- [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, the Stroud Family Trust, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

(upbeat jazz music) - [David] Coming up, discover the art of the Ukrainian Easter egg, a symbol of peace, faith, and hope this holiday season, and learn about the healing benefits of lavender before a group of honky-tonkers from the 330 two-step into our Westfield studio.

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to "Applause," your weekly arts and culture fix.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett.

Ukrainian-Americans in Northeast Ohio celebrate the Easter holiday with an ancient tradition that reminds them of their homeland, their family, their culture, and their faith.

It's the art of the pysanka.

- The eggs are folk art.

They're not just centuries old, millennia old.

They go back to pagan times when people sheltered during the winter and looked forward to when spring would come.

- Ukraine became a Christian nation in 988, so those concepts kind of fit kind of neatly into a Christian Easter concept of resurrection and light conquering darkness and life conquering death.

- And so the decorations reflect that, the tears of Mary, a cross, but also still reflect some of the ancient pagan, so you have various animals, you have sheaves of wheat, and it's something that we at the museum have been highlighting for the last 25-plus years.

The Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland was founded in 1952 by a displaced scholar who went through the the DP camps after World War II during a time when Stalin was still in power and during a time when the Soviet Union was deliberately destroying Ukrainian culture and the culture of other peoples.

- They knew that their culture was being destroyed and they felt a very strong responsibility here to preserve these traditions.

So, my parents made me go to Ukrainian school on Saturdays, and that's where I learned how to make a pysanka the first time.

The completed egg is called a pysanka, and that comes from the verb pysaty, which means to write.

- Everybody comes up to me at the shows, and say, "Oh, you painted all of those eggs," and I said, "No, I don't paint."

I said, "I write," and I'm actually writing a design with beeswax, so I have a tool to write with.

This is a tool called a kistka.

- It's basically a metal funnel attached to a wooden or a plastic handle, and you scrape wax into the wide end of the funnel, you heat it by a candle, and as the wax melts, it comes out of the narrow end of the funnel, and that's what you draw onto the egg.

- [Linda] And if you notice, I'm moving the egg, and I'm steadying my hand by putting my baby finger on the egg.

So, my right, yes, so the egg is what's moving so that I can draw straight lines.

- You're creating the design in reverse, so you start with a clean white egg and you cover the parts of the egg that you want to stay white.

The wax seals off that part of the egg and the dye can't get in, and so then you use the lightest color dye that you plan on using, usually yellow.

- What I want to do next is in the center of the star, I'm gonna do tear drops, and the tear drops symbolize the blessed Virgin Mary's tears.

I do designs that can take me anywhere from three to five hours to eight hours to 14 hours on a simple chicken egg.

It relaxes me.

The lines, there's no beginning and there's no end, symbolize eternity.

Now I'm gonna do a few feather lines.

I'll just show this, okay.

I'm gonna do the feather lines here on these lines, and this is gonna be done on all of them.

It then goes into the red.

Okay.

Red dye is right over the orange.

Okay, and you can see white lines, yellow tear drops, orange feather lines, and now we're gonna cover the entire star with wax.

I can be a little messy here.

So, this star will be completely covered in wax, and then it's ready to go into the final color, which is black.

And voila.

This is what it looks like when it's done.

Okay.

It looks like really nothing there.

Okay.

You hold the egg close to the flame.

When melting the wax off, all those pencil lines that I had before all come off with the wax.

There you go.

There's the white lines, the yellow tear drops.

I don't have the green dots, but there's the orange feather lines, and the red star.

(bright orchestral music) - This egg has a periwinkle pattern to it.

Periwinkle has a special place in Ukrainian folklore because the green vine of the periwinkle stays green for such a long time.

Even after the first snow, you can see how green the periwinkle vine is, and for that reason, it's developed a significance of perseverance and persistence, which is kind of a lovely thought.

- It's something that I grew up with.

You know, we had 'em around the house, or we have 'em at home.

It's part of tradition.

It's part of who we are as a people.

- They have really become to be very strongly associated with Ukraine itself, and they've always had a meaning of renewal and rebirth, and I guess hope could be included in that.

(Linda sighs) - Let's pray for peace in Ukraine.

It's all we can do right now.

- [David] The pysanky are on display year-round at the Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland located on Kenilworth Avenue, just across the street from Lincoln Park in the Tremont neighborhood From the ancient Greeks and Romans all the way to today, so many love the smell, the color, and herbal magic of lavender.

Northeast Ohio is home to a lover of all things lavender and she welcomed our "Making It" cameras into her herbal commissary.

- I know that when I can talk to people about relieving anxiety and opening themselves up to their senses, being connected to their mood and what they think, that's the confidence that I have.

(laid-back jazz music) Hi, my name is Tameka Huey-Barkley.

I'm the owner of Purple Elephant Herbal Commissary.

A little bit about Purple Elephant Herbal Commissary is all products are handcrafted made with lavender, with aromatherapy being the top focus, and therapeutic benefits being the next.

Lavender is a relaxing and calming herb, so every product has lavender in it as a natural herb or as a pure essential oil.

I was in a place in my life where I was looking for more answers to help with like traditional medicine, but alternates.

I wanted to find a holistic way to deal with chronic pain, deal with nausea, anxiety, and sleep issues, so through my research, I ran into so many testimonies about lavender and the benefits of lavender, and then I was finding that it was really beginning to, like, transform my mind and my heart and my mood.

I officially started Purple Elephant two years ago.

It was a hobby, and through the universe and me interacting with so many great people telling me, You should make this for other people.

You should sell this."

One of the important parts that I like to do with Purple Elephant Herbal Commissary is teach.

Giving you the the tools and some quick information on how you can do this yourself.

So, making insect repellent is something very easy, and I have three core ingredients, and that is water, witch hazel, and aloe vera.

I'm not even saying you have to accurately measure.

I'm saying you can have a heavy pour of water, a heavy pour of aloe vera, a heavy pour of witch hazel, and you will be absolutely fine.

The key essential oils for making the insect repellent is, and we all know this, citronella.

Then you also have lavender, because this is where you're pulling out that aromatherapy, and lavender also is a bug repellent and lavender also is itch-relieving.

The other essential oil that I'll be using is tea tree and clove.

So, here we go.

The reason why I select certain essential oils is important because I want people to know this does this, this does this, and I want to them smell it, and then they smile, and then that's how you know that scent-brain connection has occurred.

And it smells great.

What keeps me going is I love what I do.

I love what I do so much that when it was a hobby, I was so excited that things were working and I wanted other people to try it.

I wanted other people to believe that what I was doing was really coming from a place of confidence that it works.

I realized that I can invoke that positiveness and those good feelings when you're doing something you enjoy and doing things that make you happy, and that's Purple Elephant Herbal Commissary now.

- [David] Purple Elephant is just one of the many local makers we spotlight on our "Making It" series.

To meet more, visit arts.ideastream.org.

The annual explosion of daffodils is primed for spring in Cuyahoga county.

On the next applause, we venture to Lake View Cemetery to wander through Daffodil hill.

Then let's road-trip to Columbus and meet a cameraman capturing the spirit of conservation along the Scioto River, and the Cleveland Orchestra rips through a masterpiece by Antonin Dvorak.

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

(orchestra playing Dvorak's "New World Symphony") (upbeat music) Larry Hamill has a passion for mixing abstraction and realism in his photography.

We caught up with him at his studio to learn more about his process and his love for the capital of the Buckeye State.

- Over the years, I just keep thinking I'm like a visual explorer.

I'm just there, out exploring, and I keep veraciously wanting to see things that I've never seen before.

Being across from German Village, too, I just love walking through the village and documenting how it changed.

It's kind of historical to see how all these trees have changed over the years.

The new Huntington Garden replaced the old asphalt pathway that was there.

So, yeah, I just, almost every day, I go out walking or take pictures of things just 'cause there's so many different ways to see things.

(bright music) My grandfather was a historian for Ohio Bell, and he loved photography, and I remember one of my vague memories was being in his darkroom and just seeing how magical it was when an image appears out of nothing when he'd be processing prints.

So, that was a real treat.

And from that point on, all I wanted to do was be an artist.

(bright music) A real strong moment in my life was when I was in seventh grade.

My parents went away.

I'm down in the basement, and I rig these wires together to create a carbon arc light, and a carbon arc light is one of the brightest lights that you can have on the planet.

That's what powers search lights that go like two miles.

I put the two pieces of carbon together, and this incredible light bursts, and I'm just thinking if the neighbors walked by and saw my basement, it probably looked like a nuclear reactor or something 'cause there's such bright light.

And I wake up the next morning and I can't see a thing.

For five days.

I thought I'd never see again.

I thought, well, there's my life.

I mean, I want to be an artist.

That's kind of hard if you can't see, but what happened was I scarred the cornea of my eye, so I literally couldn't see anything until it healed.

And from that point on, I feel so privileged to be able to see things.

I went to Ohio State and graduated with a degree in Painting and Drawing and a minor in Expanded Arts.

I never had a class in photography.

I'd just go through the Kodak volumes of how to photograph things and had friends that I could ask questions of.

And from that point on, I realized I couldn't make a living off of fine art, so I learned commercial art.

(bright music) One of my first clients, as far as art goes, was Bernie's Bagels and Deli on North High Street.

I went in there, and they said, "Well we need to do some ads and things."

I said, "Well, let me come up with an idea of a bagel man."

So, I did that, and they go, "Okay, you're hired.

Just do our menus, and use the bagel man, and then do ads in "The Lantern."

And so the bagel man kind of evolved from that.

So, I just did different types of artwork and saved up and bought a zoom lens.

That was a big deal.

My first tungsten light I had a light so I could have more control.

So, it was just very gradual getting the proper equipment.

I chose to shoot slide film, and you can only be like a half an f-stop off, so you really have to hone in your exposures.

That helped me learn, too, because you just couldn't make that many mistakes.

We're spoiled today with digitals.

It's so easy to get your color balance down and all these other things, but I really like the slides 'cause they're more vivid.

They work better for reproduction in print materials.

(bright music) MedFlight has been a great client.

For like 28 years, I've been working with them, and before that, I worked with Life Flight at Grant, so I've spent a lot of time, fortunately, in helicopters and shooting air-to-air.

(rotors humming) This is one of the best assignments I ever had, and that was a shoot for Sony.

And Sony introduced a new camera to video record commercial shoots, and they wanted show it off at The Gathering of Mustangs & Legends at Rickenbacker Field years ago.

It was the largest gathering of P-51 Mustangs since the second World War.

So, I'm up in a P.130 transport plane.

I'm on the ramp here, and I'm tethered just like the cameraman is, and I'm using a flash to balance the light with the outside, 'cause otherwise this would be just total blackness.

So, I was able to photograph the planes flying, and then when I was done shooting that, I was able to shoot the planes in action.

(upbeat country music) Growing up, all I could see on the horizon as a young child was the Lincoln-LeVeque, and that was pretty much it for the skyline.

So, it's kind of fun over the years to see how our skylines change and what are different angles that it can be shot from.

So, I tried to get a lot of different vantage points that put Columbus in different contexts.

(upbeat country music) This is a series of calendars that I started 31 years ago.

That's when Photoshop first came out, and growing up in Columbus, Ohio, we're so geographically challenged that I always wanted to see mountains on the horizon, and with Photoshop, it let me make that happen.

So, in this particular case, I took a shot that I took off of Nice, France with the Alps behind.

I put that in the background, and then I took a shot that I took in Thailand on a beach in the foreground.

I think it's kind of funny.

They asked, "Well, where is this?"

And I said, "Well, it says Columbus right on the top."

And nobody looks at that.

And so obviously we don't have mountains 'cause of the glacier and everything, but I still would like to see these mountains beyond our skyline.

But Photoshop was the only way I could figure it out.

I've been in this studio for 45 years.

(gentle music) Over the years, I've shot hundreds and hundreds of thousands of rolls.

Essentially, what I've got is like a sliver from 1976 to 2021 of our culture around here and other parts of the world, so hopefully people can access these images and make new images from them or bring back times and relate to them.

So, hopefully I'm providing a substrata of our culture in this period of time.

(gentle instrumental music) It's just so unlimited, the world that we live in, and there's so much to explore.

Every day, I'm looking forward to something else I can see and I just go out, and whether it be I sketch it or I take a picture of it, it's just constantly a source of wonder around us.

So, I think it's really important to have that sense of wonder inside you to experience the wonder that's all around us.

- From the 614 to the 330, it's time for a little honky-tonkin' from a group of two-steppin' players hankering for a hoedown: Cory Grinder & the Playboy Scouts.

Cory, you got your start in Northeast Ohio in country and bluegrass, and when you discovered it, coming from the classical area, you discovered what you've described as a welcoming community.

Talk about that.

How so was it welcoming?

- The cool thing about country, old-time, you know, bluegrass, a lot of the music with acoustic instruments in that genre, I think it's just kind of a player's type of music where it's really fun.

This is just how I met these guys.

We just love to jam, and you know, any excuse, so when you find players that just want to play music, you get along quick.

(laughs) ♪ We walked away from that honky-tonk ♪ ♪ And I know this feeling, too ♪ ♪ And even during our first dance ♪ ♪ I knew, oh yes, I knew it ♪ ♪ You was feeling, too ♪ ♪ It's hard sometimes ♪ ♪ Now why can't I seem ♪ ♪ To find a woman who doesn't feel that way ♪ ♪ But let me tell you, brother ♪ ♪ When you do find a woman ♪ ♪ That feels just like you do ♪ ♪ We got to cross that dance floor ♪ ♪ And I know this feeling, too ♪ ♪ And you grabbed my hand and squeezed it ♪ ♪ And I knew, oh yes, I knew ♪ ♪ You was feeling, too ♪ - Cory, I understand you watched the great PBS program that Ken Burns produced on the history of country music, and one of the people featured on that show was a guy named Buck Owens.

For some reason, his music reached out and got you.

What was it about Buck that you like so much?

- Well, I guess the same way that I was looking for a type of music that would be fun, I could put my energy into, and, you know, I think Buck Owens and some of the other cats that were in that Bakersfield scene at that time in California who were going against what was happening in Nashville with country music that was becoming- - Talk about what that was.

- Heavy strings and things, elements that weren't, maybe just, it was all getting a little smooth and poppy, and you know, was just easy listening music, but you know, I'll speak for myself, but I like to have fun.

And I think a lot of other people enjoy to get a little rowdy, too.

So, you know, when you are playing at honky-tonks and bars, you gotta get a little louder.

You gotta cut through.

You need some screaming guitars, and it's really can be a tight, fun area to get into when you're going out, and you're able to just have music for the dancers.

♪ Take me ♪ ♪ For I can think all day ♪ ♪ Take me like I am ♪ ♪ I say ♪ ♪ Take all my time ♪ ♪ Honey, take my name ♪ ♪ Take me ♪ ♪ Take me just as I am ♪ ♪ Take my heart, my love, and no give and take ♪ ♪ No pushing and shoving ♪ ♪ I said take, take, take, take me ♪ ♪ Take me for a fool ♪ ♪ Let me take the bait ♪ ♪ Take me ♪ ♪ Take me just as I am ♪ - [David] In June, you guys went on an 11-state tour, and I guess you're traveling around in a bus.

Tell us about this.

It's an old school bus and you painted it blue.

- We got it.

It was a yellow school bus, and we took it in about two months time as a team, we stripped it all down.

We sanded it, we painted it.

We built the inside, you know, insulated the floor.

Tebbs and B did a huge amount of the work.

- [David] But you had some issues.

- We did have a little bit of issues.

He might... (laughs) He has a lot of opinions on that situation.

- Well, yeah, it's my bus, and we spent all the time working on getting it ready, but we didn't have time to do much mechanical work, or any at all.

I greased the chassis, and that was about it.

I didn't check out the motor, I didn't check out the brakes.

You know, we just- - [David] Oh man.

- We had drove it around, and figured, well it better work.

So, anyway, I'm going to pick these guys up.

You know, we're leaving.

It's Sunday.

We have a show that day in Columbus, and the front brake locks up, smoking, you know.

It seized up, so I had to take it, go to a shop that I worked at at the time, and worked on it in a very stressful fashion, and then as I'm putting it together, you know, I'm losing my mind and stressed out, and I broke one very critical piece, and so I thought all hope was lost.

But anyway, I found a little bolt to jam in there, and we rode that all the way to Texas, and it worked just fine.

- It was the magic bolt.

♪ She got style ♪ ♪ She (indistinct) ♪ ♪ You can talk your talk ♪ ♪ But just look what that girl can do ♪ ♪ She got flair ♪ ♪ Just look at her hair ♪ ♪ I like to take that little woman with me everywhere ♪ ♪ Well, she's- ♪ - Want to see the full "Applause" performance by Cory Grinder and the Playboy Scouts?

Well, you can online and on-demand via our PBS app.

♪ When she boogey ♪ ♪ My heart go sinking in the sand ♪ ♪ And then she should call me up ♪ Man, I gotta learn how to two-step one of these days.

Anyway, it's time to say goodbye, friends and neighbors, but don't worry.

We'll be back here next week, same time, same place.

Might even have a few new dance moves for you.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett.

Please join us next week for another round of "Applause."

("Honky Tonkin' Beauty Supreme") (dramatic jingle) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, the Stroud Family Trust, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.