Daniel Lind-Ramos, 2021

[Speakers (in order of appearance): Irene Esteves-Amador, Ph.D., Artists Documentation Program Fellow; Daniel Lind-Ramos, Artist]
IE-A: Hi, Daniel Lind.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Hi.
IE-A: We are in the studio of Puerto Rican artist, Daniel Lind-Ramos. We are specifically in the town of Loíza, Puerto Rico, in the Medianía Alta neighborhood, in the Colobó sector. Today is January 29 of 2021 and this dialogue that we're having today with Mr. Lind-Ramos is part of the Artists Documentation Program of the Menil Collection and the Whitney Museum in New York. I am Dr. Irene Esteves-Amador. I would like to thank the master, Daniel Lind, for receiving us and for his willingness to have this conversation that seeks to shed light on the technical particularities of his artwork in order to ensure its correct conservation. We're in your, or... Do you mind if I address you as "tú"? To begin with, Daniel, I would like to refer to this place. I know this has been your creative space for several decades now. As we said before, it's a studio in the place where you were born, where you grew up, and where you have remained. I was thinking that this place hasn't always been the same. Because in 1989, to be more precise, our island suffered the beating of a, not unimportant, hurricane. If I am not mistaken, it was category 3. It was called Hugo and those of us who lived through it, remember it well. That atmospheric phenomenon destroyed what was then your studio, a structure built with other materials. As a consequence, you had to rebuild it. In fact, around that time, in the 90's, you began to open your painting to other possibilities. You began to experiment with the three-dimensional object that you incorporate to the artwork to make it a kind of hybrid or "combine". Today we think, mostly of another hurricane which is closer and the one that hit us hardest. That is María, a category 5 hurricane that devastated us in 2017. I dare to say that in the case of Hugo, the physical structure of your creative space is reinforced, while with María the framework of your artwork is reinforced in terms of form and content. You're almost entirely dedicated to assemblage, to the three-dimensional object. We have with us today some works in progress that, in fact, are part of a series that bears the name of Maria-Maria, alluding precisely to the hurricane. I wanted to invite you to tell us a little bit about what you're working on now. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Staring with the first thing you mentioned, that, I'd like to talk about. Specifically of studios I've had here. The first one, as I mentioned, I built from the stalks of the coconut palm. As a child, obviously. And, obviously those fragile materials didn't last. Then, looking for stronger material, I built it out of zinc sheets, but it was very hot. I made some money as I started to sell paintings, and I built one with this concept you see here, similar lighting but just one level. While in Paris with an Arana Foundation scholarship, Hurricane Hugo passed and, literally, swept it all away and left nothing. Even the mango tree that was nearby disappeared. Then, I posed the alternative that evidently, hurricanes visit us annually. They're recurrent, we live with them, we have to harmonize with them. I had already made some sales and invested that in building this studio, already thinking about a hurricane. But even doing that, didn't stop María from knocking down the gate when it hit us. I had a year's work of assemblages. Thank God, I took precautions. Some of the knowledge we have regarding hurricanes is to protect the front with panels. Even when the gate gave in, it was tied with chains. It fell but kept the wind from coming in and knocking down the assemblages. Still, water came through here, soaked one of a series of drawings and left it practically ruined. That's been my hurricane experience in relation to my studios. You asked about the artistic process.
IE-A: Since we're in the studio, what are you working on? I can tell there's a lot going on here.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Yes, works in progress.
IE-A: And it's no coincidence that some have to do, precisely with Hurricane María.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Even before María I was focusing on the hurricane theme. In fact, there's a piece called Huracán de julio, which is in a university museum in the US. I don't remember which one. Huracán de julio conjures the activities, the rejoicing of the Loíza festival that happens in July and, after the celebration, hurricane season begins. It's hurricane season already, but the worst part is yet to come.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  So, from that festive hurricane we pass on to the other. I didn't start working with the hurricane theme with María. It's always interested me. It's an experience for us all in the Antilles and other places. It's not the first. After María... I didn't feel Hugo directly as I was in Paris. But, indirectly I did because it knocked down my studio. But María was a sublime and terrible experience, as I told you. That thing of experiencing the force of nature... That's a romantic approach, representing the sublime in nature, but then there's the terrible part. So, I started the big María there, the one you saw. I'm still working on it. It started from an object I found. When I went out of the house, I stepped into water, everything was flooded. The first object I found came to me. I take it. I didn't know... I knew it would be related to the experience. So, I started it. The second piece, the one in the Whitney Museum, emerged the same way. I had done many sketches related to María. I'm talking about... completely filled notebooks.
IE-A: What was the first object you recovered? 
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  The propeller you see there.
IE-A: I'm seeing the blades.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It was in the water then. Regardless of whether it comes from a car’s engine, it's in the water. So, I remembered a boat's propeller.
IE-A: The same icon used to represent hurricanes in the map.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  All that. Exactly. The spinning thing.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  The wind. So, I started, as I said, a series. The one over there is the third piece. That one has to do with post María. What happens after María. After the sublime experience, there's the terrible one. Not only the destructiveness of winds and floods, but what happens afterwards in terms of living. There's no electricity, no water, there's no access. The total debacle, the catastrophe. And I've experienced that, we've experienced it before María. The hurricane comes, it devastates, we organize and work with the essential. That essential knowledge somehow helps us to face the situation. For example, cooking with fire. How many people we saw washing clothes with the washboard. And looking for fruits like coconuts. We went back to cooking with coconuts because so many had fallen. So, the third María, is like the post María. It has to do with the representation through objects, of the knowledge that helped us and will continue to help us survive in many ways after a catastrophe. Like the recurring hurricanes, that annually pass through the region. 

IE-A: Of the three, this one incorporates more culinary elements. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Yes, because it was fascinating. I love it because I grew up... Right here there was a wood stove. Before building the studio, I remembered grandma's wood stove. There was a "burén", and it's still there. There were blocks under the "burén". There was firewood. Then you ate from the sea, that's why you see--
IE-A: Yes, I see the fishing net.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --the fishing net. So, the image makes reference to all those tools, all the materials that have to do with activity around the stove, with food. Then, on the upper part, it refers to ancestry. It's as if she also brought in the headdress, all that ancestral wisdom. The "higüera" you see there. Can you see it?
IE-A: Yes, I do.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It also points to the pre-Columbian past in Puerto Rico. The "dita" is associated with the indigenous people in Puerto Rico. And here in Loíza, specially, grandma, used the "dita". In fact, I've thought of naming her “Afro-Dita”. It's as if she were “María / Afro-Dita”
IE-A: From Aphrodite.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Then there's afro and pre-Columbian wisdom. In Loíza this is very interesting. As we mentioned, for example, the use of the "burén". It's known that the indigenous people had clay "burenes".
IE-A: Made of clay.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Then, metal "burenes" were used.
IE-A: With the "topias".
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Exactly.
IE-A: Instead of blocks, "topias" were used.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: : All of that was taking place in that image.
IE-A: It's the syncretism that permeates your work. It's intrinsic to the place where you come from.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, there's really nothing pure. Practically all knowledge can be said to be syncretic, as we are always contributing or touching other knowledge. As I said, there's a series of sketches, quite a few, based on that hurricane experience. And it occurs to me to mention a title. I like to play with titles. It won't be the definitive title. “María a posteriori”, because after that experience with the terrible and the sublime in the hurricane, the destructive force, but also the overpowering one, when you hear that force of nature, what happens afterward? There's no electricity. There's no water. Fallen trees. There's no way to reach places to look for food. Then you turn to that ancestral knowledge, the knowledge related to the stove. Then it's a María of the wood stove or María a posteriori. Here you see elements that have to do with the kitchen, the ones we turn to when we have to return to the essence, the beginning.
IE-A: The essence.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Right here grandma had a wood stove. On Saturdays, I remember, part of the community got together around the stove to talk and, from time to time, grandma would serve food from the stove. I started thinking of, how after the hurricane's lashing and its catastrophic consequences, we return to that. To products from the sea. Coconut products, always coconut… And how this knowledge, like a protective Virgin, helped with our subsistence, specifically, food.
IE-A: You mentioned before the coconut peeler, and I understand that's the instrument.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  That's one of the stakes, it's a metal one, to peel coconuts. This is the effect. Coconut, in those circumstances, after María, well... We used it a lot. 
IE-A: Would this also represent the fallen, what was lost?
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Not so much as in the big María, where the coconut, in some way, represents the effects of the hurricane in nature, and also the hurricane's victims. Here, its effect is a tool within the context of the knowledge. How this knowledge still aids us when electricity disappears. That's why there's an obsolete electrical cable.
IE-A: And there's a rounded-up, satin ribbon in the back with a grayish color.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  That's because the ribbon invokes tradition, in terms of its use in the festival's costumes. But there, formally speaking, it could suggest the color of smoke.
IE-A: From the stove, of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Then, it's combined with the orange.
IE-A: You've evoked the flame before using orange textiles.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Visual equivalences. I like that. Some equivalences. They also work in terms of form. In formal terms, the harmony of color. All those things are there. All those things are happening.
IE-A: And it's a very organic line. And talking about the festival, I understand that that textile with its sequins is allusive to it. It's very present here too.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It refers to the costumes in general and specifically to the use of this fabric in the masquerade. I like combining those materials. From the very…
IE-A: The textures and colors. And this element you added here?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Water.
IE-A: The pipe.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Water. Where there's fire you need the complement. In this case, water. Again, I repeat, it’s relative. 
IE-A: And this is a material that we find in the assemblage 1797, the nylon rope.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Yes, because I always like to incorporate materials that have to do with actuality and when I go to that store, the name can't be mentioned, I'm fascinated with the ropes. Once in a while, to create a retinal effect, in terms of the blue, for example, I incorporate that object. The rope. But also, if we talk about an ancestral figure, it's also related to the fertile. The rope, in certain cultures, the way it is incorporated, can speak or point towards fertility. To what extent this figure represents it.
IE-A: One thinks of the umbilical cord.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Yes, we want to let the form itself evoke.
IE-A: This cauldron has a lot of history. This is a cauldron that my collaborator brought me because he knows I constantly use them. This is an example. “Daniel, I have a cauldron. My mother used it.” And he told me his mother's story.
IE-A: They're cured. We say "curaditos". They're the best.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Then, I said “Mother…” look at the figure here.
IE-A: You incorporate the mother. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Or the grandmother. We're talking about a woman that is already an ancestor. She's no longer with us. We continue and arrive at the "dita". If we talk about ancestral wisdom in Puerto Rico, the knowledge of the pre-Columbian inhabitants has to be there. More so in Loíza.
IE-A: That board that's underneath, did it go through any process? 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That board is very important because one of the best cooks of Loíza that also sells meals, uses it to prepare the dough or used to prepare the cooking dough. What do you think?
IE-A: Fritters.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The same with the "burén". The "burenes". On that board he prepares the dough for the tortillas. Prepared. Hence the importance in relation to.
IE-A: Everything connects. I am surprised that the neighbors are willing to exchange their cured cauldrons, which are the good ones, for new ones that you bring them. That's a weak business.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But in this case it is or was his mother's cauldron, the person who brings me… When I find a very heavy object, I call him. He has a truck, we load it in, and he brings it to me. That's my collaborator. As he has seen that I work with these things, he said, “I have a cauldron there”, and told me the cauldron's story. “It belonged to my mother and we did this and that”, and he brought it. Then, from this post María, I start using the cauldron.
IE-A: That cauldron has a huge handle.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: If you look closely it's the centrifugal thing.
IE-A: Again. The way you manipulated the nylon rope makes it look tidied up. Something that Ángel Santiago and I mentioned in that interview is that this material is very prone to react to light and the color fades.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: What do you mean?
IE-A: The nylon rope. You said that color here is important. If it were to fade I understand you'd want it replaced.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Something learned is the following, as I've already seen over the years what happens to it. As you can see, this is not finished. This is assembled.
IE-A: It's in process.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It has to be refined. There's a refining phase which I love. It's the last one, when I start to... What I do is the following. As this is harmonized in blue, first, I give everything a polymer coat to seal the material and then give it a blue transparency. Regardless of the fact that the color below is fading, it will still remain and that transparency in acrylic blue won't look bad. I've already seen what happens to it.

IE-A: You definitely want to preserve that blue hue.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: At least the shade.
IE-A: It's very important.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Since what I am interested in is its harmony with the ruling color, which is blue, I give it that transparency in acrylic and it lasts long enough. Regardless of what's happening underneath, it lasts long enough and the hue remains. For example, I varnished here. I don't know if you can see it, this has a varnish with blue. Remember I mentioned that the gloss shade is yellow.
IE-A: I understand.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And this one is bluish. When I see them in the store I say, "this is for such..." and I get the blue, "and this yellow is for such".
IE-A: How long has this been in process? It's been a while. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: When you came before you didn't see it like this. You don't remember. You saw it.
IE-A: I did, but it wasn't that finished.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I'm still working. It's what I said. 
IE-A: But I think this goes back a long way before I came here, to the studio.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Of course. The image, the idea, I have it and had sketched it. Then I continue working on it. That's how it goes. I look at it and draw.
IE-A: You live with her.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That's what's fascinating. Now I'm working on the back side.
IE-A: Will you paint the base?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I like it the way it is.
IE-A: I'm thinking of some of your other bases.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Look at the adhesive tape here. That's just to see the color. That doesn't go there. Maybe I'll paint.
IE-A: I understand. The border.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's playing with it. You were going to say something?
IE-A: Yes, you work with thematic series and we're here in front of a series, in process, that of Maria-Maria. I wonder if you long to see them altogether someday in the same space.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That would be interesting. Because look right here… 
IE-A: You even work respecting the order in which they emerged in your mind. Like in a concert, that orchestra should come together sometime. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There's one that's sitting. Terrible, it's the terrible one. In fact, there are pre-Columbian images, because the hurricane experience in the Antilles, as you know, has always been there. Our pre-Columbian ancestors --here before Columbus-- recorded that experience with images. 
IE-A: The mythology, if it can be called that way, of our pre-Columbian ancestors was matriarchal.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And I think I spoke to you at one point. 
IE-A: These deities inspired by nature and its phenomena, the devastating ones were female.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I think they called her Guabancex. I have to correct myself. Guabancex. When I started the series, I was very aware of that, of the name given to this by the inhabitants before Columbus' arrival. Revise it. It's very interesting.
IE-A: I will.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Another emissary was the rain. Then she came. Destruction. Here, I'm playing with the post-passage of María and what we faced. Among other things, turning to the ancestral knowledge to adapt to those circumstances where there's no electricity, no water, no access to. We can't communicate. So, this is, "what are we going to do? Well, we'll survive together". "And we'll resort to what?" To that important knowledge. It's part of the community. That's what the third María generates. I'm trying to make them in order. The order in which I designed them and reacted to that moment, and are registered in these sketches. I'm trying to keep up with that rhythm. 
IE-A: Yet, you said the Whitney one is the second one and you finished it first.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Because I start them, for example, this is the first one and I haven't finished, but then the thing about making them… I like to follow the rhythm of the sketches. Finishing them, well, that's another thing, another rhythm, another feeling. Sometimes I need an object and can't find it. I have to make them and, how long does that take me?
IE-A: What you're telling me is that to start the piece you respect the order in which these ideas come to your mind and the sketches were made. But may finish-- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's not so much respecting.
IE-A: --one before the other-- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Sure, that would be--
IE-A: --regardless of the order.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --very limiting. I believe in systems but flexible ones. There always has to be space for freedom. I like it. It's fun, like remembering. You go to those primal sketches and it's fascinating to go through the process of looking.
IE-A: You're looking at yourself and you recognize yourself in it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And not only that but somehow recreating that experience.
IE-A: So, this, the first María, goes back to 2017.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, with recovering that object, the work begins there.
IE-A: That's the beginning.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There is a conceptual issue there. I was clear that it was going to be something related to the hurricane. It's not something random. It's not a coincidence. I said, "I'll make something with this related to this experience". 
IE-A: But this series is not limited to three.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, there's many more. So many, that I don't even want to give you a number.
IE-A: So, there are those many others sketched in notebooks.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In sketches, I have many. In fact, I've lost three notebooks.
IE-A: Oh, lost.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Of many, of all of them, I've lost three full of sketches related to this series.
IE-A: And what does that mean to Daniel Lind, having lost those?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: You have to let things go. At first, I was frustrated. It's frustrating. I've learned to harmonize myself with certain things and among them, let them go. Because, I can't stop there.
IE-A: You have to appeal to your memory to remember what was in them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, what I do is not to remember. I don't want to remember those notebooks.
IE-A: You let go. So, in your creative process you go hand in hand with your drawings. It's not an exercise that you do to break the ice and then let go of that and continue, you like to refer to your notes consistently.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, when I go back to the sketch, already with recent experiences, in a way, they affect the idea. And that's fascinating. Then you keep refining, polishing to ultimately get to the essence. That is, to try to say the minimum; the maximum with the minimum. You have to be constantly playing with the object, in formal terms, in conceptual terms --true, yes-- in terms of the object's history, how it fits. It's a very organic process.
IE-A: I even see a parallelism between your creative process and mine as a historian, and I never thought I'd find those convergences with a visual artist. How interesting. You go back to your notes and look at them with different eyes and you're adding, refining, and taking away, and so on. So, how interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And besides, drawing, among its uses, that thing of having an idea and quickly registering it with a simple and important instrument such as a pencil, for example. It's wonderful. I find that fascinating, you have an idea and so it doesn't go away, because ideas sometimes come, stay for a little while and then they go away.
IE-A: That's why they're called notes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Notes, yes.
IE-A: You have to note down fast before... You've highlighted the immediacy of the sketch at other times, it's something that appeals to you a lot. So, Daniel, I'd like to refer now to a figure I know is very important in your career. Looking at the space in which we find ourselves which has its windows, an anecdote of this Puerto Rican artist comes to mind that, in fact, I share with my students because I find it endearing. I'm referring to Félix Bonilla Norat, who was a professor at the University of Puerto Rico, where you studied your BA, and one of your first teachers, in the formal sense of the word. Some people who were in those classrooms say that Professor Bonilla Norat sometimes surprised them by entering through the window, instead of the door. To provoke surprise in his students, but also to generate a change in the class dynamics. Bonilla Norat, perhaps one of the Puerto Rican artists best trained in the European tradition. He was in France and Italy. A highly cultured man who has another fascinating story, which not many people know. He was the only Latino to be part of the Monuments Men in the context of World War II. Also, in that context, he came to occupy an important position in the Louvre Museum on an interim basis. In an interview, which I did as part of this documentation of your work, with Diógenes Ballester, your friend and colleague, he said that he understands that he even became the interim director of the Louvre, which is no mean feat. Talking about those disruptions that he deliberately provoked, the change he pursued, I wanted to ask you, how did your notions of art change under the tutelage of master Bonilla Norat?

Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Well, I'm interested in sports. In fact, I played superior baseball. I participated in important basketball leagues. But I also remember that I spent time drawing and painting. And practically, my school teachers chose my career. I remember, I don't know what age, it was grade school, I participated in a contest given by El Imparcial.
IE-A: You won.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They gave two dollars for a prize for us, two dollars. I participated and won a prize. And the school teachers, “Oh, this!” I became the artist then. In high school too. In high school I was much more immersed in painting, drawing, etc. So, undecided in my senior year, a professor, a teacher told me, “You're going to the University of Puerto Rico. You'll take the test, enter the University of Puerto Rico and you're going to study art". The orientation, because a young man... In fact, I was even considering volunteering for Vietnam. And I'm talking about '69 during the Tet Offensive I think it was, historians correct me, then it was… He was a Vietnam vet and he says to me, "No, you go and take the test". And I found myself in the University. "Wait, what am I going to do here?" The first time I went to the class of Félix Bonilla Norat, thinking of painting, because that's what I did, paint and draw. And I carved masks because both, my uncle, Luis Ramos and my mother were artisans. So, I made things with masks. I also drew on the walls. So, I go to Bonilla Norat's class and the first thing he says to us --looking at me-- “So, you're entering the priesthood of painting”. The priesthood of painting! Wait, I associate priesthood with priests, with…
IE-A: Celibacy.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: What he meant was, if you're getting into this, you have to do it with that discipline. The first assignment,-- 
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --starting from what you say, he asks us to make a piece related to our personal imprint. "How do you want to project yourselves in time?" Personal imprint. I said, “Damn!” I remember, and since then I've been working from experiences, “Well, we boil a lot of land crab here”. I started making this type of masks that were part of my experience, with my hands --the imprint-- and land crabs came out as masks. I said, “Well…” I didn't know. Shyly, I take it to him. I remember his words, “The ancestor follows you”. He took the pieces and, he had a panel where he'd place artworks from students that were interesting. He had everyone's. He took mine and placed them. It was very significant for me. I came with the notion that art had to be naturalist, in terms of painting, you praise the ones that recreate things as they are. I made something experimental based on my experience and this man explains why it's important and places it there. And I, “Wow!” From that moment on, I developed an experimental attitude. Not from painting as I then got into the problem of light, of luminosity and color because Félix Bonilla Norat, among many things, gave us very rigorous color exercises. In fact, he had these panels that opened like this. 4’x 8’ panels with color exercises done by him. In other words, he was the example. One opened those panels and it was incredible, the quantity of hues to the right, to the left, up and down. I got very interested and started to study color in depth. It was almost obsessive. I managed to create a kind of luminosity in painting. In fact, he encouraged me to continue investigating that, even if I was still working figuratively. But in terms of narrative, with, again, a relative take on my experience, because there was something in me that said that, to say something, it'd have to do with something I knew. But that thing about him coming through the window…
IE-A: You experienced it? Did you see him sometime?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, but it was talked about. Now I realize that what he wanted was to activate the right side of our brain. He found us much too logical, too rational. For example, I come from Loíza and I want to paint the human figure a certain way. Then, he did things to get you out of your brain's left side and place you on the right side. When we understood, that's what we expected. It was stimulating. I'm talking about activating the icebreaker. They're icebreaking activities--
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --to place us in a more relaxed, visual state. 
IE-A: I find it interesting that him being an artist and an academic, a professor, who came, as we could say, from a quite traditionalist formation, how he also embraced experimentation. Talking about the two sides of the brain, that other side then of the binomial of art. And I know, because you've stated it before, that he also exposed you to the Arte Povera phenomenon. Though, in your beginnings, for a long time in your career, you devoted yourself, speaking of the priesthood of painting, to the pictorial medium in a consistent and even, let's say, purist way, the seed was placed there by Félix Bonilla when he opened your eyes and your mind to this practice called the practice of Arte Povera. I think, and I'm not the only one, that Daniel Lind is a reactionary artist. Reactionary in that he reacts to immediacy, but also questions not only the immediate, but also the past. Referring again to the Maria-Maria series, you were telling me the other day that, even before the hurricane hit us, when you knew that it bore the name of María you began to react to that, to question it, to ironize the fact that a destructive force could bear the name of that protective mother, according to Christian and Catholic tradition. Is Daniel Lind also challenging, questioning in some way, ironizing the fact that a practice that has been so rich for him --the appropriated object-- which is a discarded, humble object, that he elevates to the level of art, is also a bit challenging the name given to a practice that contrary to poor is extremely enriching?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, there's a certain radicalism. I like the word radicalism. Félix Bonilla Norat exposed us to what he considered the 20 pictorial situations. What do you think?
IE-A: Interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  20 pictorial situations, and the mare, which was the search for life and things, the woman. I think there was another one. The mare, the woman, I have one left that has the still life. For example, he exposed us to play with elements. Play with the dot. The dot being an element. To play with the line. To play with texture. And he'd go on. And then he exposed us to art history, up to contemporary art. And there were assignments there to, and many of them. When he talked about Arte Povera, it's the first time I hear the word in the context of art. He explained that it was creating images with material not destined for the creation of artwork, but poor material. And it can include anything. I was very interested in that. It was the 70's, '72 maybe. We did the assignment. We exposed ourselves to Arte Povera. Then we saw pieces by Mario Merz, for example. I think Germano Celant was the theorist. There's information I don't remember. We were interested and did Arte Povera exercises. We found things looking for meaning from there. If there's something I learned, don't know about the rest, is that everything has the possibility to create images and meaning from... Since then I've seen the possibility in everything. I can tell you that for me, a tube of pigment is, perhaps, as important as finding a cauldron to build an image. I'd say that that seed, the exposure we had, and I had with master Félix Bonilla Norat, was always there. Because I went deeper into painting and I remember I became a slave to the process. Painting a piece like, what was it called, El bautizo, took one year and three months, and I painted on a wall that was here in the studio, pre-Hugo.
IE-A: That was in the nineties. Was it pre-Hugo? I thought it was from early nineties.

Daniel Lind-Ramos: I have to check because I remember I started using eyeglasses. I came in one day and said, “I'm not seeing things right”.
IE-A: You were forty, then.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  That's what I'm trying to--
IE-A: Do the math.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --find out. The thing is I did the sketches first, studied each figure, then reduced them, so that I could pose my color theory in that figure. When I reached that figurative synthesis, I'd work with color and make formulas. I spent a lot of time making formulas, writing them down, to then prepare the colors in… I used to buy car windows, those were my palettes, and spent time…
IE-A: And it was consistently oil.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. I spent weeks and weeks preparing the color to then start painting. The floor was practically surrounded and filled with palettes. I had the paint here. I already knew. Sometimes, in an area where I prepared six colors, I would only use a shade but it had to be there. It was part of the theory process. Production then was slow. Very slow! To achieve luminosity, I think I showed you a giclée print in the other studio-- 
IE-A: Yes, a giclée.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --even like that you see the light. I used to paint the surface 3 times. That is, first, the imprimatura, second, the basic colors and then I worked with that. And there came a time when I said, "Damn!". Yes, I did the pieces. But it was tremendous and I became a slave to the system. In fact, when I tried to take shortcuts, I didn't get what I wanted and said, "No, I have to keep doing it like this”. Then, it's like the system tires out and it's pointing to other things. The object gradually began to appear and I saw possibilities in the palettes because there was color. There's a piece that's called and I don't know where it is, Viaje a la fertilidad, the painted image appears, the painting as object, the painting becomes an object within a system, the painting as the main object and then surrounded by the palettes. The correspondence was fascinating. Then I searched or found objects and placed them around it. It's also responding to experiences I had in the sector, in the neighborhood, where you went to the houses, and not only were there entire walls full of magazine pages, like collages,--
IE-A: I grew up with that.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --but there were also objects placed in a certain way, there were even small altars.
IE-A: Altars.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  All that experience, starting from that hand with the land crabs, I already saw that, wow, here's everything! I can say from here and play with form. That's where the object begins. Incorporating the palettes with the painted image and adding other related objects, but they also have to do with the community experience or any other memory. And I go on like that until the painting as an object narrows and the object takes more prominence. And there comes a moment when there's no painting and the object remains. So, it's been a process. But, always thinking about color.
IE-A: Yes, because sometimes the object becomes a support for painting, we see it in several of your assemblages. But you make me think of two things. First, you took the words out of my mouth because you said that you had become enslaved to your pictorial process.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It's an obsession. When you discover something…IE-A: But positive.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, yes. 
IE-A: Because it paid off eventually. As you rightly say, it's a process, you had to go through it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's like the price you have to pay for discovering something.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  If you know the truth…
IE-A: No, shortcuts rarely work.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They didn't work for me. I used to do things trying to avoid making the color. In fact, like a doctor said to me, "What did you do?”
IE-A: The shoulder can't take it. Well, professional baseball player.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Look, it was this, preparing the color. Sometimes one whole day for a palette. I'm telling you, my painting buddies would come, see the palettes and wanted to take them. In fact, I think it was Carmelo Fontánez, one of those painters who managed to--
IE-A: I know him.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --take one. I didn't want to give them away.
IE-A: It must have been a beautiful setting, a color installation.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  In terms of the studio, yes. It was visually stimulating to the retina.
IE-A: Of course, but you were enslaved, it's at that point when you start to experiment with the object, you start freeing your painting to other possibilities and I think…
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  More than the painting, the expression, because painting as a genre continues--
IE-A: Of course, we say painting--
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --to be painting.
IE-A: --as the medium of your expression. You opened your art to other possibilities. The fact that one of the first objects that you incorporated to these hybrids, between painting and assemblage, were the palettes, I think it was even a symbolic act.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It's logical.
IE-A: You had to place the palettes there to free yourself from the slavery and explore this other medium.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  When I say slavery, I'm referring specifically to the creation of hues in the palette. The rest was fun.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It was fun to play with the idea, narrow the form, one had to draw… Make notes, the theory. But then you have to prepare the colors before taking the next step. And that's work.
IE-A: But once you have all ready, when it's time to execute you move forward, otherwise you have to pause and start preparing colors.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The detail of preparing palettes.
IE-A: You were getting ahead.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Then when you were going to paint you went back to a state of epiphany and said, “I found this”. 
IE-A: Another thing that comes to my mind is that you mentioned the home altars and you said that those paintings that incorporated objects even carried a hierarchy. And you've referred to the altar, the painting, first, as the ruling object. I notice that at the bottom of the object, in the bottom part of the composition, what you've done sometimes is to recreate the painted image by means of these three-dimensional compositions almost as if it were a footnote. Almost as if it were an illuminated manuscript, where we have the text and then the illustration.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  How interesting. In fact, one of the pieces, in that process, I think it's called Santiago o la transformación de la memoria, Santiago o la transformación de la memoria, an image that works with the issue of identity. In fact, when I included those palettes, I also included objects related to the masquerade. I have to tell you that too. In it, the painted image echoes, in a way, the objects at the bottom. I did it with the intention of making that kind of double reading, or not double reading, the one that the spectator wants when he/she approaches it. As you well know, the image... I'm not interested in a fixed meaning. I don't want that, and it's impossible, what's there has the exact meaning of what's there. Conscious of that, I painted an image that pointed more to a pictorial tradition, an oil painting... The compositions could even be in any church, but the images were syncretic. Then, the objects below have a dialogue with the image above, but they're local objects. Still, well related to what's painted there. I think it's called Hipótesis sobre un encubrimiento o Santiago o la transformación de la memoria. 
IE-A: I think it's Santiago o la transformación de la memoria.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It has objects at the bottom and sides.
IE-A: Yes. You talk about the piece as an open one. Each observer makes his/her reading, comes to his/her conclusion. I wonder, are you looking for a certain attitude on the part of the spectator in front of these objects that border on altars? Mark Rothko, for example, comes to mind. Don't know if you know that Mark Rothko painted his artworks, specially those rectangular formats vertical,--
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Spirituality.
IE-A: --in the manner of altars, wanting to achieve, in the spectator that faced them, an attitude of contemplation or awe. I don't know if you've ever had that expectation.

Daniel Lind-Ramos: Scale in this series is important. When someone stands in front of a piece that's bigger than him or her, we tend to measure everything in relation to our body. It's either smaller or bigger than me. In general, that series of paintings and subsequent assemblages, posed scale as part of that system. Trying, precisely, to provoke in the viewer, not only something through the visual, but also the physical.
IE-A: Sensorial.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Physical. But I'm aware that these approaches to representation have been used before. In Rothko's case, that immense scale. It causes a kind of meditative attitude. Wanting to find oneself with the One. The Uni-verse, the essential.
IE-A: In fact, some of your pieces have the lancet arch format, as if it were the stained glass window of a Gothic cathedral.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but those basic geometrical shapes can be found in any culture. As we know, they're not exclusively western expressions. I'm clear on that, because there is what's known as universal geometry, which is for everything. The basic structure of the circle, the triangle…I'm conscious of that and when I want an approximate symmetry, I'm clear that I'm doing it within a context, for example, to refer to the spiritual. As a historian, you know that. We study different cultures and see that even though narratives are different, and the imagery may be different, in formal terms the structures may be there. For example, the spiral.
IE-A: The spiral, of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I'm clear about that.
IE-A: They are common denominators.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's as if one incorporated the local color, indicating with it the local experience, but conscious that structure is universal. Regardless of whether you have the context or not you can, from the formal, get closer. I'm clear because I consider myself a formalist from that point of view. I like to construct the image playing with elements and applying principles.
IE-A: It's the most universal language.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: We find it everywhere. But why stop talking about our experiences? That's the important issue here. I don't want to favor other experiences that aren't mine. I think I can contribute more talking about these experiences. As human beings, we'll get to know each other better. I'm interested in the expressions of other cultures. I praise and recreate and I'm glad that these artists did what they did. Because I can approach those symbols that, in a way, are narrowing these experiences. It's like the line.
IE-A: That's the key, Daniel. It has proven to be your key. I think that takes us back to Félix Bonilla Norat. When he summoned you to find your personal imprint, the starting point was--
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Bravo, yes.
IE-A: --to project one's own to the broader, to the universal. I think about the importance --and you mentioned it-- that he gave to light. We just discussed light as a formal element of painting, that luminosity. And I ask myself, how does the role of light change once you transition to the three-dimensional object? It's no longer so intrinsic, but the extrinsic is also added because the three-dimensional object, specially the assemblages that you mention have a monumental scale, so they need good lighting. Going into details that have more to do with how you present your pieces in exhibition spaces, I wanted to ask about the role of light in your most recent work.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Light. The source of all color is light. Without light there's no color. For example, in painting I'm very interested in suggestive light. But what fascinated me while experimenting was that the light being created was a reflected light, not necessarily from the point of view of chiaroscuro, but as the color was applied and it settled, a retinal phenomenon was created that was like a kind of after-image. It was the discussion I had with Bonilla and what interested him. As I make the transition, instead of suggestive light, I work with real light. There are artists who work with real light, but they consider the brightness. It's interesting in these experiences with the handicrafts here in Loíza and the experience in my house, that almost every created object was varnished. Varnish for protection. Varnish, so it looks valuable; the shine. We like the shine. Bling-bling. Then it wasn't bling-bling. But I started to see more meaning in varnish. For example, sweat. I said, “Hold it, hold it…” Or, in certain religious practices, the presence of the divine. When there's glow, it's present. If it isn't glowing, it's not there. I will not point out the spiritual, but the shine is almost always present in these representations that have to do with the religious. I said, “Wait, the shine is the material”. It's like playing with the same principles. Contrasts, matte/shine. Color, blue/orange; hues. Now I bring here the experience I had as I delved into color. But I'm playing with the object itself with its color. At the same time, with that meaning, in terms of narrative. And it's fascinating. When I have to add color, I do it. Because, I'll say it again, for me this is a very organic, flexible system. I'm being very free. And if I have to resort to color, I do.
IE-A: What you just said about varnish is fascinating, because it's something I've asked myself. The reason for the varnish in elements of your assemblages and why shiny. You've literally shed a lot of light.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  First, protection. That notion of value in shiny things. As the saying goes, "Not all that glitters is gold".
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  And to invoke the body's humors, specially sweat. Regardless of whether it's dancing,--
IE-A: Or working.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  --or fighting, the struggle, working, making love, sweat. It's there, it's intrinsic to life itself. Presence, as I told you. And, the shine, if I put it in context, like here, for example, which I'm going to varnish, shine as cooking oil. Coconut oil also shines beautifully.
IE-A: Even in the body.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's what I do, practically, with all the materials I use. It has a meaning beyond its formal use. How can it add to the image? I'm telling you, it's very interesting.
IE-A: And for a conservator it's important because it's not just one superficial, protective layer, it has the burden of meaning too,--
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: --that compels us to protect that shine. When your artwork is exhibited, now that it's being exhibited in so many different places, do you give instructions as to the illumination that your pieces entail?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Incredibly enough, if I can say that, ambient light is enough. I'd say so. Yes, it's enough. I remember, for example, that when the lights were turned on for the pieces exhibited in the Whitney, it fell on them perfectly.
IE-A: You participated in the process.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, I was present and they asked me.
IE-A: It's very important.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And I said, “perfect!” In fact, I've never seen it so well lit. 
IE-A: Talking about the shine of the materials you use, maybe it's accentuated or that the lighting doesn't darken it. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I get the point. Up to now, I haven't given indications in that direction, but I'm considering pieces where, for example, I'll use the black light. Black light. Because I'm interested in the loggers of the Antilles and other places where the communities, in one way or another, have lived in harmony with that kind of ecology. I've been reading a lot about it and pieces are starting to emerge. 
IE-A: It'd seem to be an oxymoron, wouldn't it? Black light.

Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, black light, yes... When it comes out in the color spectrum, some are visible to humans and the ultraviolet and infrared can't be seen.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That's the way it goes.
IE-A: How interesting that the piece is making its way in that direction.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The piece itself demands it, that's what I mean, it's good to let yourself go. Sometimes, a curator calls and says, “We're making an exhibition for a certain date. How many pieces do you have?” Yesterday talking to one of them, I said, “The problem is that my process isn't like that. I have to be living through it all, I can't give you a date. Can't give you one because that's not how I work”. And at this point in my life...
IE-A: And from here to there God knows what you've done--
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, I'm clear about what I'm doing,--
IE-A: --or what you've gotten yourself into.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --for example, my pieces are like universes in themselves. Let me explain. For example, Maria-Maria is a piece that has to do with what you said about the name María, the terrible and the sublime of the hurricane. Then, two names. To what extent one appeals to the sublime and the other to the terrible. This María here is the later one. It's how the terrible part of the experience was survived. Each piece can stand alone or together with another one. So, I can be working with the María series and I can be working with loggers series. They're planets or universes in themselves with their own system, etc., and can coexist, because what unifies them is, precisely, the way they are made. They simply emerge. And, there's a matter of style without looking for it, or it appears and you embrace it. That's how I work. I can't deal with, “Oh, I have to make 10 assemblages for this date...!”
IE-A: We don't want you to work like that, it would corrupt your work.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But I believe each person has their own system--
IE-A: Yes, their own system.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --and one respects that.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I admire artists that can create a piece per day, and they're effective. I remember that, in Paris, I met two painters from the Dominican Republic, Radhamés Mejía and Víctor Ulloa, good friends of mine and great artists. I remember Víctor telling me, “Daniel, I start to work at 10 o'clock at night and at 5 in the morning it's ready”. He reminds me of Tamayo. Rufino Tamayo, at one point, made a similar comment. And it's admirable. I admire that.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I can't work like that. That's all.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Each person works and has his/her system and that is respected.
IE-A: Of course, it is.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That has to be clear. But my method is very organic. Like today, “Daniel, I have an object”. You brought it, I saw it, drew it, remember? “Tell me about it”, you talked about the object's history. “The community organized because after the hurricane we didn't have electricity…” I said, “Wait…” And it's registered there. It continues to operate. And the image persists… 
IE-A: But it's not resolved from 10 to 5. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Maybe it can be resolved from 10 to 5. Maybe it can be resolved from 10 to a year. The piece will have its dialogue.
IE-A: It cooks slowly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's a dialogue. Until the piece says--
IE-A: She comes to life.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --“We reached the point”.
IE-A: “I'm ready.”
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, “This is as far as we go. Abandon me…”
IE-A: Which is something that many artists resist doing sometimes, decide when the artwork is done. That's a constant-- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: --in the history of art. You were talking about your pieces' dialogue in the space where they're created. It brings me back to the dynamic of presenting and exposing them. In the 2019 Whitney Biennial, of which you were part, an activity that led to the museum acquiring two of your pieces, now part of their collection, the critics highlighted a lot the arrangement of the objects in the rooms, how the setting allowed the pieces to breathe. They were approving. Eventually in 2020 you had your first individual exhibit in New York --I understand it was the first in New York-- in the Marlborough Gallery. You presented an assemblage again, around seven or eight.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Seven, yes.
IE-A: You were seeing your work no longer in dialogue with those of other artists, but with itself. And enjoying again a lot of space.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: However, I think of the seed, the origin and genesis of your work, --you have mentioned already the Festival of Santiago Apóstol-- and I'm certain, because I'm in your studio, with its very peculiar characteristics that I love, that those pieces sprout from crowded, crammed spatial dynamics like the carnival like the gathering of friends here in your studio, like the one of the neighbors when bomba and plena dancing take place. I wonder, since your work is so rooted, so connected with what you are, what you've lived and that community, if you'd allow yourself or would you consider a setting of your objects, your assemblages a little more overloaded, where there's not such a distended spatial dynamic. The white cube…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: What happens is the following, I wouldn't like to do things because they are fashionable, for example. For example, take a step towards installation, as I know it, in terms of affecting the way in which space is perceived, that has to come. I don't believe in doing things because they have to be done. In due course, possibly. Possibly not. At the moment I like to conceive them as unique artworks, as unique universes, as unique ecosystems.
IE-A: I think they benefit much from the space, they breathe, you can look at them from different angles. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I conceive them like that. If you look closely, that one there, I put it on that wall precisely because there's not going to be anything else. This one, for example, there's a museum in the US that we've already entered into conversations because they want a kind of site specific, and there, maybe what you just commented will happen. But I have to be in that space, in fact we've coordinated for me to travel if the pandemic allows it. How many things have stopped with this. They sent me the space, I'm looking at it, it looks interesting, but it has to work. It's not doing it for the sake of doing it.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Why do it if that's not the intention?
IE-A: Yes, but what I was trying to provoke with that scenario was--
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I understand.
IE-A: --if you'd accept a design for an exhibition montage that includes your work, where the proposal would be a little more overloaded, crammed, based on the genesis of your work in these dynamics—
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I see.
IE-A: --that are like that, crowded.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: When I'm here, I'm alone.
IE-A: But with many objects around you.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I lock myself in. Because I start without a cover, then as I work, it gets more loaded. In fact, this house here, where I grew up, I'm going to fix it so I don't have so much stuff. It's a matter of necessity. In the other house, where I have the big piece, there's more room. That's how I like to work. This is circumstantial.
IE-A: You favor that your work is presented with a lot of space around it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because it's conceived that way. When I'm asked, I say, “Put her there. If you put another object next to her, the piece is tyrannical and wants that space”. One will believe that this space belongs to the piece. That's a mess.
IE-A: That's my question.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And, since I didn't conceive the piece that way, then it's no. I like it there the way I imagined her, with a space for it to breathe. Now, to what extent, at a given moment, based on a proposal or an idea I have, then I expand into the space, trying to provoke another experience in the spectator. But that isn't in my program at the moment because, for example, when I found --referring again to painting and the palettes-- when I found that about the palette I stayed there wanting to exploit it to the end, until it gave nothing more. Because it's like finding a gem.
IE-A: Eureka.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I said, “Wait…”, then I stop here and I'm going to create. I've found something here and I have these incredible ideas. So why abandon that? Not yet. There's 2 points of view, there are those who believe one should go on. But why? And those who think one should stay, but stay why? You have to justify, that's what I want to say. I believe that through this system I can say many things that I'm interested in saying. When it wears out, as it happens in every process, the artist asks himself, “what now?” Yes, I like that sequence. The piece and I dialoguing and letting go. Not to provoke something abruptly. Honestly, it doesn't make sense.

IE-A: It's interesting how you recognize how much that solution gave you, when it runs out.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: At least, the previous one. The previous one. This one, not yet. I'll tell you more, this one is just--
IE-A: Began.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: --beginning. It's just beginning. There's an artist, El Anatsui, who made an interesting comment related to that. I think it was, "You found something?” Many artists have thought about it. "See how far you get." 
IE-A: Going back to the Whitney and the way the work is presented, one of the two pieces they acquired draws our attention --I'm referring to Centinelas-- because, even speaking of this spatial dynamic between pieces, Centinelas is an assemblage that we could say creates its own space. Because it's mise-en-scène of great magnitude. And this piece has a curiosity, for me, which is a coconut in bloom, therefore, "prendido", as we say here.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: "Prendido", yes, what a term!
IE-A: From the perspective of conservation that presents, talking about problems, an interesting one. I wanted to ask, as an artist, what are your expectations in relation to the maintenance that should be given to that element, as I understand you'd want it always in bloom, and precisely because it's alive, it has to be taken care of.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Centinelas is a series of assemblages, I love working with series, which has to do with the defense of the community in its intention to remain in its ancestral space. As we know, in the whole world, in the Caribbean, in Puerto Rico and specifically in Loíza, many of our communities live in beautiful, privileged places, and there are interests that want to displace these communities. Communities have organized, they have put up a fight and are still fighting. The series of Centinelas and Guardacostas responds to that experience. That's why you see that they're like people on alert. Watching, etc... So, the communities defend their environment, defend their ecology, where we live, because we don't wish to develop and cut down trees, instead, if we live here and there's a tree there, we take care of it. And if it gives us fruit, much more. The coconut palm in the history of Puerto Rico, the Antilles and in Loíza, specifically, has been very important because it has given us a type of architecture. That is, our house had pillars made of palm trunks, I'm telling you. The handicraft products that were made, also had to do with the palm. A type of food that developed had to do with coconut too. In terms of identity, I played baseball with the team called Los Cocoteros de Loíza. So, you have to sing to the palm tree. The "barracas", huts, don't know if you've heard the term, the "barracas" we had to protect us from the hurricane, and we'll talk a lot about hurricanes because it's part of our lives, were made with tied palm trunks and stalks.
IE-A: Wow.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Protection. So the coconut is important in terms of history, in terms of subsistence, of food. Because how much we ate in relation to that. So, my idea was to incorporate a blossomed coconut, alive, but also to place the museum or the collector, whoever, in that conversation. “You also have to conserve, protect, nature.” It's a symbol. Since there are so many coconuts and palms in this world, it's not difficult to get a coconut. When the piece is in exhibit, the coconut is placed there and, whoever is in charge of the exhibit is responsible for the protection of that coconut. And has to connect, in one way or another, with the environmental discourse. That's also there, and I explained it to the curators when they arrived. The museum is not only protecting the piece, but also through the act of protecting the plant it's symbolically inserting itself in that conversation.
IE-A: And becomes part of the piece.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: And how did the museum assume the care?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Very well. They hired a gardener.
IE-A: A specialist.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I remember that the plant looked very pretty. He took care of it.
IE-A: Where is that coconut now?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Good question. If it's exhibited again it's supposed to…
IE-A: Find another coconut. And you've thought of the possibility of a different fruit, maybe?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Just like here my interest is universal, from the point of view of nature preservation, another fruit that's part of the context of the piece can be incorporated. It's what I want. The idea starts from here, the coconut from here, because I'm here. But if the piece is in our sister Dominican Republic, well why not. Or Cuba or Haiti or New Orleans. What fruit from there, can symbolize or represent this interest in the conservation, protection, of the environment.
IE-A: That it's blooming is important because it has to be taken care of,
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because then there's the
IE-A: -maintained.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -performance of-
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -the gardener coming to care for it. I met him. The gardener. At a party held at the end at, I think it was the chief curator's house in New York. He said to me “I'm the gardener”.
IE-A: He was very proud of it. I wonder, how
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It was very beautiful.
IE-A: -this man's look at the piece changed after taking care of it, and at the art in general that was museum gallery.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It was very nice when he said: “I was the gardener”. I said, “Ah, wow!”
IE-A: Connection.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In fact, here it regularly dried out. I'm also very interested in those elements of movement and time. It's almost an entropic issue.
IE-A: Yes, entropy.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Entropy, that thing of change.
IE-A: Of regeneration.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In the piece it's very interesting because everything changes. Also, that movement for me…
IE-A: So, if that coconut leaf dried up, started the process of drying up, you'd look favorably upon it?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: If it's taken care of, sure, because…
IE-A: Because it's nature.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly. Also, I never considered painting it, although with the color knowledge I haveI could take a dried coconut, with dried leaves, protect it with varnish, with polymer, which is like plastic. A bit of sanding, plastic and paint over it. Like, for example, Duane Hanson,if you know the sculptor, he made hyper-realistic sculptures and he'd paint the skins and it looked like skin because oil has that quality, you can imitate a lot. But in that case, I really liked that process… Taking care of it. I'll care for you but you have a time limit, as all things have. The point is, it's not abandonment.
IE-A: That's the detail. But if that leaf withers and changes coloring and dries out, Daniel Lind is not against those things happening as long as it's being taken care of.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly.
IE-A: Earlier I mentioned your dear colleague and friend, Diógenes Ballester. He and I had a conversation, as a result of the documentation we're doing of your work in this project, and we delved deeply into a concept that Diógenes has devised, professes and practices. It's also a credo. That of “arteology”.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I've heard him use that term a lot.
IE-A: It's a kind of archeology and alchemy of art. And we asked ourselves if Daniel Lind practices it. Well, for me, archeology is anthropology. I know, and we talked before about your many notebooks, that some of those notebooks not only include sketches, drawings of the pieces you're imagining and developing, but also sometimes you write down the results of the interviews you  have with people, -
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I take notes.
IE-A: - or most of them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Like I did with you.
IE-A: Exactly, you just did it with me. It's the people of your neighborhood, because you're not interested in receiving the personal object as a mechanical act, but rather this exchange between the parts where you collect the object's history because that's the main reason of your interest in it, because of the load it carries with it. So, referring to that, which seems anthropological to me --because you dabble in oral history, I want you to know-- if you would affirm or claim that you practice “arteology” or that you're an "arteologist”. What would you say to Diógenes Ballester?

Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, those questions are asked in general. I'm very concerned about expression. And that terminology and the approaches to one's work, I leave to others, sincerely.
IE-A: You refer to Diógenes as the theorist among you.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: We talked a lot through the years. But I'm more interested in the formal. That is, I have all this experience, how do I turn it into a visual symbol without thinking… Recently, I was asked something similar and I answered the same. I'm interested in expression. I'm conscious of the fact that all objects and material things, like everything, have a history that interests me. Because that generates ideas. You mentioned, for example, that I don't want to receive the object as such, but my neighbor, Emma Carrasquillo, brought me a grater. At the moment, Emma was, maybe, around 92 years old. She said “Daniel, Junior, I'm retiring”. It's the biggest and most beautiful grater I've seen in my life. She said, “I know you'll make something with this”. And she gave it to me. I said to her, “Damn, Emma, this grater, tell me its history”. “That grater was my grandma's”. She's 92, so now tell me, where did that grater come from. That's when I start imagining. Imagination. I turned it into the piece, the focal point of an artwork called, which was exhibited in the Marlborough Gallery. Figura emisaria. I perceive Emma as this person that brings this important object used by the community --it was her grandmother's-- and gives it to me. The artwork is emerging there. Then tells me, “You'll do something with this”. She gives me an order. And then,
IE-A: You're an important link in the chain.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: - “Your uncle, Juan...”, a carpenter. I had uncle Luis, who was an artisan, in the same house. My uncle Juan, the carpenter, worked on the balcony, my uncle worked in this area, my mother with the machine here and my grandmother who was a seamstress too. Like a workshop. Very cool. And me drawing on the walls. She said, "Do you know who told me not to put anything other than the original wood on that grater? Your uncle Juan.”  Juan had the vision and he told her, “Look, no. Leave it as it is”. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The grater has the original wood. You tell me if that's not wonderful. I'm not thinking of archeology, what I felt at the moment was, what does this object mean in terms of my experience. The bond with Juan, the bond with the community, how much I ate out of that wonderful stove next to us here --the hurricane swept it away, and she had to leave. Look how the storms…
IE-A: Disrupt us.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: She had to leave, the wood stove disappeared.
IE-A: When you say “had to leave”, she had to leave the country?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, she lives in the US. She couldn't handle it. Her daughter took her with her. She lived all her life over there. She was a top-notch cook then. 
IE-A: That grater was, without a doubt, a hundred years old. If she was 92...
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly. I started imagining, “Damn, this grater…” It was immense. I'll show you the image later.
IE-A: I'd love it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I have it in a catalogue. So she, like an emissary. She, like a link with the community wisdom. Like a link that gives to me so I can turn that image into a symbol. That's what interests me.
IE-A: She placed great responsibility in your hands and you become an important part of the chain; you're a link.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's just that she knew, because they pass by and stop to ask me things. That's what's so cool, they stop by.  They don't now because the gate fell.
IE-A: And the virus.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But it's really the gate... From the outside you can chat. When I had the gate with bars, they'd pass, stop, I'd continue working and they'd ask, “Daniel, that's a grater, what are you doing with that?” And, I'd explain and what happens is interesting. It's very interesting how they connect with the artwork. And how a community, in a way, participates in contemporary art. All that makes it fascinating.
IE-A: It's fascinating.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I'm telling you, they bring me things, “look, over there was a…”
IE-A: But we said that the "arteologist" is a kind of alchemist, I dare to argue that, although in some unintentional way, yes, Daniel Lind is “arteologist”-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: -because he elevates those objects to the level  of precious jewels.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but the twist I give to it. Not to place a, as we'd say, a linear context, from the point of view of interpretation. I see possibilities that go beyond that. Symbolic possibilities.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Seeking to say a lot of things with the minimum. But still, everyone approaches what one does and have their opinion, one can't…
IE-A: As you said, everyone makes their own reading and make the artwork their own, it's what the artist wants. The artist with his work is like a father with his children. Once they leave they they no longer belong to him. It's free. Speaking about your creative process, I notice that you have a series of small format drawings here, stuck to the wall, where you illustrate one of the pieces of the María series that you're doing. Some are very colorful. We could say they're quite finished. Others highlight elements, parts of the piece. In a conversation we had recently, I was very interested in your notebooks and sketches, I know they're very important to you, you mentioned that these drawings here on the wall you don't consider them sketches because they're more finished. And you talked about illustrations. I'd like you to make a distinction. We even talked about how they're an integral and complementary part of the piece. You mentioned that a museum curator was interested in them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: We talked about the possibility of this being considered a set, talking about your piece Con-junto earlier. I asked you, "would you exhibit these drawings that you call illustrations?” I'd like you to tell us a bit about that.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: An illustration is a drawing. Drawing has many functions. They're all valid. From documenting, to registering ideas, to expressing oneself. Sensations and feelings. For me everything is drawing. To exhibit them or not is a personal question. There's a level of intimacy that I like to maintain. It has to do with those ideas that are captured, recorded with doodles. Because I like to be quick. Sometimes that doodling can only be read by me. Then, as I refine the idea, I start making drawings with much more precision to have an idea, to visualize more or less how the final piece will look like. That series there, as you can see, has to do with this piece, the first María I told you about. That from 2019, what year is it today? We're in 2021. How many years?
IE-A: 2021. You started it in 2019?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Let's see, I started it when I hung the blade.
IE-A: The blade. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I remember placing it on the wall. There was a screw and I placed it and started to visualize this you see here. I started making drawings. 
IE-A: In fact, the rosette, which seems to be in the back was kind of echoing the blade a bit.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, those are peaks… They also correspond with the peaks of the garment that has to do with an orisha. And I’m not a “santero,” but for us in the Antilles, it belongs to all of us. And I’ve researched it considerably and I love that imagery because that imagery is related to Loíza. It is related to the experience of the carnival, etc. But then those peaks correspond to a certain design that this deity’s costume has. Because the deity is associated with thunder and lightning. Do you get it? It has to do with María. Lightning-
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -and flashes. And that’s where it goes. And, also the peaks as if they were lightning falling. And in the drawings, as illustrated in each section, there’s going to be a structure that responds to the movement of hurricanes, which goes counterclockwise. It’s all there. It can then be illustrated in the drawings. At this stage I have to do those drawings becauseI’m now going to build to create, all those structures that go around.
IE-A: And you’re going to solve that by adding objects or painting them? One looks at the illustration, it seems you’re going to paint on wood.[01:30:13]
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In fact, the one who came said, “Look, that’ll be painted, right?” And no, those are objects that go there. The walls will be painted. In other words, the wood.
IE-A: The wood as a base, but on top it’ll have a three-dimensional object, like a kind of relief.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And it’s fascinating because I’m also responding to that proliferation we’ve had lately of hurricanes. Haven’t you noticed that they tend to appear 3, 4, or 5 all at once. And I’m going, “Wait…one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…” That’s always present. Yes, but then it helps me a lot to visualize the structure because then when I walk around, one object, another object…
IE-A: But there you have the base, that’s the color again. You return to the color, even if you’re thinking in three-dimensional terms, in the illustration. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The color is always there.
IE-A: You’re solving it as if it was color. And to me that’s very interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The element of color will always be present, in fact, in the past, sculptures were painted. 
IE-A: And temples, as well. The Parthenon.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Everything was painted.
IE-A: The gothic cathedrals.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I think there’s a series of skulls exhumed in Jericho, I think.
IE-A: In Jericho, yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: You’ve seen them. Plaster filled skulls-
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -to look like- 
IE-A: The skulls of Jericho.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -the ancestors, so they would protect from the home.
IE-A: Placed in the center of the room.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly, and they were painted. And many Egyptian sculptures, naturalists. Well, you saw the one in Berlin, is it Nefertiti?
IE-A: Haven’t been lucky enough to go there.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I saw it.
IE-A: Polychromed.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In fact, I think it’s an example the sculptor had in his workshop. There’s something there, that isn’t, but that…
IE-A: The rarity is that the representation, in Ancient Egypt, of the women’s skin was pale  and the men were darker- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They were also darker.
IE-A: -and it was a formula. And Nefertiti's representations are those of man. And it’s thought that it was a statement because of the power that woman reached in a patriarchal society.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Hatshepsut, I think that’s the way it goes…
IE-A: Hatshepsut was the other great rebel.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: We'll speak of her another… The point is-
IE-A: Yes, she beat Nefertiti.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -that the color doesn’t bother me at all. On the contrary. Then, the objects already have color. And it’s a matter of putting them in a…
IE-A: Sometimes you add color to them. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: When necessary. It has to be part of that narrative. The color goes there. I’d say, fine, anything can be ornamental. Not to look pretty, but because there needs to be a symbol.
IE-A: Yes, that was one of my questions. When Daniel Lind intervenes these objects of his “ready-made antillano” – an expression you’ve used -- Does the aesthete do it or the one who imprints meaning to all that he, or almost all that he intervenes with?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There’s an intention, yes.
IE-A: But going back, would it bother you? --Because you said, “It bothers me”-- Would it bother you if those sketchbooks and those notes were exhibited as part of a sample of your work?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It has to do with intimacy. It’s like being seen in your underwear.
IE-A: But these, however, if you feel that they might be exhibited.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But no.
IE-A: You wouldn’t want to.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, I don’t know. I honestly doubt it. But there's no interest. I don’t know why, but no.
IE-A: Even if it’s to illustrate what your process is, you wouldn’t necessarily agree to it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, who knows. As part of a process. How one thinks. How that mind is working.
IE-A: Of course, it fascinates me, in relation to this culmination I’m not going to say see the artists in their underwear, but to enter into that intimate world and go backstage. As a historian it fascinates me.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I can have a notebook where I have a magnificent sketch and below that, there’s a list of “I have to go to the store…” Then I make a list right there 
IE-A: Scholars find that fascinating.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: and then, "I have to go to Santurce"
IE-A: It’s a treasure.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: and "I have to go to the pharmacy”. I draw arrows, and it goes through the sketch.
IE-A: It’s a kind of diary. The diaries
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: -of Frida Kahlo are transcendental.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It might be because of that.
IE-A: It’s extremely valuable. You were saying that you don’t abandon color and how color points to those origins that define you as a painter.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I see it more as an element that's there. It’s not invoking … I’d say it’s not invoking-
IE-A: It’s never abandoned you.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -the painter. It’s simply an element that in painting is extremely stimulating and it’s there; it’s an element that's in everything. If there's not a condition.
IE-A: Of course. Yes, many tend to tie it, above all, to painting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, that’s true.
IE-A: And I was observing how your creative process evolved when you were painting. I understand that neighbors would often come to your workshop and model live for you
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. Or I would go to the court to get them.
IE-A: You'd go get them and in exchange for a beer  they’d pose. And you’d take photos.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, more than that. I'd offer them immortality.
IE-A: Oh, well. That’s priceless.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Only they’d say, “No, no, no a beer, a few dollars and we’re even.” Literally, “Daniel, come here. You do those paintings and I don’t know what. What’s in it for us? I’d say, “Immortality.”
IE-A: They’re not dumb, that’s priceless. Yes, they should’ve done it just for that. But then, I understand that you also photographed them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. And transferred that onto the canvas. No, since there was no time, they… I’d say, “Pose like such and such a warrior.”
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I’d take the photo because I knew they didn’t have time. They wanted to keep playing basketball.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: My bros, my neighbors.
IE-A: You'd have to give them a lot of beer too.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And there was no money. Then, aside from the photo, I begin to research. How am I going to stylize that body in such a way that I can then apply the color as I’ve theorized. There were a bunch of sketches that were lost during Hugo. In fact, I had the sketch with which I won the prize at El Imparcial. That drawing was there.
IE-A: As a child, wow!
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As a child. I remember, it was there. All yellow. “And his teachers were Mercedes Osorio…” And when Mercedes Osorio found out… Because El Imparcial was the only thing around here. Well, in my house there was no electricity. You can imagine, so small. There were oil lamps, really cool, a beautiful life, from my point of view.
IE-A: That was the means of communication.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The only thing here was El Imparcial. Then the work of art appears, “The young boy, Daniel Lind Ramos, his teachers are, and his parents are…” You can't imagine my father.
IE-A: The pride of
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That drawing was there and Hugo took it. 
IE-A:  -the “barrio.”
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Hugo disappeared a lot of things and a lot of sketches. A lot of photographs. Artworks that I burned. Paintings in progress.
IE-A: But I wonder, how do you compare your creative process when you're going to paint versus making an assemblage? Because --and it might not be like that–- I observed that you sort of went from the three-dimensional model to the two-dimensional support, when the neighbors posed for you. In the case of assemblages, you went from the sketch, to two-dimensional drawing,  to three-dimensional. As if something…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, the drawing comes after finding the object always remember that. In other words I find the object,- 
IE-A: In other words, there you begin with-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: the object appears.
IE-A: -the three-dimensional as well.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s like when the shape of an egg was attributed to a stone that looked like an egg. It was a stone. But then, it’s an egg. That's where, let's say, conceptual art begins. I see the object and that object is going to generate the ideas that will be capture in the sketch. But it's the object.
IE-A: You begin with the three-dimensional.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In other words I don’t say, “I’m going to draw a box to do this and this. Then I’m going to look for…” No, I don’t do it like that. I’m there and it appears. Like yours. The best example is what happened today. First, the object appears and afterwards I do the sketch or the notes. But that object is always generating energy. Generating ideas. And that's where I continue.
IE-A: And once it’s in the sketch,- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Then I fine tune it with the drawing. 
IE-A: -as more objects appear, it changes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  It’s like a dialogue, In fact, here I work with a notebook. For example, this piece. I found… What did I find first? The box-
IE-A: The welder’s mask.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -and that metal there. And I was thinking of a warrior. Of Pedro Cortijo, who is said to have founded San Mateo de Cangrejos. And I wanted, because I found the chair, which was the first thing I found, now that I remember on the corner of Loíza Street, in front of the Goyco. And I said, “This is Pedro Cortijo's chair.” I quickly put it in the car and everyone, “Look at this lunatic.” That’s why I have that car, I can put whatever I want in it. Then the rest appears, and the warrior appears here. But then I’m reading and I see a map of a Dutch cartographer who names from Vacía Talega on down, “Cangrejón.” See, San Mateo de Cangrejos and Cangrejón. And I said, “Wait. Cangrejón”. And then I begin to research loggers' practice in the region and the image takes shape. But it all began with this object. And then he, also being part of Cangrejos, and Piñones being part of that region, according to the map, and the idea keeps developing. What I do is that I’m constantly drawing. I’m working. This is, you see this here? This is that. This is of the María.

IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I sit and continue. You see, I keep taking notes.  I go on, and suddenly a stove appears, because many people sold charcoal. Firewood was sold in Santurce. Again the wood charcoal stoves. And I looked for charcoal images and found one. As you can see, it’s a constant dialogue between doing and drawing.
IE-A: And if you don’t find the object you can recreate it by combining
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, no…
IE-A: -others, constructing something that suggests that object.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, sometimes within that combination an object appears that makes sense, that I can incorporate. For example, there were women who made bonfires. Bonfires to make charcoal. And we had a neighbor, Salo, who made bonfires and I worked with him. So there’s a link between my experience with charcoal, as a coal man, and this lady, a woman, who also planted. She would make her wood burning fire and also planted. A hard worker. And I said, “Wait, planting/coal.” That way I can combine a hoe with an axe. And if I place it next to a figure, that I want to, somehow, represent, to evoke her, well it makes sense, instead of putting two objects which would be expected, when I combine both tools I’m already summarizing. That’s the game that interests me. Well, this is an example.
IE-A: But then you don’t try to recreate objects that you understand the piece should carry by way of- 
IE-A: I understand what you’re saying.
IE-A: -the assemblage-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: - with others that represent that. You prefer finding  the thing itself.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, or make those combinations.
IE-A: In order to have them have a dialogue.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: My interest is that the object be recognizable. Because in syncretism –- and this is interesting -- as I understand it, there's no need for fusion, the objects are identifiable.
IE-A: Daniel, focusing on the world of the materials and the techniques, even more, and having mentioned previously that you grew up in a family of artisans surrounded by persons who had different kinds of manual dexterities, I think that if there is one thing that many have highlighted about your work throughout your trajectory is the degree of sophistication of your technique, how you take care of what you do. You mentioned before the number of formulas you would write down, you would test all those palettes, and it’s also known that your training as a painter differs from your training as a sculptor. We can say that the first was very formal, academic, while the second I think has its origin within your family surroundings and that you develop it informally on your own. I ask myself, if you feel that you take care of the painting the same way that you take care of the sculptural object, the assemblage, in terms of the execution, what you expect of yourself in terms of technique.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As I mentioned before, this type of three-dimensional expression arises from those experiences you just mentioned. And, obviously, knowing that tradition of working with the coconut mask. The way in which it’s cut, the way it’s painted and the way it’s preserved. How we work with other materials from the palm tree, for example, the cups that were made from the coconut shell, and were varnished. The “chivos,” a kind of bird. The little hens, curiously the little hens were also made with the seed of the coconut. There's the knowledge of how to work with those materials and I incorporate that here. Even in interviews I did with members of the community, because I was very interested in the way that certain houses were constructed. I saw houses during my childhood, that I liked, whose walls were made of palm stalks. And the way in which they were tied together was beautiful. Beautiful. I had the opportunity of interviewing a neighbor who was also a “peeler,” an expert coconuts peeler. So all that technical knowledge and the materials that I learned, not only in practice; as I told you, with my uncle I made masks. With Castor Ayala I varnished certain things. Well, I incorporate that knowledge in this kind of expression. The fastening, the varnishing. For the termites, here they always talked of burnt oil. Burnt oil to protect from termites.
IE-A: To protect.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Diesel. The diesel.
IE-A: Popular knowledge.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly. For me all that is important. And I incorporate it to the technique of what I do. Because, as I say, it comes from there. My rudimentary knowledge of carpentry, for example, Dimas Pérez, Emma Carrasquillo's husband, who gave me the grater,
IE-A: Centenarian grater.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: was the community's carpenter. An extremely generous person. He lived very well because he had work, he was a carpenter. He had a very pretty wooden house. On Saturdays he would make time to help the neighbors. And what he did was prepare a column or a small beam. Then we’d all get together at the neighbor’s to fill in the beam. There you could more or less see how he, because sometimes I’d help him, he’d say, “Junior, let’s go. Give me the wood, cut this.” Then you more or less saw how he fastened the bar. All that experience, in terms of labor, I try to incorporate to what I do. That knowledge helps, in some way, in the preservation and execution of the artwork.
IE-A: And it's the best way to render homage to them, which is something that you look for. Executing carefully, -
Daniel Lind-Ramos: With every intention.
IE-A: -you’re doing it the way they would have done it. Because they also
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, when it applies.
IE-A: were very careful with what they did. Speaking of those members of your community, I ask myself if you sometimes go to them so that they can help you in some way
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: doing certain things.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Sure.
IE-A: Maybe sewing something here or there.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. As I mentioned, my mother and grandmother were seamstresses and I remember that neighbors would come so my grandmother would sew dresses for their little girls and that machine was working all day long. I learned certain terminology with my mother and with her. “You have to baste.” Baste. And I’d look. In fact, afterwards in a class, I made something out of leather, that I had to sew. The point is that, basting, I kept that. Because it’s a fast way of putting the pieces together to be sewn. Working on a sewing machine is very tedious. Because they’re straight lines. I do simple things. Then what I do is basting. You see that there? I took all that and put it together with the needle.
IE-A: But the tips are something else.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, no… I do it. And when it’s all assembled I find a seamstress in town and I say, “Hey, sew this for me.” But I realized something, I have to be present because I don't give it the importance that they give to this, which is easy. I say, “no, that has to be done well.” I’m looking at her. And she, very straight. Because they see it like something… A piece of sackcloth with a piece of dirty cloth found somewhere. 
IE-A: “I can do this without much trouble.”
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. But it's happened, and I say, “No please. Look, I drew the line, look at how I sewed it. Please, just go over it.”
IE-A: So basically the seamstresses help you, or is there another kind of artisan
Daniel Lind-Ramos: When needed.
IE-A: in the neighborhood?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, more seamstresses. Sometimes, if I have to clean something, for example, I find a rope. A short time ago I found a ship’s rope they call it, thick, on the beach, beautiful. It was very hard to carry and it was full of sand. I can do this, but it’s going to take a lot.I have a cousin, I said, “Ezequiel come here. Can you…?” Then I give him a demonstration. “A vacuum cleaner for this and then let it dry.” And he takes his time. Then I can do other things.
IE-A: That’s good.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That kind of thing.cWhat else did Ezequiel do for me recently. Ah, there’s a door of the house over there, it was my father’s, and that door is damaged. Then I called for the knowledge of my uncle the cabinetmaker. I cleaned it and said, “Ezequiel now we’re going to put on the…,” This substance that kills termites, termites, “…and then you’re going to varnish it.” Because Ezequiel also worked with my uncle. He’s my cousin. I know how he works and he began right away. 

IE-A: But what interests me is that you do a demonstration and then they-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. I have to do the demonstration-
IE-A: -proceed and- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  -because the experience is that…
IE-A: -you supervise the process.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because there’s an idea and I repeat, it’s difficult for them. “What the hell are you going to do with this?”
IE-A: Yes, they don’t seem to understand your interest in that.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No and afterwards they see. When I finish I sometimes invite them and say, “Look.” “Ah, that’s what that was for.” But picking up a stray piece of cloth, any piece of sackcloth, and putting a piece of rope on top. You see that there? Now I take it and baste it. And I put everything where it goes. Maybe open.
IE-A: It’s how seamstresses work, they assemble and then they begin.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, because remember that I lived with two seamstresses. And the house was one room, immense and big. One, two, three bedrooms. the sink extended outside the house. Have you seen those houses that you’re at the window and you wash outside? That was the house. That big space was living room and workshop. And kitchen. Because the kitchen was also there. Everything was there. And the wood stove here. For when there was too much smoke. One was watching all that. My uncle cutting, the seamstress, my mother, by hand. In fact, my mother would invite me to look for a plant that’s called Sansevieria, they also call it “cow’s tongue.”
IE-A: Cow's tongue.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I would help her cut the plant, we would come here and
IE-A: To take the fiber out?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I was the one who'd hit the fiber. Then she would scrape it. That itches a lot. She cleaned and knitted a long braid. And then she began to sew, by hand. And made baskets and many other things. Then, Castor Ayala, the artisan, would sell them. I saw all that process, in fact, I began to make my things with a needle. And, as you well said, I think that there’s an evocation to my family, especially my mother and grandmother, and especially when I baste. I really like it because it’s like assemblages. You’re also assembling, you’re-
IE-A: Of course, constructing.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -juxtaposing things. I sometimes do it with wire. You see this wire here? Thin, which I love, because it doesn’t rust. Look at it.
IE-A: You start putting it together to visualize.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And when it’s really strong, like jute...
IE-A: You tie it temporarily with this and then… And I love to do it. And sometimes I like it and leave it. Well, the piece Vencedor #2, was published in The New York Times.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: Which was in Marlborough.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: If you see that piece's mantle, it's all handmade by me. Then I looked for the equivalent of, I used wire mesh. There’s some wire mesh around, it's behind there. You see that one there.
IE-A: Yes, chicken wire, like we say.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Chicken wire. Because there’s a type of cloth that looks like that. It’s like transparent. Look at it here. You see this cloth.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I say, "No, I’m going to use that one."
IE-A: Which is flimsier.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but I also use it. But then I like that, and I kept on and finished it all.
IE-A: You felt comfortable with your skill and you didn’t go to…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because doing it is an evocation. This is very complex. It’s not merely making that object, it’s everything I’m evoking by making it. All that tradition of the first human being that invented a needle. Look at how this is. This knowledge comes from around there. Think, activate the imagination. 
IE-A: It's not only with your mother and your grandmother, it’s with a more ancestral past.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: All the knowledge that has been carried over in time. And all that is taking place there.
IE-A: Never better said, “like a connecting thread.” Connecting to the past. Has Daniel Lind had assistants? Can you say you've had formal assistants at some time?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Once. A student. The Puerto Rico Art Museum had some students, from the UPR I think, and assigned an artist to each one of them. And this young woman wanted to work with me. And I remember a piece titled 1797, which is in the Puerto Rico Art Museum The one you…
IE-A: Yes, we’ll talk about it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, those coconuts, the base blue paint, I said, “Look, let’s paint this coconut like this.” I painted one. And she painted all the blue of the coconut.
IE-A: Interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. All the blue. I did the lines and the more complex things.
IE-A: Yes, white and red.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly, and that is something that requires more precision.
IE-A: Precision.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As I understand it.
IE-A: And the imprint of the artist, because on the blue base the imprint is less noticeable than in the line drawn by the artist.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But it's normal, that one resorts to… Remember that we’re speaking of contemporary art and all those ways of making art have been revised.
IE-A: They’re valid. Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s like an instrument. The assistant is like an instrument. Many artists use assistants. I have seen painters that use assistants. In fact, during the Baroque period there were specialists in the painting workshops. The horses' specialist. The trees' specialist. Take this shape up to there and I’ll give it the final touches.
IE-A: Exactly. Now there are also artists who simply conduct the orchestra and they don’t touch the object. And it’s valid.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well. Sure. And, what about the factories-
IE-A: That is also valid.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -by department? Department Computer Art. The Drawing Department.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: When it's worthy and I have the need, for whatever reason, I resort to somebody. I always give them a small demonstration. But I almost always have to finish myself because the conception of their finishing touch is not mine. So if I need, for example, to ground, say, a large area, something flat, I find someone to paint that flat area. Because that…
IE-A: Of course, It's fairly basic.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But when it’s something elaborate I have to do it myself. And I want to. Not only because I have to, I want to do it myself.
IE-A: It interests you, of course.  That’s great. I’m going to ask you a battery of questions now which is the result of a report that the Whitney generates when it acquires María-María. So it’s a registry report which establishes the state of conservation of the artwork. But a series of doubts prevail.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, good.
IE-A: So let’s do them the favor and answer these questions. We'll go slowly from the headdress of the piece on the top part to the bottom which is how they structure the report. And I see, because here we have these two works that belong to the María-María series, that María the mother has a fabric that also serves as headdress, of an apparently natural fiber, and has an almost black color. It’s like a very dark grey. So the first question would be, what kind of cloth is that and if the color was added by you? Did you dye it or was it that color already?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In the case of María-María, the one in the Whitney, it has plastic underneath to give the tack support.
IE-A: You mean the stuffing of the headdress. That was another question.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, exactly. 
IE-A: You went ahead of me.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, what happens is that…
IE-A: I brought the image to help you.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, allow me, thanks.
IE-A: You may have it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Each color there is coldly calculated and, though it might not seem so, there are some nuances that I create in relation to the color key. And I sometimes paint the jute with those colors. But I can’t guarantee… When I see that piece-
IE-A: When we’re with her in person.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -I can tell you with greater certainty.
IE-A: You were saying that you added a material in the interior of that headdress, as stuffing, for it to acquire that volume.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: What did you use?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: To acquire volume and also to support the tacks.
IE-A: Ah, the tacks.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: A piece of ductile thick rubber, that can be manipulated.
IE-A: But fairly hard, right?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, in order to support the tack. These tacks, I placed them and varnished them with Crystal Clear in order to avoid rust.
IE-A: You're interested in having the tacks always silvery and shiny.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As much as possible. As much as possible. And they can be substituted. The good thing about all this is that you can substitute everything.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Where they sell upholstery products you can get the tacks. Look at the cool and pretty ones I got.
IE-A: They are huge tacks.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but  these here are smaller.
IE-A: They’re for upholstery. I see that you’re using those in other pieces.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I’m playing here with these, the stars.
IE-A: And then there are some wires, in fact, you were showing me this wire. I don’t know if it’s the same one that supports the sides of the headdress in relation to some palm stalks that bulge from those extremes. Did you use that same wire or another?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The galvanized wire. Yes.

IE-A: Galvanized.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, put it like that, galvanized wire.
IE-A: Ok.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, that doesn’t rust. That’s the recommended one.
IE-A: The coconuts seem to be varnished, what varnish did you use?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I sanded the coconut in order to create some pores and then, depending on the shine, I use this varnish. 
IE-A: Clear polyurethane with an oil base, oil. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, this is clear. I can also use gloss. Well, this is gloss, but clear.
IE-A: Yes, that’s the shiny one.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: This has a yellow hue. But there’s another one that can give a blue hue. And all of that…
IE-A: You choose it conscientiously.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: And in the case of María-María? Possibly the yellow.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It was the yellow.
IE-A: And the piece we mentioned before, the assemblage that is exhibited in the Puerto Rico Art Museum, 1797, the coconuts which are also a part of the base of the piece, even though they’re painted and they represent elements alluding to the flag of England, they don’t appear to be varnished. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: What happens is that the pigment has an oil base and it's already shiny.
IE-A: The stalks, on the other hand, are varnished in that piece, 1797.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: I wonder, here in María-María, did you varnish them?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, also.
IE-A: With the same material.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And it’s important to say that they can be substituted because they’re palm stalks. The same, I sanded and then varnished them.
IE-A: And can be substituted by other stalks.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, similar. The point is to make that arch.
IE-A: And have that extension.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. This can be detached here. It’s very easy because they’re wires.
IE-A: The report points out that there's a kind of orange colored plastic tube that is placed over the head of the piece. Me, thinking that this represents Hurricane María, I deduce that it could be an electric extension cord.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s what it is.
IE-A: It's that, right, an electric extension?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s it. An electric extension.
IE-A: Very good.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Which is recurrent because in this María, “María a posteriori”, which isn't the title but I love it, if you look closely, on the bottom there's a disconnected orange extension cord It’s important that it looks disconnected- 
IE-A: Yes, I see it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -because what happens after the hurricane is, precisely, that power goes out.
IE-A: Then there’s no use for extensions.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. But also, formally, that's the detail that moves it away from the anthropological. I need the orange to harmonize all the blues. You see the game I wanted to explain?
IE-A: The balance of both concerns.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because in the end it's visual.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And I’m interested in constructing the visual in a particular way.
IE-A: Very well. Then there are some elements that rest over the head of the piece. It’s a rope and in the ends it has two cords of different thickness. I ask myself if they're also of different fiber and what fiber are they.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s natural fiber. It's all natural fiber and what’s at the ends is a kind of scissors.
IE-A: Yes, but the natural fiber, is it hemp? Hemp rope or cords.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, the rope… Do they call it hemp? I ask you.
IE-A: Well, when I studied in Seville… they call it hemp.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s not synthetic fiber.
IE-A: No, it’s natural.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I bought it, or I bought, it in Home Depot.
IE-A: I don’t think we have to mention brands.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: …brands here. But it’s my favorite store. And they sell a lot of natural and synthetic fiber, and in this case that’s what they are, what we know as rope.
IE-A: Of course. Rope. One thicker than the other.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Of different nuances and different thickness.
IE-A: And then, is jute what is holding up the coconuts on the top part?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s jute. Yes. 
IE-A: It’s jute. And there’s a board that serves as a central axis.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That board was an object found.
IE-A: Yes, it’s a found object.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Now that I remember, I also found it floating.
IE-A: Right after the hurricane?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, during that process. You know that when the hurricane passes you go out and everything is floating.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And I’m walking from Miñi Miñi to here through the water. The case of Miñi Miñi is that it’s a flood zone. I go out there, I return again… You do this. On the way I remember that I found that piece. Isn’t that interesting! Yes, this piece, floating.
IE-A: The wood has some screws, and I suppose that it already had them. That they aren’t serving any structural function in the piece.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, where do you...?
IE-A: The Whitney report points out that the board, that wood, has some screws.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The probability is that they may be supporting…see here? the umbrella? And I think that I put a screw here to hold it. It has a function.
IE-A: Where the head rests. Those screws have a function. And the umbrella, does its finding have any significance or history?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The umbrella is the lightning. If you talk of María, you’re talking of lightning and flashes and thunder. And that “para-aguas”… The umbrella has to do with all of that. The lightning… In fact, here I’m going to use a lot of lightning. In this one.
IE-A: Yes, in “María madre”.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That's why I first conceived a lot of lightning and here I said, “No. I don’t have time, I’ll put one flash of lightning”. That flash has to do with lightning, with energy. The "para-aguas"... 
IE-A: The finding of that umbrella has a story?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That is also a found object. I think that I was going to use this in Huracán de julio. And since it relates to a hurricane, because I have several around there.
IE-A: You accumulate them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Because it makes sense. That is, I establish that type of relationship. 
IE-A: The report mentions like a blue strap that supports the umbrella
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, yes. On top.
IE-A: and that could be a bag handle.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's… Umbrellas sometimes have a support. I think that’s part of the umbrella. You know that umbrellas have like a… that you can put it here.
IE-A: Yes, of course. A strap to hang them from the wrist. I understand. Then it calls my attention that the chair you used has an upholstery covered by a transparent plastic because it's very typical of the "fonda" like restaurants, that proliferate in this zone. I don’t know if that upholstery is what you were looking for because of these connections.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: This object belonged to the dining room set of my house. And it speaks of the place. My house is inserted in the Colobó town, in Loíza, Puerto Rico. It is the settlement where the María event occurs. It can be the chair of an altar or the place where the catastrophe occurs. That's why it’s a seat, settling down.  Being in the place.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: This is one of several chairs I’ve used that have to do with the dining room of my house. It’s the place.
IE-A: You’re dismantling the dinning room.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, it was already dismantled. Yes, it’s the place. 
IE-A: It took me to food stalls, restaurants because I know that it's also a recurrent theme in your work. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And plastic is used a lot in this type of furniture. 
IE-A: Because it protects them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s very popular. Yes.
IE-A: It gives it a very particular aesthetic-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s shiny.
IE-A: -that connects with our lives here.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Of course. And also the shine which can be water. Because when I use plastic I relate it to water. Go on, because I don’t want…
IE-A: No, no. Continue, please, we want to hear all that. And in the case of the lamp?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: My eldest daughter… I stayed… I spent that night alone in a house I built. My ex-wife said to me, “Stay there, because where are you going to stay?” And I stayed in Miñi Miñi. Then my eldest daughter says, “here, a lamp to pass the night.” So it holds great significance because I spent the passing of María with that lamp on. And at the end the battery dies. Then, you can imagine. 
IE-A: So you went through the hurricane with that lamp.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There’s the link.
IE-A: And it shouldn’t it be turned on.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: She went to the museum later with me… Because my daughters, “Papá, what are you doing with so much stuff?” And then when this happens, they go to New York, my two daughters. They go to the museum. We’re there. Some people arrive and want me to talk about Maria-Maria…
IE-A: About the lamp.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: She said, “Listen, you have to give back that lamp because I lent it to you.” “I lent it to you.” she said that.
IE-A: What a good story. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: She told me jokingly, but she told me. It was a loan.
IE-A: Of course, of course. All of a sudden she saw her lamp.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: She saw it and said, “Look Papa, I lent you that lamp.”, Entered into the museum collection and that wasn’t her plan, it was to get it back.
IE-A: I gather that you’re not supposed to turn on that lamp, right?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, because it did its function, which was during that night.
IE-A: Its function.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And that’s where I started… In fact, that night I began to draw. Not these things, the experience. I don’t know why I felt it. It wasn’t that I wanted… I said, “What the hell is this.” I was alone…
IE-A: So with that light you drew.

Daniel Lind-Ramos: I began, yes, to draw.
IE-A: With a faint light, I imagine.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And recorded sounds, I didn’t know why. There was a window that was hitting hard.
IE-A: The record says this lamp is resting on a panel. Was that panel Masonite, by any chance?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's a panel... it's a “tola.”
IE-A: Ah, a “tola.”
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Look, there’s one. You see that panel underneath?
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  A “tola.” A piece of metal.
IE-A: It’s not wood, it’s metal, exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, that’s metal. In order to hold the weight.
IE-A: The report questioned whether it was laminated, but it’s a "tola".
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s a piece of "tola", of metal.
IE-A: Then it mentions the possibility that there might be a structure of palm tree trunk of coconut tree in the piece.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In the back there’s a piece, yes. That wood is held by that piece of wood from the palm. With everything a palm tree means, like I already told you, in terms of community.
IE-A: But it’s barely visible which calls my attention. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Because it’s functioning in terms of a structure. I mentioned that the pillars of my house were made of palm tree trunks, and that the chair- 
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -has to do with the house, so,
IE-A: With your house.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I wanted to and could place anything there. But I said, “no, I’m going to follow this line,” that is, that the structure, in terms of architecture, has to do with these materials also.
IE-A: The personal.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: And you often include personal objects, yours in your work?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, for example, in Con-junto there’s a figure that has tennis shoes. Those are my tennis shoes.
IE-A: Ah, yes. Now that I think of it, the baseball glove that's included in another of your pieces.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, yes, also.
IE-A: You spoke of when you were a-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: -baseball player.Daniel Lind-Ramos: The autobiographical. Oh, yes.
IE-A: But, was it your glove?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I think one of those gloves is mine.
IE-A: That one, right? That adds interest.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Look, I have it. Look at it there. Because, again, that’s what I told you about the object. If I need it for the form, I buy it. I don’t make it. I don’t invent it, like you said. I acquire it. But if it has to do with the autobiographical story, it has to be something of mine. Form… I need the symbol of the glove with such color here: form.
IE-A: So, you also pass through the process of letting go of your belongings. Like your neighbors when they give you things of theirs.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, exactly.
IE-A: How interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Because I believe in that. I don’t believe in accumulating in that way. To try to let go of things.
IE-A: And, how is the board held, and the structure, -
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Which one?
IE-A: -the rest of the elements of the piece, to the center of the palm tree trunk?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Because in the back of the chair there’s a kind of
IE-A: Of screw?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: screw. Yes, that gives it structure. Also, the weight is distributed securely downwards. Yes, but this structure here is held from the back.
IE-A: Ok. And I ask myself, can that be disassembled, dismantled?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s the idea. Yes. It’s supposed to.
IE-A: So the pieces can be stored.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, every part.
IE-A: But going on with the materials, let’s go on to the base, which is this bubble wrap, in good Castilian. In the first place, I wonder what it means. It comes to mind, having to do with a figure of María – alluding to the Virgin Mary -- I don’t know why, I make a connection with Campeche and his many virgins, -
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, yes? How interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -that they’re often portrayed on a cloud, which is part of the iconography of Christian-Catholic-
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Of course.
IE-A: -religious art. I don’t know if that’s the line this material follows. I ask you, what's the meaning?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Okay, the bubble wrap has, as if there were drops of water, to begin with, a cloud laden with rain. Then she, since she’s Mary, from that point of view, she’s elevated. She’s not on Earth. She’s like floating. From there, we have the little contrast between the bubble wrap and the floor. It doesn’t create contrast, so she's like elevated. But that’s water, -
IE-A: She seems to levitate.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -flood. Look, again it's the oscillation of the double meaning.
IE-A: But its air, also.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Also. The sky. Exactly, it's all there.
IE-A: The wind.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And, since it interests me… Ah, and then the plastic, I keep using that material. She also has a connotation of commercial exchange.
IE-A: Yes, you're interested in-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: -the eclecticism between the organic and the synthetic.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I can’t help it. Then, parting from how you put it, it contributes. Here its purpose is to elevate, to evoke flooding, to evoke the sky, she is the queen of the skies. That's the intention.
IE-A: I suppose you would agree to replace the material each time it’s installed.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: It needs to have an extension…? How many feet, for example?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, no. For example, This one can be used, while it lasts. There’s no problem.
IE-A: Yes, reuse it. But if it had to-
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  If it gets damaged, -
IE-A: -be replaced?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -of course. That’s the intention of these materials.
IE-A: And, what would damage mean to you? That the bubbles explode, that the material deteriorates with time-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly. You know that plastic-
IE-A: -and its appearance transformed? Begins to fray disintegrate. It goes, if…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That kind of thing. If that happens, then it's as simple as buying another one and putting it there. 
IE-A: And you wouldn’t stipulate an extension?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It has to go around the tub, the container with the coconuts and create, more or less, that…
IE-A: Like some layers, folds.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, the folds. It has to create the folds.
IE-A: And it's not attached, it's simply rolled up there. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's rolled up and attached with certain… I don't know if it's wire or what.
IE-A: So there are elements that hold them in the tub.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: And you think they're metallic.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I think so because I normally use wire.
IE-A: The report also questions the way in which the mantle, that in this case is essentially a tarp... How is it held to the top of the piece?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It has a screw up here, -
IE-A: In the crown.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -in the crown, and sort of makes an interlace. Based on this, in fact, I sent some drawings.
IE-A: There's drawings. I was going to ask also.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There's many drawings of this. If you look closely, it makes like a cross. Like that bow when someone dies.
IE-A: Yes, the mourning one. Or the cancer one.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, the one that has to do with something catastrophic.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That's why I put it like that. Because obviously, after María, all those news of deaths came out.
IE-A: How interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: So then, the María, is like that María. It's kind of a Pietà, which is not Pietà. But here, the coconuts, I imagine you'll mention them later, are like the victims.
IE-A: The dead.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Not only human victims, but also the hurricane effects, because if there's one thing a hurricane does, is to knock down loads of coconuts. And knock down palms-
IE-A: The shape of the mantle…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -invokes mourning.
IE-A: How interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, to remember that sad moment.
IE-A: And the mantle falls into the tub.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but then it's the María that… Holy Mary, Mother of God.
IE-A: Embraces us. Is the tarp somehow held inside the tub or is it simply placed there?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There are wires that hold the tarp.
IE-A: I thought so. And speaking of the tub, which is made of a metallic material…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Look at it there. It's the common tub sold in hardware stores.
IE-A: And it has a tendency to rust.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's aluminum.
IE-A: How would you react to that element rusting?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That one lasts a while. I would also coat it with a protector, a metal protector. Like the clear one.
IE-A: You coated it as you say. You took that precaution.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As it's covered in this case, if it gets rusty - it's a matter of cleaning it a bit and continue using it. It's not displayed there as in this María-María --and in that María-María-- the tub is to be exhibited because it has the blue paint.
IE-A: The tarp of that María-María, the one at the Whitney, is it a recovered one or did you get it new?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That tarp is my neighbor's. My neighbor's roof flew off; the one across the street. He literally lost his roof. Then they come and put this roof on it. This was here… Now there are concrete houses here but before they weren't. I see it from above, from where I sleep, I look and see all those blue rooftops. Since he knows that I use these things, I remember he said to me, “Daniel, look, all those tarps are there. What are you going to do with that?" I said, “Don't worry, I'll know”. I had that tarp. That tarp is half or a part of this one. They are linked by the tarp.
IE-A: How interesting. These two Marías share a tarp.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The tarp has made them sisters. It's an immense tarp for the big one.
IE-A: That's very interesting. I imagine you've washed it.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I washed it and then, with adhesive tape, to remove some stains, I'd use the tape to lift the dust.

IE-A: It removed the stain.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It was pretty tedious because it was square inch by square inch.
IE-A: So you want that awning to look nice and clean.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In this case, I want it to look shiny.
IE-A: Yes, shiny. I notice that the coconuts in the María-María at the Whitney have the holes usually made to get the water. From what I can see in the photo image.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Where do you see it?
IE-A: The ones here in the "María Madre" some have them too.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Oh, you're referring to this? What happen is that when the coconut deteriorates, it reaches that state. So, yes, what I did was make a hole to take out the matter that's inside. Each one of them. Tiresome.
IE-A: Otherwise, they deteriorate.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And it sounds and all else.
IE-A: Of course. That's on purpose.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, the holes in the front are natural. They look like little faces. But, I made some holes to clean them inside and then I varnished them. Some sanding.
IE-A: So the holes that you made respond to a more pragmatic than symbolic interest.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's maintenance.
IE-A: Moving on to Centinelas, which I won't refer to in the same way, I'd like to do so when we're in at the Whitney. This here has prompted some, let's say, some discussion. According to the image, there seem to be some tubular elements.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In terms of the tubular elements you mentioned, they're metal tubes.
IE-A: They're metal.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. I don't know if you're referring to ones in a kind of wheelbarrow.
IE-A: They're flanking the flowering coconut on either side
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, those are metal tubes.
IE-A: of the wheelbarrow.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They look like canons also. That ambivalence again... It's a community defending itself with their tools. Those tools can, hypothetically, become weapons. In the case of the tubes, the remind me of a rocket launcher because in the Loíza festival rockets are launched, don't know if you've seen it. And everyone says, “Santiago!” And I remember at one point, someone had something like that and he'd put the rocket and light it. So I bring the tubes as the wheelbarrow handles, but also remembering that event. Remember that they're sentinels.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They're standing guard.
IE-A: When I met with the three-dimensional objects conservator, Ángel Santiago, and we talked about your work in the Puerto Rico Art Museum, we were there in the company of 1797, the assemblage. At the end of the interview I asked, precisely, what would he like to ask you. The first thing that came to his mind was to question the choice you make of certain commercial elements. You talked about a store, a hardware store, that for you is like your favorite art store. The question is, when you go, do you know what you're looking for or let the store personnel guide you, in the hardware store in this case? And, do you take what's provided without questioning issues? For example, polyurethane, from the perspective of conservation, is a difficult material to revert, and you said you liked it because of the shine it adds. So, being a spokesperson for Ángel Santiago, what would you tell us about the process of choosing materials in the hardware store? 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I ask the artisans that still make coconut masks. In fact, there was one left in the neighborhood. Because, as they're always following the tradition of making coconut masks, they're constantly incorporating new materials. And I ask them, "what do you use to varnish that?”. I mean, I start from that experience. Then I try them out with different wood pieces, I sand them and put some on. Or put it without sanding. I even put acrylic on them. I scrape them and put some on again. Playing with it. When I go to the store, I know what I'm going to buy. But, if I have any doubts, I'll ask the employees. Still, it's unusual.
IE-A: You've done the research previously.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: So, it's unusual.
IE-A: Exhaustive research, from what you're telling me. So you drink again from the local artisans' wisdom.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: For example, if you'll allow me, this Belle Wood --I spoke to you about it-- this was a fellow artist I asked because he also works a lot with leaves. He says to me, “Daniel, there's something called Belle Wood. You brush the leaves with it and they'll be…” So, once I took a palm tree trunk, because I like to work with the object as is, even if it's deteriorated. It's part of the aesthetic. And I brushed this one and it was interesting how the fiber, which was dispersed,
IE-A: Consolidated, compacted.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. Number one, it covers it, prevents moisture and gives cohesion to the material. Exactly, that's the word. This comes from a comment made by a colleague who has already used it. I'm very interested in the experience of someone who has used the material.
IE-A: Of course, to enter into a kind of collaboration. Or the sharing of knowledge. Speaking of things that are old or deteriorated, in general terms, what's your opinion about the deterioration of the materials that make up your pieces?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As I said before, I mentioned the term, entropy, right?
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Everything changes, moves. Even metal, at different levels, which you think isn't happening. You come to terms with it. In the case of metal, for example, I try to make it stay more or less with that patina. I remove the excess of that deterioration and then I varnish.  Because that's part of it.
IE-A: You balance it out.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I don't want to change the appearance, how the material is perceived.
IE-A: But if that material in turn, after becoming part of your work, changes?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Because the artist manipulates it.
IE-A: With time, the natural aging process transforms it. What would be your position?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: You have often said that you're willing or accept the substitution of certain materials.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, oil paintings turn yellow. Those are things you can't avoid. One accepts it because…
IE-A: But entropy also includes renewal.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. It's interesting that yesterday I was reading about that scientist that talked about --I'll be brief-- the Big Bang, that,-
IE-A: You don't have to.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -as he says, is projected in time in a linear way. No, maybe it goes this way, there, here... And what we understand as linear time, that's another thing. What I'm getting at, you talked about entropy as something cyclical. I welcome that.
IE-A: The cyclical.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But I am interested, number one, in maintaining the integrity of the material as far as possible. And that what I use, like varnish, for example, that it just not only give meaning to the narrative, but also give protection. At least, that's important there.
IE-A: In fact, when I arrived to your studio, you were outside working with organic materials and there was some metal tube.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: You were putting them through a preliminary process that has a preventive purpose.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: For sure.
IE-A: You were pouring Clorox on them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Clorox. Clorox, and then I brush them with the Belle Wood. Clorox and sand a little bit to open up the fiber. It's what I did in María-María with everything that has to do with palm trees. Then I seal it with this. Several coats, another bit of fine sanding and varnish on top. If the varnish flakes off, it can be brushed over again.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There's no problem with that. Or sand a little and varnish again.
IE-A: And downstairs you were also working with muriatic acid for some spoons.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because I'm interested in accelerating the rusting process. We learned that a long time ago.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: So, I apply a bit of acid and then soak it in water to speed up the process.

IE-A: This leads me to, you mentioned it before in the response to another question, that you've even developed your own patina concept. I'd like you to go a bit deeper into your notions about patina and the value that it earns for your work.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: You're referring to the shine?
IE-A: No, on the contrary, to the patina.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, that's time passing-
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  - through… The record of the passage of time in the material. That interests me. And contrast it with new things. I am son of this time. I'm inspired by the past and want to project into the future. But, I'm inserted in a specific time-space. Like every artist, you know well that one is always looking for new things to incorporate into one's language. That's why I like going to the store without a name.
IE-A: Yes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They're always bringing new materials. And one sees that. Or new tools, for example. I'll say, “Hey, this has possibilities for…” and I'm inserted in this present time, like practically every artist does.
IE-A: So we could infer that the imprint of time is being added to the materials in your pieces, because it acts as a patina that you would very well accept, you see it with good eyes. It adds value.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, change. In fact, I don't know if it was Mario Merz, one of the artists of Arte Povera... He mentioned something similar, that things change and that's also part of the work. 
IE-A: We have just talked about the fact that you subject your materials to some previous processes to ensure their conservation. And that was another question that Ángel Santiago was asking as part of our conversation. But in addition to cleaning, he mentioned the possibility of you fumigating some of these things. Do you?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, I do. It's interesting. Here I have poison for two types of termites. Yes, I fumigate In fact, when these three pieces went to the Whitney, they took the precaution of fumigating them. And I make that observation on the pieces that museums have wanted recently. As the Whitney museum did it, they follow up. That is, there's already a previous experience.
IE-A: Have you felt more interest in the conservation of what you're doing from the institutions that are now embracing your work? And that has demanded, perhaps, more effort from you, or have you always been this careful?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I try that the…Because the majority… Not the majority, but many are ephemeral objects, everything is ephemeral, but some more than others, so I try to do this process so that they last more. One of the conservators from a museum that acquired a piece recently, interviewed me. And, interestingly, we talked about all this. Among many things, she formulates a similar one to me, in terms of the preservation of these materials. And I mentioned that the Whitney had fumigated the pieces. She took it as “¡Wow!, that's great”, and I said, “For conservation you can fumigate every two years”. So they, being aware of how contemporary artists express themselves, because I'm not the only one who does this, there are artists who are much more radical than me. For example, literally taking a chunk of, as I saw in the Venice Biennial, I think it was a piece by Robert Smithson
IE-A: Yes, Smithson. A leader of Land Art.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: He made Spiral Jetty in Salt Lake, Utah. Which was literally a tree trunk with roots, placed there.
IE-A: As is, without being…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I think it was his. But the example is the following, which is that piece. So the museum that is in charge of preserving expressions and ideas, the museum can be thinking about the works that last, but is it going to discriminate against the ideas of works that do not last? It’s interesting. Isn't that right?
IE-A: The artist's intention is important, first of all, if the artist doesn't want it to last, that has to be respected. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Right. But if you want it to last, you resort to these things.
IE-A: Exactly. I can see that Daniel Lind wants his work to last over time.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because I base myself on the carvers' traditions I observed, when they use those materials, that protect them, but at the same time they embellish them with shine, and I say “Aside from beauty, it could have more meanings”. Everything follows that line.IE- A: It's fascinating. What you say is...
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  I want the artwork to last, I can't say otherwise. 
IE-A: You said that you even shared notes regarding maintenance with some of the museums that acquired your pieces.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: Before, when we were talking about the staging of your work, especially when it comes to this extremely complex assemblages, such as Centinelas, I wanted to ask if you accompany these pieces, especially when they enter museum collections, with some sort of document where you specify where each part goes and how it should be placed. Because the practice of assembling and disassembling these types of pieces at a museum level, to a great extent triggers what what we're doing here today.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I understand.
IE-A: You want to keep track of what the artist wanted and how he wants the work to be presented. If it has many elements, there's a big risk of making a mistake. If you prepare some sort of manual to assemble and disassemble...
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The question is interesting because when I was making these assemblages the last thing I was thinking is that they would go outside of Puerto Rico. I remember making them and saying, “Well, if I exhibit them, it will be in San Juan, in national exhibitions, and I'll go there and assemble, which was the case with Con-junto. I remember the curator went by one day, “Ah, that's great”... two days went by and I was there working, “Ah, that's great”… three days went by, worried… four days went by, “Daniel, you think you'll finish that?” Because when I did these things it was to express myself.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I didn't think they'd travel. For the Whitney I had to make some drawings illustrating the process and something similar happened. When I went there, they asked me to go and assemble, because of the complexity, I spent the first day, the floor full of that pile of things. The curators were worried because they thought I wouldn't finish on time, and I remember I finished exactly at one in the afternoon. And it's because I said, “I have to do this, it's what matters to me”. The rest, that's another problem I'm not getting into. I want to express myself. It's why I insist so much on expression. But I've continued to refine this and I discovered something, that if I do some things… What do they call it when you assemble a part with many parts? It has a name. Oh God! I had it in my head.
IE-A: Modules, modular.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Modules! For example, if you're going to compare this piece with Maria-Maria, that seems more simple, this one is easier to assemble because I'm thinking the same thing, but instead of having so many separate pieces, I make a module. Because I saw how they crated the pieces. I said, “Damn, how will they pack this?” When the specialists came with those huge boxes, I looked closely. You learn all the time. So I said, “Wait”. They placed things here, a piece from here to there. “So what I have to do is,  instead of having so many pieces, I'll-
IE-A: Keep that in mind.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -make one that goes from here to there.” Because that fits in the box.
IE-A: You think ahead. It's another type of preventive measure.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But I didn't have the experience. I'll say it again, I didn't think those pieces would travel abroad. I make many… Ah, and right now, if you look, I make diagrams. So that when the piece is finished I already know how it was made. 
IE-A: The idea of making that diagram or illustration, was it yours or a museum proposal to do it that way?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: When a museum acquires a piece, they require that you give them a diagram of how it will be assembled. Even more with these type of things.
IE-A: So they guided you in the process.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, I did it like… No, they asked for the document. I hired someone to record me, and made a video as I assembled the piece Vencedor, which was the first. Again, I work with series. There are several Vencedores. I remember this assistant the came with her camera, so I assembled piece by piece and she recorded it. That's another method. In fact, these two pieces, recently acquired by museums, when it's time, and another which is Con-junto, I'll go to the place and do the same. I'll assemble and they document.
IE-A: I was going to ask that. To the extent that you learn as you go along and you have that ability to foresee, if you were to make an assemblage now and it didn't have an owner yet, and you were to exhibit it in some exhibition, let's say here in Puerto Rico, would you take the opportunity of that process of expression that assembling is for you, so that someone documents it and that piece would have that already?

Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, I'm considering it. I’m considering it, because precisely in Puerto Rico they’ve just written about a piece and I haven’t done that, but it’s easy to assemble and when they exhibit it in an institution, I suggested it to the curator and she said, "Fantastic, when you’re ready to assemble it, we’ll document it.” I think that works out very well.
IE-A: This happened with the Whitney? They documented you?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No. Well, they were documenting in general terms the action taking place. It wasn't...
IE-A: That wasn't the objective.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There was a young woman, I remember, taking pictures of each part. She’d come when she’d see me doing something, then walk around.
IE-A: Was the curator the only one worried? The conservator and the registrar must’ve screamed bloody murder when you kept adding and adding elements.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It was fun because I felt their concern.
IE-A: The tension.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s always happened to me. When I’m assembling, it gives the impression that I’m never going to end.
IE-A: But I wasn’t referring to the conclusion, but to what comes after when it has to be taken apart and reassemble it eventually, because they weren’t scared of Daniel Lind, they acquired two of those pieces.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In fact, they’re now going to exhibit Vencedor, which I told you about, that was in the Whitney. Rollins Museum, I think that's the name, bought it, and now they want to exhibit it and I’m going to do what I told you, so they can record me. And it’s something I do with pleasure. 
IE-A: I was going to say that’s great that they have to fly you when they’re going to assemble one of your pieces. You’re going to travel the world.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well I offer to do it with pleasure. In fact, I’d pay. Because I think that…
IE-A: You enjoy the process of assembling your pieces.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, and not only that, it’s that during the process I polish things.
IE-A: Interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: One polishes things.
IE-A: Speaking of those videos, I think you once told me that you were making a videographic documentation of the way the palm tree trunk is cut in order to leave a record of how as I call them drums,
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, they’re drums.
IE-A: - one relates to the other. Why this concern of recording yourself cutting?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, what happens is that this, that material is also soft, ephemeral. In case it is substituted, well if one somehow can show how it’s cut, with one of these machines, how to measure the diameter, so it corresponds with the other. That kind of thing. This is very easy. How to make a hole so that there’s protrusion, so that
IE-A: Anchorage.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -you can assemble on top. That type of thing.
IE-A: You’re thinking that this will have to be replaced, well, it’s best to leave a record of how it’s done so that they do it the way I like it. Again, it’s Daniel Lind supervising the process from a distance. But, was this your idea or some institution has…?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, it was my idea. I know they ask for that, so I’m already aware.
IE-A: Ah, ok.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: So, from now on, as I told you, once I finish, I document it and that’s that.
IE-A: And where's that documentation? How will you disseminate it?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Those, the videos, I have to speak with the assistant. I don’t have the capacity to…
IE-A: So, you have an assistant. Good.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, no. She’s a young alumnus from Humacao, who became my office assistant. She’s also in the arts and knows about computers, about all these things. I think she has a BA in communications, also. Very capable. Then I don’t have to be… Because I send her information, she documents it and organizes me. For example, when I'm asked for photographs. There’s a book that’s going to be written about Caribbean art. She has all that, because I don’t have the time or the ability for that.
IE-A: But it’s good that you can count on that support because, I wonder, if someone were interested in those videos, how can they access them? They have to talk to her. I don’t know where they are. I know she taped them for me. Yes. But I imagine they’re under Daniel Lind-Ramos. That type of thing.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: So, you’d be willing to put this in a data base, like your web page.
IE-A: Well, no. I’d give it to whomever acquired the piece.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly, by specific petitions.
IE-A: Ángel Santiago and I spoke, precisely, about the theme of the materials of the coconut palm tree, all the derivatives that you use. And you also told me at some point, and, in fact, you’ve mentioned it here, that you’d accept that these elements, if they had to be replaced they could be. You said, “As long as it's a palm tree, go ahead. As long as it’s a coconut…” But Archie and I, which is also how he’s called, the nickname for Ángel, we mentioned that there are many species of palms, so we suppose you’re going to want them to respect
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, this type of-
IE-A: - palm. We also spoke that the palms-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: - coconut palm tree.
IE-A: can come from so many different places. But you also commented that as long as it’s a palm and the species of palm, it doesn’t bother you if it comes from another place.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because they’re family.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, if they’re species… It’s like family, there’s no problem.
IE-A: Exactly, they’re relatives.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: They’re relatives.
IE-A: And that way, you also emphasize your interest in going from the regional to the universal.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I mean, to the global.
IE-A: To the global.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: To the global, of course. I'll say it again, you travel the coasts of tropical areas and they’re there.
IE-A: And in the subtropics, of course. And we also talked that even in places that aren’t, the conditions can be manipulated and you can, in controlled greenhouses, grow many things.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Also, the palm tree seed travels a lot. Once it falls into the ocean it begins to travel and it grows elsewhere.
IE-A: That's true.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And it goes over there and grows.
IE-A: They’re travelers.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: Because the coconut floats wonderfully
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And, historically, even though they’re not native to the Cape Verde Islands, in terms of how it arrived to Puerto Rico, it has to do, especially this type of palm, with colonization, the time of colonization. That’s also interesting. Through Africa, -
IE-A: That’s how they arrived.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -but they’re not from there, necessarily. And all of that is inserted in picking this type of…
IE-A: But see how interesting that, a posteriori, speaking of “María a posteriori” here, there come into play some details that have to do with, for example, now with the conservation, that can continue to add meaning to your work even in a positive way, inasmuch as you accept that that palm can be substituted by another and that, all of a sudden what is found is the trunk of a palm from some other part of the world, not necessarily from here, from Loíza. I think that's something that Daniel Lind sees favorably. It's interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: If we’re inserted in the global village.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: If we speak of a global village, well let’s accept that.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And what better example than this time we're living, when there's a global pandemic. And then we’re all experimenting on the globe. It's interesting, I mean, if you’re-
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -going to look at one side of it.
IE-A: Yes, let's make the best of bad times.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: How are we contaminated? Through the movement of people. In the village.
IE-A: It’s been said many times that if this had happened in another moment in time when we couldn’t move around so easily, it would have remained entrenched-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As simple as that.
IE-A: -in some far-away place. But, it’s not like that and it doesn’t stop being interesting. Speaking of the coconut, Ángel Santiago, who has vast experience with this material, as a conservator/restorer of the Ponce Museum, and also, where he's been exposed to the practice of masks, not only from Ponce, but also those of Loíza, he mentioned that he has a habit of consolidating, as long as he has access to the inside from the back, because that way the organic material won’t disintegrate.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Yes.
IE-A: But he also said that on some occasions he’d had to make casts of the coconut to then form them with a synthetic material and then go with a replica in order to substitute. And I said to him, “That’s an interesting question I can ask Daniel.” What position would Daniel Lind take before that alternative posed by some conservators-restorers?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well, to begin with, at one time, without having the economic resources, when I began to work with assemblages I considered making bronze castings. Why? Not necessarily invoking Western sculpture, but African. For example, Benin’s reliefs. Benin’s sculptured reliefs. But I didn’t have the means. Then at one point I thought, “Well, what I’m going to do is the stalks…” In other words, simple more vulnerable objects, “…I can cast them in bronze…” Because I’m also invoking that ancestor in terms of art, I’m citing.
IE-A: Metal.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  I’m citing a way of sculpting. Bronze, obviously bronze… In Mesopotamia there was bronze.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The head of Sargon I, remember? In other words, I, honestly, in that sense, wouldn’t have a problem. I wouldn’t have any problem. And I’m talking years, not just now, that I considered, in fact, making high reliefs thinking also, of that kind of sculpture.
IE-A: But here we talk of casting to replace one material for another-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but in my case it would be-
IE-A: -for conservation purposes.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: -not to replace.

Daniel Lind-Ramos: I can understand it from that point of view.
IE-A: You prefer a natural coconut.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: As I said, it depends on circumstances. For some, I prefer the coconut, but in terms of ideas, I've had sketches where I would have loved to work with a bronze cast, because of what I said, in terms of citing…
IE-A: You make me think of Picasso's bull's head. For the assemblage he used a bicycle's saddle and handlebar, but then he makes a cast and forms it in bronze.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Look, there's another intention there and I don't have a problem with that.
IE-A: But, surely he wanted to connect with ancient Greece.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Why not? Or go back again to Mesopotamia with the famous face.
IE-A: Of Sargon. Yes, beyond what it has to do with your creative decisions, we have the natural coconut, which is part of your piece, and as conservators we're faced with a component of the artwork that has come to an end, and it has to be replaced or restored, would you approve that a restorer make casts of the organic coconuts to turn them to a synthetic material and replace that element of the piece? That's the concern.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  But it's easy to find coconuts.
IE-A: I thought you'd say that.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, and find a peeler. Maybe the peeler is the problem. I have a video named Tocones: Un ensamblaje en su contexto, where I interview someone from Tocones, an area where many coconuts were peeled. And it shows how he peels the coconut. It's in one of my pieces, in a video. It's as simple as finding a peeler that peels the coconut, the shell appears and you paint it and place it there.
IE-A: I will complicate your answer. Many of your coconuts were painted by you and  they have the painter's- 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, well.
IE-A: -imprint and we don't want to replace those coconuts because it's not that easy.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: But since I told you that, in that specific piece, 1797, a collaborator painted the base blue, I think that one can play with that coconut's...
IE-A: It can be recreated.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: So we're talking more about consolidating on the back and perhaps coat them with varnish, because they're flaking. The paint is coming off those pieces.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The whole surface can be painted with some things I've seen. It's just that I was making that piece when there weren't a lot of resources. It can be sanded and you can put a... God, I had that product around here. It's a type of gesso to impregnate it. So, it's like priming. Then, it's painted on top. It's more lasting.
IE-A: Lasting. If we want to save what's there, that you made with what you had, we could coat it with varnish, would you approve that the museum restorer do that?
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Yes, yes.
IE-A: Would it have to be the glossy or the matte varnish?
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  Gloss.
IE-A: Right now the paint isn't very shiny.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: If it's going to be applied it should be gloss, because-
IE-A: It has to be gloss.
Daniel Lind-Ramos:  -because I considered oil paint, precisely, because of the gloss. Another thing is that I can document making one, look how simple it is. I take a shell, sand it, brush the gesso on it, paint over it, I do the whole process. The designs, which are somewhat random, in terms that you can... As long as the colors of the flag appear, and those lines, that's it. If you make an example, with it you can make the others.
IE-A: So that's something you can plan for.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I think that we can do that. It's as simple as finding a shell and making one. With it the others can be made.
IE-A: A demo, a demonstration so that it can be replicated.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That would be an option.
IE-A: We're talking about organic materials, however, you also use others that are not necessarily provided by nature, but come from members of your community and bring with them an important load, their stories and so on. If we had to replace any of these objects because the degree of deterioration requires it, I imagine it won't be as simple as replacing a coconut. Replacing a grater, just to give an example. Would you approve that they look for one as close as possible, with an interesting history and that the previous one were documented, including its history?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That could be a possibility. Graters, ¡wow! graters are important in our community. The graters.
IE-A: Almost immortal they don't die.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but sometimes they rust.
IE-A: Wood also. We discussed that, at a given moment, Emma considered replacing the wooden part of her grater.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: What?
IE-A: Before you mentioned that the grater's wooden part was deteriorating and she thought
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: -of replacing it, so they're not necessarily immortal. Maybe in that case, where the owner and the history it brings with it, are so important to you, would you embrace the deterioration, the aging of that object so that it continues to be Emma's grater?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, and then, at the end, if there's no alternative, have it replaced and make the observation.
IE-A: How interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: And make the observation.
IE-A: I know that as a result of your concerns for the permanence of your work, when the assemblage 1797, which suffered an infestation in its wood plank base, you went so far as to make a new base. You replaced it with a new one, which is something that interests me. I wanted to ask you about the type of paint you used there, and on the coconuts.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Oil enamel.
IE-A: And the coconuts?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Also enamel.
IE-A: We wondered, Ángel Santiago and I, if you had taken the precaution of sealing the other sides of these boards, on the back, the sides.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I didn't maybe thinking that…Because I took the luxury, if I may say so, of going to this store specialized in wood and saying, “Please, sell me these 2’x 6’, of treated wood”.  Wood that's supposed to...
IE-A: Fumigated.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, and treated, so nothing penetrates. I don't know what happened there. I paid, because that wood is expensive. Aware of that, because I'm already aware that I want a base of wood that lasts. I paid for treated wood and I was surprised by that, precisely. I didn't take precautions because I was working with treated wood.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Now I know that, regardless of...
IE-A: But, the actual base it has
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That's treated wood.
IE-A: I thought you were referring to the-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, no, it's just that-
IE-A: - original that suffered infestation.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: - it had other parts made with found wood, which I replaced. In fact, there's one that's dismantled. The first one I exhibited at the Arsenal Museum, at the National Exhibition is dismantled. It's there. A very experimental one. But that wood is supposed to be top-notch and look what happened. The next time I'll do the whole process. Even if it's treated, I'll fumigate. I'll even get poison. The Guggenheim curator told me that there's a type of poison used by many artists in a certain sector of Africa, because Africa is immense. And it didn't occur to me to ask him for the name of the poison.
IE-A: Well, but you can always ask him.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, I will. I'll send him an email.
IE-A: Would you agree that those planks be treated? Beyond the fact that it's treated wood, that  they be consolidated with a material
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Sure.
IE-A: - that protects them.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Of course.
IE-A: That is not seen. It's not a visual aspect.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, there's no problem. As long as it is transparent, that it doesn't threaten the integrity of the color as it is.
IE-A: Exactly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: In fact, it hasn't been mentioned, that it's just any color. I'll have to make some formulas so that it's the right color. Because a blue color is not the same as any blue. That's very important.
IE-A: That green there is very important,  allusive to the deity rescued by that piece.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Which is what kind of hue, tonal value… Those green colors there are quantified.
IE-A: You mean, calibrated?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The green will govern everything in there. And they range from primary, secondary, tertiary and chromatic grays. I remember that in one of those pieces I ran out of the chromatic gray, which had a greenish hue, and I put another one like that. That doesn't work. There's a color detail there that I don't know how I'll provide a formula, so in case someone has to repaint, at least, from the start, mix the color in such a way that when they make the mixtures…
IE-A: When you said that you'd be willing to leave a demonstration video for when the coconuts are repainted the color formula is very important there.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, a color formula. That's important.
IE-A: Certainly.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: You can even mention the tone. See this here? It's for these things.
IE-A: I see it in the “María Madre” drawings also, there's a gradation as well.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly.

Daniel Lind-Ramos: It's not just any color. I have to calibrate this value with this tone. Then, the one that goes, there has to be a subtle difference. It gives the impression that it won't lookalike but it will, I mean within... You know there are things that…
IE-A: Made possible by the found materials of course. Daniel, there's something that fascinates me in the history, I daresay, of the conservation. And I observed it in that assemblage of 1797, which I found very exciting. And it’s the so-called concept of the material history of the object how the object has its own life, as we said, once it leaves the artist’s hands. It takes flight and so many things can happen that add to what it is and the readings we'll make of these objects. And in the practice of conservation, we have to take into account that added history. For example, in the stalks, that form part of 1797, I noticed some nails which are, in fact, rusted that were still penetrating or perforating the stalk, but not all were fulfilling the role of anchoring the stalk to the wall, in the way the piece is installed. As Ángel Santiago explained to us, when the nail corrodes it creates,-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Rust.
IE-A: -a combustion, it generates heat. And that, in turn, burned, creating a dark halo,-
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, yes, I’ve seen it.
IE-A: -in the stalk’s natural fiber. And they’re floating, many of them. I was very interested because there I saw the history of the installations that this piece has gone through, its previous installations. Because they’re no longer fulfilling the function for which they were originally placed there, from my perspective, maybe you’d say, “No, I only put them there as a decoration, they were never anchored, the stalks to the wall.” They fulfilled that function at some point and now no longer fulfill it, but remain there, knowing that this effect is also being generated, which deteriorates the stalk’s material with the corroded nail, what would be your posture? Would you be in favor of removing them because they’re no longer anchoring the piece to the wall, or of consolidating the nail and also the surrounding area of the stalk’s fiber and that it remains as evidence of the history that has been adding to your piece as a consequence of all its mise-en-scènes?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That’s why I mentioned Mario Merz, when he speaks of when the pieces and the material keep changing. I would have no problem in having that footprint there. As you say, in some way it can be consolidated. 
IE-A: I favor that decision.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: I first have to see those nails. Because sometimes I place the nail as a symbol that the object is being activated. Hollywood, at a given moment, not understanding that spiritual approach, of voodoo, for example, began to see that pins were stuck in dolls as if to do evil. Another reading might be, that it’s to activate.
IE-A: Along the line of acupuncture, touch the nerves.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: A lot… Yes, activation versus evil spell. That’s very interesting. I’d have to see those nails, because at any one time I like to place them so that whoever wants to see them from that point of view can do so and who wants to see them as something anchoring the piece, also. Again, that dual reading.
IE-A: That’s why I thought that my assessment wasn’t necessarily the correct one.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, no…
IE-A: Especially after this conversation that I’ve had with you.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: It’s that yours is also valid. It was what I referred to. That’s to say, I place the nail with one intention, maybe to hold it so it doesn’t fall. Again, to symbolize that these forms are active within this narrative of defense of place. In this case Puerto Rico in 1797, when the English arrived with Abercromby. Maybe they’re doing both things at once. Or maybe your reading of it… I have no problem with that. 
IE-A: Both things would be interesting.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, but I’d have to see them. I’d like to see them. You see I don’t remember. One keeps on making these things…
IE-A: I took several photos. So, I’ll share them with you.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Ah, good, very good.
IE-A: Daniel, Don Daniel, is there a question I didn’t ask that you'd like me to ask about this piece. 
Daniel Lind-Ramos: There’s a cloak. In the back there’s a cloak. Did you see this piece?
IE-A: I haven’t seen it in person. I’m being guided by this report.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Well in the back there’s a cloak that I made by painting on canvas. I bought a canvas and painted the cloak, I remember that…
IE-A: Is the color violet, by any chance?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes.
IE-A: It’s mentioned in the report but as if it were also a tarp. They use the word tarp.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: No, that’s a canvas, painted. I had it there and it took me like two days because it was dot, dot, dot…
IE-A: Those dots are brown, white and blue.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes. But that's no problem because it's a canvas that has a ground and that, traditionally protects it well.
IE-A: But there's also ribbon and jute that create a type of hem or border.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Sure. Here.
IE-A: How did you adhere these different fabrics?
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The same way, I took all this and basted it together, as I told you before, remember? I put it all together nicely. I had a girlfriend at the time whose mother was a seamstress and she learned to sew. It was very simple. I'd place the machine here, because it was big. I would roll and she…
IE-A: It must have been…
Daniel Lind-Ramos: until we finished. More than anything else, I like to cite sewing to cite my ancestors. I believe very much in the premise that by first valuing one's own, one can better value and appreciate the rest. If you live in a big city, that's your life experience and you're going to create from there. There's no problem with that. 
IE-A: And don't doubt that it can be translated into a universal language, which is what's happened with your artwork.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, because in the end, we're people in this place with experiences and reactions to certain stimuli, and giving answers to those stimuli, whatever they are. Political, economical, cultural, etc. You go somewhere else and they do exactly the same, except they're there. And the local color, which is that set of expressions of the place, will be different. But, in essence, what are we. Human beings sharing that experience with others. I believe that if there's something that contemporary art has, it's pretty, beautiful, lovely, it's that. How we find out about the other, about others, from the point of view of art and without those expressions ceasing to be from there. We enjoy them. Now we have so much access to images. What's happening in Singapore, what's happening in Johannesburg, in Haiti, what's happening in San Juan, what's happening in Colobó. That is, there's access, so we feel closer. I don't know. That's how I see it.
IE-A: And it's less hierarchical.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: More horizontal. Exactly.
IE-A: When we could only see one thing, we thought it was the only and most important thing.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Exactly. Not only that, it was the only point of reference. So, in what they sell us, that's what we had to do.
IE-A: Of course, the Western Civilization.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That's what's important. That's what's important, what is published, what is written. The written word, remember? The power of the written word. What is written is what counts.
IE-A: Yes, official history is another thing that you've made an issue of in your work.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, yes.
IE-A: Go to the nonofficial history.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: Yes, and in the process maybe correct things. Simply by raising them.
IE-A: Of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: That is, raising the issues.
IE-A: Make them visible, of course.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: With the lie of art. Sometimes the lie of art tells more truths.
IE-A: It's been an honor and a pleasure.
Daniel Lind-Ramos: The honor has been mine.
[INTERVIEW ENDS]