- [Narrator] 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 and Culture.

(upbeat jazz music) - [Kabir] Coming up, quilting as cartography.

Meet an artist from Conneaut with a passion for the colors of our planet.

Plus, Cleveland artist, Mark Howard, does a 180 going from figurative to abstract art.

And Muamin Collective brings their distinctive beats to the Idea Center Studios.

It's time, again, for your regular dose of arts and culture, "Applause."

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(upbeat jazz music) Satellite images of the earth are used in geographic information systems, or GIS, mostly for scientific purposes.

Now, an artist in Ashtabula County is transforming the beauty and complexity of GIS into colorful quilts.

- Hi, I'm Deb Berkebile.

I am a mechanical engineer by day, and every other waking hour or minute I am an artist.

(gentle music) I do art quilts.

I take satellite imagery and create actually from fabric these depictions of the art satellite imagery.

(gentle music) I take hand-dyed fabrics, all of my fabrics are either dyed with Procion dyes, or Shibori, or whatever the colors I am needing, I hand-dye my own fabric now.

I went to Chicago and bought my quilting machine from a quilt festival up there.

I had done quilting before.

I really wanted to do customer quilting to get a little bit of more money.

So I actually started customer quilting.

But then in 2014, I went back to school again and started doing GIS.

- So I'm a professor of geography and geospatial technology.

The GIS in that stands for geographic information systems, which is a part of the overall geospatial approach to mapping and to gathering information about the earth's surface.

And GIS involves the computer systems that acquire, store, analyze, and produce data that can then be used to make maps and to be integrated into models about the world around us.

- I found some images, the satellite images, in a class, a remote sensing class.

And I fell in love with the colors and the variations and just how bright and cheerful these images were.

Right after I got my certificate in GIS, I started not working in the field, but I started doing art quilts of the satellite imagery.

Most of my clients do piecing of different patterns that are traditional.

There are a few that do some art quilts, but most of 'em are traditional piece quilts.

So the art quilt world, you know, they like the traditional quilts.

There are a few quilt shows that mostly show your traditional quilting.

Just in the last probably, I would say 15 years, maybe 20, the art quilts have become more successful, and actually now they have more categories, and they're more juried into your quilt shows.

I like to do, actually go into just the art world itself and go into some juried shows of different mixed media.

A lot of people say, "Oh, quilting is dying," but it's really not.

If you look and go Google, there are quilting guilds.

A lot of people don't, aren't familiar with them because they think that the quilting world is, you know, very low or, but if you Google quilting guilds just in your area, you'll find quite a few.

- Well, we're both fiber artists, although she's a true artist and I just mess around.

I had seen this quilt under construction.

And Deb had never been to Yellowstone or seen the Grand Prismatic Spring, which I have.

So to be in her presence when she saw it was just so special.

And of course, I told everyone we saw, "Well, she made a quilt like this, and here we are."

- So when I was at Lakeland, my professor, he was very interested and was very good at, like, remote sensing.

And that was one of my favorite things during the class time that we, that one of the classes that I took.

- Deb is one of those students who has multiple talents, and she was working for a company doing mostly solid works engineering.

And so Deb came to Lakeland to get her certificate as an adult already in the workforce.

She wanted to add GIS to her skillset.

And that all seemed well and good, and here's an engineer coming to us and taking classes, and we're off to a great start.

And in one of the classes that I was teaching in remote sensing, it was 10 years ago in spring of 2013, I remember the day when we were, we were doing an introduction to Land Satellite Imaging where we start seeing all those images with colors on the screen, and we can look at the world through a new lens and a new perception.

And we can begin to detect and understand what's going on with things like vegetation, and rock formations, and so on.

And all the sudden, Deb clears her space and starts scribbling away on a piece of paper, and everybody else has their nose on the computer screen doing their lab assignment.

So, of course, I asked Deb, "Hey, Deb, what's going on?"

And she says, "Oh, I'm doing a quilting pattern."

- The first one I ever did was "The Painted Desert."

And it has been around the country, it has been in several shows, and I'm very proud of it because people, when they look at it, they say, "So, how do you do this?"

"The Painted Desert" and "The Eye of Sahara" are two of my first ones that I've done, and they're very unique.

They do not have the hand-dyed fabrics, but they're mostly boutique fabrics.

But they are one of my, you know, proudest moments I guess of making, starting the art quilt world.

The GIS quilts, what actually got me inspired for that was I found images in a book that's called "Earth As Art."

There's a few of 'em published, and it's all satellite imagery from NASA.

So you looking at a satellite image and it's green doesn't mean that it's vegetation.

Sometimes the color red is your vegetation, like, during some of the glaciers, red will be your vegetation.

So the colors of that really fascinated me.

- It's her curiosity ultimately I think that's impressive.

Her artistic ability is incredible, but certain people have the gift and the talent to interact with the world in a particular way.

- [Kabir] Deb Berkebile's quilts are on view in the show "Earth in Three Bands: R,G,B" at the West Woods Nature Center in Geauga County through April 30th.

Now, let's focus on an artist with a different point of view.

In the 1990s, Mark Howard was known in Northeast Ohio's art scene for his figurative paintings and paper cutouts.

But for several years he was notably absent.

Then in 2021, Howard re-emerged with a new artistic passion.

- Sometimes, you know, the painting may take several weeks depending on how it progresses, you know.

Normally though, usually about two weeks.

It wasn't anything else.

It was always art, wasn't music or sports or anything, it was always art.

And went to school in Cleveland at the Cleveland Institute of Art.

I got my BFA, and I set up my first studio in Cleveland in 88.

I worked in galleries, part-time jobs, and I did murals for nightclubs.

I was just doing these really avantgarde things at the time, and they were fun.

And so I had that, you know, job, and then I worked as a color mixer at a screen printing company.

And so, you know, all these little things kind of in the end, kind of made me who, as an artist, who I am now.

'Cause mixing the colors commercially, I got to see how to mix colors at the right scale, the right amount.

And so, you know, everything kind of worked out, but it was initially, it was pretty, you know, rough.

Normally what I do is I'll have a bunch of drawings, and then I'll pick out of the drawings which paintings I think are worth doing.

When I was really exhibiting in Cleveland, probably around the late eighties, and they were kind of like, pop art type of things.

And I was doing a lot of silk screening on canvas, and mostly it was figurative, but, and I held that for probably until about the early nineties.

And then I just wanted to break out and try something new.

And then I discovered paper cutouts, and that's where most people in Cleveland are familiar with my work with paper cutouts.

And then that evolved into the paintings based on the paper cutouts.

And then the public art pieces throughout the city.

The first one was at the Cleveland School of the Arts.

That was my first public art project, and that was that outside mural.

And that really was, that was a big learning curve and a big start.

That was my first introduction to artwork on that scale.

And once I got my foot in the door with that project, other projects started to come in.

And Cleveland Public Library downtown, the mural there, you know, they just kind of just, like, took off.

But, yeah, at one point there really wasn't a lot of public art at that time.

Now it's just exploded all over now.

But at the time, it was like a open field, and I think I've done about 13 public art projects since probably the nineties.

I think it was like 92 or 93 when I did that Cleveland School of the Arts mural.

And so then once one is done, I'll start the next one.

And that way it keeps me busy.

Within the past couple years, I kind of got disillusioned with figurative work.

It was 2019, COVID.

I had really no place to go.

You couldn't go to any art museums, you couldn't go to any galleries, you couldn't do anything.

And so that gave me a time to just start painting, couldn't do anything else.

And so I decided to just, I'm just gonna do the abstractions, and enough of the other stuff.

And I produced quite a bit during that first year.

And it was all abstract.

And I just decided that I'm just gonna go with this.

No more figures.

I didn't want to see any more faces, anything.

I wanted to have just pure shapes, colors, and that was enough.

And this new material, the painting on this burlap, that's new too.

I like it.

It's a different texture than anything I've really done before, and it eats up a lot more paint, but it's a different, totally different texture that I like.

There's no theme 'cause I didn't want any reference to any outside reality.

So, but I do have a box of shapes, and those shapes are the shapes that I use, and sometimes alter those shapes and reuse them.

And those are kind of the basis for the drawings.

But there's no theme at all.

So I try to keep themes or any outside references, I tried to, like, banish that.

I'm definitely much happier with the path that the paintings are going now 'cause I'm just free to just create these shapes and the colors, and I don't have any reference to anything.

You know, I don't have to have someone ask, "Well, what does it mean?"

And I said, "Well, it's right there."

And so it's kind of liberating in that sense.

And so I feel like I'm gonna continue with this.

I think this is where it should be.

(upbeat jazz music) - [Kabir] On the next "Applause," meet an artist who arrived in Cleveland as a refugee of war, yet today spreads her message of hope and peace.

Enter the studio of Kubra Al Hilali whose art is inspired by the beauty of her Arabic heritage.

Plus, an Instagram artist expands her color palette almost by accident.

And the Cleveland Orchestra spotlights a masterpiece by 20th century composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.

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

(gentle clarinet music) Now, for another story about an artist changing tack.

Columbus dancer, Gabriel Gaffney Smith, made a major transition recently.

For Smith, it was making the move from dancing to sculpting.

(gentle piano music) - I grew up in upstate New York, and I started dancing, like, 12 in a place called Saugerties Ballet Center.

I always was, like, a kid that, like, needed to do.

I needed to be physical, I needed to use my mind.

I was never good with boredom, ever.

Like, if I'm bored, it's just not good for me.

So, but then also, like, the physicality of ballet, the sport aspect of ballet.

It's underrated, especially, like, in the States in compared to, like, Europe.

It's incredible 'cause you get to use your mind, you get to use musicality, you get to use... And it's, like, the hardest thing physically compared to anything that I did with baseball and soccer.

And any sport that I did, it did not compare to what I could do with ballet.

'Cause I could work on it every day, and I could dive into it as deep as I wanted to.

Plus, it was a way for me to express myself that I never had before.

And I just caught the bug, and then it just, like, kind of, it took me on this ride.

Roller coaster of a career.

Like, the ballet, for anybody who's in the ballet world, it is like a roller coaster, and that's just inevitable.

You're with a group of artists, everybody in the room's an artist, you know, so there, the dynamics of it and, you know, you can have your highs and highs and lows of lows with injuries and things.

But, yeah, it was awesome.

I danced here at BalletMet for 12 seasons with Gerard, and then Edward took over, and then I retired 2020.

Now that I'm kind of outside company life, I kind of have freedom where I can do anything I want.

I can put together anything, like, yeah, the sky's the limit.

But then that puts more pressure on me because I'm like, okay, I have to take this bubble of a thought that I have.

And I was like, I think it's possible to, so it's slowly been over, like, the last four or five years where it's, like, started to like, morph into something that can be physical.

(saw buzzing) I'm the fifth generation of a hardware store.

My father being a woodworker, and, like, he'll say he's not an artist, but he is an artist.

And my mom's an artist.

Art was very important in my household.

So I am kind of them put together.

I grew up with saws, I grew up with all these tools.

I grew up, "Go out in the woods and build a tree house," like, you know.

So I always used my hands, and I always knew how to use tools.

And then, like, slowly but surely I would acquire my own tools.

Like, I remember I bought my first band saw from Habitat for Humanity for 50 bucks.

The first piece I ever made, I had all these extra pieces 'cause I was making furniture for my house, and I didn't want to pay $3,000 for a table when I can make it for nothing.

So then I had all the extra scraps, and I just, you know, I bought this band saw.

I was like, oh cool, I can do these little tiny cuts now that I couldn't do safely on the table saw 'cause I wanted to keep my fingers.

And then I just, I just made a circle, and it just, like, it, and I just had it relief and go out.

And then I would put it on my wall.

And then at that time BalletMet was asking dancers to kind of donate.

You can have, like, a dinner with a dancer.

And so they asked me and I said, hey, I'm making this art.

And then, yeah, I donated it, and that's how that started.

(gentle piano music) So that's what I'm doing now.

I do it every day.

I create pieces.

Basically starting a new career from the ground up.

Like ballet, it's all on me.

Like, I have to create the pieces, I have to, it's, which is a thing that I like to do the most.

But what I'm working on now is where I have a piece of art that emotes some type of feeling, which then in, I would compose music for, and then I would choreograph, like, a little short little ballet.

(gentle music) I like the pressure of, like, putting a timeline on something so that I have to do it.

'Cause I feel if I don't then I'll just, oh, I wanna do this, oh, I wanna do this.

'Cause, again, I don't like being bored, and I do a lot of different things in the art world, but they all inspire each other.

So that's why I was like, I need to figure out how I can put 'em all together, because then I can create something that is super unique to me.

And then, 'cause it's always been, like, I compose, but I dance, but I create art.

And it was always, like, I would have to talk to people separately about everything I did.

And then they would be like, "Oh, but you compose."

And then, you know, so it was always, like, I would always go, like, this is my composing mind, and then this this is my dancer mind, and then this is my, but they're all linked to me, all the movement.

(saw buzzing) For me, creating the art now especially, and before, is like this state of flow that I find because I'm not around my phone.

Dancers are so fortunate and so lucky to be able to go into a studio and have interactions, these powerful human interactions with people, and finding this state of flow.

(gentle music) When I was a dancer, creating the art was something that I didn't have to move, so I could be, like, a little sore, and I could just sit at the table, and it's just a very slow process, gluing one piece at a time.

So I think it was a form of me getting away from the ballet world.

Like, say the ballet world was just super dramatic that day.

I was like, okay, I need to get away.

So it was always a way for me to get away, and to, but to still be creative and to still feel like I had my voice, and I could find a state of flow.

And then once you're done, you have something to show for it.

(gentle music) I really enjoy tapping into the machine that is the human mind instead of everybody's on a computer, and everybody's filtering through what the computer can do for me.

But tapping into this, and how you can dive deeper into your mind and create I think is something that I've always done my whole life.

There's definitely a correlation between the state, the mindset that I can put myself in where I can lose myself.

'Cause that is, like, the best high in the world is to be able to go in and just, like, completely lose yourself and not be aware of how much time went by.

And that's what art did.

That's what dance did.

Music, performing.

Yeah, I'm super fortunate and lucky to be able to do that.

(gentle music) - [Kabir] For more than a decade, Muamin Collective has been at the forefront of Cleveland's hip-hop scene.

With Brothers James and Josiah Quarles dropping razor sharp lyrics over the beats of Aaron "aLIVE" Snorton.

Back in 2019, they stepped into the spotlight for "Applause" performances.

(upbeat music) ♪ No one will care ♪ ♪ Until foreign cars are stacked two and three high ♪ ♪ Along boulevards ♪ ♪ Lines of gas stations are 500 yards ♪ ♪ Uniform men with machine guns stand guard ♪ ♪ No one is there when they come to your door ♪ ♪ Kick it in with a boot ♪ ♪ Take your children, what's more ♪ ♪ You're living in fear when the drone drops a bomb ♪ ♪ On the neighborhood schoolers ♪ ♪ Who sound the alarm ♪ ♪ Beware the tap waters on fire ♪ ♪ Rivers and lakes are just fuel for the pyre ♪ ♪ Blank stares, their lips are all cracking ♪ ♪ The stench of methane fills the air from the fracking ♪ ♪ Mountains are leveled for coal in their veins ♪ ♪ The saints all wear picket signs, not in our name ♪ ♪ And no one will care till the movies come true ♪ ♪ We're all co-stars broadcast on Youtube ♪ ♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ It's fake news ♪ ♪ That you see with your eyes ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ They deceive and disguise ♪ ♪ They reprieve and reprise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ That you see with your eyes ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ They deceive and disguise ♪ ♪ They reprieve and reprise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ That you see with your eyes ♪ ♪ It's fake news ♪ ♪ They deceive and disguise ♪ ♪ They reprieve and reprise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ Numbers don't lie dammit, these fools do ♪ ♪ Walk around the room with a elephant in the view ♪ ♪ Till there's a hole in they shoe ♪ ♪ Fake news is askew ♪ ♪ Gotta take it back ♪ ♪ Like they scratching the cue, so rack 'em up ♪ ♪ No bedside manner but they shackin' up ♪ ♪ Lack of credence revival ♪ ♪ Dark water frackin' up ♪ ♪ Fortunate sums from fortunes that sprung ♪ ♪ From corporate lies that spread with a fork in the tongue ♪ ♪ I got the floor shakin' from whom the bell rung ♪ ♪ Deserts drained of the oasis ♪ ♪ The dirt done ♪ ♪ Sioux suicide escalate, they well hung ♪ ♪ Foreign ties aside, we like ♪ ♪ Where you came from ♪ ♪ Daimyos and shoguns, Monsanto dust bowl ♪ ♪ Gun to ya temple, your life is in escrow ♪ ♪ Revert to that Levert for the love of the dough ♪ ♪ But say it be the Mu, so we lettin' you know ♪ ♪ So errbody crowd around the idiot box ♪ ♪ To listen to the CNN, and ABC, and the FOX ♪ ♪ Or the Facebook, be the many faced god ♪ ♪ Put two hearts on your face in the morn ♪ ♪ From the cellular phone or the tele or the tablet ♪ ♪ Put lap dancers on ya laptop in ya lap jack ♪ ♪ Say that be the alternative fact ♪ ♪ To be free by the murder on the one sha-clack ♪ ♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ Alternative facts ♪ ♪ That you see ♪ - [Kabir] To see the entire "Applause" performance by Muamin Collective on demand, please visit the PBS app.

♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ That you see with your eyes ♪ ♪ Alternative facts ♪ - [Kabir] Thank you for joining us, everyone.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, inviting you to tune in for the next round of "Applause."

♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ That you see with your eyes ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ They deceive and disguise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ They reprieve and reprise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ Don't believe in the lies ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ That you see with your eyes ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ ♪ They deceive and disguise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts ♪ ♪ They reprieve and reprise ♪ ♪ Alternative facts, fake news ♪ (airy music) - [Narrator] 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 and Culture.