WEBVTT

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Scene one, take three.

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Jose, you said once that your art was influenced or maybe some

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of your political feelings were influenced by things you saw

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in San Antonio, the Alamo and the fact

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that those heroes weren't really your heroes.

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Can you tell us about that?

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Well, see, the heroes of the Alamo are not heroes at all

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to nobody in my mind, most especially to the Mexican people

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because they were occupying the country, see.

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So those are the Alamo plus whatever else they got there

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or mostly like symbols of reaction, you know,

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to the Mexican people and to a lot of other people,

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but mostly to the Mexican people.

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They don't see it as a monument, you know, to heroism,

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but to oppression, you know.

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Has that influenced your art, what you think?

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Well, political art, that's only a small part of it, you know,

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the political art evolves from seeing whatever happens

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around the world, you know, or even here in the U.S.

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Do people respect the murals out in the community

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in a special way?

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Well, most of the murals are painted like Spaulding in North

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and Kastner in 26th Street.

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People leave them alone.

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They usually don't deface them or anything like that.

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For instance, I wanted Spaulding.

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It's got graffiti all around it except on the mural, you know.

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So people usually leave them alone.

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They respect them, yeah.

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Why do you think that is?

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Well, because a lot of times the people participate in them,

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you know, and they identify as part of the community.

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You had talked about not thinking of yourself as an artist

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or not wanting to be called an artist.

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What did you mean?

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Well, mostly as a member of the working class,

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I'm a culture worker, you know,

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because artists can cover a lot of things, you know,

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like Andy Warhol or people like that, you know.

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And they come from different classes, you know,

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so I would say to me I consider myself a cultural worker,

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you know, as opposed to artist.

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How are you treated differently

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in the community because of your work?

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No, because I consider myself more a cultural worker

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than an artist.

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I'm treated just like one of the people there, see,

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or like here, you know, I'm just a worker here, you know.

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I just work for everybody else,

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so they say you just work for us, you know.

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But you mentioned, you told us a story

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about being the mural man, people calling you a mural man.

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Can you tell us a little bit about that?

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Well, that's 26th Street

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because I've been going there every year, you know,

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so instead of saying the artist or the guy who's painting

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on the wall, he says they refer to me as a mural man, you know,

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the man who works on the wall, you know.

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Have you seen the results of your murals in terms

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of what you painted and you shoot?

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Scene one, take four, roll three.

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How do the murals affect the feelings and opinions

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of people in the community?

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Well, for one thing, a lot of them are anti-drug, you know,

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or anti-gang, whatever, so a lot of times, especially young people,

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especially the ones that help, would say, well, this is a good way

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of doing things and a good way of thinking, you know,

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instead of using crack or heroin or whatever, the mural sort

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of invites them to think in a different sense, you know.

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That drugs are negative or that gangs are negative

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or whatever the issue is.

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If you could paint a mural anywhere you wanted

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on any subject, what would you paint and wear it?

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What would I paint?

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Well, I've been doing stuff in schools and churches

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and there's a church on North Avenue that the guy wanted

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to paint and I would like to paint the altar and it would deal

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with, you know, people in the community and what they do

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as compared to other people around the world,

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which a lot of times there's a lot of things in common

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with people here in Chicago or El Salvador or Guatemala

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or whatever, Ireland or the Middle East.

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It's a nice idea.

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Are the murals changing since you've been involved?

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Do you see different techniques, different things?

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Well, the techniques are advancing, you know,

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because before they used to do it like collage,

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they just put up the pictures without taking

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into consideration the geometrics or taking

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into consideration the spectator, how he would look at it.

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They would just place a picture like a large painting,

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but now the people are advancing to a more advanced way

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of doing it so the spectator can see it

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from different angles and still appreciate it.

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Who are the muralists?

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Is there a certain kind of person who's a muralist

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or do you come from all different backgrounds?

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Well, they're from all different backgrounds because,

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like the guy I was working with at one time,

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the one that I was working as an apprentice with,

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he teaches at Amherst.

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He's an artist known around the world.

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His name is John Weber.

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So it's from different walks of life that people paint,

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paint murals.

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But basically they all have political ideas.

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Murals, especially murals are political.

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They're not just mere decorations.

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Mm-hmm.

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How did you get into painting murals?

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Well, because in the 60s.

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I should just wait a moment.

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Yeah, he was just.

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Okay, now we can.

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When I met John, we were doing like cartooning.

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So he was doing murals and he asked me

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if I wanna help him to learn the technique

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that he knew in doing large areas

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as opposed to small canvases.

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And I started working with him.

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Then I picked it up on my own.

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What do you think is the most important thing

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a mural can do?

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Well, like in this case, in the case of this mural,

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it can make people think that they can do

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bigger things than just paint the whole flat.

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You know, like you saw Bernie doing the lines.

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This is a way of introducing a new form.

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And it makes people think of different colors

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and that there's other ways of doing things

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besides the same way they've been doing it before.

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Why is it, do you think that murals are such a strong part

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of Hispanic culture and tradition?

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Well, it's not really, in my opinion,

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not confined just to the Hispanic.

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Though the people who brought it to the highest form

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were Mexican artists, you know,

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like Diego Rivera and Orozco and Cicero.

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So they identify mural art with them.

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But actually, mural artists at this point

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has gone beyond that being just Hispanic.

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It's not Hispanic only.

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It's, you see it at the Board of Trade Building downtown.

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You see it at the Expressway over there on,

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what's the name of it?

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Expressway?

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The Kennedy.

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And different places you see it in.

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So it's not just, well, this one right here, you know.

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But it does seem like you see more

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in the Hispanic neighborhoods.

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Do you have a feeling about why that is?

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Because when they started doing them in the 60s,

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that's where they were confined to, you know.

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And people would identify that it was art

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in neighborhoods such as, you know,

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poor neighborhoods or slum neighborhoods.

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That was identified with that then.

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Especially coming from L.A.,

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a lot of the people in L.A. were doing it

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in their communities, the barrios, as they call them.

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And so of course they identified with the Hispanic community.

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But now I don't think that can be said, you know,

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because it goes beyond being just Hispanic.

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You see people doing murals downtown at the fancy store,

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what do you call it?

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Bloomsdale, whatever, you know.

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Doing mosaics and different forms of art.

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It's mural, still mural, but it's being taken downtown

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instead of being confined to the neighborhoods.

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How do you feel about that?

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You're making it cold.

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That's okay, you can wait in here, I'm sorry.

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Scene one, take five.

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How do you feel about the transient quality of your work,

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the fact that it's outside and it can be affected

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by the environment or a building can be torn down?

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Well, see a lot of the murals that are being done outside

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now are being, we do them in a different way.

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We use better paints.

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We prepare the wall better.

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We tuck point it, we have to be tuck point it,

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we tuck point it.

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Scene one, take six.

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Okay, it's really the same question,

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but what I'm trying to get at is.

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About one step to your right, please.

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What I'm trying to get at is the fact

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that they're not protected in a museum.

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You put all this time in and they're outside.

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If you could address that, how you feel about that.

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They're not as protected?

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They're not as protected, they're out in the environment.

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Well, those are the chances we take.

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We do what we can to prepare the wall

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and then after the acrylic is put on,

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the acrylic's got a life expectancy of about 10 years

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without even being nothing done to it.

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So when we do treat the walls with the polymer gloss

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or a protective, some people call it varnish,

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it's good for at least 20 years before it starts fading.