[Native flute music]
Hello my name is Alysa Ojeda, and I’m the Marketing and Public Relations Manager for
Grand Canyon Conservancy, the official non-profit partner of Grand Canyon National Park.
And we work hand-in-hand with the Park to be able to provide educational opportunities and digital programming
to keep you connected to Grand Canyon. And so, in thank you to your ongoing support, we're able to
share this new series History Behind the Arts, providing you an in-depth look at the
Cultural Demonstrator Program at Grand Canyon. So, it's my pleasure to introduce to you today
Cultural Demonstrator Program Coordinator, Grace Lilly.
Hello, thank you for joining us today. We have the pleasure of talking with Jerrel Singer, a Diné painter joining us from his home in Flagstaff.
He grew up with this family in the Cameron-Gray Mountain area. And I want to thank you so much for joining us today Jerrel.
Thank you it's a pleasure to be here. I always
demonstrate up there at the Watchtower the Grand Canyon is one of my favorite things to do.
Jerrel, I wanted to start off with the fact that you've been a painter for over 10 years, do you
mind sharing just a little bit about yourself and how you got involved in art and painting?
Well first thing I did is- I didn't want to be a painter. I was just I was an engineering student here at NAU.
Being a painter I just fell into it. My father got sick, and when I was taking
care of him in the hospital, I just picked up a pencil and paper and I started drawing when
I was taking care of him. So, I just followed in the family footsteps of being a painter.
Thanks for sharing Jerrel. And was there anybody who inspired or influenced you
to continue painting as your career?
Yes, actually, it was my uncles who were all artists. And after I said you know I think I want to be an artist I want to be a painter.
They're like well you can come join us, come paint with us. You know that was like Baje Whitethorne Sr.
And he always like come and sit down, paint with me you, can learn right here, learn on the job
is more what of what he said. He said, “We'll sit right here.” And I don't want to do that,
I could not paint live. I could not do anything like that.
And he- he made me do it all the time. “Sit down right here, grab a grab a paintbrush
you know paint something.” So, I look up to him. I asked him questions, he is one of the people I aspire to be.
It's nice to hear that you are following some family footsteps. And I know that you're a mixed media artist.
Can you tell us a little bit about the specific materials and tools that you use in your art?
Yes, so the mixed media that I use, mostly, is as most of the time I’ll use spray paint
my background or I’ll use a wash of acrylics, and a lot of pen work too. So, all that came
with that was I wanted to do more graffiti type art, but without you know the graffiti part. So,
what I wanted to do was just incorporate the fine lines of spray paint and the big bold colors that they use.
So that's what and I looked around I looked a lot of artists seeing what they do,
and you know hanging out artists you don't want to be like them you want to be different. You want to
do something that they say, “wow how did you do that? “Show me how you did that!” You're like,
“well I want to keep it my secret” but you know after a while after watching them and then
watching it they're like, “I know how you did- that that's so cool, but I can't do that.” And
just seeing other artists, working with them, it inspires you to be take much more creativity and detail into your work.
And I hear you use some unique backgrounds
or materials for painting on can you tell us a little bit more about your skateboard art?
Yes so, the skateboards that I’ve done were here as a show in
at the Museum of Northern Arizona, and now it's over in Durango- Fort Collins College. And
what we use is- I use a lot of bold colors, big brush strokes, bright colors, and trying to get
more depth into it. That's what I’m trying to do, but hopefully I still want to do more.
It's always changing you see something you can improve on it's always happening.
Can't wait to see what you come up with next. So, I’d just love to hear
just a little bit about what you like to express in your work do you mind sharing?
Yeah so, the things I like to do I like to
paint my home, of the areas that I grew up in around Cameron, Gray Mountain,
even the Grand Canyon area to Tuba City, all along Highway 89 north of Flagstaff all way up to Page.
So, all that- I like to paint the canyons, I like to paint the the dirt roads, the skies,
everything in between. When you're driving past there- everybody's driving probably like 80 miles
an hour and I like to stop hike along the area take little reference photos, take pictures,
and see like how what I can capture. What I see in my childhood and what I see from
10 years ago, and what I see in the future. So what I see now, is always going to be different
from I what I see or later on in my life.
Well that's really great. And I hear that you grew up pretty close to Grand Canyon. Do you mind sharing just a little bit about your
personal connection to Grand Canyon?
Growing up near the Grand Canyon, so my mom, my dad, my grandparents, they were all farmers out there. But we had
a whole section of land that was near the river. We'd always go there every year.
We would turn the land everything. Plant our corn, plant our watermelon,
cantaloupe, lots of corn- that was always a great thing. And we would take care of it throughout
the summer. Go out there every weekend, but we couldn't go every day because we're in school-
my dad had to work, parents had to work. So every time we go out there we collect all our, you know,
gatherings and we probably find like twice a year and that was like one of the funnest things that,
you know, growing up taking care of our plants. Because again taking care of the land you take
care of everything and it takes care of you too. And my family all worked at the Canyon. They're all
either park rangers, worked in all the Curio shops, they're all doing demonstrations there too.
A lot of them were dancers, they always dance out there, and near the park entrances and in
Cameron area too. So, growing up there, you're always surrounded by a tourist and family. So,
it was just a great way to see how we interacted with each other.
Well as you've had this time that you spent at Grand Canyon and your whole background
of the Diné, is there anything that you're hoping to share with visitors so they can
understand a little bit more about your culture? Yeah so, they say the Grand Canyon celebrated its
100th anniversary- well as you can see it wasn't created in 100 years. The canyon has been there
for you know millions of years, and what I want to show is the canyon is always changing, it's always
showing you beautiful colors, beautiful landscapes, and the landscape inside the
canyon is always changing due to the Colorado River. And growing up at the canyon you always see
how the light crosses over to the into the river into the canyons and it changes everything.
That's really great, thank you for sharing. Would you like to share a pivotal moment
from your time as an artist maybe when you felt like you finally made it as an artist?
A pivotal moment, was when I was at an art show, and I was approached by a reporter.
And that reporter wanted to interview me for the paper. And I’m like looking at
myself like, “Me?” you got all these amazing artists around here you want to interview me?
And you know that was like a turning point. I didn't expect to be interviewed for you know art.
I just did art. Art was more like something to relax my mind, to relax my soul. And to have
a reporter ask me like, “how do you feel about your art?” “how's everything?”
And you know some of those questions I couldn't answer the first time, because I didn't know.
It was just something to relax me and get out of the you know hustle and bustle of this modern world.
Thanks for sharing that special moment. And you know you've got a decade of experience Jerrel.
Is there any special words of wisdom that you would like to share with other artists that are just beginning?
Yeah always create. Always do something, always
have a drawing pad, pencil or pen. Always sketch down your ideas even if it doesn't feel like
it means something. It means something to you inside your mind. So when you create something,
and you forget about it and you look at your sketch pad like a month later, a week later,
even years later, you have multiple sketch pads- I probably have a stack about that high.
Every now and then I’ll look through it, you know, say how what how did I draw that?
How did I create that? So young artists always have sketch pads- always draw your ideas out.
Great suggestions Jerrel. Kind of talking a little bit about what everybody's going through
these days, we've all been struggling with this pandemic, and I know that there has been a lot of
times in the past that the Diné and other Native Americans have had to deal with epidemics
in their communities. And just kind of wondering if you have a belief system that might- has
helped you guys through during troubling times you would like to share with others?
Being an artist, we're always trying to create something new. And that's always helped me out,
but growing up as a Native American a Diné, we always had our teachings of what our father
and our grandfathers taught us. So that was being traditional, being one with the land,
taking care of the land, taking care of our crops, and taking care of our animals. When you take care
of your animals and crops they in turn take care of you because that's also your food source. So
being tied to the land, we're always trying to protect it. Whether it be from development,
radioactive spills, you know, even dams. But
one thing you got to realize, is most Natives are like that. We try to be one with ourselves,
our heart, and even our crop, our ground. So that's our mother that we're taking care of.
We always have to take care of our mom.
That's beautiful and inspirational, thanks for sharing Jerrel. If you have anything else you'd like to ask Alysa?
That's a good question. I’m just mesmerized by the art behind you. I mean I would be
a little bit interested to hear how your process is. In terms of do you always sketch it out first,
and then do a smaller mock-up and then go to a bigger painting like what's behind you?
Yeah, sometimes I’ll do a mock-up or a smaller painting. Most of the time it's just like
pre-writing, you know. You'll sketch out your idea, you're write out your ideas and everything.
And it doesn't make sense, and you redo it redo it redo it everything like that.
Sometimes I’ll do it sometimes, they'll just come to me. You just paint something it'll just-
boom- be there. And especially if you're doing live art in front of an audience,
you really don't have time to stop and say oh I don't want to do that. But you just keep going
the process- pretty much all hand in hand. You have your background, your foreground,
upper atmosphere, lower atmosphere, there's all sorts of things that are
always going through my mind. Yes, sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't.
I guess one last thing Jerrel we got into talking a lot, but I wasn't sure if there was
anything that you had to share with us either a piece in progress or even one that you've completed recently that you'd like to share?
Well, most of my artwork is out in galleries right now.
Down in Coconino Community College I’m a part of their alumni, so they have my artwork right now.
And some of it is over in Durango at Fort Collins College. I have a little bit of
art that's in progress, but not something that I want to share right now because
sometimes when you start it looks muddy, fumbled, and your shapes aren't defined yet you know.
Yeah, that's fine. What about the pieces behind you is do you want to talk about any of those at all?
Two of them I did,
one of them is one of my good friend’s. And it's one of my favorite pieces. And his name is
Jonathan Curley and he- we traded paintings for that.
I keep it around- I love it. It always inspires me, I always see something different in it. And
every time I look at it- I always wanted to say, “wow- how did he do that? How did he do that?"
And it makes me think about some of these that I do. He incorporates more work more traditional stuff
and I like that. Maybe someday I’ll go down that path incorporate more traditional
artwork and stories into my heart, but right now landscapes everything else.
Well neat Is the one at the very top with some pink in it is that more of like a thunderstorm cloud?
I did that live over at the Grand Canyon at the
Watchtower probably three years ago. This is just a print right here. It's one of my favorite pieces
because when I first did it, I didn't know what I was going to paint. I was just sitting there
staring outside the window and at the Watchtower you see the river flowing back there.
And this one there's also a river on the bottom. And there's this huge cloud that came in and that
was just mesmerized by it. I’m like that's what I’m painting. I did it sketched out in
the background, the clouds, and everything, and it took me about two days to complete.
It turned out amazing. And that is kind of the end of the questions I have for you,
but this is your chance to share anything else you would like to with Grand Canyon visitors as
an amazing artist as part of our Cultural Demonstration Program.
There's always changes as Grand Canyon, always doing amazing new things. You just have to take
care of what's laid out in front of us at the Canyon. Take care of one another- especially
walking and hiking. There's also animals out there too, so you have to be careful of what
we leave behind. You know pack in pack out everything that you need. And if you see
someone in distress you know there's always park rangers out to help you and there's always people
hiking up now so you can ask anybody for help. So take care of the Canyon it'll take care of you.
Jerrel I know you mentioned that you have some work in some different galleries do you mind just
going through again where people can find some of your paintings or where they might be on display?
Yes, my artwork now is over at Coconino Community College- part of the alumni association so that's
here in Flagstaff. And I also have some in Fort Lewis in Durango too. And you can find me at
Facebook at Jerrel Singer and Instagram.
Jerrel, thank you so much for taking the time to share your knowledge, experiences, and skills with us today. It's an honor to have you
be a part of our Cultural Demonstration Program and we appreciate your efforts
in helping more people feel connected to Grand Canyon, its history and its spirit.
Oh, thank you guys, I love being at Grand Canyon is one of my favorite
demonstrations I do, and I can't wait to get back out there, you know.
We miss having you out here. So we can't wait till the day we can get people back.
Jerrel and Grace this was such a pleasure. It was a really great Jerrel to learn about you,
and your history, and your art. And for those of you guys that are watching Grand Canyon's Cultural
Demonstrator Program is made possible with support and grants from Grand Canyon Conservancy and
Art Place America. To learn more about the artisans in this program, go to grandcanyon.org/demonstrators.
And stay tuned, we'll have more features on History Behind the Arts on both Grand Canyon
National Park and Grand Canyon Conservancy's social media pages soon. Thank You.
[Native flute music]