Meet the Artist: Nicholas Herrera
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An interview with the artist Nicholas Herrera. Nicholas Herrera is known as El Rito Santero (the Saint maker of El Rito) in his New Mexico community. When he was young, he was mixed up in drugs, alcohol, guns, and fast cars and had several run-ins with the police. In 1990, however, he was involved in a serious car accident that changed his life. The accident put him in a coma, during which he saw a muerte (death figure) by his great-uncle José Herrera at the end of a tunnel of light. He believes this image brought him out of the coma and that God intended for him to become a saint maker (Awalt and Rhetts, Herrera, Visions of My Heart, with essay by Charles Rosenak, 2003). Saint makers, or santeros, create devotional paintings and carvings of saints for use in churches and in private homes. Herrera makes crucifixes, death figures, and saints as well as sculptures inspired by modern issues such as police brutality and the dangers of nuclear power.
"Wow, look at that. What do you want to work on today? What do you like?"
I have big junk piles all over my land here, and I just go out there and I look. Look at the pieces.
HERRERA’S DAUGHTER: "Daddy, are you making your pile?"
NH: I never go at it right away; I just have them there. Before you know it, I know what I want to do with you. So it’s kind of like they talk to me. This is what I want to be. We got some coloring, look at that.
I'm a modern santero, and I express myself in all different kinds of ways, with metal, with wood, with found objects. I use traditional colors of Earth that I have used in my traditional santos. If I have some problem in my head, or something that I did in my life that I'm not very happy about, I do it in my art. Then once it’s in art, it can just go anywhere it wants to.
I work every day. To tell you the truth, my art keeps me out of anything that's bad out there. I had a hard time growing up. You know, I was very confused in school. I went into special ed. when I was in the third grade. They didn't know what to do with me. They said, “Put him in special ed. because he's different and, you know, he's wild.” All they used to do there was play, so I lost a lot on my schooling.
When I was 16, I started doing a lot of drugs and became an alcoholic. When I was 25, I almost died in a wreck. I was in a coma for a while, and it changed the whole way of living for me. When I got out of the hospital, I felt like every evil thing had gone out of my body.
I had a lot of problems with cops. If Jesus would come into the world now, the cops would probably abuse him and throw him into the cop car because he's different. When people are different, people think they are crazy, you know what I mean? Like when I was different in school.
I want people to think about what's going on in the world. I don't hold back with my art; I like to just do what I want to do. Sometimes I get kicked for it, like people talk a lot, but that's ok. Just keep going with what you believe in.