Marela Zacarías's Great Expectations | ART21 "New York Close Up"

--[WESTON PEW] Car seat stroller!

--[MARELA ZACARIAS] I don't know how it opens,
though.

--I might look up the instructions, but you
don't have to...

So basically, what we're going to do

is we're putting together 1 through 5,

which is the part of the piece that goes on
the ceiling.

I found out that I got this commission

pretty much at the same time--the same week--

that I found out that I was pregnant.

[Marela Zacarias, artist]

I mean, we've been joking about how I have
two babies coming

because they're due at the same time.

--There you go!

--[PEW] Cool! His first car!

--I like it.

[ZACARIAS] It looks good.

--[PEW] A little short for me...

[Weston Pew, Husband]

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

--Can you adjust it?

[Bed Stuy, Brooklyn]

[Marela Zacarias's Great Expectations]

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

so we've been fighting against time.

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

At the moment when we have the first sonogram,

we get first rendering done of the piece,

and it's all white.

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

And then as it starts coming together,

the baby is growing.

And in the same way, our piece is growing.

[Marela, Age 1]

[Marela, Age 3]

[Marela, Age 6]

I feel like as we move forward even in life,

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

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

that you are complete.

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

I feel like, after 10 years of painting murals--

for other people, with other people--

my own voice as an artist

was wanting to claim a little more space to
just experiment,

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

Grad school put me upside down.

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

and how I wanted to say it.

And I'm glad because I feel like

now I can say a lot more things through my
own language.

[The William Vale Hotel, Williamsburg]

But I also think that my work is still talking
about a narrative--

there's a story behind it,

there's a research.

So if I was going to make a piece

for this new hotel being built in Williamsburg,

for this place in Brooklyn that is developing
so fast,

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

to the origins.

As I'm doing research,

then things start really coming to the front.

They feel right.

And that's what happened

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

and I started looking at maps of Brooklyn.

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

I feel like we are at a time where things

are moving forward really quickly in Brooklyn

and changing rapidly.

Part of that energy is kind of unstoppable.

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

for good and for bad.

So I really wanted to take a moment to look
at the past,

and I kind of made the piece about that--

about that energy that started it all.

This is actually the ceiling.

It's Williamsburg and Greenpoint and Bushwick.

This is a sketch,

and this is only half of the piece.

There's a second floor that goes down.

When I was working on figurative murals,

they were telling a story visually.

You could see it and immediately recognize
what it was trying to say.

But that was the end of the interaction.

I feel like abstraction really allows for
the story to be filtered

and to come out in a different way

in which people can either see it or not see
it at all.

At least it creates a question like, "What
is this about?"

instead of just being like, "Oh, this is about
this."

[PEW] Once the colors get on it,

it starts to show itself--

reveal itself.

[ZACARIAS] In some ways, it's similar to the birth.

Like, you're working really hard for a long time

on this thing that you don't know what it's
going to look like

or what kind of personality it's going to have.

[PEW] The piece is, like, in the crowning
stage of labor.

[BOTH LAUGH]

Which is when the baby's head begins to show itself.

A few more hard pushes and...

[BOTH LAUGH]

...and we're there!

At 12:34 a.m. on January 3rd,

Mateo Zacarias Pew was born.

[ZACARIAS] You know, they have this saying
in Spanish, it says,

[IN SPANISH] "If you want to make God laugh"

"just tell him your plans."

I had this idea that I would install the project
and then have the baby,

but the building was delayed.

And me being pregnant also added some delay
to everything.

Not everything comes out the way that you
say it will,

but that's okay.

I mean, I think I'm lucky to have an amazing husband

who supports my artwork 100%

and who will help me raise Mateo

and who will help me be able to get things done

at the studio.

Because it seems like it's not going to get slower.

I'm definitely not planning on stopping my work.

And hopefully I get to spend all of my time
with my baby

and see him grow

and be there for him.