003: Leonard Iriarte
Leonard Iriarte is a traditional contemporary artist and his work is very rooted in tradition. He is the current Guam’s master of traditional-style Chamorro chant and is very specific about the artwork he creates. I met him on May 14th at Infusion where I also met one of his coworkers, Coby. Mr. Iriate offered to buy me coffee and cracked jokes often, especially when thinking of his answers.
Leonard Iriarte
Leonard is “the principal instructor and composer for a community-based arts organization called the Ifen Lalaine Oral History project” which is based out of UOG. In this program, he works with his compatriots “to reconstruct traditionally styled Chamorro chant and song and choreography.” He had previously dabbled in various other art forms but settled on the Chamorro chant because he realized that “‘Chamorro art’ in the modern times needs to serve a particular purpose [which] would be to help us understand our heritage and our past and our history.” Thus Leonard and those who work with him see their work as a service to their community “in a time when Chamorros have been trying to perpetuate a cultural renaissance.”
Mr. Iriarte’s work is immersed in long hours of research, which, really, is only the first step in their creative process. Whether it be for a song, a recital, or some form of writing, the first thing that Leonard and his team do is research and try to find out everything they can. some of the information that they need isn't present on the internet or research libraries, so sometimes Leonard would have to “spend time with an old gentleman who is a practitioner of a particular esoteric practice [and] apprentice [him]self.” All of this work that this team does is only the first preparations, and Leonard’s process had many more layers, each complex in its own right. However, he goes through this entire process to make sure that the end product is something that he and his ancestors could really be proud of and something that the community could really use. He hopes his work would stand as something that “helps … to define modern Chamorro heritage and some of our ancient heritage.” The work Leonard and his group does is geared primarily towards the “Chamorro communities in … all of the Northern Mariana Islands” but not exclusively. It's also geared towards the Pacific region because Guamanian artists interact with artists in other countries.
All the research he does is something of a signature for Leonard, and he likes leaving evidence of his hard work and effort. He says he could only do so much work and put in so much effort because his school taught him to be disciplined and do good research. But he first became interested in this work because of his grandparents who helped him develop an “interest in the origin and the etymology of Chamorro words.” He is inspired by old Chamorro values “like Kaman Thalp Malec” where you think of the good of the group before you think of yourself. Whenever Leonard is stuck, he prays, or rather ideates, on something bigger than himself, reads, or even watches Star Trek. In the worst cases, he meditates.
Interestingly, Leonard’s biggest difficulty with art has not been trying to find information but rather working with some people and their dedication, emotional maturity, and egos. This is easy to understand since Leonard sees art not from the Western perspective but from the traditional Chamorro viewpoint: the practice or the production of something. Art to the Chamorros used to have a utilitarian purpose, so to Mr. Iriarte, to make art is “to produce something beautiful but also to preserve something beautiful.” According to him, “[fundamentally], all artists share a desire to express themselves,” but they also have a responsibility to help challenge society and help it grow and develop. In Guam, an artist's role should be to help “fellow Chamorros come to a better understanding of themselves and their history.”
To read the full interview, continue reading below. You can find out more about Leonard Iriarte’s story here
Leonard Iriarte
Describe what you do.
I am currently the principal instructor and composer for a community-based arts organization called the Ifen Lalaine Oral History Project. We are based out of the University of Guam, and what we do is we, part of what we do is put together, um, is to reconstruct traditionally styled Chamorro chant and song and choreography and the other things that go with that for the purpose of putting together, or one of our purposes is putting together a performance group and display to the community the results of our work. So, currently, I am Guam’s master of traditional style Chamorro chant, so the government Council of the Arts and Humanities, by doing that, by recognizing that, they're also recognizing our genre in the Chamorro performance art arena, which is traditional style Chamorro chant. But, I've had some involvement in the past in other art practices that have contributed to what I do now.
Why did you choose your art form?
Before I was doing chamorro performance art, oral history stuff, I did some carving, I did some visual arts, pen and ink drawings, and other activities like farming and fishing, other traditional activities, hunting, farming, fishing, that ultimately led to me and all of that coupled with a studying of our history. Chamorros have had a really difficult history, you know. All of that led to me realizing that, um, “Chamorro art” in modern times needs to serve a particular purpose and that purpose would be to help us understand our heritage and our past and our history. The reason why I engaged in the different art forms previously and currently with Chamorro performance art was there we realized that there was um a need, a need, in the modern times for Chamorros to better understand their heritage. So we see, those of us who work with me, we see what we do as a service to our Chamorro brethren and to our ancestors more importantly. So, this all, and we do this in a time for modern Chamorros at a time for when Chamorros have been trying to perpetuate a cultural renaissance. So we look at what we can do, we being myself and then those who work with me, what we can do to play our particular role in the community, because the art, the Chamorro art scene since the 1980s has been an evolving thing, evolving and evolving, developing and my first time to represent Guam in the arts was in 1976 at a festival of pacific arts in new zealand and so we've as the years have gone by, and as the Chamorros have become more interested in their ancient heritage we’ve when we find some role that we can play, in the genre that we work in that we do it for the community’s sake and for our education too, you know.
How did your high school/college years affect the work you make today?
Probably the best thing to say would be that my high school and the little college I that had gone, it helped me in my discipline by helped me in the genre of the work that I do by helping me be disciplined, you know, being disciplined, being a good student, doing good research, knowing the value of doing research, you know. Doing good homework.
Who do you idolize?
I look up to a number, quite a number of people. No one in particular comes to mind right now. I really look up to, maybe I should start by saying that I look up to my parents, I look up to my grandparents, especially. Yeah, especially my grandparents because they played a role in me developing an interest in the origin and the etymology of Chamorro words.
Where do you get your inspiration?
From good coffee. I jest. I think some of my inspiration come from having kids, you know, and growing up and realizing that as I grew up realizing that we can, we all of us can give something to our community, to improve our community, right, so having kids, made me want to leave the world or at least this place in a better place than when I came into it. I'm inspired to try and become a good community member, you know. We all live in this community. Wveyr small island. And I believe in doing good deeds and serving one’s, not only serving one’s family but also serving one’s community. I’m inspired by certain old Chamorro values also, you know. Like kaman thalp malec. You know, old Chamorro values where you think about the good of the group before you think of yourself. Everybody, you know nowadays, everybody is so westernized, right?
What do you do when you're stuck on an artwork or lacking motivation or inspiration?
I go to Infusions and have a coffee with my good friends Dylan and Coby. sometimes, I pray, right. More like ideate on something bigger than me, you know. Maybe a problem or something. Sometimes I have a talk with a good honest friend. Sometimes I read, just trying to distract myself. Sometimes on the rare occasion, I watch Star Trek. try to get over it. Try to get over that tough spot in life. Think of things positive. When it's really bad, meditate. Good meditative technique is good sometimes.
What do you like incorporating most into your art?
Evidence of my hard work like good research and the very best I can give creatively. I try to make it a point to, I differentiate myself I guess by just doing more thorough work. That’s where being a good student in school helps. Being a straight-A student, you wanna bring that into different aspects of your life.
What is something that you add to your art as like your signature?
It is a signature of my art, yeah. It's the level of the work that I do, the quality and the level that I do, the results, the definite signature.
Take us through your process for making art.
Easy answer to that is I research, you know, I research to know what information, let's say that I'm going to compose a work, on some oral historical thing, could be a song, a recitation, some formal form of writing, right. I conduct research, I put a lot of time into research to find out what information is available to me because some of the information is, I need doesn’t come from Western information sources, some of the information that I’m going to need isn’t going to be on the internet isn't going to be in some research library, some of it I'm going to have to go and research and spend time with an old gentleman who is a practitioner of a particular esoteric practice. So I might have to apprentice myself to this individual. I've done that in the past, just to gain some information from places that, where the information is not available to us in the standard format. A lot of my time went into that, you know. So that's the first prep that I go through. There are more layers to my preparation but they're kind of complex, but the research that goes into it, just being diligent in your work, making sure that the product that you get in the end is really good quality. It satisfies my level of quality so it's something that the community that I think needs, requires in some way, because my hard work isn't something that you just put up on the wall., I used to produce that kind of artwork, you know. My work needs to serve multiple purposes because ultimately, the work that we produce helps us to define modern Chamorro heritage and some of our ancient heritage. We play a very unique role in the community. We’re kind of like a, I'm kind of like a cultural authority of sorts, so there’s a great responsibility you know, service to the community. I make sure that the work that I do is satisfactory to my dead grandparents, their parents before them, their parents before them. For me I see all down the line to see a long line of ancestors, most of them I've never met. I don't even know their names, but I have to serve them well. I am representing my lineage, I see that and take that into my work. There's been, in the last 2-3 decades, we have a Chamorro community that has been working to the artist have been working to define our heritage. In that time, as we have been learning more about ourselves, we've put a lot of effort into dispelling misconceptions, you know finding mistakes in our understanding of who we are and a lot goes into doing things like that big responsibilities in that. You have to be able to find the bullshit and filter it out.
How would you define art?
You know, I see myself as a traditionalist, so rather than define art of the world, I can tell you that I have a perspective of art. So for me, I don't see art in the Western sense. I see art in a more traditional Chamorro viewpoint which is the practice or the production of something. In our case, it’s music and oral mystery items like recitation and just a whole gamut of oral history. Traditionally, art for us, for the Chamorro, this is before the introduction of Western art, art had a utilitarian purpose. It had a purpose. It wasn't done for art’s sake, right? From the Western viewpoint, art is produced by an artist to do to promote his work and promote himself as an artist. Traditionally, that's seen as a very selfish thing. A traditional artist does his work, whatever it is whether it's a canoe builder, or like in my case a composer of Chamorro chant and music, there is a utilitarian purpose behind it. So art for me is to produce something beautiful, its things related to our oral history and to produce something beautiful but also to preserve something beautiful, like old words you know, um old symbolisms, old allegories, old forms of expression, to do it beautifully, but it serves a purpose also. So that's more important to me is the service aspect of that. You know. It's part religion, it's part politics, you know.
What do you struggle with the most when making art?
I usually work with a team so for me, the biggest struggle has been social. The biggest problem, what we do requires a lot of people so for me the biggest struggle is dealing with the dedication or the lack thereof in other people that I might have to work with. It’s just dealing with others, having to work with others that may not have the emotional maturity that I might have, having to be there to help them out. They might have something valuable, a skill that is really valuable but they might not be as socially mature as we would require. Sometimes dealing with people's egos, you know, is a big problem within our Chamorro arts community, it's a big problem. That’s why in our organization, we really emphasize volunteer effort, your serving your community, we're not being paid for this, you know. So you've got set aside, we're not here to give any particular individual a lot of attention, if you need that, then they're going to run into a problem with us.
What role do artists have in society?
Overall, artists have a responsibility to make beautiful things for our society and to help challenge society, and help society develop and grow. For us here in Guam, our role is to help our fellow Chamorros come to a better understanding of themselves and their history. Because there's that old adage, you can't move forward without knowing where you've come from as I've said, there's been a lot of misconception about our history, a lot of us don't know about our history, maybe a little recent history, but our role is to help educate other Chamorros.
What characteristics do you think all artists share?
The easy answer to that is, I think all artists share a desire to express themselves you know in some way, right fundamentally.
What’s your favorite place in Guam?
My family’s traditional land. And there is a place called salamin plalii. It's between Deddedo and Gigo, it’s on top of a hill. That is where my family has traditionally held land. I like to go to places here that have some oral historical significance, I like old village sites, I like to explore those
How has your artwork evolved over time?
I've become more focused on, I've come to realize the importance of becoming more focused on doing what I believe the community requires, not just a visual artist, painting pretty pictures. I'm here to serve my community. My artwork has changed and improved because I've learned to set aside I've had to learn to set aside my own desire and what I want and pay more attention to what I can do for my community.
Why did you choose to become an artist?
I don't refer to myself as an artist. I consider myself more of a traditional practitioner. People tend to see to look at art and that word art from a more Western perspective. I don't do that. I've had to learn to, because we're service-oriented, so I have had to learn to serve the community with the skills that we have and not pay attention to things that I might want to do as an artist. I do what I do because out of a sense of obligation to the community. I feel like I'm doing something for my grandparents, they're dead, I speak for them now.
Do you have any tips for aspiring artists?
Just be true to yourself and also don't get too caught up in yourself. Do good, be good, make it for the community, for yourself more than ever, if not then just don't do it.
Is your art geared towards a specific audience?
Our art is geared primarily toward the Chamorro communities in the Marianas. Not only here in Guam but in all of the Northern Mariana Islands. It's primarily geared towards them initially but not exclusively it's also geared towards a wider region, the Pacific region, because we also have interactions with artists from other countries. After I was declared a master of traditional style Chamorro chants, I got a phone call from Australian public television, Australian Broadcasting Corporation stunned the hell out of me. This was days after I was declared master. And what they wanted to know was because they know a little bit about Guam history and know that a lot of traditional practices have been lost by in the Chamorro community, they know that and so they wanted to interview me as to know the hell did I reconstruct Chamorro traditional style chant, how did I approach that because it's supposed to be dead and yet there it is. It made me feel even more responsible. It's very important to be honest and to be ethical.
