Did it arise in Larraun and immediately settled in Araitz?
The father was Uharte Arakil. He worked on road construction, then he was gardener on what is now Chillida Leku, then from the Txurruka family, and then came the mountain guard to Aralar. I was born in Oderitz, but then we came to Betelu.

When I'm growing up in school, I'm always wrong. I'm always condemned. As soon as I saw the stick, I jumped out the window and ran to the mountain. That's how school time went. Look at what we sang: “Calm me the pargatas, give me the boin and give me the rifle. I'm going to kill more reds than flowers has May and April." I would ask my father what was red and my father, always afraid, would tell me to shut up. I was there until I was thirteen, until he fell ill. I lost my stomach blood and was rushed to the hospital for surgery.

And then studying in Pamplona?
Yes. My mother asked for help from an employee of the Provincial Council who came to mark trees and through her they received me at the Salesa College. I walked in through the plug, because I hadn't learned anything at school. Because I couldn't choose and I was in the final position, I had to learn a tailor. What a disaster! I couldn't with the needle and I told my friar brother, who had a sacrament in Tolosa. With his help I managed to go to the printing press and there it was good, the work was nice, but I sent a lot to those who studied wood, because I wanted wood. By chance, a plaza got free in the carpenter's workshop and I walked in. How good I was going there! I kept playing nonstop. There was an excellent Italian teacher. In drawing and practice, he got very good grades, but in math, physics, etc. I was really sick.

From there to work?
After a course and a half I came to Arribera to work at the Nogue workshop. There, I learned how to make and fix homemade wood tools and tools. Then I went to Segura to work on the construction. But I always wanted to learn more and wanted to cross the border. I got permission to do it, and I got to work in a carpenter. In Hendaia, Baiona, San Juan de Luz… he spent ten years there. But then I had an emergency surgery. I was taken three quarters of my stomach and a piece of my pancreas. I spent two very loose years and because I couldn't make any effort, I started working as a restorer at a workshop in San Juan de Luz. How comfortable I was there! I already knew all the passages of the carpenter's trade. I lived between Iparralde and Betelu, but when my son was married and born, I thought I didn't want to come just on vacation. That I wanted the holidays forever so I didn't have to take them. Trees don't need a hospital, and it's also happened to me since I was young that my best cure has been work. I can't stay without doing anything. It would be very boring to me. We came here and bought this 1511 house and we rebuilt it. It was the boardhouse of the valley and it was completely down.

I started making reforms and furniture, because there was a lot of work to do. And then I met artists' people.

Jorge Oteiza, Remigio Mendiburu, Elena Asins, Mikel Laboa, Zumeta's great friend yes, but are you not an artist?
Mine is not art. I don't even know what art is. My own is a continuation of what others have done. Everything I do is the work of others.

When I was growing up in summer, I was always going to the island, to my father's house. There I had fun perfectly. We picked up the wheat, the barley and we did all the work. We tied the oxen, an hour before we came back, and we beat the wheat in the meadow. We, the children, were going over the mud and with the shovel we were collecting the excrements of oxen. After dinner we went out to the fresco. What memories! Now there are a lot of people who say they don't have time. But time and wind are free.

So what do you do?
Everything we've seen and learned in childhood, everything we've felt. Art is mine, because it is something created by necessity and Art, Art, Art. They all give some forms, but I have not learned that, but I have felt it. My father's house was 1650 and was shot down. I feel that historical memory. I feel all the traces of time in the pieces of wood that I took and kept. The kitchen soot, the smell, I hide it all in my head like a collage. I've gone from the Paleolithic to the Internet, just like Euskal Herria. When I met Tàpies at the Museum of San Telmo, I told Remigio Mendiburu about one of his works: “That looks like an old kitchen in our house.”

Sculptor Remigio Mendiburu was a very friend of yours. How was your relationship?
We had a great friendship. We arrived together. I Betelura and he Intzara. That was a great artist. It had an indescribable link with the people. When I got here, I started working on restoration and making furniture. A brother-in-law of mine lived in Intza and he told me. We were good friends. We talked a lot about materials. He worked with the beech, but the beech is very sensitive. The tree has life. In winter, when you leave the leaf, when you fall asleep, you have to cut the beech on the new moon of November, December and January, otherwise you passed the wood. I explained all this to him and he took it with great interest. With the theme of moons, he built some beautiful murals, for example. With him, I also learned a lot. You don't have to be ashamed to see and ask if you want to learn.

She was a great artist, just like Elena Asins. What was it doing! With the word Elena was an amazing artist.

What is that blue, what do you want?
I love blue because it's the color of my childhood sky. But that intense blue I don't see anymore. This blue is related to the aromas of before, to the shapes of before. With the smells of the stable, the loft, the kitchen.

And the encounters?
Technique used to build a building or make a sculpture. The most important thing in a hamlet is the encounter: you don't see it, but it has a great strength to maintain the structure and if you release it all gets undone.

You have spent three months at the Miramar Palace with the exhibition Aralar itsasmira. Caserío, tools, memories of Mikel Laboa, txalaparta, works against war… Content?
Very happy. What I've taken to Donostia is part of our Aralar. Aralar hugs the sea in this exhibitionn.El great bertsolari
Jokin Sorozabal once said in fine words that the mother of all the works of Gorriti are freedom and love. The Commissioner was the Beratan architect Jabier Lekuona and he gave me absolute freedom and I thank him very much. The exhibition will now be moved to Bergara and in November to Wales.

In Donostia-San Sebastian, the blue cow welcomes people.
Yes. I also took her to Germany to the exhibition that we did there two years ago. It's a great job behind it. I did it with the help of my son and other friends: we were working three months to make the fuck, making the welds, then we put the sheets on it, but we didn't cover it all, and then we painted. I had the collaboration of Irizar Autobusak in it. I have friends and they painted the cow to deal with the ice, the heat and everything. They make buses for everybody and they know what paintings to use.

The witness you made in the spring for AEK's Korrika will be back at hand.
Remigio Mendiburu made the first witness, but as he was made with beech, he soon broke down. I was commissioned by another, and I copied Remi's, but boj and riveted, so that the inner message didn't fall down the road. What I feel about this is that what the people give me back, as Aresti said in his poem.

And last year you made another witness for Nafarroa Oinez, “Roncal.”
Yes. It originates in the oldest farmhouse in the Basque Country, built with wooden pieces of a 1450 farmhouse located in Oñati. The farmhouse caught fire and brought me some chunks that didn't burn. I thought that our homes, our trees, our Basque… everything is tied and I prepared that witness to teach it to the children.

You've done impressive works of art. Why did you paint the Pirritx eta Porrotx truck?
It's a strange story. I've walked a lot on the road and I've had a lot of things. The race is communication and tragedy and tears. I wanted to make it all clear in one piece of work. To do this, it occurred to me to paint a section of a hundred meters of highway, but they didn't let me. In any bicycle race, the roads are closed and people paint them and nothing happens, but I was not given permission. One day, when Pirritx and Porrotx came to record a program with their big white van, Porrotx said: “How are you not allowed to paint the road? You have to paint the truck. A hundred meters you don't want? They will already have a hundred thousand kilometers!” We made the model and we took it to Buses Irizar, I have friends and they are very supportive. It was a party. All united.

Maybe now I try, with the new government --
no. That has already happened. I did the camper and it was over. Emotion in journalism is like news: tomorrow is late.