(playful music) - [Announcer] Welcome everyone to the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.

(playful music) (attendees applauding) - Extraordinary human and a very dear friend, Artemio Rodriguez.

I have a brief introduction that I will make here, but I wanna say something that I wanna make also very personal.

Artemio has been working with the students at Stamps for the past four days, and it's been absolutely extraordinary.

We have been working until 10, 11 midnight all these days and have produced some remarkable work.

And one thing that I've tried to bring before my students was this thought that might not be kind of the right thought to share, but then I will share it because I think it's a form of compliment to them and their futures.

I've known Artemio longer than most of my students here that I teach right now have lived and that bond, that friendship, that kinship through artistry, making, thinking, living, has been an important pillar of my own life as a human and practicing artist.

So on that note, I'm going to read a couple of notes here.

Artemio comes to us from a State in Mexico called Michoacan, which has resemblance to the word Michigan, and both relate to the notion of water as specific place.

He is a self-taught artist and printmaker whose early beginnings are rooted in working with the letter press printmaker, Juan Pascoe, at Taller Martin Pescador.

That's where Artemio discovered his potential for art making and printmaking.

Initially, he wanted to produce poetry, and when they recognized how fluidly he draws and how prolific he is, they encouraged him to make more of drawings and more of prints.

We met in East Los Angeles, a place called Self-Help Graphics, one of the most vibrant centers for printmaking anywhere, that was a transformative point for me as I encountered Artemio and his crew of artists makers, print makers, where they converted an old milk truck into graphic mobile gallery, print shop, theater, and mural.

You'll learn more about it tonight.

He and his partner, Silvia Capistrano, following their work with the Self-Help Graphics, established place called La Mano Grafica or The Hand Press, and thrived with that enterprise for many years before deciding to move it down to his native state, Michoacan, to continue working with local communities, Indigenous artists, and serve a larger cause in their native land.

Both Artemio and Silvia have been awarded for their work by numerous foundations, most recently the Creative Capital Grant, and they have exhibited their work worldwide.

Many of the pieces can be found in museums across this country and abroad.

And one of the most remarkable things that I will leave you on is that our students participated in the project with Artemio.

So all of the students in this class will end up having a print from Artemio, which is I think something to be very proud of for years to come.

So without further delay, please welcome our guest speaker, Stamps distinguished artist and an extraordinary human, Artemio Rodriguez.

(attendees applauding) - Buenas noches.

It really is a pleasure to be here.

To be honest, when I was invited, I like to be home and at my studio most of the time.

I hate to be on airplanes, go to the security lines, and then all the lines that you have to make.

And in general, I prefer to save to the planet my trip in a plane.

But when Endi invited me personally to come here, I couldn't say no because I really admire his work and we have been, as he said, very good friends for a long time.

So I want to thank him.

I want to thank Christina and everyone who made possible for me to come all the way here.

It's really a pleasure.

Let me see, let me take this out.

- Nope, nope.

- What is it?

It's here.

- It's that one.

- Okay.

Okay.

(attendees laughs) (Artemio laughs) That's 12 years ago, 13 years ago, that I came for first time here to visit Endi and to work.

We are getting wasted on Chinese salsa and I think he's drinking syrup, maple syrup.

Now, this is (laughs) 30 years later, (laughs) and I'm very, very, very happy to be here.

For me, it's important to go to a place and work.

I think it's the best way to get a feeling of it.

So for me, it was great.

At first, so I accepted, I had to do some things about my paperwork because I am a resident in the US and I forgot to renew it, and I was sure that I wasn't coming back.

So I let it go.

But with this opportunity, I went through all that process.

And then just before coming, he told me, let me see, okay, today we're doing this project with his students, this portfolio exchange.

And he told me that the subject matter, it was raw.

Raw in Spanish is translated as crudo or cruda.

If you tell somebody in Mexico, crudo, cruda, they immediately think about hangover.

So I don't know, I don't think this is what they want to see.

They don't want to see a hangover print or about a hangover guy or whatever.

So I started to thinking about it, and at first, I was tempted to illustrate Frankenstein because I really loved that story.

And I was thinking, thinking about it until I came across a book about Greek mythology.

And I thought, well, what is more raw than the scenes or the things that happened there?

So I came with this idea of doing the meet of Medusa, Andromeda, and Perseus but I'm changing places and genders to the characters.

In this case, instead of Perseus killing Medusa, it's Andromeda killing Medusa, and Medusa is not a female, but a male.

So I did that print just before coming.

And then they printed.

The students, they printed 30 copies of this lino cut, which was great.

And I had four days.

I arrived Sunday.

And so since Monday I have been there at the studio, enjoying the company of many of the students that are here tonight and working.

Every time I say, "Oh, it's freezing outside," they're like, "What?

It's not freezing outside.

It's a nice weather," but I'm not used to that.

So I really enjoyed being inside and working.

(attendees laughs) So as I said before, I was working this idea of the mythological story of Perseus and Andromeda and this is the sketch that I draw in the plane getting here.

There I have a piece of plywood, it's a fourth of a plywood sheet, and it's painted on red and then you can draw in it.

And it was very interesting because when I had in front of me the piece of wood, I had done before woodcuts, but in general, I use it as if it were linoleum.

I think it's a surface, a flat surface, and then you cut out whatever design you do, and then you print it out.

But in this case, the grain of the wood was so beautiful, so perfect, and with so much movement that I saw it and I said I have to do something with it.

And I hadn't done it before, but with somebody like Endi directing me, I was able to play around with it.

So here, we see a detail of the piece.

Let me go forward.

So in two days, I was able to draw it and then carve.

The design part, the characters, the rocks and all that, it didn't took me too long.

What took longer was the background.

All the lines that you see, that's the drawing of the grain of the wood.

But if you print it out, it gets covered by the ink.

So you get a flat image and sometimes a little bit of texture, but not like this.

So I had to go with a knife with a kind of a Sharpie like carrying, carrying, carrying, carrying, carrying through the drawing that some tree in Canada or somewhere had created over the years that he was growing.

So it was very interesting, but very tiring.

That took me a whole day to do that part.

There we are about to run it through the press, and then it is coming out.

That's the plate.

So again, Andromeda, one of the thing, when I was doing my research for doing it, I read a lot of things about the meets.

And one of the complaints that many of the historians or writers, whoever writes in Google, said that the most common thing is to see the ladies, the girls being these in defense, weak characters in the story, and the male is always saving them.

So I wanted to go along with the criticism and change places.

So in this case, supposedly Perseus comes and save Andromeda and she's tied to the rocks in the coast because she has been offered to the gods because her mother had spoken and said that her daughter was the most beautiful lady in the planet.

And so the gods got mad and decided to punish the city.

So they said if they didn't give her as an offering, the gods will destroy the city and they would send these beast to do that.

So she's there.

And then, I don't know why Perseus is flying with a head of Medusa going to save another lady.

And then he sees that, and then he says, "Oh, if I save it, can I marry her?"

"Of course, do it."

And so, he does that.

And then with the head of Medusa, he shows the head to the beast and she becomes a stone.

So that's more or less that story.

And as you can see the background, it's very interesting how it created everything.

Usually I do the main characters of my design, and then in the background, I build up a scenario and more characters and stuff.

I'm very baroque.

But in this case, I didn't want to do a profanity and erase that.

So I kept it.

That's the print.

That's only the first proof.

I still work it a little bit more and made more details and all that.

So it was very good for me to be in this couple days working and learning a lot.

And to top that, because Endi is the great master of color prints, I asked him, "Can we do it with color?"

And he said, "Yes."

So in this case, this is the original plate.

That's another plate.

So he transferred the image to the second plate.

Oh, I have to point this way.

He said, "Well, now carve it."

And I said, "I don't think I'm gonna do that because I will be so basic doing it that it is gonna be a waste of time and material."

So he agreed to do that.

So he's doing the second plate, which for me, it's a great honor to have a print where we collaborate and I learn from a master.

So he's doing that.

What is gonna happen is he's gonna print in a light color, the background, and then in a darker color, the foreground.

So it's gonna create tonalities.

It's not gonna be on a woodcut with some parts of color, but it's gonna be all over creating place of color.

So it's gonna be very interesting.

He's gonna do that and then later we'll talk about it.

So here, we see him working on that.

Okay, now I'll go to my presentation and I decided to title my talk Skeletons' Riot because I think it's of great importance to keep our creative traditions alive in all fields of art and culture, literature, visual arts, crafts, music.

As a visual artist, I consider the crafts that I do as skeletons, as living skeletons that never cease to surprise us and give us something new.

So I think it's important as humanity, as a society, to keep those traditions alive and keep moving forward, but always keeping those alive.

I'm gonna keep a little overview of the Mexican pre-making history.

Okay, let me see what's next.

When I started my career in the 1990s, the Mexican art scene was dominated by great artists like Toledo, Jose Luis Cuevas.

And pre-making techniques used back then, they are still used, are etching and lithograph.

There was not much relief printing going on.

A lot of abstract art was created.

When I went to Mexico City after being in the US for a couple years, I went and saw the galleries and tried to understand that.

As an art scene that is, I guess it is like here, but there is a little bit worse because there are only two or three cities in Mexico City that have an art scene going on, Mexico City, Monterey, Guadalajara, and in maybe other, but very little.

Here in the US, you have almost in every city, you get something going on.

And of course, you have LA, you have New York, Chicago, I don't know, I'm not familiar with all that.

But for us as artists, you have that possibility of getting in somehow.

In Mexico, forget about it.

It's very limited, very centralized, and I didn't have a chance to be doing it there.

Talking about a little bit of history.

All over the 19th century and the beginning of the 19th and the 20th.

In Mexico, we had these phenomenon of broad sites and booklets that were illustrated using engravings.

Many of them, we don't know who the illustrators were, but we know about a couple of them.

And the one in the left is Jose Guadalupe Posada and in the right is Manuel Manilla.

We don't know too much about them.

We know that Posada was from Aguascalientes.

He came to Mexico City and he was an incredible artist.

Manilla was already there for some decades before and Jose Guadalupe took over the art scene and created 2,000 illustration in his lifetime.

This is Manuel Manilla.

So you see it and it's a little bit more rough, more antique, but I love it.

I think you can identify him and his expression and his way of engraving is I think it's very strong.

Here is another of his pieces, and then these are some little booklets that circulated telling stories or sometimes, I don't know, remedies or things to inform people.

And they were popular and circulated all over.

This is Jose Guadalupe Posada again and he was a great master of that trade.

Here, we can see how great he was and how incredible.

And it's incredible 'cause he was a self-taught artist.

He didn't go to a school.

Another piece by him.

Okay.

This engraving is done by an artist called Apollo Mendez.

And it's very interesting because you can see here a portrait of Posada in his print studio.

He's looking through the window and there is something bad going on out there.

There's a group of guards, police back then in horse, and they are beating a group of people.

So you can see Posada, he's like all with a lot of passion looking and trying to go out and all that.

The guys in the back are some anarchist writers that they didn't have a relation.

It's the imagination of the artist.

And I wanted to show you this because it does the general conception about Posada, but when you see the work of Posada, you see that he was a professional illustrator.

He wasn't a political one.

He did some things about injustices and all that, but he also did portraits of Porfirio Diaz, which was a dictator of Mexico for 30 years.

He also did some illustrations to sell bad things about Emiliano Zapata, which was the main leader of the revolution.

So he did what he was asked for.

He wasn't really a political artist, which is not to say bad things about him, but in the contrary, no, I think he was a human being and he had to survive.

He had to do whatever he needed to do.

Here, we can see a photograph of him.

He's on the right and in front of his studio.

We can read in the sign that says illustrations for newspapers, books and ads.

Jose Guadalupe Posada, Taller De Grabado.

And then in the bottom, it says de litografia.

So he started in Aguascalientes doing lithography, then he came to Mexico City and what was used was relief prints like the ones we see on my left.

And so on top, it's an original plate, metal plate mounted on wood engraved by hand by Posada.

We see it, the printed result down there.

And I thought all of the prints by Posada were done that way.

But some years ago, I went to Oregon University to do a workshop and this man came and he had with him seven or eight woodcuts engraved by Posada.

So he had printed some proofs and it was beautiful to see them.

And I was very thankful to this guy for bringing them and I really wanted meet him to say, "Do you want to take them?"

(audience and Artemio laughs) It would be better if you have them in Mexico.

But I try to get to that point, but he didn't.

But he was very curious because to do a demonstration, I was working on a piece based on a Posada piece, that is this one.

It's a man being attacked by the seven deadly sins.

So it was funny.

And this guy knew about me because of this book that we had published and I was the author of it, and we had published it two years ago.

So that was nice to see.

I'm sure with this one because he not only did engrave, but he used etching techniques in a way that nobody uses anymore, maybe, because this one is also a metal plate.

And in this one, what he did was to draw on the metal surface with a brush and they call it a stop-out varnish, which is resistant to acid.

So you draw on the plate and then you put a plate into a bat of acid and then it bites whatever is not protected.

So it bites in and then you wash it with water, and then you have a beautiful drawing that you can print on a letter press.

You have to clean it a little bit, but this one looks like all was done that way using a brush.

This one, which is one of the most famous images by Posada, is the same way.

You couldn't have done that, You can, you can do anything engraving, but if any of you have done it, you know that it's easier to draw with a brush and then do it.

But he was so good that it looks like a print, it doesn't look like a drawing, if you know what I mean.

Now when in the 1910s, maybe before, the technology was enough, they were able to translate film negatives to the plates.

So they were able to reproduce photographs and then put them on the letter press and create images.

That one here in the left is from 1910, in the right is from 1920.

And you can see how poor, we can say, that they are.

If you see them side by side, both side owned by Manilla or Posada, they are strong, beautiful, funny human.

And these ones, they look boring to me.

That's what I think.

So it was a great loss because the trade of engravers disappeared in Mexico.

Another great moment of the graphic arts in Mexico is in the 1930s and '40s.

And it was led by a group called Taller de Grafica Popular, and they started using linoleum.

This guy, Leopoldo Mendez, did some amazing pieces.

Some of them can be seen in movies in the golden era of cinema in Mexico, they would be on the credit and the openings and during the movie, and they are like this, very monumental, very strong.

The one in the left is part of the movie too, and over there, I don't know what it was used for, but he was very political, very strong in that way.

This one is also Leopoldo Mendez, he's kind of copying Posada.

And I don't know who's on the left, but I wanted to show that because it was a big renaissance of the graphic arts in Mexico.

And it also included guys like Francisco Diaz de Leon, who mastered and did a revival of the book print arts there in Mexico.

And he did lovely books, very, very beautiful.

I am lucky to own some of his books and they are very inspiring.

When I went to Mexico City in 2005, I met this couple of designers, Jose Luis Lugo and Selva Hernandez, and they were working on this magazine called "La Galera" and also designing books for a series called (Artemio speaking foreign language) still with Mexican graphic artists like Posada, Manilla, Rufino Tamayo, and others.

So we became friends and one day they invited me.

Through them, I met also a publisher called Ramon Reverte, and together, they invited me one day to visit a descendant of A Vanegas Arroyo.

This is broadside about him, about A Vanegas Arroyo, and he was the publisher of Manilla and Posada.

So we went to Tepito in the center of Mexico City to visit a descendant of him and see what he had.

So we were sitting there and then he brought a bunch of broadsides by Posada and booklets and all that.

And he said, "Buy whatever you want.

We're very good friends, I'll give you price."

And I was very lucky because I got like a couple hundred Posada pieces for my own collection.

And for me, all that moment in 2005 when I went back to Mexico City, I was living in Los Angeles, but I went there for a few months, it was very important because, for me, it was to find or re-encounter with the Mexican tradition of printmaking and bookmaking.

And I was invited to be part of this book of "Ex Libris" book plates, Mexican book plates, and they selected my image for the cover.

So for me, it was very important because it made me feel I was part of the tradition.

In the US, I was somebody, but I wasn't fitting in the Chicano art scene because I wasn't in a Chicano and there is not a Mexican art scene.

And so I didn't have a place there.

And going back to Mexico, I felt like I was part of a bigger, larger tradition.

Because I knew these couple of designers, I thought, why don't I do my own book?

And I had been working professionally for 10 years at that moment, but I felt I could do it.

I could put together a book.

My girlfriend back then, she's a graphic designer, so she said, "Yeah, I'll do it," and we did a book.

And then by casualty, a governor from my state was coming to Los Angeles to the embassy.

So I don't know how he knew about it.

I went there with a maquette in my hand.

He gave a speech.

And then after that, he said, "Somebody wants to say something?"

I raised my hand and said, "Okay, I am an immigrant, I'm an artist and we are trying to do this book.

Do you want to publish it?"

And he said, "Yeah, talk to my secretary after the meeting is done," and I did that.

And we agreed and they bought 1,000 books.

And with that compromise of money, I went to the publisher and told him, "Okay, I already have the start point."

He did the other 1,000 books and I did 1,000 books.

So in the end, we did 3,000 books.

This is the cover of the book, "American Dream."

And I title like that because I felt it's an ironic title.

It's not a literal title.

It's not like I wanted to be the American dream.

For me, the American dream is this, somebody counting dollars like, "Oh, my God, I have $5 in my hand."

So it's more like criticism than my wish.

So we printed the book and it was very great because my work was seen in Mexico, in the US, and somehow it affected my generation and newer generations.

And printmaking, which as I said in the beginning, was more focused on etching and lithograph.

Suddenly, it became a new wave of artists like Mazatl, I don't remember her name, Luisa, and other people whom I met later and told me that they had seen my book and really found it inspiring.

So for me, it was great to see that, an effect of my work on other people.

And they are doing it.

They are doing it.

These are other samples of contemporary graphic done in Mexico.

I'll talk a little bit about my beginnings.

And here, I am in the red arrow.

Here, I am eight, 12, and 15.

And what I want to say about that period of time is that I was a boy that was, I always was outside.

I'm from a big family, we're nine brothers and sisters.

My father was a bracero, a migrant worker.

He would come to Florida to pick up oranges or to pick up tobacco and all that.

So he was most of the time in the US and my mother had to take care of us.

So imagine having nine little beasts running around.

I was very free, I was free to do whatever.

So I was always playing soccer or going around.

But when I found out that there were books and you can read them, I started reading when I was very young, like eight years old, okay?

Eight.

At that time, during those days, that's early.

I know kids now read when they are five or four.

But when I started, I really loved it.

So I go really into it and I was reading all the time.

And that's how I grew up with this illusion of becoming a writer.

I wanted to be a novelist because I loved the "Adventures Tom Sawyer," Julio Verne, all that stuff.

And then I went to the classics, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Cervantes, of course.

And then the Latino American boom, Mario Vargas Llosa, Borges, I love reading.

So when I was like 17, I became more into poetry.

I became part of class and I was writing poetry at 17, so I felt I was the next and I was all into it.

And in a magazine I found out about this printer who was living not far from my town.

So I like, oh, I'm gonna look for him and maybe he will publish my first masterpiece of poetry.

So I found a place which is not far from the town, it's host on an all hacienda.

It's like a 17th century hacienda called Santa Rosa.

So I went and there is Juan Pascoe, he's a Mexican American in Mexico.

His father is from Monterey, his mother is from the US but he grew up in Mexico, and also in the US where he learned letter press printing.

And luckily, he ended up in Tacambaro where I am from.

He was very nice to me.

He invited me to go as many times as I wanted, and then he hired me as a printer's apprentice.

I learned to do the basics and I really liked to be there.

As you can see, it's a beautiful place, an old Adobe house in the middle of, my town is in the headlands.

So it's tropical, a lot of bananas and oranges and all that.

It's next to a river.

It's like paradise.

And being doing this, that is a very old trade.

It was phenomenal.

But I wanted to be a poet.

So I gave him a manuscript and told him, "Well, check it out, see what happens."

And he said, "Yeah, we'll see."

We never saw anything.

He didn't like them.

And so I kept going and then he saw that I was drawing, and he said something about that.

So he suggested me to try doing lino cuts.

He gave me some money to buy linoleum and knives.

And I did that.

And that's how I started doing print making.

These are some of the workers there in Taller Martin Pescador, and some of the presses that he has.

He has like four old presses and then one big Vandercook Vandercook, and a lot of equipment.

One of the things that he gave me was this book called "El Grabado En Madera," which is based in this one, that was published in 1922, I think, by this guy Paul Westheim, who came to Mexico in 1942 running away from the Nazis.

He was an art critic, an incredible art critic in Germany.

And he had done his book about the woodcut.

So he came to Mexico and he came in the '40s when the Taller de Grafica Popular that I told you about before was in full swing.

So he published it, the book that we saw before, and let see, that one.

And he added chapters talking about that.

But what most interested me was the medieval woodcut, the old way of doing woodcuts that really got into me, like the one we see here.

It's so basic, so direct, so strong.

I wasn't that attracted to Leopoldo Mendez, for example, because imagine you are 17 years, 18 years old, you see that and you're like "That's impossible to do, you can do that."

You could so much texture and drawing, and when I saw this, I like, "I can do that."

I can do something simple, direct, and that gave me the confidence to get into it.

So these are some of my first cut that I did.

This is the very first one, and it's an Aztec printer.

Juan Pascoe suggested me to do it.

So you can see all the mistakes that I'm doing all over, like cutting through the lines and everything is nowhere, but something happening and you can see it and it feels like German expressionism a little bit, but with bad drawing.

But I really love it, I really like it.

And then I did the second one, which is a view of my town in the early colonial times.

And I was getting it a little bit more.

They're very small.

This one is a little bit larger, and is the same.

My town when I was growing up.

And the one over there is the invitation for my parents' 25th wedding anniversary.

And is based on the style of Frans Masereel, which is also spoken of in this book that "Woodcut."

And I really love his work.

I was very happy going to work with Juan Pascoe and being in my town and all that.

I was working.

My other job was as mason helper.

So I didn't see much future there or doing the printing.

So my parents told me that, because I left the school early and so I wasn't making it.

So they told me if I, or I go back to school or I go to the US.

I had two brothers in Los Angeles, so they offered to pay for the coyote, for the people who cross you across the border.

And I said, "Yeah, let's do it."

So I came to Tijuana and I crossed the border.

It took us like five days to do the whole process.

And then I arrived to Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, I was working painting houses and looking through newspapers to see if I could find something artistic.

And I found a note about this place, Self-Help Graphics, and it's in east Los Angeles.

I was living in the north of Los Angeles in Van Nuys.

So in a weekend, we went to visit the place, I met Sister Karen Bocalero.

She was an Italian nun, very artistic.

She founded a place with other people in 1970.

So it had a lot of history and they were very open.

They didn't charge to be part of a class.

I took etching class, but I knew how to do lino cuts.

So I kept doing lino cuts.

Pretty soon, like a few months after I was taking classes and doing lino cuts, they included me in this exhibit.

Do you see me?

There, very young.

I was 22 or something like that.

So for me, it was incredible not to be in this new place, this new country, and suddenly have an exhibit with this Chicano artist.

And so I was able to sell some work and then I left my job as a painter, as a house painter and became full-time artist very early.

Well, you are 22 is easy, you know, because you are inexpensive.

You only eat burritos and tacos and water and keep going and keep going, and sleep anywhere and work, work, work.

So that's what I did.

These are some of the images that I did back then.

They are basic and interesting I think.

So in my work I deal a lot, not a lot, but I try to do it, to do criticism of things, So that one in the left is not that critical.

It is more about my solitude and my endurance for Mexico and my friends.

So there is a group of friends and we are hanging out, having a beer or something.

And I felt I needed that and to portray that is the best way to live it.

And the other one is called Somos party.

We are part of it.

So it's a guy sitting, having a nap, and then suddenly he starts having a nightmare and from his nightmare, these characters come into the living room and in bed, wherever his space is.

Here, I am in the Self-Help Graphics studio.

It was a very diverse group of people.

A Mexican Japanese girl, a guy from Mexico, a Korean lady, and other people.

So it was great for me to have this friendship through arts.

And I put this photo because this is one of the etching press that they have.

And they had another one, a smaller one.

And etching presses are kind of hard to use for printing lino cut, but it was of course great to to have them.

My point is that when I was there, somebody told me of a German printer who was going out of business and was selling whatever he had.

So I went to see him and he told me, this proof press, they are called.

I didn't knew about them before, but when I went to to see this guy, he was very nice and he said, "What do you wanna press for?"

And I said, "Well, for printing lino cuts."

So he said, "This is the one that you need."

So I believed him, I paid $250 for it.

And then some friends helped me to take it to the garage of a friend.

And then I learned how to use it.

And for me, it was very important because it was my return ticket to the letter press world.

Then I was able to get in to, do more carving and drawing and I worry less about printing.

This was in 19, what?

I think there is a mistake there.

1996, I think, I went to Mexico City and Juan Pascoe invited me to illustrate my first book.

I was 24.

And it was the Aesop's Fables.

And it was very interesting because it was a manuscript done in the 16th century.

We don't know if it was ever published it as a book.

It was translated to Nawat, to the Aztec language.

And Juan Pascoe told me, "We have to do it."

Most of the countries in the advanced world of bookmaking had done their versions of the Aesop's Fables.

And see here, we see some samples of beautiful illustrations.

So to do a book that was translated to now what in the 16th century with characters and everything of that period was an amazing opportunity for us to do the Mexican version of the Aesop's Fables.

So we did it.

So I did ornaments and everything.

There, you can see me inking for printing the book.

We had to ink by hand, the little prints that I did.

And then the type with a bigger roller.

Here is the final book, which I think is beautiful.

Now on top is the Nawat, in the bottom is Spanish.

And it has 47 Aesop's Fables.

Here's another image.

And the lino cuts are like very small, but I was very young, I had good eyes back then.

(attendees laughs) So here's another one.

You might recognize the fables.

Okay, this is another project I did called "La Loteria," and it's based on a Mexican game.

This one, which is very popular.

My son loves to play it when we have invite people for dinner.

And it's like, bingo, you have a set of cards and then you yell at cards and then you fill up your card.

So I grew up playing it and I think it's a very interesting set of images.

So I decided to do my own version.

I created 138 cards for it.

So I did that.

And then with a friend in Mexico City, we did actually get involved like 10 well-known poets to write text about my images.

We had this wonderful book ready.

We met with an editor and we were about to publish it, and suddenly he disappeared.

He went nowhere to be seen.

And later, we learned about that he was addicted to something.

So he was put into some place to recover for that.

So we lost opportunity.

But back then I was living in Berkeley, California, and somebody introduced me to Elaine Katzenberg and she was, and I think she still is the main editor in City Lights Books.

So I went to visit her, her office was up there in the second floor of this place, and you might be familiar with this photo.

It's a famous photo from the '60s.

And City Lights was very important for the beatnik poets and all that.

So I went to see her and show her the poems done by Mexicans.

And she said that that was not where, they published it, they publish it in English.

So she suggested to invite Chicano poet to do the poems.

So she invited Juan Felipe Herrera, and he was poet laureate of the US from 2015 to 2017.

Of course, this was before that.

But back then he was well-known.

Now he's even more well-known.

And he accept it, he's a very nice easygoing guy.

And he did the writing and then we publish it, or well, they publish it, the book, "Loteria Cards and Fortune Poems A Book of Lives" by me and Juan Felipe Herrera.

So I was 26-year-old back then.

So for me, it was wonderful to be published via a legendary publishing house, City Lights.

Then after Berkeley, I went back to Los Angeles, I had bought several letter presses, I moved them into Self-Help Graphics and there I am, very proud with my letterpress.

But soon after I moved there, I found this place next to the LA River, the train tracks.

I'm very close to Chinatown and it was an old mechanic shop and it was like in Ruins but since I work as a house painter and also as a mason, I know how to build and do stuff with my hands.

So we did cover all the inside, we covered the roof, we put insulation and we made it very nice.

So we were able to create a nice space in Los Angeles.

And it was very interesting, all the way farther as my wife, Silvia.

And we were able to do a nice space because it was, we too Mexicans, Jong.

We did a space where we did a lot of events and exhibits and everything.

It was great.

It had a lot of space, which in LA is a big plus to have.

And yeah, we were there for like seven, eight years.

Here's a view of the studio part.

We have etching presses, and here, we have a Vandercook and another proof press.

And we had also silk screen equipment, a lot of stuff.

We published some books like this one, "Puro Muerto," which includes artists from both sides of the border.

We also did a big exhibit in Los Angeles Central Library.

This is a beautiful place.

And it was based on the book, "Puro Muerto."

I don't remember that year, but I got this grant, and they talk about it, Creative Capital.

And as a part of the grant, I was invited to Upstate New York to a retreat of artists.

So a bunch of artists from all over the US were there.

And I met this guy from San Francisco, John J. Leanos.

And a few months after we go back to San Francisco to Berkeley, myself, he to San Francisco.

He told me about this project that he was working on and he had to do with low riders.

So he had bought an Impala 1968 and wanted me to do some art on it.

So I study low riders.

This is a famous low rider car.

This one too.

Okay, I have to do something like this.

Let's see, what can I do?

This is the one that I did, this is something later.

But I wanted you to see it because I can tell you a little bit about the process.

So you have the old car, you send the whole thing and then painted black, and then we applied adhesive paper and then we cut it out whatever design we wanted.

And then we painted with white, took off the thing, and this is the result.

So you take that and then a bunch of varnish, so it looks like a car.

So it's a spaceship, this Impala '68.

It's only two doors and every door opens and it's like two meters long.

It's incredible to do cars and they look beautiful, but after you have them, it is like having five kids, but big (Artemio laughs) and maybe two horses together because you don't know where to put them.

I mean, if you live in San Francisco, imagine where you put a car like this.

And I was living in Berkeley, same problem.

Then I moved to Los Angeles.

So we were throwing the car, like okay, national tour, not my tour.

We were having exhibits, but most of the time it was a problem, until the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles bought it.

So now it's in their collection.

People go enjoy it a lot.

It's beautiful.

But I don't recommend to do cars.

(attendees laughs) This is another view of the same car.

Another view.

So this is the another one, I was showing you before.

This is a 1948 delivery truck that I found there in Los Angeles.

And it was just after we did the Muertorider, which is the Impala.

And I found this truck and I fall in love with it.

And I'm like, "Ah, we have to do something."

I put a gallery, I print the studio, everything.

And I bought it for like $500.

And then we work on it.

We took it to some museum, and it was great.

But the same problem.

What do you do with it?

Like it's a car.

I mean, yeah, you can drive it, but you can't have it all the time driving.

Here's another view.

There's my son, and we did this wheelbarrow for an exhibit I had in Oaxaca.

And it was fun to do it.

And then later, I don't learn, (Artemio laughs) I found this.

It's a Honda, no a Toyota.

I don't remember, but I found it.

I love it.

And I bought it for very cheap and I did this, and we took off the seats and we did, it's a library.

So there are books inside and kids get in, and da, da, da, da, da, da, and it's fine.

This is a project that I did in Hawaii, in Maui, and I'm very proud of it because it happened like very spontaneously.

And that piece is in several museums.

Oh my god.

The time is almost gone.

So I'll show you very quick the images and then yeah, we're ready for the questions.

So I'll show you the pieces.

It's based on this piece by Bruegel.

And then, yeah, and I took a little bit from there, the title, "The Skeletons Riot."

There is a whole thing.

And then I went back to my hometown, build a house, kids from the neighborhood coming, they created prints.

Prints.

My young son.

We were happy there, but we had to move because too much contamination in the farm fields.

This Patzcuaro is where we live now, A library we have there in Patzcuaro.

We have two.

This is the same.

We have a space for exhibits.

This is the second library we have.

It's called Library of Illustrated Books.

This I bought, it's a commercial.

I hope I get paid for that.

It's a bookstore across the street.

And I found this.

And I have to go back to buy some of my process, a photograph, and then a print, (attendees laughs) more prints.

They're very small.

Silkscreens.

Another game.

Oh, painting, print, plate, print.

Okay.

I was supposed to talk also.

Same, print, and then my version of it, the largest printer I have done, "The Garden of Delights."

There's my son.

Book press.

We have this project where we print old antique plates, Juan Pascoe and my son, Juan Pascoe.

Projects we have done with Juan Pascoe.

This one is the last one we have done.

This, I just finish it.

Chicano portraits, 30 portraits, sorry.

Okay, and then this one.

Oh, how would you go back?

Okay, this is being published right now.

It's stories from my town.

Illustrations of that book.

This is my assistant.

He's now a printmaker and he's illustrating books and all that.

He has been working with me for six years.

There he is, Chalio and my son, and another work by Chalio.

Chalio, and then postcards my son is making, Chalio and some friends.

There's a lake in the background.

We are part of this program called Vacations with an Artist, in case somebody wants to come and be there for five days.

It's interesting.

She's the first one to come and do it.

We have a little gallery in town.

That's the outside of the studio.

That's the view from the studio.

Well, from the roof actually of the studio.

And we have donkeys and my son with the youngest donkey.

So sorry that light is red.

I think that's it.

If you have any questions, I'll be more than glad to answer.

(attendees applauding) Oh, thank you.

Oh, well I have my, I have these one.

- Yeah, okay.

- Thank you.

(attendees chattering) (Artemio laughs) (attendees chattering) Hello, hello.

(attendees chattering) You.

- I get it.

- Hello.

Okay.

- Hold on a sec.

- No one, okay, somebody else.

- I can do it.

- Please.

- Hi, I really love the talk.

That was like my favorite one this semester.

I was just curious if you've like, if you've considered going into any other mediums, like ceramics, painting, anything like that?

- I have done almost everything.

- Really?

- But I don't exhibit it much.

But yeah, I have done painting, sculpture, ceramics.

- Cool.

- Yeah.

I love any kind of art.

- [Attendee] Yeah, and you're at Stamps right now?

- What?

- You're at Stamps right now?

- If I what?

- Are you at Stamps right now?

Or like, I saw like the intro where you were like, here something, right?

- Oh, well, I came here last Sunday.

- [Attendee] Oh, okay.

- We were able to get two extra days for this gig, and so I came Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, I was working there at the studio.

- Gotcha.

- In the class, and then I'm leaving tomorrow early.

- Nice, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Hello, thank you for coming today.

Your work is absolutely incredible.

I was wondering for your printmaking process, is there like a texture or a part of the process that brings you the most joy or is like your favorite or like the most satisfying part of like making?

- Yeah, definitely.

I think one of the most satisfying parts is when you are printing.

Some visitor said once, when he saw us printing in the letter press, because you have to, well, you don't have to, but we do, we wet the paper before it gets printed.

So the way we do it with the sponge, we put water on the paper, then we put it inside the plastic bag and let it rest for a few minutes.

And then we set up the press and then we put it on the letter press.

And then we run it.

When it goes through and it comes out, you can even see a little vapor, a little like, it gets warm like steam, like you can see like, I mean it is wet and it's supposed to be cold, but something happens chemically that it creates heat.

So he said, "Wow, it's like making bread," (attendee laughs) and it smells like bread.

So it's a beautiful thing when you, the plate, you ink it, you run the thing, and then you pull it out in the other side and it's magic, when you see what you did, and then you do it again and then you do it again.

So I think that's my favorite.

And of course, when you are engraving, it's also some mental process happens that makes you, you know, not forget about things, but to think about other things.

So it's a whole trip to be cutting, cutting, cutting.

- That's beautiful, thank you.

- Thank you.

Okay.

- Could you talk some of your thinking when you're carving the block where you're using, even though you're working in one color, how you're adding depth and texture and kind of the 3Dness to some of your subjects?

- Yes.

I work the way all, not all master, all engraves did, which is very basic.

It's very linear.

I don't worry too much about textures.

So it's a representation that you make in your mind, I believe.

One of the things that I learned reading the book, "The Woodcut" by Paul Westheim, is that when woodcuts became too complicated and they tried to imitate reality, they got poor, because the way they were before, like the ones in the cover that I show you, they are so basic, but they represent everything.

I don't know if it makes sense.

So I think that way too, that a simple line and a couple of lines can give you more to your imagination that somebody trying to portray the sky in all the details or the sea or all those, and linoleum is very basic.

It's hard to do.

I mean, if you do are doing etching or lithograph, you can get fancy, do a lot of stuff.

But here, it's black and white, black and white.

But you can create shade, you know.

But for me, I prefer simplicity instead of getting complicated.

I don't know if I answered it.

(Artemio laughs) Okay, thank you.

- Hi, first of all, I would like to say that it was such an honor to like watch you work over the past couple days- - Thank you.

- In the print studio.

And I was just wondering, what words of advice would you have for young printmakers today that are looking to get into the trade?

- That's a very good question.

I think, the art world, it's a very hard thing.

I mean it's limited.

There are only a few tickets to get into that bus.

So if you are hoping to make it into that fancy bus, right?

Better not.

(Artemio laughs) I think I believe the most important thing is in art it is gonna sound kind of quirky, but I think it's true, to believe in yourself and to enjoy what you do.

I mean, like really get into it and do whatever you have to do and enjoy it.

And if you do that, you are gonna be happy.

Your work is gonna grow.

But if you are thinking about how can I make it, how can I go to the, how can I be in a gallery?

And you get frustrated or you become something else because you have to pretend you are something else.

So you can be in that.

I don't know, it's not healthy, I would say.

And one of the beautiful things about printmaking is that it's an inexpensive thing.

Some people find it, I just was checking my Instagram and somebody told me, "Oh, I went to an auction in Los Angeles and they were selling some of your work, but I got there late and they were sold, what work he used ridiculously, ridiculously cheap.

(Artemio laughs) And I'm like, okay, well, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention, but it can, I mean, if I had more ego, I would felt like, "Oh my God, my work, my work nobody wants it."

But I know what actions are and people are looking for things valuable, and in general valuable, it's whatever the establishment established.

So my work is not up there.

I mean, I'm not a well-known printmaker or an artist, so I don't care.

I prefer to think that my work will move anybody or somebody.

And they will say, "Okay, you print this word, two meals in Panda Express."

Okay, I can not eat in Panda Express and buy you a print and maybe three Panda Express meals or something.

So it's accessible.

And for me, it's great because then I can go and buy something else than Panda Express.

And the other thing that I said to some people, some students in your school was that it's good to create community, to have friends, to support each other, and create as a community.

Because I think that's the beautiful part about printmaking.

Painting, you can do that, I guess I'm not a painter, but in printmaking, definitely.

I mean, we have been doing this for 30 years now, and every time I have mounted a print studio, people come and they come back and we work together.

We enjoy being together, and then we try to go out and conquer not the world because you can do that, but at least a little part that can make you happy and give you money for buying beans and tortillas.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Hi, Artemio.

Just wanted to let you know that I've been enjoying one of your prints for about 27 years on my wall, (Artemio laughs) I was living in New York City, as young artist and a young art teacher, and a woman that I had worked with, Jane Dixon.

- Okay.

- She and her friends had put on a show of yours, I think it was at the 92nd Street Y.

- Okay.

- And I went and it was just amazing.

I wanted every one of the prints on the walls.

(Artemio laughs) And I was a young, struggling artist, and, you know, as a teacher, not making much money.

But amazingly, my first series that I did, I got a cold call and a young woman asked me to meet her at Barnes and Noble.

She wanted to buy two of the works, not one, but two.

So I was just tickled and over the moon.

But a day later I went up to the Y and bought one of your prints.

And I thought that was just a good closure of the circle.

And subsequently, as a teacher, I did a lot of lino cuts thereafter with my students.

And we did a lot of kind of social issues around the city that were happening.

So I just wanted to say that it was inspiring, just your work without seeing you or meeting you, but it's nice to, after all these years, see you in person.

- Oh, thank you very much.

- Thanks.

- Thank you, thank you.

I don't know, oh, nobody here, oh.

- Hi, I just wanted to say that I love the use of skeletons in your work, and I was just curious why?

- Okay, okay, that's a very good question.

And it is because we have in our tradition in Mexico, as you all know, look, watching "Coco" movie, we have that very present every year, that's one side.

But the other side is me knowing the work of Jose Guadalupe Posada and Manilla and the way they use, or they play with the skeleton figure.

It's amazing.

So it's like one of the things that I was supposed to say in my presentation is that I use a lot of religious images and it happens the same.

That doesn't mean that I am a very religious person or I want you to become Catholic like I was when I was growing up.

But growing up in an environment where you have all this information, visual, and all that information, it becomes part of you and your human way of expressing reality.

So they are tools that you use to say things, to say things about life.

So I think they are that, they are a way of criticism or say I love you, or I don't like this or I don't like that.

So that's why they are metaphors for life.

- Okay, thank you so much for this awesome talk.

I started my first lino cut two weeks ago.

- [Artemio] Ooh.

- Have not printed it yet.

(Artemio laughs) So complete novice here.

I had never considered before your talk the power of printmaking to really transcend generations of artists.

Like the images where you were taking blocks that were created by your predecessors, artists you admired and were looking up to and emulating and drawing inspiration from.

You have a unique opportunity to almost kind of even collaborate with artists that are, deceased in a way that like painting and drawing and even ceramics doesn't allow you to, like, you get to work with their physical materials.

So when generations of artists and print makers get their hands on your blocks a hundred years from now, what do you want them to do with it?

(Artemio laughs) - I dunno, I want them to be happy (Artemio and attendees laughs) and enjoy it.

But yeah, it's interesting.

Yeah, I feel the same when I get, yeah, a plate done in the 19th century and the 18th century, and then you put ink and then you print it, it's like, oh, back then he did it or she did it, and had the same feeling of "Oh, nice."

So I hope, yeah, there are some people who said that you have to burn or destroy plates after the edition is done.

Like Puritans, they want to be like, oh, there is an edition and that's it.

But I don't believe that.

I think it's better.

I mean, I have a son and I want him to have them and have them as a token of my love.

And in future generations, if that happens, hopefully, they can get used of them.

- Hi, I was mainly just in love with all the history you brought up today because our history class doesn't really talk about the printmaking of Mexico.

And you moved to like, near Los Angeles, right?

You said, and you were doing art there, but now you're back in like Mexico doing your own libraries.

And I was wondering if you could like compare your arts experience in the art scenes between Mexico and America.

- Yeah, they are very different in many ways.

In the US, you are lucky because here you have many possible clients.

I mean, in the US, you have a lot of educated people, people who read, who love books, and you also have in the outer end, people who love guns and all that, but you have that.

In Mexico, unfortunately, the rate of people reading books, it's very low.

And economy, it's also poor.

It is more difficult to make a living and have a market, but it has its positive things over there.

For me, as an artist, I'm happy, happier there than here, 'cause here, that's why we left because we had to pay rent and the bills and then tickets and it was too much worrying about those things.

And there we will take it more easy, and I was able to build a house here, I couldn't.

So that's why I love to be there.

- Thank you.

- Okay, how are we doing?

- [Speaker] This is the last question over there.

- Okay, okay.

- [Artemio] Yeah, because I see that lineage.

See?

Yeah.

- You gave the advice of find something to do that makes you happy and joyous that you can pursue, lots of things in the world make me sad, make me angry sometimes, rage, do you ever find yourself wanting to express those emotions, which it seems to me are some different motivations than happiness, and that art can help us work through or express our anger, our rage, our sadness.

- Yeah, yeah, I think most of my work, it's about that actually.

I mean, I'm very happy with what I do and I enjoy it and it has this pleasure side but the subject matter and the feelings that I portrayed in my art have to deal with that, with the frustration, with as I said, I have a 12-year-old son and those 12 years of him being in my life, every day, it makes me wonder what future we are, everyone is living for him and all the other kids like him.

And it makes me mad that we are doing it bad, that we are terrible.

I mean, everybody says, "Oh, it's the global warming.

Oh, it's the global warming," but what are you doing about it?

I mean, you go to our stores and packages for everything and we are creating so much trash, so much pollution by buying wherever, and it's in a package.

It's in a package.

And then as I said, taking a plane, it's contamination.

You are destroying the planet.

Well, don't take the plane and driving, driving here and there.

You are destroying the planet.

I'm very frustrated by all that.

And I try to portray it but in ways, because if you say it like that, who cares?

Or here it comes this, how you say leftist or something.

But yeah, we have to learn to do that.

So I try to do that, in the libraries that we have.

When I speak to students, try to make them think about that.

But, of course, what can we do?

I mean, I bet all of us here are people who have a conscience and have good intentions, and we are good people.

The guys and the girls too, the ladies, who are making it big and they're not here, so it's hard to make them listen.

But if we can do something in our own capacity, then it's great.

Where we live, we save water.

I mean for washing dishes, I use like no water almost, and water plants with reuse water, all that.

Because I was talking to somebody here and she says, well, we have here a lot of water.

We don't have a problem with that, and it's like, great.

But in Mexico and many places there, we just started a draw, that is possibly last 10 to 20 years.

So we're just starting.

So if now we have problems with water in the next year, the next two years, it can become a real problem.

Like, real, real.

So how can you do something about it?

So it's something to think about it, and yeah, of course, I get frustrated.

(Artemio laughs) - Thank you.

- You're welcome, - Artemio, thank you so much.

- Thank you everyone.

- And all of you, thank you.

(attendees applauding) (laughs) Thank you.

We'll see you next week.

Christina, I'll be back.