- [News Anchor] More of the country is closing down tonight,
trying to contain the Coronavirus pandemic.
- [President] At some point we're going to open up
our country and it's going to be fairly soon.
- [Journalist] Weeks or months?
- [President] I'm not looking, I'm not looking at months
I can tell you right now.
- Justice.
What do we want?
(bee buzzing)
- [Pilot] It's a whole fleet of them.
Oh my gosh.
- Hands up, don't shoot.
Hands up, don't shoot.
- [President] This is going away.
We're going to win the fight.
- [Ralf] Man, 2020 sucks.
(upbeat music)
- Hey, I'm Ralf Jean-Pierre.
Also known as Precious Gorgeous.
An actor, comedian and musician from Brooklyn.
And there's three things I love,
Brooklyn, artists, and Brooklyn artists.
All my life I've lived in Brooklyn,
and all my life I've been an artist.
I've always been really proud of both those things.
Brooklyn has changed so much in my lifetime.
Especially in the last 15 years.
And never more than in the last six months of the pandemic.
I've got to get out and talk to other Brooklyn artists.
I need to ask them, what do they make of all this change?
How are they coping with it?
What does it mean to be a Brooklyn artist now?
For my first stop I came to Williamsburg,
to the industrial section,
to visit Fara'h in her shop
with all her metals and tools.
Fara'h is a metalsmith, artisan and sculptor.
She's rad.
(energetic rock music)
- Whoa!
Hi.
- Good to meet you.
- Welcome.
- Look at this shop.
(energetic upbeat music)
- [Fara'h] We're set up to do production I mean,
but at the same time like the reason why we're set up
to do production was 'cause I was always really obsessed
about having my own tools and being able to--
you know just do whatever I wanted to.
And the only way to really do that was just start working
for myself rather than working for a company
or for the union, or you know.
My dad - he recently passed away - was a mechanic.
And when I was little I just always wanted to be a mechanic.
And I wanted to work at the shop.
He's a businessman like, you know,
so he was like you can work in the office.
And I was like well.
So I ended up going to school.
I went to school in Pratt and I got this job in Greenpoint.
I immediately went to work at a chair factory in production.
Welding.
So when I went into the welding shop there
smelled exactly like my dad's garage.
- Oh, c'mon.
- Yeah.
So then I was just like, oh, I'm home.
You know?
And then that was it.
I was in love and that's all I've ever wanted to--
I mean since that's all I've ever wanted to do.
Welding, it's a very beautiful, quiet, private thing.
When I put on my helmet, everything else goes away.
I feel like I'm underwater.
Like all that exists is just what's exactly in front of you.
It's like, you know, you're like a horse with a blinder on
and all you have is this view.
When I was little I had an aquarium,
And also like I'm really into like underwater documentaries.
So it's like I was always just obsessed
with underwater life.
I like to make things that are somewhat insignificant to us.
You know, like kind of like little species
that are seemingly unimportant.
Pigeons and shrimp and, you know, bottom feeders.
Mosquitoes.
Incredibly like resilient animals.
- [Ralf] Right, right.
They're not getting all the shark love.
- [Fara'h] Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Fara'h] They're not high the chain.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Fara'h] And then, you know, the thing is about making
giant stuff and being a New Yorker
is that like it's too decadent.
You know what I mean?
It's too, like, I don't, you know, like I don't
want to carry around a giant piece for the rest of my life.
Like the responsibility of that is huge.
So I started just--
pieces got smaller and smaller and smaller.
The pigeons actually are surveillance pigeons.
- [Ralf] What?
- [Fara'h] And they have cameras in them.
- [Ralf] That's cool.
- [Fara'h] these are old school.
- [Ralf] Ah, that's so awesome.
- Security camera.
You remember when they used to have--
I think they still use them like in the
grocery stores and stuff.
These old security cameras.
Yeah, so the camera is actually inside the bird.
- [Ralf] What's like one piece of like wisdom
or advice or anything that you got from
like a mentor or a teacher or somebody that was like
that is like central to what you still do today?
- [Fara'h] One thing I feel like Pratt taught me was like
you don't need anything to make your art.
Like don't--
you know nothing is precious and you don't need anything.
If you have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil,
whatever you can always make your art.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Ralf] You have things you do for money
and you have your art.
But it feels to me like it may also be
that you are taking a lot of pride in just
the production that you're able to do for other people.
Like I got this order, I'm excited,
I'm going to get it done right.
- [Fara'h] Oh yeah.
I love fabrication work.
Like I'm like, I eat metal work, you know what I mean?
(laughing)
- Like I want it all.
Like we do a lot, a lot of doors.
Last year I think we've made over 52 doors.
This year so far not that many, four.
- Okay, yeah.
- [Fara'h] And I always try to like explain that like
metal is an organic material.
You know?
Like people think of wood as being organic,
but metal is actually an organic material.
You know?
It's just carbon and iron, you know?
And like, so there's something that happens
that's not in my control either, you know?
I mean I try to control--
you to try to exploit it.
Over time you learn how to exploit your material.
When I first moved in to Williamsburg,
it was like an industrial ghost town.
Every like factory housed so many artists.
When I came here I was already like 27.
Everybody was already here making art and you know.
So I was going to school at Pratt
and then I was coming back home to Williamsburg
and like you know, my friends were all artists, you know?
So it was like we were constantly critiquing each other
and, you know smoking pot and talking s---.
And you know like?
But it was a community, you know?
And like, even like, you know the gallery I showed in
was like a block away from my house.
It was just your neighborhood, you know?
The parties were wild and like and the art was everywhere.
But then with the real estate and everything changing
then it became what it is now.
- Yeah.
- You know?
It took a lot of the--
I mean I still think that I love Williamsburg,
I love the people here, you know, but it's not the same.
I'm lucky to be here.
- Okay.
- I'm really lucky to be here.
- [Ralf] Yeah, I remember.
I mean I have like a similar experience.
I came back to New York around 2007.
So probably right after you got this shop.
And like, I remember that.
I remember it being this like hot hub of like art.
I remember there used to be like open houses
right on Bedford.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, and then sort of quickly it became white hot
and then it sort of imploded.
- Yep.
- Duane Reade then--
I remember Starbucks like,
you hear Starbucks is coming to Bedford?
And you're like, what?
- [Fara'h] I don't get angry about it.
I mean, it's lame.
I mean I think they've ruined
a really good neighborhood.
And you know, and that's because of zoning.
But we have to stay here.
Artists have to stay in New York.
There's still there's work here.
You know, New York needs artisans.
I wouldn't say I'm angry about it,
but I'm like disappointed, you know?
- Yeah.
- Like, it's just like, it's lame.
The people were different.
They weren't the same.
- [Ralf] Yeah, yeah.
- You know, they weren't like your neighbors
and they weren't nice, you know?
- [Ralf] Yeah.
- They kind of came in with a very entitled type of thing.
- [Ralf] You were saying that you don't think
you could do this anywhere else.
Why?
Why do you think you've ended up staying here in New York
and then Brooklyn like doing this work?
- [Fara'h] Just the love of New York.
I mean, I think New York gave me the opportunity
to be an artist.
And I feel really grateful for that.
The art galleries I've shown with and like,
even just my landlords, like every, I always, I just felt
like I had support here.
I had help.
And I had people that believed in me being an artist.
You know?
And like and even having this space here,
I've been here for 14 years.
Yeah, so it's like, you know I feel like New York grew me
or helped me, you know?
Like getting a scholarship to come here and then
you know, like, it just seemed like every--
it's been hard and you got to hustle, you know?
- What does that look like sometimes?
Like especially in the early times,
like that hustle.
- Makes you hungry.
That fear like in between jobs comes back like,
Oh, what's next, what's next?
You know?
- One of the magic parts of being in New Yorker is
you get good at that dance of like,
first through you're fretting,
am I going to have enough for the Metro card and the,
and the rent and that, and, but then sort of
even that cycle of like fret,
okay something works out, get back to work.
Okay, now I got to fret again.
- I've learned that like in that time,
that's when I had the opportunity to make my artwork.
- Wow.
- I would just like, just be so concerned with the
financial aspect of being here, you know,
and not able to free my mind and the times when
I wasn't working to make my art.
To take advantage of that time.
You, you make it over and over in your head again.
And then when you have time to make it, you just do it.
It just, you know.
- [Ralf] It just comes.
It just falls out of you.
- [Fara'h] Because you've been denying yourself
that for so long, you know?
I've built it so many times in my head
that I've already made the mistakes.
- [Ralf] What do you think is holding you here?
- [Fara'h] If you're doing what you're supposed to do
in New York you get to stay.
- Ooh.
- If you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing
in New York, you don't get to stay.
If you're doing what you're supposed to do in New York,
you get to stay.
- [Ralf] Fara'h's words kept ringing in my head.
What a haunting idea that New York itself is wisest
about who gets to stay.
Even more haunting,
that decision is made purely on the basis
that the city wants you doing what you're meant to do.
(energetic upbeat rock music)