Frederick Hammersley Foundation New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation ...and Viewers Like You.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

"SHOWING MY EYES TO THE WORLD" THE FOCUS ON YOUTH EXHIBITION SHOWCASES THE CREATIVITY AND INSIGHTS OF ALBUQUERQUE HIGH SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHERS.

PURSUING HER LOVE OF FASHION DESIGN, AARUSHI PRATAP FINDS HER AUTISM IS A SUPERPOWER.

CELEBRATING AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE, NICK DAVIS RENDERS DIGITAL WORKS THAT SPEAK TO THE BEAUTY HE FINDS IN BEING BLACK.

RESTORING VINTAGE SKI LIFT CHAIRS INTO WORKS OF ART FULL OF HISTORY.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

DISCOVERY AND EXPRESSION.

>>Josh Garcia: I think focus on youth is just super important to our community.

It's a chance for our students to show their work to everybody and it's a chance for everyone to come and see what's going on in school and see what our kids are thinking.

>> Haiden Gould: A photograph to me is like a nostalgic memory, like, you could take it once and that shot will always stay forever with you.

>> Luke McDonald: Photography to me is an art.

It's meant to tell a story of what I'm doing or where I'm doing it.

It's meant to capture the moments that I want to >> Kylan Yazzie: What photography means to me is being able to show your point of view of the world to others.

>>Vy Nguyen: Photography to me is a way to capture like a beautiful like daily moments in life and beautiful scenery.

>>Josh Garcia: What I really enjoy about teaching is that aha moment, but also just seeing them develop and grow over the years that I couldn't work with them.

>> Previn Hudetz: One of the wonderful things about teaching photography is we get to teach people how to be more creative with something that they're familiar with and how to really take that creativity to the next level of applying the new tools, the new skills, the new knowledge that they will obtain in our classes.

The focus on youth exhibition is a great way to see where the students are in terms of their artistic development.

It's inspiring not only for the community but also for other kids to see that this sort of thing's possible.

>>Haiden Gould: What made me want to tell the story is, I felt like a sort of like connection because I felt like in the time, in my place I felt at that state of mind where the guy was just really in the dark place it feels like.

I was driving during taking the shot.

All of a sudden I just see this man sit on the curb outside of the store and I literally stopped in the middle of traffic and I hurried up and took a picture and the first two came out so blurry but thankfully the last shot came out so perfect and it really just captured the moment.

>>Luke McDonald: I feel like when I take the photo, I take a picture of that moment that I will never get back.

That's my best friend and we were we were on the rock, you know, listen to our favorite music and we were watching the sunset and sunset was incredible and there was just one giant rock and it's just, it's unbelievable how that happens and taking photos of the planet's beauty is something that's really fun to do.

>>Vy Nguyen: My photography teacher designed a work that we have to do with thermal color.

I was passing through that area and I noticed just how the lights, how they were angled the light would give out the more warmth color everything other dark would give it more blue or like dark tones and that it would be an interesting photograph because your eyes would follow the lights.

>> Kylan Yazzie: This was during a trip that we took and we went into um like a canyon and I thought it was amazing.

It was like one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen, like, how deep it was and the lines that were going through the canyon showing just how old it was.

My dad actually told me to take a picture of him and so I thought it'd be cool to do, like, a little tiny photo shoot, making him the focal point where the lines are just going straight towards him.

Recently he's been working out of town a lot so I kind of like to think about it is that even though he may be away a lot of the times he's and I might not see his face he's still there.

>>Josh Garcia: I think expression for teenage students is really important because they have to - they're learning about the world and that's how you learn about the world is by you know talking, expressing and trying to put your point of views out there and then bouncing back off people.

Get that information back to you so you kind of understand who you are and what the things that you're creating, like, kind of, can mean and then getting that reflection back at you and kind of reinforcing your kind of identity a little bit.

>> Luke McDonald: I think it's a really helps me learn more about myself and more about those around me.

>>Vy Nguyen: The photos just makes me appreciate my life a little bit more and what I see a little bit more.

>> Haiden Gould: How I feel like the photography class has inspired my four-year-old self is by knowing that anything is possible and that literally anything is art and that if you mess up you could literally just work on from that or literally add on to make it more perfect you know and it kind of just made me feel like I had a lot of support >> Kylan Yazzie: Photography to me would be a way of showing my eyes to the world.

Showing them what I see on a daily basis.

WOW MOMENTS.

>> Art and drawing and sewing machine it's really important for me because it has a creations on it and colorful on it.

I draw with some sketch pencils and watercolor pencils on my sketchbook.

And sometimes I design some dresses in graphic art on my computer.

>> I think she's always been a fashionable person.

I think it's right from a very young age, She would be really cool clothes for herself, sometimes very flashy because kids go through that stage.

>> A lot she would struggle with her language and she had pretty limited vocabulary, until I would say she was even 10 or 12 and would kind of see her art as her style communicating.

>> First time I saw her drawing was probably when she was about three years old.

She would just for hours drawing and we would get her sheaves of paper.

And then when we would pick up the drawings, we figured out that they were actually telling stories.

Those were the earliest, "Wow" moments, I would say, in the sense that she did this whole series on pigs, and there was this character called Piggy and Piggy would fall in love, Piggy would face rejection.

There was absolutely no formal training in the early years.

>> I liked to watch the fashion shows and I got inspired from there and I designed some clothes and I saw lots of clothes.

>> And then when she was about 13 years old, someone saw her drawings at school and they were gonna have this fashion show for fashion design students.

So they said she young but her artwork is great.

And we would love to showcase Aarushi's drawings as dresses in the fashion show.

She drew like four dresses and they converted it into a dress.

And I think that kind of sparked something in her.

>> When she was 13 we actually bought Aarushi her first sewing We didn't know the source of it, we were not much of help, but she would learn how to sew from watching YouTube videos.

And she immediately kind of started creating amazing dresses and she would sketch her designs first and then create the dresses then.

>> I think I love vintage clothes and I love the vintage things and sometimes love vintage.

And sometimes I love new fashion look.

>> Special Olympics has been a major influence in her life, the kind of opportunities she got playing sport.

It just boosted her confidence and her ability to connect with >> Any sport that I would bring up to her, she was willing to go and try it.

She managed to go to State competition for stand up paddle, won gold.

She won gold for Cheerleading Competition.

She won gold for bocce ball.

She was in our basketball team and also swimming.

There was nothing Aarushi would not try.

Her resilience was impeccable.

>> What it helps, athlete like Aarushi is to become more confident and also to kind of get into a lifestyle which is more active.

So it's been a life changing experience.

>> Aarushi was one of nine student athletes throughout the country that were selected for the Special Olympics USA Game Logo.

They all were flown into Orlando and they were asked to make their own design.

>> And I designed these 10 logos and I got inspired by others and other athletes.

>> What the design team did is that they got a composite of all those logos and they created a final logo, which is like everybody's voice.

>> Aarushi became the spokesperson and was flown up I was able to be interviewed live on Fox News and they presented a USA 2022 Logo for Special Olympics USA Games.

>> Even though Special Olympics seemed to be something that was doing with her fitness and her sport.

It seemed to open up all of these other avenues in art, which hadn't before.

>> That Ms. Radigan was helping me to set up my Aarushi Seamstress Alteration Business.

>> If they needed mending needs, if they needed to have dresses made, Aarushi had a business right at school, we had staff, we had students and Aarushi kept busy daily with different projects that students and all would ask her to take care of.

>> I think that's where the sense of, "I can sell my work "and my services, and I can make money out of it."

>> I sell the masks and jewelries in Etsy Shops and I started in 2019.

People like the designs, it's made me feel happy I'm decided to go into South Eastern university at college for people with learning disabilities.

>> This has been my dream.

Aarushi becomes independent and lives by herself, goes to college.

And it's all coming through because of her because she aspired for it.

>> It's a very bitter sweet experience for us.

I think we will definitely miss her.

She has this strong urge to be independent, to have a kind of a full enjoyable life and that's what the college experience is gonna do for her.

>> I noticed that she has this way of finding meaning in her own art, which kind of centers her ability to think that I'm really good and therefore my life is gonna be good.

Even though that anxiety is there, she's able to find that anchor again and again and again.

>> And she actually shows us the fact that despite your neuro diversity, despite your challenges, how you can be positive, how you can wake up everyday being happy, looking forward and loving what you are and loving what you do.

>> My autism it's kind of learning disabilities, kind of spectrums.

Spectrum means that it's colors on it.

It has the colors on my brain and then visually on my brain because I have my autism, it has my superpower.

BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL.

I've been told I'm handsome, I've been told I'm ugly.

My goal with my art is just to show that black is beautiful, black isn't ugly.

My name is Nicholas Davis.

I'm a digital artist, I'm 28 years old, and I'm from St. Petersburg, Florida.

I've drawn all my life, and my family are full of painters.

I started off with portraits, just drawing random people, and then I learned Scribble, then CoCreate, and Adobe SketchBook.

I fully believe anything I see mentally, I can draw physically.

It starts off with an idea, and I'm usually listening to different genres of music from Kanye West to J. Cole to Jonathan McReynolds to Travis Greene.

It starts off with the lyric and then usually it just, I just usually go through the whole album, and my drawing just usually fools around.

I sometimes look around for, like, poses and stuff like that, just for encouragement.

But the dressing and everything else, I create those on my own.

And I just adjust the image and I throw on some clothes and I draw them, and I just create the image from there.

One sketch can take me from three hours to five hours.

Usually, I draw about 15 a week.

I draw all day.

I wake up, I draw.

I go to sleep drawing.

I'm unable to work due to my health.

I started having seizures a couple years ago which prevent me from being able to work.

And all my life I've had a struggle with showing emotions, talking to people.

I've struggled with depression, anxiety.

And with art, it gave me a chance to express myself, things I can't say, I can show through my art.

>> He is a gentle giant.

Like, he's very peaceful.

He's very calm and collected, and Nick vents through his art.

Some days you'll see a picture, and he's just like, I wonder if he had, like, a bad day.

And then you see pictures of stuff and you just, like, this is overly joyous, or he'll use mainstream people like Kanye West or Kehinde Wiley.

I know he did a piece of Kerry James Marshall.

And it's just like, you can see his inspiration in things.

And he doesn't have to verbally say them out loud, but you can, you get to see his thoughts.

And you get to see his heart through his pictures without him having to open his mouth at all.

>> I've always had a desire to give hope to people who struggle with mental health and I believe mental health in the black community is really not encouraged or shown.

So I try to encourage people to show that.

But with the eyes, I want them to always be looking at you.

To always be showing a message, to show a story.

And I believe with my art, it allows people to be able to It shows young men crying.

It shows women dressed up nicely.

>> I use this term, like with as much power as possible.

It's so normal.

It doesn't have this, like, hate attached to it.

It doesn't have any negative connotation attached to it at all.

It's just beauty and, like, light, and it's refreshing.

It's positive.

So people look for black art, and it's just like, down with the man, black power.

And he's like, no, like, I'm a kid who grew up on a stoop.

And it just makes it so normal and so relatable and so realistic.

>> He has one piece with the young black woman in it, and the bus is behind her, and it's like the first day of school, and you just feel it.

You get it cause she's almost timid, but she's happy.

And he has a great way of expressing a lot of different emotions in one still moment.

And I just love it.

I absolutely love it.

>> It's not your ordinary.

It's not like this black power movement.

It's like black is beautiful.

We can be soft, gentle creatures.

We are soft, gentle creatures.

We are kind, we are children, we are elder.

We're everything.

We're this force and this movement.

We flow and we can become and evolve into anything.

And I think he shows in his art and his pieces that fluidity.

>> A lot of people are, they come to me saying they're encouraged, they're inspired by my art.

I've never seen, I guess, the talent in myself.

>> Just watching him evolve over the years from when we first met, he was 17, and now he's 28.

Just seeing that, like, transformation for him going to, like, a, just a kid in St. Petersburg, Florida, making it through school to, like, this great artist who's so humble and peaceful about everything.

His nature is just, it's mind blowing to see how calm he is.

>> Oh my goodness!

>> I don't see it.

>> When I saw his digital work, I was like, this is great.

Then when I met him, I'm like, you're a teddy bear.

You are the sweetest.

He called me ma'am, and I was like, but sir, I'm not that old.

He was like, I'm just, I don't, I'm just trying to be.

And he's like that.

Even though his work is, like, super expressive, him in his own, he's just kind of like a little introvert.

So it's, like, so crazy.

Cause his work speaks volumes, but you can kind of like see him in his work too, cause it's, like, quiet statements.

>> It's so hard for me to show emotions, even with family members, with friends.

Um, with my art, it just, it shows the true me.

It's a new experience, and I'm just grateful to be able to encourage others.

ART YOU CAN SIT ON.

Three Peak Designs is a company where we source and refurbish vintage ski lift chairs.

So we source chairs, most of them from the 1970s and kind of bring them back to life for people's homes.

I think repurposing things in general is a nice way to reduce waste, but also give life to something that might seem like it's run its course.

And so I think it's just a unique way to kind of bring a product back to life and also use it in a different way.

The ski chairs, as everybody knows, are connected to skiing.

And people in the Tahoe community and outside of the Tahoe community and other ski towns are obsessed with skiing.

And so if they can have something that represents that sport for them year-round and at their house, I think it's something that is pretty powerful.

We had seen some people doing this in Colorado, and my business partner Ben had thought maybe his woodwork would lend itself to a project like this.

I had just moved to the Tahoe area, wasn't working yet and he asked me if I had access to any ski chairs.

So I just started emailing around town, got a hold of a couple, turned out they looked pretty cool and we finished them up and so we turned it into a business.

The business is mainly set up here in Truckee, Tahoe and we do a lot of the fabrication and installation here in Truckee, Tahoe.

But the woodwork is done in San Francisco where my business partner lives.

Ben does all of the woodwork, the new slats and the wood designs in his shop, and then we bring all of those up to Tahoe and I then install them here on location and then deliver them to the customer's house, which is mainly been in the Tahoe area, but has been as far as Bozeman, Montana.

When we get these chairs, they are what we like to call "In their raw form" so they have definitely been weathered over three to four decades.

So all of the paint is chipped off.

There is a decent amount of rust on these, and there's a lot of work to be done if they want to be brought into the home as a statement piece.

So what we do is we strip it down to the raw metal and its original form, and then powder coating.

So what they're doing there is spraying a powder onto the chair and then baking it in a massive oven essentially to get that paint powder to stick.

And the powder coating, the color you see on the chairs is all done in Reno, at a powder coating shop.

Our ski chairs have lived on the mountain for over three decades, and they aren't really just an object, they have a lot of memories tied to them, they're kind of a unique place, you can meet new people, I have no doubt that people have met their husband or wife on a ski chair.

Just being outside, being refreshed by the outdoors is something that you can kind of associate with these ski chairs.

And it also brings some of that nostalgia for people that have been skiing their entire lives, introducing it to their families, I mean all of that is happening on a ski chair.

And after so many years, these chairs are now moving into their, we'll call it their retirement, so they're getting cleaned up, we're bringing them into people's homes for functional art, is kind of what we like to call it.

It's kind of amazing to watch these chairs end up on the front porches of people's homes, this sport is that important to people that they want to show that this is something they care about, and that this is a skier's home.

I've been skiing and snowboarding since I was in eighth grade, so working on something like this and tying my passion with the small business that I'm running has been really, really great.

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Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Foundation... New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation ...and Viewers Like You.

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