Next on Gallery America, we hit the switches with car clubs in South Oklahoma City's lowrider scene.

A victim of crime is using art to help his community back in El Salvador.

Video art from a Cuban-American artist in Florida puts viewers right in the experience of immigration.

And we see kids connecting with their family heritage through the colorful dance of Waka Mexico.

Hello, Oklahoma.

I'm Robert Reid and welcome to Gallery America.

The show about Oklahoma art and art around the nation.

It is Hispanic Heritage Month and we have a full show for you about Hispanic American culture from around the country beginning right here in south Oklahoma City.

We're going to look at how multiple generations of this community connect through a special kind of car.

Check it out.

It's the weekend in south Oklahoma City.

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

And you know what that means?

Everyone coming together, everyone cruising together.

The buddies, the friends, the homies just hanging out.

This isn't a hobby.

It's self-expression, a way of life.

I think it's important because it just shows people's creativity.

You'll meet some of the friendliest people in L.A. right?

Welcome to low riding south Oklahoma City style.

When I get behind the steering wheel, I especially want to have my family with me.

It's a feeling that a lot of people can't really describe.

It's awesome.

And my son has a bike.

He has two bikes.

My wife has a car.

She has a Lincoln and a stroller as well.

We are a lowrider family.

I would say.

This is our culture.

We live, we breathe, we wake up and we go to sleep thinking about the scene, the community.

I didn't really I don't really know anything about it until he brought me in and was like, yeah, let's start a bike for our son.

And, you know, it's real cheap.

And that was probably the biggest lie I ever heard.

That was my way of pulling her into the scene.

You know, we're we're grateful.

And I'm definitely grateful for this lifestyle that that he he showed myself and our son and the friendships and the family that came along with it.

All right.

You've got a show coming up here.

A lot of people focus on the negative part of that.

You know, the negative part of low riding, you know, gang banging and stuff like that.

And it's it's not really like that.

You'd be surprised how many families are just like us.

There's a lot of, you know, kind hearted people out there in the lowrider scene.

Okay.

So what else are we going.

To be doing to this car besides this mural?

I want to get all.

engraved.

that's My kind of jewelry is engraving.

we're not all we're not all thugs, we're not all gangsters.

But, you know, at the same time, a lot of us do have a history, but, you know, a lot of us have changed our history.

You know, so I, for example, as one so family is a big thing where riding has kept me out just positive.

This is something that can turn into a positive.

Yes.

Once you spend any time at all around lowriders, you quickly see.

No.

Two cars are alike.

And that is precisely the point.

Photographers and videographers regularly document lowrider get togethers like this.

This one right here stands out to me really well.

You've got the gold It's really shiny, and you've got the red that complements to every little detail.

And everything's done.

To.

Each side.

So if you get the right photo and you get the right angle, you can see just all the flake in here.

That's a really cool photo to get.

Seeing the details of lowriders is part of the reason to go to a gathering like this and to meet the car clubs.

There are many.

These guys here.

I've been rolling with them since, I must say, over some people over 15, 20 years.

You know, since I started that, they've been with me, you know, it's like a family, a part of a family.

We're all bluecollar guys.

And concrete workers brick layers, furniture, movers, and we put everything that we have to do coming out on that Sunday and hit the switch on somebody doing three.. Clownin'!

Hitting the switches is lowrider lingo for using the cars specially installed hydraulic system to make the cars dance.

And why is that such a thing?

If you have stress, the stress goes there.

it really does.

Until something.

Breaks down.

Now you get more stress.

You start jumping real high and stuff like that.

You're going to start breaking things.

So what I do is this is called a full wrap.

I'm boxing in the whole entire frame, all four corners with three sixteenth steel.

I Havea CNC plasma table.Cut out my metal.

And from there, clamp them onto the frame and weld them on to reinforce them.

I'm a real hands on person.

You know, I get to weld, get to design things, and it's going for a car.

So it just kind of goes hand in hand for me.

And I love what I do.

Welding, to me, is an art.

Illegal toys.

We're just a small local car club.

My dad joined in 98, and ever since then, I've been in the car club.

So it's it's, you know, it's part of my life, really.

Me as a young lad, we had the opportunity to be get a feature in the Lowrider magazine.

So this car is in it.

When I was little, I had a lowrider trike with hydraulics, so that was pretty cool.

Have my car tattooed on me.

Classic Route 66.

So it's definitely more than a hobby to some people.

It's kind of a way of life.

It's a family.

This is a backyard boogie, which is basically a pop up event with friends, family, music, and very good tacos.

Backyard Boogie is something new that my girl was all like, Hey, you know what?

We need to have a backyard.

I said, Let's do it.

it definitely brings a different flavor to the city.

lowriding is much more than just vehicles.

It's family.

It's community.

It's a unity.

It's culture.

It's so much more.

And I can go on and on.

You know what I mean?

(MUSIC) This has been a male dominated industry, and throughout the years, I've seen more and more women coming out with their beautiful rides, coming out with their canvas in their vehicles and their representation.

And it's been amazing.

It's really interesting.

I see my car as my canvas.

My car is a representation of unity, of empowerment.

Whenever somebody or a young girl sees my car down the street, I would want her to feel empowered, to be like, I want that for Patty.

Part of the power comes from the paint created at the local car shop icon Max's.

I went to Max and I told him, Max, I want to keep it pink, but I want, you know, a different tone of paint.

They mixed a lot of pinks together and they came out with this beautiful pink pearl.

That's the custom colors.

So I'm the only one that has it.

Every October, Patti's vintage rollers car club stages a cruise to raise money for Santa Fe High School.

South.

My heart has always been with giving back.

That's where my heart's been.

That's been my love language for since I was young.

I would define a lowrider start off from back in the day, how you were raised, you know, in the culture and lowriders, basically a car that sits low and you go out there, you enjoy it.

When I started to make a lowrider, I put rocks and concrete in the trunk to lower it, you know, and that was it.

Nobody sees inside, you know.

Richard has been in the lowrider scene since growing up back in California, and he knows exactly what he wants to see from the scene in Oklahoma City.

To me, it makes me feel okay.

I mean, what I'm more after is children.

Teach them the right way, not the bad way.

Because the way that I'm describing it to you, it's should be the normal way.

And that's the reason why I try to spread the positive.

So that way the kids can continue.

If you're interested in seeing lowriders yourself, you can come to South Oklahoma City, particularly on weekends, and see them cruise on 29th Street.

But you can always see the lowrider on this mural on 29th and Western that has icons of Mexican-American culture, freedom, pyramids, Mary and yes, that lowrider.

Next, we're going to meet an inspiring artist in Florida who himself was a victim of crime and is now using his art to break the cycle of violence in his native El Salvador.

Check it out.

Since my childhood, I was supposed to be creative by making my own toys with the material that I found in nature, including would play rock.

And since then, I have been really interesting in art.

And one of my neighbor, he's a painter.

And I always look down him.

He's working.

And some point I ask him if he was willing to teach me because he don't teach.

And he say yes.

So I start having classes with him, with my neighbor.

And that's how I start getting truly into to painting and drawing and interaction.

14 I got the opportunity to study visual art, you know, international school in Norway.

And I may.

Kimberly Why?

Associate Director, International Mission for Ringling.

And I knew about the fine art program.

And I say, I want to go there.

As department had I look at all the applications and when Melvin arrived he came from the school in Norway, so I thought he would be Norwegian.

And then he showed up on campus and obviously he was not Norwegian.

He's a really gifted painter.

He's expressive.

He's got great content that's there.

He's trying to deal with the human condition and bigger issues, but just in the general way of applying paint, I just love his surfaces and a sense of color and composition and form and fresh marks.

He knows that his hand can make certain marks that no one else can.

This kind of mark is more appropriate for the horse.

This kind of mark is more appropriate for the figure.

This kind of mark is more appropriate for the landscape or the light source in the clouds.

That ability to grasp that and to organize it and then to adjust it continuously is like, I think everyone who has worked around Melvin knows that like his trajectory is like a superstar level, like and we're all glad to be part of it.

I would say it's incredibly rare and the level of sophistication goes into not just like great technical skills as far as rendering, but seeing some of the compositions you start to see right away.

Oh, there's dynamics of interaction social, political and historic as well.

There is really a strong composition to see children shooting a horse.

But I grew up in ensemble or around that social context with guns.

I don't want to glorify violence.

At the same time, I want also the viewers to have their own interpretation when they confront my painting.

Because, for instance, the painting in the back is a concert life in death.

Like you can talk about philosophy with Melvin.

You can talk about like political things.

You can talk about like really deep intellectual associations of subject matter that oftentimes you never get to that point in a conversation with students.

My art has some classical approach in my artistic process, but at the same time I'm trying to pursue and find my own voice.

He knows what he's doing and we're just here to help, along with, like, technical advice, conceptual advice, maybe some references or historic context.

But the subject matter, the themes, what he's creating, inventing and transferring to the surface, that's entirely his.

And it's beautiful.

That is my main inspiration to express human condition, emotion, feelings and desire.

And I use my personal experience as an inspiration into that.

And my life changed forever.

I was a victim of gun violence in my country.

I saw, ah, in a way it was it gave me hope and motivation to move forward in life.

I was happy to pursue my passion and I'm so happy to come to my studio because there is a painting waiting for me.

There's been times where I've come in here like there's been a Thursday class and I come back in on Monday.

I'm like, How did you even do all this work?

Like, like, did you sleep?

I'm going to graduate in May next year.

My goal at the moment is to to teach also.

I want to go back to my country and into what Ringling taught me.

I went back to my country after I finished my studies in Norway and I opened an art school for children with the mission of breaking the cycle of gun violence and providing the tool to create art.

Three years ago with my neighbor who taught me painting classes and I. I told him no, while I'm not here, you're in charge from the art school.

And when I come back, I'll take full responsibility.

My main focus is to keep them busy and spend their time positive.

It'd be great for Melvin to stay here.

I think he'd be an incredible asset to the community and a great leader, and maybe he'll come back.

But I think he can bring all those traits back to his home country and really build something special over there.

It's truly important painting to me in some way, I would say saved my life because it really gave me a new perspective on life and and I don't see myself doing something else.

Next, we're going to see an immersive art exhibit that looks at the reality of immigration through the personal experiences of a Cuban-American artist in Florida.

Check it out.

When artists speak this simultaneously are using imagery, I would translate seeing everything we do in our minds.

Visually, it's an automatic.

We don't even think about it.

It became really clear to me that I needed to work with the moving image.

I There is of several sequences that take place underwater and there's just no there was no other way of representing that point of all this.

I was born in Cuba and I came with my family to the United States in 1971 through the Freedom Flights.

The exhibition is rest assured.

The idea was always to do a video in which there would be no physical bodies.

In the video, I wanted a viewer who walked into the space to feel like they were occupying that space, that sort of sensation, that they were part of this experience.

As a Cuban, I know what it means to migrate by sea, because we have been, as a community, experiencing this for the last 50 years.

And so I wanted to use that personal experience and that knowledge and that understanding, and I wanted to take that and then open it up to the greater global crisis that is happening.

And especially this started to happen in 2015 in Europe because of the Syrian refugees.

When we think of migration right now, we imagine people in third world countries coming to America or even to Europe for escaping poverty, sometimes war and famine.

But we are experiencing the pandemic right now that made like if you were in some cities, people have chosen to leave the city and go to the country.

So the whole idea also partly with the video and not having an individual be represented in the video, wants to deal with that.

And it due to climate change or due to some other situation, any one of us at any particular time right now could or would be forced to migrate.

When you first enter the space is you sort of dealing with the history of what you are about to encounter.

The very first thing you encounter is a wall of pallets, so you really don't know what you're entering.

And in that way it kind of gets a little bit menacing.

And it was done intentionally because it was meant to give you the sensation that maybe you were entering the back of a shipyard.

Right.

And what it would be like if you were going to be taking this kind of risky journey, you go from being a person to also being thought of as cargo and as a package.

Right.

And here you're seeing the contemporary artwork.

The video takes you from one day in the life almost the journey begins and it takes you through the whole process of what would happen if maybe there was a capsize.

The video in very slowly with a sort of small view that then enlarged itself or what seems like countless numbers of clothing to have washed up on the shore.

Then slowly but surely, the video begins to expand and move up and you see the ocean again.

And then the sun set and you hear the mortar almost very far in the distance.

And the journey begins again.

And finally, let's find out how kids in a Mexican-American community in Ohio stay connected to their family roots through the power of dance, Oaxaca style.

Have a Look.

For Me by Lauren Folklore is Barton with Raquel Toda then I realize this is part of the mystery story.

And to hear.

You say the word Escondido will up with the video and see it on Eagle Radio in the NFL.

But I think because of folklore.

My mom told me stories that she wanted to dance 20 years later and that she danced the song for a dance and she was happy.

But she didn't.

When I was younger, I was very rewarding to be on the stage and to be in front of thousands of people.

And like I used to get like so much confidence and energy from that.

And most recently I find it rewarding, like transferring all that to my students, the sparkle they have in their eyes before they go on the stage and like the butterflies they get in their stomach is like what I used to have as a kid.

And I and I am just so excited that I'm able to pass that on to the next generation of students.

The sort of experience that it's very unique and not very common on this.

Island with us as well as being good enough is quite lovely language for the feel or some opportunity that the my class the CSM is putting the public.

Yeah actually excellent that that I hope gonna love Nina also as well so the the classroom the part that it's all about it.

This is the hat that we had to in it's called is from there and then I read Garcia then you if you wanted you could wear a bracelet and gold in the suit.

And I was coming up and then the skirt and the shoes.

We're supposed to bring the brave.

Take half and colorful floor and just represent them on your own style, even by the ponytail use up.

But in the first place, if it wasn't for nothing but the area we gather lately, it's a pretty.

Good as a second generation Mexican-American, you know, I think it's important to connect to our culture is make sure it doesn't get lost.

So it's one of the greatest ways to do that and to really educate the greater community about how diverse and unique each part of Latin America is.

This is discovering why this country families need to keep going, planting and grow up likeness between you.

And the level they love to go you to get in the way.

The workforce is the oppressed that Randall Mr. Green to literally have them forget them you forget that and yet we compete for the rest that our hands their.

Thank you so much for joining us on gallery America.

Remember you can see past episodes of Gallery America by visiting our archives at OETA Dot TV Slash Gallery America and please follow Gallery America Online on Facebook and on Instagram at OETAGallery for daily updates of the Oklahoma art scene.

Who doesn't want that?

That's all the time we have.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

Until then.

Stay ARTY Oklahoma.