Marela Zacarías Goes Big & Goes Home | ART21 "New York Close Up"

[Bed Stuy, Brooklyn]

[October 2013]

[ZACARIAS] Yeah, I think like, it needs to
be like that...

[Marela Zacarías, Artist]

Because we need it to come out to like here,
you know?

[New York Close Up]

Perfecto!

So let's get started!

["Marela Zacarías Goes Big & Goes Home"]

We don’t want to cover the whole thing.

I guess the trick is just to barely, barely
touch it.

Because the more...

Like, if you push, it’s going to start changing
shape.

[Marela has been commissioned to make a piece
for the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico.]

[It will be her largest sculpture to date.]

I painted murals for ten years.

And while making this work and being in the
community is wonderful,

there’s a part of it, of making public art,
that is a little constraining,

where the creative process only lasts

for the time that you’re making this little
mockup.

There was part me of that needed more,

that needed that moment of creating while
you're making.

Yeah this part of the process is pretty much
all instinct...instinctive.

I just try to find like pressure points and
tension in the mesh

and it kind of tells me where to go.

There’s twenty different pieces that come
together into one.

They all fit into each other...like a puzzle.

[January 2014]

My nature is very colorful.

You know, like I want to express color.

Once I choose colors I have to kind of record
what I’m doing.

I number all the colors that I use.

We’ve created our own kind of color numbers,
you know?

This piece actually has sixty-seven colors.

Part of it is very intuitive, the way that
I’m choosing colors,

but then I kind of have to put down a record
of those decisions.

I’m not that kind of personality

where I like to plan and I’m organized,
you know?

It’s something that I’ve had to learn.

This is 31, yeah?

And then this is 5.

This is 22.

Like I would probably just extend those lines,

like up to here.

Yeah.

[ROOPENIAN] So I’m just usually looking
at the map

and trying to get a point

where I can know generally what her intention
is

and not have to be back and forth with each
detail.

Because we live in Brooklyn

and we can’t have space that just lets us

put up what we want to see...

I never quite get to see it fully put together.

Marela's always got a secret in her back pocket,

which is the final piece.

[ZACARIAS] I’ve always felt the influence
of patterns from textiles.

The ways that color is being used in some
of these is sophisticated.

Like for example here,

you know, just the uses of pink with this

kind of earthy red and then a little yellow.

And it’s you know kind of unpredictable
and exciting.

That’s sort of something that I look to
do in my own work.

Oh this is mom, with me, in Mexico.

My mom is an anthropologist.

So she actually led, like, the research on
this project.

These ancient cultures used their clothing

as a way to show their relationship

to their universe, to the earth, to their
community.

And the amazing thing is that

a lot of these symbols from the Mayan era

are still being used today.

So there's some kind of a cultural resistance

that happened through this clothing.

[PEW] Marela, you know, has lived half of
her life,

or over half of her life now,

in the U.S. even though she's from Mexico,
so...

There's a beautiful aspect that it is, kind
of,

the return of her gifts back to, kind of,
her home,

the homeland--

even though it will be the U.S. consulate,
but...

[LAUGHS]

[ZACARIAS] And this 36.

[PEW] All that’s really left here...

I mean, the colors and patterns, obviously,

are really shaping up here now

and just to kind of dial in on some last taping
and designs there

and then we’re going to be pretty much done.

[February 2014]

This is usually, you know...

It's like two or three all-nighters.

Tearing out hair and biting nails.

So yeah, the next month,

Saturday night we have a baby shower for this
piece.

And then the piece leaves on Tuesday.

There’s a truck involved

and then there’s a plane involved at some
point.

And then it lands in Mexico.

[Monterrey, Mexico]

[June 2014]

[U.S. Consulate General Monterrey]

[Marela is showing her work in Mexico for the first time.]

[ZACARIAS] Thinking back to when I was sixteen

and was coming to the States,

I was really interested in the Mexican muralists.

They were able to paint the history of Mexico

in these very important buildings.

Even though the politics have changed so much,

you can still go to the National Palace

and see the story of colonization and the
Revolution.

It was kind of crazy that that this opportunity
came

for me to do it in a place that is also

a building that is going to be there for a long time

and that has these connotations of history.

The piece can live for a long time.

[Jorge Herrera Lavín, Father]

[LAVIN, IN SPANISH] This is fabulous.

It’s like, in a space so strict and full
of rules...

it's like, this gives it a little flexibility.

I don’t know.

It's like it reduces and tempers the rigid
protocols.

[ZACARIAS] I mean, there’s so many problems
with the immigration system today.

The relationship between these two countries--

the way that undocumented workers are treated,

the way that people are being deported.

And yet, there’s stories of people who come
here and,

like me, are now able to make art.

I mean, I’ve been very lucky.

So, for me to do this piece,

it was like really meeting myself

kind of in the middle of it.

I want to connect to the people that are,
like,

going through this transition.

You’re changing when you’re going through
the consulate,

not just because you’re getting a visa or
a green card,

but your life is changing.

I know that there’s part of me that has
gone through this

that wants to give something to the people

who are going through that change.