- [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 music) - [Kabir Bhatia] Coming up, a Japanese car efficient auto turns his obsession into a series of beautiful books.

Plus, a Columbus artist weaves the traditions of her homeland, Nepal into her work.

And Northeast Ohio, singer, songwriter Emily Keener, reveals a vulnerable side in her music.

Welcome back to "Applause", I'm Ideastream Public Media's, Kabir Bhatia.

(upbeat music) Some of the most collected classic cars are easily recognizable and many manufactured in America.

Yet classic Japanese cars are slowly getting their due as well.

A new book co-authored in Summit County, shows the scope of what Toyota, Honda and other eastern automakers have produced over the past six decades.

- The book is, "A Quiet Greatness."

It was gonna be 300 pages and then mission creeps set in and it ended up at 1400 pages, 2200 images.

Basically a 35 pound set of four bucks, set of four.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Noted Summit County Car Collector, Myron Vernis along with his friend and co-author Mark Brinker, are enthusiasts for any and all types of automobiles.

About 10 years ago, they both started collecting Japanese cars.

- There really wasn't a depth of knowledge in this country about the cars.

And the common misconception about Japanese cars even among the enthusiast market, was that Japan never really had any cool cars.

Well, you know, what we always used to say is, you know, the Japanese were like the French with their wines, they kept the best cars for themself.

So we set out a few years ago to write a book.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Creating the expansive four volume set was a six year project with countless hours spent writing, researching, and documenting.

- But here are some of the information that we kind of gathered, select alphabetical roster of the chassis numbers of all the cars in the book.

And these are the engine designations, the internal engine designations that you would know by if you're looking for parts for the engine, those kind of stuff that's just been never been documented before.

And there's a lot of information in there.

It's not the go-to for everything about a Miata, or a 240Z, whole books have been written uncertain with cars like this, but we always strove to find some information that we couldn't find anywhere else, even in a model that you know, you could get, you know, deep dives elsewhere.

- [Kabir Bhatia] The list of criteria for deciding which cars would make it into the book, not what you'd expect.

That process was entirely subjective.

- That we spent probably eight or nine months just kind of making lists of cars that we thought were cool.

So it's not the greatest Japanese cars necessarily, or the best selling Japanese cars or every Japanese car.

It's not an encyclopedia about Japanese cars.

It's just cars that we found intriguing and we just kept discovering.

The deeper we dug the more intriguing the more cars we found which is how it went from 300 pages, the 1400 pages.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Since many of the greatest cars that came out of Japan never made it to the United States, a primary objective of "A Quiet Greatness" is to inform and educate interested audiences about the accomplishments of the Japanese auto industry.

Vernis knew a key factor would be thoughtful design and striking visuals.

(upbeat music) - We felt that the best way to spread the knowledge is to make it beautiful.

And we contracted Richard Barron, who was the art director for "Road Track Magazine" for 30 years to do the layout for us.

And I think we accomplished that.

We went way out of our way to make the book very special.

We had photographed from all over the world, even from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan obviously, Europe, and then all over the United States.

We've commissioned photography, but we had access to all the archives of the major manufacturers.

Actually, we found photos that they didn't even know they had.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir Bhatia] As the number of pages in the book continued to grow, So did the number of cars Vernis could count in his garage.

(car engine revving) - We say the most expensive part of the project wasn't printing the book and doing all the artwork and things like that.

It was, we discovered cars that when then we had to go buy.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Newer to his collection are a 1972 Mazda Cosmo, and a 1973 Toyota Sprinter Trueno.

(car door shuts) Both included in "A Quiet Greatness."

Neither car is well known in the United States, but they serve today as examples of Japan's innovation in the automotive industry.

(upbeat music) One of the most notable automobiles, according to Vernis, was a Toyota featured in the 1967 James Bond film, "You only lived twice."

- 2000 GT obviously is is probably the standout, subjectively the most beautiful Japanese car ever made.

Not the world's greatest performer, kind of a failure as a race car, but still the iconic Japanese vintage collector car.

They made 330 cars.

They were all coops, but Sean Connery was too tall so they took two and they chopped the tops off, so he could fit in the car for the movie.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Sure, this vast collection of Japanese car knowledge could have easily just been a website, but for the co-authors there was a compelling reason to keep it all in a physical form.

- We're old and we like books, you know?

It'll probably end up going online at some point, but there's something special about seeing these great photographs and touching them and being able to keep them for generations and to share them.

(playful jazz music) A lot of the magazines wanna do reviews and we really struggled with that, 'cause they want electronic copies but, you know, 50% of the book, to me the value is the tactile portion of it and you just can't duplicate that online.

(playful jazz music) - [Kabir Bhatia] From the cars of Japan, to the traditions of Nepal.

Anita Maharjan grew up in the South Asian country but has lived and worked in the US for more than a decade.

Her work reflects her multicultural identity while at the same time critiquing our nation's consumerism.

(instrumental music) - I was still painting during my undergrad and at the time one of my professor challenged me, like, what can you bring something new in the art world?

I was taking fiber art as an elective and during one of the project I used the recycled grocery bags from my kitchen pantry and I started weaving, like how it is done in my culture in Nepal.

Weaving really took me back home to my people, my community.

So in that sense, taking something familiar, historically rich technique from my culture and blending it with the material I find every day became a way for me to explore my art.

Recently my work highlights the consumerism based society in western culture and its ecological impact.

I grew up in a agricultural society, collecting garbage is not a thing in our culture.

We produce very few non-degradable waste.

Straw that is the agricultural waste after harvesting the rice, we use that to make mat, this kind of weaving it is very specific to my ethnic background, which is Newari.

Weaving is done primarily by uneducated home staying women.

It's very communal activities where they all chit chat and talk and then weave all day.

It doesn't require like loom or any kind of support.

The human body itself helps support the weaving.

It is passed from generation to generation, and my mom taught me this.

My mom used to work all day, 'cause she's a single mom and she worked in a brick factory and then she would come home and after dinner this was her another job that she would do to make extra income.

And you know, I grew up seeing her.

We put that intense labor to feed our belly.

And so in that sense, it's very personal to me.

And being able to connect that to memory, living in seven sea across from where I come from, it's very powerful to me.

(plastic rustling) Where I live here in western culture, almost everything come in a plastic package.

The plastic bags in my pantry represent how many trips I've made to the stores.

We are very good at processing and generating the waste.

(birds chirping) It begins with the plastic bags again and then hotel bed sheets.

And I also use the tissue paper that people use for like baby shower and some other stuff.

I'm like, give me all of that.

I can use them.

And I also have family and friends who donate the bags to me.

So again, it start all with collecting the material first.

(joyful music) The plastic bag, I cut into the strips to make it long which also it's very intense labor of work.

And then I twist the strips almost like a parallel strand to make like, a one rope knot as I have the quantity and the length I want.

I start weaving with the plastic, I use my legs to kind of hold it and as it grows I sit on it and then move from right to left, left to right.

(joyful music) First I was using it as a canvas to paint on it, which progressed slowly to more twisted different forms and different shapes.

And so it shifted from two-dimensional to more two-dimensional work.

And now my works comes in different shape and size and they're more interactive installation pieces.

(joyful music) And even those bags comes in a different shape, different shape in a sense like, it represents different brand from high end brand to discounted stores.

And you know, that resembles the informal hierarchy of class and the value we put in objects and ourselves.

(joyful music) My work represents my multicultural identity as a Nepali and as an American.

How it is shaping me and how I'm shaping it.

I see myself woven together into both culture.

And in that sense my work is a march to people especially women from my culture to represent the art, craft, and the labor of those underprivileged women.

(upbeat music) - [Kabir Bhatia] A new exhibit centered around chairs wants people to get uncomfortable with contemporary art.

On the next "Applause", take a tour through the gallery inside Oberlin College's, Allen Memorial Art Museum.

Plus learn about the legacy of Dayton literary legend, Paul Laurence Dunbar.

And the Cleveland Orchestra spotlights a lovely work by finished composer Jean Sibelius, featuring a fellow Finn on violin.

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

(orchestral music) Now for an uplifting story about art and Alzheimer's.

While art can't reverse the condition, it can play a role as a positive distraction from the disease.

Here's a program in Cincinnati, that's stimulating minds and sparking memories through art.

- In early 2015, I noticed that Hannah was having some memory issues it concerned me because she's been my go-to person for remembering things all of our married life.

- If you look at three seniors that are over 65, one of those individuals will eventually have dementia.

Alzheimer's is also the sixth leading cause of death.

It's greater than breast cancer and prostate cancer put together.

- There's just something not right, something not connecting.

And just, she relied on my father, like tremendously just to even get through an afternoon, or a conversation, you know, it was just very different.

So I didn't really know how to connect with her at that time.

- So about 5.7 million people in the US currently have Alzheimer's disease and this population is often not catered to within museum situations.

There is a special need for that group to have abilities and opportunities beyond the traditional visitor walking in.

So the CAC as well as the Taft and the Cincinnati Art Museum and of course Greater Cincinnati's Alzheimer's Association realized a program was needed for them.

- The memories in the museum program is an initiative to welcome people with Alzheimer's as well as their caregivers into the museum and to create a positive space for them to engage with the art, engage with each other and to make something.

- It's a program that really addresses the needs of both the caregiver for a kind of moment of respite and also it really engages the person with memory loss really being in the moment with that person.

- But she does a lot of things with symmetry, so that it's like a mirror on both sides.

- We have specially trained docents that lead this program each month.

We go through a training with the Alzheimer's Association each year and they really teach us the best practices in how to talk and engage with our visitors with memory loss.

(indistinct chattering) - We start with a kind of social time.

We greet our visitors as they come in, and we sit down and have sort of a coffee half hour with them and get chatting with them and get in a really kind of comfortable position.

- [Sara] After that, we break up into groups and go to the galleries to learn about the art.

We have about three stops at each program and at each stop we have interactive activities.

It could be learning and engaging through the art, through music, or through sense.

Sometimes we have touchable materials.

- [Jaime] After we have this experience, everyone including the docents who have led the tour come together to make art.

- You can make whatever you like.

So we give you tape then you have something (indistinct) about this.

- It's our understanding that, you know the the art and music function of your mind is the one of the last things to go.

She used to be the president of the Ohio Valley Quilt Guild, where she struggles now with coming up with the right words when she starts to say something and she- - That's tough.

- She just, the word's gone and that really frustrates her.

I mean, as you can see it when it happens, it just gets really difficult.

- Don't like it.

- But she's always been very artsy.

I never really got into it until we retired and I got into wood turning.

Personally, I spend more time in the museums now than I ever would have if this had not, - That's for sure.

(laughs) - come about.

- I teach Pilates in Columbus, Ohio and I come down to Cincinnati as much as possible to care for my mom who has Alzheimer's and being supportive to my father who is her primary caregiver.

So I've been going to the memories in the museum with her I think three to four months now.

It's hugely beneficial.

Some people don't have anything to look forward to except for memories in the museum, they're isolated, they have lost their social contacts, their friends and everything.

And so it's like they're one time to connect and feel, you know, that community and also do something special and enjoy art and get some sort of positive experience and you know, just to have a better day.

- They're happy up here.

- Art is healing just in general.

There's no wrong answers about the artwork and we're just having a conversation together about what they see, what they interpret and how that might relate to them.

- I'm amazed every time we have one of these times together at how much help that is to people.

- Sometimes the participants don't talk.

Other times you get miraculous moments where you get to experience someone speaking for the first time in a week and be with them and their caretaker to have that moment of joy which there's nothing to like compare whatsoever.

- It provides a support structure.

The people that are going through the same thing know what you're going through you know, you can talk to them and you don't have to explain.

- [Stephanie] It breaks my dad into a more social man.

Like he's sort of little, you know, on the stoic side.

And I see him becoming more connected with other people.

My dad didn't even know my mom could paint, I don't think except for maybe walls in their homes growing up.

So these things triggered him and I think that it's connected them more deeply.

- For many people, especially the caregivers, they haven't participated in creating art for maybe many years, so, you know, but they all seem to really enjoy that part of it as well.

You have to say that it's not art therapy, but it is therapeutic.

- One of the museum memory events that we really enjoyed, the fabrics of India, absolutely beautiful.

And it really sparked my mom.

She was just, wow.

It wasn't even associated with her sewing group, but it triggered her on the beautiful things she's created.

You know, when we got home from the event she started talking about how she sewed her own wedding dress.

She remembers things from a long time ago, really well.

So we found her old wedding dress and then my prom dress was in there, that I didn't even know she had kept, but she handmade that and I thought, this woman is so gifted, it's amazing.

She could create her wedding dress, my prom dress, she still kept them.

And then she said to me, she's like, please make sure I'm buried in this, her wedding dress.

Powerful.

- This program serves an underserved community.

It's a fairly unique situation.

We don't get to work with the CAC or the Taft as much as we'd like to, but we do enjoy programming with them.

And it's a unique situation where we all get to benefit and work together on something for the greater good.

- You already answered two, weren't you Rose?

- Yes.

- Oh yeah.

Spin.

Careful.

(indistinct) There we go.

- It's not only for the folks who have memory loss, it's for the 16 million people in the country who are their caregivers.

It's a place for everyone to come together and find a home within the art museum, our arts institutions.

- This allows people to see yes, you know, we can still be in the community, we can still be recognized as being, you know, important people.

We can use our imaginations, our creativity.

- Attendance at the program has been something that is really amazing.

It has become so popular that we've had to double our programs.

There is a real need for this and a real excitement in it.

- Yeah, keep doing it cause it's helping make me a better person as well as giving her those activities that keep her mind stimulated.

- There's no words to fully capture.

It's just an experience that you feel when you're around at the museum with the group.

You just feel the connection, and you just feel people absorbing things and processing things and just connecting.

They all have so much still inside them that these art programs bring out.

Art moves people from within.

♪ She wore her t-shirt inside out ♪ - [Kabir Bhatia] Emily Keener once turned Judges heads on "The Voice."

Today she's a fixture in Northeast Ohio's singer, songwriter scene.

Back in 2019, Emily Keener and her band mates played at the Idea Center Studios for "Applause" performances.

(upbeat music) ♪ I gave her pictures of all my friends ♪ ♪ To help her keep things straight ♪ ♪ She never got the hang of it ♪ ♪ Even though her memory's great ♪ ♪ Oh, I know her memory's great ♪ ♪ Look at me ♪ ♪ I'm taking it badly ♪ ♪ Nose to my knees ♪ ♪ I'm wondering madly ♪ ♪ You say you didn't love me then ♪ ♪ But do you love me lately?

♪ ♪ I can't spell the word ♪ ♪ So I'll sound it out ♪ ♪ Its like being a flightless bird ♪ ♪ When she took a plane outta town ♪ ♪ When she took a plane out ♪ ♪ Look at me ♪ ♪ I'm taking it badly ♪ ♪ Nose to my knees ♪ ♪ I'm wondering madly ♪ ♪ You say you didn't love me then ♪ ♪ But do you love lately?

♪ ♪ I'm sweeping under my bed ♪ ♪ Whatever's hiding, whatever's left ♪ ♪ I am ready for some rest ♪ ♪ Sleeping on a clean sheet again ♪ ♪ Look at me ♪ ♪ I'm taking it badly ♪ ♪ Nose to my knees ♪ ♪ I'm wondering madly ♪ ♪ You say you didn't love me then ♪ ♪ Look at me ♪ ♪ I'm taking it badly ♪ ♪ Nose to my knees ♪ ♪ I'm wondering madly ♪ - [Kabir Bhatia] Hope you enjoyed this week's show.

If you did, there's more where that came from.

So tune in for the next round of "Applause" with me.

Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

♪ You say you didn't love me then ♪ ♪ But do you love me lately?

♪ - [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.