- [Announcer] Production of "Applause", an Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by: the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(cheerful lighthearted music) - [Kabir Bhatia] Coming up, an illustrator from Hiram teams with the Akron Symphony Orchestra on a unique production.

Plus the bright lights in the big city of Cincinnati shine on at the American Sign Museum.

And a Mexican movie masterpiece is the inspiration for a US premiere by the Cleveland Orchestra.

(cheerful lighthearted music) Hi there, welcome to "Applause."

I'm Idea Stream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(cheerful lighthearted music) Familiar objects take on new life in an animation by northeast Ohio artist, Amber D. Kempthorn.

She shares how a creative idea blossomed into a musical and visual collaboration.

Idea Stream Public Media's Carrie Wise, has more.

- [Carrie] Nature, and the everyday things we use regularly, show up in Amber D. Kempthorn's drawings.

She aims to capture the fleeting moments we can't hold onto.

- So when I'm drawing, I'm thinking a lot about frankly stopping time, right?

It's a way to create a document, it's evidence making.

- [Carrie] For a long time, she wanted to try animating her work but she didn't know how.

Then she heard about an opportunity for an arts grant in Akron.

- So it wasn't until the Night Arts Challenge that I finally said, "Okay, this might be the chance to do this."

- [Carrie] She pitched creating an animation to Benjamin Britten's "Four Sea Interludes," performed live by the Akron Symphony Orchestra.

And after winning the grant, she collaborated both with the orchestra and a production studio that could help animate her drawings.

- Frankly, it's one of the most powerful things that we can do as artists, is through translation and offering a different perspective on something like an 80 year old piece of music.

We can hopefully, if we're successful, bring a new dimension to it, which is gonna then allow for more people to access it.

("Four Sea Interludes" by Benjamin Britten) - [Carrie] The scenes and ordinary objects in Kempthorn's art, are not so ordinary.

She says they're meant to draw people in and spark thoughts about our connections to them.

- I'm always using landscape as this, what I hope will like create this sense of space and our sense of relationship to that natural world.

And then playing around with a kind of still life or putting together objects and things within that space, and often disrupting how we might normally encounter those objects in a space.

I want add a little wink to the viewer, like you and I both know that this is all made up.

- [Carrie] She created hundreds of drawings for the animation, and to depict the slight changes that occur when objects are moving, she filmed some real life enactments.

- I'm blessed with a very good friend and a neighbor, her name is Becky, I should give her a shout out.

So she would, on a Monday afternoon, get a text from me that would say something like, "Can you come to the yard "and hold a lawn chair and move it around in space?

"And I'm gonna video you doing that."

- [Carrie] Kempthorn's animation shifts with the musical changes.

There's quiet wonder in the moonlight, there's disruption in a storm.

(spooky frightening music) And there's the transition from darkness to light, which is where the animation begins.

(calm dreamy music) - I really wanted to capture that feeling of when you're someone who works and you start at like five in the morning, before the sun is risen.

There's this handoff that happens, right, where you are standing there maybe drinking your coffee and you're looking out the window and your few pensive moments before the day goes.

And you know, that transition that happens from the interior light to the exterior light, it's just such a beautiful moment in the day.

(bright triumphant music) - [Carrie] The moments shared in this project which took several years to create, are meant to live on, as Kempthorn looks for ways to further the reach of her work.

- I would very much love for other orchestras to do it, to get more people to fall in love with Benjamin Britten, to get more people to fall in love with classical music, to feel like this is all a thing that they can participate in and participate with or engage with and enjoy.

(slow dreamy music) - [Kabir Bhatia] We share now, a portion of Amber D. Kempthorn's ordinary magic, a Sunday in the Cuyahoga Valley with the Akron Symphony Orchestra performing Benjamin Britten's "Four Sea Interludes."

("Four Sea Interludes" by Benjamin Britten) You can see the full animation and dozens of Amber D. Kempthorn's drawings on view at the Bonfoey Gallery in downtown Cleveland through November 23rd.

(gentle lighthearted music) Let's carry on to Kettering to meet Toledo native, Arthur Kettner, who spent four years in the US Navy before becoming an artist.

And it was at Bowling Green State University where he began his journey into ceramics.

(soft harmonious piano music) - My artwork is based around structure.

I like taking multiple elements in my artwork and repeat those forms or design elements and apply them in different ways.

(soft harmonious piano music) Some of my artwork, like my bacteria series, I'm using organic forms and I'm tumble stacking them together in this chaotic way, and they're chopped up and reassembled into ways that suggest a mechanical ness to them but yet have an organic feel.

Clay wants to go natural.

So working against clay's own predisposition has been a really interesting challenge.

After my service at the United States Navy, participating in Desert Shield Desert Storm and becoming a veteran, I moved back to Ohio and I completed my Bachelor's Degree at Bowling Green State University in ceramics, glass and computer art.

(soft melodious piano music) So I taught for two years at Sinclair Community College, and it really set me up for wanting to go to grad school that I understood that there was more to ceramics that I wanted to know.

(soft harmonious piano music) I was accepted to Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia.

So my wife and I moved to Philadelphia so I could become a grad student.

During that time, my first child was born, and I knew when I graduated that I needed to get a job.

After finishing my Master's of Fine Arts degree, I started to work for industry.

For an artist to work in industry is an interesting proposition.

So I received a typical job like color matching at a glass enamel place.

And so somebody would say, "I want you to make this color."

So I would use the chemicals and then we'd make a color.

During that time working in the industry, I learned how to be more formulaic, how I could use scientific method to understand the materials I was working with.

A lot of these places, I did work under chemical engineers, and I was a sponge.

They would start talking, and I would just sit there and listen.

So I really grew as a technical artist, if that makes sense, in the way that I could understand my materials better and how to apply them in more effective ways.

(clay thuds on surface) During the past 14 years of working in industry, it's always been a challenge to make art; family obligations, work obligations, and there's so many hours in a day.

But somehow, I always found time to make things.

Being the inaugural artist in residence at the Rosewood Art Center is very special to me.

I feel very fortunate that this opportunity had presented itself.

To be able to come into this wonderful community asset and work with other artists, of all levels, is just a wonderful opportunity.

A clear glaze on porcelain is not gonna necessarily look the same as clear glaze on a stoneware body.

I think that the Rosewood Art Center is such a gem in this town.

There's so many opportunities here for children and for adults to really explore themselves in their art.

Because back in the day, before sodium silicate, anytime somebody had to make a cup or a bowl, or anything like that, they had to throw it on the wheel.

It's given me, an artist, a great opportunity to come in and make work.

I have a little studio space and really make the work I'm making today.

This is pushing my skill limit to the very edge of what my ability is.

I've been doing ceramics for around 20 years now and I love the medium, but I wanna explore some more things.

I've got more ideas that don't lend themselves to ceramics.

So going forward, it's gonna be interesting because I have this great chance after this residency program, to really evolve as an artist, and really take things up to more of a sculptural level.

I wanna be more of a sculptor instead of just considered a clay artist.

(cheerful lighthearted music) - [Kabir Bhatia] If you ever wanted to run away and join the circus, well guess what?

On the next "Applause", class is back in session at the Crooked River Circus School.

Plus, meet the extraordinary men and women of Boston Heights, photographer, Barbara Pennington, and the "Applause" performances spotlight shines on the Oberlin's Sonny Rollins Jazz ensemble.

All that and more on the next round of applause.

(bright enticing music) Is there an art story you'd like to see on "Applause"?

Your suggestions are welcome.

Please share your arts and culture story ideas from around Northeast Ohio via email to arts@ideastream.org.

Now, you've got to see this place in Cincinnati.

The American Sign Museum is one man's pet project taken to the Nth degree.

Look, the lights are on, let's go.

(bright playful music) - I'm Todd Swormstedt, I'm the founder of the American Sign Museum.

This is my self proclaimed midlife crisis project.

I worked on a magazine for the sign industry for about 28 years.

The magazine's called "Signs of the Times."

It actually goes back to May, 1906, and my great-grandfather was the first editor.

So I left the magazine in 1999 to start the museum.

What this is, is this sets up the history of signs from the earliest hand carved wood, through the light bulb period, through the neon period, into the plastic period.

(cheerful playful music) Well, every sign museum worth its salt has to have a Big Boy.

Now, this is an early version of the Big Boy.

If you look at his back pocket here, it's got a three dimensional slingshot.

The later versions, the slingshot was more like embossed into his pants.

The Big Boys now don't have a slingshot at all, it's politically incorrect.

He's got striped pants.

The ones now have checked pants, saddle shoes, and the other thing is that the Big Boys now are not quite as well fed as this Big Boy.

(playful music) (playful music) This section here is called the light bulb period or the pre-neon period.

The light bulb was introduced in the late 1890s.

As soon as the light bulb was introduced, you had light bulb signs.

Now all of these examples here are signs that use light bulbs.

Sometimes they're exposed like on this boot, and this boot is what we call a trade sign.

Trade signs were signs that were in the shape of a symbol where the symbol represented the business.

Obviously a boot, this was a boot store.

If you look on this side of the sign, you'll see there's a bunch of light bulbs.

If you come on the other side of the sign, you'll see that the letters have neon illumination.

But when we found this sign, it had neon on both sides.

But as we were trying to fix some of the broken tubes, we discovered that the sign had originally been a light bulb sign.

So we restored this side back to the way it was originally, and left this side with the retrofit in neon to show how a sign could be updated with a new technology.

Another type of light bulb sign that has the lights inside the sign is this Kelly Springfield Tires sign.

Now it uses these little glass buttons, we call them.

These are cast glass with a stem on the back that's threaded.

So you screw this into the sign cabinet.

Imprinted on the rim of the glass, "Patented July, in 1910."

(bright cheerful music) Now we move into the neon period which really began in the mid to late 20s.

(bright cheerful music) This corner of the museum is 50s neon.

If you look at this sign here, this cow sign, this is a great example of what we call animated neon.

Now, the way you do animated neon is you do layers of it.

If you look at this cow head here, there's three layers of neon stacked on top of each other, and they're flashing on and off in a sequence, one, two, three, one two, three.

This animation effect is really obvious in the swishing tail.

(bright cheerful music) And of course we've saved one of Columbus's icons, the Big Bear sign.

Now this sign was found in Chillicothe, Ohio.

This sign probably dates to late 50s into the early 60s.

(lighthearted music) And then we move into what we call the plastic era which really kicked in after World War II.

This sign, it's what I would call kind of a transition sign, because what happened is, when plastic was introduced, neon held on even to the 60s and 70s.

So you see a lot of signs in the 1950s combined neon with plastic.

The very first plastic signs were just flat plastic sheet.

Then they started doing some early, what we call vacuum forming, where the sign face was a little bit rounded.

This Colonel Sanders sign, KFC sign up here would be a good example of that.

Then they started doing a little bit more complicated vacuum forming where the letters could be actually raised, like this Emerson Television and Radio.

You can see Lowe Brothers, and an extreme example of that is the Shell sign.

(lighthearted music) The American Sign Museum is the history of America.

This sign is a really good example of that.

Now, obviously, it's in the shape of a Sputnik and it's for a shopping center called Satellite Shopland.

If you remember, the Russians had launched Sputnik in 1957.

That prompted all this interest in rocket ships, outer space planets.

I call it the Jefferson's period of design.

This guy opened a shopping center in 1962.

So he took his rough sketch to a couple sign companies to ask them what it would cost to build that sign, and they just kind of looked at him as cans, "This guy is nuts."

So he ended up actually building the sign himself in his garage.

The globe is actually two half globes of plastic.

All these spikes and all the letters, he did himself in his shop.

(bright orchestral music) So let's take a walk down Main Street.

(bright orchestral music) We'll walk past this McDonald's sign from Huntsville, Alabama.

This was built in 1963.

(bright orchestral music) We have a policy that we don't like to repaint signs.

We will restore the neon on a sign but we like the patina of a sign.

The irony about this sign is, this was for Earl Scheib.

Earl Scheib was a cheap place to get your car repainted.

Kind of a precursor to MAACO, any car, any color, in 1995.

So when we got this sign, that globe was completely stripped of paint.

This ring was gone, the cards were gone, So we completely restored this sign which is very unusual for us.

The only thing we did leave that was original was the bullet hole.

Here's where the bullet came out and a little tougher to see is where the bullet went in, it's right at the ring level.

Right here is where the bullet went in.

(cheerful playful music) Every sign museum's gotta have a McDonald's sign.

That's an American icon, but so is Howard Johnson's.

This particular sign was built in 1958 and came from upstate New York.

Now there's a little story behind those characters on the top.

Simple Simon met a pie man going to the fair.

When Howard Johnson started opening up his restaurants, he wanted to particularly cater to families.

So his ad agency in their wisdom picked the nursery rhyme to highlight on the top of the sign.

(bright playful music) We're often asked if we have more signs.

Well, yes we do.

(cheerful bright music) Most of these have been restored.

Sometimes when we get a sign, it isn't working condition it's not likely that it is.

But we do have a working neon shop which repairs a lot of the glass for the signs.

I mean, even some from Ohio.

This Roby's nightclub sign is from Toledo, Sterling Rubber Products is from Central Ohio, and we even have a sign from Columbus, the well known Rife's Market.

(cheerful bright music) Signs are everywhere and I don't think people really think about who actually made or designed that sign.

So if you come to the museum and you leave with a new appreciation for the people that made these signs, then I would say we've accomplished our mission.

(bright cheerful music) - [Kabir Bhatia] Many cinephiles consider the 1962 film, "The Exterminating Angel," a classic of surrealism.

Decades later, Luis Bunuel's Mexican masterpiece serves as inspiration for British composer, Thomas Ades.

Recently, the Cleveland Orchestra gave this dramatic work its US premier.

("The Exterminating Angel" symphony by Thomas Ades) If you want to watch this entire surrealist symphony, you can, via the Cleveland Orchestra's app, Adella.

And last but not least, every "Applause" episode is available for on demand viewing, thanks to the PBS app.

It's been real, or should I say surreal.

Either way, thanks for watching.

I'm Idea Stream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, inviting you to join us for the next round of "Applause."

(cheerful orchestral music) (ambient music) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause," an Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by: the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents, through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.