WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.800 --> 00:00:05.240 But we came up with that, we wanted to ask you. 2 00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:13.940 And if you think, you know, if there's other things that you think we should be asking about the murals or what you do, please feel free just to redirect us. 3 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:14.520 Sure, okay. 4 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:22.180 So, I mean, just for starters, we wanted to know a little bit about your background, where you came from and how you got up here. 5 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:26.460 Well, like I said, originally I'm from San Antonio, Texas, you know. 6 00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:36.800 And how I got here, I mean, this other guy used to, you know, drift around the country, you know, because it's the only way we could get around, you know. 7 00:00:37.100 --> 00:00:45.900 So he used to come to Missouri, the whole Midwest, you know, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. 8 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:54.680 And one time it just happened that I came and started working here and I just stayed, you know, around 64. 9 00:00:56.660 --> 00:01:01.680 And I just stayed here up to now, over 20 years. 10 00:01:03.020 --> 00:01:04.760 So what kind of work were you doing when you were here? 11 00:01:05.060 --> 00:01:11.560 Well, at that time we were just doing like seasonal work, you know, like we worked during the summer and then go back. 12 00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:26.140 And when I came in 64 and got a job and I started working, then started getting a regular check, so I started, one year led to another, you know, and just stayed here all this long. 13 00:01:26.600 --> 00:01:41.540 And that's when I just enrolled in the art schools, you know, like going to the Art Institute and American Academy of Art, they call it. 14 00:01:41.540 --> 00:01:47.980 Take figure drawing and a little painting, not too much. 15 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:59.440 Well, not really, you know. I wasn't doing any work, artwork, you know, like professional artwork. 16 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:02.940 I was doing artwork but not like making any money out of it or nothing. 17 00:02:03.940 --> 00:02:06.700 Just like for my own benefit, I was just painting and drawing. 18 00:02:07.440 --> 00:02:14.200 And I had met this guy that just got out of the living worse cancers in the penitentiary. 19 00:02:15.200 --> 00:02:19.040 And this guy could paint, you know, he was a good artist. 20 00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:23.300 And he said, you should take up painting instead of just drawing, you know, you should paint. 21 00:02:23.820 --> 00:02:28.400 And I said, well, I can't do that, you know, he told me the stuff he did while he was in prison, you know. 22 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:31.040 He said, if I can do it, you can do it, you know. 23 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:37.580 And I said, well, maybe I can. And so I bought some paints and started, you know, messing around with them. 24 00:02:37.860 --> 00:02:40.500 Because everything was black and white. I used to do everything in black and white. 25 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.900 I didn't have enough confidence to use color, you know. 26 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:50.760 I said, well, I can't do it. I'm still not that good at it, you know, but I do it anyway, you know. 27 00:02:52.620 --> 00:02:59.260 So when you were for Skyhead and that was before the mural movement? 28 00:02:59.660 --> 00:03:06.100 Well, the murals, I think started in the early 70s, I would say. 29 00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:10.480 Bill Walker and John Weber and a lot of people were doing murals. 30 00:03:10.640 --> 00:03:15.940 And the Mexicans over there on 18th Street, they started doing some stuff. 31 00:03:16.820 --> 00:03:25.620 And it happened that I met John, you know, one of the, we were in a conference, some place in Gary, Indiana, you know. 32 00:03:25.940 --> 00:03:27.540 Miners Conference or something like that. 33 00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:35.140 And he happened to be there, he just happened to be starting on the UE Hall, you know, was going to, you know. 34 00:03:35.820 --> 00:03:39.600 So he asked me if I could help him. I said, yeah. 35 00:03:40.600 --> 00:03:43.400 Even though I couldn't, I know much about painting, I guess. 36 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:45.540 I said, I can do that, you know. 37 00:03:46.100 --> 00:03:48.500 Once I got up there, I said, what the hell are you doing? 38 00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:50.280 And the guy was saying, what did you learn to paint? 39 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:58.740 I said, well, I don't know how to paint that well, you know, but if I see what you're doing, maybe I can, you know. 40 00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:01.320 Knit came out pretty good anyway, you know. 41 00:04:02.300 --> 00:04:03.400 Worked out pretty good. 42 00:04:03.860 --> 00:04:11.200 Because I had a knack for it anyway, since I started painting about a year before that, you know. 43 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:15.680 So that was your first mural? 44 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:20.560 Mmm, yeah, that was the first one that I can recall, yeah. 45 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:26.200 At the same time, I was doing another one on 18th Street with some kids, you know. 46 00:04:27.340 --> 00:04:28.920 Called Si Se Puede, I don't know if you've seen it or not. 47 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:30.020 Oh, I love that. 48 00:04:31.260 --> 00:04:35.540 And then we started another one in Amherst. 49 00:04:36.280 --> 00:04:39.500 John was doing about two or three of them in Amherst College, you know. 50 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:49.000 So I went up there and we used to, you know, I helped them out on a couple of them, you know. 51 00:04:50.520 --> 00:04:52.340 There was about three at the same time we were doing. 52 00:04:52.960 --> 00:04:59.940 We left the one at UE, you know, for the time being, so we could paint outside and also do the one at Amherst. 53 00:05:00.400 --> 00:05:02.000 So can we back up a little bit? 54 00:05:02.280 --> 00:05:10.480 It seems that sort of political things or union things or some kind of, those kinds of violence were what got you into this in the first place. 55 00:05:10.540 --> 00:05:11.860 Can you talk about that a little bit? 56 00:05:12.380 --> 00:05:25.740 Well, that would be, in my case, I guess it was, because like I was doing, like I was telling Susan one time, I was doing some cartooning, you know, for newspapers, you know, for like workers' papers. 57 00:05:26.260 --> 00:05:28.660 And we had a paper at work. 58 00:05:30.140 --> 00:05:36.400 We used to meme a graph called People Get Ready, you know, and they met to the song, you know, People Get Ready. 59 00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:43.520 And some of the guys used to do all the writing and I used to do the cartoons for them. 60 00:05:44.440 --> 00:05:47.060 We just gave it away. We couldn't sell it, you know, we'd give it away. 61 00:05:48.300 --> 00:05:50.580 Sometimes we couldn't give it away either, you know. 62 00:05:50.580 --> 00:06:00.360 Because he was, you know, speaking against the company, they would, you know, people would say, no, I don't want that kind of material because I might lose my job or whatever, you know. 63 00:06:01.700 --> 00:06:17.080 We were trying to get the UE back, you know, the United Electrical Workers' Bank, because during the 50s and 60s they had been thrown out of there because of the Center for Wisconsin, what's his name? 64 00:06:18.440 --> 00:06:20.840 McCarthy or something like that, yeah. 65 00:06:21.760 --> 00:06:26.360 And they had been thrown out and the IAM had went in, you know. 66 00:06:29.960 --> 00:06:35.500 So at the time it was an open shop, you know, you could join the union or not join it. 67 00:06:36.700 --> 00:06:41.460 So me and these other people got together, we were trying to make it a closed, a closed shop, you know. 68 00:06:41.460 --> 00:06:47.160 And at the same time trying to get the UE back, we figured that the union was still good at that time, you know. 69 00:06:47.400 --> 00:06:50.600 They're not now, you know, but they were there, you know. 70 00:06:51.780 --> 00:06:59.060 And I figured, you know, just help them out and trying to organize the people into, and we got enough people to work but not enough, you know. 71 00:07:03.100 --> 00:07:05.020 So that was it for that, you know. 72 00:07:05.020 --> 00:07:12.660 They got elected again, you know, the ones that were there before the IAM, International Machines or whatever. 73 00:07:13.720 --> 00:07:18.820 And then in 1982 they closed the plant, you know, so that was the end of that. 74 00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:25.880 But it was these causes that kind of got you into... 75 00:07:25.880 --> 00:07:34.520 Well, it wasn't actually the causes because I was already doing work, but the work that I was doing was, you know, had a lot to do with politics 76 00:07:34.520 --> 00:07:37.920 because like I was telling Susan too, you know, all art is politics anyway. 77 00:07:39.020 --> 00:07:47.640 I don't think there's anything that's painted that doesn't... it's not directed at some mentality or some outlook or some class of people, you know. 78 00:07:48.400 --> 00:07:49.460 That's what I think. 79 00:07:51.060 --> 00:07:58.760 Like when Rivera painted the murals in Mexico, he was telling the story of the Mexican Revolution, see. 80 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:02.480 Because the people, most of the people couldn't read or write, you know. 81 00:08:03.860 --> 00:08:09.040 So visually they could see. They had never seen a lot of the big shots, you know. 82 00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:19.480 But they saw Huerta, they saw Porfirio Diaz, they saw different characters in the revolution that they had never met before, you know. 83 00:08:21.940 --> 00:08:23.100 And it was politics. 84 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:27.300 And it still is, you know, like whatever they paint is political. 85 00:08:28.200 --> 00:08:35.440 Whether it be like you go to the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico, there's a lot of ropes and bricks put together. 86 00:08:38.400 --> 00:08:42.060 And it's political because the guy that did it must have some kind of politics. 87 00:08:43.240 --> 00:08:50.060 And he must have been directing that thought to somebody that he thought might, you know, receive it, you know. 88 00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:53.540 A worker looked at it and he didn't know what it is. He said, what the hell is that? 89 00:08:53.540 --> 00:08:56.000 And it doesn't make sense. 90 00:08:56.200 --> 00:08:59.160 Because I've seen people talking about art in Mexico, you know. 91 00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:13.500 But they see something that makes sense to them, like a woman running a machine or somebody doing the work of an architect laying bricks. 92 00:09:14.140 --> 00:09:15.960 They can relate to that, see. 93 00:09:19.020 --> 00:09:27.160 So that's what I'm saying, see that all art is not detached from politics, you know, like an old Chinese friend of mine used to say. 94 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:43.760 Yeah, you know, Mao Zedong used to say that there is no art for art's sake, you know, that all art is political, you know. 95 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:48.320 It's a long quote, you know, but I can't remember it all. 96 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:52.780 All I know is that he said that it's political, everything's political in art. 97 00:10:02.740 --> 00:10:06.260 Well, not only here but in L.A., you know. 98 00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:09.800 Like I said, this is my opinion, somebody else might say something else. 99 00:10:09.800 --> 00:10:27.060 But it was, people were trying to identify themselves, you know, like the Mexicans in L.A. and living in the U.S. would say, well, we're not Mexicans, but we're not Anglo-Saxon either, see. 100 00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:29.200 They say we're Chicanos, you know. 101 00:10:30.060 --> 00:10:33.720 It's the correct word because now they call us Hispanics. 102 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:38.380 When I was in San Antonio they used to say, you're Latin Americans. 103 00:10:40.280 --> 00:10:44.220 And before they used to say, you're Spanish Americans, you know. 104 00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:45.720 Or you're this or you're that. 105 00:10:46.600 --> 00:10:54.660 And the most advanced, you know, of the working class, even though they know that much about history, they say, well, these people, you know, they call us different kinds of names. 106 00:10:54.840 --> 00:10:59.920 We're not, how would you like it if somebody said you were British and you're not, you know. 107 00:11:00.620 --> 00:11:08.380 So they say, well, they call themselves Chicanos, you know, up to the, even now, of course, I can remember. 108 00:11:09.040 --> 00:11:14.900 And that makes an identity, saying, well, we're not from Mexico, we ain't got on against Mexico. 109 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:23.220 And we're not Anglo-Saxons, we're Chicanos, you know, with Mexican roots or whatever, you know. 110 00:11:24.400 --> 00:11:32.080 And the Mules were for the purpose of saying this is what we are and this is what we believe in. 111 00:11:32.560 --> 00:11:35.280 They took paintings of Ray Tijerina of New Mexico. 112 00:11:36.040 --> 00:11:37.860 They took paintings of Cesar Chavez. 113 00:11:38.640 --> 00:11:43.860 And then the more political, we took pictures of Che Guevara, as you can see, on the 18th Street. 114 00:11:43.860 --> 00:11:56.580 And, you know, saying that Latinos also have a history and they also support their heroes, whether some other people like them or not, you know. 115 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:11.100 Because me being from San Antonio, you know, the people that they say were our heroes were like the people who conquered Texas, you know, like David Crockett and Sam Houston or whatever, you know. 116 00:12:13.100 --> 00:12:16.780 And even as seniors we were, we said, these people are not our heroes, you know. 117 00:12:17.300 --> 00:12:19.200 Why do we have to look up to these people, you know? 118 00:12:19.920 --> 00:12:22.140 They have this picture of David Crockett. 119 00:12:23.280 --> 00:12:26.220 You go into the Alamo even now and you see John Wayne, you know. 120 00:12:27.280 --> 00:12:30.460 And then they got this white marble thing outside, you know. 121 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:34.620 They said, this is a monument to our forefathers. 122 00:12:35.100 --> 00:12:36.360 They said, well, not mine, you know. 123 00:12:37.380 --> 00:12:43.960 On the contrary, it's a monument to white supremacy, you know, siloed, colonialism. 124 00:12:45.680 --> 00:12:50.960 So those kind of sentiments were really strong in the late 60s? 125 00:12:51.620 --> 00:12:52.340 Mm-hmm. 126 00:12:53.620 --> 00:12:59.580 And people would, including myself, would try to say what we believe in the murals, you know. 127 00:13:01.400 --> 00:13:08.400 Different, and they were pretty strong, what we said, because the Latin was destroyed by the right-wing people, you know. 128 00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:13.940 They put swastikas or throw paint on them or, you know, they were well done. 129 00:13:14.920 --> 00:13:18.520 Like the one on Western 18th Street, I don't know if you've seen it. 130 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:20.020 What's it in the corner? 131 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:25.500 It's a, it's a, it's a, it's like a film of a camera rolling. 132 00:13:27.260 --> 00:13:30.660 And it's got a lot of sections, you know, like those packets. 133 00:13:32.040 --> 00:13:36.060 And it's got different, it's against intervention in Central America. 134 00:13:37.800 --> 00:13:41.220 So, so really, you know, all are more political, like I said, you know. 135 00:13:41.280 --> 00:13:43.360 I haven't seen one that's not, you know. 136 00:13:44.480 --> 00:13:46.980 Even if it's just a line on the wall, they're saying something. 137 00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:50.980 Or just like different colors, you know. 138 00:13:51.900 --> 00:13:52.260 Mm-hmm. 139 00:13:52.500 --> 00:13:54.500 So who are they speaking to? 140 00:13:54.500 --> 00:13:55.560 Who are you talking to? 141 00:13:57.300 --> 00:14:03.200 Well, a lot of times, in my case, it's directed at the younger people, you know. 142 00:14:04.220 --> 00:14:13.160 Because they being the most daring and the most, whatever, you know, they have more spunk. 143 00:14:13.500 --> 00:14:17.860 And they can grasp certain things, you know, whether it be negative or positive. 144 00:14:18.700 --> 00:14:26.360 And the thing is to tell them that there is a different way of thinking besides what they see on TV, you know. 145 00:14:26.560 --> 00:14:32.200 Or what they see the, especially like a lot of police, cop shows, you know. 146 00:14:32.260 --> 00:14:33.300 They have a lot of cop shows. 147 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:38.000 And they see that as being part of the American way, you know. 148 00:14:39.320 --> 00:14:45.040 They see John Wayne, they see Karate Moves or whatever. 149 00:14:45.580 --> 00:14:54.700 And then when they see these murals, you know, depicting culture that really belongs to them, they say, well, maybe I can relate to that too, you know. 150 00:14:54.920 --> 00:14:58.700 Because a lot of these kids, some of them don't even speak Spanish, you know. 151 00:15:00.480 --> 00:15:06.560 And it's on the count that they think that to speak English is better than to speak Spanish, you know. 152 00:15:06.880 --> 00:15:09.820 That they're accepted more. 153 00:15:10.440 --> 00:15:21.820 And with the murals like this one that we're doing, it shows two young people, you know, taking over certain aspects of history, you know. 154 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:32.400 And it says that it's up to them and the people now, but mostly up to them to get things straight, you know, whatever needs to be straight, you know. 155 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:39.280 To change politics or to get rid of a system that's bad, you know. 156 00:15:40.700 --> 00:15:48.300 And it shows that they can get involved and it shows that the mural itself shows that they can do artwork too because there's about ten kids working on it. 157 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:55.940 And a lot of people figure that maybe they can do it, but with good direction, they can do it, you know. 158 00:15:56.940 --> 00:15:59.940 I say anybody can paint. If I can paint, anybody can paint. 159 00:16:01.160 --> 00:16:02.600 You got that wrong. 160 00:16:05.140 --> 00:16:08.620 So what, a lot of things, what you're saying is really interesting. 161 00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:13.320 There's a lot of things I'd like to ask about it, but one thing is like what does it do to bring those kids in? 162 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:16.140 What do you hope to achieve by having the kids work with you? 163 00:16:19.500 --> 00:16:27.380 Well, it's not like, like if we do something like that, that they'll forever be enlightened about certain things. 164 00:16:28.980 --> 00:16:35.000 But I can always walk into this community and see a lot of kids and they say, well I worked in that mural, I did this and I did that, you know. 165 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:47.200 As opposed to, you can hear in this neighborhood, some guy got shot right in the corner, you know, because he was wearing his cap lopsided or wearing the wrong color jacket, you know. 166 00:16:48.680 --> 00:16:51.960 See, you know what I mean? It's the other side of the coin. 167 00:16:51.960 --> 00:16:57.540 That not everything is negative, like Tristan was saying. You walk down this neighborhood, everybody looks friendly, you know. 168 00:16:58.360 --> 00:17:04.140 It's not that people are hostile, but something is causing those gangs to act that way, you know. 169 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.500 And part of the thing that's doing it is the drugs, you know. 170 00:17:08.260 --> 00:17:10.220 Because you make a lot of money selling drugs. 171 00:17:11.760 --> 00:17:15.380 It's better than working at McDonald's and if a guy's getting $3 an hour there, whatever. 172 00:17:16.020 --> 00:17:19.560 And he can sell drugs and make $50 a day or more at school, you know. 173 00:17:20.100 --> 00:17:22.620 He's liable to do that, you know. 174 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:29.960 If he's not, if his parents or whatever, counselors haven't put something different in his head. 175 00:17:30.500 --> 00:17:35.760 And I figure that the art, as far as the community murals are doing that, you know. 176 00:17:37.220 --> 00:17:43.440 Giving them a more positive way of exercising their energies. 177 00:17:46.580 --> 00:17:53.500 Back in the late 60s again, what were the main themes that you guys were painting? What were the main issues? 178 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:59.080 60s and 70s, like I said, was like mostly the identity thing. Yeah. 179 00:18:00.800 --> 00:18:06.340 And that's when we were doing this in the neighborhoods, okay. 180 00:18:08.060 --> 00:18:12.460 1826, little village, different places. 181 00:18:15.900 --> 00:18:18.720 And a lot of them didn't have no funding. We didn't have any funding. 182 00:18:19.500 --> 00:18:23.460 We'd get money from neighborhood stores or the businesses and we'd do it. 183 00:18:24.260 --> 00:18:29.100 With little or no, you know, what you call salary, money. 184 00:18:29.860 --> 00:18:31.920 We did it because we wanted to do it. 185 00:18:32.700 --> 00:18:35.540 They said, well, figure we might make some money later on, you know. 186 00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:45.560 And then what happened was that, like I was saying to him the other day, a lot of the college students, you know. 187 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:50.780 You know, the art students in school are always looking for something different than what they're being taught, you know. 188 00:18:50.800 --> 00:18:51.800 That's been going on for. 189 00:18:54.260 --> 00:18:59.680 So the art teachers at the Art Institute or whatever, they didn't teach mural art there. 190 00:19:00.320 --> 00:19:03.100 Or any school here in town that I know, you know. 191 00:19:03.100 --> 00:19:06.100 Maybe they do now because of the muralists. 192 00:19:07.280 --> 00:19:08.480 They're here now, but not before. 193 00:19:09.700 --> 00:19:17.960 So anyway, these students would come out to the neighborhood and say they liked it, you know. 194 00:19:18.260 --> 00:19:20.940 And they would, you know, like start working on it. 195 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:22.600 Take some projects on their own. 196 00:19:24.340 --> 00:19:27.000 And they did a very good job too, you know. 197 00:19:28.480 --> 00:19:31.960 But then these agencies with the money came up, you know. 198 00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:36.420 And they were better qualified to write, you know, proposals and stuff like that. 199 00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:37.680 And they were giving a lot of money. 200 00:19:40.760 --> 00:19:45.700 So I'm not trying to be negative about it, but there's only one place they could paint. 201 00:19:46.320 --> 00:19:49.780 When they got the money, it had to be under a British neighborhood, you know. 202 00:19:50.420 --> 00:19:52.980 So they'd go there and do the murals. 203 00:19:53.900 --> 00:19:59.220 And of course, when we were there, they said, well, it's not like this is our territory or nothing. 204 00:19:59.220 --> 00:20:00.700 But we've been doing this. 205 00:20:00.900 --> 00:20:03.220 We want some of the funds too, you know. 206 00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:04.120 We've been doing this. 207 00:20:04.180 --> 00:20:05.140 It was like getting paid anyway. 208 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:09.940 So it worked out pretty good, you know. 209 00:20:09.940 --> 00:20:11.960 There was a few groups for them. 210 00:20:12.320 --> 00:20:18.440 One being the Chicago mural group that Weber and I think Bill Walker started. 211 00:20:18.660 --> 00:20:21.960 But I'm not sure, but I know it was him and Walker. 212 00:20:23.780 --> 00:20:26.680 And I was with them for a long time, you know. 213 00:20:26.680 --> 00:20:29.500 Doing the, doing artwork. 214 00:20:31.300 --> 00:20:34.440 But now we're, we got our own group, you know. 215 00:20:35.420 --> 00:20:38.360 It's the Chicago Urban Arts at Casablanca. 216 00:20:39.460 --> 00:20:41.020 And we're doing stuff there, you know. 217 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:43.260 Also teaching art there, you know. 218 00:20:44.260 --> 00:20:50.960 Drawing, painting, sculpture, whatever comes up, you know. 219 00:20:51.580 --> 00:20:54.980 Have the issues changed now when you go out and paint a mural now? 220 00:20:55.140 --> 00:20:56.500 Are you dealing with different issues? 221 00:20:57.140 --> 00:21:05.700 Well, the politics or, see, to paint a mural, you can draw from a lot of things that are happening now, you know. 222 00:21:07.520 --> 00:21:09.420 One of the biggest things that happened is the drugs, you know. 223 00:21:11.600 --> 00:21:14.040 And racism is still here like that mural talks about. 224 00:21:14.220 --> 00:21:16.640 A lot of people say, well, like I was telling him too, you know. 225 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:19.660 They say that the swastika, you know, that's out of place now. 226 00:21:19.660 --> 00:21:21.520 It belongs in the 30s. 227 00:21:21.700 --> 00:21:29.640 And I said, why come, these people still, you go up north and you see all this, you know, racist elements, right? 228 00:21:29.700 --> 00:21:35.260 And swastikas and drawing swastikas and talking about white power yet, you know. 229 00:21:36.880 --> 00:21:37.780 So they're still around. 230 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:43.840 So we used to use the symbols that they were there then and they're still here now, you know. 231 00:21:45.260 --> 00:21:50.260 And as far as drugs, you know, they're still coming in. 232 00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:54.640 Just like, just recently the banks, some of the banks were involved in laundering drug money. 233 00:22:00.140 --> 00:22:03.940 And Bush is talking about giving the Contas more money also, you know. 234 00:22:05.460 --> 00:22:07.420 And they're dealing with drugs. 235 00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:15.400 According to one guy, he says the reason they have to deal in drugs is to fight communism, they say. 236 00:22:17.500 --> 00:22:21.000 Stabilize, what do you call it, Central America. 237 00:22:22.720 --> 00:22:24.020 And numb this here, I guess. 238 00:22:26.900 --> 00:22:37.020 So a lot of the, what do you call it, the subject deal with contemporary politics, you know. 239 00:22:38.180 --> 00:22:44.400 We sometimes don't look too much different than the ones in the past because we've still got the same problems, only worse now. 240 00:22:45.940 --> 00:22:48.400 There's more people involved in it. 241 00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:51.180 Younger people involved in it. 242 00:22:51.180 --> 00:22:55.880 You see people 10 years old selling drugs now, you know. 243 00:22:56.100 --> 00:22:58.800 Or involved in different things like that. 244 00:23:00.840 --> 00:23:10.000 So the message in the mirror would be, you know, that it's up to them actually to get rid of their problem that bothers them, you know. 245 00:23:11.540 --> 00:23:13.700 So how do you decide that, you know, you see a wall? 246 00:23:13.820 --> 00:23:17.040 I always imagine you guys like looking at walls and going, what a great wall. 247 00:23:17.600 --> 00:23:18.500 Yeah, I always do that. 248 00:23:19.220 --> 00:23:20.200 All of them do that, you know. 249 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:24.320 So when you look at a wall, how do you decide what you call, I mean, do you just have this vision? 250 00:23:24.520 --> 00:23:26.340 How do you figure out what goes on that wall? 251 00:23:29.380 --> 00:23:33.240 Well, see, it depends what's going on in that community, see. 252 00:23:33.700 --> 00:23:39.120 Because what you would paint, for instance, in one community might not fit in the other, see. 253 00:23:39.120 --> 00:23:55.600 For instance, in the 60s when they were doing the identity art, it would fit more in ethnic, Mexican ethnic or Arab ethnic or whatever ethnic it was in that area, see. 254 00:23:57.340 --> 00:24:06.040 And you decide, you meet with people and then you discuss a theme, you know, what the theme's going to be about. 255 00:24:07.080 --> 00:24:15.960 It could be everything from child care to the homeless, you know, depending on what it is. 256 00:24:16.320 --> 00:24:24.840 Like in 1979, maybe I got the year wrong, I don't know, when it was the year of the child, a lot of people were doing murals dealing with children. 257 00:24:26.680 --> 00:24:32.200 And I think John did some on that line, I did too, you know. 258 00:24:33.800 --> 00:24:51.480 And then, for instance, you go to a museum like the Field Museum and we did one dealing with, it was Mother's Day, so it was dealing with the mother, you know. 259 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:58.700 And since it was a museum, you know, we had people, you know, participating there. 260 00:24:59.320 --> 00:25:06.000 But the theme was appropriate in that area to be done about the mother. 261 00:25:07.300 --> 00:25:15.820 And the other one was about, one before that we did was on past, present and future, you know. 262 00:25:15.820 --> 00:25:20.680 Being in a museum, you know, they got a lot of stuff that belonged back a thousand years. 263 00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:23.940 And they got a lot of stuff that's closer to now. 264 00:25:24.600 --> 00:25:29.820 So we got the idea to do one past, present and future, you know. 265 00:25:31.080 --> 00:25:36.220 Each area you go to calls for a different, in my book, calls for a different theme, you know. 266 00:25:36.760 --> 00:25:38.040 High school might call for one. 267 00:25:38.040 --> 00:25:41.720 You go to a kindergarten, call for another thing. 268 00:25:41.780 --> 00:25:46.200 You go to a college and it might call for something else. 269 00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:53.200 Or you go to a union hall and it deals with workers' history or whatever. 270 00:25:55.220 --> 00:26:00.420 Each place calls for a different story to be told, I guess. 271 00:26:01.500 --> 00:26:03.500 You said that you talk to people. 272 00:26:03.980 --> 00:26:05.940 How does the community actually have input? 273 00:26:05.940 --> 00:26:10.280 Do they have input with you in a sense about what's going to go on in that wall? 274 00:26:11.580 --> 00:26:12.840 In some cases, yeah. 275 00:26:13.840 --> 00:26:20.280 Like in this case, I usually, I kind of make my own ideas, you know. 276 00:26:20.680 --> 00:26:26.700 And then when the children help, they can come up with ideas too, you know. 277 00:26:27.080 --> 00:26:30.200 But usually I'm the one that's got the main ideas. 278 00:26:31.040 --> 00:26:37.680 In other cases, they might specify, well, we want some to deal with this in particular, you know. 279 00:26:38.500 --> 00:26:42.100 And I might go along with it sometimes, yeah. 280 00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:47.360 Like we did one at El Rincon, you know Rincon? 281 00:26:48.340 --> 00:26:49.580 You familiar with it? 282 00:26:50.020 --> 00:26:50.380 That area? 283 00:26:50.800 --> 00:26:55.040 Western and Milwaukee. 284 00:26:55.260 --> 00:26:57.080 I think Susan's taken us over there. 285 00:26:59.020 --> 00:27:01.900 But it was a methadone clinic. 286 00:27:02.220 --> 00:27:02.800 It's a what? 287 00:27:03.120 --> 00:27:03.520 Methadone. 288 00:27:03.720 --> 00:27:04.880 I don't know if it still is. 289 00:27:06.520 --> 00:27:10.540 So when I went there, it's very tense there, you know. 290 00:27:12.020 --> 00:27:15.680 They don't like to be called junkies because they call themselves patients, you know. 291 00:27:16.100 --> 00:27:17.320 And that's what they call them, you know, patients. 292 00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:25.100 They were taking methadone, you know, to counter heroin, whatever. 293 00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:31.000 So of course, what are you going to paint there? 294 00:27:32.180 --> 00:27:33.320 I mean, those people are tense. 295 00:27:33.800 --> 00:27:34.820 They're hooked on drugs. 296 00:27:35.980 --> 00:27:38.720 The administration is tense because they don't like them, you know. 297 00:27:39.540 --> 00:27:41.560 They just got those clinics to make money. 298 00:27:43.500 --> 00:27:45.820 The patients don't like them either, you know, so the whole thing is tense. 299 00:27:45.980 --> 00:27:48.580 You go in there, what are you supposed to paint? 300 00:27:48.800 --> 00:27:52.800 You can't paint a garden and disregard what's going on there, see. 301 00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:59.920 So there was a couple of people that drew, that liked to draw, you know. 302 00:28:01.100 --> 00:28:03.620 They did pretty good because they had a lot of good tattoos on them, you know, 303 00:28:05.060 --> 00:28:07.720 well made, you know, that they had got in prison. 304 00:28:09.240 --> 00:28:11.160 And some of them, you know, had did it themselves, you know. 305 00:28:11.700 --> 00:28:13.640 They showed me, you know, look, I can draw pretty good. 306 00:28:13.740 --> 00:28:16.000 If I can do it with a needle, I can do it with a pencil. 307 00:28:20.320 --> 00:28:25.640 So I said, well, let's, whoever wants to get into discussion, 308 00:28:25.820 --> 00:28:27.680 we can get something going. 309 00:28:28.460 --> 00:28:32.840 And these people would sit down and talk, you know, and we would get ideas from there. 310 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:35.260 He said, we actually don't want to be junkies now. 311 00:28:35.260 --> 00:28:40.400 We don't want to be hooked on drugs, you know, but that's the way it is. 312 00:28:40.400 --> 00:28:46.480 So we can afford to buy heroin or cocaine, a lot of rich completely. 313 00:28:47.180 --> 00:28:49.400 So we come to this clinic and drink methadone. 314 00:28:52.440 --> 00:28:57.720 So we got the idea, you know, to do a mural on anti-drugs, you know. 315 00:28:59.480 --> 00:29:05.700 But not like now they say, just say no, you know, I can just say no, you know, to drugs. 316 00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:10.600 So it was stronger than that. 317 00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:13.180 We would show figures of people. 318 00:29:14.060 --> 00:29:15.700 The dealers would be like bankers. 319 00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:20.440 Like, like, it's not like we were predicting the future or nothing, 320 00:29:20.460 --> 00:29:24.020 but we already knew that it's big money that brings drugs into this country. 321 00:29:25.360 --> 00:29:32.120 So the figures dealt with the theme of drug addiction and drug traffic. 322 00:29:33.500 --> 00:29:39.080 And the people there at the clinic, except for a few of them, didn't like it. 323 00:29:39.720 --> 00:29:41.920 But most of them liked it and they said, go ahead and do it, you know. 324 00:29:43.360 --> 00:29:47.980 And it was done in panels and it wasn't like direct on the wall using 8x4 panels. 325 00:29:51.780 --> 00:29:55.140 So we stayed there for about a month and finished it. 326 00:29:55.140 --> 00:30:03.040 And when the people from downtown, the people from Rendezvous came and saw they didn't like it, you know. 327 00:30:04.040 --> 00:30:09.520 They say the thing is completely tasteless, you know. 328 00:30:10.580 --> 00:30:18.880 They say we're expecting something more joyous, you know, in a depressed area like this. 329 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:28.520 You want something to make people, spirits, you know, get, get, you know, feel happy about it. 330 00:30:28.520 --> 00:30:29.980 But this is depressing, they said. 331 00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:33.320 So the guy said, why is it depressing? We like it, you know. 332 00:30:34.100 --> 00:30:39.640 It shows who's dealing in drugs, who's bringing the drugs into this country, you know. 333 00:30:41.020 --> 00:30:43.400 It shows us that some of the doctors are corrupt. 334 00:30:44.920 --> 00:30:47.600 It shows that some of the bankers are corrupt, you know. 335 00:30:48.840 --> 00:30:56.460 And they say, well, it's just, I don't care what the guy said, one of the directors, he's got to go. 336 00:31:00.140 --> 00:31:07.000 So the director there said, I'll tell you what, let's have a dedication and then we'll decide. 337 00:31:07.880 --> 00:31:13.160 So we had the dedication, you know, a lot of people went, they had a lot of food, you know. 338 00:31:14.180 --> 00:31:18.580 And then they said, but tomorrow this thing has got to go, you know, that's what the guy said, you know. 339 00:31:18.960 --> 00:31:20.020 Because they don't like the politics. 340 00:31:22.320 --> 00:31:29.600 So finally, there was a lot of trouble, you know, people got mad, you know, the patients got mad, the administration got mad. 341 00:31:30.260 --> 00:31:32.960 They had already been mad anyway at each other for different things. 342 00:31:33.560 --> 00:31:37.740 So it brought it to a worse of point, see. 343 00:31:41.220 --> 00:31:51.640 So I was at work that day, you know, and then my wife called me and told me that she was going to, her and another one had to go get the mural because they had stacked it outside on the alley, you know. 344 00:31:53.880 --> 00:31:59.040 So we took it home and that was the end of that one. 345 00:32:01.060 --> 00:32:05.240 And I don't know if it still got a clinic there or not, you know, but like I said, 346 00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:12.940 this mural deals with certain, whatever politics in that little area is going on, you know, whatever is happening. 347 00:32:26.800 --> 00:32:32.260 Well, most of the murals, I would say, 90% of them were left alone, you know. 348 00:32:32.260 --> 00:32:49.140 But if you see some of them destroyed once in a while, people who do graffiti, maybe it's a street gang, doesn't like that particular gang in that area. 349 00:32:50.100 --> 00:32:57.800 And they figure that they worked on it, somebody worked on it, the worst thing you can do to a neighborhood is mess up a wall like that, you know. 350 00:32:57.800 --> 00:33:05.800 Like when we started this one here, the one we have here, somebody did some graffiti on it. 351 00:33:07.820 --> 00:33:09.780 So some gang slogan or something. 352 00:33:12.360 --> 00:33:19.360 So then somebody talked to that man and told him that it was a community project, you know. 353 00:33:19.360 --> 00:33:22.380 Well, it was an 18-year-old, something like that. 354 00:33:22.740 --> 00:33:28.620 And that if he wants to participate, he can participate in a better way, you know. 355 00:33:30.580 --> 00:33:35.160 And we painted over the slogan and he just left it alone, you know, he didn't bother it. 356 00:33:36.120 --> 00:33:41.200 The one on this side, the one called Shoot for the Sky, somebody threw an egg on it one time, you know. 357 00:33:42.060 --> 00:33:45.100 We just getting finished with it, yeah. 358 00:33:45.600 --> 00:33:47.040 And they threw one up there too, you know. 359 00:33:47.040 --> 00:33:55.040 But anyway, the reason this guy did it two years ago, because we won't let him work on the mural, so he got... 360 00:33:56.000 --> 00:34:01.040 We told him we had enough people helping, you know, so he came up there and laid some eggs on it. 361 00:34:03.340 --> 00:34:14.200 But I mean, if you, you know, if you have paintings in a museum that's protected for maybe, you know, thousands of years, is this art going to last? 362 00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:16.640 No, I think it's going to last, you know. 363 00:34:16.740 --> 00:34:24.300 I think as the years go by, people begin to respect it more, because you can go to some of the murals. 364 00:34:24.440 --> 00:34:26.200 I paint like one on the Spalding and North. 365 00:34:26.980 --> 00:34:29.180 There's a lot of graffiti around it, but not on it. 366 00:34:29.600 --> 00:34:32.700 Maybe nowadays, you know, but I haven't seen it in a couple of months, you know. 367 00:34:33.220 --> 00:34:35.040 But they used to leave it alone, you know. 368 00:34:35.700 --> 00:34:38.200 Especially if you get the community involved in it. 369 00:34:39.860 --> 00:34:47.320 Do you have a feeling about why it is that it's, I don't know, what you might use the word, Hispanic or Chicano or whatever, 370 00:34:47.460 --> 00:34:54.920 but why it is these neighborhoods where you see all this art on the walls and not Chinese and not Polish? 371 00:34:55.900 --> 00:35:05.840 Well, there are some in the Polish neighborhoods, like I think Milwaukee and Pulaski is one, dealing with the Polish culture. 372 00:35:06.580 --> 00:35:08.940 I don't know if you've seen it, close to McDonald's, yeah. 373 00:35:10.300 --> 00:35:15.620 And then there's one on 47, close to Market Park. 374 00:35:17.320 --> 00:35:20.100 Not as many, but there are some, you know. 375 00:35:21.160 --> 00:35:28.840 See, like now, what's happening is a lot of the people that have money, they're buying stuff to be put inside, you know, 376 00:35:28.900 --> 00:35:31.720 to be done inside their houses, you know. 377 00:35:32.560 --> 00:35:35.120 Mosaic, you know, relief. 378 00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:41.700 They used to say it one time it belongs in the slums, now they say it belongs to people who can afford it. 379 00:35:42.340 --> 00:35:45.460 And they hire people to do that, you know, a lot of people do that kind of work. 380 00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:55.220 Well, I mean, I saw that guy was discussing the other day, they said the same people who came out of the college at that time, you know, 381 00:35:55.220 --> 00:36:03.200 and worked in the neighborhoods, then later on got the idea, you know, they had more business savvy, I guess. 382 00:36:04.100 --> 00:36:07.940 And then they opened up their own shops and the ones dealing with people downtown now. 383 00:36:08.960 --> 00:36:15.200 Like this store that opened up Bloomingdale's and whatever you call it, there's people doing work in there, you know, and getting paid a lot of money. 384 00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:19.160 I ain't got nothing against them, they can do it. 385 00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:20.540 It's alright with me. 386 00:36:24.280 --> 00:36:26.480 But that's not what you'd want to be doing? 387 00:36:28.260 --> 00:36:29.180 I wouldn't mind. 388 00:36:30.400 --> 00:36:35.500 But I'd still be doing community art because I feel more comfortable here, you see. 389 00:36:35.820 --> 00:36:41.980 It's like this guy is doing this and this and that, my son's participating, my daughter's working with him. 390 00:36:42.800 --> 00:36:47.000 You know, it's, I don't know how to just say it, you know. 391 00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:50.680 It seems like they appreciate it more, I don't know if that's the case or not. 392 00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:51.920 It might be. 393 00:36:52.240 --> 00:37:00.800 I'm just getting back to the whole, it seems to me as an outsider that there's something about this kind of art that's really, 394 00:37:01.100 --> 00:37:06.040 I mean maybe there's some in Polish neighborhoods every now and then you see one on, you know, Michigan Avenue or something, 395 00:37:06.260 --> 00:37:08.600 but it seems like it's more a part of your culture. 396 00:37:08.600 --> 00:37:15.800 Well, see, to begin with, like in Mexico, you're going to the pyramids and there's a lot of murals there. 397 00:37:17.560 --> 00:37:20.840 So I might be mistaken, I'm not too familiar with that part of history, 398 00:37:22.140 --> 00:37:29.940 but there were, you know, like the Aztecs and local people that were doing mural art in the temples. 399 00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:39.600 And I would take a guess at it and say that it is, it has been like Latin's who introduced mural art 400 00:37:41.240 --> 00:37:45.100 because Michelangelo was doing mural art, but it was different. 401 00:37:46.280 --> 00:37:49.620 See, he just took the space and put a figure there. 402 00:37:50.780 --> 00:37:53.640 He took the space and put whatever space he had, he put a figure there. 403 00:37:53.680 --> 00:37:55.040 Well done, of course. 404 00:37:55.960 --> 00:38:01.180 But then when Rivera and them came along, they used the space in a different manner. 405 00:38:02.020 --> 00:38:10.580 They're the ones that introduced, that actually introduced the murals to the world, I would say, 406 00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:17.040 and using the technique that they used like Fresco and Cicero using the geometric lines, 407 00:38:18.180 --> 00:38:24.020 like I try to use sometimes, you know, and this other man named Hector uses. 408 00:38:25.940 --> 00:38:31.800 He's the one that, this guy Hector, he's the one that's been here a couple of years 409 00:38:32.980 --> 00:38:35.980 and sort of refreshing our minds on how to use that, you know. 410 00:38:36.940 --> 00:38:45.880 So I would say it does have Mexican roots, I would say, you know, the mural, the modern mural movement. 411 00:38:45.880 --> 00:38:46.440 Yeah. 412 00:38:47.760 --> 00:38:57.120 Going back to the people that were doing it like Cicero, Zolosco and Rivera and the rest of them that do murals, 413 00:38:58.220 --> 00:39:02.300 it does come from Mexican roots, I would say, you know. 414 00:39:04.180 --> 00:39:11.300 So of course, when we do it, I'm not thinking about that, you know, I'm trying to just do it 415 00:39:11.300 --> 00:39:15.800 so it comes out looking alright. I don't care what roots it has, you know. 416 00:39:17.620 --> 00:39:20.280 Well, I don't want to wear you out. Can I ask you a few more questions or? 417 00:39:20.300 --> 00:39:20.660 Sure. 418 00:39:22.020 --> 00:39:28.840 Oh, one thing that's curious about it, someone like me walks up to these murals. 419 00:39:30.260 --> 00:39:33.440 Are there ways that I could look at them to try to understand them? 420 00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.520 Are there certain symbols that are going to be recurring? 421 00:39:36.520 --> 00:39:39.620 You do see certain things in a lot of different murals. 422 00:39:40.040 --> 00:39:46.580 Are there things that you would tell me to look for or that you could explain to me that I might understand better? 423 00:39:48.020 --> 00:39:53.180 Well, I'm very basic about that because you will look at colors and you see bright colors, you know, it looks good. 424 00:39:53.200 --> 00:39:58.520 If it looks dark, you know, it's indicating something maybe negative. 425 00:39:59.440 --> 00:40:04.140 Like in this case, I learned to use symbols, you know, instead of putting a lot of figures, 426 00:40:04.140 --> 00:40:13.440 maybe use two or three and that's it and then colors and then maybe like it has a dark sky, cloudy sky, 427 00:40:15.860 --> 00:40:20.120 indicating whatever negative things are going on now in politics or whatever. 428 00:40:22.840 --> 00:40:31.020 And drugs and crime and instead of putting a lot of figures there indicating certain things, 429 00:40:31.020 --> 00:40:33.840 the storm behind it deals with all that. 430 00:40:34.520 --> 00:40:44.020 And then of course Thunderbird Dove indicates something stopping it. 431 00:40:44.960 --> 00:40:50.060 You know, it's not in full gear because there's people stopping certain things, you know. 432 00:40:51.580 --> 00:40:58.200 And the dove is not actually, it's not that white, you know, it doesn't look real white. 433 00:40:58.200 --> 00:41:02.060 So it means it's like in there doing something like working. 434 00:41:03.960 --> 00:41:08.020 And then under the wings of the dove you see different colors, brighter colors, you know. 435 00:41:08.640 --> 00:41:10.440 So it's not too difficult to understand. 436 00:41:11.040 --> 00:41:20.520 And then the two sides of the doorway show a boy and a girl in different atmospheres, you know. 437 00:41:20.780 --> 00:41:22.420 So it's not too hard to read. 438 00:41:22.420 --> 00:41:30.480 Though some people might do things like that, you know, put a lot of different things so that people look at it 439 00:41:30.480 --> 00:41:33.640 and keep coming back and trying to figure out what it says. 440 00:41:34.260 --> 00:41:35.480 And that's okay too, you know. 441 00:41:36.040 --> 00:41:40.380 But the way I do it, I figured I want to do it so that people can grasp it, you know. 442 00:41:41.560 --> 00:41:52.060 So that people don't go to museums often and they can see certain art forms that they can speak about, you know. 443 00:41:53.100 --> 00:41:57.480 Then I have to be saying, oh, this line curves to the left and it means this, you know. 444 00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:02.180 And such grace and all that that they talk about in the museums. 445 00:42:02.620 --> 00:42:04.120 I don't even know what they're talking about. 446 00:42:05.920 --> 00:42:10.060 All I see is a color and whatever the thing says there, you know. 447 00:42:12.180 --> 00:42:18.060 Do you get, I mean, obviously you were telling us this story about where they piled up your mural and made you take it away, 448 00:42:18.280 --> 00:42:21.040 but do you get feedback, a lot of feedback from the community? 449 00:42:21.040 --> 00:42:24.080 Do you paint a mural? How do you know how people are responding to it? 450 00:42:28.040 --> 00:42:30.620 The people usually like it, you know. 451 00:42:31.200 --> 00:42:34.320 Because you can see anybody on the street, even when I'm away from this area, 452 00:42:34.520 --> 00:42:36.240 say, hey, here's a guy that painted that mural up there. 453 00:42:36.600 --> 00:42:39.800 He's the mural man or the artist or whatever, you know. 454 00:42:43.160 --> 00:42:48.120 And see, a lot of the people don't like to be called artists, including me, you know, 455 00:42:48.120 --> 00:42:54.120 because it's better that we're known as culture workers or something like that, you know, 456 00:42:55.140 --> 00:42:55.800 other than artists. 457 00:42:56.360 --> 00:43:04.380 Because you think of artists as, I think as an artist when I think of Michelangelo or somebody like that, you know. 458 00:43:04.440 --> 00:43:08.800 But I ain't no Michelangelo, just like this guy told this other guy he was no candidate. 459 00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:14.280 So more of a culture worker, you know. 460 00:43:14.340 --> 00:43:15.980 So you don't think of yourself as an artist? 461 00:43:17.280 --> 00:43:20.960 Not really, you know. I never thought myself an artist. No. 462 00:43:22.760 --> 00:43:26.520 I just do that, you know. I consider it more like work. 463 00:43:28.540 --> 00:43:30.940 The work I enjoy doing, see, I enjoy doing. 464 00:43:33.720 --> 00:43:40.900 What sort of things, I mean, from what you, what you see your community going and the needs of the people on here, 465 00:43:40.940 --> 00:43:45.160 what do you see are the topics that you're going to be doing in the future? 466 00:43:45.160 --> 00:43:48.540 Do you have sort of a vision of where the murals are going to go? 467 00:43:48.820 --> 00:43:55.380 Yeah. Well, see, like we always have different ideas, you know, like this other wall that I'm going to do next year. 468 00:43:56.840 --> 00:43:59.180 We want to do some sculpture on it. 469 00:43:59.620 --> 00:44:05.740 Now we get enough money, see, because like I said, most of my murals are sponsored by the Chicago Office of Fine Arts. 470 00:44:07.280 --> 00:44:09.180 So we get a certain amount of money. 471 00:44:09.940 --> 00:44:21.400 And we're going to see if we can get maybe more money from other sources so we can do a three-dimensional cement relief, you know, 472 00:44:21.600 --> 00:44:32.140 and use different stuff that we see laying around like glass, sand, and different things that can be put into the mural. 473 00:44:33.800 --> 00:44:34.600 That's what I see. 474 00:44:35.160 --> 00:44:37.020 So you see them moving toward this 3D? 475 00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:41.500 In my case, yeah, that's what I want to do, yeah. 476 00:44:41.880 --> 00:44:45.360 It's supposed to just paint it, which is all right, nothing wrong with that. 477 00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:50.340 But we can get more money, we can, you know, do other stuff. 478 00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:55.880 And I hear they're cutting a lot of that, they might cut the funds for the arts, you know. 479 00:44:57.500 --> 00:45:05.020 So then, like a friend of mine was saying, if we get used to being given money by these organizations, 480 00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:17.480 and now we're going to have to go on our own, see if we got how to get a portfolio organized, get more publicity, 481 00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:26.260 and do what the guys downtown are doing, open up, you know, sell your own self, get the money your own way, you know. 482 00:45:26.680 --> 00:45:29.800 It's not too much depend on the agencies, you know. 483 00:45:29.800 --> 00:45:38.000 Which in my case, if it wasn't for the agency, Chicago's Fine Arts, I wouldn't have enough money to do a mural, you know. 484 00:45:38.300 --> 00:45:40.900 Because it cost about $5,000 to do. 485 00:45:41.480 --> 00:45:42.800 I mean the total of a mural. 486 00:45:43.720 --> 00:45:46.300 Let's not count scaffolding and all that. 487 00:45:46.800 --> 00:45:51.800 Because, you know, people from the boys club pay for the scaffold, you know. 488 00:45:54.340 --> 00:45:58.880 Are there certain themes and things that you think are going to change, issues? 489 00:45:59.960 --> 00:46:00.800 Oh yeah, the... 490 00:46:02.600 --> 00:46:03.800 Yeah, they're changing. 491 00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:12.860 Because for instance, if you go to an Arab community, there's things happening in their part of the world. 492 00:46:14.160 --> 00:46:21.260 And then the Latino community, this part happened in Central America, that might change, you know, that might get for the better. 493 00:46:23.200 --> 00:46:34.540 Or you see a lot of Irish people in their neighborhoods who are up on the politics of what's happening in their part of the world. 494 00:46:35.020 --> 00:46:38.940 So you would do a mural there, of course you discuss with them and say, well do this, do that. 495 00:46:39.820 --> 00:46:43.920 Ireland is not like it was before, but this is what it is now, you know. 496 00:46:44.340 --> 00:46:46.520 Or whatever country the man comes from or the woman. 497 00:46:47.940 --> 00:46:48.440 Mm-hmm. 498 00:46:48.980 --> 00:46:49.940 This takes just a minute. 499 00:46:51.480 --> 00:46:53.200 Pretty well talked your ear off. 500 00:46:53.540 --> 00:46:55.940 I don't know, did you want to ask a question or two?