- [Presenter] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

- [Gabe] In this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus," a St. Pete artist uses a traditional approach to create custom signs.

- I really like pulling from old sign books or just old signs that you find around town.

Whenever I'm traveling, I try to take photos, I have a little collection that I can refer back to.

- [Gabe] Handmade ceramics.

- [Ghada] I like to use different kind of technique for decorating, because my process is mostly about decorating and about illustration, and about texture.

- [Gabe] Clever caricatures.

- [Francis] He did over the span of a lifetime, tens of thousands of caricatures, and he did them in a very modernist style.

- [Gabe] And sculptures for everyone to experience.

- [Nicole] Over the years, I have come to realize that my passion truly lies in interactive public art.

- It's all coming up next on "WEDU Arts Plus."

(upbeat jazz music) Hello, I'm Gabe Ortiz, and this is "WEDU Arts Plus."

Meet sign artist, Jeff Williams.

His hand-painted works can be seen all around the Bay Area.

Follow him from his St. Pete's studio to the field as he plans and completes his creations.

(upbeat trumpet music) - So I've always sort of dabbled in making art and painting.

I painted houses for work for a while and found myself coming home and wanting to get creative, and use the leftover paint to make art.

It was pretty tricky, difficult to sell the art.

So I found signs and it was a more practical means of keeping a paint brush in my hand.

(bluesy rock music) I saw a documentary called "Sign Painters" in 2012, and that really opened my eyes to the world of sign painting, that there is a larger community out there than I thought.

It was viewed as a one stunning trade.

And I think that movie coming out, it really sparked the interest of a lot of people like myself.

Took a lot of practice, a lot of painting alphabets that never saw the light of day.

I mean, and you just kind of have to go through the motions of trying and failing to figure out the right way of going about it.

(bluesy rock music) I really like pulling from old sign books or just old signs that you find around town.

Whenever I'm traveling, I try to take photos and have a little collection that I can refer back to.

(bluesy rock music) Majority of the signs that I make are hand-painted reverse glass, so they're on windows and done in reverse, meaning that they're painted on the inside of the glass.

These could be painted or in gold leaf.

And those are our main specialties.

We also offer A-frame signage, fascia signs, wall signs, vehicle lettering, truck lettering.

We could really paint anything that we can get to sit still long enough.

But our main interest is windows.

(bluesy rock music) We generally would start with the design on paper, whether it'd be hand drawn or printed reference.

From that point, I use a machine called an electro pounce, which is grounded to a metal easel, and it's a perforating machine.

So as I trace over the design with this stylus, it's electrocuting a small hole, which I can then pass charcoal or chalk powder through.

And that's the means of transferring the design onto the surface, whether it'd be a wall or a wooden panel sign.

(quirky mouth organ music) So when I'm not working in the studio on a sign that's could be made here and then delivered to the client, I'm working on site.

I generally show up.

If we're working on glass, there's a lot of cleaning to prepare the surface and then I'll apply the patterns, stick those up.

From there I can start lettering.

I'll generally spend one to three days with the client or in the business.

So it's nice to sort of get to know the people that work there and get a feel for it all.

- I came across Jeff originally on Instagram and that was kind of like, my first introduction to him painted signs.

It's really just an art that can't be replicated digitally.

You're taking just a few simple words or information related to your business and being able to make it really stand out, and make somebody who's just walking by see it.

I think, really, any art that's in the public eye is important, an art that's accessible to the community, I think makes a community a better place overall.

- I get a lot of remarks from passerbys a lot of you spelled that wrong, you missed the spots, but I've come to to grow some thick skin, get used to those comments and those remarks.

Yeah, pack up, head home, call it a day.

(quirky country music) (table fan whirring) It's probably about 50-50 that I'm in the studio as opposed to working on site.

I just sort of pick and choose what I'm gonna take on and and know I can only do so much.

Try to bring some help on if the job is big enough.

But for the most part, it's just me out there little by little, connecting the dots and piecing things together.

(smooth melodic music) I feel really fortunate to work with some of these small businesses and to be my own boss.

Some struggles that go along with that, it can be kind of lonely.

There's not many sign painters in town here.

Fortunately, there's a great sign painting community across the country, across the world.

And social media, the internet has really made it easy for us to keep up with what one another are doing, to stay in touch.

(smooth melodic music) When I started painting signs, I never imagined that I'd be able to support myself full-time doing it.

I didn't realize that there would be such great demand for quality hand painting signs.

But I feel grateful to be able to work every day doing something that I love and to provide for my family doing that.

(smooth melodic music) - See more at sunsignsstpete.com.

Ghada Henagan is a Louisiana-based ceramicist.

From plates to mugs, wall arts to ornaments, she molds clay into a variety of functional and decorative creations.

Visit the artist in her studio to find out more about her creative process.

(enchanting percussive music) - I was born and raised in Lebanon.

It's a small and beautiful country in the Middle East, in a small village called Sidon.

I grew up in a time where the things we needed most often, they were handmade, from bread to clothes to bed sheets, even toys sometimes.

My mother was a seamstress and she was very meticulous.

My father was a builder, but his real passion was making things.

So after he retired, he started making small tables from collected stones and scraps of wood, and they were great.

I was making miniature furniture from used card boxes and I used to sew clothes for my doll.

So my whole world as a child was outdoors play time or indoors crafting time, and it was great.

It was the best.

As a child, I've never been introduced to clay.

I've never seen clay in my life.

And after high school, I went to college and I kept switching majors until I finally graduated with sacred art degree.

During my studies of sacred art, I was introduced to clay for the first time.

I took one course of ceramics, but I never thought I would work with clay again.

So after I graduated, I went to a nine to five regular job.

Later, my sister, she's a nun and an artist.

She asked me to work with her.

She wanted to expand the embroidery studio and add ceramics.

And of course, I said, yes.

I was so excited.

She knew I didn't know much about clay, but she took the chance.

And I became a potter by chance.

The studio was only one room.

There was a big embroidery, noisy machine and we didn't have even a table for me.

So we put two chairs and a piece of wood and I worked there on that thing.

But little bit at a time, we had a kiln, we had a bigger studio.

I had as many tables as I want and it developed a little bit at a time and it became like a big studio.

So I worked there with her for five and a half years.

And I was making religious items, but never functional parts.

My only resource was books and experimentation.

And this is how I learned.

Just reading books, experimenting and just getting better at it a little bit at a time.

After I came to United States, I was like so surprised and fascinated by the ceramics world and how they teach it in college.

I've been here since 2006 and I established my own studio in the dining room, like, you see behind me.

Since the end of 2007, and I've been working with clay ever since.

I had to start all over again making functional pottery.

I started taking ceramics online classes and I attended the visiting artist workshop at LSU in the ceramics studio.

So those two things were really helpful in establishing my career as a potter, plus tremendous support of my husband.

I didn't have a wheel, so I started by hand building.

Later on, my husband and brothers, they got me a wheel for Christmas and I put it on the kitchen counter when I need to work on the wheel.

But since I didn't have space for the wheel all the time to just keep it there and work whenever I want to, I started to just hand build more stuff.

And then I got used to it.

And now I like it more, because the pace of hand building is so slow, meditative, I can control it better.

My focus is mainly on functional pots.

So I make mugs.

(enchanting Arabic music) Bowls, (enchanting Arabic music) jars, (enchanting Arabic music) plates, (enchanting Arabic music) but I also make some decorative things like vases, (enchanting Arabic music) wall art and ornaments.

(enchanting Arabic music) Most of my illustration are inspired by my childhood memories and stories from my childhood, like, some of the animals that I draw.

I had, like, a personal connection with these things from back then, back in Lebanon.

I also draw my inspiration from nature's forms and textures and from what I see around me, and of course, from living in Louisiana.

For example, when I first started going to markets, people would ask me do you have any Louisiana design?

I would say, no, I didn't feel it yet.

I was still adjusting, and when I don't feel something, I can't make it.

So it took me eight years to live here to feel like it's really home.

And suddenly out of nowhere, I found myself just drawing the pelicans and the bee.

And even the pelican and the bees, they have connection to Lebanon too.

And I like this applique technique, that you can, like, cut something.

And it's also called sprigs in clay terms, that you make something out of a shallow mold and then you apply it to the piece, when it's still not too dry.

And I like to use different kind of technique for decorating, because my process is mostly about decorating and about illustration, and about texture.

After few years of using different glazes, I finally settled on those translucent, bright-colored glazes, because they show the texture and all the drawings that I put underneath, so I can, at the same time draw, put texture, highlight the texture, and use those translucent glazes to show everything that I drew or all the texture I put on my pots.

And I like that.

The ceramic process for me doesn't get easy.

It's a long process from making, decorating, drying, firing, then glazing, then firing again.

Plus working with clay has a lot of possibilities.

So I'm always learning and making something new.

However, I'm more experienced now.

So I learned how to manage my time.

I learned how to manage my creative blocks.

I also learned how to solve problems.

I go back home to Lebanon every other year and I usually stay for six weeks.

I like to give something I made, especially because I work here and everybody lives there, and they don't get to see or use my work.

I learned how to pack efficiently.

I only use cardboards and I put them between clothes, and I fill my backpack as much as I could handle.

And my hope is that the people who have a connection to my work, my piece of work will brighten their day a little bit more.

(bright piano music) - For more of her art, head to ghadahenaganceramics.com and facebook.com/ghceramics.

The installation "Cuban Caricature and Culture: The Art of Massaguer," features the modernist works of caricaturist and publisher, Conrado Walter Massaguer.

Travel to Miami to see the exhibition and learn more about the artist's lasting impact on visual culture.

(merry piano music) - My name is Francis Luca and I'm the chief librarian here at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University.

I'm the curator of this installation that's looking at Conrado Walter Massaguer, a Cuban publisher, art director, illustrator, and caricaturist.

(cheerful salsa music) He was born in Cuba in 1889.

He actually left and fled with his family when the Spaniards invaded during one of the independence wars.

And so he grew up kind of biculturally and then multiculturally.

And so I think for that reason, he was influenced not only by the artwork in Cuba, but what was happening in the modernist movement all around the world.

He actually introduced the modernist aesthetic to Cuba with a lot of art deco design covers for his magazines.

"Social" was one of his most important magazines.

And that one aimed at an elite audience.

So this was designed to get the who's who of Cuba interested in modernism.

(cheerful salsa music) He had an entire section in "Social" magazine called Massa-girls, which is a play on his name, sounds like Massaguer, Massa-girl.

And what he was doing with that was showcasing this new woman that had suddenly appeared first on the American scene and then he helped import into Cuba.

He loved beautiful young women.

He was a little bit of a machista in that way, but he wasn't so thrilled about there being so outspoken and liberated.

That, I think, was a little bit threatening to him as well.

So you sort of see that little bit of ambivalence in these kinds of portraits.

(bright marimba music) He was also very famous for his caricatures.

In fact, that's how he's mostly known today.

And he did over the span of a lifetime, tens of thousands of caricatures, and he did them in a very modernist style.

He said the best caricatures are done on the sly with a furtive hand, where you're just sketching them and they don't even know that you're sketching them.

Some of his caricatures got him in a little bit of trouble.

He was not shy of expressing his disdain for certain Cuban presidents.

You look at Machado sitting in the chair, not so handsome.

And then you look at the portrait that's being done, and it's, oh, he's young and handsome.

It's a completely different individual.

Massaguer spent a lot of time working for the tourism industry in Cuba, which began in 1919.

Since this exhibit focuses exclusively on the work of Conrado Massaguer, I wanted to sort of show him in the context of some of the other contemporary caricatures from Latin America, and so it's called Caricaturas.

(salsa guitar music) Once Castro's revolutionary seized power, Massaguer continued to live in Cuba, though in relative obscurity until his death in 1965.

Here is someone who was the cultural ambassador for all of these visitors, especially from the United States.

And all of a sudden there are no visitors from the United States after 1959.

He ends up working in the the Cuban National Archives, just spending out his remaining days there.

To me, the most important thing about this exhibition is the fact that we can showcase this artist who was well-known, well-renowned in his period, but has sort of been eclipsed, because of more than 50 years of strange relations between Cuba and the United States.

And his artwork is reflective of this earlier period, this period of warm relations and cordial relations.

(bright piano music) - Head to wolfsonian.org to find out more.

Multimedia artist, Nicole Ashton, creates unique public art in Reno, Nevada.

With her large scale sculptures, she encourages interaction and participation.

(gentle piano music) - I'm certainly am an artist who works in all mediums, (gentle piano music) but over the years, I have come to realize that my passion truly lies in interactive public art.

(gentle piano music) It can reach the masses, it is there and lives on, will outlive me and will still be making an impact.

Interactive public art is something as small as a little painting on a wall, something that grabs your attention, draws you into it, or something as large as a monument.

Something that you can go touch, feel, get inside of, be a part of it, move things around and anything that makes you feel like you are a piece of the art.

(gentle piano music) Public art doesn't work without people.

Curiosity kind of opens up to their own dreams, gets the mind going, and hopefully sparks something creative in all the people that go to see it.

(gentle piano music) All of my sculptures, they always start with a dream and it's more like they're a machine instead of art.

If I don't take the time to sketch it out, write things down when I wake up, I'll have the same dream the next night that gets repetition.

So I finally just gave in.

I was like, all right, I'm gonna follow this.

I'm gonna do this every morning.

And that's how Transcendent Souls came about.

That was my first solo piece that I worked on, that was that large of a scale.

It was a crash course in structural engineering.

How to figure out taking a model that's this big to something that's 28 feet tall, and thinking about all of the structural engineering needs and wind load.

Transcendent Souls really is about the progression of our own souls, going through the steps and acknowledging our faults, our strengths, and doing everything in a manner of grace.

As long as you believe in what you're doing and just keep going, do it step by step, that's processes work for me.

(ambient piano music) As you wish with the project after Transcendent Souls, and it is all about going in with the intention, knowing what your heart's desire is, what your wish is.

In that, I was kind of pulling for myself all my doubts.

The fear of not having funds to buy the materials and how it's gonna work.

But when you're in that process and you've gone that far, you'll do anything you can to make it happen.

(ambient synth music) Dream Caster is an opportunity to look into all of the what ifs.

(ambient synth music) So it's really important when you're doing a large scale piece to do a maquette, so you can get a better idea of what your build process is going to be.

I've become the person that thinks about things like shipping and building.

So how do you make it fit into a box?

Where are you gonna separate it?

How's it gonna get loaded?

That part of the process is really a good place to start.

(ambient synth music) The pieces all going to be all reclaimed with the exception of structural steel.

Inside the framework of those hexagons of the dome will be individual dream casters.

They're meant to all be different.

The top of the dome will have another crystal and this time we're gonna go dig it out or sell.

(ambient synth music) Anybody can do this.

It's all about just having the drive and the will to do it.

And I hope that that's what everybody who experiences it walks away with.

(ambient synth music) Public art for me, it's meant to inspire, it's meant to excite.

It can even be meant to get you angry, meant to push you to make a change.

Hopefully, it just gets their wheels turning and they go off and they do amazing things.

(bright piano music) - To learn more about public art in Reno, Nevada, head to reno.gov and search public art.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus."

For more arts and culture, visit wedu.org/artsplus.

Until next time, I'm Gabe Ortiz.

Thanks for watching.

(intense drums music) (dramatic orchestral music) - [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

(bright symphonic music)