>>Announcer: From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. (Music) >>Katherine Blood: Hello, I'm Katherine Blood, Curator of Fine Prints in the Library's Prints and Photographs Division, and we're here today with our Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. Thank you so much for being here. We've been having an intense and wonderful two days of research. >>Juan Felipe Herrera: That's right we have, you know. We've been looking at a lot of material and you know all of this beautiful work here, posters and prints, that go way back and they come forward to the present. And I'm looking at them, we're looking at them, because we're uh, I'm considering opening up the Casa de Colores project for the entire public to be aware of and to possibly work with these materials in a conversation with poetry one way or another. And we're calling this El Jardin, our beautiful resources here at the Library of Congress. So that's how we are going to put it together. >>KB: I love this idea of Casa de Colores for a number of different reasons, including, it feels very kindred to one of the major ways that we are trying to collect, which is to reflect the broadest, richest diversity of voices, of thinkers, of creators, of artists. And you and I have looked at more than 3 times the amount of things that we've paved the table with here today, I think. And beginning, like you said, in the 17th century with an exquisite little Rembrandt etching, going all the way forward to 2014 to this beautiful literary map of the Antilles by Antonio Martorell and mostly American artists, but also international strengths from Mexico, from Japan, from Russia. So I'd like to open it up to you. I mean that these are some of the things that you really connected with different ways. And you even responded with poetry and with artwork. I love showing this to you because you are an artist and a poet and a performance artist and you speak so many of these different languages directly and it's fantastic to hear your responses. >>JFH: You know I'm so thankful that you brought these materials out, Katherine. You are right; I just loved everything. I remember you told me about President Abraham Lincoln and that we have a presidential campaign poster and then you brought it out. >>KB: From 1860, so this is an original campaign banner. It's printed on linen. It's an ephemeral, functional thing and it would... it's a little bit of a rarity that it survived in this incredibly fresh condition. It looks like it was just made and that's because it was deposited for copyright deposit at the Library of Congress in 1860 and here we stamped it right on this beautiful treasure, right here in 1860, and H.C. Hamlan is the person who deposited it here. And so you see the candidate here, a beautiful portrait and it's anatomically correct with the right amount of stars and stripes for the period and you see his running mate Hannibal Hamlin and it looks like something that would happen yesterday. >>JFH: That's right. Would you call this a poster, a campaign poster, a silk screen, what is this? >>KB: It's a hybrid object. It's woodcut and lithograph and it's a...we as librarians, who like to categorize things, even though this is kind of a hybrid object, have put it in the popular graphic art collection, but it's a banner, it is print on fabric, it's a little bit of a very particular thing. And we very deliberately placed it. We are meeting today on Sept. 11 and so we wanted to look at one example of an artist response to the events of 9/11, 2001 so looking at a very different approach to the United States flag here. >>JFH: And then we have this. >>KB: This is by Helen Zughaib. So she is a Lebanese-American artist . And as an Arab-American artist, she is very deliberately trying to use her artwork to build dialogue and better understanding between the two cultures that she knows directly. And you really spend some time with this and there are layers to it. >>JFH: Yes, I really like it because it does have those kind of diamond shapes, patterns, multiple flag...multiple flags that blend right into the patterns and the colors red, white and blue and then there's kind of like a turquoise colors or dark blue with black and on and you could easily get lost, a mosaic, an entrance, a door >>KB: (over) very architectural... >>JFH: Yes, a rug... >>KB: ...And the title helps us, the title guides us "Prayer Rug for America." >>JFH: Prayer Rug for America. So these are different kinds of public posters. >>KB: This is a unique item. This is a gouache drawing. This is really almost a little painting and this is her primary media. She just started making prints very recently, I believe, but gouache is her major medium. >>JFH: That's what it is, very nice. So we have those, a kind of conversation, similar colors almost and flag motifs of course and kind of cultures that are in debate and in conversation and in our minds and hearts >>KB: To open the dialogue... >>JFH: ...and art to open the dialogue.