(instrumental music begins) - Production of Applause on WVIZ PBS is made possible by grants from The John P. Murphy Foundation The Kulas Foundation The Stroud Family Trust The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(instrumental music begins) - Hello, I'm ideastream, David C. Barnett.

Welcome to Northeast Ohio's tour de force Applause.

(birds chirping) Scattered across the state are hundreds of outdoor sculptures waiting to be discovered.

Everything from soldiers and sailors and Moses Cleveland to the wind wave in Marion, Ohio.

Helping to assemble these works under one roof, is the Ohio outdoor sculpture project.

The Sculpture Center of Cleveland, started Ohio outdoor sculpture to identify and record Ohio's outdoor figures and make the data available online.

The project began in the early 90s as the save our sculptures project.

It was a federally funded program administered by the Ohio Arts Council.

- So did we save out sculpture try to attempt to inventory all of the works around the country to see what they needed and perhaps initiate some local funding.

And it was put together with an appreciation of the fact that sculpture around the country was not being properly maintained and conserved but rather with suffering various forms and decay.

- [David] But before adding any objects to their inventory, Save Our Sculptures had to first define the term outdoor sculpture.

- [Bill] The idea is that it's a work of art is there for contemplated purposes but you started asking, well, what is a work of art?

and you know, what is really the deciding factor?

And what pretty much going for things that are up to be contemplated for the one reason to another.

- We just have a block that has names on it, not going to make it, that sort of thing, like a rock with a plaque on it.

It's not gonna make it because it doesn't have like kind of that design element, I think behind it that we're looking for.

But there are definitely some things that straddle the line especially like found objects.

There's cannons from the civil war that people live situated places.

And sometimes they're arranged artistically and there's landscaping around them.

They've named the canyons, there's plaques with it.

And so those might make it, but sometimes they're just like Hey, here's a piece of artillery.

We'll stick it in front of this building and then that might not qualify for our criteria.

There outdoors because we're just doing the outdoor sculptures.

- [David] Initial funding for Save Our Sculptures went to five arts institutions across the state.

(car whinning) - Pretty much Cleveland Columbus, Cincinnati, you know with Toledo, Dayton, Youngstown.

There's a band of counties that had no representation at all.

We've been trying to identify sculptures in those counties that have none.

I was pretty sure that there would be some, you know even if it was again a world war one Doughboy or Veterans Park of some kind, but we didn't know.

- [David] After the completion of the original 1990s grant The Sculpture Center of Cleveland organized hundreds of maps, photos, articles, and information into an online searchable database of nearly 1500 objects.

It's one of the few repositories of its kind in the country.

- You go into the Ohio Outdoor Sculpture you will see one or more photographs of this sculpture a title a description where it's located.

There'll be a map with a little data and it's showing where it is.

And then there'll be other information about its composition and who made it, a number of other important things.

So it becomes a real good resource for studying outdoor sculpture in Ohio.

- [David] Recently, Ohio Outdoor Sculpture has worked to expand the number of sculptures on their website by sending interns from Kent State University's library and science information program in search of new works of art.

- We have had other individual interns at various times around the state working on this but it was this semester really that we took it on as a major project with Kent School.

They call it the library school at Kent State University.

And these five individuals who are finishing their graduate studies in library science came together as a team to tackle the counties in Southeast Ohio that were not well were not represented at all in the Ohio database.

- Most of us started off initially just getting on Google and trying to do some just general searches, getting just basically the basic ideas and then building off of those from there.

If you see something that might be okay, this courthouse apparently has something you maybe look around there more.

You might want to contact the historical society in the town ask them.

- [David] Uncovering lesser known sculptures meant traveling to rural parts of Ohio.

- Sometimes just looking at Pinterest or that sort of thing would show pictures of things.

It wouldn't have a whole lot of information, but okay there's something there.

I encountered things from Wikipedia.

If you found an artist, you could look up the artist's name and maybe it lists the artists.

Some other places there there's different kind of means to access it depending on, you know what you want information you do have to build from.

- [David] Often they came across a piece that wasn't on their radar.

- Once we got kind of a list of some leads.

Okay, I've got enough things.

I think it's worth a drive out there to check these out.

When you go there, you've got, you know, five items on your list and you run into 10 more.

And so that's kind of how the rest of them get on the list when you just bump into them, when you're out there getting pictures of the things that you do know about.

- [David] In discovering additional pieces of art, they've also discovered just how strong a connection a city can have to their outdoor sculptures.

- I think outdoor sculptures, more so than a lot of other different kinds of art have a real symbolic and community sort of power to them.

They are very public because they are out there in the public they're public symbols.

They become, which is why I think people feel strongly about them positively or negatively because they are they're almost representing us in some way representing what we care about and our past and our future, you know, things that we are interested in.

And so they just really, they tell us they tell the world something about ourselves which is why I think they have importance.

And it's why it's important to keep track of them and make sure that they are maintained.

(music playing) - [David] You two can help track down sculptures as part of Ohio Outdoor Sculptures effort to identify and document state sculptures.

They welcome residents to submit photos, maps and other information about pieces currently not in their inventory, as well as updates about others in the collection.

We now pay tribute to Cleveland artist, Michelangelo Lovelace who passed away this week at age 60.

Lovelace made a career documenting urban life in his paintings, grounded in his own personal experiences.

In 2017 ideastream spent some time with Lovelace to discuss how his environment has shaped his work.

- And when I come out of the King Kennedy housing projects and when you come out of the projects, you know, it's it's Chaos Rule, you know so if you're not making no money you know you're not doing, so I got in some trouble with the laws, you know, out there, young selling weed and a judge to say, you know, what can you do?

So I told him, I could draw.

He said, well, you come back down here again.

I'm sending you to prison.

You better stick the drawing.

- [David] And stick with it.

He did.

Self-taught, Michelangelo began painting the issues he faced every day in the King Kennedy estates near East 55th street in Woodland Avenue in Cleveland, central neighborhood.

- I, everything I do is from experienced city and that's what I was trying to do with my work.

And I was trying to do with my work is tell that urban inner city story of what it's like growing up, dealing with poverty dealing with crime, dealing with drugs, having so much of this to overcome, to keep your dream alive.

- [David] Michaelangelo studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art while working with famed Cleveland, outsider artists Reverend Albert Wagner.

To sharpen his skills.

In 1992, Lovelace took up residency at a once bustling art complex called the Hodge.

Located at East 74th Street in Cleveland's St. Clair-Superior neighborhood.

- It was like Hodge became my home.

It became my art studio, my art school actually.

And it became a place to nurture your dreams.

To nurture your skills.

- [David] While Michelangelo found support at the Hodge.

Many of the issues that plagued the central area where he grew up were prevalent in the neighborhood.

He now called home.

- This is one of the highest poverty areas in the city, along with central.

So it has high poverty, high child poverty.

Just the disrepair of housing, vacant lots, closed businesses.

- The developers had a great ideal with the opening high job but I don't think they talk to the community.

And the community was in, in, in, in turmoil.

At that time, the crack epidemic had really gotten bad.

You had a lot of young people standing on the corners selling drugs and hanging out in the neighborhood.

There wasn't a lot of shopping places to go.

I found that most people found the neighborhood to be very dire.

You know, very desolate you know, the hope was not there.

- [David] Even so Michelangelo stuck it out for 17 years, polishing his skills.

- I felt like it was a story to tell, you know, I mean why are they standing on the corner?

Why is these houses abandoned like this?

Why is the white flight's like it is - I think it's a testament to him about the power that he observed, even in the negativity, even in the face of kind of desperate circumstances, and was able to hold up a lens to that, for all of us to see and connect with.

- [David] Michelangelo's hard work paid off.

In 2013 he received the creative workforce fellowship of $20,000 from the community partnership for arts and culture with support from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Two years later in 2015, he won a Cleveland arts prize.

With the money from the grant, Michelangelo went shopping for a new place to live and a better life.

- I wanted to be someplace that was viable.

You know, I wanted to be someplace that people wouldn't be afraid to come into the neighborhood.

- [David] Michelangelo wound up buying a home in the Cadelle neighborhood on the West side of Cleveland.

He put down his brush and rolled up his sleeves transforming the house into a live work studio - And having a home to call your own and have your own driveway, backyard front yard, there's banking, there's supermarkets there's shopping stores, there's restaurants, everything in walking distance.

And that's what I needed.

I wanted life to be more convenient - [David] From his new home, Michelangelo is expanding his range of topics and mellowing a bit.

- There was a time when people were saying that he's angry artist.

I'm very content now.

I don't feel abandoned or, or, or ignored.

So you're not just in the community.

You're a part of the community.

- [David] Perhaps most profound is that his approach to painting is evolving.

Recently, Michelangelo has been experimenting with a new technique.

- I now call my new work through reverse the process where I'm painting imagery, laying down paint, laying down color.

And as it moved me, then I go into the drawing and I put my drawing on top of my paint, which allows me to to, to bring out my message even clearer.

And this works remind me that I'm back to the basics and I'm being who I really am.

And I'm much, much happier at all these.

- [David] Artists, Hamid Tavakoli loves planting flowers in the spring.

On the next Applause, how a different spring the Arab spring inspired his work.

And area photographers step in front of the camera for a Newport that exhibit focused on unity.

Plus, we'll meet an award-winning artist who paints family and famous faces.

All this and more on the next round of Applause.

Since 1825, the National Academy of Design has been promoting fine arts in America.

We visit the society of the four arts in Florida to see an exhibit highlighting a key characteristic of the Academy's collection.

The joint display of an artist's portrait alongside their works of art.

- Hi, I'm Diana Thompson and I'm the Director of Collections and Curatorial Affairs at the National Academy of Design in New York.

The National Academy of Design is the leading honorary society for visual arts and architecture in the United States.

We're here behind the scenes for the installation of our exhibition for America here at the society of the four arts in Palm beach, Florida.

The show covers over 200 years, the earliest painting in the show dates to around 1809.

And it goes through today, it's organized around a concept of pairs.

One type would be the artist portrait paired with their representative work.

- The question of why the National Academy of Design required portraits is actually a very difficult question because we don't know the answer to it.

One of the theories we think is that this was a way of defining yourself to your peers.

You know, you wanted to have an image of yourself that was for posterity that people could look at, that people could think about.

And then when new members came on, they saw this as a tradition, a living tradition spread up before them.

My name is Jeremiah McCarthy and I'm the curator of the exhibition for America.

What's really fascinating about the portrait requirement is that the only stipulation was it needed to be a portrait.

So it could be a self portrait.

It could be a portrait by someone who is already a national academicians or it could be a portrait that someone painted or sculpted outside of the organization.

- So as far as early 19th century portraits in the show.

I would really love to tell a little story about our portrait of Samuel Morris.

So it's the earliest work in the show.

And I think when people think of Samuel Morris they think of more so the inventor but he in fact had a very prolific career as an artist in his earlier years.

In this portrait, When you look at it, it's a small portrait on ivory.

The artist is not even 20 years old and he is depicting himself already as an accomplished artist.

It's incredible what can be done on a small miniature ivory painting.

- Another great example is the relationship between Robert Blum and William Merritt Chase.

We have in this exhibition, you'll see a painting by William Merritt Chase called The Young Orphan.

Which is unquestionably one of his masterpieces.

It's on the cover of his monograph.

It's lauded the world over but people forget that when Chase was displaying his work he faced really intense criticism of critics saying that his figures were too wooden.

There was no life in a lot of the paintings.

And so he painted Robert Blum's portrait and Robert Blum had heterochromia where you have one eye a different color from the other.

And when you look there and you stand in front of this painting you sort of see his soul beating in his eyes.

And it's a challenge to sort of anyone to say if William Merritt Chase couldn't paint, you know, life.

And I figure here's this incredible portrait of his very dear friend.

It's a really moving portrait.

- Charles White is one of the most important 20th century American artists whose work focused on the triumphs and the struggles of the African-American community.

And we were really fortunate to have the opportunity for this show to conserve a work by his that's tells a very personal poignant story.

And it's a portrait of his great aunt Hasty Baines.

She was born into slavery in 1857 on the yellow leaf plantation in Mississippi.

There's a letter that Charles White's wife wrote shortly after the artist's death, where she explains that Hasty Baines for White served as this symbol of courage and wisdom.

And these are universal themes that White explored throughout his entire career in his work.

- I think that when visitors come to this exhibition and they enter the first space they're going to see portraits that are very homogenous.

They're going to see people who look very similar and as they move through the exhibition they're going to see the Academy change just as America changes.

They're going to see the rise of women, artists.

They're going to see the rise of artists of color.

And then by the time they get to the final section of the exhibition, they're going to see something Which I hope looks more like the America we have today than the America of the past.

You know, when you stand in the final gallery, which we're in you have a self portrait by a native American artist.

You have a self portrait by an Icelandic woman who called New York, her home.

You have a self portrait by a Chinese American artist.

You have all of these different viewpoints and they come together and it shows you really that like the more viewpoints you bring the richer, the dialogue.

- [David] And now we get to know fiber artist, Sherry Tamburo.

She uses sustainable materials to make eco-friendly accessories.

Take a look.

- From a very young age.

I was always involved in some type of material or a fiber my mother sewed, and thought it would be a good idea for me to learn in the seventies.

I got involved with the expansion arts program in Florida.

So I learned how to weave.

So I have a couple of limbs.

I learned how to spin.

I mainly work in wool, silk, sometimes bamboo fibers.

And sometimes I get the fleece that is that I have to take and wash and card and dye.

So, It's all sustainable materials.

Nothing has to dye.

Recently.

I was in a workshop in Austin by a woman from the Netherlands and she taught a class on making coats and it's I've made a coat and it's just, it's all one piece.

You have to make it so large five times as big as the coat because we'll shrinks.

And then we'd laid the fiber on there.

And we had to add different pieces.

So we'd get the fullness.

And then we have the sleeves, no glue, no sewing.

It's all manipulated.

Wool has scales in it.

And when it's warmed up and there's friction the scales open, and then they connect to each other.

So the scarves with the silk, I have a soak base which I dye on my sock.

And then I lay the wool on the silk.

Now I have to use cold water because I don't want the wool to felt before it goes through the silk.

There's no sewing on these, is a piece of silk and it's wool by slowly massaging the fibers.

They go through the silk and connect on the other side.

And then it becomes one continuous piece of fabric on my eco printed pieces.

I use natural dye.

There's a bug it's called Cochineal.

That grows on cactus.

That I use a lot.

I can get a bright fuchsia with that.

So these were eco printed yesterday.

I cook it for three to four hours, actually I steam these and an electric Turkey roaster.

I love that.

I just discovered that.

Then you take it out and you let it sit overnight before you undo it.

And it's really hard to not undo it because you really want to see what you have.

And I haven't rolled them yet.

I did two scarves together on this one.

And so this is basically what you do.

God, it's gorgeous to take these apart.

The bottom one had already been dyed with cochineal.

The bug that grows on cactus and then, Oh God, that's gorgeous.

See, I never know what's going to happen.

This is eucalyptus right here.

Wow And this is Sycamore I'm experimenting, with doing a lot of pods.

It's kind of like magic because you put the fibers down and then you wet them with warm, soapy water.

And then you wrap them in a pool noodle and you use bubble wrap, and then you roll if labor-intensive, but you get a good workout.

When it starts coming together, it takes a form of its own.

You have to sculpt it because wool has a memory.

I have an idea.

I have a sketch book.

So I try and sketch everything out before I do it.

It doesn't always come out like my sketch, but it is close.

And then I will put towels and fabric and mum, mother wet.

So that they'll dry in the shape I wanted.

The pods are like a cocoon.

They're like a safe space.

And that's what they remind me of.

I'm making lighting fixtures.

I have a cage that I get and then the insides go in it.

And then I felt around it.

Those are fun to make.

Bags Wool is so durable, they last forever.

Hats I do hats.

I love making hats and I'm doing some jewelry, some necklaces.

And I have cuffs that I make.

I've been working on acoustical pieces.

Like this piece behind me.

This is a layered felt took me about six weeks to make that thing.

But it absorbs sound.

This piece is called among the frons.

First, I did a whole layer of just wool on the bottom.

And then I made pre felt, which is very loosely to gather but it holds together and I cut leaves out.

And then I put tape in between, I would put one edge on the background and then put a piece of tape so that if the whole thing wouldn't fuse to gather the bases I make using a resist.

It's called a resist and it's floor underlayment.

And if you're putting down Pergo or something there's that white base that you put down before you put it on there, will I use that for my resist?

So you cut a shape out.

Everything starts out flat and you put fiber on one side.

Then you flip up, put fiber on the other side.

And you do that.

You usually do four or five layers so that you can get a really nice thick felt.

And then you cut a hole and you pull your resist out and then you start to get your shape.

This is a cat cave with the first one I've made but they seem to be really popular in Europe.

This was all white.

I used white wool and then I eco printed this.

This whole thing was flat and it had a round resist inside.

Then I cut a hole, pulled the resist out and then I fold it.

That's where you, when you fall it, that's where you get it to where it's at a stiff, stiff stage.

This is five layers of wool.

And the whole thing was eco printed.

- [David] That's it for today's show for more arts and culture programming go to arts.ideastream.org where you can check out our latest installment of equity in art.

A series featuring stories about the diverse community of artists working and making a living in Northeast Ohio.

I'm David C. Barnett.

Thanks for watching.

And we hope you'll drop by again next week for another round of Applause.

(musical instrument playing) Production of Applause on WVIZ PBS is made possible by grants from The John P. Murphy Foundation The Klaus Foundation The Stroud Family Trust The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation.

and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.