It did not emerge at the right time.

Seven hours after I was born, my aunt had to take me because they were bombing Bilbao. His older brother had become ill with his heart and, in order to live, the doctor told his mother that he had no choice but to escape from Bilbao. By then, his father was no longer in Bilbao, and so his mother left the house, without collecting any documents, in the hope that it would be a month. But for the lap, 15 years passed. So I grew up in Beskoitz. I started in school when I was 5 years old, and now we discovered in our skin the bullyng that goes from mouth to mouth. It was spread that we were communists, evil, and we had to listen to “buhame beltza!” or “Spanish and burrico, two kicks in the old gut.” There, I learned how to fight, how to skate, how to defend myself.

Should a family of eleven brothers, at the time of the German occupation, have other forms of struggle?

There was a bus in town, but no car. Cars cracked, horses, donkeys, oxen... Most of them had bicycles, we didn't. Until I was 15 years old, I've been barefoot at home. Ours was a house of just a few centimeters, without light, with that red and red iron water that is said to be harmful now, and for dinner chestnuts and milk. But accustomed to that hardness and to that roughness, we took our life as a game. When we were hungry, we picked up the apples, when we came back from school, we took care of the tasks our mother had ordered us to do, and the anguish didn't lack humor or imagination. Among us, the atmosphere was impressive, and Koldo's brother taught us to dance, to sing and to do theater by riding shows among us to enliven the winter dinners. It was enough to see our parents or our sisters laughing for our happiness. Hence the instinct of our farándula. We have not been punters at all, but we have been on a good level, and it is not a credit, given that we have not had the opportunity to study properly.

Are you aware of the meaning of the German occupation or of the political commitment of your parents?

At the age of 6, my father welcomed the fugitives of the Comète Network at home, and although we knew it, we did not say anything. When friends came to play at home, our mother told us that we tyrannized into the forest, and the disgust was for us the most normal thing in the world. Imagine that on the road from the free area to the occupied area, we had controls at every moment, and even though they were trying to paint us, they didn't take anything out of us. We were not afraid of the Germans, we saw them with other eyes. In the village there was a perennial platoon, and one day the school windows broke and two bullets were kicked off to a soldier. All the kids had gone crazy, they cried, they screamed, they tried to jump out the window... We don't get angry. On the way to Hazparne, when the Germans told us to go up in their armored cars, we would approach them to the house and the others would hide behind the butchers, shouting, "Kill you! ". For us it was a normalcy. My mother clearly explained to us that we could not talk about some things and we listened to him. But that we live as a game does not mean that the German occupation has been nice. We had to empty and move the house three or four times because we were in the field of manoeuvres, and things, then we learned that the first tests of the weapons that the Russians have been found with the name “Organo Stalin” were done in our country.

It was the Germans, the years passed, and all of a sudden, you went back to Bilbao. Apparently, it wasn't the best dates for the farce, but ...

We arrived in Bilbao and everything was Franco's Spanish, military everywhere, bullfights... It was suffocating for us. When I arrived in Bilbao I cried. Imagine, I came from Beskoitz, from living quiet and in Euskera on the mountain, and suddenly the Franco drowned even more the suffocating city of then, like Bilbao. We went to Farandula, and we started to get together in the offices of Euskaltzaindia, where we created the Txinpartak theater group. It was the breath for us, the refuge. Each one brought his grain of sand: one the script, another the song, others the dance... I was more involved in making and singing decorated. On duty days we went to the villages with the train in our pocket, carrying all the tailor behind us, and once in the theater, we looked at the stall, we put on some curtains and we spent time. So it was almost impossible to do anything in Basque, but we didn't ask for permission, we did it and it was over. It was awesome to see the shepherds or the small neighbors coming down the mountain, excited.

Not
only with the theater, you immersed yourself in the Olaeta dances group and in the Soroak quartet.

Soroa came from Olaeta. Olaeta was a curious mixture that brought together the daughters and nieces of the rich notableos and the orphans of mercy, creating an incredible atmosphere. Meanwhile, there was Txabi Villaverde, who was dancing the guitar well, and once we went to Pamplona, at the back of the bus, we started singing with the guitar and realized it was playing very well. They started rehearsing, and soon afterwards we were invited to sing in a chalet in Bilbao. It was a resounding success. Notice, we had six songs and we had to repeat the six three times! As one comes to another, Radio Bilbao hosted the weekly program sponsored by Furniture El Paraíso for three years. People called to order the songs from our repertoire, and we sang them live. Little by little, we were able to go to Madrid every weekend. On Saturday go by plane, sing on the radio and in a nightclub and on Sunday come back with our little money. We sang with Los Panchos and also at the Hotel Wellington on the occasion of the presentation of the main film awards. We had requests and proposals for contracts to work around the world, but for that we were condemned to leave Euskal Herria, to greatly reduce the presence of the Basque Country, and to have been to misrepresent the spirit of the group. That's why, little by little, we're leaving.

Before leaving, however, you had to listen to a great many and two by the mouth of the more classic Basque singers.

The discussion started because we started commenting on our first songs with a rekinto, a guitar. As we learned the Basque song, ours had no name, we were heretics... The same thing always happens. Our argument was simple: “If Iparragirre sang with a guitar, why not?” Fortunately, the people who heard us directly turned home completely insane. I remember once we sang on the fronton of Galdakao, and selling all the tickets, the local people couldn't calm people's insanity. The warm welcome of the people caused the waters to recover, and little by little, the demand of the people was imposed on the harsh words of the critics. Not only that, but an eminence like Mixel Labeguerie, leaving a concert of ours, claimed “this is what I want to do!”. When the referent takes you for granted, things are over.

After so many years of dance, singing and theater, how did you decide to start painting?

When I was a kid, I was very able to draw. I arrived in Bilbao and started working on the drawing of Arts and Crafts, and within a few years I entered as a cartoonist in Fireston before making the leap to cartography. I got married, became a father and spent more time at home, so I started doing my compliments without pretensions. In 1972, I met two painters with whom I started going to La Rioja to paint and learn how they painted. I opened my first exhibition in 1973 and until today. School hasn't taught me anything I've learned, I haven't had teachers, what I've seen has taught me. I belong to the century in which you learn in life. That's why I draw old people at the table singing or at the fair. That's what I've known, the sentimental footprint that's left inside of me. I love what it was, despite the hard and hard life I had. So you needed money to eat and to be quiet in society, not to go on vacation. I know that this is not the time of now, that my time has passed, but I am the reporter of that time, and I want to leave the testimony of that time. I enjoy doing my things in my style. Why paint if not? I have money to live, I don't want more.

Forgive me, but I do not represent him in the art industries and classifications.

I'm out of all the industries and classifications of art. I have nothing to do with that world. I do what I want and I care about a radish where they put me. I don't stand the verbal scandal of a people in the art world. In view of a painting, how can critics say, or whatever a nonsense, as “has given us the key to a new world” if the artist has only drawn the appearance he had in the bathroom pan? An artist can't crap and a critic saying it's an inspiration impulse! Today, critics and researchers know more about painters than about painters. Every artist has a robot next to him, talking like a badly tuned radio, telling everyone what to think and feel. Americanism has penetrated us into the bowels, and its ability to generate discourse around it is more important than what an artist does. Imagine, the other time a client told me that the painting painted with the knee of artist X was on sale in a lot of money. Can you sell anything because you've once painted a good painting? Are there artists who paint 100% great? I'm not one of them, 10-15% of what I wear is very good, 50% is good, and the rest is good... However, I swear to him that I live much better welcomed than having a robot next to me.

Speaking of Americanism, this year the Guggenheim in Bilbao is fifteen years old.

From the outset, I believed that before investing what was invested in the Guggenheim, we had to discuss and reflect on what was right for the Basque Country and its cultures and body builders. Not everything is money and fame. The Guggenheim could be the museum that takes into account the reality of the place and invites the cultural movement of the area, but it is not. The usual thing, the bigger thing barely hears the smaller, does what you put on the tip of your nose and it's over. Long ago, Oteiza said that in Euskal Herria there was no fair and organized system to support artists. In our country, artists have been used to obtain a type of tourism and prestige. All governments say they have a piece of money for art, and if that's right, where's my share? If I won't get anything back, why don't I get rid of paying my taxes? But no, we all pay and only a few get. That's true in music, art, literature... Some have had all the aid from the world and others have always been rejected.

However, I still feel the passion to undertake from one side to the other.

And how! I've started making some drawings to put myself on a huge 5,000 kilogram stone with some outdoor faces at Ibañeta, under the title "The Winners of the Battle of Ibañeta." Yes, the Rolland monument is there, but nobody says anything about the Basques. So I've talked to a sculptor to see where we can find such a huge stone, and if someone wants to break it, they need a dynamite. For the rest, I intend to continue painting as much as possible, although I know that people want me to stop painting or die to increase the value of my paintings. You know, for many the artist is a dead artist, but I'm better alive and painting.