Production of “Applause” on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Coming up, we celebrate a sticky century at the Geauga County Maple Festival.

Try on some haute couture honoring our fine feathered friends.

And get into the swing of things with Abstract Sounds from the Tri-C JazzFest Hello, and welcome to another round of “Applause.” Im Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

Let's start off with something sweet.

One of Northeast Ohio's many naturally occurring bounties is maple sap, and the gooey center of the syrup making community meets every year in Chardon.

Let's check out the 100th annual Geauga County Maple Festival, where a local family made it into the Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame for the second time.

The sugar country in Ohio starts when you cross the Geauga county line east of Cleveland and head for Chardon, the region's hub and capital.

The maple tree is king here.

Its symbols and signs are everywhere you look.

Nowhere in the world are more maple products produced in a limited area than here.

I had my first experience, seven years old I saw my older brother Mike, boiling sap in our backyard in an open pan.

I always had that memory in my mind.

That's kind of where I was first introduced into it.

I have been involved with the Maple Festival going on 40 years next year.

I've been involved with the parade publicity and now I handle all the office calls.

Syrup makers I guess you go by experience like anything else in life or career.

You do so much.

You become second nature to become an expert at it.

So I've been doing it.

Involved in syrup making myself over 50 years.

A lot of these syrup makers are generational, I know some 5 or 6 generation syrup makers.

It goes back quite a ways.

The maple festival, this is our hundredth year, of course, and I remember going when I was even five years old, I just remember riding the rides and of course, having the maple stirrers and just the family camaraderie.

Back then, Chardon was just a village, so everybody knew everybody else.

And we welcomed everybody want all over Northeastern Ohio to it.

So good memories.

50,000 pleasure seekers pour into Chardon Normally a town of 2, 500.

They come from all over the United States.

For three days, they will be paying tribute to the maple tree and its products.

And incidentally, spreading the fame of Ohio maple syrup.

All across the country.

Chardon is one of the Yankee towns.

What are the transplanted New England villages The sugarhouse is for the purpose of boiling down the sap into maple syrup.

It takes about 54 to 60 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

So what's the process of elimination.

My brother Mike started when he was 18 years old in 1971.

He was trained to do the sugarhouse on the square, and that was the old sugarhouse where they had it reconstructed every year.

And so we would boil down the sap into the syrup.

And one fun thing we did as kids was once it came into that sap where there was some snow on the ground, we would throw the sap into the snow and it would make this maple candy, which was delicious.

And what you need.

The perfect conditions for the sap to flow is cold nights below freezing, warm days above freezing.

So here in Northeast Ohio, anything goes.

You never know.

Every single year is different, It's very unpredictable.

It goes all over the state.

But Geauga county is the number one producing county in the entire state of Ohio.

So this is a display I just put together this year.

I've been wanting to do it for a long time for the festival, because it really tells the whole story.

The whole history of how trees were originally tapped.

I was privileged this year to be nominated, for Ohio Maple Syrup Producers Hall of Fame, which is quite a honor to be designated for that personal inductee for that.

And it's been a real honor attendance.

I'm actually selected from prior Hall of Fame members.

So that in itself is just quite to think about that.

And people respect me that much to have me honored to that.

I learned from my brother all these years, my brother Mike.

He was also inducted into the Hall of Fame three years ago.

My responsibility through the festival is I am the history display director, so I pretty much put all these things together.

Since 2003, I've been part of that, but I've been involved.

The festival for over 50 years.

Way back, making maple syrup with my brother here on the square.

And then since that, helping on other volunteer methods.

So this is a probably a 1949 version of a, they call it a backpack tapper.

It was actually manufactured by the Kid King Company, which back in the day they were big, like syrup equipment producing a man with a power tapper can tap 700 trees a day, old fashioned hand tapping with a brace and bit limited a man to from 150 to 200 trees a day.

So my son in law and grandson just restored this thing intact.

to working condition, people say what?

So you literally put a hole in the tree and the syrup comes out.

Its like, it's not that easy.

There's a lot big process involved with it.

So if you want to really learn, I tell you right now, you got to come out to either an April festival or even in March.

They have what they call a maple madness, which is run by the Northeast Ohio Syrup Producers Association A lot of the syrup makers will actually open up the sugarhouse, and you can take a personal tour free of charge.

Free samples, we still have a lot of big producers around here but we noticed they have a syrup competition here.

A lot of people have this syrup, and I know it's probably the last five years even more.

There's a lot more small producers.

They call the hobby producers.

I think it's less than 20 taps or more, its so encouraging to see that.

You see a lot of younger generation people getting into it is what we love to see it's 100% pure natural product, no additives.

Basically all you do is get the maple syrup.

The sap from the tree, you boil it down, eliminate all the water, and the resulting product is pure maple syrup.

It's made only here in North America, which in itself is pretty unique.

Once you start getting into making maple syrup, it gets into your blood, and it literally does.

Like every single spring, you kind of get this itch, I got to get out in the woods and start tapping these trees.

Whether you say syrup or syrup.

Mark your calendars for the 101st Maple Fest next April in Chardon.

All right.

Just hear me out.

You haven't heard this.

Go away.

Beverly is busy.

Doesn't that sound like Gregory Peck?

You don't know.

Let me ask them.

Hey, if you got a great arts and culture story idea for “Applause” Do you live in Northeast Ohio?

If you're in any of our 22 counties or even beyond, send it to arts@ideastream.org You could be in Lorain.

You could be out in Lake County, down in Stark County, wherever you're from, in our viewing and listening area.

Send us your arts and culture ideas to arts@Ideastream.org And they might end up right here on “Applause.” Now let's take flight with the birds, biomimicry and bold designs of Kent State University's acclaimed fashion school.

Recently, students wet their beaks with an assignment from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The task?

Create outfits inspired by the beauty of birds.

For the exhibit “Fashion and Feather” So this exhibit is really inspired by nature, and nature is really the ultimate in design and in fashion in so many ways.

And we're also very excited that we were able to partner with Kent State University and its students.

We once lived in a time where feathers were used as fashion, particularly with women and women's hats.

And then there was a Migratory Bird Act that was passed in 1918.

And it was really to protect birds from people.

One of the things that we've been able to do through this exhibit is to showcase those beautiful birds.

I mean, we had amazing designs.

We had 105 students that all participated in this project.

Pretty much they had six weeks to complete this.

In the selection pretty much.

We went through and we said, hey, you've got you've got to make sure that it is runway ready.

It's got to be industry standard and it also has to be complete.

So that was pretty much like the three qualifications to get through the first paneling process.

For this exhibit, our professor gave us the project which was called “Biomimicry” So we literally had to mimic biology.

We were given birds, over 100 birds and two people were allowed to pick the same bird.

So it was a process of hope.

So after we picked our bird, we were kind of tasked with, like, finding an inspiration through it.

Instead of just, like, designing a bird, because we weren't allowed to use, like, feathers or anything.

It had to be, you know, feather like or like a representation of the bird, aside from it being like the bird itself.

I picked the Spangled Cotinga It is from South America.

I normally work with like blacks but I wanted to try something different.

So I picked a bird that was colorful, but I didn't want a bird I've already known.

So I do some research.

I found the Spangled Cotinga and it's this beautiful turquoise bird with this pink like neck.

Oh, so I picked the ostrich.

So I'm.

I'm really into, like, the dream dictionary and, like, looking up.

What, like, things I see in my dreams are about.

And so I looked it up in the dream journal to find out what it kind of represented.

And the ostrich represents, hiding away a piece of yourself.

So I wanted to kind of take that literally with my dress.

My dress was the digestive system of the ostrich.

So it had, like, a big three tier skirt because the has three stomachs.

It was a corset because it's rib cage.

Kind of like wraps around to, like, to cradle their eggs.

And, it was laced up with 30 to 40ft of ribbon.

Their digestive track is about 42 to 75ft long.

Yeah.

My research for the project started off with, obviously finding my bird.

Then I dove into, like, everything about the bird.

Pretty much.

And then, I started my color palette, which was only two colors because it only has two colors.

I decided to go like the literal route of it, of how it looked itself.

I feel like for people who don't really tend to take a big part in conservation, a good way to get them to start is through art and through beauty.

The pieces in the museum are a good starting, starting place for a lot of people to just, you know, kind of pique their interest and encourage them to, to look into some of them.

My specific piece I kind of hope to show that there is beauty in sort of the uncomfortable or in the odd situations or things like that.

I feel like science is just beautiful.

I feel like it's such, it's kind of like art in itself.

Like the inner workings of a body is is so intricate, just like the same way that a lot of our garments are very intricate.

They have a lot of moving pieces.

“Fashion & Feather” is on view at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History through October 11th.

So that's one way the natural world inspires art.

Nature can also inspire healing.

As is the case for a bonsai artist from Columbus who experienced loss but gained a passion.

B onsai is a really great hobby to get into.

It's helped me with patience.

It's helped me Helped me find my artistic eye.

It's really done quite a lot for me.

And anymore, it's not even like a hobby to me.

It's more like a like a lifestyle.

I discovered bonsai through my wife.

I had my my leg amputated, obviously, about 12 years ago.

And, it was more of a rough process than I thought it would be.

And, you know, I kind of got down in the dumps a little bit, and, she wanted to get me something that would kind of keep my mind off of it.

And, she bought me a little, little juniper from, like, Home Depot or, Costco or something like that.

And I just kind of fell in love with it, and it actually got me up because I was I was bedridden, for about a year and a half.

It got me up and wanted me to, to learn about.

I didn't want it to die.

So I started to get on the computer and look how to take care of it.

And from that one little tree.

Now, I got all this.

Bonsai is not a very specific thing.

There's there's very many different characteristics and aspects of it.

This is a black pine.

I probably have 75% of my trees are probably black pines.

They're by far my favorite.

You can just you can do so much with them in a short amount of time.

And like, tricks and tips and stuff of, like, things that I do differently.

Not really, but black p-------ines are prett my favorite tree to work on.

But I mean, I like working on other different stuff.

I wouldn't say there's actually a certain type of trademark that I have.

So for me, it's more about just, you know, showing what you've done, what you can do to a tree, how nice you can make it.

It's not so much about Don't get me wrong.

I mean, I'm a very competitive person, but when it comes to this, to me it doesn't seem like it should be so competitive.

It should be more thought provoking.

Like when you see a tree, it should make you feel something.

And that's kind of where I'm at.

I'd rather do that than than try to win an award or I mean, don't get me wrong, it's fun to win an award, but.

I'm not so much into the competitive aspect of it.

So I never really taught that much.

I guess I do at work a little bit, but when I started my business and I started teaching, I found out that I really, really enjoyed doing it.

It's fun to go over things with people and get them to get the confidence to do it, because with bonsai, it's a lot of it is about confidence.

You know, you buy a tree and then you've got to cut half of it off.

It's kind of daunting to the first time user.

You know, it's hard to do.

But once you start working on trees and putting your hands on them, it makes it so much easier to, to work with people, go to clubs, do workshops it builds your confidence to be able to work on your trees.

Because just starting off, it's it's often pretty hard to work on your own tree, you know, most of the time.

And, and I'll say this kind of easily, but most of the time people are going to kill their first tree.

It's just going to happen.

You learn from your mistakes.

So it's, kind of the process.

I don't know hardly anyone that's been in bonsai for a long time that still has their first tree.

I mean, there might be a few out there, but it's pretty rare.

It's pretty amazing and gets me to travel across the country and meet, you know, wonderful people.

It's, really like minded people.

People that are, artistic and people that, that, you know, enjoy nature.

It's a great hobby to get into.

Like the branches of the bonsai.

Artistic passion leads us in many different directions.

In Dayton, there's a group with a passion for sewing.

Recently, the Dayton Sewing Collaborative got an order for a new bag.

Actually bags.

Hundreds of them.

But they're bags that now hold the history of one of the Gem City's brightest moments.

When I first heard the NATO conference was coming.

To Dayton on the news, like everybody else did.

I said, oh wow, I would love for this one collaborative to be involved in this in some way.

And then in January of 2025, I received an email from Andy Schwartz from the Lyon Group.

Lyon was tied up with production s ewing and they said, “Hey, you might want to talk to the Sewing Collaborative.” The initial meetings, it was kind of chaotic.

We knew what the end goal was, but how we how do we design a bag that everyone would like to have?

On the bags themselves The external fabric, the outer shell is made from firefighter fabric.

The basis that this one collaborative operates under is we try to, nurture the environment.

We are really big on recycling, upcycling, reusing fabric as we were designing the bag.

We wanted to represent, you know, who Dayton is and the history of Dayton.

So adding in the aviation components wasn't anything that the client necessarily asked for.

It was something that we said, “Hey, how about this?” From the day that we received that first email to when we had to have the 660 bags done, was 156 days.

And so, as you can imagine, everything was warp speed.

It took us about 30 days to source everything and get it.

So, you know, at that point we're looking at a little over.

I think it was 70 days to create 660 bags, and we had about 40 people that worked on making the bags and that represents I think it was about 3,300 hours of sewing and cutting and, you know, prepping the material.

So we design the bag, they set up the digital pattern so that they could cut the fabric for us on their large cutting machines.

So I think one of the things that would be surprising about the construction of the bag is the number of steps it takes to construct it, but also just the number of parts and pieces that go into that.

I think all up in the end, there was like 18 pieces for each bag.

Bag to bag, they're exactly the same.

That is a lot of complexity to get there and a lot of skill, obviously from the sewist So it, it really came together really nicely.

And we're really proud.

Dayton is innovative and more collaborative.

So we knew it would be a big partnership with different partners in the community coming together to make this happen.

There really was no other way for us to present Dayton than having actual people in Dayton creating these bags.

You know, people loved you know, how it really told a story of Dayton.

You know, as I mentioned, our innovation, our aviation history, and just the community coming together.

Now, I had known about our history with the Dayton Peace Accords and how meaningful that was.

But it wasn't until I'm sitting in the room with all of these delegates and you're just seeing that this this is so special and it is so meaningful.

So for me, I got emotional then, just like I got emotional now, because when I think about it, talking to some of the leaders who were from from the Bosnia region, they teach Dayton in, in their schools of what happened here.

And I think that will continue because those leaders came back 30 years later to talk peace again.

So I think that that is what meant the most to me and the pride in our community.

And to be able to pull this off.

On the next “Applause,” It's a quest for black excellence.

When a Cleveland artist brings his journey of self-discovery to the stage.

All of this just started pouring out, everything that I wanted to say for years.

I didn't even know that all I needed was the permission.

and you don't need permission to get in a groove with the Labra Brothers, all that and more on the next round of “Applause”.

Okay We're going to keep the music moving while we say goodbye.

I'm Ideastreams Kabir Bhatia.

Thanks for watching “Applause” And don't forget, you can watch past episodes on the PBS app where you can see my beard turn increasingly white.

But we'll all feel younger with this tune from the 2025 Tri-C JazzFest.

This is Cleveland jazz fusion band Abstract Sounds, led by saxophonist Jevaughn Bogard, who arranged this rendition of the Wayne Shorter favorite “Deluge.” This year's Tri-C JazzFest hits the stage inside and outside Playhouse Square, June 25th through the 27th.

Production of “Applause” on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.