Miguel Arzabe Describes Antonio Arzabe

Podcast Transcript

This conversation has been edited.

Caroline: Welcome to Art Personals, a podcast made by Compound Yucca Valley, a nonprofit gallery in California's High Desert. Here, we ask some of our favorite artists to describe another artist's work as best they can with only their words and sounds. The one parameter is that the object they choose must be one they have seen in person at some point in their lives, whether that's an ancient artwork in the Metropolitan Museum of Art or a friend's painting in a garage. 

For this episode, we welcome Miguel Arzabe, who has invited his mother, Sonia, to engage in a conversation about a watercolor drawing by his grandfather, Antonio Arzabe, titled El Zorro Atoc. Miguel is an Oakland-based artist of Bolivian heritage who draws inspiration from the cultural techniques and motifs of his Andean ancestry.

He makes colorful and dynamic abstractions, weavings, paintings, videos. In Waiting for the Wind, a group exhibition at Compound in fall 2025, he featured six films documenting his playful interactions with the unforeseen forces that exist in the environment. A means of witnessing climactic and environmental changes, his conceptual performances interpret ancient cosmology of Andean cultures through a contemporary sensibility.

For this exhibition, he also created Nochero, a weaving assembled from scraps collected over time from his painting process. Colorful chevrons reverberate echoes of paintings' past lives as a weaving's placement blocks out sunlight, allowing the video installation to be seen in a darker environment.

Miguel: Why don't you introduce yourself?

Sonia: My name is Sonia Edith Arzabe Antezana Castellanos Valdez, chichas y chicharron. [laughs]

I was born November 14th, 1939 in Oruro, Bolivia.

Miguel: My name's Miguel Arzabe. I'm an artist, and we're gonna be talking about a watercolor drawing by my grandfather, Antonio Arzabe, titled El Zorro Atoc. I'll be talking with my mother, Sonia Arzabe, about the work. And she's in Albuquerque right now and I'm in Oakland, California.

So, Mom, I was wondering if you could describe Abuelito Antonio's drawing from your memory.

Sonia: Mm. The drawing is, uh, in an altiplano landscape, and, uh, the Atoc or Zorro is going with a message, so he has a little bag on his neck. Uh, the little bag is called Chuspa. And, uh, as I remember, he's going to take a message from one mountain to the other.

Miguel: And, uh, I was wondering if you could also talk about the context of the drawing. 

Sonia: The drawing was made as Antonio was writing the Altiplano legends from Bolivia. And he was a good artist, so he illustrated by drawing and painting with watercolors.

Miguel: And I think we should mention that Abuelito Antonio is my father's dad and my father, Sonia's husband of 53 years, he passed away in 2022. So the Book of Legends from the Altiplano of Bolivia was written by Antonio as he was told by the indigenous communities there when he was teaching in the 1940s. Tell me about the first time that you became aware of this Book of Legends that dad's father had written and illustrated.

Sonia: I was aware after Antonio's death. Humberto, my husband, brought the books from Cochabamba and it was my first time to know that, um, Antonio was writing these legends and illustrating them. 

Miguel: He had already made the book, but was this the first time that you even knew that it existed?

Sonia: I didn't know before or maybe it was mentioned, but I never saw the writings or the drawings. 

Miguel: What year did Abuelito pass away? 

Sonia: 1992. 

Miguel: So up until that point, the Book of Legends was in his possession? 

Sonia: Yes. So after his death, then Humberto, your dad, brought them to our house in Dayton, Ohio. 

Miguel: So after Abuelito Antonio passed away, dad gathered the books that he had in his possession and brought them to Dayton, Ohio?

Sonia: Yes. They are here with me in Albuquerque. We brought them from Ohio. The original writings and drawings. I have them in my apartment. 

Miguel: So what did you think when you first went through the book and started reading some of the legends and looking at the drawings? 

Sonia: I had an idea of how the natives lived because every year we went, uh, on vacation to my grandfather's farm, and we stayed there for two months, so I had a vague idea how they lived. But I didn't have any idea of the legends or, or the tradition. I only saw one traditional thing when I was there. 

Miguel: Where? 

Sonia: It was in Iracachi, my grandfather's farm and, uh, every year a couple had to serve in the, the owner's house. So, it happens that the, the wife was pregnant and had a baby, and my mom assisted with the birth, but unluckily, the wife died, so I saw the rituals they had for their burial. I saw how the rituals went from their house to the cemetery. 

Miguel: Mm-hmm. And where is Iracachi located? 

Sonia: Iracachi is in La Paz in the province, Loayza, in the Altiplano.

Miguel: Of Bolivia in South America.

Sonia: Of Boli-, yes.

Miguel: Yeah, so that's kind of your personal experience with the indigenous population. Um, probably around, not too far from the time that Antonio was transcribing the legends from his teachings.

Sonia: Yes, because as I remember, it was from 1948 to 1953. 

Miguel: Yeah, and do you remember why Antonio was teaching the indigenous populations during that time? 

Sonia: Because he didn't have the official degree to be a teacher. He worked in the rural area for a couple of years at least. When he went back to the city, he went to the teacher's college to get his degree.

Miguel: Yeah. And I remember dad telling me that when he was little, uh, Antonio was teaching in the, in the indigenous populations in the Altiplano and he, he didn't have any resources to teach them. They didn't provide any teaching aids, so he used a Spanish encyclopedia as the basis for his own watercolor drawings on posters, and in that way he would teach them science and math and western culture. And then, because the cultural exchange was reciprocal, the populations, the people in the communities would tell him their knowledge of the landscape and their legends, and he became really interested in that. And on his free time, he had a little typewriter and he would go up into the bell tower of the church, right? The one place where he could find some peace and quiet from his family.

And, uh, type out the legends that they had told him so he wouldn't forget, and he made his own watercolor drawings to illustrate those legends. And the piece that we're gonna talk about is a specific piece called El Zorro Atoc, that is a character that features in one of these legends, which tells the story of how various volcano mountains that surround the Altiplano were having disagreements and fights and started a war amongst themselves, and they pleaded for some mercy from the benevolent goddess, Illimani, and she didn't want to get involved, but she did, send the messenger, Atoc, the fox, with the Chuspa, the bag of medicine to heal the wounds, right? And Atoc-cito was always doing his job and halfway through he got curious, right?

Sonia: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Miguel: And, like, curious Little Fox, he knew he shouldn't look in the bag 'cause it wasn't his business, but he looked in it anyway. And then what happened?

Sonia: Puff! Came some white stuff from bag and it was snow. 

Miguel: Yeah, snow.

And the snow fell on the heads of some of the mountains nearby and I guess that's the story of how some mountains got snow on their heads.

Um, but what's interesting about this drawing for me is that I remember going into your closet in Dayton, Ohio and finding Abuelito Antonio's books in a plastic tub and wondering what those were and opening up, and I remember the pages being very thin, thin paper, right? And there's the typewriter, and the type is uneven, the ink is faded in some places and it's stronger in some, and you can see his annotations to the text written in pencil by hand in certain parts where he is editing by hand, right?

Sonia: Yes.

Miguel: And um. And it was the drawings that really sparked my curiosity because I think at that time I, I didn't really, I wasn't really able to read Spanish that well. So it was Abuelito Antonio's drawings that really captured my imagination because they're beautifully rendered and colorful and playful, and they have a certain naivete to them where you can tell that he's drawing because he loves doing it and he's not worried about getting everything right, but just trying to convey how he understands the legends.

And, um, the Atoc drawing shows the fox sort of running through the Altiplano, which is the high desert of Bolivia. And you can see one of the mountains in the distance, maybe one of the mountains that gets the snow on its head when he opens the chuspa and the sky is rendered with a sky blue and some puffy clouds. And I was thinking about that, drawing and how dad was his own self-taught painter as well. And when you moved to Albuquerque, he made that big mural on the back wall of the sky with the puffy clouds.

Sonia: Yes.

Miguel: So he definitely had some influence from his dad, I think.

Sonia: Oh yes. He had a lot of influence.

Miguel: Yeah. So what did, how did these drawings affect you, do you think, when you saw them first?

Sonia: It didn't affect me too much, to tell you the truth. Yeah.

Miguel: But did you see any connection between those drawings and dad's work?

Sonia: No. No. I didn't see. 

Miguel: Going back to the drawing of the Atoc-cito, I guess it really stuck with me all these years as a kid, and I remember going back into the closet every now and then and leafing through the, leyendas and just, I guess it was a way to get in touch with that part of my ancestry and like, my heritage, my grandfather, who I didn't really have much time to spend with in person. But uh, even just like the feel of it and the smell of it kind of reminded me of Bolivia. And, uh, remember when I was in grad school in 2010 and I had the idea of going to Bolivia and taking the leyendas that he wrote down and making my own versions of them in video.

Sonia: Yes. 

Miguel: Yeah, that, you know, that idea had been building for a really long time from that drawing, to kind of go back to Bolivia and see these places where the legends talk about and where Abuelito Antonio taught in those villages and uh, you know, it was amazing to go with, um, my cousin Daniel to the Sajama National Park, which is beautiful, conical volcano out in the Altiplano way, way high up. And remember, we took the camera and we played the various parts of the legend. And do you remember who was the Atoc in the legend?

Sonia: No, I don't remember. 

Miguel: It was me. 

Sonia: Oh yeah, it was, yes. And then dad copied that and I think you took it to California.

Miguel: Yeah. Dad made a copy of his dad's painting 

Sonia: Yes. 

Miguel: Of Atoc, and Dad did it in oil. 

Sonia: Yes. 

Miguel: And that was when I was living with you in Albuquerque. And he made that copy of his dad's drawing and I had that in my solo show in Santa Fe, remember?

Sonia: Yes.

Miguel: And I did the screening of my version of the Leyendas in the movie theater nearby. 

Sonia: Yes. 

Miguel: Yeah, and so after that, dad's version of Atoc-cito was in Albuquerque. And then when Inti was born and we put together her room, you let me bring it to California, and now it's by her bedside.

Sonia: Oh my goodness.

Miguel: Yeah, and then just last year, remember we did the project together for the San Francisco Arts Commission where I took one of the maps that you were drawing and—

Sonia: Yes.

Miguel: —printed it out on canvas and cut it into strips and took one of Inti's paintings and cut that into strips and I wove them together. And then part of that project was taking the original drawing of Atoc and having it made into a risograph print and distributing that for free to people who come to the show, right. 

Sonia: Oh, I didn't know that. 

Miguel: Yeah, so we had four generations working on that show.

Sonia: That's what family traditions are, you know. Somebody starts and there are followers, but sometimes those things just get lost in the past, but thanks to you, that family tradition is still alive, you know?

Miguel: Yeah. I mean, I, I don't think I would want to do that if it wasn't for you, though, because you are kind of the keeper of the family stories. And all the stories that you've told me of Iracachi and Bolivia really, you know, sparked my imagination, especially since I never had a chance to live in Bolivia, I was always just visiting family, so it really made me want to go and explore and see the landscape and get to know the culture. And thanks for that, mom. 

Sonia: I would have liked for you and me go to Iracachi, and probably, it's not like I knew it, but the place, you know? The rivers and the mountains and all those things. But thanks to you, the family tradition still alive, and I thank you for that.

Miguel: Tell you what, I'll promise to take some of your ashes back to Iracachi. I will find it. I don't know where it is. 

Sonia: I don't have any idea. How did it end up, you know? When we were children, we were free spirit and we were left in complete freedom to do whatever. Nobody was thinking, oh, don't do this because of that. We just enjoyed life, enjoyed completely the environment, everything. You know, we have breakfast and we took off to the river or to the mountain. Enjoy completely by ourselves. And we used to sing, loud voices and we had the whole nature and we shouted, and we cried, we experienced so many things. 

Miguel: How much do you think the natural landscape, the high desert of Bolivia, was a part of that feeling of freedom?

Sonia: Oh, was a great part. You know, open spaces. There were not even trees, just bushes. The whole expanse. The whole land and the sky. No noises, no nothing. Just us living there, you know. I remember so much when my dad, every two or three weeks went to be with us for the weekend, you know? And he took us to explore in the mountains, we enjoyed so much that.

Miguel: Ever see any animals?

Sonia: Yeah. I remember especially the sheep, the llamas, and the cows and bulls and the burros, burritos. It was fun. I am so glad I had that, you know?

Miguel: Sounds really special.

Sonia: It was very special and it was just our own, you know, the four, four kids.

Miguel: How old were you?

Sonia: I remember exactly. I was eight. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And when I was 13, it was my last time I think.

Miguel: Well, mama, thanks for this little conversation.

Sonia: Miguelito, keep on following the traditions and keep on talking about our family.

Miguel: Yeah, I hope Inti continues after me. I want her to be interested and understand the great cultures that make up who she is.

Sonia: We all have so many things, so many people before us, you know.

Miguel: Our ancestors.

Sonia: Our ancestors, and it's sad that we didn't talk too much about them when I was growing up. And whenever I went to Bolivia and got some pictures of the family here and there and talked to them to know more about where do I come from, you know? 

Miguel: Yeah.

Sonia: But that's what happens, I think, by experience. It happens when you live in another country. You left your roots and make new life, new roots, but you also want to know what happened before you, you know? Who lived before you. 

Miguel: Yeah. It's important to see yourself and those that came before you so you can know how to live in the future.

Sonia: Yes. Thank you, Miguelito.

Miguel: Thanks, mom. I love you. 

Sonia: I love you. Keep the good work.

Miguel: All right.

Caroline: Thanks for listening to Art Personals, a podcast produced by Compound Yucca Valley. You have been listening to Miguel Arzabe and his mother discuss their experience with Antonio Arzabe's El Zorro Atoc.

You can learn more about Compound YV Foundation over at our website and our Instagram @compoundyv. Art Personals is produced by me, Caroline Partamian, Michael Townsend, and Lara Wilson in collaboration with our artists. This episode was mixed with the help of Alofa Saio.

Original music by Ethan Primason. If you are an artist interested in working with us, please send an email to hello@compoundyv.com.