the community of Dayton.

I have always had a special place for Dayton in my heart.

It's hard to really describe, I guess many of us Daytonians feel this way about our city.

We have an incredible energy and a movement, especially in the arts.

Being an artist activist with the ability to lead a large scale collaborative artwork, um, has made me realize that it's my responsibility to serve my community with my special gifts.

I definitely feel, you know, a call to be here and to unify, you know, my community, my people that I live with every day and experience life with.

The Downtown Dayton Partnership offered its first Art in the City Grant, which we were very lucky to receive.

So we proposed a 12 foot wide by nine foot tall gem, a multicolored gem, that would be created by all the Daytonians in the city that would come out during Art in the City, and that that finished gem would go into the sidewalk outside of the entrance to the Dayton Arcade, which is the beating heart of our arts community.

And so we had this great day of unity in our city and then the following night, a terrible tragedy.

The shooting in the Oregon District.

We were called probably about seven hours after the shooting and asked to, you know, asked what could we do?

What could we provide to bring the community together, as a way of healing, what type of collaborative project could we offer?

And we instantly started working on it.

You know, what does that look like?

How can we do this?

The day before in the city, we had just led our largest collaborative piece, The Gem, and over a thousand participants walked up to us that day.

And so coming off of that unity and now what do we offer again to this public, uh, to bring people together?

We designed the 9 Doves porcelain mosaic.

It was created as a permanent memorial.

Our part is creating the ability for people to come and to heal.

And with this mosaic, we have um, designed it to where all nine doves have been created ahead of time and so those pieces are finished.

And as participants come up to the mosaic, they can connect with those nine doves, representing each of the victims that we lost.

I think that art has the ability, creation has the ability to open us up.

And maybe even connect, where we can feel and love ourselves and give ourselves room for expression and room to feel those feelings and to process.

It can be used to empower.

Um, art is essential.

It is a part of all of us.

We put in a proposal for creating games in the sidewalks in a neighborhood that had no public parks, no green space for the kids to play.

So we proposed creating interactive games all in the sidewalk in the neighborhood to engage them and give them something to do.

So the best part about the project is that we went into Kettering Middle School and created a 29 foot hopscotch with over 80 seventh graders.

So you have this giant hopscotch that is a beehive and it has eight games in it and then you have 10 bumblebees that are scattered throughout the neighborhood.

And the goal was to create games that would engage people of all ages.

So, you can just go and find the bees, and you have to find all the bees and the hopscotch, collect the letters to solve the secret hidden puzzle of the art piece.

The focus of going into the middle school and working with those kids was to bring them together and to allow them to see the physical process of these mosaic pieces coming together.

And all the pieces are made out of the same material.

They're all shaped differently.

They're all different colors, but we need all of those different shapes and all of those different colors to make this big, beautiful mosaic picture.

And so in that process, we're able to relate that to them.

They are made of the same material, they are different shapes and different colors and every one of them are needed to create this beautiful, unified picture.

And in this process of working together, they can physically see this amazing accomplishment.

And my hope is that this unifying experience might empower them.

As they grow, they might see each other and the differences that are there as a reason to connect.

And the things that make it better to connect, the things that make teamwork the best are the differences that we have.

TO VIEW THIS AND OTHER COLORES PROGRAMS GO TO: New Mexico PBS dot org and look for COLORES under What We Do and Local Productions.

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"UNTIL NEXT WEEK, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING."

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, 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.