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>>NARRATOR: THIS TIME, ON COLORES!
VISIONARY ALBUQUERQUE DESIGNER KENJI KONDO FOCUSES ON SUSTAINABILITY AND AESTHETICS BUT
ALSO ON MAKING DESIGN TOOLS ACCESIBLE TO OTHER ARTISTS.
>>KENJI KONDO: The technology has kind of put manufacturing basically on its ear. What
this has done is made it almost like going to Kinkos.
>>NARRATOR: WITH WEATHERED WOOD FROM ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION, CRAFTSMEN JOSH
MABE AND RANDY VALENTINE CREATE RUSTIC FURNITURE WITH A STORY TO SHARE.
>>JOSH MABE: Thats the part of frontier life, that old wild west life, that so brings me
alive. You just gotta make things work.
>>NARRATOR: SINCE 1970 ARTISAN CHARLIE HOFFMAN HAS BEEN HANDCRAFTING ACOUSTIC GUITARS. HE
SHARES HIS PROCESS AND THE SOUND HE LIKES TO HEAR.
>>CHARLIE HOFFMAN: Im not a musician, but I can contribute by making guitars for other
people who make music.
>>NARRATOR: SAM AND SARAH EVANS FIX PIANOS... PIECE BY PIECE. THEY UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE
PEOPLE CAN ATTACH TO AN INSTRUMENT GENERATION AFTER GENERATION.
Restoring a piano for a client that you know was their grandmothers piano, their greatgrandmothers
piano, and its really a piece of the family, a piece of the familys history.
>>NARRATOR: ITS ALL AHEAD ON COLORES!
VISIONARY KENJI KONDO SHARES HIS THOUGHTS ON DESIGN AND SUSTAINABILITY.
>>KENJI KONDO: From a very young age, I was influenced by design and I always knew that
everything that you touched was designed. I remember growing up and even going to restaurants
with my family and this, every meal was started this way and my dad would make this little
object out of the wrapper for a pair of chopsticks and it would become the rest for the chopsticks.
Everywhere you turn, somebody designed something that youre touching.
The cost of machinery has come down so drastically that anybody can buy the equipment and start
working. The technology has kind of put manufacturing basically on its ear. What this has done has
made it almost like going to Kinkos. When somebody comes in, when they know what their
end product is, then obviously its very easy. If they dont know what their end product is,
all of us can help them find their end product. And not that its any new concept. Industrial
design houses have done it forever, but its at a much more accessible level. So you can
walk in the door, hand somebody a junk drive and a day later, or thirty minutes later,
you can walk out with an object.
Our first step is taking our idea and bringing it into the computer. In this case, well bring
it into a 3D program. After we are comfortable with the drawing, well either take it into
a process called rapid prototyping or, in this case, we build a model using a laser
cutter to cut all the pieces. Once the fit of the model is correct, we can then take
it and bring it up to full scale and bring it into a C and C router which cuts the parts
out of plywood that can then be assembled, painted, and delivered.
We can get all the mistakes out of the drawing pretty much in one shot.
Make sure all the notches will line up, and that way when it goes into the real material,
we now know that the fit is correct.
My range of design goes from a tissue box cover all the way to furniture. Weve pretty
much cut everything you can cut with a laser or a C and C router or a plasma cutter. One
of the main reasons I started looking at this avenue for manufacturing was that, for a long
time, I was on the road a tremendous amount, and I had all this equipment and it was lying
dormant for fifty percent of the year. For me, it felt like it was a way to have it running
and give access to people. Once somebody purchases an object, it can be made quickly with just
a push of a button and at the same time, it can be made locally and I can send that same
file to Brooklyn and have it manufactured there as well. So your carbon footprint has
decreased, theres no trucks involved. So that means that the manufacturing points are also
saving that dollar for the consumer.
I came from a sculpture and architecture background. In sculpture, you make objects that initially
make you happy first, with the hopes that they make somebody else happy, they understand
what youre thinking about. To me, design is really about trying to make objects that people
will keep. When I was growing up, I grew up with great design and a lot of those objects,
I still have. I think you have to build things to last because the resources arent there
to not to do that. I mean, I want my objects to last. I want them to be around for a very
long time. Whats important in my work is that its solid, in that people recognize it and
appreciate it. I think good aesthetics almost create peace in people.
>>CRAFTSMEN JOSH MABE AND RANDY VALENTINE CREATE FURNITURE INSPIRED BY THE PIONEERS
SPIRIT OF REUSING MATERIALS
Taking some of these pieces of wood that dont have, what most people would consider, any
character at all, just take a cross section of this, and then marrying them with some
pieces that have a tremendous amount of natural character, and bring it into a story that
is beautiful, thats our lives.
>>Josh Mabe: Twenty one five is actually a reference to a verse in the bible, its one
of our favorite bible verses, its Revelations, chapter twenty one verse 5 and its where Jesus
said, Behold I make all things new. And that parallels so closely with what we do, is were
taking something thats old and broken and beaten up and were making it new.
With this line, like from the Wray Ranch, one of the story lines that we can bring is
not everything here was going to be used for something later, thats beautiful. If we can
capture the emotional side of it...thats what I want to do.
>>Randy Valentine: The story is really important for us. Its important for us because when
we deliver a piece of furniture we want people to know the history behind it.
Every part of our story every part of our history makes up who we are. Thats really
what we look for in the wood that we choose...and thats the part of frontier life, that old
wild west life, that so brings me alive...you just gotta make things work.
From a piece that is splintered and unusuable, to a piece that has natural character built
right into it. The door right there is phenomenal. The colors that happen naturally, that you
cant duplicate, no matter what you do. Well try to keep the rusted natural colors in there.
And what we could do is combine it with some different blues and grays. The original bolts
in here, we could actually preserve these in a few of the pieces.
>> Mabe: That compliments the collective, the whole piece of furniture and thats just
what we are. Thats what we are about at twenty1five is its our story that makes us who we are
and beautiful.
>> Mabe: I just really want to thank you for letting us come. Like, this is such a blessing
to be able to come here.
>>Edith WrayDuffy: And I know its going to good hands. That makes it a lot better for
me.
And we just love hearing the story too. Like thats 90% of it for us. Cause we can source
wood from different places but you just being willing to sit down with us and talk with
us, we could listen to that all day long.
Feel this thing. Grunts. This is an old hinge. Its gotta be an old hinge. Feel this thing.
So we stick that on a door somewhere...Holy Cow!
Everything that we harvest is reclaimed, so we dont cut down any trees. Not only are we
not cutting down trees but now we are going to be planting trees for every piece of furniture
that we sell.
The sustainability is definitely part of our culture now but as a business its just a natural
out pouring of who we are to our work. We would be doing this, I really believe, without
this movement of sustainability throughout our culture just because it is what our furniture
is and it is also who we are.
Its important for us to care for the environment, its important for us to care for the planet
for our kids. We want them to enjoy this as well. So we feel like its something we can
do, to give back.
Josh is taking this furniture to a whole new level in his approach and his design. Its
not just another piece of furniture; its not just another piece of reclaimed furniture.
He is adding elements to it that are completely unique that Ive never seen anywhere else.
A lot of times, you look out at creation and the mountains, and that is a form of art that
you cant hardly behold. Your eyes cant hardly take in. And that is what we are trying to
do with our twenty1five furniture. Make it art so when people look at it they are stunned.
That can lead to transformation, that can open peoples eyes up to a whole world of what
furniture, functional art should be.
What we need to do is just set up our shop right there. And then we have our source of
wood for probably a decade. Play with the kids, do a little fly fishing, and then we
are surrounded by incredible inspiration. Thered be enough inspiration to last a lifetime.
Just in this one location.
>>NARRATOR: CHARLIE HOFFMAN TAKES US THROUGH THE ARTISTIC CREATION OF A HOFFMAN ORIGINAL
GUITAR.
>>CHARLIE HOFFMAN: My first guitar was finished in June of 1970. I played it, I thought it
sounded good but I needed feedback, and one of my very good friends who was a guitar player
and a musician immediately asked me to make one for him. Its taken me a long time to be
completely comfortable with the notion that I make really nice acoustic guitars.
When talking about what makes a guitar sound good, the simple answer is everything. The
issue that were constantly dealing with, with guitar tops specifically, is that theyre being
subjected to 175, 200 pounds of pressure 24/7, from the strings being on them. And left to
its own device, this piece of wood, which is about 110thousandths of an inch thick,
would blow up very soon. So what we have to do is apply braces inside. This is called
an X brace. Its actually two pieces of wood that are notched and glued together. Hyde
glue is essentially gelatin. It is the oldest form of glue that we know of. There is at
least some reason to think that hyde glue makes guitars that sound better.
The point of heating up the wood is so that the glue will not get cold. The size, the
placement, the design of the braces to the top has more to do with the sound of the guitar
than anything else, just flat out. And so the process of carving braces makes or breaks
a guitar. For me, what Im doing is partly the woodworking
thing. Its partly that I love guitars, I think that they are artful, they are beautiful,
they are fun to hold. I love the sound of them. But there is another part of it, and
this may sound a little grandiose, but I really believe that music is important in this world.
Im not a musician, but I can contribute by making guitars for other people who make music.
Tim: I came to Minnesota around 1973, lived on the West Bank, which is a great music scene
with all these great musicians I admired like Dave Ray and John Kerner, Leo Kotke - and
of course there was Charles guitar shop. And I would like to go in and play the guitars,
and I know a lot of musicians who liked to play his guitars. Its a very delicate quality,
but my specialty is kind of a naked sound. I dont have a lot of effects, I just like
to play with just the acoustic instrument. I mean, every different guitars got a personality,
and the kind of vocabulary youll play on it will spring from that personality of the guitar.
The great thing about this guitar is it plays very, very well everywhere. And I have a kind
of a style where I go all over the neck, so thats one thing about this guitar that works
really great for me. Charlie: The guitars that I choose to make
are ones that follow the tone thats in my head. I like guitars that tend to be very
clean, not muddy, crisp, have a lot of projection, power, dynamic range. Thats what I like to
hear. Of all the things that people ask me about
building guitars, how do you bend the wood is the most common. This is Indian rosewood.
I soaked it in a tray of water for a couple hours. Im going to be clamping it to this
form here, which is heated. Its currently about 4 or 500 degrees. The heating and the
water are what make the bending work. The hard part is the starting and getting everything
lined up. And then the actual bending around the jig is pretty straight forward and pretty
easy. Done. There are people in this world who buy expensive
guitars and hang them on the wall and look at them. And to me thats not just the glass
is half empty as opposed to half full, its the glass is empty. Theyre supposed to make
music. So I love the look of them, the feel of them, but if the other part of it, the
making music, is not there, then somehow that guitar is being cheated.
This particular piece, the bending went very well. The curves are smooth, no kinks or anything
like that. A very large part of the enjoyment of what
Im doing is that with any guitar, any model, whether Im making it for an individual or
just on spec for hanging on the wall, is at some point I string it up for the first time.
And I get to hear it. And I enjoy that. And theyre all different, maybe not radically
different, but theyre all different and it gives me pleasure to hear that.
When Tim is playing, my response to it is partly, oh my God, hes playing my guitar,
how cool is that. But an awful lot of my guitars are in the hands of people who just play them
and enjoy them. To date, I have made 602 guitars, and seeing
somebody come in and pick up their new guitar and play it and theres a light in their eyes
is gratifying. I never was able to get quite that sort of feedback when I was being a lawyer.
>>NARRATOR: SAM AND SARAH EVANS SHARE THE PAINSTAKING PROCESS OF REFURBISHING PIANOS.
>>Samuel Evans: Im Samuel Evans and my shop is Modcott Piano Company.
>>Sarah Evans: There you go. >>Samuel: Most of the pianos we work on are
coming from the vintage piano category, 1890s to probably about 1930, its the majority of
our work. But we also get a lot of uh newer pianos some almost brand new factory that
just have a factory defect that requires a good amount of repair work. Our love is just
uh just the renewal of something thats old. Restoring a piano for a client that you know
was their grandmothers piano, their greatgrandmothers piano, and its really a piece of the family,
a piece of the familys history. Were renewing it for the next generation or maybe multiple
generations to come. >>Sarah: Im Sarah Evans...I get to tear down
pianos a lot. >>Samuel: Sarahs a super hard worker. Shes
uh always ready to jump in and help with whatever needs to be done.
>>Sarah: When I first met Sam yes he was working on pianos, I thought it was pretty cool. Basically
my role was to come hang out with him at the shop. But as time has gone on um now Im becoming
more interested in actually helping work on pianos but also the books and make sure pianos
get out on time. >>Samuel: Its everything moving forward, thats
for sure. >>Samuel: The shop really is an industrial space, commercial
space. Its just a big box we try to make feel like home.
>>Sarah: Drake is 5 and Myla is 3. We just want them to be part of our business, of the
space, of the music that happens. >>Samuel: Having the kids around Im sure its
aiding the way their little minds work. >>Samuel: Weve hung old relics of piano parts
on all the walls, artwork from friends and the local art scene. We just need something
to inspire me, something to drift off and look at.
>>Samuel: One of my first jobs was stripping the old barber shop pianos. You cant do anything
grosser than strip paint and barbershop a 100yearold piano. I think I fell in love with
the actually working on pianos, it wasnt a love of piano music; it was a fascination
with how the piano was constructed. >>Sarah: Sam is a perfectionist. It takes
time to make these instruments beautiful. >>Samuel: I think one of the biggest things
if youre going to work on pianos you need to have an attention to the details. You can
Build a piano that works without that but you dont have an instrument that is going
to excel and something that musicians are going to love and that is going to be something
beautiful to look at it for years to come. Its a lot of just paying attention to all
the small things. >>Sarah: Even I can get annoyed with how long
it can take to finish a project. But the fact that hes not willing to compromise perfection
is ok. >>Samuel: The piano movers are coming and
picking up something that was done two weeks ago and Im still walking around it with a
rag and polishing. Hopefully when they see it in the future they go wow, this was done
really well. You cant take anything with you so its more about what you can leave behind.
>>Sarah: And yes this piano business is our life, but its not like were stuck in just
this one thing because hes a dreamer and well continue to go further.
>>NARRATOR: NEXT TIME ON COLORES!
FILM DIRECTOR CHRIS EYRE, WINNER OF THE SUNDANCE FILMMAKERS TROPHY AND AUDIENCE AWARD... WINNER
OF BEST FILM AT THE AMERICAN INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL, SHARES HIS INSPIRATION AND CREATIVE VISION.
>>Chris Eyre: Most of all I just try to bring humanity to the characters.
>>NARRATOR: ARTIST JOHN WILSON WAS RECOGNIZED AT A YOUNG AGE IN ROXBURY MASSACHUSETTS. HE
SPENT MANY YEARS PORTRAYING MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
He was a man who ideas about the world that he was trying to make other people feel
and understand.
FROM AMERICAN MASTERS, MEL BROOKS: MAKE A NOISE, WE GET A GLIMPSE AT THE FUNNY MANS
CHILDHOOD.
Were rich! Were rich! Where did you get them? She said, Melvin, theyre not diamonds. Theyre
a thing called rhinestones.
>>NARRATOR: CREATED BY THE ARCHITECTS OF AIR A LUMINARIUM TRANSPORTS VISITORS INTO AN EXICTING
NEW WORLD OF SPACE AND LIGHT.
The shapes come from inspiration from nature, from plants, soap bubbles; some of the inspiration
comes from the bazaars of Iran.
UNTIL NEXT TIME, THANK YOU FOR WATCHING.