Christopher is my second cousin. He was raised in Martineztown, Albuquerque and Los Lunas, New Mexico. We come from a huge and very cultural Hispanic family and of all of my cousins, we are the closest in age. We struck up a newfound friendship when I moved back to the States in 2015.
One week, he invited me to visit him at his work. During this visit, I learned that he has an exceptional affinity for history and is very well versed on the issues of economic vitality in New Mexico. In his profession, Christopher helps the development of Los Lunas businesses either by counseling them through the process of applying for marketing loans or by helping them to advertise their businesses directly. Furthermore, he is one of the hardest young workers I've seen in action. Just shadowing him that day was exhausting because we didn't rest once, he also helped me network with local and prominent business folk and he seemed to know everyone by name, which probably isn't unusual for such a small place, but he knew about each person individually, asking them the status of something going on in their lives or about a relative about whom he's been told. But this visit also showed me Christopher's work ethic, which combined with his age, makes him standout in the workforce.
Over a period of a few weekends visiting Los Lunas, Christopher and I would take cruises around the county. He would show me historical sites and homes of interesting architecture. He brought me to the Immaculate Conception Church located on Church Loop in Tome where we were spooked by its outdoor museum of 1800's relics. We dined on red chile at Teofilo's Restaurante, drank mojitos over calamari (yes, in the desert) at the famous Luna Mansion, and made fast-food runs to the village's only Taco Bell. But we also visited the village's only thrift store where Christopher, a recognized local to the staff, would educate me on everything old and rare that we would find in the confines of this rather dusty, off-white, musky and disorganized Adelante Bargain Square Thrift Store (which, by the way, is run by the Adelante Development Center, which is a nonprofit agency that provides individualized support services for over 1,000 New Mexicans with mental, physical, and developmental disabilities, as well as provides support for disabled veterans and the elderly) located right on old Main St. That was the moment I learned that Christopher is a collector of things and has been doing so for ten years.
So one weekend, during another trip to Los Lunas and after a rather aggressive game of Uno, Christopher and I stayed up talking. It was around midnight when he decided to show me the vastness that is his collection. Thousands of cufflinks, hundreds of tie clips, and dozens of piggy banks later, I was thoroughly impressed and inspired to make a short documentary about him. The product of this evening is the video posted above. My whole aim was to build upon Christopher's natural eclectic persona. The original b-roll actually was a complete dialogue between he and I, with my prying questions and his long pauses before answering. I cut out my voice in post production to make it seem like Christopher is talking directly to the viewer, that he seems to answer questions the viewer could or would pose. So far, this is one of my favorite projects to date; probably because of Christopher's impromptu performance, the fact it shows how much closer we become with every visit, or because I learned so much about identifying something that could easily be overlooked as junk. I hope you enjoy!
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