- [Announcer] Production of Applause on Idea Stream Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Coming up an exhibition in Akron explores northeast Ohio locations reclaimed by nature.

A couple of artists reunite at their alma mater, the Cleveland Institute of Art.

and Les Délices celebrates fall with Vivaldi's Classic "Autumn."

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Hello and welcome to another round of "Applause," my friends.

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

(upbeat music) After meeting at an artist workshop in Akron, a painter, photographer and writer discovered a mutual interest in the relationship between humankind and the environment.

The trio came together for an exhibition called Ohio Reclaimed and visited 12 sites across northeast Ohio.

Each one served a different purpose in history and is now reclaimed by Mother Nature.

(upbeat music) - I really thought it was gonna be about history in decay.

- It was so obvious the impermanence that man has on some of these places.

Mother Nature really does have the ability to heal herself if we give her the chance.

(upbeat music) - Of course there was loss, but "Ohio Reclaimed" really means not just nature taking it back, but we can take these places back in newer, better, healthier ways.

- I think it's really beautiful to think about reclaimed, not only with nature, but also with like the history of our state.

It's part of the Rust Belt.

It does have this industrial history.

And so thinking about the way nature affects these places once times change and processes differ, and the way that this space that was commercialized previously can be a place of introspection and peace.

(dramatic music) - I just thought it would be the perfect way to really bring something a little bit different into this space.

It's a little bit more immersive with the way you can hear poetry if you want to.

You can see the images from a couple different perspectives from different artists and which I thought was really important in bringing the story of how Ohio is being reclaimed by nature.

(dramatic music) - I've always been a writer.

I've really just been exploring what I can do with writing in conversation with other arts.

I never really saw myself necessarily as a nature writer, but I'm definitely interested in eco literature and eco poetry, which is humanity's relationship with nature.

- I grew up on a farm, and it was a farm that had been in my family since my great grandparents.

So growing up there, I was surrounded by a lot of history and things that made me think of the past.

And I remember being interested in photography from a younger age, and I've at this point been practicing it for 14 years, and it still remains very magical, which is such a joy.

- I struggled pretty heavily with stress, and I came across oil painting, which I had never dabbled in before and tried oil painting and that was probably the first time that I felt like I was really relieved of stress.

My art is primarily landscapes.

I continue to focus on that because of the stress relief that it brings me, but also the stress relief that it brings the viewer.

So having that way to express relaxation and provide that for other people really resonates with me.

(dramatic music) - So we're standing in front of Lock 28, and it's the deepest lock in the canal system, and it was used in the 1800s when they were shipping stone from the quarry out to be used in the mills and as building materials.

The first time we came here, what struck me the most was when it was in operation it was basically an an industrial site.

There were no trees or anything anymore.

And in like historically how, what a short period of time relatively that it's reforested, there are endangered species that are back in the area.

- My photograph of Lock 28 on the day we were here before, there weren't as many leaves on the trees, so I was able to get a pretty strong set of shadows of the trees on the far side of the canal.

Then I go through a process where I incorporate India ink into the negative and paint a border around the image.

So that really ties into the theme of nature, reclaiming the space and kind of embodying nature almost through the ink and the brush strokes.

And then tying the pieces also to what Dee is doing in her paintings.

- It does have a bit of a sunset overtone to it, and I really meant for it to be a little hopeful, a little bit different than what you would actually see if you did come to visit here.

But I did want it to be a little bit more like mother nature taking back over the canal, not necessarily all about the canal, even though it is within the painting.

- So when I wrote the poem about Lock 28, I was almost focusing more on the idea of water, which is something that just naturally goes where it wants to go and forcing that through a manmade channel.

That was the idea that I really clung to when I wrote this piece.

(dramatic music) She was here first Before she birthed our ancestors' ancestors before any language-bearing creature tried to control her by calling her the first of thousands of names, Ocean, River, Rain, Current.

When the earth was spinning a hot slurry of iron, she was here in a rock of ice.

(upbeat music) We made the mistake of trying to bend her to our will.

It's our job to unmake our sins, to free her, restore her, return her to her purpose of creating a world where we can live.

(upbeat music) Hopelessness was what I expected.

And I think with some of the sites there was a little bit of that.

The disappointment in seeing how formerly beautiful places had decayed so much.

But I feel like hope was a more prominent theme that, you know, things always come back.

Nature always comes back.

The world does repair itself when we let it or sometimes when we help it.

- [Kabir] "Ohio Reclaimed: What Once Was," is on view at Akron's Summit Art Space through December 14th, and we'd like to mention that by day photographer Mary Defer also works for Ideas Stream Public Media.

Here's another story about creative collaboration.

Artist Dexter Davis and filmmaker Robert Banks have known each other since attending the Cleveland of Art together.

The two reunited following a tragic attack against Davis that almost took his life.

Idea Stream Public Media's David C. Barnett shares the story of their artistic friendship.

- [David] Dexter Davis likes to make things.

- My father would buy me Tonka toys and stuff like that, but I never really played with the toys that he bought me.

I would make puppets, and I had more pleasure making things.

I was born in 1965.

I grew up in Hough, lived in Hough most of my life, moved around Cleveland, but always stayed in Cleveland.

I grew up in East 89th Street, was like an area where during the time I was growing up the riots came, and also I remember most of the businesses that were there at the time were almost, most of 'em were Black-owned businesses.

So it was like I was a half and half.

There was this part of it that made me feel special to be in an environment that was Black.

Everything was like Black businesses, Black-owned, people like providing for each other.

But then on the flip side of that as politics change and social situation change in society created this whole explosion.

- [David] Throughout his career, Davis has overcome major life challenges by making art: the death of his mother, a destructive apartment fire, a violent mugging, the skin disease, vitiligo, and then in July, 2020, a road rage attack that could have killed him.

- Art was a vehicle.

It was something that I can use to be able to express myself, throw myself in a whole different world.

It was something that I could go to to at least try to find a way out of whatever I was involved with.

- [David] Davis went to West Tech High School where art teacher William Martin Jean inspired him to attend art school after graduation.

He enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art studying with Cleveland Arts Prize winners Kenneth Dingwall and the late H. Carroll Cassill who set Davis on the path as a printmaker.

- Printmaking was able to do anything.

I could do all kinds of things.

I could do drawing, I could do painting, I could do all kinds of mixing, even photography.

You could all mix that into printmaking.

(upbeat music) - [David] To get to the institute, Davis took an RTA bus from Hough to University Circle and was on the RTA where he met a fellow CIA student also from Hough, another aspiring artist with a passion for film, Robert Banks.

- We go back, back way, undergrad, met at the Institute of Art.

We liked art.

We liked comic books.

We liked stuff that was off the mainstream.

And he's a movie guy, and I love movies too.

So we really were talking about all types of movies.

I admired him as a friend.

- [Robert] He was coming from one side of the Hough area.

I was coming from the other side of the Hough area.

We pretty much connected after that.

We were both a couple of quirky, you know, kids back then.

(Robert laughing) Either through making art, talking about comic books, TV shows, music, especially music, and if anything about the neighborhood where our families, our upbringing, the things that we grew up on, the things that really excite us about making art, being creative and everything and all that.

And that was definitely a bonding, and that was something that's been on and off since back when we first met.

- [David] Banks has documented his friends' work on film since the 1980s.

- [Dexter] He's a wonderful friend.

So it was like an ongoing long project that he just document, document, documents and keep it, and you don't know when it's gonna come out, when it's gonna be put together.

But he's just a good record taker.

- [David] Their longtime collaboration and friendship became an exhibition at MOCA Cleveland featuring Davis's art and Banks's film "Color Me Bone Face."

(dramatic music) The retrospective exhibition came together not long after the road rage attack in 2020.

Davis and a friend were driving in University Circle and almost collided with another car.

- The kids got angry, and they were like really mad at us and we, so I told my friend, let's go.

By the time we were leaving, I had a bad feeling about it.

I said, I think that they're so pissed off they might come after us.

Sure enough, I looked through the back, the window there, they were coming behind us, and they shot through the car door and got me.

- [David] After the shooting, Banks reached out to his friend about continuing the collaboration.

- It's been almost, what?

25 years since we started on the project.

So we got back together, we started shooting again.

This was after his tragedy, after him getting shot.

And I was, you know, really upset about that.

I'm still really upset about that, and I'm thinking, well, he definitely needs this.

We gotta really, you know, this anger going on in terms of what's wrong with everything.

Everything from the pandemic, and people getting upset about the social and political strife and all the racism stuff going on, this whole new Trump era stuff.

This is the time to get out there and get mad and get angry, but also just go all the way and not hold anything back.

(dramatic music) - The show is called "The Less Dead."

Dexter has been working in our printmaking studios to produce a series of prints.

He used this as an opportunity to heal through his creative practice.

- You get the plexiglass sheet down, and you put like oil based ink or water based ink on the surface of plexiglass, and then you take a roller and you roll it down and then you take any kind of tool you want to like strip away the ink.

Whatever's left, you can see through what's left, you can see the plexiglass and what you do.

You take that into a printer and you roll over it and then it would, it would produce an image on the paper that you put on top.

- Dexter is a person who has had difficulty in his life but has consistently had an artistic practice that has both shown his resiliency and shown how art has helped him cope with the difficulties that he's had in his life.

(dramatic music) - The exhibit is called "The Less Dead," so the name comes from one of the FBI reports that dealt with these special cases like serial killers, people that are considered John Does and Jane Does.

So I took the word the less dead from that series of reports, which they consider people that are runaways, prostitutes, people that live on the fringes of society.

It relates to me because I understand what it feels like to be in that situation, being somebody that has been hurt many times, and for no reason particularly, and then you have to deal with a system that doesn't really seem to care about you.

You know what, I mean?

I mean, when I got shot everybody looked at me as like it was a norm because I'm African American, and I live in a city.

I mean, after being questioned by the detectives, that was one thing, but then being questioned by your friends and people around you make you feel as though you're being interrogated once again, again.

(dramatic music) It's incredible.

I mean, I was like, out of all the things that happened to me, I'm happy because it give me that once again, give me something to express myself and talk about something that matters to me.

(upbeat music) - That's one of the main reasons why I think I just see so much in him as not just an artist but as a Black man from the inner city that's sort of reached out.

His work just reaches out to everybody.

It's infectious.

- Dexter is an inspiration to me.

Art pervades his life.

Creativity pervades his life, and I think that's made him successful as a person against odds that I think would've crushed many other people.

- But the show is about healing.

I want people to walk away with a big smile on their face.

I want people to be happy.

I want people to rejoice, and I want people to just really enjoy, to be able to have a connection with the art.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Whether it's art exhibits, film festivals, or dance in theater, there's plenty to do and enjoy in Northeast Ohio.

And here's an easy way for you to stay tuned to the Northeast Ohio art scene.

It's our free weekly newsletter called "The To-Do List."

If you're curious, sign up at arts.ideastream.org.

Let's meet an artist who lives her life like an exclamation point.

In fact, she uses not one but two of them in her artist moniker, !Katie B Funk!

Originally from Indiana, she got her MFA at the Columbus College of Art and Design.

- When I was little, my parents, especially my dad would call me Katie B, Katie B.

And then in high school I chopped off all my hair very short and spiked it, you know, kind of spiked it in the back.

And my sister was like, "You look funky."

Pretty much by college, like junior, senior year of college, !Katie B Funk!

sort of merged into what it is now.

(upbeat music) I'm first and foremost an artist.

Creating is what I love to do, and what I always want to do.

And I think what I've always done, but I'm also very much, I think, a storyteller or I, you know, try to tell a good story.

I wanna be able to have the viewer completely understand everything at once, even though that's impossible.

(upbeat music) My process is very broad I would say.

(upbeat music) I can work very small in a sketchbook and kind of write and draw and think, and then I can think I wanna take over an entire wall with X, Y, Z.

(upbeat music) How I treated the work in this installation, I tried to see it as a collage, and you know, what can go where, what makes this fit?

And with collage, anything can go anywhere.

So sometimes that can get overwhelming and sometimes it can just be really, really magical.

(upbeat music) My process, usually it can be anything from, you know, sitting down, really working, dedicating time to a specific work.

Or it can be, I'm making eggs, and I think what if I did a portrait series of me crying, but like an egg is on my face.

It will be that all, it will be that random and all over the place.

(upbeat music) You know, jot that idea down, come back to it later, make a note on my laptop, make a note in my phone.

It's just constant little embers that I'm holding onto.

So it is called "Red, White, Freak/Wash, Ring, Repeat."

(upbeat music) So it started from actually a coworker getting random Amazon mishap deliveries, and one of the items was the metal piece that you attach to your house to hang a flag.

So it started to make me think about flags and the ideas of flags and why do we have them?

Why do we raise them?

Why do we lower them?

What they represent for the countries, et cetera?

So I thought I could really take that rich history and kind of connotations with it and make an entire show of it in different pieces.

(upbeat music) I think I let go of a lot of my pre kind of preexisting go-tos where it would have to look like this.

It has to be like this.

I've really sort of let things kind of ebb and flow a little bit more and just sort of like leaned into that embarrassment because why not?

Like I think that that's something everyone feels, but everyone tries to pretend they don't publicly.

So that sort of public, private, you know, conversation that happens with people.

(upbeat music) So this work is called "Gay Street Broke My Heart."

It is borrowed text explaining the sort of relationship ending between Marina Abramovi and her partner at the time.

They were partners for many years, relational and artistically and decided to end things, and in doing so wanted to do a performance piece where they went to the Great Wall of China.

One started on one end, one started on the other, and they met in the middle and sort of went the opposite direction and never met again.

And I, this sort of metaphor, I sort of borrowed to explain sort of what had happened when I was on this particular street and sort of what I witnessed and kind of bringing that to light.

I would say if it's something that's bugging you over and over again, like I want to paint.

I wanna write.

I wanna sing.

I wanna draw, then you need to do it.

Something is telling you maybe I need to come up with like a reverse imposter syndrome, like the authentic syndrome you know of like you need to do it.

You want to do it.

Even if you just dedicate a few minutes a day or take an hour a week, you know, do it with friends, you know, think you know what kind of things can you get involved in that will lead you closer to what it is you wanna do.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Coming up next time on "Applause," we head to White Rabbit Galleries in downtown Barberton.

Artists there are working, teaching, exhibiting, and making connections with the community.

Plus we journey inside the special collections of the Ohio State University filled with historic art and culture.

And listen for a new take on a classic song from the 1970s.

All that and more on the next round of "Applause."

♪ Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near.

♪ (upbeat music) - [Kabir] If you're a fan of the fall season, you'll enjoy our closing tune.

I'm Idea Stream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia saying thanks for watching this round of "Applause."

Here are Northeast Ohio's early music mavens known as Les Délices performing Antonio Vivaldi's "Autumn."

Enjoy.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.