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

(upbeat music) - [David] Coming up, we crown a few queens and a king of Northeast Ohio who are devoted to the art of drag.

Plus things get hot at Larchmere Fireworks.

It's another stop in our series, Making It and hear how a hike along the California coast inspired a new composition performed by the Cleveland Orchestra.

It's time for a healthy dose of arts and culture, "Applause."

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

From flashy clothes and heels to colorful makeup.

Drag is an art that takes time, money, and talent.

In Cleveland, the queens and kings of the 9 share what it's like in the spotlight.

(upbeat music) - Drag is one of the most creative art forms in the world.

First off, makeup.

I mean, we have a blank slate with our face to create whatever look that we're trying to go for.

Whether it's a character, whether it's something theme-specific, it allows us to be that creative.

Obviously different colored hair and different styles, different costuming.

So, whether it's a king or a queen we're definitely changing and morphing ourselves from our our natural selves to something totally different.

Please put your hands together for, Maja Jera.

(audience cheering) - I'm an artist at heart, I make clothes, I style hair, I do my own makeup.

And just being able to be a multi-faceted artist in a sense is what keeps me in a busy mode in a happy, busy mode with drag and the art of drag.

- I've been in this for 35 years because I was strong.

Ladies and gentlemen I'm Erica Martinez.

And I'm so proud.

It takes a lot of work and dedication and it takes a lot of money.

It's expensive to look this cheap.

(chuckling) It takes a lot of money to do drag.

I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars, but if it's something that you love and you're passionate about, I love this.

And this is my life.

It always will be - I was a frustrated actor inside and it allows me to just do the things I probably wouldn't normally do in my normal life.

This is allows me to kind of expand my creativity.

- Being able to go from sewing a costume, to making a prop, to mixing music together, to rhinestoning things, all those little things that just make one big performance is what makes the art aspect of drag such a such a wonderful thing.

- I tend to find that occasionally, I am the only king.

I won't say it's a scarcity thing anymore.

I think there is a dramatic increase in kings in Cleveland.

I think that we bring an entire different gender perspective.

We just need a space to perform.

- And I could write a book.

Even when I first started, I lived with my grandmother.

And she didn't know I was an entertainer.

And one day I was sneaking out of the house, and she's like "Who's that girl leaving?"

And I ended up telling my grandmother she's a short Italian woman.

And until the day she died in 1995, she was my biggest fan.

She had helped me do my costume, she would hem my costume, she would dress me, help me with my hair.

And I was so lucky because a lot of people don't get to experience that love from their family like I was able to experience.

- Some Cleveland drag legends noticed me and said, "You would be good at doing drag.

"Why don't you give it a shot?"

And it took a while, I got to my first drag show and boy I didn't look like this back then.

That's for certain, that was 14 years ago.

It was scary.

And it was just, why am I doing this a couple times?

I just thought to myself, why am I getting myself into this?

But the more I kept doing it, and the more I realized I was able to lend a voice to those who didn't have a voice.

And I was able to take on a part of my community as a visible personality.

Why not?

- I found a sense of community, I found a sense of purpose for myself as well as for others, I found friends, I found my partner through drag, and I can't be thankful enough for drag giving me more than a college degree could give me.

- I love the glitz and glamor, I love the people, I love the excitement, And I think that's what has kept me going all of these years.

Now, it's not been easy.

It was a very different time back in the '80s, when I started, there was a lot of hatred.

I remember I used to work for a club called Uncle Vinnie's Cabaret and the bar across the street, they would run at us with bar beer bottles and they would throw beer bottles at us, bring switch blades out.

So we had a lot of situations like that.

A lot of people calling, yelling out the window calling us names, laughing at us, calling us freaks - Back in the day, it was a matter of LGBTQ venues, mainly bars were safe havens for our brothers and sisters to go and enjoy themselves.

And we've lost a lot of that around us.

So now we're in more allied spaces to be able to perform but there's still that, in the back of your mind, you're thinking about those angry individuals who don't understand and don't care for the art of drag.

And what's gonna happen around you?

So yeah, you should be careful.

- Each song that I perform means something to me in my current life or something that affected me in life.

Being able to share that moment with other people, a crowd of people it makes it seem like there's a sense of community.

And just sharing that moment is very important to me.

- We all tend to work with each other and care for each other.

And we help out and we uplift, from the performance style to even your personal life.

We're a big family - [David] Veranda L'Ni and friends perform regularly in downtown Cleveland as the queens of the 9.

A blacksmith and a glass maker have combined forces and talents.

This creative twosome have set up shop in Cleveland's Larchmere neighborhood on the near east side.

- It's so unique, playing with Morton glass.

That's the coolest thing.

I mean, it is 2,200 degrees so there's nothing cool about it, but it's hot.

(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Tina Haldeman.

I'm a glassblower and I'm one of the owners at Larchmere Fireworks.

- Hi, I'm Cassidy Anderson, and I'm the blacksmith at Larchmere Fireworks.

- I took my first class at the Glass Bubble Project.

- We met at the Glass Bubble Project.

My dad helped start the Bubble.

Tina introduced me to my first blacksmithing master - And when Cassidy came to Cleveland and we met, a couple years in, we decided that we'd like to start our own shop.

I had always wanted to try glass blowing, it was something I was always enthralled with.

- I remember seeing it when I was super young at the Yankee Pedler.

And I just remember, it felt like I had horse blinders on.

I was just like focused on that.

- And at 32, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

- It was just a lot of don't focus on the other stuff, focus on just the metal.

And then it was focusing on the metal which meant getting the glass blowing and the metal going at the same time, because it's all about the same heat.

- You really have to know what the glass is doing.

You have to know how hot it is.

And a lot of that is just practice.

- I actually learned by the color, I learned by the heel of it, you just have to bend it the right amount, and where, and how much color it has in one spot versus another will create a different twist.

- So this is our hot shop.

All this equipment here was built by Cassidy and one of our other glass blowers.

In the middle, we've got our furnace.

This stays on about 2,200 degrees, 24/7.

(upbeat music) So fun to see a person, the shock of the heat, or the weight of the glass.

and how excited they get.

That to me, that's the best part.

I like blowing glass.

It is fun, but I love teaching glass.

So every glass blown piece starts with that first bubble.

Then it's just a matter of gathering layer and layer, and layer, adding color to it.

- Teaching's the main thing.

I like making other artists.

Yeah, I give the, "Oh, I never thought about it that way.

"Or I want to do that, "or now I can fix this "or create this."

So I can heat it up, get it to the point where I'm able to squeeze it together, move it, (indistinct) it out, twist it, bend it.

We're gonna heat up this section back here.

And we're gonna put a twist in it.

It's using yeah, the geometry of the anvil and then different angles of actually hammering to be able to get the the forms and shapes that you want.

- Cool, done.

- And this is what I consider the fun part 'cause you get to watch glass melt.

And I'm using the metal on the table to suck out the heat.

The glass started at about 2,200 degrees out of the furnace.

And as I'm working with it, it's cooling.

But when I say cold in glassblowing terms, that's about a 1,000 degrees.

Don't touch that.

You have to go in layers.

So the first layer, when I'm doing a flower I'm gonna put some green on there.

This is gonna be my stem layer.

So now when I know that I'm hot enough I'm gonna go back to the bench, and do the sculpting.

This is the part that I can't get two flowers identical, if I tried.

Cassidy and I do collaborations because the glass and metal just fits together it's a very sturdy medium and a very delicate medium, but they just fit so well together.

- I just found that groove.

I don't know how, it just kind of happened but it's cool to be able to help other people find that little thing.

- [David] There are may making it work with glass and metal.

And you can get in on the action too at one of their workshops.

Find more creative makers around Northeast Ohio, online at Arts.IdeaStream.org.

(upbeat music) As the late, great Bob Ross once said, we don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.

Well in Delaware, Ohio there's another artist who might just agree.

(upbeat music) - I grew up in what is now known as Franklinton.

But when I was a kid it was at the bottoms.

My twin brother and I, and our best friend would just leave in the mornings.

And sometimes we'd end up on the railroad track.

I started, probably in about 1989, putting birds in a lot of things.

I think maybe because I just hungered for some sort of nature.

We lived on Bowery in New York.

We had a fire escape that was probably, oh, 15 by five feet.

I had tomato plants, I had basil, I had oregano, and I had morning glories and it would attract birds.

And it reminded me of how much I missed nature.

Growing up in the bottoms, hanging down on the railroad tracks, it was all about nature.

So the birds just sort of found their place in, I guess my subconscious.

My mother-in-law lives in Bryan Ohio.

And she used to have, for the longest time, about 20 years in Bryan, Ohio she had this thing where she would get together with a bunch of older women.

And her business was called Nancy's Afternoon Tea.

And they would just get together and they would play Mahjong, and she would make little sandwiches, and they would sit around and talk about Victorian stuff, and share little bits of lace that they found in thrift shops or antique stores.

Well, the inspiration did come from lace.

I knew I wanted them to be landscape.

So lace made sense to me because the lace really does invite man's intrusion into nature.

(soothing music) The idea of a chalkboard, writing on a chalkboard, it's just something that I think everyone can relate to.

And then the idea of that basic rock on rock 'cause that's what we're doing when we're drawing with chalk on a chalkboard.

So go to the opposite end of that and it's definitely spray paint.

It's chemicals, it's a lot of technology.

And then I had to find something in the center, in the middle.

So I just thought it would be the drips and the spatters, which are accidental.

In other words, the landscape is built through intentionality, which is the lace.

And then a little bit of planning the way I place the birds.

I analyze where I want them, according to design and then the drips and spatters just imply accident.

So you get those three sort of psychological levels which is why I call them a landscape.

Once the lace is drawn, I definitely have to take the thing outside and just layer it with spray fix.

So that's done.

I can't go back to that.

And when I come back in and this is what I've always told my students too, I say walk in with your back against the painting, walk 10, 15 feet away, spin around quickly.

And the first thought you have go with it.

So that might be putting a bird someplace, that might be starting with the spatter.

The spatter is important to put down, especially the two big, white drips because I don't want it to ever drip over one of the birds.

One reason is because the spatter is just on, that's water-based and the spray paint is oil-based.

So eventually, it would just peel off.

The other reason is, I don't want the two to ever overlap because then it kills the idea of three vertical planes.

Let me open this, get this outta the way.

(paint spraying) Nature has a pattern.

There is a pattern, there is a rhythm, but the thing of it is, is sometimes those patterns overlap, and then it creates something that looks like chaos but it might just be the intersection of two patterns.

(upbeat music) I do like the idea and I do it in my portraits and I do it in the still lifes as well.

The idea of, and it's almost like I'm giving away a secret recipe when I say this, but I will say it.

The idea of the paradox between intentionality and accident.

I mean, it just works.

I have this idea that art should be just a little bit over people's head, but not so much over their head that they just look at it and they're confounded.

But if you're gonna invent a language which is what we're doing.

When I finish one of these paintings, the thing that that always pleases me is I've brought something new into the world, something that never existed before.

So when you're doing this, you're sort of creating a language.

And if you create a language that only you understand because it's so elevated and it's so ethereal, what's the point?

When somebody's standing in front of that painting.

I just want them to accept the fact that it's gonna come at them like all at once.

And then don't try to figure anything out.

It's just, it's there.

It's like listening to music or smelling food coming out of a kitchen.

I mean, you don't really think that much about it.

Most people overthink painting when just I just want people to react to them.

(upbeat music) - [David] The Akron Art Museum has a new look thanks to a recent refresh.

On the next "Applause," We take an artistic tour of Summit County's cultural gem.

And we celebrate more than 50 years of artistry from the Dayton contemporary dance company.

Plus, Cleveland, Latin, jazz masters, Jackie Warren and Sammy Deleon perform the JS Mumbo.

All that and more on the next edition of "Applause."

Artist Jess McMillan inspires, empowers, and unifies the community of Dayton through the intricate art of mosaic.

And when tragedy struck the Gem City in 2019 she responded the only way she knew how, by making art.

- I am a mosaic artist.

I have grown up all around Dayton.

At age 16, I made my first mosaic on a piece of two by four, two feet by four feet plywood from the neighbor's garage.

I went to school at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh.

And after graduating there, I moved home to Dayton.

Right after that, I met Jerry Stanard at the K12 Gallery and began my journey of turning that process of me creating my own mosaic work into teaching and leading the community to create the work.

I left K12 to found the Mosaic Institute of Greater Dayton to become my vehicle for doing good in the community of Dayton.

I have always had a special place for Dayton in my heart.

It's hard to really describe.

I guess, many of us Daytonians feel this way about our city.

We have an incredible energy and a movement, especially in the arts.

Being an artist activist with the ability to lead a large scale collaborative artwork has made me realize that it's my responsibility to serve my community with my special gifts.

And so I definitely feel a call to be here and to unify my community, my people that I that I live with every day and experience life with.

The Downtown Dayton Partnership offered its first art and the city grant, which we were very lucky to receive.

So we proposed a 12-foot wide by nine-foot tall gem, a multicolor gem that would be created by all the Daytonians in the city that would come out during Art in the City.

And that that finished gem would go into the sidewalk outside of the entrance to the Dayton Arcade, which is the beating heart of our arts community.

And so we had this great day of unity in our city.

And then the following night, a terrible tragedy, the shooting in the Oregon District.

We were called probably about seven hours after the shooting and asked what could we do?

What could we provide to bring the community together as a way of healing?

What type of collaborative project could we offer?

And we instantly started working on it.

What does that look like?

How can we do this?

The day before, in Art in the City, we had just led our largest collaborative piece, the Gem, and over a thousand participants walked up to us that day.

And so coming off of that unity and now what do we offer again to this public to bring people together.

We designed the nine doves, porcelain mosaic.

It was created as a permanent Memorial.

Our part is creating the ability for people to come and to heal.

And with this mosaic, we have designed it to where all nine doves have been created ahead of time.

And so those pieces are finished and as participants come up to the mosaic, they can connect with those nine doves, representing each of the victims that we lost.

I think that art has the ability, creation has the ability to open us up, and maybe even connect where we can feel and love ourselves and give ourselves room for expression, and room to feel those feelings, and to process.

It can be used to empower.

Art is essential.

It is a part of all of us.

We put in a proposal for creating games in the sidewalks, in a neighborhood that had no public parks, no green space for the kids to play.

So we proposed creating interactive games, all in the sidewalk, in the neighborhood to engage them and give them something to do.

So, the best part about the project is that we went into Kettering Middle School and created a 29-foot hop scotch with over 80 7th graders.

So you have this giant hop scotch that is a beehive, and it has eight games in it.

And then you have 10 bumblebees that are scattered throughout the neighborhood.

And the goal was to create games that would engage people of all ages.

So you can just go and find the bees, and you have to find all the bees in the hopscotch, collect the letters to solve the secret hidden puzzle of the art piece.

The focus of going into the school and working with those kids was to bring them together, and to allow them to see the physical process of these mosaic pieces coming together.

And all the pieces are made out of the same material.

They're all shaped differently.

They're all different colors, but we need all of those different shapes and all those different colors to make this big, beautiful mosaic picture.

And so in that process, we're able to relate that to them.

They are made of the same material.

They are different shapes and different colors, and every one of them are needed to create this beautiful unified picture.

And in this process of working together, they can physically see this amazing accomplishment.

And my hope is that this unifying experience might empower them as they grow.

They might see each other and the differences that are there as a reason to connect.

And the things that make it better to connect, the things that make teamwork the best are the differences that we have.

(upbeat music) - [David] Composer and environmentalist, Gabriela Smith, wrote this piece of music after hiking along the California coast.

Inspired by the sounds of the Pacific Ocean and birds playing in the wind.

Here is the Cleveland Orchestra, performing Smith's "Tumblebird Contrails."

(Cleveland Orchestra playing "Tumblebird Contrails) For more of this concert, visit the Cleveland Orchestra's Adella app.

(upbeat music) Now with that, it's a wrap.

I'm Ideastream's David C. Barnett.

Hope to catch you next time on "Applause" (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.