>> Miguel Chavez: My
name's Miguel Chavez and I'd
like to share with
you my art dream.
Around 2017, 2018, I was
going through social media
and I saw one of my Marines
from, I would say 2001 and 2003.
I saw someone's artwork
on social media and I was
so impressed and I was so drawn
to it that I called him one day,
and I'm like, "Man,
how do you do this?
This is so amazing.
I can just -- I just never
knew that you could do this."
And he told -- I was like,
"I want to try this."
He told me, "Go get your basic
paints, your primary colors,
black and white,
and some brushes."
So I did that.
And I got a canvas.
He's like, "And just paint,
because I can't tell
you how to paint.
You just have to paint."
So I did that.
And I got a really small
canvas, it just felt like I was
like having a swordfight
with it with paint.
And when I showed it to
him the next morning --
because I stayed up
really late at night --
and he was like "What is that?"
Right? Because it
was just everywhere
and there was just
paint everywhere.
It didn't look like anything.
It didn't depict anything.
It was just -- but for
me, it was so enjoyable
because it was the
process of it, right?
And not in -- I enjoyed
staying up that late at night.
I was so involved with the
paint and what it did on canvas.
And since that day,
we've painted every single
day, every single day.
When I woke up, we called each
other on FaceTime, Facebook,
Messenger, whatever it was where
we could see each other's faces
and see each other's artwork,
we'd call each other, right?
There was times where
I would, you know,
he and I would make
a piece of art
and we'd get another idea
just from that piece of art
and we'd create art
together, right?
There was a time that he and
I traveled to New York to put
up some artwork that we
both -- that he had --
he created a bowl, I created a
bowl, and it was shown together,
and it was just an
amazing experience
and we still collaborate
to this day.
And some of these, sometimes
it would get really dark,
at least for me and my thoughts.
I can see back in this
painting, where just --
it just takes me back to those
times where I was just really
in a dark place and I
absolutely do not like as far
as going back there
because they can be --
it can draw me in and
once they draw me in,
it's a really hard
place to get out of.
And at the time, like I said,
this is me swordfighting the
paint, but inside of there,
you can see little depictions
that I would see
inside the paint.
And I would try to
draw them out.
And that's how I
painted, you know?
I called it playing with paint.
And this is just me
playing with paint.
It was for me, just
more time to figure
out exactly what I'm
doing with paint.
So in this, I really like
this one because this kind
of shows everything that I paint
that comes directly from me
and things that don't, right?
I think I got this
something I --
this idea from YouTube
or something like that,
but everything else
is from my head.
I'm not the type of person
that can create something
literally straight
out of my head.
I have to -- if I can
see it, I can paint it.
So eventually, I got
really got into portraits
but they didn't start
out as portraits.
They'd start out as what
I would call the uglies.
It was more my emotional
state that I would be
at that particular time and
it usually happened when Abu
and I weren't talking, at least
for the short period of time
that we weren't speaking
in that day or that hour
or those two hours or that
at night when he's like,
"Hey, man, I got to go."
And this would be
probably like one o'clock,
two o'clock in the morning and
I would stay up another hour
or two to paint, and that's when
my own thoughts really tried --
really grabbed ahold of me.
And these, I made this one
to specifically kind
of calm me down.
This one is a depiction
of my wife.
I'm really drawn to portraits,
and eventually that's
what I like to do.
And so I got to a point to the
level or a level that I wanted
to in order to create exactly
what I wanted to create, right?
At least in my head I could
create it and I'd try to make it
and put it on canvas because
I would always feel some type
of way to where it
would emotional, right?
This painting right
here is particularly --
it's called <i>They Really
Don't Care About Us.</i>
And so I would go
into these thoughts
and create these paintings.
Eventually, I started
-- my art --
my artwork started
getting more advanced.
I started to paint a little
bit tighter, and in my head,
I've always had this image,
and I painted specific time
in history that's so
important to the United States
and the military,
and in my life, so.
Talking about Amiro, and
every time we have a question
or anytime that we
have -- we just --
we're drawn to each other
in that way artistically.
We're -- and it goes
beyond friendship.
It's definitely about
deeper than that.
So there it is.
My art journey still continues.
It's not going to stop.
There's much more -- many more
things that I want to get into
and it's not just paint.
My journey still continues.