Frederick Hammersley Foundation... New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

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THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

A SPECTACULAR WILDERNESS, WILLIAM DEBUYS AND DON USNER SHARE HOW THE VALLES CALDERA INSPIRES AWE.

A "LASTING IMPRESSION," THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS IN BOSTON EXHIBITED ITS LARGE AND REMARKABLE COLLECTION OF MONET THROUGH COLLABORATION, THE BERENGO STUDIO IN ITALY BREATHES NEW LIFE INTO THE ART OF GLASSBLOWING.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

A WILD PLACE.

>>Megan Kamerick: Can you tell us about the extraordinary, some say visionary efforts to preserve the Valles Caldera?

>>William deBuys: People have wanted to preserve the caldera, to put it in public ownership since pretty early in the 20th century.

Edgar Hewett, who founded the museum in New Mexico and the anthropology department down here at UNM, was one of the big forces there.

And it seems to me, Don correct me if I'm wrong, but every decade or two after that there was another push to get the caldera into public hands- then known as the Baca location.

And it's going to take peoples' commitment in years to come to maintain that.

The Valles Caldera should have a broad constituency, if you'll accept the term, among the people of New Mexico and if people will take an interest in the place; I hope our book can stimulate people to take an interest in the place and to require, to demand the right kind of management for it, for the very long term.

>>Kamerick: What was it about the caldera that just struck people, that made... inspired this urge to preserve it?

>>Don Usner: Well that's another deep question [Laughs] >>Kamerick: And why was it necessary?

>>Don Usner: Well it's one of those things where when you see it you know because the experience of coming into it is so dramatic.

This, the open space the high elevation, its verdant-ness.

I think overall it represents sort of the finest of alpine grasslands in the southwest, it's got all the qualities of that and in the middle of this arid lowlands to come across that basin full of open grasslands open space, distances.

There's a whole bunch of aesthetic reasons that it just clicks all the check boxes for making you feel at home and wanting to get in there and explore.

I think it's almost universal, people who come into the space feel that sense.

>>deBuys: One of the things about it is that since it's a bowl, you know it's a caldera, it's a depressed bowl surrounded by a mountain rim.

It's enclosed, it's a world all its own and everything in that world is beautiful.

>>Kamerick: Do you mean actually biologically and in terms of the flora and fauna?

Or spiritually it's a world all its own?

>>deBuys: Well, it has that feeling of enclosure, of course the plants and animals are, you know, distributed beyond the rim.

But when you're in the caldera you feel as though you're in this particular space and wherever you look it's beautiful and what you hear is only sounds from within that bowl so your senses are really stimulated to be in that particular place.

>>Usner: There's also the element of a water.

It's a bowl that collects water, it's wet and it's and in this part of the world, water has always been, you know, people's sensitivity to it is heightened whenever you're around it because it's a scarce thing and you're in this bowl full of grasslands that are well watered and full of wildlife so the.... just the sense of that hydrology which is contained in the bowl is really powerful.

>>Kamerick: As you say, it's a varied environment, it's a dormant volcano.

What in addition stands out about this landscape that makes it so unusual?

>>Usner: I think, maybe the largest one initially upon discovering the place, is just the open expanse of it.

The size, the distance.

It's a, you know, spectacular sight just in and of itself.

And as you explore it beyond that you discover these other qualities that are within that that first hit of grandeur you find many, many pockets of wonder.

And one of the things that i marveled at was that having...

I was one of the first photographers to get in there to explore it photographically; and there were no... there wasn't a history of what is known as establishing shots where photographer goes into a landscape and goes to certain vantage points where you can begin to get your bearings and establish what the main landscape features are.

There was none of that when I got in there and it was tremendously exciting and overwhelming.

And since then I just keep discovering more and more of these spots that are just so special in their perspective on this huge expanse within a microcosm of it.

>>Kamerick: Is it an endangered landscape?

>>deBuys: Oh, Absolutely.

>>Kamerick: Okay >>deBuys: Yeah, yeah.

I mean... in beauty and potential for inspiration, for recreation, in terms of biological productivity.

There are very few landforms anywhere on the planet that express the character of a caldera as clearly and as dramatically as this one.

And you add to that the productivity, the wildlife.

I mean this is probably the most beautiful elk haven in New Mexico, in the entire Southwest.

It's a landscape of national park quality and so through a very, very long and tortured path it is now part of the National Park system.

>>Kamerick: So what are the dangers that still confront the caldera?

>>deBuys: Well just from the standpoint of climate change, I mean if you were going to adopt a landscape where you wanted to observe the effects of climate change over the next 20/30 years, you couldn't do better in New Mexico than to adopt this one.

We've seen just in the last couple of decades the Cerro Grande fire, the Las Conchas fire, the Thompson Ridge fire.

Some pretty dramatic changes in the landscape of the caldera that fundamentally are linked to climate change- that's not going to stop.

These processes are ongoing and they affect the forest cover, the grasslands, the hydrology that Don mentioned, the arroyo formation in some of the areas downstream of the burned areas- all of that.

This is a landscape in continuous transition and it's got a lot to teach us because of that.

>>Kamerick: There's all kinds of data being collected in this changing landscape; what does that mean for the future of this place and our understanding of climate change and of changing environments like this?

>>deBuys: One of the things we did that we got right was to establish a very robust science program for the Valles Caldera with a lot of monitoring, inviting a lot of outside researchers to come in and do studies and so forth.

And so this has become one of the best studied landscapes in in our region and it keeps telling us new things that only expand our understanding of the magic of the place.

It's not science that leads to more power and technological leverage, but it's science that opens the gates of wonder.

>>Kamerick: So, Don, The Valles Caldera is close to What is it like to tell a story that's so near to you?

You grew up going to it, you were the first photographer that could go in and really document it.

>>Usner: Well, I think this story for me is just that personal journey of discovery of a place that I thought I knew, and that's been the story for me that continues today: is that for decades I admired it from the outside and had notions about what it meant and what it was like.

And then to get inside and begin to explore it- it's just that ongoing story of discovery, what the place means on so many levels including the aesthetic level, which, you know, I explore through photography.

>>Kamerick: I loved that you mentioned in the book that initially there, you know, there was geothermal exploration there, there was intensive logging, there were all these other things that took place and as you were photographing, you first were sort of trying to keep those out of the frame... >>Usner: Yeah >>Kamerick: Why did you want to do that?

>>Usner: That was sort of an early revelation of mine was that I was photographing what I wanted to see and not what was actually there.

And it hit me one day when I was trying to photograph a morning sunrise through mist rising through the forest and I wanted a primal forest with big trees and the sun-light beams shooting through and I was wandering through this forest and there were big stumps everywhere.

And I kept trying to frame the stumps out and becoming more and more frustrated because they were everywhere and then at some point I realized: well that's the story, that's the photo, that's what's happening here- not what you're trying to make out of it, but what's in front of you.

So that was a great moment of realization for me.

>>Kamerick: You explored a lot of the damage from the Las Conchas fire and other wildfires, what was that like?

>>Usner: Well at first it was really upsetting to me, it was really tragic and emotionally difficult because I'd grown up in love with this landscape; really embracing it in a certain state, to see it burned was really painful, in fact there's places I didn't want to see.

Little special corners that I had loved because of their verdant-ness and big trees and all that.

And the amazing thing that's happened in the 22, 20 years since the Cerro Grande fire, which was the first big fire, is I've come to appreciate the beauty in that burned over landscape.

It's magnificent and gorgeous in its own in its own way that doesn't respond to us in some sort of cliché image we have of what a beautiful landscape is.

It's a landscape that's responding to this trauma in its own natural, vibrant, resilient way and it's wonderful to experience that.

>>Kamerick: What can we learn, Bill, about that kind of transitioning landscape?

>>deBuys: This planet we live on is beautiful all the time and there is beauty to be found in every aspect of it and every stage of a given location's transformation.

And i think that we, as stewards of landscapes like the Valles Caldera, our job is to honor that beauty and try to be worthy of it, try to protect it, try to encourage it.

>>Kamerick: How can we honor... what can we learn from it?

>>deBuys: So much.

I mean, that is one of the great teaching landscapes in New Mexico.

It's a place where we can go for any number of reasons to see how the natural world wants to work and where we can absorb that learning in an atmosphere of beauty and inspiration.

>>Kamerick: Why is connection to place, like this, so important?

>>Usner: I don't know, I think it's a human thing for some I, you know, have always...

I've grown up with a real affinity for place and for landscape and this is one of the most important ones and ones most impressive in my life.

But I think it's a very human impulse, it's just a matter of how much you open yourself up to it.

It's very innate in our in our biology and our psychology to relate to place in many ways, you know, to be aware for your own survival and protection.

You're programmed with lots of tools of awareness but also for your own um spiritual journey for exploring your relationship and your... the meaning of your whole existence is so well expressed and explored in in a wild place like this.

>>Kamerick: What about you Bill?

>>deBuys: Well I agree with what Don has said, and I feel that I'm looking at the photograph that's on the screen there right now, and it's in places like that that we can step out of the kind of time we experience in our day-to-day lives and go into deep time.

Go into, sort of, the planet's clock instead of our wrist watch or our smartphone's time.

And the Valles Caldera invites one to go into a deeper, broader, slower time that is just very satisfying to our souls.

>>Kamerick: Why is it so important for you?

>>deBuys: Oh, I need that release on a regular basis.

I like to say that, you know, all human beings could, should get regular injections of awe and wonder; and the Valles Caldera is a place to, you know, really fill up on those sensations because it's like... sometimes you go to a really wonderful movie in the cinema and you come out and suddenly the traffic lights are brighter or the street lighting is more dramatic, anyhow the world livens up.

Well the Valles Caldera is like that in another deeper, even more sensuous and satisfying way.

MONET IN BOSTON.

There he is on film.

It's 1915 and Claude Monet is talking, smoking, and painting at home.

He's real and regular-Monet as man, not monument.

But as he fades from view, the legend takes hold.

"There's something that can be so transportive about Monet's beautiful vision of nature, and about Monet's willingness to see variety and splendor in the mundane, Katie Hanson is the curator of Monet and Boston: Lasting Impression, a hallmark event of the Museum of Fine Arts' 150th anniversary celebrations.

It puts all of the museum's vast Monet holdings on view.

"Boston was a great champion for Monet during the artist's own lifetime.

he knew his works were here."

The show moves chronologically-with the first work coming from a teenaged Monet.

"(Who is Oscar Monet?)

Oscar Monet is someone who was teased about his name during his military service.

And so he switched to his second name, Claude, But we do have one caricature that he drew as a teenager, and it signed O. Monet for Oscar because that is how he began his career both as Oscar and also as a caricaturist."

The caricaturist would turn impressionist in short order.

After an artist in his hometown recognized Monet's early talents and pushed him outdoors to experiment.

"Try the landscape, try color and the vibrant air.

And Monet was open to that kind of exploration."

Monet explored his native Normandy from villages to He touches the canvas with the brush and squiggles it in one gesture to confidently create the reflection of the mast of a ship on the rippling surface of the harbor water."

(Katie, I love this painting because you feel like you can feel that little bit of heat that might be coming through with the sun.)

I love about this particular painting that it's really about Monet and where he lives.

I mean, he's living in this house.

He's renting this house with the green shutters.

And so, you know, that he saw this kind of commuting happen daily and that he saw art in it.

He saw beauty."

As he did wherever he went, especially along the coast where he filled his palate to meet the explosions of color in nature.

Eventually Monet settled in Giverny where he could make hay (or haystacks) of his lush environment.

And where he'd be the stalwart of Impressionism.

"You more and more see artists creating their own sensibility, their own touch, All the while Boston collectors wrote him, visited him and purchased works for which Monet signed his own receipts.

The painter John Singer Sargent was both an admirer and a conduit to Boston patrons.

"Sargent painted Monet painting, one of the pictures that's in the MFA's collection, The Meadow at Giverny.

And there is a letter in the exhibition that Sergeant wrote to Monet, and he's saying it was it was a pleasant afternoon, despite the Bostonian air of the ladies who came."

This dramatically lit gallery is lined with later in life works in which Monet vigorously tackled the same subjects or views with multiple impressions.

Cathedrals, coastlines and yes, waterlilies.

Katie Hanson has titled this space, Monet's magic.

"In 1911, the MFA hosted its first solo show for Monet here at this location.

And one of the critics writing for a Boston newspaper was completely awestruck and talked about the magic moment.

Being surrounded by all the colors in a rainbow of dreams."

But his process wasn't always dreamlike.

Here, on the French Riviera where Monet had vacationed with his friend Renoir, he met his match in the blazing light.

"One of the things that he says when he's on the Riviera is that he had to joust and fight with the sun.

Monet relished challenges and for it his paintings evolved.

Ultimately he would make a splash with his water lillies.

Depictions of gardens on his own property.

Places he saw everyday but to Monet would never stay the same.

"A critic for the Gazette des Beaux-Arts Roger Marx in 1939 when those paintings were first shown, he says "no more earth, no more sky, no limits now."

For Monet, there were no limits to the canvas.

He continued to be curious.

He continued to look at the world around him in new and invigorating ways.

PROVACATIVE AND FRAGILE.

Adriana Berengo wanted to start this project where you make it relevant to the contemporary world again, by bringing contemporary artists who are not glass artists to work in a new, medium and work with these maestros who have, you know, they're generations of experts.

So, you know, these people know everything there is to know about glass.

Artists as we have seen this last year have responded to contemporary events.

Tim Tate's work, that is really about the pandemic.

It's his second pandemic because he's an HIV positive artist, so he did go through, you know, so many people dying of AIDS.

The whole idea of "Glasstress" is sort of endemic from the very beginning, from the very concept, something that was, sort of born of fire and becomes this amazing object that is at once fragile, but also there's sort of a durability about it.

There's a toughness about it.

I mean, I think of the works like Nancy Burson's "DNA Has No Color", these block letters, which has a very strong message to it or behind me that you see Vik Muniz' large goblets... he takes a simple wine goblet and, and makes it life-size.

You just associate Venice with those colors and that imagery and, and you see those goblets in paintings, Venetian paintings, over the, you know, the centuries.

Oh, it's almost impossible to come to a glass workshop and not to be fascinated with the material.

Glass is so flexible.

Glass can become almost anything you want.

It belongs already to the creative realm.

Each of these works are very different from one another, just as each of the artists are different and that's what's so brilliant about the Berengo studio.

He's inviting artists of all sorts of persuasions and really testing the will of the maestros, who are adept at turning this liquid form into something that's provocative and fragile.

And as we see in this exhibition full of meaning, A video artist could actually make something out of glass or an installation artist, it's wide open.

So, it's just for the artist to come up with an idea and for the maestros to figure out how to do it.

I was invited by the curator to participate in "Glasstress."

And I thought this is a great opportunity to try a new I have never tried to work with glass before, because I know that the technique is so difficult, and I happen to be a sculptor that likes to put the hands in the material.

So for me, glass was a fascination and at the same time I had a certain sense of not being entirely with it.

Another one that's interesting is the Renate Bertlmann.

She represented Austria at the Venice Biennale, and you see the glass flowers, but they did a field of over 200 red glass flowers - Berengo Studio did - for the Austrian pavilion.

And some artists take, you know, the traditional and update it like the piece behind you.

It's the traditional Murano glass mirror from the 18th century style but with this ghost image of a Bedouin woman.

I think this exhibition - that is born out of Venice, which has seen such difficulties this last year - I think it really underscores the resilience that art has.

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"UNTIL NEXT WEEK, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING."

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Foundation... New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund 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.

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