We are in the art gallery Dirt Salon in Hartford city,
we will be talking with Carlos Hernandez Chavez.
He is a painter, artist, musician and above all,
he is a great community leader
who has fought in the defense of the Hispanic artists of his state.
What inspires you to paint? for example.
Well, a lot of things.
This painting you see here is a change in direction in my work.
Initially I was instructed in a very rigorous academy.
You have to paint the object as you see in reality.
After that period,
there are other issues that as an artist one likes to explore
and I was very interested in doing things of nature.
Which is not only this painting,
you can show me the other paintings that also,
perhaps, represent this type of thought.
Can you show me the next ones?
Of course.
The paintings that I have here
are a series that I made in Puerto Rico
starting from 2004
where I went for two or three months
to paint in the rain forest and are basically
a recognition and a gratitude to the Puerto Rican community
who received me here in Connecticut,
particularly in Hartford when I arrived in 1967.
What other groups of Hispanics were there when you arrived?
The majority I met was from Puerto Rico
who came to work on the tobacco farms, the apple, the mushrooms.
There were other groups of Colombia and Perú,
they were prominent but the Puerto Rican population was the most abundant.
Since you arrived you always worked but as a leader,
When did you get involved and support the artists?
At the beginning of the seventies,
almost coming from Mexico,
I saw many things that were not right,
in the first place in terms of black people,
and second with respect to the artists,
black artists who were not admitted in galleries, museums .
I set myself the goal of organizing certain
to open the way and we were quite successful,
we have entered galleries and museums
from then on in the days of 1970.
Within this defense what is the greatest achievement you have had?
It was to have contributed to introduce the legislation
that became the one percent for the art at State level,
that is, that any construction or renovation that the state does,
has to reserve the one per cent for art works.
You have not only been involved in art, with the community,
but also you have been a parent of more than 30 children ,
you took care of four of themapart from your five children,
how have you achieved all this?
Well look, being an artist has many sensibilities
and one of them is humanism,
I wish we all had a bit of humanism.
My deceased wife and I were foster parents for several years,
and within that service there were some children
who could not be located in other families
and they had already been part of our family for many time,
then the only way we had was to adopt them
because we did not have the feeling ,
so to speak, to send them to other situations
that one never knows how they would have gone.
The concerns that lead me to do things
are part of the whole context of being humanist,
and to do good things and to teach people to know their rights,
to take advantage of the opportunities offered,
to be educated and to be good people,
my mother used to tell me,
it costs nothing to be good people.
Be good, it doesn't cost you anything.
We have tried to follow that philosophy and invite others to do the same.
Carlos you are a worthy example of perseverance, of work,
and specially what it is to be proactive and to bless a community.
Congratulations you for the hard work
and for all these years of your work in the city. Thank you very much.
Thank you to invite me.