Transcript: Ramona Peters: The Black Paint

ANTHONY TRUJILLO: In this pot, there's the black band and the white. And then there's the color of the clay. Are those -

NOSAPOCKET: This surprised me. I do have—black slip is something that I don't often put on my pieces. So it's another liquidy clay. It was always—even when I carved that, it's beveled. I don't if you can see it on the camera. So it's carved in, and then there's this bevel. And it was really aesthetically, to me, it's very nice. I liked it; I loved the feel of it.

But even before I did it, I was always being told this would be a black color. And so the people, my friends, who were asking me about how the piece is coming, I’m like, oh, yeah, it’s coming along. But I still need the black piece in there. And nobody would ask me: why. And, you know, “Oh, that's very dramatic,” was one response. And it’s like: oh, yeah, I guess it is. Yeah, I suppose it is.

In a way, it's a time stamp. It's a time stamp. Earlier I was talking about some of the values that are so wrong that need to change. So we're in an era now, for us, for hundreds of years, we've had to also endure and witness that there's a lack of love and appreciation for other beings.

And so we're now still talking about that Black Lives Matter right now. That white people or some white people need to be told that, that anybody needs to be told that is— um –

Not only is it a time stamp, it's—

Here’s the whole world is witnessing what we’re going through here in this country and – Where’s the growth? Frankly I'm embarrassed. Yeah, it's such a ridiculous mindset.

Anyway, the antiquity here in this country belongs to us, indigenous people. And the combination of this shape and these little spurts, this could disappear from memory, this time stamp I’m talking about. So this is what I was seeing and feeling after a certain amount of strokes of the color, was I was going through that sadness about, you know, such misery and such stupidity.

I don't know what the word is when just simply, things don't evolve. It is a natural process for change. Everything changes. But why isn't that? Why hasn't some of these very, very unkind, unhealthy notions not changed by now?

But I've never known any other pottery to come out with a political statement. I guess that's very political. But I think a bit more of this more as a social illness. And since we're talking about community and society, it is appropriate for it to be there. How can we nourish – How can a pot be nourishing to anybody who needs to be fed if we're going to decide who is lovable and who is not?