Faith Perez thought an Art History class she was required to take would never really be useful for what she wanted to do. That is until she was presented with an unexpected opportunity. And ended up directly using knowledge she’d learned at UNM.

Perez, a Junior in UNM’s Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media program (IFDM), began working at KNME-TV as an intern. She recently became a student employee, editing segments for KNME’s long-running series ¡COLORES!.

An opportunity arose when Executive Producer Michael Kamins asked if she’d be interested in producing a full ¡COLORES! program segment.

¡COLORES! is a weekly art series with stories devoted to the creative spirit. This series features local and national stories about film, visual and performing arts, theatre, photography, literature, painting, sculpture, poetry and dance. ¡COLORES! provides an in-depth look at the inspiration, challenges and processes of a wide range of artists.

“It was a great learning experience,” says Perez. “¡COLORES! Producer Tara Walch was a huge help, guiding me. I learned a lot about the process of interviewing and producing, calling the artist and asking questions. Doing editing, you don’t get the same background of what goes into it. It was mind blowing, basically sitting in the director’s chair. It felt really great. I was excited that I got to try it.”

Picking the artist was an interesting experience. ”It helped that I had taken an art history class at UNM,” continues Perez. “It was ‘Contemporary Art and New Media.’ I didn’t think that class would have anything to do with things I was working on. But that knowledge helped a lot. I visited the same website I had used for doing a project in class.”

That website was for the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe. Through it, she got in contact with the Santa Fe artist Max-Carlos Martinez, who inspired by his New Mexican ancestry, paints a history of cultural assimilation in America. Martinez asks “Who are we as American, who am I as a Chicano, who am I as a Hispanic, who am I as a New Mexican?”

You can watch Perez’ segment on ¡COLORES! Saturday, Sept. 10 at 4 p.m. on Ch.5.1.