Craft in America

Mark: I make reproductions of antique furniture.

I try to be as realistic-looking as possible.

Just about everything that's made in full size is made in miniature by someone somewhere in the world.

Thomas: I put Gustave Baumann up against any craftsman of the 20th century.

He put the work of the hand ahead of everything.

Maureen: The first time you see one of the Baumann marionettes, you say, "Oh, my God!

How did he make this?"

Apollo: Just a slight pull of the string, and you can change the emotion.

Miguelito: Ohh.

Laura: Alexander Girard had a hand in placing every object.

He was creating these marvelous miniature imagined worlds.

Charlene: His vision is to evoke common humanity.

Melissa: The International Folk Art Market brings folk artists from all over the world here to Santa Fe, people who are trying to perpetuate centuries-old traditions, and we're trying to help them to bring their art forward to the world.

Leandro: Esto ac es una guagua cubana.

l est roto.

La gente est esperando que se arregle.

Stuart: Because of his ability to depict these vehicles, Leandro is showing us everyday life in Cuba.

Mis sueos se han hecho realidad.

Haciendo lo que me hace feliz, hacer carros.

Singer: So.

[Playing Latin dance music] 1, 2.

[Singing in Spanish] Stuart: In Santa Fe, people are really attracted to festivals.

There's lots of music festivals every year.

There's an Indian market, there's Spanish market.

So in the 2004, the idea of an International Folk Art Market caught fire, I guess, in a good way.

[Cheering and applause] [Indistinct chatter] Melissa: The International Folk Art Market brings together folk artists from all over the world, and one of the things we find is that artists make things that they see, and often they work with smaller pieces.

Miniatures can be fun and compelling, and these artists want to do something that brings pleasure.

[Indistinct chatter] Josu: Yo lo que me gusta representar mucho es la cultura popular mexicana, y a veces me encanta hacerlo con movimiento mecnico.

Mi trabajo son piezas de papel cartn pero tambin utilizo un poquito lo que viene siendo madera y arcilla.

Yo soy muy fan del pan.

Yo tengo una adiccin al pan, al pan mexicano.

Aqu tenemos lo que viene siendo la dona, lo que viene siendo el pan de muerto, la concha, que es un pan muy icnico de Mxico.

Y el movimiento es simple tambin porque para m es nada ms la representacin de un... de un vendedor.

La idea principal cuando yo trabaj, pues que son juguetes que eran dirigidos para nios.

Se les hace muy entretenido, tanto para nios, pero tambin como los adultos, porque saciaba como el nio interior que tenemos nosotros.

Es la tercera vez que he estado aqu en IFAM.

La verdad, es muy... se me ha hecho muy importante participar.

Cuando creo estas piezas, es una visin de mi mundo.

Melissa: We're trying to not only help them find a platform to bring their art forward to the world, but also create a community of international understanding.

[Indistinct chatter] [Cheering] [Flute and drums playing] [Singing in Spanish] Melissa: We have this amazing community welcome.

The artists process around our historic plaza, everybody in their national dress.

Emcee: Please welcome Mexico.

[Cheering and applause] Melissa: Each of the country groups comes up together.

[Applause] We just really have a celebration.

[Cheering and applause] Stuart: The artists are really revered, and I think this is what world peace looks like.

[Applause] [Indistinct chatter] Zhyldyz: We are from Kyrgyzstan.

My mom makes felt dolls, and we're very excited to be here, meet our old friends, our old customers, and see new people.

[Erkebu speaking Kyrgyz] Melissa: These are people who are trying to perpetuate centuries-old traditions.

They're trying to figure out how to convince the younger generation to work with the handmade.

[Indistinct chatter] Agustin: Yo inici este trabajo a los 11 aos.

El tallado completamente.

Y he trabajado piezas muy pequeas, miniaturas.

Ha ha ha!

El proceso, utilizando madera y pintura acrlica.

En la pintura, implementamos mucho historias de lo que hay en murales de prehispnicos.

Entonces, en mi trabajo, puede encontrar tanto figuras, este, como jaguares, como personajes, este, indgenas.

Mi esposa y yo estamos enseando tanto a jvenes de la comunidad, como a nuestros propios hijos, para que esta herencia de nuestro arte siga por ms generaciones.

Suni: It's such a privilege to be able to travel the world in one place, you know, and get to know all the beauty of so many cultures.

Edgar: It's needed so much in this moment, in a world that standardize everything.

Perhaps through art, we can break walls of race and walls of prejudice.

Claudio: Traemos la cultura de Per a travs de los retablos, con temas religiosos, costumbristas, histricos, temas sociales actuales, como del problema del virus de COVID en estos.

La historia de los retablos viene de Espaa, pero es que ahora tiene un mensaje comunicativo.

Es el de la lucha social del Per.

Hay una interpretacin, es el mensaje de cada retablo.

Por ejemplo, como en este caso, es una elaboracin de un taller de corazones, donde que una persona lo califica con amor, con ilusin, corazn, pero tambin hay corazones de rupturas.

Para hacer los retablos, utilizamos los materiales, la papa como bsico, utilizamos la harina industrial.

Esa mezcla, esa pasta, la reforzamos con alambre.

Utilizamos pinturas acrlicas, en combinacin con la cera, el barniz.

Y las miniaturas, hacemos especialmente de las cajitas de fsforo, hacemos en las cscaras de huevos, en las pequeas cositas.

Mi padre, Florentino Jimnez, fue uno de los grandes retablistas.

Nosotros hemos sido los primeros, los que damos el ejemplo del mensaje de las cosas pequeas en el Per.

Melissa: You know, the most amazing thing are the stories we hear about what happens when the artists go back home with their earnings here.

They might pay their own school fees for their children.

They might buy a washing machine.

In other cases, it could be dramatic.

Lesia: It's a very big help for us, especially for now when we are in a war, and for now, 90% of working place are lost in Ukraine, so you can imagine what does it mean.

At the beginning, I-- even I couldn't-- I couldn't do my work, I couldn't do embroidery.

I just was, like, hoping that maybe the war will stop, but it keep going and going and going, so I start to do my textile again, so it's like art for survive, I would say.

Stuart: We're in the booth of Leandro Gmez Quintero.

He lives in Baracoa, which is the northeastern part of the island of Cuba.

Leandro was a history teacher, and he was teaching about World War II, so he started creating these models, and then somebody suggested "Why don't you make the vehicles that we use around here?"

And he uses everything.

The cover of a toothpaste tube becomes a hubcap.

This year, Leandro couldn't get a visa and come to the Folk Art Market from Cuba.

[Singer whistling] My wife, Peggy, and I are here to visit Leandro Gmez.

[Singers singing in Spanish] Baracoa is very isolated.

It really can only be reached by this road called La Farola.

La Farola was built after the revolution.

Before that, the only way to reach Baracoa was by boat.

I grew up in Cuba, and then my family moved to New York when I was 12.

My father spent time in this town of Baracoa during World War II, and he always told me that this was the most beautiful place in Cuba.

Leandro lives across the street from the seawall, so the ocean is right there.

Leandro: Qu bueno, qu bien se ve.

Stuart: His wife is a doctor, and they have two kids.

Leandro: Yo nac aqui en Baracoa en 1976, y siempre he vivido en esta misma casa, y me crie aqu, en el mismo barrio.

Stuart: Leandro!

!Oye!

Leandro: Stuart?

No, no es posible, mi hermano.

Stuart: Cmo ests?

Leandro: !Oye!

Peggy: !Hola!

Leandro: !Peggy!

Peggy: Cmo ests?

The first time I saw Leandro's work, I was here without Stuart in 2014, and I wanted to get him something special, and I walked into a gallery, and there was this red Jeep on a pedestal, so I said, "Oh, this is amazing."

So I took it back home to Stuart, and he said, "Well, next time, I'm going with you."

Stuart: And we hit it off immediately because he's a car guy and I'm sort of a car guy.

I have a Jeep myself.

Leandro: Esto es lo nuevo.

Stuart: !Coo!

Leandro: Esto ac es una guagua cubana.

Stuart: Aj.

Leandro: l est roto.

La gente est esperando que se arregle.

Stuart: Aj.

Leandro: Entonces, cuando se arregle, la gente se monta otra vez.

Yo soy profesor de filosofa e historia.

Pero yo ya abandon el trabajo.

Y dije: "me voy a dedicar por completo, por completo a hacer carros."

O sea, yo deca: "Voy a jugrmelo todo, voy a ser feliz haciendo lo que me hace feliz hacer".

Stuart: Just as a painter paints a landscape that he sees, he creates these sculptures based on these vehicles that he sees, and then he adds his own creativity to them.

Leandro: Esta carga madera para hacer muebles.

Saco con vianda, que el chofer trae para la casa, para comer.

Los carros cuentan la historia porque forman parte de la historia.

Este, particularmente, el general Dwight Eisenhower dijo que el Willys Jeep haba sido una de las mayores contribuciones del ejrcito norteamericano en la segunda guerra mundial.

El Jeep Willys entr en Cuba por la base naval de Guantnamo.

en lotes que se vendan a la poblacin.

Stuart: Y ensame cmo es esto, cmo t haces estas cosas.

Leandro: Estudio en sus componentes para despus entonces, saber cmo armarlo yo.

Mi materia prima bsica y fundamental es el cartn.

Por eso es que son tan ligeros los modelos.

Porque es cartn.

l est hecho al detalle en cuanto a las proporciones del carro.

bsicas del original.

el chasis, el diferencial, la caja de velocidad, el tubo de escape.

Ellos transportan varias cosas que las personas tengan para transportar.

Esto puede ser un saco con alimentos.

Esto es parte de un techo de una casa, que posiblemente, el hombre est armando.

Estas son maderas para hacerla, que las personas transportan mucho.

Stuart: Because of his ability to depict these vehicles as realistically as possible, he's showing us everyday life in Cuba.

[Horn honks] American cars stopped coming into Cuba at the end of 1959, but Cubans have done an incredible job of making these cars survive.

Leandro: !Oye, Gallego!

Gallego: !Ah!

Leandro: Cmo est todo?

Gallego: Bueno, ya t sabes.

Leandro: Ay, caramba.

Gallego: Cada da mejor.

Leandro: Qu cosa ms linda t tienes aqu, chico.

Gallego: Este carro fue de mi abuelo.

Un Willys del ao 1952.

Muy noble, un carro muy noble, muy fuerte.

Leandro: !Ah!

Tiene el motor original.

Tiene muchas piezas y partes originales.

Gallego: Esto?

Esa es la bomba de gasolina.

Leandro: La bomba de gasolina.

Gallego: Este es el filtro.

Leandro: Esta pieza original tambin, no?

Gallego: Todo es original.

Leandro: Esto, original, original.

Y a los nueve aos, aprend a conducirlo cuando apena alcanzaba el timn.

Leandro: El tapa plana original, Gallego?

Gallego: S.

Lo haba restaurado tal y como lo fabricaron.

All vamos.

Leandro: Yo recuerdo, yo era muchacho, tendra nueve, diez aos.

y ver, en las noches, la silueta del Willys que pasaba por la calle, solo alumbrado con la luna.

[Horn honks] Y yo deca: "Yo amo ese carro".

Ahora, esa forma, esa silueta era como... como una novia, como una muchacha que me encantaba.

Yo en ocasiones me pregunto qu hara yo en otro pas, en otro lugar, con mucho ms recursos.

Pero entonces digo: "No sera mi trabajo igual".

Los dueos de los carros en Cuba, si no tienen la pieza de fbrica ideal, le ponen la pieza que tienen o la pieza que encuentran.

Si no tienen la pintura ideal, le ponen la pintura que tienen.

Me pasa a m tambin.

Entonces utilizo tambin el fango, como si hubieran transitado por un camino.

Stuart: Leandro follows the Cuban methodology of resolving or, as they say, resolver.

If you don't have something, you just find some other way to make it work, and so he carves tires out of packing Styrofoam that people throw away.

Leandro: Entonces, yo simplemente, voy y la recojo y le doy una segunda oportunidad.

Yo reciclo o recojo materiales que me encuentro en la calle.

Las personas decan: "Tiene problemas, qu le pasa a ste que recoge basura?

Stuart: It's just amazing to me that he finds these materials and he makes a complete work of art.

Leandro: Para m, esto es oro.

Yo lo pico.

Y amarrarla, ponerla aqu.

Es la lona del carro que lo tapa.

Porque as ocurre en la vida real en Baracoa.

[Waves crashing] Yo nunca me imagin la magnitud que iba a tener el huracn Matthew.

El mar entraba a la casa con una normalidad.

Entraba por una puerta y sala por la otra, en la otra calle.

Cuando el ojo pas por aqu, pudimos escapar de la casa.

Al amanecer, los ojos de la gente mirando, lo que haba quedado, lo indecible.

Pertenencias de las personas regado por donde quiera, en toda la calle.

Puertas, persianas, de todo.

Solo me quedaron las cuatro paredes.

Todo lo dems lo perd.

[Horn honks] Stuart: Peggy and I came here right after Hurricane Matthew, and we were the first tourists that came back to Baracoa.

Leandro: Y recuerdo que en la conversacin sali eso.

Si vas al mercado de arte, tienes la posibilidad de reconstruir tu casa.

Peggy: We helped him apply to the market, and he was accepted.

Stuart: He raised enough money to rebuild the back of the house... Leandro: Esto es de concreto slido.

Stuart: and it will probably withstand another hurricane.

Leandro: Gracias al mercado.

Peggy: Con aire acondicionado?

Leandro: Con aire acondicionado.

Stuart y Peggy me cambiaron la vida por completo.

Cambiaron mi vida totalmente.

Yo fui tocado.

Entonces hacemos amarillo y gris los detalles, con las bujas, todas las cositas.

Esa batera te qued buena.

Esa batera est buena ah.

Yancer: Gracias a San Leandro, trabajo aqu hace cinco aos.

Leandro: Y a esto se le pudiera hacer la tapa del motor.

Yancer: Me ha enseado mucho la tcnica del trabajo.

Cada da lo hacemos con ms calidad y con ms perfeccin.

Yo todas las noches me digo: "Qu t haces?

Por qu t no vas a clase?".

Y yo, bueno, porque yo me decid por hacer estos objetos, de cartn y de reciclaje y, a la vez, ensearles a las personas que trabajan conmigo para que esta herencia quede, hacer esto.

[Singing in Spanish] Stuart: Leandro is very serious about his work.

When people see the work, they want to know more about Cuba.

Leandro: Y yo pens que iba a morir as, un joven irresponsable.

Pero mis sueos se han hecho realidad.

Tengo mi familia al lado.

Est bien.

Tengo un trabajo que me gratifica.

Est bien.

Hago lo que quiero hacer.

Est bien.

Yo ni siquiera tengo carro.

No he podido comprarme un carro porque realmente cuestan mucho.

Pero que tengo una bicicleta.

Quiz algn da pueda.

Me comprara un Willys.

[Cheering] [Horn honks] Mark: People have always been fascinated with miniature objects.

There's people that work in ceramics.

There's needleworkers.

There's glassblowers.

There's jewelers.

There's people that make food.

Just about everything that's made in full size is made in miniature by someone somewhere in the world.

[Tool buzzing] I work with wood, and I make miniature furniture.

The pieces that I do are generally reproductions of antique furniture.

I usually work from books, antique magazines, or auction house catalogs.

I've tried to re-create things to be as realistic-looking as possible.

I work in 1/12 scale, which is one inch to the foot, so that my furniture will fit into scale rooms.

Pat: Mark does a lot of different styles that not many other people do.

He does a lot of Japanese furniture, and he does a lot of the Mission style.

The quality of the work is precise and delicate and phenomenal.

I'm making a bow-back Windsor chair.

I've done close to 200 of these now.

You can't do it on a regular lathe.

The lathes that I use I get from a jewelry supply company.

You can make all the parts separate before you start assembling anything.

I drill all the holes, the corresponding holes for all the spindles and the legs and the bow-back piece in the back.

Then I start carving the seat.

I fit all the spindles in place and fit the bow-back piece in place.

Then you can glue all those pieces in the seat itself so you have a completed upper section of the chair.

And then the leg structure is all attached to that.

[Blows] So basically these are made exactly like a real chair would be made.

It's just a smaller scale than full-sized woodworking.

I grew up in Cincinnati.

I'm the second oldest of seven kids.

I've always loved nature, so I was always walking a lot.

Let's go in this way.

But most of my family was actually into sports.

My father was an NBA basketball referee, so while the other folks in the family were out playing basketball, I was in the basement making something, making some kind of mess.

I went to the Philadelphia College of Art, now the University of the Arts.

I studied woodworking and furniture design.

Then shortly after I graduated, I moved to the Bay Area.

I started working at a place that made all the little cars and trees for architectural models.

That's where I met Pam Throop.

She'd come in to shop for supplies for her scale houses, and she was really my mentor.

She was building houses, and so I was making some furniture pieces to go inside of them.

That's what got me started in miniatures.

This is the bulk of my collection in here.

So this is one of my Queen Anne chairs that is upholstered with some crewelwork done by Pat Richards.

The white background, that is the actual fabric, and then Pat stitched on separate threads to create flowers and creatures.

Patricia: I live in New York City, and Mark's in Oregon, but he'll sometimes send me a piece of furniture that he's finished.

I'll make cushions for him.

I base things on historic pieces, but with crewelwork, you do have to fill in all the details by eye, so you truly are painting with thread.

Mark: The original of this highboy is in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

So this is japanned, which is the process of painting gold and silver paints on top of black.

This is a collaboration that I did with Mary O'Brien.

She does all the painting on it.

Mary: We've been working for over 20 years together.

He makes furniture, he likes tools.

I prefer the paintbrush, so we match up well.

It's country painting style with lots of brushstrokes.

And the drawers open.

Yes.

Yep.

Yep, they all do.

You have to kind of tip them a little bit to get them all out.

My late partner used to do these miniature pastels.

This is just like the beautiful landscapes where we went hiking a lot.

I started teaching in 2000 at the International Guild of Miniature Artisans.

They've been doing that school for 40 years in this small town called Castine in Maine.

It was the first time I had ever taught anything.

That's when I really found my art family.

I never felt so appreciated.

Patricia: He's a great teacher.

So patient with all the students' different learning processes.

So Guild School is our Brigadoon.

Blossoms once every June, and when we're done, it closes and goes away until the next year.

Mark: In making miniature furniture, it's really nice to have the actual object in front of you, which I have done with several of my own pieces.

So this is a piece of Japanese furniture that I own that I re-created in miniature, and Mary O'Brien painted the panels, and there's a little slot underneath here for your finger that you don't see to open the drawer.

So there's no handles.

I did the same thing on this, but it's really tiny, so you can just go in with tweezers or something to open the drawer.

In Chicago, we have probably the biggest miniature show in the world.

People come from all over the world to buy and to sell there.

Pat: The fascination with miniatures, I think it's because you create an environment that maybe you can't afford in real life but that you could do in miniature.

Mark: This is one that just has a more -of a floral pattern.

-Right.

Most of us are working at home quietly alone, and a few times a year, we come to the shows to connect with customers.

The show has been very good.

Yeah.

Kathleen: Mark has been a wonderful artisan for as long as I've been collecting, and I have many, many pieces of his throughout the museum.

You know, I need to talk to you about a new project.

-OK. -So let's think about what we're gonna do.

-Something Kentucky.

-OK. Something Kentucky.

Give me some information about things you like, and we'll find something that we both like, yeah.

Kathleen: OK. Mark: I'm here with my colleagues that I work with, my needlework friends.

Patricia: When we get together here or up at school, it's old home week.

Pat: We come from all over, but it has become a community.

Mark: This is our newest piece, and I put the background colors on, and then I send it to Mary, and she does all the decorative painting on top of that.

Do you do it under a mic--like, a mic-- -I wear goggles -Goggles.

Mary: And they're getting stronger and stronger.

Customer: Beautiful.

Beautiful work.

Mary: Yes.

[Both laughing] Carol: We get--we get to tackle you.

Mark: One thing that was special this year is some of my family came up to join me.

Ellen: The color is beautiful.

Mark: I like this color, too.

This is more teal.

Ellen: I do, too.

Tina: I like that, too.

Yeah, yeah.

We're so proud of him.

Tina: He's in his element, that is for sure.

Seeing him in his element is wonderful.

Talking about his pieces and what made him think of the colors to use, and it's been very interesting to watch his side of--what his business, what he does.

And, you know, makes me a little verklempt because, I mean, that's my cousin, and he is--he is amazing.

And if they fit just exactly in there, and I said, "Well, Mary, I guess I'm gonna have"... Laura: The Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe opened in 1953.

It is full of marvelous miniature imagined worlds.

The term folk art in many people's minds is kind of a diminishment, and that's not at all how we feel about it.

It's masterful work by people who excel in their craft.

In 1982, we opened the exhibition "Multiple Visions: A Common Bond," which is a show with over 10,000 objects all gifted to the museum by Alexander Girard.

Charlene: Alexander Girard grew up in Italy, outside of Florence in a villa, and in 1932, he had come to the United States, and he was wandering around, he told me, in Greenwich Village, and he suddenly saw this spatter-painted clay bank from Mexico.

It transformed his life actually.

It just made him realize he had to have more of this, and he had to understand what were the motivations and meaning of folk art.

Laura: He was a very well-known mid-century designer.

He became the head of the textile division at Herman Miller, the furniture company.

He injected color and pattern and texture, bringing a little more joy to modern design.

He could do his job anywhere, so in 1953, he and his wife Susan moved to Santa Fe, but they had already started their voracious collecting of both toys and folk art, which ultimately reached 106,000 objects.

Charlene: In October of 1978, many, many beer boxes that looked like this arrived here at the museum.

This was box 3,837.

Plus hundreds of crates for the larger items, and those were all stored in the auditorium.

I was the curatorial coordinator, and as we were unpacking this collection, a lot of which he hadn't seen since he packed it, the joy that Mr. Girard felt was palpable.

He was just having the greatest time.

It took over two years, with the help of cultural advisors, 30 volunteers, and the entire staff to build this installation.

Laura: Alexander Girard designed and curated.

He had a hand in placing every object.

He created what he called sets.

They're kind of these villages in miniature.

This is the 40th anniversary of the collection being on display exactly as he created it.

So this set is a miniature representation of an actual town in Mexico called Acatln de Osorio.

Miniatures are a really popular and rich tradition in Mexico.

Alexander Girard would buy lots of these ceramic figures, and then he would animate the whole set by having them interact with each other.

Charlene: He would layer and layer.

He would add more things to the back.

He would--you know, he just-- he definitely had a vision in his mind.

He often referred to these figurative ceramics as people because they were people who were inhabiting this scene.

The "Puebla Kitchen" set represents miniatures of all different types that are made in Mexico, and so you've got the straw work, metalwork, and ceramic dishes that are so tiny you can't imagine how the person made them.

Charlene: He told me that he was in a small Mexican village and he discovered these clay cacti.

He said, "I want more of these," so he returned and he said, "No, I mean, I really want more of these."

The fields stopped being plowed.

I mean, the whole village was put to work making cacti for this American folk art collector.

Laura: Whereas many of the villages that Girard created in multiple visions were specific to a country or a culture, this one, "The Grand Canal," also known as "The Harbor Scene," is really kind of a mash-up.

So we've got European and Asian towns on either side of the harbor.

The waterway is actually created out of shower glass, and there are in this set both toys and folk art mixed together.

Charlene: Mr. Girard did not drive, so every morning, I would pick him up after breakfast and then also drive him home after his afternoon work.

One day, he said to me, "Would you mind taking me to Kmart?"

Ha!

And I thought, "OK." And he made a beeline right to the toy department.

He bought a ape.

Then he went to the pet department and bought a cage into which he placed the ape.

I just realized this is a man who is so visual, he has no blinders on.

Laura: The "Circus" set is mostly manufactured toys and antique ones.

Alexander Girard designed the exhibition to be an experience of discovery.

There's no object labels.

He didn't want labels.

He wanted people to bring their own interpretation to it.

Charlene: Mr. Girard grew up in an Italian villa, and this is an autobiographical set.

There are pieces that were made by his brother, actually a well-known Italian ceramic artist, and then within the house, some beautiful watercolors by his good friend Georgia O'Keeffe.

Laura: This set is known as "Christening."

It is this gathering of people to witness this momentous occasion.

The space looks much deeper than it actually is because Girard used diminishing-sized figures as you went back.

Charlene: I think it does express in a beautiful way his vision for the whole gallery, which is to evoke common humanity.

Laura: And his guiding principle was an Italian saying, "Tutto il mondo e paese," which to him meant "All the world is hometown."

Charlene: It was part of his plan to stop visitors in their tracks and, you know, make them really look... but he also said time and time again to me, "We want to have so much stuff in here that people will always have a reason to come back."

I do want to say, after 40 years, I still find things in this gallery that I hadn't noticed before.

[Indistinct chatter] Gustave: Santa Fe is many things to many people.

I was among those that liked it, and now, with the passing of years, I have found no place I like better.

This is Gustave Baumann speaking.

Carmella: Gus Baumann took inspiration from so many aspects of life and art in Santa Fe, in the Southwest.

He was amazingly prolific.

I don't know where he found the time really to do everything.

He made woodblock prints, he made furniture, and then he created these incredible marionettes.

He brought a lot of beauty into a lot of people's lives and left a lasting legacy in Santa Fe.

Thomas: Gustave Baumann was born in Germany in 1881.

His family moved to Chicago in 1891, so he was 10 years old.

At the age of 16, his father abandoned the family, so Gus went to work.

He started in an engraving company back before photography had worked its way into commercial printing, so images were still being carved by hand.

He really learned his craft.

Baumann heard about Nashville, Indiana, that there were other artists living there, and so gave up commercial art and then moved there in 1910.

Gustave: Brown County, Indiana, was just emerging from the log cabin period and holding on to the old ways.

The artists that lived there did so because it was an inexpensive and colorful place to work.

[Train chugging] [Whistle blows] Mark White: Gustave Baumann arrived in New Mexico in 1918.

He was lured to come to Santa Fe by the curator Paul Walter here at the museum.

Baumann was running short of funds, and so Paul Walter was able to secure a loan of $500, Walter being an officer of the nearby bank.

There were opportunities to exhibit at the new museum, and I think for him as a young artist, it was just a perfect environment.

Carmella: Santa Fe was a rough and tumble town, about 7,000 residents with a large population of Hispano peoples.

Most of the Pueblo peoples were still on their original homelands outside of Santa Fe.

Gustave: Here we have the Anglo frontier mingling with the Spanish heritage, both together functioning side by side with the original Indian inhabitants.

Folk art and handicraft flourished.

There's something in the mind of man that moves his hand to creative endeavor beyond the needs of livelihood.

Thomas: We're in a reproduction of Gustave Baumann's studio.

It's filled with actual things that he used to create his woodcut prints.

He has all these pigments labeled.

We have his varnishes and the oil that he used.

This he would grind colors in.

The block that I'll be printing is an image of his Canyon Road studio carved in 1919.

He put the work of the hand ahead of everything, so there is this sort of integrity to the craft.

His process really starts with going out in nature and doing a drawing, turning it into a tempera painting, and then from that he would carve his series of blocks.

Gustave: The Southwest has many surprises in store for the artist in search of inspirational material.

It will produce almost any kind of subject matter you might ask for.

Basic forms and color combinations that we like to think of as being exclusively modern have been here for a long time, waiting only to be recognized.

Thomas: He had his house built in Santa Fe.

Everything inside is either carved or painted by Baumann.

In fact, he said, "I am a craftsman by choice and an artist by accident."

Carmella: He met Jane at a Pueblo Indian dance on Christmas Eve.

She was an actress.

She was interested in creativity.

He was an artist.

They married, settled in the house, and eventually had one daughter Ann.

He was trying to create something that would interest his daughter and entertain her, and that was these marionettes.

Ann: The stage was there in the living room, and the marionettes hung on a rack behind.

You had the physical presence 24 hours a day of that stage and the marionettes.

I love the commedia dell'arte ones... Pierot... and Boom Boom the clown-- I liked him.

When I was growing up, at Christmastime, we had the Christmas shows, which took over the whole house.

Mark: The marionette show was intended to amuse Ann and her friends, but it quickly morphed into a public show here at the museum in 1932.

Jane was one of the lead puppeteers, and it was something of an annual event, and it really did draw the community together.

Gustave and Jane Baumann continued the performances until 1959, and it was the Ann Baumann Trust that ultimately gave the marionettes to this museum.

Maureen: I can't explain what it's like the first time you see one of his puppets, you know, just that "Oh, my God.

How did he make this?"

They're incredible.

There are 76 marionettes.

They were in terrible condition, which for a conservator who loves marionettes is really wonderful.

I couldn't wait to work on them.

I'm repairing the leg.

All the joins in the legs and the arms were made out of leather, and since the puppets are about 100 years old, sometimes they'll be hanging from the rack, and, you know, a leg will drop off.

The leather has to be replaced.

This puppet is the Tourist Lady, Lulu Clarkson.

She's got the little camera that he handmade for her and the visor.

She's always in search of a bathroom and can never find one, and you can tell by her eyes.

Ha!

Baumann made each one have a real unique personality.

One of the first I worked on was Paint the horse, who goes with Pecos Bill.

The horse was in many, many pieces.

That was a good challenge.

There's duendis, New Mexican folk elves.

They're very mischievous and cause a lot of trouble.

The Green Dragon.

He's made with hoops almost like a slinky.

The fabric is suede.

Several of the characters came from real people.

Temperance the drunk.

He was the Santa Fe town drunk.

Gus' wife Jane.

She's made in a really pretty silk summer dress, stockings, underwear, everything.

Gus did himself as a real dandy with that Hawaiian print, and there's his daughter Ann when she was about five years old.

It's a family portrait, and for him, that was done with marionettes.

Mark: The museum will bring the marionettes out for exhibition, but they're a little too fragile to perform.

Marionette man: No, it is almost time for the big welcome back party.

Miguelito: See?

I knew we were invited.

Maureen: So they have six puppets reproduced that are exactly like the originals.

Miguelito: Whoa!

Burro: Hee-haw!

Mark: A show has been created using the reproduction marionettes.

Wow!

Hello, children.

I am so happy to see your bright, shining faces.

Mark: It was really a way to keep what had been a fantastic Santa Fe tradition alive.

Rosina: And we have to practice our dancing because I'm feeling... Marionette man: Yes, let us practice to see if we still have some of that old magic.

-Ha ha!

-Yes.

All right.

Here.

-Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

-Oh, oh, oh, oh!

Rosina: My goodness.

Barbara: The children don't look up above the marionette on the stage.

The human beings behind the marionettes cease to exist.

Miguelito: I know.

I'll put a spell on Rosina's broom so that she can't clean.

The voices do start to embody the actual marionette, and you'll just kind of get transported into the world.

Rosina: My broom has come to life!

Oh, my goodness!

It's chasing me across the room.

Oh, oh, oh!

Oh, my goodness.

[Laughter] You know, it takes a special kind of sensitivity to puppeteer these puppets.

It's like an extension of us.

Hey, Miguelito.

I'm so glad to see the both of you.

I hope you have been behaving very well.

Miguelito: Bye, Santo Nino.

So you got to really watch your wrist and really figure out their little quirks.

Apollo: Just a slight pull of the string, and you can change the emotion.

Miguelito: Oh, I just--ohh.

Apollo: Just a tilt of the hand, they'll go from joyous to sad.

Santo Nino: Children, should I wake them up?

Children: Yeah!

Santo Nino: OK. [Snoring] Wake up!

-Aah!

-Ohh!

Barbara: We are actually here because of and thanks to Gustave Baumann.

Through his mastery in carving the marionettes, he lives through these puppets, and therefore he lives through us.

[Chattering] Thomas: I put Baumann up against any artist-craftsman of the 20th century.

He was that good.

He was that important.

Carmella: And he's still here.

He's still a part of this place.

Gustave: If you feel that a story required a good, happy ending, there it was as good as any, and now we can all go home, and I'll follow you.

Woman: Culture is an evolving thing, and when you mix artists into culture, then anything can happen.

Man: I consider myself a chronologist on the absurdity of human nature.

Woman: I started making Hanukkah menorahs, and it was like, "Wow!"

I like to stick to tradition.

Rhiannon: For hundreds upon hundreds of years, we were making instruments.

Great spirit chose me to do this.

I'm gonna tell our story.

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