[train humming]
[dog barking]
- I've been in front of artworks
and I've had really powerful experiences.
It holds me there and makes me wonder.
There's a connection, I think,
between works of art through different times.
I think they probably come from the same source.
There might be a river or something,
and this river of creativity
is what connects these artworks together.
And so if my work could do that for just one bit for someone,
I think I'd be happy with that.
[upbeat music]
My work came out of a question
of "What are you bringing to the table?
What's new to this 10,000 years of ceramic history?"
A question that was seeking something that was authentic.
Something that was my own.
Something that could be new.
I started drawing on objects that I made.
And the objects and the narratives
had a direct relationship.
It wasn't necessarily to tell a story,
but to capture the essence of a story.
And so to do that, I went back to where I felt most alive.
I was born in Oaxaca.
I lived there until the age of 10.
My friends and I, we all spend our days outside.
All day, you know, just playing in the street.
So in '89, I came here to Los Angeles.
I did the same thing here.
Spending all day outside, playing.
The neighborhoods were probably not the best neighborhoods
to be outside all day.
In my teen years,
instead of going to summer camp or summer school,
we would spend our days on Serrano Street,
drinking beer, getting into fights, you know.
Eventually, you grow up.
You see other people making the wrong choices
and you decide to make other choices.
So I ended up in college,
not forgetting where I was coming from.
I have a great love for Mexico, and there's a lot of influence
from the Mexican culture in my work.
But some of us see ourselves
as being from both the U.S. and Mexico
and maybe not having too many distinctions.
- This one's a little stiff.
More stiff than the others. - Is it?
Is it? - Yeah.
There you go.
- Assistant: Yeah.
- I like fighting with my work.
It's not all pleasant.
It's not all pretty.
Sometimes I go in the studio
and I'm not happy with what's going on,
and, you know, I have to fight with my work.
My goal is just to keep it alive.
They don't make them like they used to.
I knew that I wanted to make a form
that had some interesting textures,
some interesting movements,
because the images are going to be invited
by all these structures.
I spend time with the form as it's drying.
I'll start thinking about what images could exist in this form.
I don't think I decided, you know,
I'm going to become an artist.
In my childhood, there was always a creative side of me,
and I think I carried that creativity
into my teen years through graffiti.
So as a kid, in a sense, I had an artistic practice,
whether you wanna call it that or not.
My earliest works were influenced
by black and white prison drawings
and the rich pictorial imagery of the great Mexican muralists.
[gentle jazzy music]
This piece actually started with this little guy,
with that little image.
I knew that with this form,
I wanted to do something that had to do with resilience.
And so this coyote,
I thought about this coyote, how it can survive,
and then other images that has to do with resilience
and survival and growth and overcoming,
and resistance came about.
I wanted to live life, according to my own, sort of,
I don't wanna say rules, but determinations.
So this sense, autonomy, where did it come from?
I thought about it more and more.
Well, it came from the patriarchy I grew up in, under,
headed by my grandfather.
In his youth, he was a famous bull rider.
Fearless, right?
He was the sailor of his ship.
But with that, I think also came the ideals of the patriarchy,
ideals of masculinity.
They were outdated.
They didn't make sense in the world that I was living
or that I was choosing to live in.
You know, some of them have to do with honor,
with valor, being fearless, but others are not so positive.
I have an image of my uncle
looking into the patio where I used to play.
He's paralyzed now.
He was beaten quite violently
and maybe left for death because he was gay.
With this piece,
I was thinking about those very somewhat violent attitudes
that have to do with a masculine identity.
Those kids, my cousin and I,
were expected to help people sacrificing a goat.
But, of course, we couldn't flinch,
so they would give us a shot of mezcal
to wash away our fear.
And so I thought about this attitude
of how you suppress certain emotions such as fear.
And I think, you know, art is the perfect vehicle
to express ideas that maybe you cannot express with words.
The creativity I invest in my work,
it's similar to the creativity I invest in teaching.
I get thirsty when I talk,
so I have to keep drinking tequila.
[students laugh] I mean water.
Water.
For me, it's not only teaching the material,
the techniques of clay, the safety involved,
but also, it's about opening doors of opportunities,
doors of creativity.
I mean, who isn't fascinated by clay, right?
Once you see somebody using this lump of dirt
and making something on the wheel, it's somewhat magical.
And I'm going to squeeze and I'm going to follow the clay.
I don't think clay has any nationality, right?
Because it's a material that has been used
for thousands of years by people before there were even nations.
And so I think when people learn to work with clay,
they access something that it's very human.
Something where skin color or nationalities
or political beliefs or religion or gender
has nothing to do with it, yeah?
But really, honestly, the most important aspect of ceramics
is just to do things over and over again until it's perfect.