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 REIMAGINING THE ANCIENT ART FORM JOAN WEISMAN BLENDS MODERN DESIGN AND TRADITIONAL CRAFTSMANSHIP TO CREATE BEAUTIFUL CONTEMPORARY TERRAZZO FLOORING FOR PUBLIC SPACES.

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES SPREADING JOY YARN BOMBING KERN MYRTLE, TRANSFORMS MIAMI STREETS WITH LARGE-SCALE ART INSTALLATIONS.

THROUGH VIVID COLORS AND LIFE-SIZE PORTRAITS, PAINTER LASHAE BOYD, CHANNEL SPIRITUALITY, INTO VIBRANT FIGURATIVE WORKS THAT EXPLORE THE HUMAN PSYCHE IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

GROUNDED CONNECTIONS >> Faith: So, you started off in ceramics.

>> Joan: I did.

>> Faith: Yeah.

So, what led you from clay to textile and then to Terrazzo?

>> Joan: It's a kind of a convoluted story.

I thought that I would be a potter for my whole life.

And that's what I started with and I did ceramics for 25 years.

And a couple of things stopped me but it was kind of gradual.

One was, I got a few commissions for public art pieces.

In which, I was doing large tiles, so, tiles that would end up being a mural.

So, my finished product was way bigger than what I had done in ceramics.

And at some point I just thought to myself, "I don't really want to go back and make another teapot."

"I don't want to go back and make another vase."

And so, it was a transition.

>> Faith: How did you design terrazzo for the UNM buildings?

>> Joan: There's three pieces in that project for people that hadn't seen it, one in front of the Museum of Art, one in front of a smaller theater, and one in front of the larger theater.

It was a collaboration in the desire to make the building, the College of the Americas, because we had a lot of partnerships with Latin American and Mexican universities.

So, it's also really important to me to use things that are both local to me and local to the theme.

But I also don't want to use anything that is, for example, like a spiritual, symbolic kind of an item.

So, I could go back to really -- early Pre-Columbian times and take certain geometries, and then reinterpret them in my own style.

And it really turns out that almost every culture and every place in the world, kind of uses the same thing.

There's the circle.

There's the triangle.

There's the zigzag.

There's the pyramid.

Its all a question of how you put it together, and I then incorporated a lot of colors of New Mexico and the Southwest.

So, all those things came together in a very abstract way.

And then after it was done, I realized things that never even occurred to me when I was designing it.

Like the piece that goes into Pope Joy Hall into the theater.

It has these curly red things and stripes that go through it.

So, some people say it looks like musical notation.

Like a symphony.

Well, I didn't plan that and somebody else said, "Oh, it looks like red chiles."

which I definitely didn't plan because I would never do a piece with red chile but once I see it I think, "Well, there's a lot of stuff that comes out that isn't necessarily intentional at the beginning."

And people in the dance department told me that they had their students choreograph pieces in the circular piece because they could step in and out of the various squares, diamonds and triangles that are in that process.

[Music] >> Joan: It's different in each building the one that I did in North Carolina in Asheville in the Civic Center, my terrazzo is at the entrance to a theater, the Thomas Wolf theater, that's been there for ages, the building was built in the WPA time, which is in the 1930s, when there were a lot of public buildings and it was in the hay-day of terrazzo in America and so I wanted to make something that was more modern but that also spoke to what was already there, so there we're a lot of art deco elements in that building.

I used some of the same old colors and I added new colors.

I wanted to make it more modern, more vibrant and just my creativity to give them a new piece that went with the old one but with something completely different.

I also had a mandate in that particular project that they had what they called the very confusing entrance.

Nobody ever knew how to get into the theater.

So, people would come in and then get lost.

So, I was also trying to make something that was directional So, it has kind of a V-shape in it, with various elements coming off, but it leads people towards the doorway.

So, it was a collaboration -- in every way.

Another one was for a new building.

It was for a library in Florida.

And when you're doing public art -- in my philosophy you want to do something that people are going to like.

So, you have to talk to a lot of people.

They were doing a very modern building, very minimalist and they wanted to, what they called, "Bring the Outside In."

And I wanted to do something that was very -- Florida-ish, but it didn't look like stereotypical clichés.

I didn't do fish, I did'nt do palm trees.

But I have a very abstract geometric repetition that could easily look like sand or it could easily look like the ocean.

and then I added some botanical details to that.

So, that was able to do something soothing, welcoming for everybody, and what they wanted to bring that outside in.

>> Faith: You did a lot of collaborating with seniors.

Can you talk a little bit about that collaborative process and how it shaped the designs?

>> Joan: Yeah, and that actually that was much earlier.

That was tile.

So, that was one of my first public art pieces.

So, that was when I was really young and at that time I was still totally a potter.

I was a volunteer at Pelladuro Senior Center where every Wednesday I taught a ceramics class and they were just building the Barricanian Center So, it wasn't there yet.

And then I won this commission to do a tile mural there -- on an exterior patio of the building.

So, I thought, "Well how could I involve my students in making this piece?"

So, in the curved wall it's all New Mexico landscape aspens and mountains.

On the left, we depicted actual, literal images of where some of my students came from.

Whether they had farm background, there's a picture of a wagon with chickens, and there's another one of a mill town where people had worked in factories in the East Coast and then two from New Mexico, we have a picture of a Pueblo home and a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

So, those are very local pieces and then on the right half we depicted images of what people are doing now in the senior center and their older years and so one images of somebody painting somebody hiking and somebody gardening.

So, that's like the most literal piece I've ever made and of course it was very early in my career but it's still really nice and it's very sentimental to look at, and remember those people who are basically no longer with us.

Now, I'm as old as they were when they were making it.

So, it's a really nice piece to have.

>> Faith: Their stories live on -- >> Joan: Yeah, absolutely.

>> Faith: That's super cool.

>> Joan: And the terrazzo is just, like, perfect, forever, which is one of the reasons I love the material so much.

>> Faith: You talked about to, how you would hike and take rocks from the mountains and include that?

>> Joan: I sneak them in.

>> Faith: Yeah?

>> Joan: Because terazzo, most people are not really familiar with what it is.

People think it's a tile or something but what it is -- it's a matrix, which, in the old days was made out of cement and today it's made out of a epoxy kind of a mixture.

And then within the background color you put in what's called, aggregetes.

And those aggregates are made out of anything from marble to sea shells, to glass to mirrors but mostly natural materials that are rocks and marble.

So, you have opportunity to put a lot of different colorful pieces in the matrix.

And so, usually if I go hiking there's a lot of places in New Mexico where there's dark brown shale that's just been shattered into little tiny pieces.

So, yes I always pick some up and I throw it into one of the colors.

And nobody would really know but me, but there's a little piece of New Mexico in all of my terrazzo pieces, which is really cool.

>> Faith: What do you hope people feel or notice when they are with your work in a public space?

>> Joan: I hope that it makes people feel like there's something lively, like there's something imaginative, that there's something soothing, that the colors are appealing, and that it just wakes them up to some -- like a creative approach to something that could be ordinary like a floor, and to see that there's -- whether it's either abstract or figurative something that's recognizable either emotionally, aesthetically or physically that they either see a landmark of their hometown or they see a beautiful wave that could be a landmark of their hometown.

WRITING IN YARN [Electronic Music] >> Myrtle: When you find -- like you find something cool on the street or anywhere, you have this feeling!

It's like, [Gasps] "What's this?

You know?"

This is, "Oh I can take this?

This is for me?"

That's something that you don't find very often in life.

[Electronic Music] >> Myrtle: I am Kern Myrtle and I am an artist.

Well, I do a lot of weird things.

[Laughs] [Electronic Music] >> Myrtle: I use yarn as a form of street art.

Which is known around the world as yarn bombing, where you put your yarn in a public space for people to find or see.

The way I tend to do it is leaving little pieces for people to find and with the intention of spreading joy, and having that joy of discovery.

There's a tag on it and it says, "Hello, this is for you, please take it with you or please give it a home."

and it has my name and my social media on it.

And so if people find it and they wanna tell me they found it that's great.

I moved to Miami a few years ago and I didn't really know people and it was a new place to me.

And I was very -- I was trying to find my place here.

It just occurred to me that I needed to do something and that I can't -- I mean, I don't the only way I can explain this is I was sort of called to do it.

I felt compelled to do it.

I was like, I need to make something and give it out so, that they can someone can find it and maybe their day is a little bit better and if their day is better then maybe that spreads.

These little weird -- like they kind of look like jellyfish.

These strange organic little objects.

And I had a few of them and that was what I just decided I was like I feel like I feel I have to do this.

I put it out the first time in May 9th, 2019 is my street art birthday and the person who found it posted it on Instagram and I had zero followers but I had started a little account and it turns out he is a really important graffiti artist and creative amazing creative person.

And I was like, "Well, if he thought it was art, maybe it is."

And so I was like, "Well, that was fun, I want to do that again."

And I just start doing it.

I mean, I've probably left, I think, by the count, it's around 300 or more pieces like that on the street to be found.

So, that's just something I haven't stopped.

I still do it.

[Upbeat Music] It started with yarn, and then over time I began to work -- Well, I got to know other people who painted here in Wynwood, because Wynwood is really where this all starts for me.

It's a story about yarn that one-to-one dialogue with one person finding it but then starting to meet people who taught me about spray paint and taught me about the world of graffiti and street art.

[Funky Music] So, in 2020, I did an installation by myself called, "This is For You" with giant letters that said, "This is For You" and all the little things I like to give out.

I probably put out 50 of those throughout that week.

And I just did it, I was like, "I'm going to stage my own art show on a fence."

I'm not really waiting for somebody to tell me it's okay or this is art or whatever.

And the reaction was great.

I mean people were taking stuff and then watching it change through the week because I didn't know if anyone even noticed it.

And then over the week almost all of it was gone.

I just kept rearranging it and playing with it.

And so that was my first time doing that.

And then in '21, I started to meet some more yarn artists on Instagram.

Which is kind of where our community hangs out, the yarn community that I'm a part of, and I just sort of, kind of, casually said, "Hey anybody want to join me?"

I'm going to do something called, "Why Not" and you can send me anything you want based on the prompt "Why Not," and I'll put it up with my thing.

And I got a lot of responses, and these are not people who I knew personally.

I've never met most of them in real life and they were so excited they were like, "We're in Wynwood!"

I'm like, "Yeah, you're in Wynwood.

You're at art week!

You're at art bezel!"

and that was really cool to see that.

And I did a small one last year in '22 but it was smaller because I was doing two murals at the same time.

So, I didn't have as much time to do that project, but I did put out a few from people some of the same people and we call ourselves the 'Yarn Weirdos' because we're not really following the yarn rules.

[laughing] [upbeat music] In 2023, we did, "Yes Yes Yes," So, I said -- same thing, the prompt is so simple, it's just respond, I'm gonna do something about "yes" or "yes/no" choice and I got all kinds of things, I got more than 20 pieces from the UK, from Mexico, from all over the US, and some people, again, who I don't know I've never met in real life and they just send me their stuff and we put it up and then watch people respond to it, take it and then I rearrange things and we just keep it going as long as possible.

>> Myrtle: When I was putting this up the other day, a little girl -- the original stuff I put up, a little girl walked by and she goes, "What is this?"

And I go, "It's some art made with yarn."

She was on her way to school.

She was like, "Huh, I see my grandma do that."

Okay, you hear that a lot.

[Laughs] >> Myrtle: Every time I do an installation like that, a bigger installation, I make a sign just like a gallery sign that explains what this piece is, gives it a name, lists the artists and shows a QR code to my Instagram where I'm always talking about all the other people who are involved because I think it's important for people to understand that you don't have to be in a place with white walls or a place where a curator said it was, "Okay," to show your art.

I mean, I want to show my art to everybody.

I want anyone who's walking down the street, no matter whether they care about art or think they're going to see art that day, I want them to have a chance to see it.

And if they respond to it, that's great.

And if it doesn't strike their fancy or they even notice it at all that's also fine.

But I think every person should have a chance to see it and experience it and touch it.

I mean, you can touch it.

You can take it down, you can just touch it.

You can take a photo with it.

You know, I want to share it that way.

Completely open to all.

[Electronic Music] So, knowing people who are expert muralists helped me take an abstract design that I was doing based on my yarn on paper with watercolors and then bring that onto a wall.

And I'm interested in that design and how this abstraction based on these yarn patterns is a whole other thing.

You know?

It's a whole other place to go and it isn't -- It is not trying to be something.

I am not painting a flower or a house.

So, it's living way out in abstraction, but it is grounded in this reality.

It's grounded in this reality, Very much so.

And if you look at my wall, at the different walls I've done, you'll see these elements, this kind of -- the holes and the strands.

It's part of it.

It's interesting and I like that it comes from a real -- physical item that I made.

So, it isn't just like a random design or like a pretty piece of lace.

It's something that I made and now it's huge on a wall.

I love it, I want to do more.

I want to do more of everything.

[Laughing] The joy of discovery is really where this is at for me and this extends to all everything I do.

When I do my name in yarn, it is -- I am writing my name in yarn.

If you call it graffiti or not -- whatever, but I'm putting my name there.

I'm not just putting flowers.

I'm not just wrapping a pole like a lot of people do which is fine if that's what they want to do but I want to put my name up there.

That's that part of graffiti.

That's why we're here at the Museum of Graffiti, because graffiti is what influenced this whole process for me.

Like appreciation for the history of graffiti.

Appreciation for people who really know how to use paint, spray paint, in a way that you wouldn't believe it.

I just didn't know about all this before.

None of this -- just Miami changed everything for me.

CAPTURING SPIRITS >> Boyd: My work is very much figurative.

I make really big paintings.

And I usually capture people that I know.

And my color palette is like super vibrant.

So, that's probably going to be the first thing people see and notice about my art.

The vibrancy is really speaking to just the lightness because my subject matter is a little heavy.

I talk a lot about self-transformation and dissecting the psyche of a person.

So, you know, it can be heavy stuff because I'm pulling from real experiences.

Sometimes it can be traumatic experiences that I'm pulling from.

So, that color palette being light and bright.

And the skin of my subjects are magenta that bright like pink color.

It just like speaks to that lightness like the light at the end of the tunnel kind of thing.

[Uplifting Music] I went to the Columbus College of Art and Design and I was kind of lost in school and I was really attracted to figurative work.

So, that was always my thing but my iPad is really what helped me understand the levels I could go with my art, the layering, the coloring and everything.

We were walking around.

I was with David and Gavin and we were just kind of doing our adventure just exploring the city and I saw this guy with big muscles and he had a straw hat and a cigar and you know he just I was drawn to him because he looked like something that I already visualized.

I kind of had this idea coming to Cuba of what I wanted to capture.

So, he was like the perfect picture moment.

I was shy to ask him for a picture.

It's an awkward exchange right?

You're an American, they obviously know you're American and you have this, camera and they're like -- you don't want to feel like you're exploiting them in a way So, he was just kind -- like he was kind about it.

So, I took two shots of him.

He took the cigar out of his mouth at one point and I directed him to put it back in his mouth and so, it was kind of like me still doing what I do staging and directing people because that's what I do in my work.

There was a blue building behind him.

So, there's just so much color to work with which also captures the essence of Cuba.

And I usually when I do this I'm literally doing it as if I was going to do it on canvas.

[Mellow Music] So, this is like the overall sketch and then so I kind of started filling in his skin.

So, this is kind of close to what I'm going to be using.

There's some purples in here, there's some lavender in there, working with the shadows that were falling on his face, magentas and then there's some light pinks.

So, this is usually the color palette I do work with when I'm making my figures.

And then in the background here, there's this texture of oil pastel.

So I'm going to be using oil pastel, for that.

And I am going to be using some oil pastel in his skin as well as kind of displayed on the procreate.

It's really cool because you can pick different brushes and pencils and pastels.

They can imitate that with that texture would look like.

When I think about how I grew up, when I think about the things that I went through, I always look at it as a means of shaping my purpose in life.

And I want to help other people get to that same feeling.

We all have trauma experiences that -- big or small that shapes who we are.

And I think it's very important for us to find that core self even like outside of what we've been through.

You know, I'm motivated to let people know not to attach themselves to those experiences and become your own self.

I would say, the biggest theme is the spirituality aspect.

And when I say spirituality, I'm not talking about religion.

I'm talking about literally we all have a spirit.

Like we all do.

And I think that that's the biggest thing is capturing the spirit of that person.

You're gonna see that in every piece.

So, I love that part of my work.

It's true to who I am too.

I've always been like a spiritual person.

It's possible to be from any background, any race or whatever religion, whatever beliefs you have.

We all are connected in some way by our stories and I think that it's important that people just take that -- they're they're being seen through the art at the same time like regardless of who they are.

I want people to feel seen.

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FUNDING FOR COLORES WAS PROVIDED IN PART BY 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