PBS For The Arts

When I paint, there is no formula for me.

It's very freeing.

I do a lot of work with organic shapes that get my arm swinging, but it also gives me a freedom to start to think about color because color is such an integral part of my work.

I originally was a sculptor, only three dimensional, very labor intensive, very fun, engaging, and I started doing projects that had some social criticism.

I said, okay, I feel very strongly passionate about a subject.

Maybe I can portray it visually.

I did a piece called Self Portrait and that was the first piece I ever sold.

I love repetition.

One piece is okay, but when you take hundreds, if not thousands, it becomes something.

I was born and raised in LA and I hope that I have an impact by adding some vibrancy and color to this incredible city.

Los Angeles really is a mosaic of everyone.

I mean, it's a global community within L.A. City.

We have so many potential areas that can be brightened up.

And in my fields where public art is taken front seat, really, I just see the opportunities there.

With Portraits of Hope, the beauty is that the community does the artwork.

We can all transform something that becomes very tangible and can be seen and appreciated by so many.

Portraits of Hope offers the common goal and mission to beautify our areas, our communities, while developing a culture of civic engagement and doing it with our families.

Giving us an opportunity to spend time with them, especially since that is so precious.

I think that's the strength of Portraits of Hope that we can bring people together from all different backgrounds.

We always strive to make sure that anyone who wants to participate, no matter their capabilities, are always included in the project.

When you go into a hospital and you see a child working with the baseball bat, that is an adapted paintbrush.

It's something that tugs at you right here.

And you see it works because that kid should be in a ball field, they're in a hospital instead.

The LA Convention Center.

This is really one of those iconic structures here in Los Angeles.

That is a potential for an amazing canvas.

Now, you just kept asking, why is it green?

When people come together, really great things can happen.

MacArthur Park area is on the fringes of Koreatown.

You have a massive Hispanic community bordering and you have a mixture of everyone in between.

It doesn't matter if we speak the same languages or not.

There's that commonality of beautiful colors lifting the spirit.

We're coming down Alvarado and we saw these big huge balls full color in the park, and we just pulled over and just ran up to the lake to see what it was.

It just makes you so happy and, like, full of joy to see them.

You're on one of the main thoroughfares in Los Angeles, and we didn't have a single sphere ever escape the water and go out to the streets.

The engineering that goes into these projects is a feat in itself.

The ideas, fortunately or unfortunately, come like that.

So that becomes then the problems.

I can come up with a concept or idea within a moment.

It's I see something, I want to do something, and then it's the execution.

It takes time.

This is going to be part of a tube for our Tubes and Cubes project.

So it's.

Eventually, these will all be done in a machine shop.

But for now, I am the only one that's making it right now.

This is my testing ground.

Trees are magnificent because of all the branches.

It gave me a real opportunity to experiment with different sizes, different diameters of the tubes, and also different lighting sources as well.

I'm working on the fine tuning of how I can get a tube and a cube at different heights to float if they get knocked out in oceanic conditions.

So I take them out to the ocean sometimes to see how the tubes react, and I want to make sure that they have that vertical position.

One of the elements of tubes and tubes is that it deals with renewable energy.

When it illuminates at night, it's going to happen to have a "oh wow" effect using solar in ways that perhaps we haven't seen it before it.

To expose artwork to the general public I think is so important because you expose it to the very young, to the very old or the very busy.

It's creativity and imagination at work.

Hopefully my art makes people smile is hopefully colorful and happy.

It's also therapeutic.

The parts that I'm involved in.

It's shared with many people, and my art is something that I enjoy immensely and it's what I do and what I am.

And I hopefully until the last day I'm here, I continue with the paintbrush in my hand.