Michael Naranjo, René Magritte, Albert Paley

In this special holiday segment, COLORES! features one of New Mexico’s favorite sculptors, Michael Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo). Blinded while serving in the Vietnam War, Naranjo has since become known for his sculptures of Native American life.

In this program, Naranjo shows a new side. From his first wax models, to the final bronze sculpture, COLORES! follows him through his process of creating something special for the holidays — Santa and his reindeer. He unveils this new sculpture for the first time, along with sharing what Christmas means to him, on this holiday COLORES!

“As long as we have that little bit of a child in us and if we can still believe in Santa then there’s hope.”

The Belgian surrealist painter, René Magritte, asked people to take nothing for granted.

“Magritte sought to reveal the mystery that he believed to be latent in every object.”

Using huge amounts of material and at a gigantic scale, sculptor Albert Paley’s artistic team did the impossible. They designed, modeled and built 13 large-scale pieces in just 14 months.

“He handles this enormous scale with a kind of lightness that is very impressive.”