ArtStorming
Ever wonder what makes really creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? In each episode of ArtStorming, we’ll explore how new ideas come to life, and how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new.
Host Lili Pierrepont takes us on a journey of discovery; inviting us to ponder what drives and sustains the creative spark within each individual.
With great appreciation for music written and performed by John Cruickshank.
ArtStorming
ArtStorming the City Different: Hiro Cash
Follow the artistic journey of a young Navajo painter, Hiro Cash, who draws inspiration from a variety of influences, including music, fashion, and his cultural heritage.Learn how he came upon his unique style, overcoming self-doubt, and experimenting with different mediums from screen printing to sculpture.
Now available on your favorite podcast station or ArtStorming.org
Music for ArtStorming the City Different was written and performed by John Cruikshank.
Ever wonder what makes really creative people tick? Where do their ideas come from? What keeps them energized? What kinds of things get in their way? Is their life really as much fun as it looks from the outside?
Speaker 1:Hello, I'm your host, lili Pierpont, and this is ArtStorming, a podcast about how new ideas come to life and become paintings, sculptures, plays or poems, performances or collections. Each episode I'll chat with a guest from the arts community and explore how the most creative among us stare down a blank canvas or reach into the void and create something new. For today's episode, I'm going to take you a little deeper into the land of enchantment, to Gallup, new Mexico, the gateway to the Navajo Nation. To get there, I drove southwest across breathtaking landscapes which, when depicted in paintings, seem like they must be fantasy. But here they were whizzing by me. I passed magnificent red sandstone cliffs, home to Anasazi, archaeological sites dating to 300 AD.
Speaker 1:A slow-moving freight train with brightly colored cars parallels the legendary Route 66. Back in the day, it would have been more than a full day's journey to get to these Navajo lands from Santa Fe. Today it took about three hours each way. Well worth the trek to meet a young artist with a bright future. All right, so here we are finally. This has been a long time coming, right.
Speaker 1:Yes, it has, I've been trading communications back and forth since I first met your father in. Santa Fe, since I first met your father in Santa Fe. So the backstory here. I was at Indian Market and doing the contemporary sort of leg, you know, with all of the things.
Speaker 1:And I guess you'd gone off to lunch or something. But I got to the you were on the very end on the left and I turned around and stopped dead in my tracks. Your work stopped me dead in my tracks. Your work stopped me dead in my tracks.
Speaker 1:Then I started talking to your dad, who you were sharing a booth with him, and your dad is a very well-known jeweler. We got to chatting and it was then that I knew that I just absolutely had to meet you, and what I was reflecting on on the way here is so I drove to Gallup to be here yes, and to see your studio and, um, I realized that you're one of the first people that I've spoken to on my podcast series, where I met your work before I met you.
Speaker 1:Here's the great story that I wanted to tell you I was invited to a friend of mine's house for dinner and I walked into his house. It's the first time I've been at his house it was. Perry's house and I walked in and I went oh my god that's. Hiro and he's like wait, wait. How do you know Hiro?
Speaker 2:and so I told him the whole story. So that's the small world that goes there so he told you yeah, I let's see.
Speaker 2:I first met him at Santa Fe Indian Market and he loved that painting that's in his home and he just he stopped in his tracks. He came in. Another person was there as well and you know they were interested in the same painting and he's a person that's like he doesn't regret and not buying stuff. So that's what he told me. But something about that particular painting attracted him and he was there and he stayed there for a while and then he was wondering if he had room in his home and then he went home to go measure and he said I'll take the painting. He's such a nice person. We dropped the painting off with him later that night. The painting, he's such a nice person. We dropped the painting off with him later that night and he has such a beautiful home and it was.
Speaker 2:I was really glad that that painting went and it's in good company yeah, he's got a lot of important pieces, yeah, so you are I met him just recently at the herd museum and he mentioned you and said that you're great friends and that you came over for dinner one night and that you saw my painting there and you were just like this is Hiro's painting. And I was really happy with that, that you got to see one of my paintings in person before even coming here to the studio and, yeah, it was a cool experience.
Speaker 1:Well, it's worth noting, I think, that you're a young, emerging artist, and for your work to be so recognizable that I could spot it from across the room, after having just seen a small collection of your work at Indian Market, speaks to know to your recognizable style which for a young artist is really impressive yeah, it is, thank you.
Speaker 2:And you know, I'm not sure how to still feel about you know, if you know me being with me, being so young, it's still surreal to me like my work can do that and that I've created such a distinct style, based off of the influences of my favorite artists, that I so just say more about who is your favorite artist.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say you know when, when I first started painting, I didn't really know a lot of any contemporary artists and there was only one that I knew of and his name is Wes Ling, and he is a contemporary painter as well, who does like the Basquiat type of paintings, and so I fell in love with his work first, and then, when I first started painting, it was you know I was I didn't know who Boskout was, which is a surprise, and and that was just or I first started painting and it was more of like not stick figures, but it was like characters, something like these uh-huh, those are earlier drawings and they were.
Speaker 2:I started doing those first, and then that's when my dad was um, he said, your work reminds me of Basquiat, and so I looked him up and that opened like a whole world for me and influence for me, and that was just like whoa. Like you know, he was the first artist to do this style in a way of being recognized and creating just something, and to me I've always wanted to just create these types of creatures and figures because to me they're alive in the paintings and that they're living their own life wherever they may be in these paintings, and once I'm done painting with it, that's they go off on their own with so, like you, give birth to these little creatures yeah so so.
Speaker 1:So how do they come to you um? Do you have conversations with them or?
Speaker 2:yeah, usually it's. One of my main influences is music and that's just another huge influence on me with the paintings. It ranges from the music, ranges from like classical jazz, and then it goes into the punk rock music and metal and classic rock and that's where I'm really getting that like energy. So when I'm here painting I put on my music through speaker and whatever that energy is giving from the music, it just goes through me and then it goes through the canvas. But I always try not to be perfect. I, you, I try to draw like a child because we in a way we all have a child's mind and want to still be a child in some days and so in a way I can be just myself and have the child mind and free forms of just working and everything.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I think it's attributed to Picasso, who says it's keeping that beginner's mind that's the hardest thing to do as an artist. Yeah, that's totally paraphrased. So how is it working for you to be at IAIA? You're at school there, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I am in my third year, so I'll be finishing up. Next year I'll be in my senior year and with that I met so many great artists and students and they're just very cool.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you're able to stay your kid self?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:I think IAIA has a really interesting and different kind of art program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do. Yeah, because with the classes I've taken in the past semesters, they've always been very supportive of their students' works and very supportive of my work as well. Lot, because I know there's some art schools that are very like you do your own style, but they want you to focus with whatever is assigned with um, like whatever their assignment is, but with IA they, um, they let you be yourself and so like give me an example of a kind of assignment that you might get?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so last semester I had a really cool teacher.
Speaker 2:His name is Daniel McCoy Jr and he's a painter and he was our instructor for a 2D fundamental drawing class and a lot of the assignments he gave were just to do black and gray shading and then to do a little bit of painting.
Speaker 2:But he would always encourage us to paint whatever we wanted to do. You don't have to follow imagery or follow a construct, a structure, a construct, a structure. So with that, you know that really helped me to paint what I wanted to paint without being maybe judged or being like maybe you should change this or change that to this, and so that really helped me with uh, to keep going, and he was really really supportive with my work and he's he keeps, keeps. He tells me to go big with my art, you know, because most of the assignments were like maybe 16 by 20 inches of canvas or paper, but once he's seen my work he's like you have to go bigger with it. He said you can do small, but the main thing is to go big with it yeah, and so what's it like to have other students in the class with you?
Speaker 1:Do you find yourself influenced by their style, or are you so clear on your voice? I mean, it seems to me like your voice is really clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'm inspired by everything in life. That's where a lot of these influences with the imagery in my work comes from is just things in life that has happened and also things that's happening. And when I saw other students' work, I was like, wow, everyone's talented in their own way and it's like some of it's really fine art and then most of the work were fine arts instead of scribbles and stuff. But that really inspired me as well. And yeah, I'm not sure it's weird, it's. You know, when you're with other students working in the same space, it's like there's a lot of energy going on there and everyone's creative energy is like mixing together and sometimes it can throw off another person. Sometimes it throws off me when I'm working, because it's like most, you know, most of the time I work alone and I do that, but when it's with other people, I think there's just a whole nother dimension that's being created and well, that's.
Speaker 1:That's a really unique experience that you're getting to be literally creating among other creatives who are tapping into that field too, because so so many of the artists that I've been talking to who are probably, um, either mid-career artists or or wherever they are in their trajectory they're definitely past school age and they're relegated to their studio or wherever they choose to do trajectory they're definitely past school age and they're relegated to their studio or wherever they choose to do their work. So that interaction of bumping off of other people's energy who are also engaged in it is like it's a. It's a pretty unique experience to art school.
Speaker 2:I would think yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:And unless you're on a residency program or something like that, yeah, and yeah, art school I didn't really I knew I wanted to go to art school, just because I was really encouraged to.
Speaker 2:But at the same time I just want to do myself and do me with my art. But art school has helped a lot, especially with discovering and learning history on the Renaissance art. And you know, that's what I'm learning right now is taking a course on european art, and you know, with that it's very, it's so, it's so different from what's today, because that, you know, it was like a new style in the 1500s and way back then and then it started evolving through these different artists and it all came through generations and so when I learned last semester, I learned about like the art between 1930s to maybe 90s around there, and that's when I um, finally figured out that the art was more. I guess the style I do is neo-expressionism, it fits more into that category, but then again, I don't really want to fit into a category, but in the art world it has to sure, well, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:I suppose it does but what?
Speaker 1:what you're, what? What I'm thinking of as you're speaking is that certainly in the Renaissance, one of the things that was very present was an apprenticeship program where you were learning from teachers and there were very specific conventions that were taught and passed down, and passed down, and passed down. And because contemporary art doesn't follow that lineage, you're not in the studio studying with a master before you get to try your own hand at it.
Speaker 1:So you had these lineages of artists. So, as Native painters, you guys have this direct line to your ancestors that's coming, and so there's this kind of really interesting parallel between the Renaissance artists and you. So do you feel like you've got the ancestors coming through?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, because you know, through my life as a kid my dad's been collecting Native American art and a lot of it has cultural influences in them and you know it's definitely a Native American style and so I grew up around that and you know, but at the time I did not know that we were getting these pieces, who were maybe like thousands of dollars and but these artists were famous and they were known for their imagery and so in a way it does flow through me and I do feel the energy that it does. And you know I come from. You know I come from a line of I don't come from a line of artists because my dad's the first artist, I guess, in our family, but through, you know, through that he learned the hard way of becoming a self-employed artist, going and making that his main job.
Speaker 2:Well, you grew up seeing him do that right, yeah, Right, and it's just I don't know. It's definitely a weird experience still with that. Yeah, I'm not sure how to explain it.
Speaker 1:He's in a different medium, so you've distinguished yourself, you know from that. So you're, you know in a way you're following in his footstep as an artist, but completely different medium and certainly do you feel like there. Do you recognize an influence of your father's style in jewelry to your painting? I'm noticing this ring that keeps flashing behind me. It's hard not to notice.
Speaker 2:Is that one of his pieces, or is that your piece? This one is Cody Sanderson. Oh, cody Sanderson yeah, my dad got this for my birthday last year Very cool. You know he's friends with him, but everyone has their own style, especially my dad's. He definitely does traditional jewelry work, navajo jewelry work but also he ties in with a little bit of contemporary work.
Speaker 1:Like the spider, that's very, you know, different from a traditional bolo necklace and, yeah, we were looking upstairs right before we started talking this amazing collection that you've been living with, this art I mean, it can't not influence you and one of the pieces is the piece that your dad made for the herd museum and that's with the spider on it yeah, and you know, at his gallery or not, his gallery, uh, his studio, he has a lot of books on different uh silversmith artists and you know I used to look through the books of those and I
Speaker 2:can see the influence that my dad has as well through those and it's like wow. But also you know the way his creativity is. It's so much different from the painting, I don't know. It's like I can't tap into that type of influence or creativity with jewelry I tried. At one point, maybe when I was like eight. I was very inspired with what he was doing and I was like I want to make something like that. I just did a sketch, but then I never got to do the jewelry work.
Speaker 1:Well, I noticed when we walked in there was a wire sculpture that you've done so have you worked with sculpture at all?
Speaker 2:No, that was my first sculpture that I've worked with and you know, when I first started that class, I was kind of lost at first because, you know, I just draw and paint and that's what I'm very inspired by. But now I've been inspired with sculptures and different, all types of different sculptures that influenced me, and that one was based off a drawing that I did and I knew I wanted to create like a, like a head but in my style as if it was in a painting, and it came out the way I wanted it to.
Speaker 2:and now with the. So now I want to get more into the sculpture because it seems it seems fun. You know, that's what the effect of IAEA has done on me was taking these different courses of different mediums is to try to expand your, try to expand my medium more out. And with sculpture that really captured another part of me and I still want to work on it. I still want to do more with the water sculpturing and kind of just go out of the boundaries with it, not maybe put clay or something around it or duct tape, the duct tape. I was really inspired with an artist. His name is Banks Violet and he's I'm not sure he's like a minimalist artist, but his work is like so unique and it's like awesome because it's inspired from music influences as well, mainly metal and punk music.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to ask you about that because you were talking about going from three dimensions with the sculpture, from two dimensions of the painting. But how many dimensions are in music? Yeah, I mean. So to me it seems like you know there's lots of room yeah right, lots of space to explore.
Speaker 2:there's definitely. There's definitely is. You know, with music it's like you can add so many layers to it and you know it doesn't have to just be a drum or bass or guitar. There's so many thousands of musical instruments we have now today and those influence me, singing with my music and the way I play, and it's the way I look at my art too. Being experimental is what I really try to aim for, and same with the paintings I try to be experimental. One painting I put, like a I had raw canvas sitting around and I screen printed a graphic over it and I collaged the raw canvas onto the painting and it was very different. It still is different. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure some people have done that, but it was different for me to try that and a lot of people were like surprised with it because they've never seen a painting with a raw canvas collaged onto another canvas. And collaging I've been really into now, especially with painting, I try to collage original drawings into my paintings as well.
Speaker 2:And I guess another topic to get on is my first. I guess my first introduction into art was fashion. That was was yeah, it's surprising for a lot of people because, um, because they, you know, I do painting now, but fashion was the first. I guess art medium or art that I wanted to do, that was influences from my older brothers. They were, you know, the older brothers always have the biggest, like coolest things in life and they know who's coming up and the coolest bands and stuff, and so with my brothers it was through that and with their music that they were listening to.
Speaker 2:I was like this is cool and I saw that, or I looked up the artist and then I found out that's a lot of them, or some of them have like clothing brands and for one was a clothing brand called golf wing by a rapper named Tyler the Creator, and so in like mid school, like like seventh grade, was where I really wanted to do clothing and screen printing, so I was inspired with that and then I kind of just went off on my own through mid-school until high school was when I wanted to do screen printing, but at the time I didn't know how to do screen printing or didn the time.
Speaker 2:I didn't know how to like do screen printing or didn't know the dynamics of it, so I would just draw. And then I would just buy blank hoodies or t-shirts and draw my logo or art on them and I would sell them to my friends and they would buy them and some of them still have it to this day and I mean, yeah, I guess that was like my first art was um drawing on t-shirts and hoodies. After high school. That's when I first experimented with trying to screen print uh, just me, you know, doing it myself, and it was a. It was a lot of trial and error through that because the first time I tried it I didn't really um the emulsion or like the burning through the burning of the design onto the screen and washing it out, and you know it's such a complex thing. But once you get the hang of it you're just, you can do it like that, like painting for me, and so I did that. I sold those and I'm coming up with new designs now to still go on with selling hoodies and clothing.
Speaker 1:But that was like my first intro to introduce, uh intro to art was screen printing and digital art so you think you'd take some of these, you know, because now they've got these all kinds of capacities to take artwork and just reproduce it into clothing yeah, that's what I want to do with some of the artwork and the imagery.
Speaker 2:You know, I've done some of it with hoodies and based off of my drawings and it's, yeah, a lot of people love it.
Speaker 1:It's cool yeah, for sure. Well, I, what do you? What have you got? Oh, she found a leg of a chair I'm noticing a ton of books. So the you said you loved having books around you. Is that something that that you discovered was inspiration for you? After you developed your own style, you got curious about other people's styles, or how did the books start to come into the scheme of things?
Speaker 2:I've always loved books. I mainly just looked at the images through books, because as a kid I never really read and the only time I would read was just like if it was a sign through school. But my dad is the one who always said that reading will take you places. You know, reading will make you successful. That's stuck with me since high school, when I first started painting. I didn't have any books to start with, but we a bookshelf upstairs and it's just a whole line of books different, all kinds of books With influences. You know, a lot of it is art books that I have, and it's way better than looking on your phone, even though Google has everything. But I feel like having the physical copy is so much. It's better and it makes you feel better as well, especially as an artist, to have such cool books as well, and I've always wanted to collect books. I've always liked the look of books laying around as well Makes your studio look more alive.
Speaker 1:We were talking earlier about the medieval guild system and the way they used to teach the artists. Have you ever attempted to paint in the style of somebody else?
Speaker 2:The first time, when I first started painting, I was inspired with a.
Speaker 2:He owns a clothing brand and he posted a painting one time that he did and it was like it was just a collage of images together and one thing that stuck out to me was a kind of like an abstract skull, and so that I wanted to do something in that sense and I was like maybe my junior year of high school I tried and I didn't do well because I kind of I kind of doubted myself with it and I kind of I just gave up on it and after that I was like I was still trying to find myself in a sense of what I want to do as well.
Speaker 2:But then I wasn't worrying about it too much and I was like I want to try painting again and I kind of just drew this figure of like a neck and a face and like he had spiked hair and it was just like he was one of my first characters and figures that I introduced into my art and with that I really loved the way he came out and loved the way he looked. And I was inspired with like checkered type of colors and so I did like a red and blue color in the background and then put layered this person over with it and I put like a cigarette in his mouth, because I don't know something about the aesthetic of smoking, especially in paintings.
Speaker 2:It always it's like it comes out at you and I like how they look in paintings as well, even though it's not good for you, but in the paintings they're good for them. But that was like the first style that I tried doing but didn't succeed at first. But later on in the years I came back to it and found out that it was for me, even though I may have failed in the first time well, so say a little bit more about that self-doubt, because I think anybody who's been, who's danced with the creative, has had that experience.
Speaker 1:So how did you know that it was doubt and how did you know that you would overcome it?
Speaker 2:I think the first time you know that first time that I sat with doubt was I couldn't do it and I was like I can't paint like that. I think it was.
Speaker 1:When you say you couldn't do it, you mean the rendering that you had created didn't match your idea of what it was supposed to be in your head. Yeah, yeah, I think. That's really. I think, so many artists especially people who are trying to render.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and I think that's what taught me to just be free with it all. You don't have to be so distinct. Depends on what style, but you don't have to be so distinct with the art you want to create.
Speaker 2:You know it's has to be free form and you have to kind of just let your mind and let your body go and like, in a way, you have to turn off the back of your head or something, to turn off your mind and to just, uh, go with it. Go with the flow, actually, and trust the process. And that time I think I was trying too hard to render someone else's style and not finding my own, and that's what I think put the doubtness in me and I was like, okay, I'm not it was sort of like a kind of comparison.
Speaker 1:Is that what you're? I'm just teasing this out because I think that anybody who sits down and tries to do something for the first time usually has an idea in their head of what they're trying to do, and it's usually based on something that somebody else has done, because we don't necessarily I mean, it's a rare bird, I think that knows what they're trying to do, and it's usually based on something that somebody else has done, because we don't necessarily, I mean, it's a rare bird, I think that knows what they want to create inside their own head and then, like, just goes for it.
Speaker 1:I mean I do know a few people have had that lucky opportunity, definitely, and that was um it was a pretty.
Speaker 2:It was just an experience that I had to go through because through that I had to find myself and I eventually did with what I'm doing well.
Speaker 1:What's remarkable about that? And and I hope this doesn't sound patronizing, but to find yourself at the ripe young age of whatever you are and I don't know how old you are, but I I mean, you know it's a great gift.
Speaker 2:And did you find it in music as readily? Yeah, you know, music I grew up listening to, from punk to classic rock, to country, old country, and you know, with my dad he's you know his music was that. And it wasn't until high school was when I really started falling in love with um, the punk music, and my first introduction was like the ramones and that had such a influence on me because it, you know, their music made me feel somehow and I wanted to kind of rebel and you know that's what the point of the punk music was is to rebel against and that's what it made me feel. And so through that I started discovering more artists and more bands, older bands, and you know the bands I still listen to today and I think they'll be with me forever. And that has such a huge influence with how I work and how I found myself as a person.
Speaker 2:You know I'm 21 years old and that you know. A lot of people are very surprised with me knowing these bands that no one else knows.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I had to kind of do some math when you were saying that, because of course the ramones are yeah it's like I was probably your age or older when they were around and so you know it's like sure, the ramones.
Speaker 1:And then I have to do realize that that was 40, 50, 40 years ago, right. So, yeah, that's, that's pretty wild. But in terms of the music, I think, especially in our era, people have way more access to music growing up than they do fine art or painting. Do you play other people's music or do you write your own music or I play other people's music.
Speaker 2:That's uh, let's see. You know, I'm inspired with uh john frusciante from the red hot chili peppers. They're one of my favorite bands and with his playing style. You know it varies from jimmy hendrix and all these other artists that play in, like these blue scales and john frusciante and jimmy hendrix, have a big influence on me with my guitar playing. Just because it gives me, I guess it's, I can be complex with it and I can teach myself these chords and it's like I'm not sure what it's like Now.
Speaker 2:it's kind of easy for me to play because I've been playing for maybe four years and I can play them like easier than when I first started playing.
Speaker 1:I keep coming back to this sort of correlation between painting and playing music and you know, in painting you sort of carved your own path and your own style, so it's definitely your music so to speak. But with music you're comfortable kind of riffing off of somebody else's style. And it's interesting that something about music lends itself to people taking somebody else's music and playing with it, yeah, um, and I?
Speaker 1:you know, I don't see that we do that in art and in painting. I think the expectation is that you find your own unique style, but there's something about music that's interesting and that you can play the same song over and over again and have a completely new experience of it each time yeah, you know, I think it depends on where you are at and like like where you play.
Speaker 2:You know I love playing here, just because it's my safe place or sanctuary and it's my own private area and I try to write my own music. I do want to start a band and my friends me and him want to just play music.
Speaker 2:It's okay if we don't get big or anything, but it's a passion of ours to just play, because music holds such a unique energy and how it can attach on to someone's soul and stay with them forever. You know, I guess that's what art does. It's it just. It attaches onto yourself and you can't let it, even though you may push it away it can't?
Speaker 1:it keeps coming back yeah, you, yeah. So between music and painting, do you just sort of bounce back and forth, or do you have a particular ritual that you use, where you spend a certain amount of time with your music and a certain amount of time with painting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, usually when I come down into the studio I start on a painting or start finishing a painting and I have my music playing and then if there's like a specific song that comes on or a certain song, it'll, I'm like I want to try to learn it by ear, listen to it and then figure out the chords through it. So I'll take a break from if I'm having like not creative block but like any step away from this for a while. Then I'll come over here and try to learn whatever song was playing and that helps me because it's like it gives me it's like a therapy.
Speaker 2:You know you're with yourself and you're with your own thoughts and you can just be yourself and try to learn it, with the mistakes and everything, and not have anyone hear your progress.
Speaker 1:So have you ever had the experience where you're playing and you've shifted mind states and suddenly it informs what needs to happen next on a painting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely does. I'll sit here and then I'll be playing, and then I'll be playing, and then I'll be playing like a really fast and heavy punk riff and then I go, I let go, and I go back to the painting and add in whatever I want to add in through the energy that I'm getting through the guitar and music, and it just goes on to a canvas so it just sort of goes back and forth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it goes back and forth.
Speaker 2:But sometimes I'll just stay at the canvas and just sit there and paint, and I'm not sure when a painting's finished as well. It's like it's so weird because most of the paintings it's like I guess it speaks to me and it's not telling me when it's done. But I have to know when it is and I think when it's done I have to step away and kind of gather my thoughts and feelings and look at it and then okay, it's done.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting Once again, music has a beginning, a middle and an end yeah, and there's a kind of a form that a piece of music will take yeah, and it definitely has a conclusion.
Speaker 2:So I think it's easier to know when a song is done yeah, but it's harder to know when a painting is done yeah, there's an interview with the drummer from Metallica and he he owned one of Basquiat's paintings and I think they asked him like when do you know a song is done? And he like referred to Basquiat's painting behind him and he said there was like I forget what the painting was, but in the top left corner it's just like a black spot and with little markings from the end of the brush. And he was like what did he say?
Speaker 2:He was like why isn't there more stuff right there, or why is it just left, like that. And he was like you know, I'm not sure when the music, when the song is done or if it's done. It was like, you know, I'm not sure when that song is done or if it's done, it's like when is the painting done. And that always sticks with me as well and it's like, yeah, when is the painting done? But yeah.
Speaker 1:So when you look at, say, the piece, we're looking at a very striking piece that is a skeleton with a headdress sort of I guess that's how you describe it. Do you hear pieces of music that you were listening to as you were working on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I look at this painting, I was listening to a lot of jazz music.
Speaker 2:So when I look at it, that's what bounces off at me is I can hear the trumpets and the drums and the piano playing and it's like jazz, music is such a complex type of music and you know it can pick up pace real quick and I was doing that. You know it can pick up pace real quick and I was doing that. Once it started picking up the pace, that's when I was like just going back and forth to the palette, to the paint palette, and then going back to the canvas and just laying down layers, and then I took a step back and then saw that the bottom part was the one thing that I was only missing and I just went with it. And then I went with little parts of different colors of paint and that's when I finished the last stroke and I came back and it was. It looked done to me well, that that's really.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. So there's a, there's a. There's a phenomenon called synesthesia. Have you heard of of that? That's when people hear colors. It's where the musical part of the brain and the visual part of the brain kind of like cross over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's one thing I never really experienced with was hearing colors Only sometimes, you know, depends on what the music is playing through my playlist. It you know with the red.
Speaker 2:I really love working with red because it's such a bold and striking color that sticks out so much, but also it can tell so much with what else goes on to the painting. Like this painting, for example, is I was really listening to, like the Misfits and the Germans, and so when I look at the red, I can see, I can hear the, the punk influence and punk music that came through as well and it's like I know it's like a room. I was very inspired with Francis Bacon's work and that's another one of my favorite artists. His work is, even though it's dark, but it's. It tells so much in a sense, of what's going on and I created this weird I really love this like mouth type of figure and that was influenced with with an anatomy book that I have and I've always been fascinated with anatomy.
Speaker 2:That's one thing. If I wasn't an artist.
Speaker 2:I would have gone into the medical field of being a surgeon or something, just because my dad wanted us to be a doctor or something. My dad was very wanted us to be a doctor or something, and but with that I've always been fascinated with, like, the human body and the anatomy of it, like the ribs and the skeletons, and it's just I don't know. It's like that's our structure, is that's what makes us up as humans, is this whole, uh, different organs and so many weird names for them, and that's where I get these, like skeleton faces or like other stuff. And yeah, that comes from another type of energy. That's really weird.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's, I think it's fascinating because, again, you know like those are primal archetypal forms, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, they are you're kind of playing with them yeah, and that was another thing that from you know the renaissance era of art was, they were making these anatomies of the body I can't remember where it was in the scheme of things, because for a long time the church to desecrate a body, to look at the anatomy, was a big no-no.
Speaker 1:But I think that there were artists and I think Leonardo was one of them, who you know. There were these groups of artists working covertly to dissect bodies and understand anatomy.
Speaker 2:So that's the beginning of that and alchemical process and all kinds of mysteries yeah, and with that, with the understanding the anatomy of the body you know, when I put skulls into my work, or like the anatomy of the skeleton, it's not coming off as aid or it's not coming off as a negative type of imagery. I paint it with beauty.
Speaker 2:I paint it with positive energy and I paint it knowing that it's a part of us and that's what holds up our structure. We have to take care of it and it'll take care of us, and so that's the way I see the skeletons and stuff. You know it's. It's there when we're born and then when it's the end of our life cycle it's going to be there. And that's where and I think that's where a lot of people see it as dark, just because you know, at the end of the life cycle it's's just your skeleton, but to me it's part of our life. Still it's us. So when I do paint skeletons, it's always with a positive beauty painted with that.
Speaker 1:So how do you think that? Because one of the things that IAIA is organized around is the notion of the indigenous Native American contribution, and my understanding is that there is an emphasis on stories and storytelling and knowing what the stories are. So do you feel like you've been given greater access to your lineage? I mean, we're talking about continuity, like what came before you and what comes after you, and the skeletons being kind of a good symbol for that in a way. It's not necessarily always used in that context, but how do you feel like that connects you? How do you feel connected to the artists that have come before you in the tradition of Indigenous art, and what are you leaving in your wake? You still have a long way to go obviously I'm not sure you know.
Speaker 1:It may not even be contextualized like that for you, but you know it's still again, you're sort of young looking forward at so much, and maybe that's a question that's sort of better suited to somebody who's had a lot of life to look back on.
Speaker 2:You know, with the art after school, I want to just do more shows, I want to get more out there, but also I just want to keep creating and keep going with it because you know, time's not promised as well and I want to make just so much that I can and leave that much impact on my culture and my people as well. And I grew up mainly traditional through my practice of being an abo and with that it's it's all, and say a little bit for people who don't know.
Speaker 1:Say a little bit more about what that might mean for you yeah, you know, I didn't.
Speaker 2:I didn't grow up religious or christianity, even though I went to um a christian school. But my family, their generations, always practice traditional and cultural beliefs and we still practice it today, even though a majority of it has gone from is gone from the effects of the US government and the genocide of Native Americans. And so you know, when I look at religious stuff, it's um. I respect it still. You know, if someone believes in it, that's totally fine.
Speaker 2:But it's just not something for me, or I try not to think about it too much, just because this is my life, that I'm trying to just create as much as I can. And the school is very, they're very supportive and they're cultural and they let their.
Speaker 2:They let a lot of their students you know a lot of the students are from different tribes all over the world and they let them practice their own way and they don't try to give them into one thing and that's what they teach in their history classes, as well as the like sovereignty and the history of Native American people, and a lot of kids or students there don't know about it as well, just because a lot of the school systems never really taught that part of history. I mean the Christian school that I went to. They were, even though before they were a mission school for Native American children. They changed and they incorporated with their history classes, which is good because they're in a and were they specifically teaching the Navajo traditions?
Speaker 1:Or because you went to school here, I'm presuming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right here in Galway. Yeah, they taught to all the students and not just specifically Navajo people.
Speaker 1:So what cross-section of students would you have had in your class growing up? Just?
Speaker 2:out of curiosity, the majority was Navajos and maybe yeah it was like half Navajo and half white people that were in the school and you know, luckily the students and everyone went to Rehoboth, understood us as people and everything you know, my all of, except all of my siblings, except one, all went to the same school and they, they were taught the same thing and it does have an effect on them, which is because the school named Jehovah and they were.
Speaker 1:They did start out as like a boarding school, for they did start out as like a boarding school for Native children, but I think later on they put up, they reintegrated the Native traditional.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's really important, because I grew up on the East Coast and as far as we were taught, or knew almost, that the Native Americans no longer existed, and so I mean that seems like a gross overstatement, except it really isn't. You know, as far as we were taught, the integration was complete and, yes, there were reservations, but it was like this other concept.
Speaker 2:Growing up I never really knew that it was.
Speaker 2:Navajo because I never really thought about it and I never thought about the history or anything, just because I was really young and I just was a kid and I would just make friends and be with them and do my own thing. And then it was like mid-high school and I was like really understanding that high schools and I was like really understanding that like there's no, not a lot of representations of Native Americans in media or TV or anything you know until now. You know that we have a lot of Native American celebrities who are like being recognized and it's cool seeing that, because as a kid you rarely saw that it was more seen Native Americans seen as people who weren't here anymore or like there's such a small group of them. And but once you realize and look deeper, it's, it's totally the opposite.
Speaker 1:you know, even we're very spread out.
Speaker 2:Now you know there's so many like I never realized that there were so many different tribes and until I got to like I was like well, there's like so many tribes and well, and I just want to say this and I hope nobody jumps down my throat about it, but, like, if you didn't know, how are those?
Speaker 1:you know we all went through the same school system. So how we, as white people, to know either, and, yes, it's time for that to get corrected. And again, I think it's really important that there is focus being made to kind of just get all the the stories, because this, this story's out there, yeah, and and all the stories because the story's out there, yeah, and all the richness of the culture. Yeah, definitely, and that you can own being a part of a great great tradition that has so much to offer.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So do you identify? I mean and I feel like I'm putting a lot of words out here but do you identify as native indigenous? Do you identify as Navajo? How do you? I mean, because you're still a young person, kind of deciding how you're going to present yourself to the world. Is it important to you that you just are received as an artist for your art, or is there an element of wanting to own your tradition, or how do you feel? How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:let's see how I feel.
Speaker 2:You know I'm, I know I'm indigenous and I identify as indigenous in navajo. But as artists, you know, when I first started painting and doing art, I didn't want to be in the category of traditional Native American art. You know because you know when, when, when a Native artist does do art, it's usually very traditional and the imagery is like cultural and you know it's from generations of like those types of art and like textiles and everything and those I would see as Native American art just because it fits into how the imagery and style comes out and designs. But when I first wanted to be, I wanted to be more than just a Native artist. I wanted to be seen as a contemporary artist, more than just a Native American artist. And I've been doing that. And when I first started, that's what I wanted to do was to change the way of how Native American art looks. You know, because there's a lot of Native American art shows, such as I heard, that follow with traditional and traditional cultural art and same style, same everything. And you know.
Speaker 2:I enter my work there and a lot of the awards that are given to are like traditional, and so in a way I want to change that perspective of the way people see native art and that it's more than just landscapes or horses and stuff that it can be these weird figures that are influenced from everything in the world, and that it can be more than.
Speaker 1:Well, after all, you are a Native and an Indigenous person living in 2025.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I mean, we're not living in an isolated world. We're living in a world that has access to influences from everywhere, so it's suitable that you would be incorporating things from where all of the whole world that you live in and my influence of mine is Fritz Scholder.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and that influence of mine is Fritz Scholder, oh yeah. And I have a couple books on him and his work really changed the perspective of how Native. You know he put Native American people in the time that they were living in. And some of it can be, you know, the older generation can see it as being taboo or can see it as offensive, but it's like real, just because that's what they're living.
Speaker 1:It didn't occur to me that you know, from the perspective of the traditional native art forms, that these contemporary art forms, people taking liberties with it, might be considered offensive. It's never. I mean. I know that because, um, the the um indian market has an entire category. Now that is just contemporary. So for some reason I guess I assume that there was a blessing on on playing with sort of some of the original styles and features, but I guess if you're a traditionalist that might be considered offensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. Yeah, I think it depends. Disrupt it. It depends on the artists who do practice in traditional Native design work and you know when new things, new things, you know people don't like changes and we can see that all over, and when one, when one thing sticks, it's there, but when someone tries to change it for them or for the art world or world just in the sense it disrupts how they feel.
Speaker 2:Like Fritz Scholder, you know, he, he definitely him and TC Cannon definitely changed the portraits of Native American people in their art and putting them in traditional regalia and clothing but in a sense of being in a city and more contemporary places. And so with mine, you know, I'm inspired with that, which just being, you know, I love putting in the Native American imagery, mainly the Chiefs. You know, I've always been fascinated with the headdresses and how they look, because they look like warriors, they work, they are warriors and in my paintings that's what they are and they're, you know, and a lot of the paintings they're seen as heroes. To me they're seen and and what are.
Speaker 1:What is, what is their fight? Who are they warriors for?
Speaker 2:I think they're warriors for themselves and for wherever they are.
Speaker 1:You know, it's so many things that go on in these paintings that so is it more like a warrior for the, the self to becoming this, like the interior landscape and yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:you know it's being. You know, these are weird places that they are in, and some of them are in like rooms or like for that one is like, uh, I got inspired with the chateau marmont and that's the place that I really wanted to stay at and make art in that place, and so with that, it's like being in LA and they're just living their life more?
Speaker 1:Do you see yourself staying here in New Mexico, in the land of enchantment?
Speaker 2:I would like to move to Santa Fe. There's such a unique art world out there and I've done a few shows in Santa Fe and a lot of people are very supportive and they love my work in Santa Fe and especially LA with doing the Autry. A lot of people love that. But I think two places, maybe three would be LA, new York and Seattle those are like the top three places.
Speaker 1:Have you visited either New York or Seattle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been to New York last year and it's such a cool, weird place. I got to visit the MoMA Museum of Modern Art and seeing that art there and the art scene in New York is pretty much where this neo-expressionism and this type of style started from was New York, but I would try to go for LA just because, that's. I'm very inspired with where I go, and LA is an inspirational place to me because it's such a weird place as well. Some of my older pieces as well were inspired from LA.
Speaker 1:Well, when I think of the music that you were talking about earlier, I think of New York just sounds like punk rock. So if you were to attribute a kind of music to LA, what sound does LA make for?
Speaker 2:you or the Red. Hot Chili Peppers. Just because those two bands did start in LA. You know their energy, the way they perform and the way they make music is like the way I make art and the way I put color on it. It's so many layers and it's so complex that it matches with that music that starts from it. And yeah, when I think of New York, it's more punk and like jazz music.
Speaker 1:And jazz, yeah for sure jazz.
Speaker 2:That's been a daily playlist of mine, when I created a few of these pieces with jazz music, John Coltrane, and put it on shuffle and it just varies through it and then it just goes on to the painting.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, I can't wait to see where you go next with everything, and I'm so glad we finally got to do this. Yeah, all right. Well, thank you so much. We'll end it there. Well, thanks for joining us today. Please like and follow us on artstormingorg, where you'll find a list of our shows, a transcript of this episode with links to the guest page, as well as our other projects. Artstorming is brought to you and supported by Artbridge and listeners like you. Look for us on your favorite podcast platforms.
