Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts at the Albuquerque Community Foundation and the 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.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

BEAUTIFUL BRIGHT COLORS, BOLD GEOMETRIC DESIGNS NAVAJO WEAVER VENANCIO ARAGON BUILDS UPON ANCESTRAL KNOWLEDGE.

FREELANCE MEDIA ARTISTS FORMED COLLECTIVE EFFORT TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN CREATIVITY, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND BUSINESS.

KIMBERLI CUMMINGS FOUND WORKING WITH CLAY HELPED HEAL A BROKEN HEART.

NIP, NIP, NIP, CUT, CUT, CUT, ELIZABETH WRIGHT TAKES US THROUGH HER COMPLICATED AND MEDITATIVE PROCESS OF MAKING MOSAICS.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

WEAVING TRADITION.

[Music] >>Venancio Aragon: In our traditional culture concerning weaving, each of the tools and the loom itself all have names and symbolism that are inherited from the holy people.

They have this sort of life-giving essence to them.

They're very sacred things and they have almost a life of their own.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: How did learning how to weave from your mother impact your process as an artist?

>>Venancio: Learning from my mother was a profound moment in my life that totally influenced the way I weave today.

My ancestors had no writing system.

They were an oral culture and so knowledge was transmitted through stories and song and prayers and so on and to be able to do these techniques you have to have a lot of memory.

And some of the techniques that I utilize today like the tufting you know where you see you know, these locks of fiber inserted into weavings to create sort of like a shag carpet effect, my mom never made those but she told me stories of her mother and through my mother's remembrance and retelling of that technique I was able to reconstruct it with her help.

So, in a lot of ways it's not as if you know, my mom taught me everything she knew.

She taught me more than she knew, through those stories of hers.

>>Ebony: How does that impact or influence your experience as an artist?

>>Venancio: Two of our principal deities, spider-woman and spider-man, were credited with gifting us this knowledge, this weaving, but the teachings of spider-woman and spider-man are sort of a quintessential element of our cultural identities, and it's said that in the ancient times, when those deities gifted us this knowledge, they made a promise to us that if the Navajo people, we their children, would continue this work, we actively practice it and create beautiful things that will never be in a moment where we find ourselves not having the ability to feed ourselves, clothe ourselves, and shelter our children, and so this weaving that we do is more than just you know, an occupation, it's something that relates to self-sufficiency to you know, the ways that we think and construct the world, and those thoughts that we have, get manifested into a physical form.

So, it's part of our Navajo philosophical world view I suppose, and weaving is one of the central elements that teaches us how to be Navajo people.

>>Ebony: How does Critical Queer Theory play into your work as a modern artist?

>>Venancio: Weaving was always practiced by both male and female people, and it wasn't until you know, the settler colonialism of my people, that these sort of, western subjectivities were applied and weaving became purely a woman's realm.

I think the notions of gender roles in indigenous cultures, as they've been written by western anthropologists and historians.

It deserves some deconstruction.

>>Ebony: What were other impacts of settler colonialism on weaving in Navajo culture?

>>Venancio: Well certainly, it's survival.

At certain points, weaving became less practiced than it once was, but also you have the importation of materials.

Weaving in the ancient southwest was done primarily with cotton and other plant fibers, and with the coming of the Spanish you get sheep, and the wool now is you know, synonymous with Navajo weavings, that they have to be made from wool, and then you also have imagery.

So, when the trading posts were established on the reservation after the treaty of 1868, trading post men were bringing in images of you know, European or middle eastern and eastern tapestries, and showing those pictures to Navajo people, asking them to weave those so that they could be more marketable to places outside of the reservation.

So, some of the imagery that we regard today as traditional actually, has been taken from other cultures.

>>Ebony: How does incorporating modern techniques, tools, and designs incorporate into your artistry?

>>Venancio: I think it speaks to the adaptability of Navajo people in general, that somehow throughout our history, we were always able to take on new materials, new ways of thinking and incorporate them into you know, how we live as Navajo people.

So, time is a big constraint if you're a weaver and in order for weavers to actively make a living from their work, many people use commercially spun yarns and that just eliminates a big portion of the time it takes to actually create a textile.

So, people are very adaptable and I myself find that I love to use tools and techniques from all over the world, from different places, even modern technology, to design and execute my textiles.

It just speaks to who we are at the present moment.

[Music] >>Ebony: What does your art say about your role in continuing this culture and this practice?

>>Venancio: It's so remarkable that this most ancient of human technology, a very fundamental part of our collective human culture, because you know, we all wear weavings today, we all have clothing and attire.

The very basic element of interlocking warp and weft is sort of, a universal human language, and I don't think that we have given weaving enough attention as a high art form and as far as Navajo weaving goes, it's so remarkable that you know, through all of the historical formations, that our ancestors lived through, that we have persevered, and that our weavings have enabled us to survive in the ways that we have.

It's a philosophical way of living.

It's just not you know, an art or a craft, but it's a way of how to carry yourself, how to respect yourself, and of course, how to care for your family, and for the things around you, because without, you know, the sheep, and without the water, and without the plants that you all utilize in this process to create a tapestry, you really don't have anything, and so it's a way about how to be stewards of these precious resources that we call the earth right, and so, to do something like weaving, is to become a steward of your home, and I think that's something that everybody needs to focus on right now.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT THROUGH STORY.

The business of Collective Effort is community building.

It's a place where cool is created.

Where artist who also believe very very dearly in building community.

So what we've been able to do was be able to work directly with our community.

And that's like everyone, that's like the business community, the lower income community, that's the fresh out of college community.

We kinda like intersected all of them.

And so we were like alright you know, how do we bridge the gap between all these things.

We all think really, that's like what the world needs.

Like more you know collaboration amongst everybody.

Collective Effort as a whole, we do marketing, media production, and mentoring through our co working space, and we have our own plans for content channels and sell for original content directly from us, as well as servicing our marketing clients as well.

- Generally you know, most companies when you think of like doing marketing you know you think about doing work with like Nike, Puma, Under Armor all of which like we've worked with in the past just producing you know, video shorts for you know some of the designers that they hire and things like that.

But we're trying to figure out, how do you take corporate level content and marketing and apply it to the community level.

Today we're in Electric City barn located in Schenectady, New York.

We're setting up for a shoot for a content channel that we're creating for the capital region called "Let's Talk About Life."

We're exploring workforce development, housing, food access, and healthcare.

And really it's just an opportunity for us to be able to engage with the community and take the idea of the content channel a next step further.

To figure out, you know how can we take the content that we create and have it impact people like at a very local level.

- Collective Effort a.k.a The Collective, it really started like I left school and then found out Jamel Mosley was around.

He was in my same program at RPI, and it kinda just like happened like you know by the grace of the universe.

Someone was like oh you should go talk to Jamel.

And then I just like literally went over his house and sat and watched a video edit.

Um as he was starting his entrepreneurial journey and um that kinda just let me know wow okay, so it is possible.

Like this thing my dad's been telling me to do all my life, just like start a business I was like that's totally possible here.

Fast forward, a couple years you know Jamel, myself, and DeSean Moore who is our director of marketing; we all kinda just worked together.

We all were in the same school together, same program, we just started working together.

We met Jessica Coles and Berta Singleton, and they were just like bursts of energy and life.

They started doing, just like group working sessions you know mostly what Jamel and I started coming around.

We just have fun and do some work together, post stuff on social media, and people would just like ask to join.

And that birthed Power Breakfast.

Power Breakfast club is a professional development community we built just about two years, a little bit over two years now.

And that's solely based off of us just wanting to work together and be around people that had a similar belief and kind of like lifestyle, and where we were trying to go in life.

And trying to create a support system for it.

- Our mantra and our ethos is do something.

And with do something it's just like start something, it's like a lot of people have these ideas and their just brilliant but they just don't have the, that push to really get out there and just take that first step.

- We found aN opportunity to work out of the African American Culture center from Power Breakfast.

It turned out to be this really great opportunity for us to one really like lay some roots in an area that really needs a lot of love and you know we just know that pretty much areas that are kinda downtrodden don't get enough attention because they don't you know contribute to like the profitability of the city, and so we were like that's like our whole game, is like trying to build areas.

So we were just like you know, let's do it.

- We walked in here and everything was brown, it didn't have any electrical work done.

The roof was all messed up it looked like kinda sinking in.

So yeah we were just like you know let's make an investment into like making this thing work.

And it is our pilot, so we're not gonna be here for forever, but what we do wanna do is make a lasting impression.

The third floor is going to be our co working space.

Um again it's designed specifically for creatives.

The fourth floor gonna be our production area.

We've been lucky enough to get some rent funding.

We're investing in good like intermediate level video and audio equipment, that's really easy to use, um to make available to our members.

- We're here right on the corner of Madison and South Pearl.

We're a ear shot away from Times Union center, we're right off the highway, we're easily accessible, um and we really want to teach our community how to speak for themselves.

- We're gonna work out of here, we're going to figure it out, we're gonna build some people and hopefully you know by the time we're ready to leave, we've made enough impact in this area in telling the stories of this area's past, plus where we're trying to go in the future.

- Do something!

DREAMING IS PART OF THE PROCESS.

(SLAM) - I was born and raised here in Tampa, Florida.

I spent 11 years in Los Angeles acting, and I came back to try to take my kids and remove myself from a broken marriage.

And I needed some joy.

What I could do is find a way of making something to put my focus and my hands into something important, joyful, happy.

And I was 10 blocks from the clay factory on Dale Mabry, and I kept passing the sign.

And I thought that it was flashing, saying, "You know you've always wanted this, call today."

And it was clay class.

And for some reason that particular day, I said, "You know, I have always wanted to do that."

My first clay class was with Kim Kirchman.

Kim and I were invited to start the Tampa Tour De Clay together along with me and 14, 15 other potters, and it's my clay family.

- My name is Katie Deits, and I'm the executive director of Florida CraftArt.

Florida CraftArt was founded in 1951 by two art professors at Stetson University.

A whole concept was to promote fine craft as art.

Kimberli has been a gallery artist here for many years.

Her work is absolutely perfect, beautiful, you'd see every finish, every drawing, the firing, you don't see any cracks or problems with it.

The craftsmanship is beautiful, also it's very original.

- Wedging the clay is something you have to do, whether you're throwing on the wheel or hand building.

And you're basically forcing the air out of the clay.

This is a hollow handle, it's just amazing, Hayne Bayless taught me how to make this.

It's one of his signature attachments, but I do make it my own.

Thank you, Hayne.

And I usually have to make quite a few to get the one that I like, for the sangria pitcher that we're making.

There's so many people who have inspired me and I don't wanna lose track of that, and I never take that for granted.

That is the inspiration that I use to create a piece of what I make.

So I always knew how to make a bowl, but one of those people taught me how to smash the side of a bowl and make it be more than acceptable, make it be a point of interest to that bowl.

The butterflies are out in the garden, the butterflies, the birds, the sound of the fountain inspire me.

So that when I go to sleep, whatever I didn't realize had given me so much joy from the garden that morning, that day, that evening when Bill and I sit in front of the fireplace, that I go to sleep and then I dream these things on pieces of pottery that I've never seen anywhere else.

It is just so not cliche.

I touch clay and something happened to my body.

It was like an electric current.

And I immediately wasn't thinking about anything else.

My mom became a fashion illustrator for Moss Brothers and Wolf Brothers.

I was thinking about this two days ago and never ever made the connection that that could be why I was driven to pottery.

But she didn't teach me ever how to draw, or paint, or anything.

I would just look over her shoulder and she knew I wanted to be an actress, so there was no reason for her to teach me that.

But now of course, all I wanna do is draw like she did.

- Kimberli's ceramic work is extremely detailed and meticulously created, and she creates them with the people in mind.

Just particularly if she has a commission for someone for a wedding, she'll think about the couple that's been married, or an anniversary and she'll create it in that manner.

- So this is my first ever sloth, and he is not going to be this mucky green, that's all wax, so I could scrape off this wax.

But I waxed everything here so that I could just paint all over with a blue sky.

So this white that you see in the background is a base glaze that I start all of my pieces with.

And then when it dries the next day, I pencil draw the sloth, the letter S, the trees, and the University of Florida and Florida State University.

I draw all of that for hours and hours.

Right now, I'm going to finish it and carry these little polka dots around the perimeter of the sangria pitcher.

And then this will go in the kiln today.

What I think of every single time I'm making a bowl, a plate, a platter, a mug, is the connection that that person that receives that piece is then going to have.

Their fork is going to scrape along the platter.

Their mouth is going to touch the rim of the mug that I made.

Their spoon is going to go into the ice cream bowl or cereal bowl.

And then someone nourishes themselves on that piece.

BEAUTY FROM SCRAPS.

♪ ♪ ♪ [Elizabeth] Mosaic art is any time you take smaller pieces of hard material, glass, tile, stone to create a picture or an image with those items.

So anything in that description is considered a mosaic.

I don't think I'm a typical artist in that you don't look in mine and go, oh, she does this one thing.

That's what absolutely pulls me into mosaic, is that I can go in so many different directions, but I use rusty things I find in the desert, dishes, pottery, beads, stone.

The biggest thing I use is cut stained glass.

♪ ♪ ♪ The first thing I think of is what substrate am I gonna put it on?

And that substrate is the bottom.

What, where, what am I going to create it on?

We were out in the Santa Rosa Mountains in Nevada, and I found this big deposit of these flat rocks.

And I was like, "Oh my gosh, these are going to be perfect for mosaics."

But then I get down to my little pieces on nipping.

So I hand nip, nip, nip, nip, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.

I'm gonna use silicone to glue those pieces down, and then I'm gonna tape it off.

Here you have this beautiful piece of art you've created, and you're gonna take a black grout, and you're gonna smother the whole thing of your beautiful piece you've created, which is a little unnerving.

And then you clean, and you clean, and you clean, and you clean.

The cleaning will be toothpicks and Q-tips.

You want to get everything out, so you can see every piece of glass in that piece.

So it is a little crazy when you see this process, when I'm doing that, but it's very meditative, and it's, you know, I get some good music going and it's just, I can just get lost in what I'm doing.

So it's, it's a wonderful way to relax.

Cutty has over 50 colors of glass.

To get the, the shades and all of the inspiration, I actually have to mix the glass, you know, almost like a painter, where if I put two colors of glass next to each other, they will start to give the illusion of another color.

And Cutty also has seven different colors of grout.

And I took the time and you have to tape it off, grout one section, pull that off, grout the next section, tape the rest of it off.

It's a really intensive process.

I like that as my art has evolved, I use reclaimed materials, literally in everything I do.

It's not about the economics of it.

I feel that the reclaimed materials I use add character to the piece.

So let's say I want to make a sunflower.

You know, you can put it in a simple frame, and that's okay, that's okay.

But to put it in a, with a rusty piece of metal, we found out in the desert, and then to put it on a, an old piece of barn wood just makes that sunflower so much more special.

And it makes it where you can envision that sunflower near an old barn or out in a field.

It's amazing the rusty things we have found in the desert, and you're like, "What is this?

What was this?"

But what I see coming from this is, you know, I can see it in my mind.

I see something happening.

And it's not just what people think, you don't just smash dishes and glue 'em onto something.

Not to make it art worthy, you need to actually cut those into shapes and create things.

And it makes a beautiful, colorful piece.

And I think people really are like, "Wow, that's those were old dishes."

And they can see that.

But I just think it's also environmentally a good thing to do.

If I'm taking something that's just rusting away in the desert, and why not?

And that adds something, and its character.

And I'm also just taking some garbage out of the desert and I'm making something out of it.

It's amazing when you put some cut stain glass, and some beads, and it just turns it into this old thing you found in the desert into something very beautiful.

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

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UNTIL NEXT WEEK, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund for the Arts at the Albuquerque Community Foundation and the 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.

(CLOSED CAPTIONING BY KNME-TV)