Al Farrow

[00:00:01] Hey everyone this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1. In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentation on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to some new sound and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. for it on the Web at suu.edu/apex. But for now welcome to this week's show here on Thunder 91.1.

Lynn Vartan [00:00:45] OK well welcome to the A.P.E.X Hour everyone it's a Thursday and I am so happy to be here. Joining me in the studio today is artist and sculptor Al Farrow. Welcome in.

Al Farrow [00:00:58] Thank you. Thank you.

[00:01:01] It is just such a pleasure to have our on campus this is actually your second or third time second time on campus I think. So you've been in Cedar City a couple times because our Southern Utah Museum of Art has a huge exhibition of your work right now.

[00:01:29] I'm really excited about it. This has been a great event for me.

[00:01:33] That's so great. And it's on until October 5th. I think that's great. And one of the things that we're so excited about is that this morning you also participated in our A.P.E.X Hour event which is our weekly lecture series and we had a great time to talk. So what I'd love to do is just kind of start out with you telling us a bit about the inspiration. We've talked a lot.

[00:02:00] I want to try to see if we can not double too much of what we talked about this morning but I'm interested in who inspires you and who has inspired you in art in the past.

[00:02:14] You know I'm pretty much a self-motivated person and I don't have a lot of heroes in the art world. Two that I can think of that have impressed me and inspired me are Francisco Goya who worked in the late 1700s hundreds, early 1800s and he did social commentary art which is what I do. He did things prints called los Caprichos which is all the caprices of life. And he showed every human foible but his most impressive for me personally was his series The Disasters of War. And this was during the Napoleonic wars when we don't know because we weren't there - how cruel people are. We know from today's armed conflicts how cruel people can be. But some of those etchings he did are like things of people cut up and stuck on dead tree branches, all their limbs severed and their head rape scenes shot all the awful things had happened in war. And as somebody who entered the art world to become a social commentary artist that was really really strongly inspirational to me. The other artist I can think of offhand is Honoré Daumier, who in the middle eighteen hundreds did a lot of social commentary art. He was a painter. He was a sculptor and he also did political cartoons and he made fun of lawyers and politicians and he actually got thrown in jail really for that. I don't remember how much time he actually spent in jail but he definitely died a pauper and after he died all the galleries came in like vultures and bought up everything from his widow, who had no idea about selling or pricing or anything else so it was a really sad story or at least a sad ending to a story. But he was a wonderful painter he really was more modern than anyone in his time and and his work sort of predates impressionism but it has elements that the Impressionists took off on. He did a lot of clay sculptures of politicians and lawyers and he also translated some of them into bronze and I fashioned my own modeling style for bronze casting after him. And so those are my two really really strong main influences.

[00:05:05] Wow so powerful.

[00:05:06] I don't have a lot of contemporary heroes a lot of contemporary art to me is too intellectual and not visceral enough. There's not enough emotion and feeling it's art about art making. A lot of contemporary art goes in that direction and I'm sort of a rebel in the art world in that I do figuration, I do it my current work is architectural but it's super detailed and very detail-oriented. I don't fit into the mainstream of the art world. I'm sort of a little bit of a radical. So yes that's how I see myself.

[00:05:48] You've always been a bit of a rebel in the same sense and kind of come into your work. Maybe not in a traditional sort of way. Could you talk just a little bit about that. That that the early success of your art and coming to that time that you are now. In the talk today we talked a lot about your early life and I'd love to sort of hear more of that middle time when the art was really coming forth.

[00:06:16] Well I always felt I could do what I wanted to. I always had a sense of personal freedom. And so I would do the art. I think my work was good enough to get gallery shows and unfortunately most of my gallery shows didn't sell anything now year after year after year. Some things would sell eventually but I had a lot of shows that had no no sales so I wasn't widely received. I think some of my work offended people because I am commenting on things that other people might think is OK. And so that was a lot of my early experience. I just kept going. I would just think if nothing happened nothing sold. Where did they see the next show. It's going to be even stronger and it would be. And I just kept basically doubling down and eventually I started getting some recognition. But my real recognition happened when I was 65. Wow.

[00:07:21] That's ten years ago.

[00:07:22] That's amazing.

[00:07:23] And it was when a museum that De Young Museum in San Francisco bought a major piece that I did. Now I had sold pieces in this this body of work and had lots of exhibitions but still not any wider recognition. Once the museum bought it it was really strange. I mean everybody started treating me differently. My friends, all the artists it's like they always put me on a pedestal. I don't wanna to be on a pedestal. I'm just a regular guy. So I said you know that was it. "Oh you're famous now you know you're in a museum and you're making money" and they'd look at the price list and see add up all the numbers but nobody was buying. Right. So they thought I was rich. I was getting famous and they treated me differently and I really really didn't like that. I'm just a regular guy. You know I like to do all the things. Regular guys do. Sex drugs and rock and roll. So I wanted to be treated normally. And so eventually things calmed down but I still get feedback in and from other artists. You know where there are either jealousies or you know other emotions attached to their view of who and what I am. I'm still the same guy who came out of Brooklyn and started making sculptures. You know nothing much has changed except I've got older.

[00:08:51] What an interesting commentary on fame and money that is. You know, that the minute that you were in a museum then all of a sudden things changed.

[00:09:02] Yeah. You know that is a level of respect that goes. And so after that initial museum exposure they gave me a show to introduce my work because this was a piece that commented on Catholicism and so they wanted to include things that commented on Islam and Judaism and so they gave me a show that was inclusive of the religions I was working with. But the really coolest thing was they let me curate the walls in the gallery of that museum. So I had this big room and a bunch of sculptures in the middle and I got to choose what went on the wall. You know what I put on the wall?

[00:09:48] No what?

[00:09:49] Goya's Disasters of War, some of Daumier's prints.  Because the museum museum had archives of all these prints and so they let me go through the archive and just choose. And I got to surround my work with my few heroes and and everything was black and white prints, no color. I don't want any color in the room because my work is not really colorful. I didn't want to pull the eye away. And so I was all social commentary and all black and white. And it was a beautiful show.

[00:10:28] That sounds amazing and what a beautiful experience to be able to surround yourself with your mentors from another time.

[00:10:36] It was it was I never in my wildest imagination. Imagination would think that I would be able to curate the walls of a museum ever.

[00:10:47] That's amazing.

[00:10:48] So life started really opening up at that point. Yeah. And then the measure of respect went up a lot.

[00:10:55] All around. Especially in art dealers and institutions and so I started getting shows in other museums and just getting a lot more recognition. Lots more articles written about my work. It's interesting. Nothing changed except the museum bought one sculpture. Right. But it made everything else you know change.

[00:11:18] Well we are on the radio and I would love- maybe this is an unusual exercise for you but they exhibit is at our museum. Can you describe Wrath and Reverence for our radio listeners?

[00:11:32] Okay it's not easy. There's a lot of sculpture there and they're very detailed and some are very big and heavy. I basically make religious temples and reliquaries out of violent materials. Guns, bayonets, bullets, shell cartridges, all the violent things elements of war and and gang violence or whatever else. But those are those are my materials. I also use of course steel and stuff things are welded and bolted together. But you cannot, no matter how hard you look you won't find one weld or one screw or bolt. It's all hidden work so all you see is is these magnificent structures that are very detailed and very architectural so from a distance they just look like architectural models and it draws people close and once a person comes close they start discovering the materials and then all of a sudden they're hooked and they really spend time much more time than they do on other art in general. And there's an end. Another interesting thing is this work appeals to so many different types of people. There are people who like it because of its architectural references. Others like it for its commentary. Others like it because their guns in there. I mean this. And of course I'm. I'm commenting on religion. A lot of these are all religious structures. So I'm commenting on the relationship between war and religion and in my opinion it goes back all through history and into prehistory. So there's a lot to see and a lot to think about. But it's it's it has a lot of subtleties so that you don't discover the material use until you get really close.

[00:13:29] And that's great. And reminder that if you want to check it out right now live you can go check it out at our Southern Utah Museum of Art through October 5th. I also would love to point you to Al's website and I believe it's just alfarrow.com. That's correct.

[00:13:45] And so there are several still images from all of your body of work.

[00:13:50] Yeah this goes back decades back. Yeah. I have a series I called my African series it's bronze and it has to do with the the influence of technological cultures and weapons making cultures on indigenous cultures. I have an Icarus series that comments on flight from the time of the Icarus myth in Greek mythology and all the way through bombers and jets and all kinds of weaponry so those are just two of the series they could find. I have a series on women which go from female robots to you know fashion models. Yeah. It's commentary work so the robot is really truly interesting if you look on the web. It's a takeoff on Rodin's sculpture from the gates of hell called "She who once was the helmet maker's beautiful wife". And it's a sculpture of a woman sitting on a pile of rocks and she's really old and she's looking at her body and she's recognizing that most of life is behind her and her body is wasted and all that is a really compelling figure of sculpture. So I did a robot in exactly the same position on a pile of rocks copying those elements and very detailed casting using parts of models from military tanks and airplanes and engines and all this kind of stuff all combined to make a robot in the position of an I call it she who once was the engineers beautiful wife and he was commenting on. The lessons of the human and I'm commenting on obsolescence of technology because we haven't even got to robots that far but she's already obsolete.

[00:15:51] Wow. Yeah. And again you can check out all of the work on alfarrow.com and I invite you to. We're gonna come back and talk more about social commentary I want to get into talking about t some of the hidden things in your work some of the extra details to look for inside. And we also want to get in to talk about arts education. But before we do that as always I have a song for you. This is a Ligeti piece called Musica Ricercata number 7 in B flat major. This is the A.P.E.X Hour. Check it out, see what you think.

[00:19:10] Okay. Welcome back to the A.P.E.X Hour. This is Lynn Vartan. That song, the title is Musica Ricercata number seven B flat major. The composer is Ligeti and I do want to tell you the performer because she's really quite something Khatia Buniatishvili. So check her out. She has an album called Motherland and her touch on the keyboard is really nice. All right we are back in the studio with Al Farrow. Welcome back. OK. So we left off and we were talking about your work and I wanted to ask something I've been dying to ask and sometimes artists put I mean your work is so detailed already but sometimes even beyond that detail there can be hidden things hidden meanings hidden things that maybe only the truly observant eye can see. And I wondered Are there such things in your works?

[00:20:06] Lots. First of all it's a very multilayered experience. I'm not just doing commentary on war and religion I'm also playing with history and things like that religious history and history in general history of architecture also all sorts of things I have on my larger pieces. Well actually most of my pieces have something in the interior. I make it very hard to see one of the reasons I like people to get really close and so they get their nose right up to the windows to see what's inside. And I often use antique red fabrics to hold a relic or something a bone or a book whatever. I put stuff in there but you can't readily see it so you're gonna get very close. I also encourage people to use their flashlights from their phones to look inside. Yeah. And even when I'm showing in various museums I ask them to encourage visitors to do that and they do. And it's great because it sort of creates an intimacy. Anyway inside a couple of churches I've done, I have a Bible. I usually buy these really 150 200 year old bibles on eBay and then I open it to Revelation. Because it's an apocalyptic part of the Bible and then I insert a facsimile of Albert jurors four horsemen of the apocalypse. Then I just make a print and I size it to the size of the Bible and there and ticket to make it look as old as the Bible and and so it would be one of the things you'd find in the interior. But you got to look inside my big cathedral there's a spine and I call it the spine and tooth of Santo Guero. And so there is a spine down the nave of the cathedral. There's also a tooth with a gold filling over one of the doors and so you just have to look around and try to find it.

[00:22:14] I totally missed those the first time around. I'm going back to the museum to look at that.

[00:22:18] It's in a small window. OK. In in the the piece of architecture that's just above the door on the side doors. OK. But that's just a couple of examples that I really layer a lot I comment even on like in religious history. I've done a lot of sculptures that I called Trigger Finger of Santo Guerra Santo Guerra by the ways a saint I made up so they don't insult anybody who actually has a patron saint. So. The trigger finger I've done 21 of them now. Now there was a online I was following a thread of commentary on my work and somebody said How many fingers did Santo Guerra have. You know that was perfect because the guy missed the whole point.

[00:23:14] Historically anytime anything became extraordinarily valuable fakes would abound and so relics and reliquary as were the most valuable objects during Middle Ages and Renaissance in Europe. So of course they had these 60 churches in Europe that have the head of John the Baptist right. There are six churches that have the breast of St. Bernadette. Yeah. So that's sort of the equivalent of 21 fingers trigger fingers for Santo Guero. So I'm actually making a joke about. How how many can there possibly be. Just because they had that value people would dig up graves and actually make new reliquary is hire a jeweler to make a nice presentation and then they'd sell them to you know the meadow cheese or whoever. Rich family would would support or collect those kinds of objects. And so there's a lot of fakes everywhere but every one of those fakes that's in a church has official papal papers by either a pope a bishop or a cardinal. And so they're all official. So good luck Saint Bernadette.

[00:24:25] Yeah exactly. And did I read somewhere that one of your works is is at work inside a work?

[00:24:33] Yeah. I did a sculpture an Islamic piece of architecture. That's the Tomb of the first leader of independent Pakistan. Jinnah and so it's the national Muslim of Pakistan. And in my research on architecture I just came across an image and I was just floored by the simplicity and the beauty of this piece of architecture. So I decided to do a takeoff on it in my materials. And so I made it in a small scale because the guns I really wanted to use just weren't quite long enough to get the full angles that I wanted. So I made a small version but it didn't have any punch it didn't have any power. And so I thought OK I'm going to trash this but it's all my friends are like No I'll take it. Yeah I know I'm not giving it to anybody. This is not something I'm proud of. And so I decided to make it the interior of a bigger version. And so I made the same piece much larger using the guns I originally wanted and creating a steel extension to the gun so that it looked like part of the gun but isn't really. And and that gave me the proportions I needed. And so I made the the relic the former version and it's complete. The walls are covered in bullets the dome is covered in bullets and all that but on its own it just didn't have a lot of power. But the piece the larger one where most people don't even realize that there's something inside. But the larger one is really gut punch. Yeah it's it's a pure white piece with black guns and it's stark and strong. It is one of those things where a lot of people don't look inside. But when you do. Now I don't use bones or other relics for the architecture I do on Islam or Judaism because those religions don't use those relics and they want to be respectful. So I only do it for Catholic pieces. So the Protestant pieces have the Bibles. Jewish pieces have either a Torah cover or other religious paraphernalia like us a shawl or what they call to fill in which is a morning ritual object for religious Jews. So I will find I have one that has an army issued Israeli army issued bag that held that to fill him in the shawl and so I have that all combined inside one of the synagogues. So this sort of thing that you really have to look hard but you can have a very satisfying experience not looking inside just enjoying the exteriors but there's more and like like we were talking it is a lot of hidden things and some are humorous and most people don't recognize the humor because the content is so dense but there is humor layered in historically and architecturally and so I do have a sense of humor and I am really playful with materials so the materials like I'm using lots of hammers from revolvers as cobbles to support a roof. So things like that. It's. That's pretty technical but just the same. There's a creative application and a playful application of violent materials as architectural elements.

[00:28:08] Well that's just a great reason to look inside. I mean I I looked inside some and found a few things but now I really want to go and look again and look more online do people kind of track the secrets have you ever found a thread that sort of tracks all the hidden meanings?

[00:28:25] No I don't actually look at my much online every once in a while. One time I went out to dinner with a friend about a year ago and he said "Hey I love your Instagram page". I said "I don't have an Instagram page". He said "Yes you do" So when I got home after dinner I checked it out and there was 800 things on there and it wasn't you and it no. Everybody. Each one had some kind of thread and I'm like wow who did this. Oh my. But it's just people doing it. That's hashtag Alfaro. Somebody set up a page on Facebook. I don't do Facebook at all. I personally find all social media a time suck. I want to put my time in my art right. So I avoid it. Yeah. Oh my. My sons, my wife. Everybody else I know does Facebook but I'm not there.

[00:29:18] You're pure.

[00:29:20] In a way of speaking.

[00:29:21] Yeah well in a way of speaking.

[00:29:23] When it comes to social media. Right.

[00:29:25] I even did a piece for a portrait show that I was invited to be part of. And it's called Self Portrait as Santo Guerro. And this is a piece where I found a saint online holding a church, a model of a church. And I cut out his face and I put my own face in and I put my cathedral in his hands and and then I surrounded him with a halo of bullets and a background of bullets and it just came off really really great. That's cool. But the funniest part was. The face I used was a drawing of me that I didn't do. It came from Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

[00:30:11] No.

[00:30:12] Yes this is a shock. Someone sent me this Ripley's. You know how they do the comic. Yeah. In the comic section of the newspaper there. I mean even when I was a little kid and they they had Ripley's in the comics section and so they talked about my cathedral and and that it was so long and so high and you know weighed so much and that it's all made out of guns and bullets. They were actually trying to buy my work but they didn't want to spend the money. Oh so they wanted to put in one of the Ripley museums all over the world which I didn't even know. I knew there was a tourist trap in San Francisco. I did not. So anyway they couldn't buy it because it wouldn't come down in price. You know I have to at least get my investment back right. And so. So they didn't end up buying anything. Instead they did a cartoon of me. I don't even know where they got my face. And and my work. So they had the cathedral in there and my face. So I decided I'm going to. They didn't even ask permission. So right. I said I'm going to turn it around and use it in my self-portrait piece. And so it was really good.

[00:31:26] That's a great story. I love it oh my gosh. So the next song I have for you is called alarm and the artist is an ass and it's not a well-known artist. I'd love to tell you a little bit about them and their little blurb is three languages, three instruments, three artists, one unified musical identity. So they're three international musicians one from Spain. One is French Algerian and then a French contemporary cellist and then they have some percussion added in and they say through a process of self discovery and exploration of their roots and identity their sound has been shaped by the richness and background of their lives and musical experiences ranging from jazz to classical soul to Arabic traditional music. Their songs are in English, Arabic and French and are full of grace and emotion and nurtured by the magic chemistry that emerges from their creative minds. So check them out. That's the artist NES and the song is Ahlam.

[00:37:05] OK. Well we are back here on the A.P.E.X Hour. You're listening there. KSUU Thunder 91.1 My name is Lynn Vartan. I'm joined in the studio with sculptor and artist Al Farrow. That song that you just heard was called Ahlam and the group is NES just a really great combination of sounds I just think that that group is so cool so welcome back Al.

[00:37:31] Thank you.

[00:37:32] All right. So I would love to ask you about or at least continue the conversation that we started earlier about social commentary in art. It is such a powerful presence in your art. Would you say that it is the most important aspect of your art?

[00:37:51] Well not exactly. I think. Beauty is very important and that's an interesting statement because most contemporary art has nothing to do with beauty. It's actually anti beauty that since the data movement in the Around the time of the Great Depression. Beauty has been a lesson less of an issue in art. There's always art that's about beauty landscapes and flower paintings and all that sort of thing. But but beauty itself has been mostly rejected by the avant garde as the avant garde progressed. I think beauty is universal and something beautiful usually is attractive to people of any age or any culture right. I think even animals respond to beauty but just the same. I use beauty the beauty and harmony of architecture. I use it as a hook to get people close because I subdue my colors and I subdue a lot of things and keep it quiet but attractive from a distance. And my concept is to get people to see it from across a room and want to see more. And so the form the beauty of the form is actually that the hook. And so as people get closer they discover wow there's a lot of detail and they start looking and then they start discovering guns you know bayonets and bullets. And so that for me beauty is a really important issue and I would hope really hope that my work helps bring back some appreciation of beauty in contemporary art. It doesn't all have to be you know art about art making or art about you know some very abstract concepts that most people going to Contemporary Exhibitions especially like conceptual art. They have no there's nothing they can't access it. They don't have anything they can relate to. If you're not educated in that kind of art you can't appreciate the kind of art I make. Little kids appreciate it. Even for its Dollhouse effect because it's a miniature detailed miniature of something much larger. And so even little kids respond to it and a lot. And then of course a little boys they love guns. And so you know it's all about power. And so but there's different ages and levels of response but there's also so many layers of what I'm trying to do. And again I don't expect everybody to to really get it all. I put so much in it. I mean some of these pieces take more than a year to make. And so I'm spending all this time and I have lots of time to. Play with it you know and I like the idea of being playful in my work because the content is so serious and dance the playfulness is not always readily apparent but I'm clueing you in. You can look and you might find some. There's plenty of it.

[00:41:05] Yeah. A couple of things came to mind with what you were just saying and I wanted to ask. So regarding the beauty concept. If somebody asks you- which I'm sure people have asked you before then. Are guns beautiful?

[00:41:19] Yes. Form follows function. That's a Frank Lloyd Wright saying. And if you really think about it the more perfect something is for its function actually the more beautiful it is. I mean the thing about a hammer for example that I have probably 40 or 50 different kinds of hammers and each one has its own beauty because each one has a specific purpose. One is to drive nails another one is to stab things into place it's plastic or or made out of Rawhide or they're not all iron you know and they're not offered driving home a blow. Yeah there's something called a dead blow hammer which is mostly plastic it has loose led inside so that it'll really slam anyway. There's so many guys. Each one is beautiful because it fits its purpose so well and they're basically abstract sculptures. I know they have beautiful form in line and so anything can be beautiful if it has a function and it's perfect for its function. Think about any of the objects around you. How many bottles are really beautiful. You know you can apply it to almost anything like that.

[00:42:37] I hadn't really thought of it that way and that makes a lot of- because I think that that's something that comes up. People say that there's you know this juxtaposition of the beauty of the architecture and perhaps for some they say oh but guns aren't I don't find guns beautiful. But with that description it makes complete sense.

[00:42:56] Well also you know when I use when I'm searching for guns for my work I find the modern guns to be very. Very much less attractive. The earlier guns have an architecture to them. Lots of steps in the form lots of curves. Some of them are actually really elegant. So even though they're they're violent materials there is a real beauty to them and a lot of people collect guns for their beauty right. Go home sometime and analyze it as a sculpture. Yeah and you'll see that they can be really interesting.

[00:43:36] The other thing that struck me when you were saying is the little girls looking at the dog Dollhouse and little boys liking guns which bad begs the question for me we we've been talking a lot about the reaction to your work and how over whelming positive that it has been. Have you found any difference between male and female affinity to your work or age affinity or work? Have you found any trends there? Or is it very individual?

[00:44:07] I think it's pretty universal. I've got seriously ninety nine point five percent positive feedback. It seems like it strikes a chord on one level or another to almost everyone. Partly because it's readable it's accessible so much art is not accessible and this is readable in many different ways. I'm not trying to make anybody think anything specific I'm actually just trying to lead them into looking and thinking and thinking about you know the content hopefully but not necessarily. I don't really care what people think. I just want to make them think. And that's one of my reasons for making the sculptures is to provoke people into thinking.

[00:44:53] Well thinking is a perfect segue into what I wanted to talk next about which is a little bit about education and I know you have done some teaching in your time and I know that as you just said you really want people to be thinking. What do you think- As as we talk about deep thinking and cultural connections, have you any comments on education education in the arts education culturally that have come from your experiences?

[00:45:27] Yeah I think that in American schools particularly public school I think private schools can be different than that. But public schools are really focused for the last 30 years at least on the so-called Three R's you know learning reading writing and maths and stuff. A lot of schools eliminated the sports program the music program and the arts program or else at least minimized it so they're not getting deep instruction or exposure. And so that's left to the families. Often families don't do it. I mean some people who are economically deprived can't afford to pay the admission to the museum for a family so so they never get the exposure. I've had some experiences when I was traveling in Europe where I encountered in every museum I went to in London and Amsterdam and Florence and Brussels. These these countries really support the arts. They send their school kids public school kids into the museums. I was in Brussels. I had a show there at that time and I was touring some of the museums and the Maghrebi Museum which is you know he's a surrealist painter pretty much world renown and there's a whole museum just on him. And I encountered like eight nine year old kids school groups learning to analyze Surrealism. I I have never seen that happen here in the United States. Amazing. And the teacher was taking the time and these kids were not privileged kids some of the kids were white some of the kids were African. Some of the kids were from other countries and cultures. They were getting an education in art and and it was a very common experience and another experience so I was in Amsterdam and in the Reich's museum and my wife and I had toured the museum the day before but went back to see a few things more. And when we went back we were passing through the room that had a lot of Rembrandts especially his is famous Nightwatch. And then there was another biblical painting another really large painting something that had to do with a chapter in the Old Testament. In any case as we were passing through the room I heard the teacher as they were organizing the students. They were all sitting in a semicircle around this one painting and the teacher said "Okay kids today we are looking at only one painting". Now how many people go to a museum and look at one painting. You know that is seriously different. So we stuck around to listen in a little bit and I heard her introduction and all that and then we moved on to address our own agenda. Two hours later we're coming leaving the museum and going back through the same gallery. And the kids were all still sitting in front of this one painting. Yeah and the teacher was having each student interpret various elements for their symbolism and how things connect from one symbol to another and how it connected to the Bible and how it was just totally amazing. The focus that this class grew about. These were middle middle school kids. Is that what they call it middle school? Yeah yeah. They were not you know usually they're fidgety and they're not paying attention. It's amazing to see this kind of focus and especially from the teacher to drive that focus you know and keep them there. Yeah it was it it really warmed my heart and I thought why don't we do this in America. And when I was in London there were groups from Holland when I was in the school groups in every museum you go to in Europe and many sometimes you see six school groups and they're all milling around on different floors. We don't we don't want to spend the money we don't want to spend the time. Not everybody is going to be a mathematician. We don't need to focus on math that deeply. You know it's a competitive attitude with testing in the world and all that. But you know what the arts really enrich life and all the arts and teaching children to enjoy appreciate interpret analyze and understand really enriches their life for the whole rest of their life. They have this ability if we don't give it to them as children are not going to get it most likely.

[00:50:11] Yeah. Thank you for that. I mean I am certainly in that camp and agree 100 percent. Thank you for articulating that point. We have time for one last song and this song is called Aquarius. And the artist is Quentin Sirjacq a Parisian artist that born in Paris in 1978. Very eclectic improviser new music performer and a composer of music for film theatre and radio. So this is Aquarius. And you're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour KSUU Thunder 91.1.

[00:54:46] OK. Well welcome back. That was Aquarius by the artist Quintin Sirjazq Parisian says check him out. This is Lynn Vartan you're listening to the A.P.E.X Hour and I'm going to finish up my hour with my favorite two questions to ask artist and sculptor Alfaro. So the first question that I always asked to close is if you met the you of 10 years ago in a bar fight who would win that fight.

[00:55:14] All right. Tough question. First of all I don't like bars. Second of all I don't like fighting. I had my share of street fighting growing up in Brooklyn. So with that said the fight would be much more intellectual can be an argument. Perfect. And so of course I would win because it's me against me. But to me of ten years ago I would probably lose to the current me. All right. Because I think I've evolved a lot in those 10 years.

[00:55:46] I love it. Thank you. And the last question that I always ask is what's turning you on this week and this can be anything it can be a bug it can be something you read it can be a song it can be anything you want but Al Farrow what is turning you on this week?

[00:56:01] Actually it's the response I'm getting to my work. I am so thrilled with the amount of positive feedback and and acknowledgment of people saying they were touched or moved or things like that. Any artist would just die for that. Most people don't get that Who are you know visual artists. And I'm getting a lot of that. And that really turns me on. I'm gonna go home feeling very rewarded.

[00:56:31] Wonderful. Well thank you so much for your time. It's been such a pleasure to have you on. And again we want to make sure to let everybody know that the exhibition is on till October 5th at our at SUMA our Southern Utah Museum of Art. And you can also go online to alfarrow.com and check out more of the work. So we're gonna say goodbye for this week. And thanks so much for listening everyone.

[00:56:56] Thanks so much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1. Come find us again next Thursday at 3 p.m. for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University. And new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see you at our events on campus to find out more check out suu.edu/apex until next week. This is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X Hour. here on Thunder 91.1.