Hello.

Welcome to Gallery America.

Today we're at the Oklahoma Contemporary Art center.

Every two years, they have a group exhibition called Art now.

It features some of the best artists living and working in that world.

Like, for instance, Leticia Bajuyo.

She uses discarded materials to make massive sculptural art To pose question about what we as society value.

Follow along as she goes fro the sketch to a fully completed massive beast.

Check it piece Okay.

then go a little further this way.

Do you need more bungees?

It's so nice I often get asked, like, how long does it take to make these there's the answer of lik how many hours here at the site?

I recognize how much went i to all of the collecting time.

But then there's also all of the prep before then just figuring this out.

So even though this is this piece, it took all the other ones to get here.

Oh, friends.

Season four.

Season six.

Disc four.

I tend to often joke that the line between a sculptor and a hoarder is a very small, small line.

so im basically knitting the My name is Leticia Bajuyo, and I'm a sculptor.

that way is like, over under this direction and that I am a little bit of a materials junkie.

I look for voices inside each of the materials and find a way to be able to incorporate them into a new object that they become, but still retain something of the original identity.

I don't want to hide what they are, I just want to sort of highlight it.

And then I combin those objects together and like kind of like a visual poem I basically will take a stack of CDs and I'll drill for holes in it, and then those holes become the anchors, and I stitc those together to make strands.

this sculpture is specifically for the Art now biennial exhibition at the Oklahoma Contemporary Art center, and it's going to be a site specific installation.

So it's a large sculpture, but it can only be built in that site.

it's built and designed based on a Hot Wheels track, like the loop that a Hot Wheels track would make or a roller coaster.

Kind of like weaving or knitting.

So I'm basically making my thread with CDs, and then I get to like weave those together like a basket.

But in this basket, each of the threads again are all of these memories, the memories that we have of the disc where you recognize, oh, I watched that movie, And so I weave those together onto a substrate.

These can't stand alone.

They need some kind of structure.

And so one of my favorite parts to do is to design the different armatures, the different skeletons.

Sometimes it's an inner skeleton, sometimes it's an exoskeleton, sometimes it's a little bit of both, dependin on what the specific site needs.

And it varies based on everything from installation, time frame, budget, size of their door, how long the show is going to be up.

All of those things go into the recipe and the magic mix where I have all these logistics, and then I get to design for that site.

feel the holes.

One, two, So, art now is our biennial exhibition we have here at Oklahoma Contemporary.

Really a celebratio of Oklahoma's creative ecosystem by featuring some of the best contemporary artists who are not only living, but working in our state.

I've done many drawings and then plans, but it's not until you're actually here and you find ou what the parts around you are.

come in this way.

Lift up.

I like that because then I get to continue to explore and design it on site.

So right now, this is what I'm envisioning I would like it to lean if possible.

So in that way, when you're standing in front of it, it feels like you're in it.

the first thing that we'll need to lift for is to do those mounts.

Yeah.

Going to the second one if there if it does look like it we might later might go to that one over there.

Just like want to When we were attaching the, the initial ratchet straps to pull the piece i whichever way we wanted it to, it took a few different tries, repositioning the I-beam clamps in a certain way, and it might be six inches over here, or it could have been two inches the other way.

Leticia was very, very hands on and working with her, collaborating with her, we never ran into an issue.

There was always a way to solve it.

we've worked together, and we bounce ideas off of one another, very rewarding.

It was, milestone in my life, bring this up a little higher, though, because that means that these two right now are at the same height I grew up in southern Illinois, a little rural town, about 7000 people So my dad's from the Philippines.

He moved to the US in 1968, during a time when there weren' enough doctors in the Midwest, my mom was a resident nurse They had a little ER romance.

they moved to Metropolis to raise a family.

being in this multi generational multilingual, multicultural househol in this quiet landscape created some joys, but also some complications And that has a lot to do, I think, with my my work I do now, and the way that I spend time thinking about each object and whether or not it's wanted or included, my goal meant I'm to move today.

Heart of hearts.

my goal would be to get all of armature set and the ratchet straps change out for cable once all of that's done then I can start using the bins of all the tied together CDs and start filling in the gaps between So but I think, I thin we should be able to get that.

I don't want to jinx it.

I In my particular curatorial practice I was intentional about choosing a wide variety of materials and mediums and how those specific materials really pushed the boundaries of their, traditional ways that they've been shown.

Leticias specific installation it's going to invite the audience to not only look at the form, this beautiful, massive architectural form that she's making, but also think about their relationship to the CDs and DVDs that she's strung together to create this piece.

I think at the heart of it, it's a dialog about value allotment.

What is it that we find to be important we tend to be a pretty fickle society.

We change your mind a lot.

And so what is it that had been our favorite song yesterday?

Or maybe, the most desirable approach to communication.

And then hasn't changed.

But we have But its not its fault as a material that is now just in this junkyard.

so you can find that there's a hole in it.

The outside.

Yeah.

So that's where we.

Yeah.

to twist it?

I got my hands on it.

Right there.

So my expertise is in hanging theatrical scenery and lighting equipment, audi equipment over people's heads.

So in here in, the art space, I use that to hang different types of big, unique pieces, from ceilings and stuff like that.

Leticia was great.

She's an amazing artist.

I learned a lot working with her and then just being a part of her experience and figuring it out was very, very fu and very cool to be a part of.

Okay.

Oh, wow.

You're like that in life, right?

Getting closer.

Which is.

Nicely done.

I've just learned that I would be able to stay late today, which is like magic words.

Good job.

Nice.

I teach tomorrow at campus, so I want to make sure I hav enough energy for my students.

But if it can help set Thursday and Friday up to be even more just copasetic.

That would be good.

I've been a professor for 24 years, and that has been part of my making almost as long as making as far as like as a professional artist.

And so the two for me are really connected, Okay.

I fin that my classes aren't classes where I'm necessarily teachin somebody how to make sculpture, see it going in a couple of different directions.

So, but they're actually empowerment classes, and we happen to make sculpture along the way.

Pretty much everyone in this class has earned in beginning sculpture.

So they've learned a way around the tools in the shop.

But now what do you do with those in a more independent way?

when we get started in the semester, one things I look for is what is it that their goals are for this term, and how can I help them individually as a group that we still continue to work as a team?

So what's going on right no is I'm finishing up a few more of the bar structures that go between those basket tubes And so I'm now up in the top right area.

They're almost all secured.

And so I'm finishing those up whil Christian is up on that ladder.

And what he's doing is he' changing out the ratchet straps.

and replace them with the aircraft table.

when I'm using the CD I'm borrowing this what they usually would do, and I'm giving them this other life, but I'm also keeping them out of their waste stream.

I And so I try to find materials and ideas that I can use that minimize my carbon footprint.

That doesn't mean, again, I can save everything, but I think the more cognizant we are about the choices we mak and what we use, it will help.

As we make further choice and be aware of our existence.

a word that I avoid and I try not to us as I don't use the word talent, people often say, oh, you're so talented.

And it's a way to say that I. Oh, I can't do that.

You must be so talented as if it's a compliment.

But in many ways it discounts your individual ability to take the chance to do it yourself, that you can do it, but it takes time I very much believ in and the commitment of time, the commitment of work Nice.

Yay!

So I still do like zip tie in that one section underneath.

Right there.

But other than that, this goes all the way back to like when one of my friends taught me how to knit.

I didn't know knit with many of those.

Can you show me?

It was years and years before I ever made one of these sculptures.

And so I, I just recognize I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing now if it wasn' for so many people along the way And so I very much believe in thinking your mentors But then as soon as you can, think about that you might actually be on the other side of that table, or and you actually can lift up someone else.

How is it that we can help bring people to the table?

To keep up with Leticia, follow her on Instagram at @lbajuyo.

And don't forget to stop by here at the Oklahoma Contemporary Art center.

Admission is free and they always have cool exhibitions.

Now we're going three miles to the southwest.

And a quarter century in the past.

25 years ago, on our very first episode, we met Melvin Smith.

He uses recycled materials to reflect on his own culture and history.

Take a look.

Oh, but I remember being in my my grandfather's house, and it was after my, my dad had passed away and I had flown down here to, to the funeral and the room was packed with, a lot of people.

And someone asked me a question and I started talking and he started to cry.

my grandfather started to cry.

And so my Aunt Lou says, Papa, Papa, what's wrong?

I mean, why are you crying?

And he said that, I here shakeys voice.

That boy sounds just like his dad.

He looks like him,he talks like him just.

He's so much like his dad.

It's just like his dad's in this room.

It's the same wallpaper that was in the room, at the time that he made tha statement about me and my dad.

And so, this then that touched me so that, and, that I had to like.

And he came on my work like this.

I like how it sets off the board.

It looked really different if he had set it flat in a painting.

But sentence 3D, it's really different.

You know, your mom's always telling you stories.

You know, when you were a child about how they grew up in actually seeing it in actual form like this really makes it real for the kids.

I think.

I'm a collagist, but I think, because everything I do is really collage.

It might, it's still I' still a sculptor, but it's it's based on collage.

I went from, doing flat stuff to to, objects protruding from a surface to just, the object itself.

Just a piece of sculpture, which is what, found objects are.

The found object is is the mask.

This is my friend Melvin Wilson.

I liked his smile.

And that's what drove me into creating a piece of artwork of it.

This is my big brother, Robert Victor.

He's the symbol of our family.

This is Miss Danny.

I like the the sculpture look of her face.

She had those African features that were really beautiful, and I liked her And that's why she's in my work.

Why I do, I d they just pop up into my work.

I really don't have no no designs.

I people that seem to have been important to me in some fashion or another, whether they were strange, not, giving to me, touched me in some fashion.

They become part of my work.

Now, there's no such thing as a junkyard.

And this is a, Oh.

It's a place I've never seen.

A junkyard in my life.

I saw a place that had a lot of important pieces of.

Of items that could go in a piece of nice artwork.

Oh, yeah.

There we go.

My masks are Pretty muc what I consider found objects.

I got the makings of something here.

Yeah.

When I go into the junkyard, it's kind of like being in a spiritual place to mean.

This over here?

Well, I'm.

I'm kind of, See, something here.

I'm just a the form and, the colors really excite me.

Sometimes I can see, a color.

It can be a shape.

It can be all kind of little, idiosyncrasies that this person, that I saw in this person.

And then I might see it in this, this mass, filling in this, filling in these foreign objects.

And, I go from there.

Well, I'm seeing an image of a of a mass of.

I'm satisfied with what I see.

I like this here as well.

Sweet.

Like that part of it.

I just set out to collect items that I like, you know, pieces and shapes and colors that I like.

And then, and then when I start to move them around, images come up, Yeah.

Now, this is a keeper.

I don't know, it has that same kind of flair about it.

The other piece.

So that's.

And this is a nice piece, so I don't get it off of there.

Oh, man's off item.

Look at this.

Just nice pieces, collage and found objects and assemblage.

It gives me a chance.

It's a it's was part of a, exploratory, journey that you take when you do that kind of work.

You that's what's so wonderful.

This is a fit of pleasure that I have when I go to this place, and I'm never.

I feel like, I'm never bored.

Yeah.

So I'm off to myself.

I just love it, you know, found objects.

It's it's all based o the artist selection of items.

And that's a very personal thing.

And and that comes from personal experiences.

And that's what you ar expressing personal experiences.

And, and I guess if you have personal experiences that you can relate to in a junkyard, and this is a this is the place to come.

And I and I can relate to the things with my personal experiences, and I can get ideas from from being in a junkyard.

I'm looking for the spirit of the person I, I feel that once I, I do a piece, I have captured their spirit.

I found the rest of it.

They should complete the project.

They should make a very nice mask, there you go.

we go to Ohio to meet artist Fred McMullen.

He also uses found objects, but he combines them with more metal.

Check it out I had several older brothers when we were little.

Of course, I followed their path.

One of the things they did was they melded lead in the basement.

My dad would come hom with this box of tire weights.

Probably be fair, he used the lead for some.

We would melt those down and, put them into molds.

I think one was called Creep Crawlers or something like that.

They made great molds for the lead.

And so I'd pour those in ther and and it would be shaped like what mold was.

I think that started my fascination with the metal.

I remember trying to melt nickels with a propane torch to see what to do.

And that experimentation was just always something we did.

I've worked a lot of different jobs, management positions, supervisory positions, and for someone who's creative it can become kind of a grind.

When I started doing the bronze, everything just kind of clicked as something I enjoyed doing.

I like the bronze process because there's so many steps in it.

It kind of uses all parts of your brain, you know, melting the metal to about 2100 degrees.

It's got to be skimmed off.

The molds have to be designed so that the metal will flow in correctly.

The bronze will solidify quite quickly.

With busted out molds, you know, within ten, 15 minutes.

I like to wait at least half an hour.

They're still extremely hot.

When you pull them out of the molds.

A lot of times you'll just have a bucket of water, will dip it in there and that's exciting to what you.

And then that's whe you get down to doing the fine finishing.

A lot of times people poured stuff to me.

They just like it the way it is.

Other times you want to sand it and buff it and polish it.

That's just personal preference.

It's it's just a it's a great process to play around with.

What I like about it is it's it's figuring things out.

Use that part of the brai as you're figuring things out.

You're solving problems.

I like the creativity.

I have an idea and I like solving the problem to get my idea to be made.

It's like solving a puzzle, but three dimensionally, creatively.

And with my sculptures where I have a found objects.

I really enjoy those because it'll sit around for a whil until something kind of hits me and I'll figure out, oh, I'll make a figure doing thi with that piece of found object.

And, you know, it' very gratifying when it works.

And then when someone else likes it, that's even better.

So this is my junk shelf and this is where I throw things that I'll find that have an interest to me.

Mostly machine parts, things like that.

And people will bring me things.

Someone brought me a couple of these, which I have to decide what to do with.

But they're a great form or cast iron fence part.

I think.

This is not my found in the barn that I had on a property.

You know, it's a hand forged hook.

It's just really interesting because it's not perfect.

It's not machine made.

And, it has a lot of character.

I don't let any interesting metal thing go to waste.

Be me.

So the series is called toil.

I like the, human figures.

Just because you know what?

It's man's life.

The kind of toil one get through life.

So I ended up making figures that climbed or were laboring over something.

People that work hard for 11 do their jobs well.

I find that as an inspiration, too, and I think that's reflected in my toil series.

You know, kind of as a tribute to them.

This is a figure I did recently.

I was thinking about solitude, and so I wanted to make, my representation of Rodin's The Thinker.

I found a image of this older African-American guy sitting on a bench, contemplatin mostly about the times we're in.

I'm curious what someone lik that perspective would be who's seen so much through the last decades in America.

That's him.

That's my version of The Thinker.

I love birds and find a lot of inspiration from.

Those are just amazing creatures.

We'll go to the part walk, and I'll just see a branch that is really interesting, just the way it's formed.

That starts me with, you know, I'll make the branch out of metal, and then I'll find a bird.

And so I'll add those to the branch.

I'm just stealing from God.

But I think it's cool.

When you find something and it comes together.

It really scratches that issue.

Yeah, that's what I was after.

And then the best part of all this, when someone else falls in love with it and they talk to you about it it spoke to you and you made it.

It's spoken to them.

And, that's worth more than any financial gain.

Well, that's all the time we have for Gallery America.

Thank you so much for joining us.

As always, you can see past episode by going to our website, OETA.

TV Slash Gallery America.

And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at OETAGallery.

We'll see you next time.

Till then, stay arty.

Oklahoma!