Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You New Mexico Poet Laureate Lauren Camp transforms community voices into epic poems and shares her extraordinary journey through the Grand Canyon’s night skies.

Empowering incarcerated youth, a community mural brings hope and shows a future beyond jail.

From hardship to high design, Randy D. Williams founded Talley & Twine to craft high-quality timepieces that are also works of art.

It's all ahead on Colores!

A New Kind of Poetry >>Faith: Lauren, thank you for joining us today on Colores.

I'm super excited to have you here to talk about your poetry and your new epic poem project.

So "In Old Sky", the book you've brought with you today, it's really an evocative collection, deeply rooted in your time at the Grand Canyon.

Can you talk a little bit about that and how this book "In Old Sky" came to be?

>>Lauren: Yes.

In August, 2022, I was invited to be astronomer in residence at Grand Canyon National Park on the South Rim.

That meant I had a month to live at the edge of the canyon and observe the darkness, really, in whatever way I chose to do it.

So, that meant, for me, a lot of walking around at night, in the darkness, sometimes in the morning, but just paying attention to what darkness was like and how I could pull it into language, how I could shape it through language.

My typical way of writing a poem is to first go to the visual and in darkness you don't have that.

So instead I was going to any number of other senses like what does this sound like?

What am I hearing?

What am I experiencing?

What does the air feel like now?

What's the little bit of color that's coming in over on this edge or, you know, anything?

And pulling that into a number of poems, I found the whole experience so extremely extraordinary and powerful.

The very last night, just before I was leaving Grand Canyon, we went out near the rim in really dark darkness and I read one of my poems in the darkness, which is fantastic.

It was just a chance to grab a little bit of the experience of my being there and my words that I had worked on in that month and sort of throw them out to the edge of the canyon.

Instructions on the sky.

I went back to the stars, their inner splash, their hook and flight.

I sat in the brave dark, perhaps to shuck the world's usual chemistry.

Its thick, leftover charge.

I wanted to score onto me the visible, no tether to such dimension.

Is this then a poem about survival?

If so, it must be always beginning.

Let me squeeze my uses into a pocket as I enter the growing notational hoop of the heavens.

Let this be against what we've built that we've heavily titled with the long side of lights, the cantilevers around us factories, blue lots, how hungry we seem to be for the peck and quarrel of illumination.

I don't know about you, but I desire the shock of the whispers of gloaming and gloom.

I think if we focus on this and the purples born from it, we'll see glimmers all the way through.

>>Faith: You talked about how you brought the community together to talk about the Grand Canyon, and that was also part of this book and the creation of it.

Can you talk a little bit about how the community was involved in the poetry?

>>Lauren: A few weeks into my time at Grand Canyon, after I had been writing about the dark from every angle and every sense and every bit of language that I could, I turned to visitors to the Grand Canyon to give me their views of darkness.

I put out collection boxes at every visitor center on the South Rim and little cards and pencils and invited the community not to write a poem, but to -- just to respond to little statements that I had started for them.

Like "tonight I am", or "tonight I will", for example.

And they were different in each visitor center, but I just put those out and invited them to add their voice to what we were building.

And they did.

They did by the hundreds.

So, at the end of a few weeks, I gathered their responses, brought them back to my space where I was staying, and started compiling them, curating them, like moving them around and building what I called an epic poem from them.

So entirely other people's words, me constructing it, but basically a giant collage of darkness by every person who was at the Grand Canyon who wanted to have their voice heard.

>>Faith: What kind of responses did you get?

Doing that?

>>Lauren: Oh my God.

Well, I got quirky responses, kid responses, very serious responses, some people pouring out their hearts about the darkness like all across the board and responses in other languages that we translated for the most part where we could.

Like, it just was so exciting to enlarge darkness in that way.

Waxing Crescent.

The sun chased away by the wolf pack of night.

Tonight I am safe in the blurring endless sky, letting go, the burdens of muscle.

I'm going to pause thinking and start feeling the light plays tricks.

Flex pink, orange, lavender, in the ocean of night swim, celestial fishes, little cricket songs, stars, the past beacons, dream the ground, wink, beckoning, bring us outside and together.

Tonight I will listen to the whispery creek, the grand scheme, ugly and beautiful at the same time.

Night is the reality.

Dark, a thick blanket.

We are not alone, but we are small.

The stars numbered one by one.

The eyes of angels.

I remember about silence.

Tonight I will see in the absence of light, I am the light in the darkness.

>>Faith: That epic poem for "In Old Sky" inspired your epic poem project that you're now working on as the New Mexico poet Laureate.

Can you talk a little bit about that project?

>>Lauren: So when I started as poet laureate, within a couple of months I had decided I wanted to do something similar around the state of New Mexico where different communities got to have their own poem.

But if you go to people and you say, hi, would you write a poem about where you live?

That's terrifying.

And so I knew I couldn't do that, but I also knew I could go to them and say kind of more or less, tell me and really descriptively, tell me about where you live.

And from that, I could do this same structure of building a poem.

And my goal as poet laureate was to reach as many of the counties in New Mexico as I could.

So, out of 33, by the end of my term, I think I will have reached 29 with this project.

So far we've put together, I think 21 of the poems.

They're extraordinary.

They're each individual.

They represent their communities.

They all differ in how they look, in how they sound.

And really part of what it has taught me is how different these places in New Mexico are from each other and also the few things that we share.

Like, I was recently in, I don't know, maybe Clovis, and they asked, what is a continuous thread for all the poems?

And we said, well, wind, chili, and sun.

You know, those things carry over across the state.

But otherwise, communities are different.

I know the projects, it's huge.

It's ambitious, it's extraordinary, it feels lucky.

>>Faith: And it gives people a chance to voice what they love about their community, but also in a way that's accessible, I'm sure.

>>Lauren: Yeah.

And also to be able to be proud of it.

You know, like, they created this.

I think people need to have a sense of self and place.

So I think if there's a kind of ownership, I think there's a kind of grounding, I think there's a kind of pride, all of which has to come from an individual and their voice.

So that collective -- sort of, crowdsourced collective response, it's important.

You know, your view of Albuquerque is different from my view of Albuquerque, and like, it's important to have as many of those voices as possible to give a more -- a larger sense of what each of these places is like.

Beyond the Wall (gentle music) - You are now at the Falkenburg Road Jail, which is our main facility for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

Presently, we house about thirty three hundred inmates today.

Of those thirty three hundred inmates, unfortunately we do have 31 juveniles.

Those juveniles are here because they've been either adjudicated an adult, or they're here on adult charges.

So because they're juveniles, they have some protective status and things like that.

So, that's why we won't be showing the inmates' faces, or their bodies here.

(gentle piano music) It's what brings us here today.

You'll see the mural behind me is an attempt to help these kids to realize that even if they are here, or if they're here visiting, that they can make other choices.

(upbeat music) - My name is Kiva Williams.

I'm the Founder of Mahogany Kids Fine Arts Foundation.

We empower minority youth through music, art, and dance.

At Mahogany Kids Fine Arts Foundation, we take pride in giving kids experiences that they wouldn't have outside of, you know, their own network.

I decided to do a mural because I went to the jail for, like a leadership program.

And the program director told me that they're open to people coming in and doing things with the juveniles, and I was like, "Oh my God!

An art mural will be perfect!"

I contacted my friend who's, you know, an artist, and I was like, "Hey, this will be a really cool partnership.

Let's," you know, "give it a go."

(upbeat music) - So, the mural is to inspire the kids to follow through with their dreams, that even though they are in a position currently, that that's not the end all.

That they still have a bright future ahead of them and that they should look forward to it.

My graphic design background aided me in developing a concept.

So, I drew everything out on the computer.

I was able to play with colors.

I wanted it to be bold and fun, something that will really uplift their spirits when they come into the building.

There's two days for the mural.

The first day, I'm gonna sketch it out.

I will also create it as, like a paint by numbers, so it's gonna be interactive for the juveniles, as well as our volunteers, which hopefully, we'll have some of the staff members, and they too will actually get to work.

So, we'll start painting and it'll all come together.

- I love the mural.

And I was in there when the artist was talking to the kids about, you know, what are their interests and what are their favorite colors, and she incorporated all of it.

So, they were so excited when they got the chance to see it on the wall and start painting.

The majority of juvenile offenders that we get are going to be around 14, or 15.

And they're mandated to go to school, so, they're either in K-12, or GED.

Their teachers are school board teachers, so, Hillsborough County School teachers, and they follow the same school schedule that the Hillsborough County schools follow.

On spring break, they don't have as much to do, they actually miss being in school because you know, they're engaged, they're doing something.

So, they were so excited to be here and be a part of it yesterday.

It was really nice.

(music fades) (piano playing) "Amazing Grace" - Ah, my kids.

(chuckles) They're amazing.

They call me Nana Chap.

(music continues) They're here for different charges, but if you really get to know them, you'll understand that their stories are about the same.

Dad may be in prison and mom is an addict.

And many of them are being raised by grandparents, my generation, which is not an easy thing to do, you know?

But to me, this was an opportunity for them to recognize the talents that they have.

And it's something that I talk to them about to pray for, for God to reveal what their talents are.

(music continues) And yesterday was a wake up call for them.

And they were so focused.

They were not playing around, or joking.

They were really focused on what they were doing.

That is beautiful.

And I told them, I said, "You know, you don't realize it, but you're leaving a little bit of your fingerprint here for the next generation that comes in here."

(music continues and fades) So unfortunately, the majority of the kids in the jail are Black and Brown youth.

So, as a mom of three minority kids, (gentle music) impacting minority youth is important to me because I have three kids of my own.

So, I wanna make sure that I'm being an example and someone the kids can look up to because I wanna do my part and serve in the community.

- It's important for artists and other people in the community to be involved with our juvenile population because it gives them a feeling of support.

And they know that they can do more than just be here, incarcerated without hope.

They can go out and they can get a job.

They can continue their education.

There are people out there that are going to give them a chance.

They're not just thrown away because they're in jail.

(gentle music continues) They don't have to stay here.

They don't have to get into the adult system and things like that.

So, we hope that everyone that comes in here, leaves here in a better place than what they came.

I think the mural's great.

I'm looking forward to seeing it completed.

This has only been a day, so two days to get this done is a little feat in itself.

(gentle music) We're almost finished.

We're on Day Two.

I'm really excited for the finished product.

- What I saw yesterday lifted their self-esteem.

And you know, it's really good for them to be able to do these things because they're able to release.

- When they came in, they were enthusiastic, they wanted to help.

They wanted to be a part of the process, and I feel like they were very proud of their work.

- I think this was amazing for both the youth and the adults to come together, work on something, having good behavior, and just having something to look forward to, to motivate them.

It was amazing.

Timeless Art (upbeat music) Talley & Twine started about 2014.

As an entrepreneur, the thing I get the most fulfillment from is creating.

(gentle music) Back in 2008 I was in a bad state financially.

I had just had my car repossessed and two of my investment properties, including the one I lived in were in foreclosure.

I was having a conversation with my cousin, who lived in Chesapeake, Virginia, I was in Atlanta and she said "you know what?

Why don't you just come and stay with us for a while?

We got an extra bedroom."

And I took her up on her offer 'cause I was clearly about to be homeless, and I stayed because I realized that Hampton Roads had a lot to offer for me.

Met my wife, and I started a business here, so...

When I got my first watch during my senior year in high school on a trip to the Bahamas, a cruise, bought it for $40, it was a Guess watch, and I just fell in love with it.

So for birthday and Christmas my go to gift was a watch.

One day I was on my lunch break at work, and my last job, I was talking to my wife, and I asked her, "What do you think about me starting my own watch company?"

I couldn't find watches in the price point that I wanted, I couldn't find the quality that I wanted, or the design that I wanted.

And as a creative person I just began to sketch out the things that I would want on a watch that I wanted to wear, and that's how Talley & Twine was born.

Once I figured that I had a design that I would like to wear, then I began my research process.

So I got on Google, and I realized that the next step for me was bringing the watch to life.

So bring in some real artists.

So I hired someone online to create a graphic design of the watch.

And then from there I hired somebody to create a 3d model of the watch with the specifications, the size, the detail, the materials that would be used.

I used that 3d model and I gave that to manufacturers and began to get samples.

(upbeat music) Talley & Twine is actually an intersection here in Virginia, it's in Portsmouth.

And it is near the location where my wife and I purchased our first home.

We became homeowners and got our first taste of the American dream, and it was significant to us personally.

I felt that it could represent just the change that occurs in our lives, and the fact we don't have to finish the way that we started.

As we've grown, I no longer sketch the watches myself, we start with an inspiration board.

This is a model that is not released yet.

I pulled together some images that kind of speak to how we ultimately want it to look, and then I give the direction for the designer over here.

I only feature the number seven on our watches.

So wanna build around this constellation cluster called the seven sisters, and incorporate that into the dial of the watch to have a celestial themed design.

So I'll give the designer this, and then they'll in turn give me back some examples, and then we can tweak it from there.

This is just the various pieces that we need for assembly.

We assemble those pieces based on what that customer wants.

So we received orders this year from both Macy's and Nordstrom.

But overall I think we wanna continue to keep that relationship with our customers, and sell directly on our website so then we can reach back out to them, and really bring them into what we call the Talley & Twine family.

We started with our leather band watches, but now we have leather band, metal band collection, and we also have canvas collection, which is our more casual style.

So I like to say that we have watches for everything that you're doing in life.

We have about 125 skews.

No two days are the same.

It involves some form of overseeing content creation.

As a digital first brand, our content is the most important aspect of what we do, so that's some type of photo shoot, video shoot, and coordinating that with our social media staff.

Also, checking the sales for the day, how are we doing?

Are we slow?

Do we need to get some type of promotion?

Taking a look at the ads, how much are we spending on advertisements?

A bunch of meetings and phone calls.

Who's wearing Talley & Twine?

A little bit of everybody.

♪ Tick tock you don't stop ♪ ♪ To the tick tock you don't stop The most recent incident that comes to mind was that the new mayor of Atlanta chose to wear Talley & Twine during his inauguration, his swearing in ceremony.

He's putting his hand on the Bible, and he has a Talley & Twine watch on for, you know, one of my favorite cities.

Looking at people's wrists is an obsession of mine.

It can be present day, it can be movies.

It really doesn't matter because to me I wanna see how it fits, why did you choose this design?

And also trends, I wanna see what are people wearing, why are they wearing this?

And where are they going when they have this on?

This is a collaboration that we did with Tuskegee Airman Association.

It's an officially licensed product.

Reached out to them probably last year, we've been in development for a few months after that, and we finally dropped it this year.

It sold out twice already.

It just features the P51 bomber flown by the Red tails during the war, and then it also has the red buttons to signify the red tail.

And on the back of the watch we got custom engraving with the Tuskegee Airmen logo as well.

My former roommate from college and I are business partners.

In about 2019 he came on board as a partner, he left his corporate job.

But we also used to be roommates at Albany State University in Georgia.

We decided to do a $10,000 business scholarship starting at Albany State, but also going nationally to other HBCUs for students who were interested in entrepreneurship and business.

(music) We've been extremely blessed starting out with nothing, and last year we did $2.6 million in revenue.

We're able to sell products nationally and internationally.

It's been a very rewarding experience.

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Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Fund, New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You.