A:shiwi A:wan - Belonging to the Zuni | ¡COLORES! NMPBS

[Music] major funding for the colorado series was provided by the mccune foundation a new medium for an old world i'm passing on the tradition what i'm doing is i'm trying to teach teach the young people you know to respect the kachinus respect your religion and what you believe in next [Music] i like to uh go back probably um a hundred years i think i i try to think of it as like like i was there then as i look at the patinas here the work of art in itself i dream about stuff too like paintings and what i'm gonna make or something like that and i have like a vision you know sometimes and then i see it and then i just like just put it down on canvas i like to paint katinas i think i feel a part of that patina i try to make it as realistic as i can [Music] zuni is known for its beautiful arts and crafts and the religious mountains and mazes that surround the pueblo the landscape changes color with the weather but it is always beautiful the stone masonry is unique too with lots of purple and red working together and we have one of the most beautiful skies anywhere sunnis have lived here for ages all zuni artisans are inspired by the culture potters fetish carvers and especially jewelers have all gotten interested in creating detailed pieces you can look at zuna as one big art colony i will say that 70 percent of the population are artists of some type painting is the hardest medium to make a living the ashiwawan belonging to the zuni exhibition is important because it gave zuni painters recognition for the first time this exhibition sends a strong message to the art world that zunis are painters and that they don't only make fetishes this exhibition also shows the different styles and techniques that the zuni painters have i had a chance to see theodore idakai's murals at the de anza motel in albuquerque a year ago he was one of the older artists that i really admired his style of work is really traditional this means there is no background no sense of theft or perspective only limited color and it was mostly just a kachina standing on the ground now there is duane discha myself and alexey alter we three are the oldest of the modern painters we use more color more action in the figures the composition allows for more depth and perspective and overall the painting is more detailed now in our painting style the viewer's eye has to move around the canvas even though the number of painters is small we are on a good road it's a tough road it's hard to make a living but we're strong enough to hang in there if young painters are going to be successful they need some type of training such as doing work with a professor in a studio and to get recognition you have to go out of zuni and show your work i along with duane alex and other painters take great pride in having our paintings in this exhibition we want people to see the strong cultural background that has existed at zuni pueblo for hundreds of years and continues to exist today [Music] this whole area was my great grandfather's land this little neighborhood right here is like one family my my grandparents sleep right there it's my father's parents and my mother's parents right here aunt and uncles leave right here and my other aunt leaves back right there the trailer and so it's it's more or less like a fan little family community [Music] me this this is the [Music] day of day of the races this is a night after the this is what actually goes on they're going towards the uh south side of the village across from the river it takes a whole year to prepare for this just this one night so it's it's pretty special to me and i like i like the shalako it's the spirit of the deer the source of strength and harmony it's just mainly keeping up with my tradition so [Music] won't lose it do you like it you like it this is the type of tip i need it's the good point [Music] [Music] okay the trick is in doing my penis is to get up real close real close kris knotted you has a unique style it's traditional in a way it's nice and simple and the colors work together miniatures are hard to do he doesn't use a magnifying glass but he's a young guy a lot of the paintings i do are probably around one inch to one and a half that's the most popular popular size that i do a miniature would probably take me around two and up in hours the larger ones with the borders are probably of four hours problem these are look different with the borders i got that idea probably four years ago of doing those potter designs i think my my favorite container is the rain dancer called goku when i see see like my my rack paper i paint on and i look at it it's always it's always there the rain dancer is always there i can i can find it like on this table i can see an image of it like i always see that image everywhere i don't know why well that's the finished product i like to do the buffalo because it's very powerful and i highly respected by by all tribes i like to do um seniors with people on them and have have them uh like instead of the old traditional way of clothing you know i like to do some modern kind of clothing i like to i like to uh make clouds because that's what we all pray for three four is rain black thunder clouds right here telling that that their prayers were answered this one took me three months to complete everything on here is from my mind i go watch the dances i study them and then i store in my mind what what they look like what how they dressed how they walked my favorite part of this painting is this lady right here the buffalo lady that she has a lot of uh elaborate clothing that she wears necklaces i spent about probably two days just just making this one one figure my biggest inspiration was um alex first time i set foot in the church was like wow what what neat paintings you know you know you'll be standing there and waiting for them to move or something you know you know that was like like walking into a big old house full of goodies m just to wrap it up in english if we just maintain to carry our language carry our cultural practices that we still can survive next five hundred years which in zuni i said up the naganasi hastem that's 500 years in zuni language that we still can go beyond that to carry our identity but it's entirely really up to us nobody has a power to come and destroy our culture and do away our language it is up to us to encourage our siblings for future generations because as i stated one time that this is what money cannot buy and if we only carry this idea not backing off not giving up life not shunning anything we still can survive in time to come after that you know i was like really impressed with kachinas especially creating them that's when i started off drawing i was ten then when i first got initiated and i had my first dance i would draw that kachina because i probably came as that kachina i was probably in the fifth grade at that time i wanted to be good at that time but i couldn't i just mean you have to start from somewhere and you have just practice doing your work i think what you have to do in order to be a painter is to have patience and mostly you need time the um the one with the shadow had the longhorns on the other side of the the wall right here um i almost punched it out one time i was so frustrated yeah it's making the necklaces the turquoise making the right color and probably put a little texture on them and stuff like that and it seemed like it was just taking forever and ever and just i thought i wasn't finishing it there's really not a hardest any hardest part because it's just mostly time consuming i don't give up if it doesn't come out it's just the brush brush and paint you know you need to control it a lot more instead of the paint controlling you sometimes you know you just like be amazed of what you can do with the with the pain and brush you know there's no limitations so you know to all all the young artists you know sometimes they're like don't wanna show their work i encourage i encourage everybody my cousin's uh boyfriend he likes to draw but but he's in the stages in the just beginning and the last time she showed me some of his work and he was embarrassed you know he didn't want to show them to me and but you know i told him you know i was there before you know and don't give up you know it's you get the hang of it you know i just need to have like patience and self-esteem that's probably the main ingredient being an artist you know feels good to be known for your work it gets me to working more i get a lot of pride in being a zoning artist because i i really didn't have a religious upbringing so i i would encourage the young artists to keep doing it and they'll probably have a pride in knowing their religion i have i have pride in my people that's why that's why i paint at the rate of what's going on right now in in the village and the whole world you know it's it's chaos you know and now the younger younger kids you know they don't really like kind of believe in the kachina society i think what i'm what i'm doing is i'm trying to teach teach the young young young people you know to respect the kachinas if um you know they come in here and they'll see the paintings and all that you know and they start asking questions about what what the certain kachina is it's like passing passing down the the tradition in the old days they they made a kachina dolls and all that and they used to have storytellings now you know you'll be telling a story like that they won't listen to you unless it's on video no it's very important you know trying to and difficult too trying to pass on the tradition it's exciting to have these artists all together in one show they have these different styles some realistic some more and sort of abstract but all together in one room means they all want the same thing more exposure they want recognition that their artists they can compete with other artists in albuquerque i don't know it looked very professional yeah that's what that's what i like the only thing was that with my miniatures when the people got too close to it there was the alarm that went off you know it's not every day that you be asked to um you know be a part of a show like this you know with with the top artists you know especially alex and duane and i was very happy very moved i got my foot in the door i think it's opening the door to my career and i don't really think we're exposing our our religion you know the the sensitive areas we don't expose what goes on behind closed doors you can really change change our our religion we've been practicing this for thousands of years since when we're still doing it and nobody nobody can take that away from us nobody can take that away from me because it's mine i think it's great because the zuni artists really don't get much exposure it hasn't been really known that sunnis are painters and this helps me be a better painter this show because of all the talent these artists have alex inspires me because his work is realistic and i can't believe he can do such a large painting and still look realistic the wayne dish that has that quality too because he has these kachinas scenes at night which you can actually see him when you go to the night dances and this show makes me proud to be a zone pain i'm proud of what i do you know i i've been doing this for the past past probably 15 17 years now you know it's it's there's not a day go by you know that i i don't pick up a paint brush yeah i like i like working i like creating there's no limit to what you could do with the canvas you know i'm painting once you see the finished product you know you look at it it's not too long ago that this this canvas was all white you know it's probably probably the best things that you could feel but being an artist is the satisfaction of your work [Music] oh [Music] you

Channel: ¡COLORES! A Production of NMPBS

Views: 2,153

Rating: 4.8947368 out of 5

Keywords: New Mexico PBS, KNME, PBS, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Art, Southwest, Southwest Art, creative, culture, arts, New Mexico, New Mexican, Abq, Taos, NMPBS, fine art, colores, southwestern culture, Santa Fe arts, New Mexico art scene, Santa Fe art scene

Id: JrXCI8ClFuY

Length: 23min 29sec (1409 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 18 2021