- [Announcer] Production of Applause on Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(funk music) - [David] Coming up, a Cleveland artist highlights a literary icon, an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights returns to the stage, a crafty maker turns the pages of old books into art, and a bagpiper constructs his instrument right in front of your eyes.

Welcome back to Applause, your weekly guide to the region's arts and culture scene.

I'm Idea Stream Public Media's David C. Barnett.

As a student in Cleveland, in the 1980s, Danielle Dixon didn't connect with classical artists she learned about in the classroom.

Over the years, she's developed her own realistic style and along her creative journey, started writing poetry too.

Dixon recently found inspiration for her art from the novels of science fiction writer, Octavia Butler.

- Creativity was always, it was always a part of my life because as a kid I was an only child.

So, my mother was like, "I'm gonna get you all the crayons you want, (Danielle chuckles) and the manila paper, (Danielle chuckles) and the paints, oh yeah, go to town.

I'm not having any more kids."

So, you know, it was always a way for me to keep myself busy.

I had never really stopped drawing and painting.

I just got better at it.

You know, I just found that with art, I could kind of just create my world the way I wanted it to be.

My mother tried to get me into the School of the Arts when it first opened in '81 but somehow we got our dates mixed up and we missed the date for the audition.

But, once I got to high school, I really hated the school I was going to.

And she's like, "You know what?

Let's audition again for School of the Arts."

So that was a big deal because now we were focusing on the technical side of how to draw and getting the basics down and not just kind of going for it, you know, by sight.

And getting to practice it over and over every day actually helped me to increase my skills quite a bit.

I was really deeply into my own world (Danielle laughs) as a kid.

And when I was in school, they're like, "Oh, well, you know, you need to research other artists and what they're doing, and their techniques, and their this and that, and the third."

And I think because they told me I had to, I think I rebelled against it even harder, plus the artists, I think that they were exposing me to, I just didn't see any, anything I could get from that, you know, like the Michelangelo, you know, the statues and the, you know, fig leafs and all of that stuff.

No, I had no interest in any of that, no interest in that.

You know, we just, we didn't get to the art that I wanted to see.

So when people did cartooning, or graffiti, or the things that really drew my eyes in, they were like that's not real art.

I never really did graffiti, but, I liked the style.

You know, it just seemed vibrant and rebellious and all of that.

And I wanted all of that.

So I always wanted to draw realistically, especially in my earlier adult life, I still wanna draw what I see.

However, I want to add meaning these days.

So as opposed to just drawing a pretty picture, I want something that means something.

So I did not become aware of Octavia Butler until like 2017.

Octavia Butler's books took things that had happened in history and just looked at how they could come back around again.

And then I found that there were other books that were considered futuristic and more fantasy, more sci-fi.

So, I just became fascinated with her stories.

Yeah, this one brought me way outta my comfort zone.

The original portrait that I did of Octavia in the chalk, where it was literally just her face, that was more my comfort zone, you know, I just kind of drew what I saw.

Although I do interpret the colors and the shapes a little differently so, it's not like photorealism or anything, but it's not very challenging.

With this one, I got the idea like, hey, Octavia was a Afrofuturist, and sci-fi, and all of that.

Hey, the bullet fire, you know, could put a like an orb of light in her hand because part of her story's all dealt with shaping worlds.

So, if she's shaping something that's not together yet and you know, to represent the, the sci-fi and Afrofuturism that made it a little more fun.

Although it was a little more challenging because there's a lot of room to fail.

(Danielle laughs) I searched for you, Octavia, I found you in sound bites, interviews, and symposiums.

You told us, when we don't see ourselves in the story's future, just write ourselves in.

I wonder if you know that all you touched, you changed.

I dabbled in writing poetry in college, but it wasn't good.

(Danielle laughs) Okay.

It was, some of them were interesting.

They had potential, I'll put it that way.

They had potential.

Once I picked it back up again, once I had moved in at my aunt's house, and there was no room to really paint and I was overly concerned about messing things up.

Cause I get messy when I draw and paint.

So, I ended up switching over to using words.

Cause it had to come out some kind of way.

I started writing, but I didn't share anything with people cause I was thinking, nobody wants to hear what I have to say.

But I got so much warmth (audience applauds) and encouragement and, you know, people wanting to hear more.

And then that petrified me cause I didn't have more.

I didn't have more that was good.

At that time I had like four good poems and that was it.

And one of 'em was 20 years old!

So, you know, I'm like, oh wow, you know, I better get to writing cause they were expecting more, you know.

(Danielle laughs) It became another way, another outlet, you know, for me to get something out cause I needed to create.

And the whole process of making time for it has been one of those adult things that I've never really been successful at.

(Danielle laughs) And I think that's how, there are so many years that go between doing successful pieces of work, though artistically, because I haven't made time for it.

You know, I've had to create the meaning basically, and just sit down and say, "Hey, I'm gonna do this," and we are gonna have to figure out how to do with what we have.

Or find a way to take that scoop full of peanut butter and cover the whole loaf of bread.

I don't know, but, this has to happen.

And I found it by putting art as a priority, it's opened some other doors for me.

- [David] While balancing her art with full-time jobs.

Dixon, is also writing a memoir on lessons she's learned throughout her life from family members.

Andrew Levitt is a drag performer who balances his work as an LGBTQ plus activist with his career in the world of drag artistry.

Levitt cut his teeth in Columbus as "Nina West" and recently returned to star in a Tony winning musical.

- My professional career probably started after I graduated college but I wasn't really intending on moving to Columbus, Ohio.

I was going to go to New York City and chase the dream of being an actor on Broadway.

And I graduated in 2001, May of 2001, and I was gonna move to New York and then 9/11 happened in September and it changed my whole path.

Everything kind of happened for a reason, right?

I found drag.

My drag mother, Virginia West, introduced me to the art of drag while I was still in college.

So I did it as like, fun kind of a lark.

It wasn't anything I was really gonna take seriously.

And then you know, I stayed here in Columbus and Chris, the stage hand at Virginia West, Chris had encouraged me to like just give myself over to drag and, I did.

And I just had tried it a couple times and, that's where Nina West came from.

And everything was growing in this city, right?

I was able to not only do drag in nightlife for many years, but I was also like really early on in my career trying to find ways to work within the community and do different kinds of drag.

I started to do things within the city, and working with city council on some initiatives, and talking to organizations about the importance of LGBTQIA+ people and our profile within the community and what that means and how valuable this community is to the greater Columbus community.

And, it all just all kind of added on to itself.

And I was doing a tremendous amount of charity work within the shows at the bar, which then extended itself to, thanks to my friend Matt Goldstein, who runs Besa, which then introduced me to the Columbus Foundation which gave the Nina West Foundation a home.

So the path wasn't traditional, it was just kind of just growing, and different seeds were being planted in a very small garden.

And then everything started to, then the garden got bigger and, it was just what a wealth of I think, really incredible gifts.

And then drag race happened, which changed everything.

And, I can easily say and proudly say that my time in Columbus, prepared me for, what I'm experiencing now, right?

I cut my teeth in a city that is a midsize city, You know one of the larger cities in the country.

A really beautiful progressive blue dot in an otherwise fairly conservative area and state, which I think spoke to, my desire to want to provide a better life and access to people who were like me and allowed me to find my activist voice.

I think a lot of people find their activism or find their strength in activism because of their own personal stories.

And so my story, I found, I just found myself really alone and really isolated and didn't find anyone who in my growing up, in my youth, who didn't look like me, who didn't sound like me, who wasn't, who didn't present themselves like I did, who was effeminate, who, you know, like, you know so many times I was told who I was, I didn't have any value or worth.

And so, Nina taught me a lot about how to, I think to walk and embody a feminine character even though it's kind of a louder personification of myself.

And I know that's kind of weird.

The art of drag is so personal.

I can create a character who may or may not be like myself but it's still my creation through and through into the core.

So Nina kind of gave me the familiarity of the body, definitely the ability to walk in the shoes, but, I think that's where it stops.

And so, "Edna" is a real mom.

Is a real mother, who happens to be played, casting happens to be of a male.

I think one of the greatest roles ever written for musical theater.

She is really complicated, you know, so much of my Edna is, I think so much of what Andrew is, and that's why they asked me to do it.

They wanted heart and they wanted I think an energy that was maternal, or paternal, and then, and however you might see that.

I mean, I think I have a very maternal energy.

And I had to really tap into that.

Because my job when that curtain goes up is to get 2500 people to believe that I am that 16-year-old girl's mother.

I'll never understand what it's like to be a woman.

I'll never understand what it's like to give birth, but it doesn't mean the human condition doesn't allow me to understand what it's like to love and to love fiercely and to, give all of my heart and my energy to someone else and so that their dreams can be achieved.

And that's, I mean, like, I just thought about my mom, and I thought my grandmothers, and I thought about my sisters, and every other really incredible, strong, decisive, empathetic, impactful woman I've ever come across to try to bring that to "Edna".

When you come to see "Hairspray" you're gonna experience so many different things.

You're gonna see, a girl who doesn't fit in because she's fat and big and she can't find her way, but she doesn't, she's also like not aware of that.

Like she's blissfully unaware, that, you know, "Maybe I don't, you know, but why can't I?"

And you're gonna meet Seaweed who is, you know, who is Black, and who cannot be on a television show, except for once a month.

We all have our differences and we all have our stories and, they all circle around one another and it couldn't be more true of what we're experiencing now.

That's powerful.

And I just didn't see my career.

I just didn't see it happening like this.

And like, but again, my career has taken (tongue clicks) a bunch of turns.

And now I get to come to Columbus, Ohio and I get to play the Ohio Theater.

You would've told me that five years ago, I would've, I just, I wouldn't have believed it.

So like, this is a, it's so special, because I'm here because of the love that my community gave me, initially.

Of I think how people I think respected me and reared me and corrected me and, allowed me to step into spaces that, at the time drag queens in Columbus weren't walking into.

It's humbling.

It's really powerful.

Little Andrew would never have believed opening the new season for Broadway series in Columbus and doing this.

Hopefully I'll get to New York one day.

You know, that's always, that was always the dream.

So boy, wouldn't that be like a full circle moment.

It'd be crazy.

But in the meantime, I'm just gonna keep working keep doing that Midwest, that Midwest work ethic and smile along the way and try to bring joy to it all.

- [David] Daffodil Hill is a welcome sign of spring in northeast Ohio.

On the next Applause, learn how this tradition took root.

Then, let's road trip to Columbus, to meet a cameraman capturing the spirit of conservation along the Scioto River.

And the Cleveland Orchestra rips through a masterpiece by Antonio de Borgia.

All this and more on the next round of Applause.

(orchestral music) - [David] Books aren't only for reading.

Some visual artists alter books and create one of a kind works.

Let's spend some time with Jean Epstein, of Cleveland Heights as she shares her creative process with Idea Stream Public Media's, Carrie Wise - [Carrie] Jean Epstein, has been altering books for nearly 20 years, cutting through the pages, and folding them into unique shapes and designs.

- My method of working is, I don't pre-plan anything.

I try to ask myself a question, "What would happen if I tried thus and so?"

"What would happen if, I folded the books in a certain way?"

"If I made a cut and then folded, made two folds in the book?"

- [Carrie] She says she first started altering books when a friend offered her and several others, some old books a local library no longer needed.

They found new life for those books, as art.

- The group of us met every month, and we still do, this is like 17, 18 years later.

We still meet every month, and do something with books and make art out of them.

- [Carrie] Epstein has created pieces that hang on walls, as well as sculptures, and works you page through.

- Mostly, when I'm doing an altered book these days I'm using a knife.

And sometimes I use a straight edge or a ruler.

Often I'll use a bone folder to make the creases, but often I just use my hands for that.

So those are my main tools.

Knife is the main tool and I go through a lot of blades.

- [Carrie] While this rendering of Mother Earth is intentional, many of her carvings are spontaneous.

She's currently working on a series using travel books with colorful photo spreads.

- I cut out parts of the pictures and then, layer down to the other pictures and other pictures in the book and get a pallet of color coming through.

I use the shapes that are in the pictures themselves as a starting point.

- [Carrie] The daughter of two artists, Epstein received her masters in fine arts from Kent State University.

She's worked in a variety of mediums throughout her life, and in addition to altering books into works of art, she also creates art books.

- The difference between book art and other forms of visual art, is that you have the ability to make a sequence of things.

It's not just something that you either look at on a wall necessarily, although it could be, or walk around it.

It's something that you experience in time.

There's the element of time in it if it's got pages that you turn, you're turning pages and getting an experience over a period of time.

- [Carrie] As a member of another group, Art Books Cleveland, Epstein says she develops new ideas often around a theme the group explores together.

- People think artists are, they can do anything they want.

They have this expansive pass, list of possibilities, but when you have an unlimited amount of possibilities it's very hard to do anything.

You know, where do I start?

What?

So having a focus, like a topic to work toward is really helpful.

- [Carrie] Her book art includes different ABC books, including one about books.

Weaving in some of her background in binding which she also does professionally.

- I came across some wood veneer in a, I think it was a furniture store we were in, or a hardware store?

I think it was a furniture store.

And I thought, wow, you could make book pages out of this.

So that was the impetus for that.

And then I thought, well, I'll just, put the letter, you know, cut out the big letter and then do something related to books or paper.

As for each letter, each of the letters has its own little explanation of...

In book binding when you have the gold letters on the spine that's done with gold foil and a hot stamp press.

- [Carrie] Whether creating new books or designing something new from old books.

She compares her process to music improvisation as she also plays jazz.

- I get surprised all the time, and that's the fun of it.

I think if there weren't those surprises If it were, you know, I'm going to do a book and this is what it's gonna look like at the end and then I just go and do the steps, that I would get bored real quick with that and I would lose interest.

- [David] Ohio printmakers have stepped into the Applause spotlight from time to time on the show.

Well, here's a place where you can learn the art of printmaking yourself.

Zygote Press in Cleveland.

- Welcome to Zygote Press.

This is the shop here.

This is where the magic happens.

- Zygote, the word "zygote", basically just means a fertilized cell.

Originally, Zygote became a printmaking studio because, many commercial print shops were moving towards digital and away from printing presses.

And printing presses were being discarded.

And they were being left behind.

And they were being treated as if they're obsolete.

- This is our gigantic exposure unit.

(machine creaks) (clamp snaps) - Clamp it down.

(clamp snaps) Turn on, okay, this is gonna be loud.

Turn on the vacuum.

(machine whirs) Voila.

This is an example of one of the things that our founders found, literally outside by a dumpster and retrieved, and now we use it all the time.

- And our founders had this, tremendous foresight to see an opportunity there because printmaking is so much more than just print.

It's a unique art form because it allows for different kinds of expression.

- This incredible line engraving collection that we have here, was, most of it was in a dumpster, in the 90s.

But now artists come here to work because they want to work with this collection.

- One of the most recent additions to our residency program is the program for artists and educators of color who are non-print makers.

They are given three months with individual educational support from our teaching artists and our staff.

And the idea is that, they can acquire knowledge and skills about printmaking that can help build their artistic practice.

There are a number of different ways in which we engage with the community.

We've been participating with things like the Waterloo Arts Fest and the Cleveland Asian Festival.

We also engage in things like, partnered workshops and classes.

- One of the great things about Zygote, is that we have what's called our mobile art presses.

The great thing about this is that anybody can use this.

And then children, grown-ups, anybody that comes to our events can make a letterpress poster to take home with them.

And that's how we get people interested especially young people in printmaking.

- What we are looking to create is a cross-disciplinary arts center from children's programming and classes, to professional artists and masterclasses, and everything in between.

And this is part of our overall work to become an arts organization that is a true ally to its community.

- Being able to work with all of these amazing like-minded people, to get inspired by them, and to lift each other up, you know, to support each other.

That's what Zygote is all about.

- [David] Finally, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, let's pay a visit to the Strongsville workshop of Brian Bigley, who is crafting a set of Irish bagpipes, also known as "uilleann pipes".

It's a complicated instrument to build and to play but it's worth it once you hear the ethereal music.

(bagpipe music) Thank you for tuning in to this week's edition of Applause.

I'm Idea Stream Public Media's David C. Barnett.

Let's enjoy more of Brian Bigley's Irish bagpipes as we say, goodbye, or, "slainte".

(bagpipe music continues) (dramatic music) - [Announcer] Production of Applause on Idea Stream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation, and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.