1
00:00:04,480 --> 00:00:05,960
--[WESTON PEW] Car seat stroller!

2
00:00:06,880 --> 00:00:08,940
--[MARELA ZACARIAS] I don't know how it opens,
though.

3
00:00:09,900 --> 00:00:12,900
--I might look up the instructions, but you
don't have to...

4
00:00:13,900 --> 00:00:15,790
So basically, what we're going to do

5
00:00:15,790 --> 00:00:17,840
is we're putting together 1 through 5,

6
00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,220
which is the part of the piece that goes on
the ceiling.

7
00:00:29,140 --> 00:00:32,619
I found out that I got this commission

8
00:00:32,619 --> 00:00:34,519
pretty much at the same time--the same week--

9
00:00:34,519 --> 00:00:36,069
that I found out that I was pregnant.

10
00:00:36,640 --> 00:00:38,580
[Marela Zacarias, artist]

11
00:00:38,580 --> 00:00:42,019
I mean, we've been joking about how I have
two babies coming

12
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because they're due at the same time.

13
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--There you go!

14
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--[PEW] Cool! His first car!

15
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--I like it.

16
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[ZACARIAS] It looks good.

17
00:00:50,740 --> 00:00:51,560
--[PEW] A little short for me...

18
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:53,000
[Weston Pew, Husband]

19
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--[ZACARIAS] I think you can adjust it.

20
00:00:54,380 --> 00:00:55,720
--Can you adjust it?

21
00:00:58,220 --> 00:01:00,120
[Bed Stuy, Brooklyn]

22
00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:06,380
[Marela Zacarias's Great Expectations]

23
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I want to finish the piece before I have the
baby,

24
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so we've been fighting against time.

25
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And I feel like both projects have been developing
in the same way.

26
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At the moment when we have the first sonogram,

27
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we get first rendering done of the piece,

28
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and it's all white.

29
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You don't know what it's going to look like.

30
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And then as it starts coming together,

31
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the baby is growing.

32
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And in the same way, our piece is growing.

33
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[Marela, Age 1]

34
00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:41,320
[Marela, Age 3]

35
00:01:42,420 --> 00:01:43,440
[Marela, Age 6]

36
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:45,820
I feel like as we move forward even in life,

37
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it's always important to recognize where you
come from,

38
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and it's not until we integrate where we come
from

39
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that you are complete.

40
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When I moved to New York, I was a muralist.

41
00:02:00,220 --> 00:02:04,040
I feel like, after 10 years of painting murals--

42
00:02:04,050 --> 00:02:06,390
for other people, with other people--

43
00:02:06,390 --> 00:02:08,390
my own voice as an artist

44
00:02:08,390 --> 00:02:12,099
was wanting to claim a little more space to
just experiment,

45
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and that's when I decided to go to grad school.

46
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Grad school put me upside down.

47
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It really pushed me to find out what I really
wanted to say

48
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and how I wanted to say it.

49
00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:26,620
And I'm glad because I feel like

50
00:02:26,620 --> 00:02:29,999
now I can say a lot more things through my
own language.

51
00:02:30,500 --> 00:02:32,099
[The William Vale Hotel, Williamsburg]

52
00:02:32,099 --> 00:02:35,680
But I also think that my work is still talking
about a narrative--

53
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there's a story behind it,

54
00:02:37,450 --> 00:02:38,770
there's a research.

55
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So if I was going to make a piece

56
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for this new hotel being built in Williamsburg,

57
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for this place in Brooklyn that is developing
so fast,

58
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I think that I had to go back to the past--

59
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to the origins.

60
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As I'm doing research,

61
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then things start really coming to the front.

62
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They feel right.

63
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And that's what happened

64
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when I was going through the archives from
the Brooklyn Historical Society

65
00:03:21,909 --> 00:03:24,389
and I started looking at maps of Brooklyn.

66
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I think the shape, for me, emerged as 
"This is it."

67
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I feel like we are at a time where things

68
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are moving forward really quickly in Brooklyn

69
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and changing rapidly.

70
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Part of that energy is kind of unstoppable.

71
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I mean, we're all being affected by it,

72
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for good and for bad.

73
00:03:45,379 --> 00:03:50,179
So I really wanted to take a moment to look
at the past,

74
00:03:50,180 --> 00:03:51,800
and I kind of made the piece about that--

75
00:03:51,809 --> 00:03:54,069
about that energy that started it all.

76
00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:05,460
This is actually the ceiling.

77
00:04:05,469 --> 00:04:08,509
It's Williamsburg and Greenpoint and Bushwick.

78
00:04:08,820 --> 00:04:09,799
This is a sketch,

79
00:04:09,799 --> 00:04:11,469
and this is only half of the piece.

80
00:04:11,469 --> 00:04:13,389
There's a second floor that goes down.

81
00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:20,440
When I was working on figurative murals,

82
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they were telling a story visually.

83
00:04:22,019 --> 00:04:26,590
You could see it and immediately recognize
what it was trying to say.

84
00:04:26,590 --> 00:04:29,310
But that was the end of the interaction.

85
00:04:29,880 --> 00:04:33,370
I feel like abstraction really allows for
the story to be filtered

86
00:04:33,370 --> 00:04:35,370
and to come out in a different way

87
00:04:35,370 --> 00:04:38,570
in which people can either see it or not see
it at all.

88
00:04:41,020 --> 00:04:43,800
At least it creates a question like, "What
is this about?"

89
00:04:43,810 --> 00:04:45,970
instead of just being like, "Oh, this is about
this."

90
00:04:46,420 --> 00:04:48,200
[PEW] Once the colors get on it,

91
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:50,250
it starts to show itself--

92
00:04:50,250 --> 00:04:51,100
reveal itself.

93
00:04:51,100 --> 00:04:53,820
[ZACARIAS] In some ways, it's similar to the birth.

94
00:04:53,820 --> 00:04:56,010
Like, you're working really hard for a long time

95
00:04:56,010 --> 00:04:58,650
on this thing that you don't know what it's
going to look like

96
00:04:58,650 --> 00:05:01,770
or what kind of personality it's going to have.

97
00:05:06,540 --> 00:05:10,060
[PEW] The piece is, like, in the crowning
stage of labor.

98
00:05:10,060 --> 00:05:11,410
[BOTH LAUGH]

99
00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:15,260
Which is when the baby's head begins to show itself.

100
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:18,060
A few more hard pushes and...

101
00:05:18,060 --> 00:05:19,540
[BOTH LAUGH]

102
00:05:20,340 --> 00:05:21,220
...and we're there!

103
00:05:28,540 --> 00:05:32,300
At 12:34 a.m. on January 3rd,

104
00:05:32,310 --> 00:05:35,310
Mateo Zacarias Pew was born.

105
00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:42,480
[ZACARIAS] You know, they have this saying
in Spanish, it says,

106
00:05:43,180 --> 00:05:45,060
[IN SPANISH] "If you want to make God laugh"

107
00:05:45,060 --> 00:05:46,550
"just tell him your plans."

108
00:05:46,550 --> 00:05:51,720
I had this idea that I would install the project
and then have the baby,

109
00:05:51,720 --> 00:05:54,020
but the building was delayed.

110
00:05:55,180 --> 00:05:59,360
And me being pregnant also added some delay
to everything.

111
00:06:01,040 --> 00:06:04,560
Not everything comes out the way that you
say it will,

112
00:06:04,570 --> 00:06:05,830
but that's okay.

113
00:06:05,830 --> 00:06:08,930
I mean, I think I'm lucky to have an amazing husband

114
00:06:08,930 --> 00:06:12,180
who supports my artwork 100%

115
00:06:12,180 --> 00:06:14,820
and who will help me raise Mateo

116
00:06:14,820 --> 00:06:17,900
and who will help me be able to get things done

117
00:06:17,900 --> 00:06:19,200
at the studio.

118
00:06:19,820 --> 00:06:24,940
Because it seems like it's not going to get slower.

119
00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:29,820
I'm definitely not planning on stopping my work.

120
00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:35,800
And hopefully I get to spend all of my time
with my baby

121
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and see him grow

122
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and be there for him.