Funding for Colores was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You After photographing the dramatic events of World War II Dick Kent spent decades documenting Albuquerque's transformation from a quiet postwar town into a thriving modern city.

Capturing both the grit and poetry of life on the plains.

Oklahoma painter Tim Long creates a self-defined Neo-Southwest style It's all ahead on Colores!

A CITY THROUGH TIME >> Faith: To get started, what brought your father to Albuquerque after the war and what made him want to stay?

>> Guy: Ken Marthy was one of his mates in the army, in World War II and Ken had connections in New Mexico.

After the war, Ken invited Dick to come out to New Mexico and check things out.

He was married and so he talked to his wife, our mother, and they decided to come out and set up shop.

[uplifting music] He came out and found a job at KOB TV initially, and then he started his own business.

He was just always an entrepreneur and liked working for himself and not having to answer to anyone.

And so he struck out on his own and he was a commercial photographer.

[uplifting music] He would joke, no portraits, weddings or babies.

[Faith laughs] >> Guy: Those were maybe some of the more difficult side of photography.

And then he just saw it as a way to document New Mexico and what it had to offer.

So I think he had a deep connection with the land and trying to encourage people to come and spend their money here, if you will.

>> Faith: So he would take these aerial photographs to show the transformation of Albuquerque over the years.

Why do you think he chose to photograph the growth of Albuquerque?

>> Jason: I believe that Dick saw photography as a way of recording Albuquerque history.

[uplifting music] He was enough of a visionary to be able to realize that time passes and in a dynamic city like Albuquerque was at that time, there are things that will never look the same unless they're recorded photographically.

So, for example, beginning in the late 50s, early 60s, he would take photographs of undeveloped parts of Albuquerque from an airplane, sometimes entirely on his own.

>> Faith: I mean, this takes a lot of dedication to go back to some of the same spots too, right?

Because he didn't just take one and then that was it.

He would go back after multiple years -- >> Jason: Absolutely.

>> Faith: And shoot the same spot to show that growth, Right?

>> Jason: Yes.

>> Brian: He would fly in a plane and take systemized photographs all the way from east to west, west to east.

And he did this yearly for 15-20 years.

[uplifting music] >> Jason: When the Tram and the upper terminal at the Tram on the Sandia mountain was being built.

He took photos throughout that construction progress for the people who were developing the Tram.

Lots of other things that are no longer able to be seen, but for which there's an historical photographic record that hopefully will be valuable to other people in the future.

That's the long term objective that Dick's work will live on in some fashion and be useful to people.

That's probably the legacy that he would appreciate most if he had to speak about it.

Although he was a humble person and he probably didn't even think about it in personal terms.

[uplifting music] >> Faith: So ballooning, he did take a lot of photos of the first balloons that went up here.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

>> Guy: Well, a little bit of a visionary in that, he saw some value in promoting ballooning in New Mexico.

This was a picture over the Atlantic Ocean of Double Eagle two.

After it had launched the night before, it's got Larry Newman's hang glider hanging underneath it.

Dick flew out on an airplane to find the balloon and got some dramatic pictures.

This was an example of Dick's dedication to the hobby and helping Maxie and Ben and Larry have some record.

>> Brian: The Kittyhawk launched from San Francisco and was flying over the Sierra Nevadas, and he and several other photographers rented a plane to get pictures of the balloon as it flew over the Sierra Nevadas.

And my dad said that here these other photographers had these cameras that were taking 75 pictures a second or something like that, you know, mechanized.

And here “Dickie Bird” was here with his 4x5 camera pulling out the side and taking a picture, and National Geographic selected his photographs out of all the other photographers in the plane.

>> Faith: What do you think he loved most about photography?

>> Jason: In his own words, he said, “I like to create an emotional feeling in a person.

I sometimes think of myself as a kind of an artist.” He really did get satisfaction out of feeling that a photo, that he had taken had some impact on a person, emotionally, or in terms of their knowledge or understanding, or appreciation of things like nature or history.

>> Guy: He kind of had the best of both worlds.

He was employed and got to participate in something that he enjoyed.

And that's how you end up with a career with over 100,000 images.

>> Faith: When you look at his Albuquerque photographs.

Do you believe any of his wartime experiences as a photographer -- colored those photographs?

>> Jason: This is a guess, because I don't know.

But Dick was always very sympathetic to what he considered -- other people's difficulties and the human condition.

Some of it was natural just who he was -- but some of it had to have been related to what he saw in World War II, in my opinion.

There was something empathetic about him that was natural, but it was influenced by the war in which also impacted the way that he viewed what he saw in New Mexico, and maybe what captured his own personal interest more.

There was a time when he was hospitalized and almost died, and we didn't see him for almost 30 days because he was in intensive care.

I got to see him for the first time, after they allowed family other than my mother to go in and see him, and he was able to talk and I said, “what's the meaning of it, dad?” “What's the meaning of all this life?” Knowing that he'd been through so much?

And he said, these were his words, and he was kind of struggling and a little bit, and he said, “to learn -- to be happy -- and to do something for the common good.” That's the natural Dick Kent.

And he was consistent his whole life during the time we knew him, that way.

[uplifting music] WHAT IS NEO-SOUTHWEST?

[Western guitar] >> Long: I don't want to go completely out of my kind of genre -- of what a Neo-Southwest or whatever it is.

We're doing Neo-Southwest -- That█s it.

I'm running with that.

That's a great description.

I don't know exactly what that means, but sounds great to me.

Where is Oklahoma?

Is it Midwestern?

Is it Southern?

Is it Western?

Is it Southwestern?

I don't know.

Neo-Southwest is -- old cowboy hat -- maybe -- hear jazz playing in an old beat up pickup, driving down the road.

There's definitely going to be some dust blowing around.

It's probably going to be hot.

Might be a cactus.

That's Neo-Southwest to me.

You know, cowboy boots, maybe riding a skateboard, you know, something like that.

Sometimes I'll say like Western pop art.

Neo-Southwest kind of has a nice ring to it.

I kind of like getting in on a painting and just starting and trying to finish up as fast as I can.

I find I find a lot of inspiration from Oklahoma.

I'm an Oklahoma artist, born in Duncan, Oklahoma and now live in Mustang.

But consider myself a contemporary Western artist.

Maybe I'm just an artist.

Take pride and kind of being from the state.

Kind of where it is.

Badge.

I'm a Okie.

My roots from the Anadarko area or the, you know, the Stephens County like Duncan area.

And I just had that curiosity.

It was centered about where I'm growing up.

I definitely want to take that into consideration, but not not get too far away from what you're you're kind of used to just always kind of seem like it stemmed right out of here, out of Oklahoma.

It made me want to be a painter.

That's Rock Hudson from the movie giant.

This is Texas, mighty colossus of the southwest.

I have this idea of my inspiration, and it would be an old house kind of sitting on the plains, pale blue sky, there's some red dirt.

You probably got Marty Robbins on the record player back in the back [Western Music] >> Long: And on the wall would be one of my paintings.

I know what I want to paint, but I don't know what colors or you know, it's like a puzzle.

You're sitting there painting and you're trying to -- how is this going to -- you█re viewer just as much as-- as the person looking at it, right.

I like to leave my art a little on the undone side.

I'll have a little voice in my head.

“Hey, you're done.” Or at least step back and stop.

Maybe I'll come back to it tomorrow.

And then if you come back to it tomorrow and I'm happy with it, then I'm done.

I have a day job.

And as much as I would, love to be an artist full time, it just doesn't pay the bills, right?

So I don't paint when I'm at work.

I think part of that is art.

For me, it's therapeutic.

It's a hobby, but I don't want it to be your job.

The way I look at it, I would love to do this full time when I retire.

I never want anyone to look at my art and be like, “wow, is that a photograph?” I want a painting to look like a painting.

[Slow Melancholic Music] It was a couple weeks before Father█s Day, and my mom was like, “what are you going to get your dad?” And she's like, “why don't you make them something?

Why don█t you draw him something?” She gets it matted and framed.

And we presented it to my dad for Father's Day.

And it went straight on the wall.

His excitement of seeing it.

You know, my mom's excitement of seeing it, you know, my sister -- I've kind of -- All right.

Maybe this is something I can do.

I like how it turned out.

My dad's dad, my papa, He has some great pictures of him, you know, and, you know, on horseback, you know, like, kind of raring up.

And I have one of my, my great grandfather, you know, he's got his chaps on a cowboy hat, but I'm not a mature enough painter to bring it the respect that it needs.

And that's one painting that I'm not mature enough as an artist yet to paint it.

Maybe that one will be in the Cowboy Hall of Fame or something I saw a book that I checked out from my grade school, Indian Values Past and Present by Lu Celia Wise.

A lot of kids maybe were seeing comic books and trying to draw Superman or X-Men or something.

I had this book.

Yeah, there it is.

That's Kiowa Fancy Dancer by David Williams My favorite.

I was practicing my drawing, by some of these master Native American painters, and the pictures that I saw on that just-- I was captured.

He would have had some muted colors, probably like a solid background color, done in tempuras or gouache.

[Upbeat Western Guitar] It's the flat style or Bacone school of drawing.

Almost, an illustration style to it.

But there is a sense of movement in all of that.

Right, these artists are taking a very flat, based off on this ledger art, from you know, like the 19th century.

It's just gorgeous, like the way his hands holding his whip and his fan and the look on his face, the movement you see.

But they capture a sense of movement that -- for a 2D painting, it's amazing.

I would have been probably 11, you know, something at that young of an age that can stick with you, but that absolutely has done it.

It's still fascinating to me to this day.

It's some of my favorite paintings are in that style.

It's gorgeous.

[Western guitar] [paintbrush on canvas] I like my art, I want people to see that -- whether I ever played the guitar in front of anybody, I just like playing.

I like playing for myself.

[Electric guitar riff] Do I listen to a lot of jazz?

A little bit.

But the jazz side of it is just -- that's what comes out, when I play, is this like clean tone.

It's got some blues.

It's got some jazz.

[Electric guitar riff] You hyper focus on what you're doing or playing and yeah, it tunes everything out and tune in what you're trying to play.

[Electric guitar riff] There's days that it sounds great and there's days that you're like, I'm going to put that up, and I'm not going to play it for a while, you know?

[Electric guitar riff] It just, it finds its way out of me.

So when I was about 15.

I was begging my parents for a guitar.

“We█ll save your money and you can get it.” So I did.

If they ordered it from Sears catalog.

Here I am -- I go to a list.

What do you want to play?

I want to play Chuck Berry.

[Record scratch] [Rock N Roll] [Record scratch] She's like, tonight you're going to learn Mary had a little lamb.

[Record scratch] █ Mary had a little Lamb █ Hurts my fingers, you know, I can't really do it.

So give up on it.

[Electric guitar riff] So, when I was about 15, I█ve been playing ever since -- or at least trying to play.

[Electric guitar riff] I don't know that I'll ever learn it to the way I want to learn it.

Just have fun with it, you know?

[Electric guitar riff] [Birds singing] [Southern Blues] There's definitely a juxtaposition from working in the oil field to being a painter.

I can daydream while I'm out there in the heat or in the cold, and I'm thinking about painting.

Been in the oil and gas for 16 years.

Regardless of those -- I mean if its oil or water, but that's just who I am, right?

And that's just kind of how it is.

As you drive that seven hours and you quit thinking about what you just did on days off and what you're about to get -- yourself into.

But yeah, you definitely have a mind shift from what you did with the wife and kids and the dogs and what you painted and back to, you know, what you're about to go do at work.

It just so happens that most places where oil and gas are not you know, it's not on the beach in California necessarily.

It's dirty, it's loud, it's long hours.

So painting is a great escape from that.

That juxtaposition of being in a hard industry to something that's visual and, you know, the two don't -- you don't hear very often of those two meeting up.

It's definitely hard work.

It's not as cowboy, as it used to be.

I found a lot of inspiration from Oklahoma.

I want to do a series based on Oklahoma musicians because that combines history, art and music.

[Electric guitar riff] The three things that I really enjoy.

[Electric guitar riff] >> Interviewer: How do you know when you're done?

>> Long: That you know, that took a long time.

I have paintings on the wall that I might be like, I should have done this, or I should have done that, but there's others that I know that's perfect, not another stroke, right?

There's times where I'm afraid that if I overwork it then I'll lose some of that magic.

I guess it's just as organic, I guess, as you can in this day and age, right?

It's kind of how I want it.

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Funding for ¡Colores!

was provided in part by: New Mexico PBS Great Southwestern Arts & Education Endowment Fund, and the Nellita E. Walker Fund for KNME-TV at the Albuquerque Community Foundation McCune Charitable Foundation, New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts and Viewers Like You