- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS.

Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(cheerful music) - In this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus," how color brightens the world of black and white photography.

- [Speaker] Color radically changes black and white photographs.

And their use of added color really enhances them and transforms them in ways that I didn't think was possible.

- [Host] A mural that tells the story.

- [Speaker] We have the power to recreate, you know, like a new Greenwood.

(soft piano music) We just need to believe in it, and just go for it.

- [Dalia] Native American art.

- [Speaker] Exhibitions like this are meant to move people outside of that idea that all Native peoples are the same homogeneous.

They were not, at any time, and they're certainly not today.

- [Host] And accessible studio spaces.

- [Speaker] We feel now more than ever, there's a strong need for artists and creatives to have places to be able to create in outside of their homes.

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

(upbeat piano music) (upbeat piano music fades) Hello, I'm Dalia Colon, and this is "WEDU Arts Plus".

The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg dives into the history and innovation that brought color to black and white photographs.

Learn the fascinating journey and artistry of color images in "True to the Tint: The Quest for Color Photography".

(upbeat string music) - The exhibition really looks at the first 100 years of photography.

The hand tinting in the 1840s, all the way up to the first real color process of the very early 20th century that lasted until about 1930.

- The earliest photographs included are Daguerreotypes.

That's the earliest type of photography that became commercially available.

It's really the first type of photography there is.

The title of this exhibition is, "True to the Tint: The Quest for Color Photography".

And "True to the Tint" means as lifelike as possible.

And that, of course, really inspired the title, but informs a lot of the exhibition.

(upbeat string music) One of the things we've done is we've divided up, by process, so there's a short explanation, with no chemistry involved... (Stanton laughs) Next to each one of the different examples of photography.

One of the reasons we didn't have any chemistry involved is, it's very complicated.

And we realized that when we were drafting labels, the very first thing we explained was Daguerreotypes.

It's a very dangerous, very complicated process.

And after three paragraphs of that, I realized nobody wanted to read that on the wall.

(lighthearted string music) They're very nicely identified, and you can tell one process from the other that way.

You will also, I think, be able to very clearly see in the exhibition itself.

For instance, one of the processes is called an Opalotype.

An Opalotype takes its name from "opal", because these photographs are printed on opalescent glass.

It had a slightly iridescent quality.

Or sometimes milk glass.

But Opalotypes you can immediately tell, because they have this kind of translucent, milky white background.

And that's very different of course, than say, a hand-tinted platinum photograph.

'Cause a platinum print photograph has these really beautiful, kind of sooty, rich shadows.

It's to me, one of the classic forms of photography, but then it's been tinted.

So, yes, I think you'll very clearly be able to tell one process from another when you go through the exhibition.

(lighthearted string music) - The concept for this exhibition came from a desire to really delve into our photography collection, which numbers to probably close to 10,000 pieces.

And then we decided... Let's look into the color aspect of photography.

And from there, we paired it down to about 170 objects that you see in the exhibition.

(dramatic string music) To pare down the pieces, we decided to look at the subject matter.

We really wanted to diversify both the subject matter through the sitters, through the geographic locations.

So what you see is really a nice mix of different types of people from different walks of life, photography from really all over the world, and even locally here in St. Petersburg, Florida.

- I think that color photography, before color photography is really cool.

And I just think it's really nice how they started out with the portraits of people.

You know, it's such a great way to kind of feel the humanity of the past firsthand, and I think it's a really good hook into the exhibition.

- Another one of the aspects of this exhibition that I really loved was looking at the photographs themselves as historical documents.

One of my very favorite works is a beach scene that is done with the potato grain process that was invented in France.

And it's a little bit grainy, but it shows this group of people, just everyday people, on the beach, around 1900.

And to me, it was so modern!

And this is this incredible glimpse back into that time.

To me, it's like opening a window, and looking back into the past.

- This is a very relatable exhibition.

A lot of the photography is personal photography.

It's people photographing just like we would.

There's that look at how people were living in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

It's called vernacular photography.

It's photography by everyday people.

Then you do have some of the larger name, more artistic type pieces.

So I think when people come in, they're gonna find at least one image that they are going to be able to relate to, and that'll probably get them excited.

(dramatic string music) Another interesting aspect of this exhibition is the realization that in the 19th century, they were using photography for entertainment.

So, one of the interactive that we have is a stereograph.

So it's a double image on a card, where you put it into a viewer, and your eyes adjust to, make it into a 3D image.

It's very similar to us sitting around at our house, looking on our phone, and flipping through images.

They were doing the same thing in the 19th century with these cards.

- I'm a camp counselor, and the kids, they really have a lot of great perspectives on the artwork.

You know, they walk in, and of course, they immediately go to the stereograph, 'cause it's like the interactive element where they can look at the thing and look at the photos.

And I feel like with kids, you kind of need to emphasize that these were like real people that lived before us, or this was a real horse a hundred years ago.

And I think when they get that, it really kind of blows their mind.

- I think that people, when they think about color photography, just assume that, poof!

It arrived sometime in the mid 20th century.

But almost from the moment photography was invented, people were trying to tint them.

- Nowadays, we've kind of reverted back to the 19th century, where we're taking the images that we use on our phone, we have different apps that we can change the look of that photograph.

We can make ourselves look different, more lively.

It's exactly what they were doing in the 19th century.

But with technology now, with the higher technology, I guess you could say.

- One of the things that I hope that visitors will gain from this exhibition is a greater appreciation for the color process.

I also hope they get a better understanding of how color radically changes black and white photographs, and their use of added color really enhances them and transforms them in ways that I didn't think was possible.

And then the other thing I hope people gain from this is a better understanding of the Museum of Fine Arts Collection, which is extraordinary.

And this gives you a little better sense of the incredible depth and the breadth of that collection.

(dramatic string music) (soft music) - "True to the Tint: The Quest for Color Photography", is on view through September 22nd.

To learn more, visit mfastpete.org.

With wood as her medium of choice, Oklahoma based artist, Ebony Iman Dallas, created the mural "Greenwood Imagine".

Based off a poem by Anthony Curtis Brinkley, the artwork imagines a world in which the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre never happened.

(dramatic string music) - My biological father came from Somaliland, and literally like when the civil war broke out, bombs are being dropped on your house by the government.

So, it reminded me of what happened in Greenwood.

One minute everything is fine, and then the next moment, it's all gone.

My name's Ebony Iman Dallas, and I'm an artist.

I love to tell stories through my work.

(lid clattering) I would definitely say a lot of my choices are influenced by my background.

(steady drum music) In 2008, I went to visit my family in Somaliland.

We were getting henna done, and my art just kind of lent itself to that.

(steady drum music) My art since then has definitely become a lot more free.

(steady drum music) Close to a year and a half ago, Tony Brinkley got in touch with me, because he had this idea called "Greenwood Imagine".

Tony, he's a poet, amazing, phenomenal, award-winning poet.

And his grandson, Derek Tinsley, is a filmmaker.

And so they were looking for a painter to create a series of murals that would go along with the poem.

And so I proposed to him that I create the murals solely out of wood.

This is where you have to make sure not to cut your hand off.

(Ebony laughs) (machine whirring) (mellow music) So the very first scene is like the past, so it's like, let's show what Greenwood was like before destruction.

(mellow music) So it's this beautiful scene of the little girl with her father, walking through town with an ice cream cone.

(mellow music) The second scene was pretty much created after reading through a series of interviews, but this one specifically talked about, you know, it was a survivor.

I believe she was about five years old when the massacre occurred.

And she talked about these reoccurring dreams that she would have.

And to me, it sounded like PTSD.

(flames sizzling) Like she talked about the smoke, and she talked about the smells, and she talked about the fire.

And it was just so vivid, her description.

Like, I immediately was able to create a sketch for it.

(guns firing) (plane whirring) I guess in some ways I may have went that direction because my father was murdered by police officers.

And so, that idea of this father-daughter relationship and loss like resonated with me.

And then reading these stories about people who lost parents in Greenwood definitely resonated.

(melancholic piano music) The third scene is, let's imagine what it could've been like.

Like, what would it be like if, you know, had the massacre never occurred.

(soft piano music) There'll be some puzzle pieces missing, and so then we'll have someone from the audience come up and place it into the piece.

(soft music) - Let's imagine a what if.

What if the massacre never happened?

What if Tulsa residents had enjoyed free reign to flourish into the future, and Greenwood never lost that "Yes, we can" mindset?

Can you imagine this?

- But basically, it's like, we have the power to recreate, you know, like a new Greenwood.

(dramatic piano music) We just need to believe in it, and just go for it.

(hopeful piano music) (soft piano music) - For more information, visit ebonyimandallas.com.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City features the exhibit, "Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection".

It showcases a wide range of Native American works, from over 50 North American cultures.

- The most important thing, I think, about this exhibition, other than the celebration of Native American art, and the artists that created these works, is the fact that it is being shown.

These works are being shown in the American Wing, which is the first time in the history of this museum since the wing opened in 1924.

So it's momentous movement in terms of recognizing Native American artists foundational to our cultural heritage.

Exhibitions like this are meant to move people outside of that idea that all Native peoples are the same homogeneous.

They were not, at any time, and they're certainly not today.

It's not chronological, and we did decide to lay it out by geographic regions.

The problem with that is that these culture areas did not have firm boundaries.

We endeavored in the gallery design to keep things open and permeable and visible, so that almost anywhere you stand within these galleries, you're perhaps in a culturally related area, but you're looking into other areas as well, suggesting a greater universality.

Most of these objects were created within the backdrop of colonization, which makes the achievement even greater.

I find the Pawnee war club to be one of the most astonishing objects in the Diker collection.

First of all, just as sculptural work, its sublime, in terms of its proportion, the elegance of the shape.

It is a functional weapon, it was carried to war, but it was also an important piece of artistic expression.

For the owner, this club was invested with a great deal of spiritual power.

The designs on one side consist of some zigzag lines at the top, then a circle with a single sharp zigzag line, emanating from that, the full length of the club.

These are generally known to be symbols of power.

It's possible that the circle and the single line may represent thunder, and one strike of lightning.

On the other side is, I think the most amazing design I've ever seen on a Native American war club.

It's covered with stars like the night sky, including the constellation Pleiades.

We believe the club comes from the Pawnee, because stars were so important in Pawnee religion.

Well, Yup<ik masks as a group of objects are some of the most amazing images that one can imagine.

This particular mask, and I would say most Yup<ik masks, represent the prey animals that the Yup<ik people depended upon for their survival.

These masks were worn in annual ceremonies.

In the dances, they were intended to thank the animals that had given themselves in the previous year, and ensure that there would be a continuous flow of new life.

It's often said that these masks represent something called "yua".

Which is probably easiest translated as the "ongoing soul".

When you see an image of a fish or a seal or a bird, it doesn't represent specific creatures.

It represents all of those of that genus that have ever lived or will live in the future.

So the mask is timeless in that respect, and it places the Yup<ik people in a timeless relation with all of the animals with whom they share their world.

Standing Bear was a participant in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

He was 16 years old at the time.

That was in 1876.

In the 1880s, Standing Bear went to Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

He met an Austrian woman, they fell in love, he married her, brought her back to Pine Ridge Reservation, and Standing Bear began to develop his art.

He basically tried to bring together, in this painting, six different episodes that he remembered.

Now, they didn't all happen at the same time, but within the tradition of warrior art, Standing Bear represented them all as though they were occurring at the same time.

There were horses that are being run off, separated, leaving the soldiers on foot.

There is a depiction of a group of soldiers that ran down from the hill and were killed in a ravine.

Another group of soldiers tried to break away on horseback, riding back to the south.

They were overtaken and killed.

And then there's the final battle on the hill, including a depiction of Custer himself.

They all are great kind of sweeping battle narratives, like one would expect to see in the great battle paintings and tapestries in Europe, which he undoubtedly saw.

(soft music) Carrie Bethel was a master basket maker.

She was prominent in the 1920s and 30s in California.

This particular piece was her first attempt to create a basket of that scale.

It took her three years.

Maybe the best way to think about the achievement in that basket is to think about it first in relation to the materials, which required an enormous body of expert knowledge in terms of knowing which plants together, how to prepare them, before the basket was ever begun.

A basket of that kind is created using a coil technique, which begins in the center of the bottom, and then started upward and outward to form the sides of the object.

And then at a certain point, the midpoint began to curve inward to reach its final form.

There was no revision possible.

She simply wove it from the bottom up.

And when you see the perfection in that form, and the relationship of that two dimensional design, to the volumetric shape of the object, and ultimately the kind of tension that that form holds, the achievement is visible and amazing.

(mellow music) The objective in presenting these objects in the way that we've done is to respect them as works of art, as sophisticated and beautiful creations.

(mellow music) (soft music) - Discover more at metmuseum.org.

Zero Empty Spaces is a management company that transforms vacant spaces into affordable studios for artists to work and grow.

Meet the founders, and hear how this project developed in South Florida.

(lively music) - [Evan] We feel now more than ever, there's a strong need for artists and creatives to have places to be able to create in outside of their homes.

Time and time again, artists are telling us that they're fighting over the dinner table space where they make their artwork on, and that impetus has really created the growth and demand for Zero Empty Spaces.

(mellow music) Evan Snow.

Co-founder and managing partner of Zero Empty Spaces.

- Andrew Martineau, co-founder of Zero Empty Spaces.

(lively music) - The initiative came through some of our other arts advocacy initiatives, where we had formed so many relationships with artists over the years, that they were continually asking us, "Where are the studios at?

Let alone affordable."

We found this was a great vacancy management solution to activate vacant space, to make affordable art studios.

(upbeat music) - Once we decided that we wanted to look and pursue, trying to get, you know, chronically vacant spaces initially, we did a little bit of research on where are the other affordable artist studios in South Florida, and all of them were non-profits.

So, a very limited number of people could actually be part of it, to be able to pay that low rent.

So, we kind of took that number, and tried to create a program and a model that could still afford the artist to be able to pay $2 a square foot, with us paying all the utilities.

We do a month to month deal with both the artist and the landlord, so it's fully transparent.

Because we take big spaces, and we break them up into much smaller spaces, the artist doesn't have to take over a 3000 square foot space, they can take a hundred square feet, 200 square feet, 300 square feet.

So the amount of money that they pay is a lot smaller.

(dramatic piano music) - I am ecstatically happy to be here, because I was occupying two bedrooms and a den, and a garage at home.

(Barbara laughs) I'm Barbara Ziev, and I do many, many different mediums.

(dramatic piano music) But this has many meanings behind it.

It started out that a white square actually is another sign for peace.

As I got into it, the baby comes out.

I found this baby.

(Barbara laughs) It's like, these things were just popping in front of me.

And I thought, you know, that's really about classification.

So, it is about peace, but I ended up naming it "Classification", because I think we're all born into a classification.

Because people look at us and judge us.

(dramatic music) Really, to be honest with you, I have a hard time calling myself an artist.

I call myself creative.

But lately, I'm starting to say, "Okay, I guess it's okay to call myself an artist."

(dramatic music) - Another inspiration for the concept was obviously the early days of Wynwood, and artists going into Wynwood, and going into these, you know, vacant warehouses at the time, which weren't incredibly expensive to rent.

So, the idea is that artists really kind of create that activity in areas and places that maybe not didn't have that much activity, and they create a lot of positivity in these areas as well.

And that certainly attracts investment, and certainly attracts other people wanting to come into this area, to really kind of be part of that creative energy.

Having a space that is activated, it really kind of helps the walkability from space to space, so you don't have to like pass by a dark storefront before you get into the next location.

So it really kind of creates additional activity for the tenants in the area.

(lighthearted music) - So one of the greatest things about the program that we found as arts advocates, some of the artists have only ever created in the privacy of their home, and never sold and never published on social media or any of those things for many, many years.

And now that they're in a space where they're getting to see other creatives, it's been really beneficial for artist's careers in many various levels.

- I'm very comfortable with, if there's something I don't know how to do, I'm sure I can find somebody here that can say, "Here, this is how you do it."

And I'm excited about that.

(lighthearted music) - [Evan] The spaces are open daily between the hours of 12 and 5:00 PM to the public.

- It's a really free and open kind of opportunity for people to come through, and just really take a tour, and see the kind of work that's kinda coming outta the space.

(lighthearted music) - And it's been a very organic, you know, authentic, grassroots-driven process that thankfully the community's really responding well to.

(lighthearted music) (soft music) - Visit zeroemptyspaces.com to find out more.

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

To view more, visit wedu.org/artsplus, or follow us on social.

I'm Dalia Colon, thanks for watching.

(intense drum music) (intense drum music continues) (lighthearted string music)