- [Narrator] Production of Applause on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Coming up, a Geauga County guild keeps the craft of rug hooking alive.

Plus, yoga sparks the imagination of a Columbus artist.

And we look back on that historic event in the sky, the 2024 Solar Eclipse.

Let's get started on another round of Applause, my friends.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

Rug hooking was originally a craft born of necessity, a practical handmade floor covering, woven from pieces of scrap wool.

Over time, rug hooking evolved into an art form with carefully drawn designs, bright colors, and intricate details.

Meet the Western Reserve Rug Hookers Guild, a group dedicated to sharing their passion and preserving the craft for future generations.

(bright music) - I first learned to hook with my grandmother 50 years ago.

I would go to her house and she would have sewn one into this big frame and we would sit on her patio and spend the weekend and hook a rug.

I'd go home with a new rug.

I'm currently the president of the Western Reserve Rug Hooking Group.

We are a chapter of ATHA, the Association of Traditional Hooking Artists.

It's an international organization that we're just a chapter of.

We have around a hundred members.

We meet monthly.

(bright music) We use the word hookers and everybody laughs.

And I remember at work once saying, "I'm a blue ribbon hooker" and I have never seen a couple of my younger associates turn so red.

What it is, is I had won a blue ribbon at the county fair.

- [Kelly] It's one of the art forms that maybe a lot of people are unaware of.

I mean, I've done glass blowing and pottery and jewelry making, but when I found rug hooking and I found wool and the texture, the colors, the creativity from designing the pattern, creating the color palette, once I started doing it, it was like, that was it.

I just knew, I was like, this is the texture I like working with, this is the color, I create all my designs.

Pulling wool, creating something, it is a point where it's just, it is so peaceful.

It is a really incredible craft.

The history is fascinating.

I mean, it goes from really extreme poverty to the start of it, from using everything you had to create something for your home.

- With my grandmother, it was making something outta nothing so she would go to the garage sales, thrift shops, and would find skirts and jackets.

- Using old overlap bags and children's outgrown wool clothing, and tearing strips and creating these rugs.

(bright music) - [Shirley] So you use a backing that used to be burlap that was available.

And this is now, this is linen.

And then we have different hooks.

And this is one of the more modern ergonomic hooks.

I use my grandmother's hook.

And basically you start with your worm or noodle and you start underneath, you reach in and you pull it up.

- [Kelly] And with our, what we call worms, they come in different sizes, they start from a two to a nine.

And if you're a fine hooker, you will be using the twos, threes, and fours.

If you're what they call a more primitive hooker, you're gonna be up in the seven, eighths, and nines.

And that's just really the thickness of the worm or the wool piece that you're pulling through your rug.

(all chuckle) (bright music) - A fine cut, I would use a three and a four.

It just gives you a lot more detailing.

You can squeeze in some of your darker colors for shading, getting your highlights in.

You can achieve detail in larger pieces, but it's just not quite the same as in using the threes and fours.

And this is called the doves and peonies.

And then how you achieve in your leaves, some of the turnover is by using the different values so you can use a light, you know, light, mediums, darks.

And then also, I used what you would call a dip dye in the peonies.

And you can see the gradation from the dark pink to the white.

And so that is how I achieved the depth.

(gentle bright music) - My particular focus has to be in the preparation and development of wool from the sheep.

With this nice clean piece here, we need to prepare this for spinning.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to do something called carting it.

In rug hooking, there are so many styles, and for these guys who have been doing it for a long time, I'm really a beginner, and so I'm just now learning to do fine cut.

And I would highly recommend anybody who is going to become interested in any kinds of craft like this, find a guild.

- [Norita] Join as many groups as you can, get connected with other hookers.

Everybody is willing to share all their techniques with you.

- Why did I get into rug hooking?

Friends.

To me, the most important part of doing all of this stuff is the people.

- [Shirley] This is a very good group of friends.

I think everyone here has made better friends because of it.

I know I have.

- [Dave] The cool thing is there's a place for everybody and everybody appreciates everybody else's work.

To me, that's the reason I do it.

This whole idea of a really soothing, repetitive motion where you have to be focused does bring a certain amount of calm and a certain amount of peace.

- [Kelly] It's because it's a place to go.

You know, it's somewhere where you can just really relax and kind of go into your creative mode.

So I'm really hoping the younger generation finds the value of that.

And maybe out here take a look at what we're doing.

And there's a sentimental value that I think, I believe it's coming back.

People are thinking a little differently about it.

These are gifts that last multi-generations and we really would like to see it continue to grow and not be a lost art.

- And then this is the third one that I'm hooking.

- [Guild Member] I love that.

- I love the stories that they tell and I love to give them away.

It's a gift I can give.

The rug I'm currently working on, which is a wedding present for my niece.

But it just gives me pleasure to do, just play with the colors to say I'm creating something, and it's simple that I love it.

And it reminds me of my grandmother and spending time with her 'cause I would go there and literally we would tell stories and I learned so much from her just sitting with her and hooking and finding out about her.

- [Kabir] This story about rug hooking came to be thanks to a viewer's suggestion.

Have an arts idea to share?

Please send an email to arts@ideastream.org.

And thanks.

(gentle music) On to Columbus, Worthington to be exact, where artistic transplant Yani Sheng is making an impression with her art.

Born in Taiwan, raised in Belize, educated in Canada, she's now a Buckeye and putting down roots.

(ethereal music) - [Yani] I am very inspired by traditional symbolism, especially traditional Asian cultures so I do lean towards Japanese subject matter and its culture.

My great grandparents, my grand grandfather is a fisherman, so around, you know, he's a poor fisherman and he's also of Japanese descent.

And during those time, Taiwan is colonized by Japan and China as well.

So it's such a interesting diverse culture you have there.

But I know every temple I goes to, there's always the symbolism of dragon, lion dog that is on the side of the tenfold.

And I remember, you know, riding on it, like climb on it, which I wasn't supposed to of course.

Those symbolism really sticks with me, like the Foo Dog.

And I have it in my arm.

Let's see this one right here.

This one is a tattoo of Foo Dog.

And I love the symbolism behind it and the subject matter itself that I put it on my body.

I believe the Foo Dog symbolism is about loyalty, you know, and also a support and loving factor.

(enchanting music) And then I love koi.

Somehow, I got my first piece of tattoo is a koi.

And that actually is a great symbolism for me because I remember I got saved by koi when I was a kid.

(laughs) I fell into a pond and I remember holding onto it as much as I can onto the walk board.

And I just remember a crowd of carp just flutter in and push me.

I don't know if it was trying to eat me, but I just remember I'm being pushed up, I almost could stepped on them, they're gigantic.

And I was only probably six years old, so that was, that really stuck to me a lot.

So I see it as my savior, kind of like that, like a little part of my life.

Like, oh, my God, the fish saved me!

And that subject matter has been continuously going into my work.

I think research is really important to get to know the subject you're actually about to paint or sculpt or to create.

For me to try to get loosey-goosey into my artwork, I try to get passionate, you know, I'll research.

It's like, oh my God, if I'm doing this commission, look at this imagery, there's flowers and there's different type of flowers.

And flower in general meant meaning.

And this is about like probably, you know, the imagery that has been created is probably in the 1950s or 1920s where embroidered scarf probably is really important so you have embroidered of flowers into scarfs.

You give it away or have a symbolism for wedding.

So I think a lot of time when I'm starting a project, I dig in, I start finding things that I really enjoy about it and then translate that into how I feel, and eventually the carving comes to life.

(enchanting music) (water splashing) I just went for a walk one day, it's close to the evening and then it just really hits me, it's so beautiful.

And it was the nighttime scenes that I took photo of, and after I did the carving of that piece, I realized I wanna do more.

Columbus is such a nice city, it's not huge, it's not small, so it's kind of perfect.

And I love the different architecture.

For landscape, I draws towards buildings that has a perspective when you look up and that is really a little micro detail that I will carve out.

My process is like when I take an image of a building or a landscape that I like, I do not just go and frame it really well with my phone.

I just took it and put it close to my chest and I just aim it.

To me, it leads the surprises for me to look at so I'm not fixating on the shots and where it looks before I start transferring the images onto my block, before I start carving it.

So that is my first step.

And the second step is definitely a lot of work to transferring the image.

And even there's not much detail, I still have to kind of like make my mind work around that.

Okay, the trees, you know, there's a lot of texture, how am I gonna work that in with carving?

So that is always the problem-solving part that I really enjoy.

(soft music) The Flow Series is about my oil paintings and it is all about the focus of human body and its movements.

So each of our body almost have its own aura or own energy and it translate through muscles, you know, the movement.

I have to go back to being a practitioner of yoga.

That helped me focus on my body and it helped me meditate and helps with my anxiety and that happened to go really hand in hand with my oil painting.

And by doing that, I see the flow in my own form.

So a lot of images are based the movement of my body that has been portrayed onto the canvas.

I do look at some images of anatomy and trying to figure it out myself like, and I look at myself when I do this, how where my muscle lengths at, what would it look like?

You know, where my bicep would look like too?

So create this almost organic flow to it using the brush strokes.

(gentle music) I think a lot of time I'm looking at the feeling I get from the poses.

Like if this is the pose of downward looking dog, what is that energy flow?

It should be like very smooth, you know, like nice and calm, very like you're in the green grass or something.

You're just downward looking dog, stretch that back, our lower back and our upper hip.

So when I think about that, the flow comes in, like I can feel the energies flowing through my body and I kind of see that as the aura thing going on.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir] Taking up an instrument isn't just for kids.

On the next Applause, learn about the healing power of playing classical music in prison.

Plus, a pair of Ohio sculptors show off their dedication to public arts.

And the Cleveland Orchestra tussles with a string selection by Béla Bartók.

All that and more on the next round of Applause.

(dramatic orchestral music) You can watch past episodes of Applause with the PBS app.

(energetic music) Welcome to a cabaret in Cincinnati where they do not leave their troubles outside.

Instead, the trio of playwright performers puts mental health issues in the spotlight with the musical, "She's Crazy: Mental Health and Other Myths."

(upbeat music) ♪ Lexapro, Wellbutrin, lithium capsules ♪ ♪ Tegretol, Seroquel, Risperdal, Paxil ♪ ♪ Remeron, Cymbalta, and Dexedrine ♪ ♪ These are a few of my favorite things ♪ - Very good.

- [Sherry] When we first started writing this show, our main mission was to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health issues because nobody talked about it and we wanted to get people talking.

And even though it was difficult at first, we decided, well, if we want other people to talk about it, we have to be willing to talk about it.

- We really felt things could have moved more progressively and better in our lives had we been able to talk about it, come out and talk to other people about it and not had people go, "I knew she was crazy," you know?

So we thought, "Well, we should come out and tell our stories."

My mom falls into the category of self-medication.

She always said, "I don't have a drinking problem.

I never drink before the cocktail hour."

No matter, it was a large glass filled with pure vodka.

She was feisty.

She rode horses and motorcycles and she was very funny.

And when she drank, her personality grew exponentially.

It was already pretty big, but she could go from light to dark in a really short period of time.

When I look back over my mom's entire lifetime through the lens of my own bipolar, I really believe she was self-medicating her bipolar with alcohol.

Your family might have a history of mental illness, but if you mistake the addiction for the whole story, you might never know.

- That's right 'cause one of the things that can determine whether you are predisposed to developing a mental illness is if you have a family history of it.

Well, insanity runs in my family, it practically gallops.

(audience laughs) Yeah, yeah.

Many, many years ago, my father was first diagnosed with severe depression.

Now, looking back on it with what I know now, I'm positive that his diagnosis should have been bipolar disorder because he had huge mood swing, huge, high highs, very low lows, and he drank a lot, like Kathy's mother to kind of hide those symptoms.

The first time that my dad was hospitalized for depression, my mother reached out to his family to see if any of them had had any problems.

And come to find out that all three of my dad's brothers had been hospitalized for depression and/or anxiety at one time or another.

All three, but nobody knew it because nobody talked about it.

As a matter of fact, my grandmother, the queen of denial, went so far as to say, "Oh, no, we've never had any problems like that in this family."

Ooh, stigma, stigma, right?

Now, my mother was never diagnosed with anything other than codependency, which was my diagnosis for her, but she too came from a family in which no one talked about their problems.

(gentle music) ♪ Don't show the world your true face ♪ ♪ It's dangerous to let them really see ♪ ♪ It's better to be pretty and composed ♪ ♪ Pretty and composed in control ♪ ♪ So what's the legacy ♪ ♪ Am I doomed to pass this on to my family ♪ ♪ Making them feel bitter and alone ♪ ♪ Bitter and alone like me ♪ ♪ Damage done, damage done ♪ ♪ Damage done, damage done ♪ (audience applauding) - [D. Lynn] It is not often that you see a show that is this honest.

In theater, the most important thing you can be is honest.

You have to make me believe that that story's real and that's what they do with this show.

And absolutely, blew me away.

I walked out of there so impressed by the bravery and the honesty.

You know, they're putting their own hearts and souls and their experiences on the line so that others know that they're in this together.

- I, like one in three women on this planet, am a survivor of sexual violence.

Now, survivors of sexual violence very often develop PTSD, but very few ever know that because of how dismissed and unfortunately blamed the victim usually is.

Now, the violence, of course, was of course traumatizing.

But what really altered my life forever was the nine-month long investigation that followed during which I was interrogated, bullied, and blamed at every turn.

Daily for nine months, I got asked by multiple men, "What were you wearing?"

"Were you drinking?"

"Are you sure you weren't flirting with him?"

Or my personal favorite, this is an actual quote.

"A group of guys walked past you while you were walking with him down the street and they all said you looked willing.

Why did they say that if you were truly in distress as you claimed?"

It is a feeling of absolute vulnerability with these stories, but I don't want the audience thinking, "I could never do that" and put up a barrier between us and them.

It's not about bravery or strength or anything, it's about choices, just choosing to believe that no matter how uncomfortable it is, it is so worth the healing that comes after and the conversation that can flow after.

- Well, I hope they take home the idea that our neighbors, our friends, our loved ones are struggling.

We all know somebody who has mental health issues and we shouldn't be afraid to ask them directly and honestly about how they're feeling.

- We hope our audiences take away the fact that here are three people standing up in front of you who don't know you and are telling their stories and it's okay.

We hope that people will take away the fact that there's no need for stigma.

Mental illness should be treated like any other illness.

And if people understand that, they're going to be a lot more compassionate.

♪ And we'll be free ♪ - Come out of the closet about mental health - And any other way you feel like it.

(audience clapping) - [All] Stop the stigma!

(lively music) - [Kabir] If you want more arts and culture coverage in your inbox, you just might like our weekly newsletter, "The To-Do list."

From event suggestions to arts news, the to-do list has you covered.

Find out more and sign up at arts.ideastream.org.

The clock's about to strike again, my friends, and that means we gotta go.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, leaving you with a look to the heavens, which went dark in northeast Ohio during the 2024 solar eclipse.

Check it out.

(bright uplifting music) (bright uplifting music continues) (bright uplifting music continues) (bright uplifting music continues) (crowd cheering) (bright uplifting music continues) (bright uplifting music continues) (bright uplifting music continues) - [Narrator] Production of Applause on Ideatream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.