- My life is all about the arts.

- What do you think the arts offer to people?

- Oh, well... (placid music) (Erico singing in Spanish) I have a degree in Spanish and so I taught Spanish and I used the arts as part of that.

I used my guitar to teach Spanish.

I used theater, I used acting, I used all sorts of things like that.

I mean, all of that, all the antics.

I'm the kind of guy who jumped on the table to make sure kids were doing whatever they needed to do to pronounce things properly, you know, playing with that voice and that sort of thing.

And I learned it's all about problem solving.

(Erico singing in Spanish) - [Sandy] Inspiration can strike anytime, anywhere.

And when it does strike, capturing it and turning it into something beautiful and worthwhile, such as art, can have a huge impact.

- The arts are all about problem solving.

Apply that to any part of your life and you're successful.

- If inspiration is like lightning, Erico Ortiz is like a bottle.

He's always creating, always learning, always open to new ideas and new possibilities.

- It's everywhere.

It's everywhere.

It's everywhere we look.

The arts are connected.

The arts are part of it.

(Erico singing in Spanish) - [Sandy] He believes forming connections with others is the key to a better tomorrow and a brighter future.

- Relationships don't fade if you've built them properly.

If you foster them properly, they don't fade.

They grow.

- On this episode of "The Arts Page," we sit down with the talented and charismatic Erico Ortiz.

(Erico singing in Spanish) (pensive music) Ortiz runs Inspiration Studios in West Allis.

Thanks to those relationships he has made and cultivated over the years, he has turned the 100-year-old former funeral home into a hub of culture and creativity.

When you drive by and it kind of looks like a castle.

- That's what it is, exactly!

- A creative castle here.

- When I ran into it, it was like, it looks like a castle.

And I thought it was huge.

And you get inside, and it's not so big.

It's now called Inspiration Studios.

It used to be called Skubal and Slattery Funeral Home.

But when we came out and I looked at the building, I walked in, I thought we had checked a few storefronts and whatnot, and I walked in, I said, "Oh, yeah, this is it."

I knew immediately this was it.

That's wonderful.

- [Sandy] On the first floor of Inspiration Studios, one half is used as a gallery space to exhibit local artists.

- [Erico] Light bulb, remember?

- [Sandy] And the other half is used for a small black box theater.

- Come on in, Sandy.

- Oh, wow!

- So here we are.

This is the performance space at Inspiration Studios.

- This is great!

- This is our very small black box, but it's been used for many, many different things.

And as you can see, it's quite adaptable.

We can build walls, we can hang things, whatever.

There are windows back there that those panels can come off and the windows can actually be used.

But yeah, it's all wonderful.

Intimate space.

- This is great.

All this community theater space.

Did you think that community theater was going to be big?

Have a demand for it?

- I never thought it'd be this big.

I bought a little building for a little theater company I was part of, and boy, it has grown.

Ta-dah!

This is the hub of the arts in West Allis, which is kind of cool.

Really cool, really cool.

And it's leading into more and more bigger things.

- It's an inspiring space.

- Very much so.

Thank you.

- [Sandy] On the second floor, the rooms are rented out to artists to use as studio space.

- So I've got the Martini girls have two rooms.

One is a small tabletop stuff where they can work at tables and they each have their own table and they do tabletop art.

And then the other room next to it, they've covered in plastic and they've covered the floors.

So that's the place where they can throw paint and do big, big, big, big projects.

This place has encouraged lots of emerging artists.

That was one of my goals.

Emerging artists.

I wanted people who don't have an opportunity to exhibit their art in galleries, because galleries are sometimes expensive or not welcoming.

So emerging artists, emerging theater companies.

- Before opening Inspiration Studios, Ortiz was a teacher and administrator for Milwaukee Public Schools.

The arts, essential to you.

- You got it.

Education, essential to you.

How did you decide to become a teacher?

- I was born in Puerto Rico and I was raised here.

I came here as a baby and there were nine of us, and then three more were born here.

It was a rough childhood, you know, one of those poverty-stricken families.

We got the food stamps, we got the church baskets at Christmas and Easter, that sort of thing.

The one place I felt safe and comfortable was at school, always.

It was the one place.

And so it became my refuge, my, you know, the place I always wanted to be.

I think we're gonna have enough for an exhibit, huh?

- [Sandy] Ortiz didn't realize how much having that safe place meant to him until after high school.

When deciding what to go to college for, He knew he could provide that safe place for others by becoming a teacher himself.

- That's what my life became as a teacher.

I knew that my life was to help high school students to live a better life and to become anything that they could become and to dream and to foster those dreams and that sort of thing.

And... (laughs) Sorry.

That's what happens when I talk about this.

It was an amazing career.

I loved teaching and I know that my kids loved having me as their teacher.

Many of them still do and contact me all the time.

There was one who came to the gallery here a couple of weeks, about a month ago, because he hadn't seen me since he graduated from high school.

And one of his...

He'd been wanting to see me since then to thank me for saving his life.

Seriously.

He'd gotten into a fight and he was gonna be suspended and kicked out of the school.

And I fought for him to stay there.

And he said, "Had you not done that, I don't know where I'd be right now."

And those are the stories that you hear afterwards.

You don't feel it necessarily when you're working, when you're in the job, but afterwards it's...

I mean, those rewards come later, much later.

- You're very empathetic.

- Oh, my gosh.

(laughs) - Have you always been an empathetic person?

- Yes!

I cry the drop of a hat.

That's why I'm good on stage.

You put me in a production where I've gotta cry, where I've gotta be emotional, whatever.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, my gosh.

Oh, I've done stuff here.

I tell people, bring tissue.

Bring tissue.

We've got all the arts represented on the card here.

- Because of all the support and resources he has provided to area artists through Inspiration Studios, Ortiz has now become the president of the West Allis Arts Collective.

It's a group of nine artists, educators, and business owners with the goal of elevating the arts in West Allis.

Is Inspiration Studios accomplishing what you want it to?

- Oh, my gosh!

And then some.

I had no idea it was gonna get this big.

- That's because of the community that you've built- - They love it here.

- Through arts, through education, through being an empathetic human.

You built these relationships where a few fingertip strokes, and look who shows up to support your creativity!

That is truly inspiring.

- It is.

And it humbles me.

This makes us official.

- [Sandy] Ortiz is not just an organizer, he is an artist as well.

- In terms of visual art, that's the one area that I never explored until I retired.

I was a drama director at the school where I was a teacher.

I was choir director at my church.

I had a dance troupe that I was the director of.

I went and bought a guitar and learned to play guitar just so I can direct a Spanish choir.

(upbeat music) - What arts are you currently practicing?

Because artists typically evolve.

- Oh, you see that?

That was my latest piece that I've created.

- [Sandy] Erico, tell us about this painting.

It's very striking.

- Well, it was part of an exhibit that was here by the Rogues artist group, which I'm a part of.

Now I'm a member of that group.

And it was an exhibit of 20 artists and the title of the exhibit was "Being Transparent."

And at the time something was, eh, you know, I'm a very emotional guy, as you know that by now.

And something was going on where I was struggling with just the weather and with life and relationships or, you know, friendships, that sort of thing.

There was just some sad stuff going on.

And so it became this, a tearful reflection.

As part of being transparent, this was what I submitted for that exhibit.

- What do you feel like you've learned from painting?

'Cause this piece in particular sounds like it was therapeutic.

- A lot of art is, you know.

I have to...

I struggle sometimes with artists who come to me saying, "Well, but you know, are people gonna buy it?

Are people gonna buy it?"

You don't make art to sell it.

I mean, you don't.

You make it so it's an expression of you, you know?

It's an expression of who you are.

I mean, that's what it should be.

Somebody is interested in it, they're gonna connect to it, and they're gonna want it.

They're gonna wanna buy it if they connect to it.

But that shouldn't be your goal, is to make art that people are gonna buy.

(upbeat music) - Erico, what advice do you have to someone who's watching you right now, completely inspired by all that you're involved in, all that you're doing, all that you continue to do and all that you want to do?

Where do you get your energy from?

- This is my legacy.

This is what I wanna leave behind.

And so that's what keeps me going.

The energy is there because that's kind of the ultimate goal, I think, is just to make sure that this doesn't die, this doesn't just end.

As things grow, that inspires me to have more things happen.

It fosters more.

The more people learn about this place, the more they want to use it, which is really cool.

It becomes home to a lot of people.

They just, they love coming here.

- [Sandy] Thanks for watching "The Arts Page."

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