WEBVTT

00:00:04.480 --> 00:00:05.960
--[WESTON PEW] Car seat stroller!

00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:08.940
--[MARELA ZACARIAS] I don't know how it opens,
though.

00:00:09.900 --> 00:00:12.900
--I might look up the instructions, but you
don't have to...

00:00:13.900 --> 00:00:15.790
So basically, what we're going to do

00:00:15.790 --> 00:00:17.840
is we're putting together 1 through 5,

00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:21.220
which is the part of the piece that goes on
the ceiling.

00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:32.619
I found out that I got this commission

00:00:32.619 --> 00:00:34.519
pretty much at the same time--the same week--

00:00:34.519 --> 00:00:36.069
that I found out that I was pregnant.

00:00:36.640 --> 00:00:38.580
[Marela Zacarias, artist]

00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:42.019
I mean, we've been joking about how I have
two babies coming

00:00:42.019 --> 00:00:43.589
because they're due at the same time.

00:00:44.240 --> 00:00:45.200
--There you go!

00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:49.220
--[PEW] Cool! His first car!

00:00:49.220 --> 00:00:49.860
--I like it.

00:00:49.860 --> 00:00:50.740
[ZACARIAS] It looks good.

00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:51.560
--[PEW] A little short for me...

00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:53.000
[Weston Pew, Husband]

00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:54.380
--[ZACARIAS] I think you can adjust it.

00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:55.720
--Can you adjust it?

00:00:58.220 --> 00:01:00.120
[Bed Stuy, Brooklyn]

00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:06.380
[Marela Zacarias's Great Expectations]

00:01:08.300 --> 00:01:12.000
I want to finish the piece before I have the
baby,

00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.700
so we've been fighting against time.

00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:21.760
And I feel like both projects have been developing
in the same way.

00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:24.860
At the moment when we have the first sonogram,

00:01:25.820 --> 00:01:28.420
we get first rendering done of the piece,

00:01:28.430 --> 00:01:29.520
and it's all white.

00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:30.890
You don't know what it's going to look like.

00:01:30.890 --> 00:01:33.550
And then as it starts coming together,

00:01:33.550 --> 00:01:34.750
the baby is growing.

00:01:35.500 --> 00:01:38.600
And in the same way, our piece is growing.

00:01:38.600 --> 00:01:39.380
[Marela, Age 1]

00:01:40.520 --> 00:01:41.320
[Marela, Age 3]

00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:43.440
[Marela, Age 6]

00:01:43.440 --> 00:01:45.820
I feel like as we move forward even in life,

00:01:45.820 --> 00:01:48.990
it's always important to recognize where you
come from,

00:01:48.990 --> 00:01:52.159
and it's not until we integrate where we come
from

00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:53.619
that you are complete.

00:01:56.650 --> 00:01:58.990
When I moved to New York, I was a muralist.

00:02:00.220 --> 00:02:04.040
I feel like, after 10 years of painting murals--

00:02:04.050 --> 00:02:06.390
for other people, with other people--

00:02:06.390 --> 00:02:08.390
my own voice as an artist

00:02:08.390 --> 00:02:12.099
was wanting to claim a little more space to
just experiment,

00:02:12.099 --> 00:02:14.239
and that's when I decided to go to grad school.

00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:18.420
Grad school put me upside down.

00:02:18.420 --> 00:02:22.120
It really pushed me to find out what I really
wanted to say

00:02:22.129 --> 00:02:24.209
and how I wanted to say it.

00:02:24.800 --> 00:02:26.620
And I'm glad because I feel like

00:02:26.620 --> 00:02:29.999
now I can say a lot more things through my
own language.

00:02:30.500 --> 00:02:32.099
[The William Vale Hotel, Williamsburg]

00:02:32.099 --> 00:02:35.680
But I also think that my work is still talking
about a narrative--

00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:37.450
there's a story behind it,

00:02:37.450 --> 00:02:38.770
there's a research.

00:02:41.159 --> 00:02:42.989
So if I was going to make a piece

00:02:42.989 --> 00:02:46.519
for this new hotel being built in Williamsburg,

00:02:46.519 --> 00:02:50.450
for this place in Brooklyn that is developing
so fast,

00:02:50.450 --> 00:02:54.090
I think that I had to go back to the past--

00:02:57.469 --> 00:02:58.909
to the origins.

00:03:12.260 --> 00:03:13.600
As I'm doing research,

00:03:13.600 --> 00:03:16.520
then things start really coming to the front.

00:03:16.520 --> 00:03:17.340
They feel right.

00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:18.320
And that's what happened

00:03:18.329 --> 00:03:21.909
when I was going through the archives from
the Brooklyn Historical Society

00:03:21.909 --> 00:03:24.389
and I started looking at maps of Brooklyn.

00:03:24.389 --> 00:03:28.309
I think the shape, for me, emerged as 
"This is it."

00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:33.760
I feel like we are at a time where things

00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:36.669
are moving forward really quickly in Brooklyn

00:03:36.669 --> 00:03:38.409
and changing rapidly.

00:03:38.409 --> 00:03:41.900
Part of that energy is kind of unstoppable.

00:03:41.900 --> 00:03:43.879
I mean, we're all being affected by it,

00:03:43.879 --> 00:03:45.379
for good and for bad.

00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:50.179
So I really wanted to take a moment to look
at the past,

00:03:50.180 --> 00:03:51.800
and I kind of made the piece about that--

00:03:51.809 --> 00:03:54.069
about that energy that started it all.

00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:05.460
This is actually the ceiling.

00:04:05.469 --> 00:04:08.509
It's Williamsburg and Greenpoint and Bushwick.

00:04:08.820 --> 00:04:09.799
This is a sketch,

00:04:09.799 --> 00:04:11.469
and this is only half of the piece.

00:04:11.469 --> 00:04:13.389
There's a second floor that goes down.

00:04:17.200 --> 00:04:20.440
When I was working on figurative murals,

00:04:20.450 --> 00:04:22.019
they were telling a story visually.

00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:26.590
You could see it and immediately recognize
what it was trying to say.

00:04:26.590 --> 00:04:29.310
But that was the end of the interaction.

00:04:29.880 --> 00:04:33.370
I feel like abstraction really allows for
the story to be filtered

00:04:33.370 --> 00:04:35.370
and to come out in a different way

00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:38.570
in which people can either see it or not see
it at all.

00:04:41.020 --> 00:04:43.800
At least it creates a question like, "What
is this about?"

00:04:43.810 --> 00:04:45.970
instead of just being like, "Oh, this is about
this."

00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:48.200
[PEW] Once the colors get on it,

00:04:48.200 --> 00:04:50.250
it starts to show itself--

00:04:50.250 --> 00:04:51.100
reveal itself.

00:04:51.100 --> 00:04:53.820
[ZACARIAS] In some ways, it's similar to the birth.

00:04:53.820 --> 00:04:56.010
Like, you're working really hard for a long time

00:04:56.010 --> 00:04:58.650
on this thing that you don't know what it's
going to look like

00:04:58.650 --> 00:05:01.770
or what kind of personality it's going to have.

00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:10.060
[PEW] The piece is, like, in the crowning
stage of labor.

00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:11.410
[BOTH LAUGH]

00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:15.260
Which is when the baby's head begins to show itself.

00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:18.060
A few more hard pushes and...

00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:19.540
[BOTH LAUGH]

00:05:20.340 --> 00:05:21.220
...and we're there!

00:05:28.540 --> 00:05:32.300
At 12:34 a.m. on January 3rd,

00:05:32.310 --> 00:05:35.310
Mateo Zacarias Pew was born.

00:05:39.400 --> 00:05:42.480
[ZACARIAS] You know, they have this saying
in Spanish, it says,

00:05:43.180 --> 00:05:45.060
[IN SPANISH] "If you want to make God laugh"

00:05:45.060 --> 00:05:46.550
"just tell him your plans."

00:05:46.550 --> 00:05:51.720
I had this idea that I would install the project
and then have the baby,

00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:54.020
but the building was delayed.

00:05:55.180 --> 00:05:59.360
And me being pregnant also added some delay
to everything.

00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:04.560
Not everything comes out the way that you
say it will,

00:06:04.570 --> 00:06:05.830
but that's okay.

00:06:05.830 --> 00:06:08.930
I mean, I think I'm lucky to have an amazing husband

00:06:08.930 --> 00:06:12.180
who supports my artwork 100%

00:06:12.180 --> 00:06:14.820
and who will help me raise Mateo

00:06:14.820 --> 00:06:17.900
and who will help me be able to get things done

00:06:17.900 --> 00:06:19.200
at the studio.

00:06:19.820 --> 00:06:24.940
Because it seems like it's not going to get slower.

00:06:27.040 --> 00:06:29.820
I'm definitely not planning on stopping my work.

00:06:32.880 --> 00:06:35.800
And hopefully I get to spend all of my time
with my baby

00:06:35.800 --> 00:06:37.600
and see him grow

00:06:38.460 --> 00:06:40.000
and be there for him.