Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, 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.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

TYING TOGETHER THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE, COCHITI POTTER VIRGIL ORTIZ BRINGS HIS TIME TRAVELING RECON WATCHMEN TO MEOW WOLF.

THE INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS "MAKING HISTORY" SERIES CONTINUES WITH MUSCOGEE POET JOY HARJO WHO SERVED THREE TERMS AS THE U.S.

POET LAUREATE.

HARJO SHARES HOW BEING AN ARTIST IS TO HAVE THE COURAGE TO STEP BEYOND WHAT IS KNOWN AND SEE THE WORLD ANEW.

MURALIST AND CHILDREN'S BOOK AUTHOR MATT KAUFFMAN HARNESSES THE POWER OF HIS IMAGINATION TO INSPIRE HOPE.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

SIRENS - SECRET PASSKEYS AND PORTALS AT MEOW WOLF [Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: I'm a time traveler and I think all of us are.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: Ha, ha, ha.

The big bust that we're working on today is part of our Meow Wolf installation.

It's a lot of work like, we've been working like 15-hour days for like, I think we started this project maybe a year ago.

>> Christopher Casey: We had to build this in two parts because the head's too big to fit in the door.

The story Virgil's telling, the 1680 revolt, this is all a vehicle for that story.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: The process of really like cutting say the foam, right, with a hot knife tool is so much different than using our hands to sculpt clay.

Any other kind of mediums that come across my path I try to jump in and learn because I'll eventually use it with this storytelling.

The new characters that we're introducing are the Sirens.

The Sirens are the creators of all the Recon Watchmen armor and masks.

The bust is a Recon Watchman.

I created like 19 groups of characters that represent the 19 pueblos that are left in New Mexico today.

>> Virgil: You can see it better from this side so turn the whole thing.

>> Virgil Ortiz: The Recon Watchmen, what their duty is - is us in the future, Pueblo people.

So what they're doing is coming back from 2180 to the historic times and to the present time and they're collecting all different types of artifacts, clay shards, our pottery, our songs, our ceremonies, our way of life on the Pueblos and then taking them to 2180.

Storing them, protecting them, so that when we get to that timeline, we still have all of our traditions, our ceremonies, our songs all intact.

So, it's just a way of combining historic, present, and future timelines together.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: My main reason I feel I'm on this Earth is to educate the world about the Pueblo Revolt using art.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: So we're playing around with resin, with latex, and vinyl and creating all these um, the masks that you'll see.

>> Christopher Casey: The pillar that we will have along with the sculpture will have basically like prototypes of sort of Android Recon Watchmen that are being developed and put together.

The whole room is essentially introducing the character of the Recon Watchman to the story line.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: It was really interesting working with Meow Wolf because it's all interactive so now we have to get, like, use plastics and foams and everything that could withstand everybody walking in and touching the walls or touching the artwork, being able to play with it um, so that was a challenge but it's awesome at the same time.

>> Christopher Casey: This is the maquette we built to sort of figure out the dimensions and the process, mainly the materials that we're using.

This is a foam block inside.

It's a foam block that we carve.

[Music] >> Christopher Casey: Once we had it carved then we coated it in foil tape.

That's to protect the foam so it doesn't get dissolved by the fiberglass resin and that gives it the strength.

For Meow Wolf everything has to be pretty robust.

The fiberglass doesn't have a great surface, so we'll put the two-part epoxy over this.

Then we can texturize that.

We can paint that and sand that and get it smooth if we want.

Yeah, many different layers, basically three layers on top of the big sculpture.

>> Virgil Ortiz: So, we're on crunch time right now and we have to get everything finished, carved out, cover the whole thing so once all that is dried, then we're going to sand it down, paint it and insert a bunch of LED lights to bring it alive.

I feel like talking about this story is like my contribution to our people.

Once I watched a movie as a kid, I remember learning like, how they dressed, how they looked, what planet they came from, what kind of cars they drove, all of this and the costuming just really blew my mind.

So, that was my chance to talk about what happened to our people.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: The 1680 Pueblo Revolt is not taught in schools and it's like America's first revolution and people need to know our history, um you know, the truth needs to be told.

So, once the truth is on the table and everybody knows about it then the healing can start to begin.

And a lot of the kids are learning a history lesson without knowing they're doing it until they actually look up the Pueblo Revolt.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: I really commend Meow Wolf for holding artist in high regards.

Giving artists opportunities that they we've never had before and giving us a taller pedestal to tell our stories.

And to be a part of a collective like this is just, like, overwhelming just because of all the amazing artwork that's in here.

All these other artists that were working as hard as our team was and to see them finish their installations as well, it's an amazing feeling.

Like, our worlds tied together.

To see the similarities in our artwork and to, they fit together like a puzzle.

Operating or taking inspiration from the dream world, anything is possible so I want the viewer to feel that same way when they enter the rooms.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: So this guy, the Siren, right now we're in his laboratory.

So, what he's doing, him and his crew are creating the armor for what the Recon Watchmen are wearing.

So, you'll see what he's creating and the pillar that's installed in this room.

So, it's at different stages of them creating, like, the Automaton Army which has a brain, the skull, the mask of the Recon Watchmen in different stages and then you'll see the finished costuming that is playing on the video screens in here as well.

The anticipation to go film the models at Bisti Badlands was through the roof.

To walk into it and go into the crevice where all these rock formations are at for millions of years, for it to be formed like this is just, it takes you to another world, and it looks like a movie set, it looks like it was built but these are all natural formations and it's amazing to be at Bisti and to walk where our ancestors have been.

This figure in white, her name is Mitz and she's the matriarchal leader of the Recon Watchmen.

So, Mitz is the name that translates to Clay Mother.

The clay that we use to build our ceramics in Cochiti.

So, she's leading the Recon Watchmen through wormholes and they've landed here on Earth in Bisti Badlands.

Her important job is to bring love and our history, our language and spread it around and pay it forward to everybody.

So, she's a constant character.

When we touch and create with Mitz, with Clay, I always imagine them as people, as beings, entities, deities, whatever you call it.

This is like how I would see our Clay Mother, all dressed in white, beaming bright, taking care of everybody, what women and mothers do.

[Music] >> Virgil Ortiz: You could put yourself back in historic times, in the present, or the future.

It's all happening simultaneously but in different time dimensions.

What the Siren is asking us to do is to respect one another, support one another, and a whole message of love to move into the future so that we all live in peace together.

>> CARA ROMERO: I'm gonna be in the photo and they are going to be pressing the button and they're going to help us.

You guys come forward a little bit.

>> JOY HARJO: I came to IA with everything I had in one of those green army metal footlockers.

My mother and stepfather drove me there.

And I remember telling my mother, they were staying over a day, and I just said, "bye," and I turned and walked into my other life.

There I was for the first time in a community of all native students.

It was exciting they were from everywhere.

It was the late sixties, so that - there was a certain atmosphere that was going on that was exciting.

It was the first time that I think that I talked in school.

I was taking drawing from John Boylin, he was one of the non-native instructors.

He was really nice to us.

You know who I hung out with a lot was Fritz Shoulder.

I would make art and take it into his office and bug him, you know.

He was just really nice.

He always had a good since of humor.

I think I went to IAIA at a particular time, and maybe it's different for every generation.

I was there in the late sixties.

And it was this time of really - cultural explosion and questioning and I remember being kids.

We were kids, you know, laying around in the dorms out in the dorm living area and listening to cool music and talking about aesthetics.

There was a constant of ideas, and creativity and I'm sure that still goes on.

I was in my studio when I got a call.

And he says I'm putting you on speaker phone, and I'm thinking speaker phone?

Next thing I know she says this is Dr. Karla Hayden the Librarian of Congress.

And she asked If I would be the twenty third US poet laureate.

It was what lightning would feel like.

(Dr. Karla Hayden) She will continue to help all of us see the world anew, and understand our past, connect us to who we are and where we are and show us, hopefully, how we can move forward together.

So please join me in welcoming the twenty third poet laureate consultant in poetry, Joy Harjo.

(Applause).

It was almost like the time I got held up in LA you know it's funny because it's like suddenly I kind of split into realities.

There's like, okay, here I am, and I realize now that there's part of my mind started asking all these questions.

And it was like, "Oh my god what do I do with this?

What do I say?"

I mean how do I, of course I said yes.

Because you know what - it's an an honor.

Every poet makes it their own, and so it's been very important to me to highlight the contributions of native poets.

And that's what my laureate has primarily done but the closing event will be late April.

And it will be highlighting a new native literary organization for writers - young writers called In-Na-Po.

So, I think what the position did - the poet laureate position put me suddenly in a national spotlight, as the first Native American poet laureate.

So, what that did was it really - it connected the public with Native people, in a way that was quite profound - in a way I didn't quite expect.

It wasn't just me suddenly in the spotlight, it was native people.

And that's what was, I think that was one of the best things to come out of it.

Well, I think to be an artist you come in - it's I don't think of it as a career, I think of it as almost a mission.

Because I mean who would become a poet?

I mean really.

It's like any artist you talk to, it's just something that compels you.

Most people don't sacrifice and sit and do artwork and do what it takes to make art.

Whatever the art is.

It takes a lot of hours.

Saxophone?

Hours.

You know, and then working on a tune, revision, like anything it takes a certain kind of dedication and in listening beyond what and listening and having the courage to step beyond what is known.

Now, so I would just say I feel good about it I watched, these younger artists of all sorts, coming up and it's very exciting.

And we have a special job to do in this world and it's really about showing really who we are - providing the materials for dreaming and imagining - to help our art really feed the minds and the spirits of the people.

WITH CHILDLIKE WONDER >> Matt Kauffman: My name is Matt Kauffman with Tree Fort Design, and I create art that transforms environments.

I would say that like my stuff is contemporary and modern.

It has a graffiti element to it.

Letters are really prominent and a lot of my work.

Like if you look closely, there'll be elements of letters woven throughout either like direct messages that is part of the piece or scripture, or just a lyric from a song.

That element of childlike wonder and the imagination is something that has been really strong in my creative process.

I've seen how important it is to tap into that imagination that honestly, I think society kind of scrubs out of us, that as we get older, we become less brave to be creative and tap into that imaginative spirit.

And I think it's really important that we not forget that exists in all of us.

The process for creating canvas work typically starts with just a random idea.

Inspiration can hit in the most random times.

I really enjoy cycling and so in the summer I'll just be on my bike listening to music or just being present one with nature an idea will come out of nowhere.

If I'm listening to music at the time, sometimes a lyric will just resonate with me and I'll do a sketch based on some image that came out of nowhere in my mind's eye.

I like to work with reference images and so once I have a sketch, I then go back and begin an image search and I just start gathering images and I kind of create this digital collage.

I just arrange things very roughly, but not to create a polished piece of digital work, simply to get the proportions correct.

If I'm weaving in various elements, for example, flowers have come up in a lot of my work recently.

So if I've got a subject, sometimes I'll use one image for the face and I'll use another image for the pose of the body, and then I'll scale up flowers or a bird or some element, and from there I transfer it to the canvas or whatever medium I'm working on at the time.

I have two kids, a five-year old and a nine- year-old.

We are a big reading family, so books have been a very big part of our daily lives and their childhood.

My wife and I noticed that so often children's books are not as imaginative as they could be.

And I had this idea on multiple occasions that, gosh, I could do better than that, I could write a children's book.

And, so my son and I began working on sketches and ideas around a children's book.

I had the opportunity to participate in a solo exhibition this past December down in Palm Desert, and in creating work for that this idea was put on my heart to re-explore this children's book concept and begin creating works with the idea of the story of a series of characters that are gifted, unique superpowers by a spirit bird.

So, some of the characters in the recent series that holds these unique superpowers include Mahina Moon, who is the overseer and protector of waters specifically in the ocean.

There's another character, Neon Knight, whose superpower is to inspire hope through song, through her gift of singing.

There is another character.

Her persona isn't necessarily a superpower.

It's more of just like a commentary and awareness on mental health and how we approach depression and cope with feelings of a lack of self- worth.

All of these characters are gifted, these unique powers, through this fictitious bird that lives in the story.

It's been a lot of fun.

I guess I'm going about it in kind of a backwards way in that I represented the characters as adults.

I do have many of the characters represented as children that will be used in the book, the first series.

It's just kind of interesting seeing the older representation of those characters and the little backstory that each one has and kind of the commentary on adult issues, but that you're all strong and not to forget that you're uniquely special.

Our mantra at tree fort is just to create art that sparks joy.

And so that is kind of the intention that I've tried to infuse in all of my work.

Hope is so powerful and important in life right now that processing things through creating something beautiful is really important for me, as well as if I can help in someone else reflecting or processing some experience in life.

And if it brings a smile to their face, then mission accomplished.

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Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, 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.