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, by the National Endowment for the Arts.

...and Viewers Like You.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

TIME TRAVEL WITH PUEBLO POTTER VIRGIL ORTIZ'S FUTURISTIC CHARACTERS ON AN EPIC JOURNEY TO CONNECT THE PAST WITH THE FUTURE.

THE EXHIBIT "WRITING THE FUTURE: BASQUIAT AND THE HIP-HOP GENERATION" SHINES A LIGHT ON THE POST-GRAFFITI MOVEMENT.

BY COMBINING SPINNING, JUGGLING, AND DANCE, PROFESSIONAL FIRE SPINNER COOPER BAYT CREATES A "FLOW STATE" OF MOVEMENT.

USING THE JAPANESE GYOTAKU PRINTMAKING PROCESS LISA LEE HERMAN SHARES HOW A FISH BECOMES A WORK OF ART.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

TIME TRAVELLING TO KEEP TRADITION ALIVE.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: What's it like time traveling between Between here, 1680, and 2180?

>>Virgil Ortiz: Very quick.

[Laughter] >>Ebony Isis Booth: What's happening in 2180 right now?

>>Virgil Ortiz: It's pretty cool to be able to write the story, or tell the story, our history of the revolt, but happening simultaneously, in two different time dimensions.

This allows me to create characters that are sci-fi.

And the Pueblo Revolt has been swept under the carpet.

It's not taught in our schools.

And what I'm trying to do is to educate the world about what happened to the Pueblo people through art.

>>Virgil Ortiz: The characters that are on the screen right now are called the Aeronauts, and the Aeronauts are one of the characters that are the Pueblo people in the future.

They're coming back from 2180 to the present time and to historic times.

And their purpose is to gather, uh, designs, songs, ceremonies, shards of pottery, artwork.

Collect them.

Take them back to the future and store them.

So that while we get to 2180, we still have all our culture, our designs, and our know-how of how to make the Pueblo pottery.

And it's ready for us when we get there.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: How does clay become a story?

>>Virgil Ortiz: Clay is amazing.

You know, clay as therapy saved my life.

And, you know, it's been in our family, on our mother's side.

All of the people on our mother's side of the family are all potters.

So I was raised in a family of potters.

And, not even knowing that our family were creatives, and they were always making art on a daily basis.

But the whole magic of the clay helps me express it.

And to really make sure that the continuation of making Cochiti Pueblo pottery.

And the idea behind it of all basing it on social commentary.

Stay alive and make sure it doesn't die out.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: How does that play into the living character creations?

>>Virgil Ortiz: I've created 19 groups of characters that represent the 19 Pueblos that are still left in New Mexico today.

And if you were to think of a storyboard, and say, a feature film, I would, um, not only draw it, but, I could create it in 3d.

Like, whether it be in clay, I could sketch it, or turn it into photography.

So I kind of used that whole aspect.

And that really pushed me to pick up all these different mediums that I do work in.

So it spans like, jewelry, clothing, costuming, makeup, hair, film, video, uh, digital artwork, Photoshop, and all.

Everything fits together.

So there's many pieces of the puzzle that all come together and work together to tell that story.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: Will you introduce us to some of your >>Virgil Ortiz: Yeah, these are, this one is called The Master and Ticks.

And this is based on historical pieces from Cochiti from the 18th, late 1800s.

But all of those pieces were based on social commentaries.

So that when, say, the newly laid railroads that were being brought into New Mexico, they brought more people.

And more tourists and just people in general.

So, with that brought shows.

Entertainment like operas, or the circus sideshows.

So a lot of the historical pieces from Cochiti, you'll see that they have the Siamese twins, the tattooed bodies.

Anything that you'll see in an old-fashioned circus right?

So I'm reviving that kind of piece, that style here.

But, um, okay like, you know, these cool Siamese twins would need some pets.

So that's how I came up with the Ticks.

So, just always working with the clay while, you know.

I usually pray when I'm meditating, or making the pieces.

And, you know, thinking of all the past ancestors who were potters and touched the clay and how it helped them as well.

The same thing that's doing for any potter today.

Trying to make that connection between the past and now.

And hope...

I mean, obviously, when I'm out of here, you know, it's going to be the next.

It'll be it'll be into the future >>Ebony Isis Booth: Who are some of the standout individuals in the Pueblo Revolt of the future?

>>Virgil Ortiz: Yeah.

There's a, like I said, there are 19 different groups of So like the Aeronauts, you see.

And then also like what we have here.

The Recons, the Watchmen, are stationed around earth's realm.

And they're positioned there.

And they're always looking out for any advancements from the So basically the revolt's happening in the future as well.

So any of the invaders coming, they're there to make sure that they don't get past a certain point to the Pueblo people on earth.

And the Recons are doing the same thing.

Getting reconnaissance about any kind of advancements.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: I'm intrigued by Tahu.

>>Virgil Ortiz: Yeah >>Ebony Isis Booth: I just, would you talk to us a little bit about that particular character?

>>Virgil Ortiz: Yeah.

That was one of the main characters that I created to be the sidekick to Po'Pay.

The original person that devised the plan for the Pueblo Revolt.

He was out of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, which is north of Santa Fe.

And he devised a plan of how to pull off the revolt, which meant that he sent runners from the northern Pueblos to the southern Pueblos.

They were all carrying, um, knotted cords, whether it be yucca or leather.

And they were instructed to drop off these cords at every Pueblo, to the southern Pueblos.

So every morning they untied one knot.

When all the knots were untied, the entire Pueblo community raised up and they pushed out the invaders.

Tahu.

That's what like the grandmothers and the granddaughters addressed each other as in the Pueblo.

And I just wanted to create a character for women empowerment and to give the not only the pueblo girls a superhero, but to really pay homage to how, you know, the amount of work that our women do in the pueblos.

And, you know, it's just, it's, they need like that kind of a strong character.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: Yeah.

>>Virgil Ortiz: That was our heroine for, um, for the 1680/2180 Pueblo Revolt series.

The piece that's on the screen right now, I was able to work with vets that have PTSD.

So we worked with clay and we worked with painting, And I designed this piece because I was listening to their stories of how when they got back from war, and how they're, they felt like two people being pulled in two directions all the time.

So that's how that piece came with the three eyes in it.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: Does this particular character relate back to the larger universe?

>>Virgil Ortiz: It is.

It's the character called Translator.

And Translator, if you think about it, is kind of like a Yoda figure.

So he's the one that helps, um, communicate with all the future and the past and the present characters that are pulling off the Pueblo Revolt.

So, he connects everybody.

And he's one of the main central characters of my storyline.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: Pueblo pottery, or Cochiti pottery specifically, is social commentary.

What are you commenting on now?

>>Virgil Ortiz: Yeah, I mean that I got lucky at that as >>Ebony Isis Booth: Okay.

>>Virgil Ortiz: Just because, like a lot of people don't know about these historical pieces all based on social commentary.

So some people are like, "okay you're like creating these really crazy characters".

But that allows me to educate of what I'm doing.

And it's basically reviving the pieces from the 1800s, talking about any subject.

And the only thing that has changed is time.

So I'm still using in my traditional work, the same methods and materials as our ancestors did, but also addressing today's hot topics or subjects.

Whether it be politics, or you know, the LGBTQ community.

Anything.

Subjects that are really hard to discuss, but if you have a piece of artwork in front of you, you're able to discuss it.

Subjects like cancer.

And it has touched our family.

It took both our parents and our sister.

But to be able to have a piece that is designed around the subject of cancer, you're able to really communicate and get in touch with other families that have gone through the same thing.

We had displayed it in a gallery and in Scottsdale, and a group of women came in like maybe say 17 people.

Uh, they came specifically to see it when we debuted it.

And they didn't tell me at first but, after they looked at it then they knew the backstory of it.

But it turned out that they were all cancer survivors.

So they shared their stories with, um, with my family.

So that connected us that way.

But, um, again it's therapy as well.

Like, you know, clay is, um, here for all of us.

And it will take care of us.

>>Ebony Isis Booth: What drives you to create, Virgil?

>>Virgil Ortiz: Something from up there.

I don't, I don't know.

It's always has been there since I was a kid.

And I'm very lucky that, you know, I didn't go to school for anything.

I had the best professors, which was our family.

Our mom.

Our dad.

Our, you know, our grandmother.

Our cousins.

You know, all of them do artwork as well.

Back when I was seven years old, like viewing Star Wars, the original one.

And Star Trek.

And Battlestar Galactica, right?

It helped me look at the future.

And it's doing the same thing for me now in this.

Of how to be more aware on the subject matter that I'm creating to the future.

And hopefully finding a way of how to resolve any problems.

Or create prayers and ways to help what we're going through right now.

So, you know, growing up, I mean, it helped me through life, you know?

I don't have to spend money on a therapist.

So ,you know, this is what it's here for.

And I hope that I'm able to make that connection.

And that's what I feel that I, my participation in Cochiti is to hopefully keep this tradition alive.

STREET ROYALTY'S SUPERSTARDOM.

Blazing off the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts-the massive paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

He was a New York street artist of the 1970s and 80s who became a darling of the art world.

Three years ago one of his paintings sold for more than 100-million dollars at auction.

Legend, icon, maverick.

He bore all the crowns so frequently depicted in his work before his young, untimely death.

"He often gets uh described as the kind of sole Black genius artistically of the time.

And what we're trying to show is that he absolutely was incredibly genius artist, but he was surrounded by his peers who were on a similar journey with him and had the same mission."

This new exhibition at the MFA is the first to examine Basquiat and his fellow artists in the Hip-Hop Generation who changed the chemistry and sound of New York.

Rammellzee [#112].

Fab 5 Freddy [#161].

Basquiat.

They were among a crop of fresh-faced art world outsiders from marginalized communities.

But, they made New York theirs says co-curator Liz Munsell.

"They came from many different boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx.

And then they began to converge downtown.

They were getting a little bit older and they saw this incredible scene of 1980s creatives, people like Madonna around.

And they became part of this club scene."

But before that, they were labeled graffiti artists-hunted down by police for tagging buildings and a most prized canvas-the New York City subway.

Painting subway cars guaranteed their work would be seen by thousands of people as trains raced throughout the city.

"There's a lot of chaos for the eye to see every day."

Writer and musician Greg Tate is the show's co-curator.

He knew most of the artists featured here when they all began to mix with performers, filmmakers and musicians in New York's downtown scene.

"This is a youth movement.

And in America, youth is everything.

So whoever is leading that charge is going to win."

What the outsiders called graffiti, the artists simply called writing.

A form Basquiat noted had dated to ancient times [African Rock Art] and what artist Lady Pink [#143] said was like calligraphy.

But it was all a language the artists shared.

"[#71]Abstracting it, coding it, crossing it out, hey really um, in the vein of hip hop music, are incorporating really whatever they can get their hands on and very freely in an unfiltered way, getting all of that into their canvases and works in other media."

But these artists wanted off the streets and into the galleries.

They demanded they be heard and seen.

The art world took notice and in the U.S., two of them, Keith Haring [#137 giant pink columns] and Basquiat rocketed into the stratosphere.

"I could see the handwriting on the wall.

It was mine.

I've made my mark in the world.

And it's made its mark on me."

[#101 Untitled].

Basquiat's work was fueled by his interest in history.

Not to mention the years of museum visits he'd made with his mother while growing up.

[#10 Notebook] He charted his thoughts in notebooks.

"I went to party in to one party at his house once and um, walk to um walk past his bedroom on the way to the loo.

There was um like a video of Superfly that was on and then um, you know, in all these art books stacked up.

So when he wasn't painting, you know, he was in there just, you know, studying the artists he liked."

[#99 Famous Moon King] Basquiat's work is also often populated by random bits of anatomy.

When he was seven, he was hospitalized after a car and developed a fascination with the book Grey's Anatomy.

[#71 or others] But it's this crown that is most ubiquitous in his work.

"He said, my my work is about three things.

Royalty, heroism, and the streets, right?

So he was also someone who had gone to all the major galleries and museums and didn't see any black people represented there.

He's letting you know that his royalty is street royalty."

That reign would extend into the art world where Basquiat achieved superstardom.

But in 1988, he died of a drug overdose.

He was only 27, but he'd managed to see his community of artists get their due.

And beyond that, says Liz Munsell, they began to influence the A-List artists they fought to be alongside.

"Frank Stella, you can you can see his referencing.

And he also he also notes that he was looking at graffiti and trying to find a different surface for his painting in his late 80s works."

It was a hard fought acceptance.

And for it, this singular group of artists hang together still.

THE RUSH OF FIRESPINNING.

- I would describe flow arts as a visual art, much like dance, but you're combining modern dance with prop manipulation.

So it's adding that extra element where it's kind of an extension of your body and you're able to tell a story and create shapes.

My name's Cooper Bayt and I'm from Reno, Nevada.

I am a flow artist and professional fire spinner.

I was gifted a pair of juggling sticks when I was really young and I spent countless hours at the park training this thing that I had no idea would really kind of take over my life later on.

Controlled Burn, which is a local fire spinning group, had a workshop when I was only 13 years old and so I was able to fire spin for the first time when I was 13.

And my grandma, she was a professional photographer, she actually captured that first time.

She instilled a lot of that fine arts background in me and to beat dynamic.

The first step to creating a fire show, make sure that the area is safe in case anything happens, any drops, nothing's going to spark up.

Secondary, set the space with candles, with torches on the ground in order to create the stage effect.

Third, almost most importantly, is that I'm gonna have I'm going to have a Duvetyne blanket, it's a fire safe blanket, and a spotter that's gonna be right there for me to help me put out my props in order for me to start the next one and keep everything in a calm, collected manner, telling me if I catch on fire or if anything goes wrong.

There are specialized tools, take a juggling club.

And the way you would do it is you would have, let's say, a jar or an ammo container full of white gas, kerosene, or lamp oil, and you actually dip it in and this wick will absorb like a sponge.

When you dip the prop into the gas, that's like a moment of mindfulness, you're counting, you're measuring the amount of fuel that you soak and you hold it there and you let the excess drip out.

And in that moment, you're collecting yourself, you're getting ready, and when you're ignited that poof, that initial rush is like, "Okay, here we go."

Everything just starts to fade away.

You just get that internal rush of fire around your body, the sound of it, wooshing past your head.

It's an amazing feeling.

I love to interpret hip hop dance with creating shapes that are extensions of my bodies with the props.

So it's kind of that mix of dance and prop manipulation very much inspired by hip hop and modern dance.

A lot of it is improvisational when it's just a solo flow performance.

I do also choreograph and write shows with multiple fire artists so it becomes a choreographed dance that is very structured that we all have to hit the certain notes on certain eight counts in order to create the illusion, create the shape that we want the audience to see.

What I get out of flow arts, juggling, fire spinning is the fact that it's good, it's good for my mental health.

It's not so easy to talk about mental health and people's anxiety and fear.

And I think this has been a means that has really saved me in a way to be able to dance like nobody's watching.

You really can get into a meditative state.

It's the flow state that we refer to and it's mindfulness because you're able to move your body in a certain way that you're able to release, you're able to let go of everything else and train relentlessly to give me some kind of purpose in this crazy world.

Like even if it's just as silly as learning a new trick that night, it's doing the problem solving, going through the motions and the failure in order to pick it back up and start again.

And so that translates into my life tenfold.

NATURE'S PRINTING STUDIO.

You can live anywhere on the planet and do this style of art.

He's gorgeous.

My name is Lisa Herman.

I'm a Marine artist here in the Upper Keys and I'm the owner and operator of Gallery of the Arts.

The Keys is definitely an influence on my art hands down.

I mean, you can't ask for a better color palette than what we have here.

I really like where the horizon line...

I'm just in love with it.

I mean, you get to see it so often here and not being in the Keys, whenever I leave the keys, I don't realize how rare it is to see that horizon line, you know?

And it's, it's just so comforting to see that.

So whenever I feel like painting, I feel like that's got to be there for me.

It stabilizes it.

And when you look at the horizon on the ocean, it never looks the same.

There's something simple and you know, primitive about it.

It's cool.

And I think that's what brought me into the Gyotaku process.

It's very straightforward.

It's very clean.

So Gyotaku is very interesting.

Originally it started back in the 1800's in Japan, and it was a way fishermen could record their catches basically before cameras existed.

Um, and because of this interesting layout and how they recorded it, it started to turn into its own form of art.

"This is neat.

He's cute" Each fish has their own little characteristics and personalities.

"Oh this guy is a little character.

He's missing little part here, and a little part there."

So each time I do it, I get a little bit more familiar with the fish and I make sure I pull up all those little different dorsal fins in there to make sure their tails like as fanned out as it can.

I try to capture the fish like as lit up and excited as it is in the wild.

I like to get a picture of the exact fish that I've printed.

So when I come back to the gallery, I can make sure all of its little spots, all of its eyes are exactly the way this one looked.

Some of the mutton snappers have really cool, teal like blue around their eyes.

I always want to make sure I want to get it just right.

It's like their little signature.

Each fish that I do, Gyotaku prints of, 100% will be something that everybody can share and eat.

I'm not ever going to take a fish that has just the purpose for printing.

It has to be utilized beyond that.

So when I am doing that, I'm thinking about, you know, this fish, we're going to eat it afterwards.

So I only use very non-toxic water-based acrylic paints.

I do it traditionally where I use a very, very black acrylic paint and I always do the fish in black.

And when I pull it off, after that, I do the embellishments.

Some clients want just the eye embellished, some clients want the whole fish embellished in color.

Some want it just black and white as is.

So there's a lot of different stages and, and ways you can do this fish.

Every time you pull that paper off, it's like a big surprise.

"Yep.

Perfect."

As I was exploring doing the Gyotaku on fish, I thought, you know, it'd be really cool to do it all on other nature.

One of my friends has a big, beautiful butterfly garden.

So I asked her if she ever finds any of the butterflies that passed on, didn't make it, let me see if I can somehow make them live on forever.

And I got my hands on a couple of butterflies and they turned out magnificent.

I do use different inks instead of the paint.

The paint was a little bit thick on the butterfly.

So I use, just Sumi inks.

And now it's, I mean, I've tried dragonflies, bumblebees, different leaves, different seashells.

I'm always experimenting with different style canvases.

Like I love my, my stretched white canvas, but there's something exciting and challenging about painting on oyster shells.

I've painted on sand dollars, the swordfish, and now doing Gyotaku it was very, very interesting where it's not your basic plan.

You know how to go about it.

Some different shells, some different bills... they kind of tell you what they want and you kind of explore what that shape is and what that can house for that specific piece of nature.

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 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.

(CLOSED CAPTIONING BY KNME-TV)