- Step inside the Flock Art mobile art gallery.

Chat with local filmmaker Joe Ghetto and catch a performance from Ed Schwarzschild.

It's all ahead on this episode of aha: A House for Arts.

- [Announcer] Funding for aha has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts and we invite you to do the same.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Jade Warrick and this is aha: A House for Art, a place for all things creative.

Let's send it right over to Matt Rogowicz with today's studio visit.

- I'm sitting here at the Woodland Hill Montessori School in Rensselaer, New York to get a look at the Flock Art Mobile Art Gallery.

Let's go.

(upbeat music) Flock Art is an artist residency program that is out of a shipping container and we bring it into communities.

This is our flagship container.

It's our flagship gallery.

We've brought it here to host multiple artists to have parallel curriculum and have this kind of teaching opportunity about creativity, art and process.

- About two and a half years ago I was approached by Susan Thomas, who was also the founder of Flock Art, and she had an idea that she wanted to share with me and this was during the pandemic so I have clear memories of sitting outside of the school with Susan.

- I had this idea of getting a shipping container, having this external gallery where I can rotate artists through all different kinds of artists.

I have been obsessed with shipping containers.

I wanted to build my house out of shipping containers and my husband said no.

When I came up with this idea he's like, I don't know, I don't know, that doesn't seem like it's gonna work.

And then I called him up and I said, so I bought a shipping container cuz I just had always wanted to.

Fix it up.

I put drywall, put some electrical, got the pin lights in to be able to highlight pieces of art.

I knew that the school was gonna let me do it and I knew it was gonna be awesome.

- Even though I didn't have all the details and even though I didn't know exactly how this would all play out, I knew that the vision was solid.

I knew it was inspirational and I knew it would bring great things to the Woodland Hill community, so I was on board.

- Today we're hosting Victoria Vanderlynn and it is her opening of her show.

We like to have these big parties where the community can gather, celebrate the art, celebrate the artists and celebrate themselves like as this like really vibrating community.

- Volumes is a whole new body of work.

Somewhat different from any of the work I've made before, still in the quilt form, but all of the pieces are shaped in an interesting way.

So I'm sort of breaking out of the rectangle square shape of quilt.

- I try for each year to pick artists that are very different from each other cuz I like to kind of like ping pong around the art world.

And so we haven't had a fabrics artist yet.

It's a completely different kind of world of education that you can have behind the history of quilting and quilt making in America.

When you agree to be a flock artist you have to do a community activity and we also give people the opportunity to teach.

Victoria actually taught the beginning of the year she taught like stitching and sewing just to introduce her technical skill and what it takes to make this kind of art.

- The idea of professional artist, that's somewhat abstract to children at this age, they know that an art teacher makes their living doing art and they know that musicians do, but there's a lot of mystery behind how other artists work.

- It's just so interesting to see sort of that glimmer of an artist in kids, actually kids are such a natural artist, so to give them access to textile art, which is not often something that is present in elementary and middle schools was really great.

- Well what's exciting about Flock Art is I met Elizabeth Dubin from Collar Works.

She came to one of the shows and she said I love this and I want it to be a part of ColorWorks.

Now that I'm part of ColorWorks, I feel like I'm part of a bigger family that really is helping the vision come true.

The goal is to have a flock and to give artists more opportunities to teach, more opportunities to have solo shows all around the capital region.

- This space outside, little did we know that this would turn into the heart of our community during those years of isolation.

Here outside on our grounds we had a safe place for us to gather.

We had something positive to experience together as a community and to really come together and celebrate.

And at the time when Susan envisioned this project, she couldn't have known how important it would be, but it's really turned into something quite magical.

- Joe Ghetto is a passionate filmmaker from Albany, New York.

He's currently developing an eight part miniseries involving Juliet Landow of Buffy the Vampire fame.

So what's this project about and what else is Joe working on?

I sat down with him to find out.

Hey Joe, welcome to House for Arts today.

- Thank you so much Jade.

Thank you for having me.

- Of course, excited to talk to you about all your creative endeavors and who you are as an artist and all the projects that you're working on.

So to begin I would love to know how do you brand yourself as a creative?

Like who is Joe the creative?

- First and foremost I think I'm a writer.

I'm a director, a producer on the side.

I just produced a movie called The Monkey, a Stephen King production, as well as a documentary called Mariah Acts of Resistance that just began it's festival run.

I do a little bit of acting on the side.

I'm kind of getting into that a little bit more because I have fun when I do it, but it's a rare occasion when I actually go full force with that.

And in another life I was an MC.

- That's amazing.

Little rap on the side, hip hop.

- A little bit on the side, kind of kind of keep it under the surface for now but you know, we'll see what happens.

(laughing) - So what about your creative origin story?

So a lot of creatives tend to have like this beginning like where they feel like, hey this is for me.

So what's your creative origin story?

How'd you get to where you are today?

- Yeah, I think as a kid I always had an interest in the arts.

I was constantly drawing or journaling, things like that.

The one thing I know I wanted to do from the beginning is I wanted to be an imagineer for Disney.

And so I designed all these roller coasters and rides and stuff like that.

And I still think Disney might have stole my idea for Expedition Everest when I was seven years old.

Not gonna lie, I had the exact same ride and then next year, there it is.

And yeah, but then as I grew into myself that sort of fell away for a while and I had a really deep interest in music and films.

Looking back in retrospect, I think those were always like a big part of my life, but it wasn't something that had occurred to me that like I could do that.

And then in my mid or sort of early twenties I started taking music very seriously after some kind of personal turmoil, led me down that path of like I think I need to do this because this is what makes me feel fulfilled.

And I took it very seriously and music was very good for my kind of obsessive brain, the way that I'm able to put patterns together and lyrics and things like that, so I really enjoyed that.

I think I had all these things that I wanted to say, but I didn't know exactly how to do it.

So there was this pent up energy in this pressure of like not to kind of put it this way, but it's sort of where my mind was at, was that I thought that if I didn't, I was worried that I wasn't gonna be able to articulate it before I passed away or something like that.

And maybe that was because of the things that I had been through in my life.

So there was all this extra pressure that is not good for the creative process.

- Yeah, the legacy pressure.

- Yeah exactly.

And there was this like kind of thing in the background that had started to take shape of like maybe I wanna make films.

And I started writing scripts while I was at work at my job Project SafePoint.

And there was a lot of downtime where I so basically anytime I wasn't talking to a client I was on my laptop typing scripts.

And then that just kind of, there was a bit of like a sunk cost fallacy thing that I was dealing with where it was like, should I let go of this music thing cuz I'd put all this time and energy into it to pursue what was clearly staring me in the face as like this is my true passion, this is where I and it's funny now that I've made a few films when I go back and write music that pressure's kind of alleviated.

- That's good.

- And I feel like I'm able to get closer to what I actually wanted to say.

When I was younger I felt like I needed to say everything all at once.

And I've talked to my producer Cameron who's here with us today about how our films and our projects can be more like houses on a street rather than trying to like stuff everything into one project.

- One big house.

- Yeah, one big house.

You can kind if you look at it- So I started to look at like each project as like it was just like this one part of the neighborhood and then at the end of your career maybe you have the totality of what you wanted to say in the beginning.

But there was all this extra pressure in the beginning for me to get it all out at once and that just becomes overstuffed and overwrought and overwritten and it's not conducive for creativity when you have that amount of- - It really isn't, that's a lot of pressure to put on ourselves as artists.

- Yeah.

- But I like that whole analogy of like the multiple houses versus one big house.

- Yeah.

- And it kind of is a really good segue to the next question which is your project, your recent project, the Fledgling.

- Yes.

- I love you to like give us a little overview of that, cuz that's a big one coming up.

- That's a big one for sure.

The Fledgling is an eight part vampire road trip episodic.

- Oh yeah.

- I'm excited about it.

So I started writing that back in early 2020 and took about two years of me just sort of plugging away at it.

And it was one of those projects though that I knew from the beginning it just had that kind of propulsive element to it.

This thing where I just had to return to it day after day because I loved the world and I loved the characters and like there was no question in my mind from the beginning this is what I need to do, but I also think it kind of has that nice balance of commercial appeal and artistic expression that make a Joe film.

Cuz I want people to come out of it knowing like this is a Joe film when they see when they see my projects.

- That's a good balance to have where you're like also satisfied with it, but also the audience is satisfied with it.

I think A24 is a big one with that.

- Oh, they're killing it.

- You know, commercial appeal, but also the audiences are just obsessed with the story.

So that's really awesome.

So why did you choose a TV series this time?

- So I think that's just kind of what it wanted to be, in the simplest terms.

Cuz there was times when I was like, I think it's four episodes.

Actually, I thought it was a film when I started writing it.

And then the story just kind of developed and the more it developed I was, I got feedback from a couple people.

And the funny thing is, the more it balloons the harder it is to give feedback.

You're like, Hey, can you read my 500 page screenplay?

And we just started submitting to festivals for our short film Proof of Concept, which basically took a scene from the pilot episode and repurposed it as its own self-contained story.

We attached two fantastic actors, Juliet Landau of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame.

She played Trucilla on that show.

- Great addition.

- Yeah, it was incredible working with her, having her fly out from Los Angeles to be in it.

And we have a terrific young actress named Anastasia Veronica Lee, who's playing the lead role of Charlie.

- You created a children's book that's also kind of reflective of the series as well.

- Yeah, so I met with another 518 filmmaker, Cameron Gallagher, and we were talking about unique ways to pitch our projects and he brought up that he had known somebody who, for every project that he had done and apparently he had sold like a few films this way, he made some sort of children's book for his project.

And I just thought that was such a clever and charming idea instead of going into it with to a meeting with like a PowerPoint or something like that, you're going in there with something tangible and something charming and beautiful that you can leave behind with them too and have them really get what the heartbeat of the show is in a super simple way.

And I think that's what really drew me to it was like how can I reduce and simplify this eight hour show into the most important elements in a 25 page illustrated book.

- When can people view it or is it still like are we gonna be able to see it on TV or what's the end goal?

- So yeah, I mean the end goal is definitely major television whether it's a streamer or a major network show, but for now we're in the process of submitting the short film proof of concept to festivals.

We actually just got a waiver to Tiff, which is something that is very rare for them to offer past their deadlines.

So fingers crossed that things go good with that.

- That means it's good.

- But so we have a lot of hope for this to be a great festival run and then we'll see where it goes, but right now we're also in the process concurrently of pitching the show.

It's a tremendous challenge, but one that we're all very excited about.

- Awesome, well I look forward to it.

Thank you.

- Thank you so much Jade.

- Please welcome Ed Schwarzschild ♪ Got no siblings, not an only child ♪ ♪ Life takes away everything worthwhile ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no ♪ ♪ In a backyard runnin around ♪ ♪ All those voices tell you ♪ ♪ You gotta slow down ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no.

♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ You must like being told what to do ♪ ♪ Always needed someone just to torment you ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no ♪ ♪ Where were you when he needed your most ♪ ♪ Absorbed in yourself ♪ ♪ Your demons, your ghosts ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ If you were here right now ♪ ♪ What would you say ♪ ♪ And how ♪ ♪ Did I do everything wrong?

♪ ♪ I'll find out before too long ♪ ♪ It'd be nice to say you did all you could ♪ ♪ A better person would've done some good ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no ♪ ♪ I see his face in every crowd ♪ ♪ Call out his name ♪ ♪ But not too loud ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ Don't be too hard on yourself ♪ ♪ Got no siblings, not an only child ♪ ♪ Life takes away everything worthwhile ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ No, no ♪ ♪ Well you know that it stands to reason ♪ ♪ Or it might just fall to faith ♪ ♪ When it comes to the things you believe in ♪ ♪ We're all gonna need a little grace ♪ ♪ Mysteries well they still undo ya ♪ ♪ Hit the limits of your mind ♪ ♪ Friends and family they can misconstrue ya ♪ ♪ You turn around and your left behind ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding ♪ ♪ You are notwithstanding ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding ♪ ♪ You are notwithstanding ♪ ♪ Scars will heal ♪ ♪ But the wounds are stubborn ♪ ♪ They burrow down somewhere deep inside ♪ ♪ Now I know that your bound and determined ♪ ♪ Not to run and not to hide ♪ ♪ So many answers they are forthcoming ♪ ♪ You'll watch the questions multiply ♪ ♪ And when you're finally on to something ♪ ♪ They tell you to avert your eyes ♪ ♪ Not withstanding ♪ ♪ You are not withstanding ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding ♪ ♪ You are not withstanding ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding a sensible decisions ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding the ill advised incisions ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding the way it all played out ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding overwhelming doubt ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding ♪ ♪ And grace appears when you least expect it ♪ ♪ Hope is traveled far away ♪ ♪ You're pushed out there, you're on the edges ♪ ♪ I swear it's going to be okay ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding ♪ ♪ You are notwithstanding ♪ ♪ Notwithstanding ♪ ♪ You are notwithstanding ♪ ♪ 20 years later like a buried child ♪ ♪ You reached out to me from deep underground ♪ ♪ You got something to say about them where ♪ ♪ You're betrayed old friends who are now safe and sound ♪ ♪ So many other lost souls are ♪ ♪ You're out to see ♪ ♪ Family and friends ♪ ♪ Who have long passed on ♪ ♪ I welcome my brother to all of my dreams ♪ ♪ But you, you should just stay gone ♪ ♪ I don't know what step you're on ♪ ♪ Somewhere between one and 12 ♪ ♪ Don't come to me for your forgiveness ♪ ♪ You gotta forgive yourself ♪ ♪ Stories I heard when I took you at your word ♪ ♪ Cast you as a fatherless son ♪ ♪ Run away from what you couldn't quite say ♪ ♪ Like a trigger in search of a gun ♪ ♪ They say you went west before coming back east ♪ ♪ Wife and a son in tow ♪ ♪ It's true I knew that girl in a another world ♪ ♪ But I've learned how to let her go ♪ ♪ Now I don't know what step your own ♪ ♪ Somewhere between one and 12 ♪ ♪ Don't come to me for your forgiveness ♪ ♪ You gotta forgive yourself ♪ ♪ I thought you were my friend ♪ ♪ I thought she'd be my wife ♪ ♪ But I had no idea ♪ ♪ About the shape of my life ♪ ♪ Bear with each other ♪ ♪ Forgive one another ♪ ♪ If you got a grievance against someone ♪ ♪ So the Bible tells ♪ ♪ But I don't know that book so well ♪ ♪ And you still seem so pleased with what you've done ♪ ♪ So take your apology ♪ ♪ And everything else you stole from me ♪ ♪ Lock it in your nicotine chest ♪ ♪ To sing a song about right and wrong ♪ ♪ And keep living like you think is best ♪ ♪ I don't know what step you're on ♪ ♪ Somewhere between one and 12 ♪ ♪ Don't come to me for your forgiveness ♪ ♪ You gotta forgive yourself ♪ ♪ Don't come to me for your forgiveness ♪ ♪ You gotta forgive yourself ♪ (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts and we invite you to do the same.