Nineteen-year-old Jake Fragua and his compatriots Rose B Simpson, Mike Schweigman, Douglas Two Bulls, Cougar Vigil, Hoka Skenandore and Watermelon 7 make up a collective called Chocolate Helicopter. Their group incorporates a band of intertwining members, busting out with soulful, sometimes blues-based songs, meant to twist your melon with a skill and introspection that's shocking considering CH's youth-but don't call them just a band. And, though each Chocolate Helicopter also is either an IAIA student or someone affiliated with the school, don't call them just artists either. Chocolate Helicopter believes types of artistic expression cannot be categorized, and each form of artistry interlocks and interweaves with the same fluidity as the members of the collective itself. I spoke with Fragua-who embodies just the right balance of youthful rebellion, intelligence and thoughtfulness-about Chocolate Helicopter, in advance of the group's upcoming multimedia
Galvanize
show at Zelé Café (7 pm Friday, May 12. 201 Galisteo St., 982-7835).
SFR: What exactly is Chocolate Helicopter?
JF:
Chocolate Helicopter is the group behind this event-it includes a group of artists, Rose Simpson, myself and Mike Schweigman. Chocolate Helicopter as a band is one of the entities at
Galvanize
. It kinda switches around. The philosophy around the group is it's less stagnant
than concrete. The core group are Rose, me and Mike, but there are other people like Cougar Vigil also involved in the group. We've been together since February.
How did you guys get together?
The
Galvanize
idea came out of Rose Simpson's head. She decided we should all express these new ideas coming out of the new generation of artists. All the artists [involved with Chocolate Helicopter] are affiliated with IAIA except Watermelon 7 and we wanted to express the individualism behind each and every one of us, and break stereotypes of what an IAIA artist or Indian artist is supposed to be; to express the feelings of new generation.
What are some of those stereotypes?
I'll give you one really good example: A few weeks ago there was a graffiti artist who marked up downtown Santa Fe with acid tags-that stereotype has become what graffiti artists are and what they do. Little do people know that many individuals in this show are graffiti artists, but in a different sense. We do express our graffiti-influenced art but on canvas or in a different form.
The stereotypes that come out of IAIA are the Fritz Scholders, the Alan Housers, the TC Cannons; and the board members who are involved with looking for these types of artists are in for a surprise because there's a new generation coming out. There are more artists looking for consciousness rather than just trying to express themselves.
How does that come out in your music?
One view we have with it is we want to spread a message about how to be more conscious about your surroundings, to act as who you are and go outside and do whatever you want. The band is really about letting loose and being free.
Do you feel there's a separation between visual art and music?
For me they're all one thing. Art to me can come in many different forms and for me being a Pueblo Indian I feel like
art
is some kind of Western idea and a category and it doesn't incorporate the idea of, "What are our feelings? What are our tools? What are our medicines?" In an Indian way art can be utilitarian or just something to look at or feel good about. So I feel art can be encompassed by a culture's dances, songs, healings, visual representations of healings, or anything. So I feel like art is in general music, sounds, pictures-anything that you feel.
That is really different from a lot of Western ideas about art. Do you feel like you have a fight ahead of you to change the way people see it?
That's what I always strive for, raising questions about what kind of world we live in and what definitions we have and how do we see ourselves. Especially with the type of artwork that I do, it's very blatant, very aggressive, sometimes even really offensive, so I really do have a fight ahead of me, going downtown to Zelé and setting up this art that isn't seen downtown or on Canyon Road.
Do you and the other folks in Chocolate Helicopter plan on sticking around after you graduate?
Well, our idea of our future; it sometimes seems fatalistic-because we're looking forward to the apocalypse, so we base our choices on that. We'll probably stick around here near our pueblos because we feel more support here.
To find out more about Chocolate Helicopter, visit
www.myspace.com/chocolatehelicopter
.
