Frederick Hammersley Foundation... New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs with supplemental funding by the New Mexico CARES Act and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

...and Viewers Like You.

THIS TIME, ON COLORES!

ALABAMA MILNER CREATED A REMARKABLE PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT OF ALBUQUERQUE IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF BAKING IS REALIZED AT THE "BORN AND BREAD BAKEHOUSE."

LISA DIFRANZA MAKES DAILY SKETCHES TO ABSORB WHAT IS GOING ON IN A COVID-19 WORLD.

WHETHER HIS CANVAS IS THE HUMAN BODY OR NEIGHBORHOOD BUILDINGS, DAVID "TOP HAT" CHARLTON IS ON AN ARTISTIC JOURNEY.

IT'S ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!

A FASCINATING CHRONICLE OF A PAST ERA.

>>Jill Hartke: Alabama Milner is inspiring in the way that she uses the light, and the space, and the lines to draw your eye into these shots.

Like this one picture that she has of these two welders, and they're working in an open space.

And you can even see the sparks flying from their tools.

And they're comfortable in their work and she's comfortable in the way that she captures them at work.

And the way that she frames a shot-all of it, it's a pleasure to look at and I am never disappointed with her work.

>>And she also had this business side to her that was super savvy.

She hired widows and single women to be her assistants, to be her bookkeepers.

She also was part of this women's group called the Albuquerque Business and Professional Women's Club; the whole purpose of them was to support and grow the role of women in business in Albuquerque.

And she's sort of coming into her own here right after that door is sort of being cracked open and she's beginning to-you know she can cast a ballot for the first time.

She outlasted so many other photo studios in town.

She ran her own studio for over 35 years through the Depression, through World War II.

>>One of the things that I find most interesting about Alabama is how she would go out into the community.

She was not sitting around her studio waiting for these people to come in.

And she was taking glass plate negatives-so this is a lot of equipment, this is the big box cameras-she's taking it out and into these places that are industrial areas, right?

Like she's got these-this picture of the men in front of their electrical work truck.

And the truck is covered with electrical wires and tools and the men are just-they're standing there.

This is like a day on the job for them.

They're not showing up at her portrait studio all cleaned up.

They're wearing their work overalls, their hats- this is a workday.

And Alabama just sort of, you know, shows up and takes their picture.

She's documenting the working class of Albuquerque in the 20s, the 30s, into the 40s.

So she's getting people like the construction workers, the bus transit drivers, the Motorette of the streetcar- I love that one-the welders, even like the farmers, the telephone switchboard operator.

These are the people that Alabama seems to connect with more than the high-flying society people.

And I think that in that way, the city that we know now-she is showing us the people who actually built it.

>>And I just think that, even though people have never heard of her, they know her work.

And I would really love it if more people would know her name, or just remember that there was this amazing photographer in Albuquerque named Alabama Milner and she had a studio for decades here and it was successful.

And she is the reason that we have photographs of so many of the people who built this city, and who brought us electricity to our homes, or who built the streets, or who helped with the railroad.

All of this is something that could have been lost if it weren't for Alabama Milner.

BAKING - ORGANIZED CHAOS.

>>We've been established since 2015, and we make artisanal European style pastries with flair.

I got married in 2014 and my husband and I had a very small, low budget wedding so that we could spend some time traveling through Europe.

It was something we had both wanted to do for so long.

And so we did it, but that was probably the first place that I spent falling in love with bread.

It was like irresistible.

There was something different about the way that they processed, in a way that they baked.

And when I came back, I fell in love with figuring it out.

In 2015, we started at the Farmer's Market.

In 2017, we moved from the Farmer's Market to the space that we have next door.

In 2018, we knocked down a wall and created our first retail space with seats and booths and a couch and a neon sign that says American Dream.

It really transformed into something far bigger than who I am or that original intent.

It's a really beautiful business.

I love those thank you notes.

Since I started I wanted to make sure that anything we created was art forward.

And a lot of what we do has this European flair based off of the flavors or the vessel that we're using, uh, for a lot of our pastries, which is croissant dough.

Everything that we do is like a skilled work.

So nothing is coming out of a can, the syrups that we make we make in house.

So if you scale something we're not using cups.

We use a metric system.

And you really have to be in tune as a baker with changes, whether it be seasonally or something with the flour.

So there's no part of this that's easy although bread baking and baking in general, and our bakery is simple.

Simple doesn't always mean easy.

>>I proudly describe the food to anyone that'll listen as world-class.

It really is just magnificent.

And it is a work of art that I had not seen before.

In Lakeland or in my daily culinary endeavors.

The care and the tact they put into making sure that this is pulled out at this time, this goes in there at that time.

It's amazing and it is a work of art.

And just to see what they come up with next.

Every week it's something new or this new pastry that I've never heard of, that I love, that I can't get enough of.

It really is a joy to be a part of it.

>>We tried to create seasonal menus.

So something that would play into summer is the dole whip cruffin.

A cruffin is basically our croissant dough.

It's shaped into a cylinder form, and then it's baked into a larger muffin tin.

And that makes it so where it comes out the layers are kind of going in this direction.

They're kind of open.

we put a pastry cream inside this.

This one's got a pineapple curd and then a vanilla pastry cream.

It's topped with whip.

And it's very reminiscent of a Florida trip to Disney world.

Bostock is something that we use with the remnants of our croissant dough when we're laminating we put them in a large tins so it's almost like a croissant loaf or a "croaf," and we slice it and we serve it.

And then seasonally, we can create different ones.

This summer we've created two.

One is the peach, peaches and cream.

And another one is a triple Berry cobbler.

The menu is ever changing.

And that is a really fun part of what we do.

And I think for our customer, knowing that every week they could get something different is exciting.

(WHOOSH OF TRAFIIC) (CHIRP OF ALARM) An average day for one of our bakers is coming in pretty early.

I would say most days someone's coming in between 6:30 or seven, which isn't wild.

But as we get closer to the weekend, which is currently the only time that we're open with the COVID pandemic, our night Baker... first night Baker would come in at 9:00 PM on Friday.

Then we have another night baker that comes in around 10.

Then our shifts kind of vary.

But the last person is roughly coming in at 3:00 a.m.

So that shift is very early.

During that time there's not a lot of time to stop or pause.

This puzzle piece fits here for a reason.

And we have a deadline and a goal.

But it is this organized chaos.

>>So our kitchen is comprised of different tiers, where everyone works together and owns their craft.

So everybody's gonna come in and they'll start scaling and start measuring.

And then as you grow in your confidence in the bakery, you'll start shaping this or cutting that.

It's a precision craft.

So, it around about way everybody comes together to compliment each piece the best they can.

>>There's a lot of purpose for 30 members that we have and there's constant challenges of how to grow and adapt and become better.

And they do that with such incredible heart.

>>I love being a part of Born & Bread because I love the way it serves our community.

And I think that that's really important.

The community of Lakeland, I once said to a friend, is almost like when you have a bad day and you might go for a car ride and you put on one of those playlists that seem to make you happy.

There are one of those communities that it's that playlist over and over again, on hard days on rough weeks.

When you don't think that they're gonna show up, if it rains there in ponchos and umbrellas.

If a pandemic hits, they find ways to support you.

I don't know that it would be the same in another city.

I hope that people, through the story of Born & Bread, understand that at any point in their life, they could say, I wanna just try to do something and it doesn't have to be big.

And it was never an intention to me, something big.

But I am incredibly grateful even on the bad days for the support of the community and the opportunity to grow such an incredible team.

MAKING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING.

>>My name is Lisa DiFranza, and I'm here today to talk with you about the Sketch-a-Day project that kind of emerged organically out of this COVID-19 world health crisis.

So when I got laid off from my job, I started sketching and I didn't know it, but it was going to be the beginning of sketching every day and posting it online.

I come from a family of visual artists, even though my sort of career and work life has always been in the performing arts as a director or as an educator.

But I think sketching came organically because it's a way to process and share with the community, the online community, the experience of living on I started posting on Facebook and Instagram, I added Twitter.

The response has been really interesting and people were writing saying, "This is part of the way I'm processing through COVID," or, "Could I get a copy of this?"

So I began to work with Artsource Studio in Sarasota to make fine art limited edition prints of the sketches.

So when that started to happen, I launched a website where you can see the sketches and the odyssey of COVID through my eyes anyway.

>>So at this point I have purchased two of Lisa sketches, Splashy Sunset Over Route 41 Motel and Hopeful Moon Over Bradenton.

And what I found with her sketches, I was watching her posts these everyday on social media, and they were so timely.

We are all experiencing this array of emotions every single day and Lisa was capturing those emotions every single day.

And so there were some of those that she captured an emotion that I really related to.

And so those were the two I selected.

One of them, is a moon and it's beautiful, but it's hopeful.

And she has that piece of it and, it's over the water.

And the other one though is an old motel on Route 41 and there was something really poetic about that as well.

And that, that wasn't that stereotypical beautiful scenery, but she made it feel really beautiful.

And so I truly appreciate her ability to capture all of these emotions that we've been feeling during this time.

And I think even though she was doing it daily in the end, when you look back on it and as a collective, it truly encapsulates all of the things that we've been feeling.

>>As far as processing COVID goes, I think tempest-tost is an image of the Statue of Liberty that really to me, sort of emerged from my confusion about the American experiment.

I've done a couple of theater images.

I miss theater.

I recently did a remembering curtain call image that just came out of missing that feeling of being in a live theater for a live performance and the energy and excitement of that.

And of course, I worked in theater so much that it's so close to me and I feel for all the workers in theater who really have no work.

Also there's some of the sunrises and sunsets that are close to me because they're right from our neighborhood, our doors and our dock and the river and the river has just been so much a part of this time for me.

And I have never had the time to see and think in this way.

I think sketching marks the day, whereas everything else is blurry, but sketching every day I wake up and I do this and it marks a new day.

The other thing I think that's therapeutic is being able through social media, which is weird because I'm not a big social media person, but being able to share with other people and get a response.

So I feel like that helps to process communally even when we can't.

>>Well, I think what Lisa has been able to remind us all of is that art has the ability to speak when our words don't.

And so whether it is relating to something that she created or creating something on your own, it really is therapeutic in so many ways.

And when we're alone, as we have been so much recently, that connection through art is even more vital than it ever was before.

>>I think there is nothing more gratifying than making something from nothing.

And my advice would be just do it don't judge what comes out.

One thing that I've really gotten out of the sketch of day thing is sometimes I don't love the sketch and it's really been very, very wonderful to not get too hung up about it because I know next day's a new day.

I know I can start again.

Another blank piece of paper, just produce it, share it, produce it, share it.

THE MINDFULNESS OF MARKMAKING.

(BUZZ OF TATTOO MACHINE) >>My grandparents had a laundromat center in a tiny little Valley town in Idaho.

So wanderers and travelers would come to the laundromat center where I spent most of my time as a child.

And I would see bikers come through just covered in tattoos.

So innately mimicking as most children do, I would draw all over myself, my friends and then that was kind of unconsciously unaware.

However speeding up into my early teens, I became more aware of what a tattoo actually was.

And after receiving my first tattoo at the age of 15, I was kind of hooked from there.

The human body is a very three dimensional figure that has a lot of form and shape and flow to it.

So prior to tattooing, I took Human Physiology classes 'cause I've always had a deep appreciation and fascination for the human body and how magical it is, which translates later on into the art form of taking a flat motionless image, and then understanding certain principles from the art realm as well as the anatomy realm and putting them together to where when the client wears a piece of art or the tattoo, it's there to fit, flatter and flow and compliment whichever area it is.

And designed according with the muscle striations, whether it's the joint or the arm, it should almost seamlessly be a part of them.

When the client comes in, this is where the accountability and responsibility of the artist comes in to confidently say yes or no but also kindly educate the clients because the clients are collectors.

They don't innately understand everything that the artist does.

Tattoo artists it's up to us to remember what it was like to be a collector and a client.

So just slow the role, be patient and kind and communicate with them why some things work, why something don't work, and then also ultimately educate them on how to take their concept and transform that into not only a tattoo, but something that's going to age well and grow well with them in the skin.

Because unlike any other medium, the skin is a living, breathing, changing, I guess "canvas" so to speak.

Where unlike paper or canvas that'll stay the same, you have to take certain principles and steps to make sure that the ink doesn't settle and move and bleed together over time.

>>I was always drawn to Norse mythology, especially with the Celtic nodding or designs and the shading.

And then the thing that was super important to me was that I didn't want to have a tattoo that I could in a couple of years bump into someone and suddenly they have the exact same thing.

David's work just spoke to me really, really well, just because it's unique.

It's his own piece of artwork that he made from scratch just straight out of his creativity.

He didn't even know show me the artwork when I showed up the first day, he just kind of told me, Hey, I got something really good.

I know you're gonna love it.

And it's been like that ever since.

But I had known that he's gonna make it his art and he's gonna make sure that it's like done as flawlessly as he's capable of doing.

It's just absolute satisfaction.

>>Tattooing was definitely like the main corridor slash doorway that opened up other venues.

Since I had been constantly on a pursuit after moving from Idaho to Florida, like tattooing and learning that and then approaching the art forms and still doing that.

It's like an adventure in chasing mountain peaks.

I appreciate the journey.

And then about a handful of years ago, a friend of mine over in Cocoa Beach, had a box of cans.

I was able to realize the amount of coverage that I could achieve in very little time with spray paint, was just phenomenal.

It bit me and I just had that itch.

There's something magical about not touching whatever it is that you're actually applying a picture to.

'Cause tattoos are so precise, there's no room for error.

You're like there, you can't erase but with art it was like taking all the leashes and the safeties off, and it's just like, Bob Ross would say, "Happy accidents".

You know there's no mistakes.

And then it's paint so it's like if you make a mistake or happy accident you paint over it.

Can't do that with tattooing.

I wanna provide a sanctuary, a space where individuals can get a glimpse of what it's like to feel what an artist feels when they're in that creative moment.

So I made the decision to do a private studio, because that's the endeavor I'm still pursuing is that path of an artist.

And tattooing is just one of the main foundational mediums that has spring pointed me into now.

I would say right now, my hobbies consist of more childlike recess time activities and rock climbing's really got my inner child right now because of the slight addiction to failure and being like "I can't do that now" but through discipline and practice, like I wish I could do that, I think I can do that I just did that.

I view it as an art form I guess.

Everything's an art form that's my core.

The series I'm working on is Geishas and Samurais.

They're both artists in their own right.

Their own art forms on a daily basis, they wake up and devote themselves to the perfection of whatever it is they decide to pursue.

And the mindfulness that those art forms practice is also implemented into the mindfulness of tattooing and spray painting.

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"UNTIL NEXT WEEK, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING."

Funding for COLORES was provided in part by: Frederick Hammersley Foundation... New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund at the Albuquerque Community Foundation... ...New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs with supplemental funding by the New Mexico CARES Act and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

...and Viewers Like You (CLOSED CAPTIONING BY KNME-TV)