We're rolling there.
Scene one, take one, roll four.
Let's take it back.
You could just briefly explain what you're doing here.
Well like I said this is a field house, okay.
Like I said before, being inside the field house, they are doing something different.
But I don't know anything different, so we do the same thing we've always been doing.
These were the plumbers, landscaping, painters, and the carpenters.
What sort of work do you do? I'm in landscaping, landscaping maintenance.
And the other guy helping me is a painter, right.
Can we stop for a moment? Scene one, take two.
You paint murals all around the city.
Who do you usually think of as who your murals are for? Who do you paint for? Well most of the murals are community.
So most of the murals are for the community or whoever around that certain community.
It's in the case of the one here.
Since it's in the park, of course the people that are in the park working inside the park are the ones that will view it, you know.
And of course the ones that also participated in helping paint it.
You've said that murals are more often for young people, that you're influencing young people.
Can you tell us about that? Well if it's, if the ones we do in the schools in some of the neighborhoods, they are for the influencing the younger people, yeah.
Except for all the other ones that still got a lot of time ahead of them, see.
And at the same time the muralist, as opposed to an art teacher, he would be considered with sort of outside looking in and to look for validation for his art, he looks to the art world.
And in our case, we don't do that.
We look toward the community.
If they like it, it's all right with us, see.
Me and my fellow murals too.
What sort of messages are you interested in conveying to young people? Well a lot of the messages include the ones we've done before, you know, anti -drug, anti -gang, you know.
And like I said, most of them all have to do with the neighborhood and to a large extent are political.
As this one here, you know, recently it might be political because it's got the plumbers union behind them and it's got the landscaper's union, painter's unions.
So it has to be political one way or the other.
You said that all murals are political.
Can you, or all artists are political.
Can you maybe restate that for us and explain it? Well for the simple reason that art is always connected.
Oh, we need you to say all artists are political and then explain it so that the audience knows what we're talking about.
All art is political.
For the reason being that anything that's painted has got something to do with the state or the city or the local offices in the neighborhood.
Like in the case of this one, it's inside the park district territory and the park district was just political, you know.
Is that a long -term tradition of the political nature of mural art? It's always been like that, yeah.
For instance, in the 30s, the murals would paint murals dealing with the depression, the strikes that people were going through.
And now people still paint about political events that are happening around the world or community -wise.
How do you pick a theme for a specific community? How does that come about? Well, each community or area calls for a certain thing.
For instance, in this case, it called for workers that work in the park.
If I had been in a different area or a school, it would have called for, you know, something that had to do with history, teaching, students, teachers, parents.
This one deals with workers, you know, with landscaping workers.
Who all is involved in deciding the theme of the mural? Well, like in this case, when my friend Bernie brought it up, he suggested we do the plumbers, landscapers, and carpenters.
So he suggested the idea, it was okay with me, so we went ahead and did it, you know.
It's not that the artist usually pops up his own idea, Usually somebody has suggestions, and the artist takes it from there and refines it.
What about if it's a community group? How would that work? Well, in the case of a community group, like this summer we're gonna do a mural with teenagers that do graffiti.
So of course, I'm gonna meet with them, and we're gonna decide what it is that they wanna put up there, see? Because the graffiti is something they're using now to an extent that they're using doing fine art with it now.
It's not like they spray it on the wall now.
They got a way of making it look like fine art.
So we're gonna get together with them, and I'm gonna discuss the theme, and then we'll decide what it is they're gonna put, what it is I'm gonna put, but it'll work together.
We're thinking of using silhouettes, you know, like standing somebody in front of a projector with a spray can, projecting the silhouette on the wall, photographing it, and then projecting it on the wall.
But that we'll decide when we get together with the kids.
What do you hope when you get kids working on it like that? What kind of effects, how do you hope it will affect them to be involved? Well, for one thing, like in LA, in New York where they're doing graffiti, the idea they have, or well, they can do graffiti pretty advanced, you know.
The ideas that they put across are very sexist, or very negative, but the idea of the muralist is if he's gonna do something, you know, and he's already doing it right, might as well do something that fits into a more positive light.
Who pays for it, you know, like in the community? How does it happen? Well, like in my case, when I've been doing the murals in the communities, Chicago also Fine Arts, I work for them, and they usually commission me to do the murals, you know.
Do you have to get a grant about it? Yeah, it's a grant that they give me every year.
Or if it's a private, the guy owns a business, then he'll pay direct, you know.
So what are the themes that are most important to you if you can choose, what do you like to paint? Well, as opposed to like, for instance, canvas painting, it's a different thing, you can do whatever you want doing canvases, see.
But if it goes out into the public, then it's gotta be something that hits a certain issue, or something that's happening in the community, you know.
Do you have certain messages that you feel very strongly about? Well, for instance, like the one we did last time called We Will Stop the Storm, the message was we will stop the storm, you know, like talking about the youth, mostly that in 12 more years, we'll be into the 21st century, and it will be up to them to stop the storm, you know, because they were the most daring, you know, as opposed to people up in the 50s who are saddling, they wanna just be comfortable.
The kids are still daring and doing things, you know.
Is that why you do murals, or I guess I should say why do you paint murals? Why do you personally do it? Well, the reason for the murals is to put across my ideas in combination with their ideas, and make a strong political statement, the stronger, the strongest possible, you know.
What about colors and design elements? How does that play into it when you're creating? Well, like in the case of this one, and the time is limited, we're trying to figure out how to use color and take up a lot of space.
As opposed to being very technical about shading and stuff like that, we take large areas and use a lot of color, because we only have a couple of weeks to do it in.
What do particular colors mean to you? Well, the colors are, the lighter colors, for instance, make the room look whiter, darker colors make it look smaller, dark lines like that one looks closer this way, a lighter color looks farther away, you know.
That's the reason for using colors inside a building, and with limited time.
Now, if you got a lot of time, then you can blend in a lot of colors and take all the time you want, you know.
Are there, what are the symbolic or psychological or human messages in the colors? Well, like in the colors, it's warm and dark colors, right? So we're using dark colors and light colors to project certain feeling, but in the case of this one, we're using colors that are familiar here in the park, see like yellow and the green.
Those are the colors that are familiar here in this area here.
You began painting murals in San Antonio or became interested there? No, I started painting when I was here in 64.
Were you influenced by things you saw in San Antonio? Not with the murals, no.
I was influenced mostly by the stuff that they were doing here when I got here, see.
Like a lot of the artists were doing political work.
So I was influenced by them, you know.
But you talked about the heroes of the Alamo and that you felt they weren't representing.
Right, huh? Okay.
Yeah, I was gonna kinda get into a political.
