- [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.

(upbeat jazz music) - [Kabir] Coming up, it's a mother and child reunion thanks to the healing power of art.

Plus it's time to channel your inner child.

As we take a tour of Candytopia.

And the great outdoors serves as stage for this husband and wife folk duo.

Welcome, one and all, to another round of "Applause."

I'm your host, Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(upbeat jazz music) While Marilyn Shaker didn't start painting until her 40s, art has transformed her life.

It's also helped her reconnect with her daughter, Pamela, after nearly two decades estranged.

They've revived their relationship bonding over Marilyn's art and together now share the paintings around Northeast Ohio and beyond.

(bright music) - I had zero talent.

I mean, I was not somebody even in school or in grade school, the kids, they could all draw, not me.

I was like always kind of, you know, and I never even thought about it.

I just accepted the fact that I didn't draw or paint well and so forth.

- My mom grew up in that era, too, where I think she was just 10 years earlier than she would like to have been as far as women being out of the home.

She never complained, and it wasn't like she didn't choose to be a stay-at-home mom, but I sensed that for us, because she had four girls, so she really encouraged us all to, you know, to be what we wanted to be.

- Then all of a sudden I had a little desire, like I really want to do something more creative.

So first of all, I went to floral design school with Bill Hixson and took classes and so forth.

And then I was hired at Higbee's, and I was their floral designer plus their custom customer arranger.

- [Pamela] Bill Hixson, who she trained under, he's quite renowned.

He did the White House.

- I started out, I took some classes at Tri-C.

The one school that I was the most encouraged and I wanna say almost to the point that I kind of grew was they had an art school, and it was the Lighthouse School of Art.

And this was in Jupiter, Florida.

So I started out worst of the class, and when I ended up and graduated from the class, I took best of the class.

So I don't say that boastfully but just to say there's always hope.

The beauty of what God created in the flowers and the colors, just the magic.

When you think of flowers, if you start to think of the hundreds of different kinds of flowers, you know, from purple, orange, red, yellow, blue, green, whatever, there's no limit to what God created.

- It's funny, 'cause I'll be going through my mom's work, and then I'll find something totally unexpected like those portraits.

- My mom had a spare bedroom upstairs that probably had 200 paintings in it.

You couldn't even walk in the room, literally.

There were paintings that were tilted up against each other so they wouldn't get bent.

And I said, "You know, if Mom's really gonna move, we're going to have to organize these paintings."

So I went over there one day and moved all the paintings to the basement and organized them by size.

And once Pam saw that, I think that ignited her, like, "Oh!"

- My mom and I had some personal issues.

I still had a relationship with my father and my siblings, but it was a sensitive topic, so we didn't, with my siblings, I didn't really talk about my mom because I didn't want to engage them in my issues.

- My family was not the Brady Bunch.

I wasn't, you know, miss cookies and dough, and my husband didn't come home.

And, you know we were what I would call normal, just average people.

You know, I have a son who has a business and the daughters and, you know, everyone is so unique.

And the issue that I had with Pam was 100% my fault.

And just the fact that she has come back into my life and she has been so kind and receptive and loving, it's a gift from God.

Anybody who has a relationship that isn't working, there's always time to make amends, and that's what Pam did.

- I truly just wanted sincerity, and then let's just move on because, you know, relationships take two people.

- Pam really is the one that's marketing it.

I'm just helping her organize it, getting paintings signed.

But she's, I call her the chief marketing officer.

- So I asked her if she could paint this mountain scene for me.

I had a picture I had given her, and the painting came back very different than the photo because she saw all of these colors in it that I didn't see.

I have done a couple smaller shows.

They've been indoor, so it wasn't the big tent thing, but it's been fun because it's been the creative side of me.

So I have submitted applications for the Boston Mills Brandywine show.

I haven't heard yet, so I'm hoping to have my mom's work get accepted in that show.

She said that that's always been her ultimate dream, to have her work accepted in that show.

- I definitely have slowed down, but I'm finally getting back the interest and the desire.

I'm kind of painting what I want, but I would like it to be enjoyed.

So I would like people to like it, but that's not my first goal.

My first goal is what I want and then hoping that it's liked.

(calm music) - [Kabir] Let's meet another Northeast Ohio artist but one who's just beginning his career.

Derek Walker is a graduate of the Cleveland School of the Arts who left behind a lasting image for the student body.

Now he's set to graduate from the Cleveland Institute of Art, where his award-winning paintings look to the past and the future.

(mellow music) - One of my earliest memories of art included learning from my dad and my cousin.

They had a lot of different sketchbook pages, and they kind of encouraged me to pretty much learn how to sketch and do it on a daily routine.

I did a lot of drawings of cars like Lamborghinis and stuff.

I was really inspired by Leonardo da Vinci and how he was also into drawing inventions and designs aside from painting portraits, and I pretty much continued doing all that until I got into Cleveland School of the Arts.

One of my teachers that had a impact on me at CSA was Ms. Telich.

- He left drawings on the board every day, which is no surprise, but they weren't just drawings like I get from most kids.

They were hilarious.

When we were reading "Hamlet," it would be something about Hamlet's interactions with Ophelia or Hamlet's interactions with Claudius, and it would always just say something hilarious.

You could see even at that time that his creative thinking was understanding history kind of in this context and then also creating this empathetic way of understanding people and presenting it and then creating a story.

And I think he does that through his artwork.

- My class of students were one of the first students to actually enroll into the building because it was newly built, and they wanted to make the school a bit more welcoming to the students.

So they invited several artists of the school to create murals on all of the blank walls.

And I was chosen as one of the artists, and I was working on several different concepts for the piece, and one that struck me was a piece that kind of resembled the mode of creation that Kehinde Wiley does when he takes African American figures and inserts them into traditional and art historical paintings.

(mellow music) At the beginning of the mural is from "A Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Johannes Vermeer.

- Which notoriously features a very white woman, and he repainted it with an African American.

So in the same way that I saw him reinvent or take history and context and tell his own story through it, you know he made a giant mural in Cleveland School of the Arts cafeteria.

- Pretty much every figure in that piece was created from imagination.

I would just use different facial features from anybody walking around.

(wondrous music) So being at Cleveland Institute of Art, I really appreciated the plethora of majors at this school.

I mean, it's not just drawing and painting.

- Derek is extraordinarily earnest and thoughtful, and he works very hard.

Like, he's in the studio a lot.

I can almost always walk by his studio and he's there.

- Professor Cooper would actually tell me different art eras to pull from.

For example, like the Baroque period, that's where a lot of artists would do Chiaroscuro, which is a style of painting where you have like a black background, and it kind of seeps into the shading of the canvas, and that was definitely a popular style of reference that I would use in my paintings.

So for my "Let The Cape Fly" series, I was going through some of my photographic references from my paintings, and one struck me from high school of my friend Isaiah, who was sitting on a pink couch, and he was sporting a pink durag.

And after spending time with that photograph, I was thinking like, "Hey, I think I should do more paintings of my high school friends wearing durags."

I haven't seen it in painting before, and I thought it would be a refreshing thing to include with these old traditional conventions of painting.

- [Lane] He's very considered about how other people are gonna understand his work and what it's gonna carry out into the world.

So, and those are really mature ways of thinking about being an artist that you don't often see in a person so young.

(mellow music) - I think that the durag is really culturally significant to the African diaspora because it's like a common theme amongst the Black people worldwide.

A lot of people wear it for fashion choices, and it has more uses than its origin of being a utilitarian object where you just wear it to bed.

But it has evolved so much where people can incorporate it into their outfits, and I find that really intriguing.

I made sure to include elements that reference Cleveland, Ohio.

For example, in this piece titled "Fendi's Ballad," which is a painting of my friend, he is standing in front of these two windows, and the windows are shaped as the RTA logo for Cleveland.

This painting is a callback to the Leonardo da Vinci painting titled "Madonna Litta."

(upbeat jazz music) The piece that Mayor Bibb was standing in front of was titled "Astronoir," and for that piece, I wanted to explore ideas of Afrofuturism, specifically the themes of going to space.

I pulled inspiration from this jazz musician in the '70s named Sun Ra, and he made a song titled "Space is the Place."

He felt that African Americans would only be liberated if they went to space, which is like an imaginative exploration in Afrofuturism.

(upbeat jazz music) (calm piano music) So for my BFA, I'm exploring ideas of commuting in Cleveland.

Commuting, as far as like taking the bus or walking from place to place, is something that I do pretty much every night.

- Transportation is a big reality for him, and I think it's kind of amazing how he transforms it into something to make work about.

- I really like the different visual elements I see at night where buildings are kind of illuminated, but the sky is pitch black.

So it's all these different glowing elements.

For my peace titled "Late Bus," I wanted to make a painting about a bus being better for it to be late than early.

And a figure is looking at his watch, no buses in sight, and several other figures are in the background just exploring the night.

- [Elizabeth] I think now he's telling his own story.

He's finding what interests him, and he's understanding through his own eyes why it's important, and he's communicating that through his art, and he's communicating it to a wider audience.

(mellow music) - So this is my final year at CIA, so I'm going to possibly take up like an art directing job or a creative directing job and maybe grad school.

And on the side, I'll be doing a studio practice, so I'll still be painting.

- [Lane] You know, I expect that he's going to do extraordinarily well.

Like, I think that we're gonna be hearing about him for a very long time.

- [Kabir] Derek Walker's work and art by fellow Cleveland Institute of Art seniors is on view for the school's BFA exhibition May 12th through 14.

Walker's paintings are also part of the new show at Zygote Press in Cleveland through June 24th.

(upbeat music) Mother Mary Thomas never imagined the attention her art would bring.

On the next "Applause," learn how the 90-year-old nun's large mural recently caught the eye of the Vatican.

Plus, look back on the history of the beloved children's magazine from Columbus, "Highlights."

And Franz Welser-Most leads the Cleveland Orchestra in a work inspired by his hometown in Austria.

(lively orchestral music) All this and more on the next round of "Applause."

We're off to Columbus now where a vibrant roller skating scene is in motion as folks dip and spin on the dance floor.

Let's try to keep up as they groove around the rink moving to the music.

(whimsical music) - We got Skate Zone 71, it's a Sunday night.

Yo, this right here is the epitome of Columbus skating right here.

I mean, if you haven't been before, it's an experience.

(upbeat dance music) - You know, people from all different cultures come out and skate, different skill levels.

So the later you get into the session, the more you'll see.

- I just happened to come with a friend one night.

I was invited, so I came and I was like, "Wow, this is different from what I normally see."

And I was just so excited, and I've been here ever since.

(upbeat dance music) - You know, if you're not in this atmosphere, it's really kind of foreign to some people because they don't understand that it's not just a movie.

It's not just something they did in the '70s.

This is very well still alive.

You know, people still come skating.

We still travel to skate, and we have fun.

- Growing up, like when I was a kid, it was fun, and it was a way to stay outta trouble.

But what really drew me to it is the thing that I can just relieve so much stress.

So many worries of the world, it's gone once you hit that floor.

I don't take my phone on me, don't take my wallet on me, nothing.

For three to four hours, I am free with no worries of the world.

This is just me, my eights, and the wood floor.

- I've been skating for 58 years.

I skate at least twice a week, sometime three times a week.

- I skate pretty much every Sunday, every Thursday, every Tuesday.

Pretty much my life has been skating ever since I was nine years old.

- Well, it started when I four years old.

My father was a skater.

I've been doing it ever since.

My first job I ever had, first paycheck I ever had, I bought a pair of roller skates.

- My dad taught me how to skate, but I come from a long line of skaters.

My grandfather and grandmother were floor guards for this local skating rink back in the '30s and '40s.

So my dad passed on the skill of skating to me, my brother, and my sister.

My whole family, they all skate, my aunt, my cousin.

So it's a generational thing.

It's in my blood.

(energetic music) - I'm old school.

I like vintage-type gear.

So my boot is from 1973.

I have a plate that I customly ordered online.

My wheels are vintage wheels.

I have about seven sets of wheels.

Most of them are from the '70s and '80s.

(energetic music) - So the weird thing about my skates is this is my first pair, this is my second pair, and I merged them together and basically Frankensteined them.

(upbeat music) These I have on, these are Stacys with FoMacs wheels.

They're real slippery.

They're like Cali-style.

Cali style, they skate in a lot of Stacys.

It's like you're on water, like you're like really like sliding across the floor the whole night.

♪ From east to west ♪ - I started skating when I was probably in about elementary school but never took it as serious as I did now.

I got three children now, so I'm a full-time dad.

So I used to skate probably about four times a week.

Now it's probably about once a month.

So you caught me on my one good time for the month.

So a lot of people, they still don't, they still don't know that this happens, that we do this at night.

- It's just a stress reliever.

You just get on the floor, and your soul goes to a whole nother place.

The music, you know, we all just come together and have a great time.

(upbeat dance music) - Skateology is our group.

It's about 10 members, and we host a annual party called Icy Hot.

Icy Hot is always like Super Bowl weekend, skaters from all across the country, there's like 800 to 1,000 people skating.

(funky dance music) - It's like one big family.

It's love, it's love.

That's the skate community.

(funky dance music) We want more skaters.

We need new skaters.

So the more skaters come out, the more energy, the bigger the family.

- There's a lot of history here.

A lot of people have been skating for years, young and old, and it's still alive, skating's still alive.

(energetic music) - [Kabir] Let's head now to a place called Candytopia, which recently arrived at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst.

(groovy music) Inside Candytopia are optical illusions, immersive play areas, and of course, lots of free candy that you can eat alongside candy that's been turned into art.

Something like this, how long does it take?

How many people does it take?

- Well, this one took 56 hours, and it has 6,200 pieces of candy, so a lot of sugar there.

But this, you can see the art.

This is very detailed.

You'll start and go through all the different pieces, even how they shade her face certain places.

So it's all about every single detail that we do.

- [Kabir] The artwork on the walls is complemented by statues throughout Candytopia.

(groovy music) Candytopia runs through the end of the year at Legacy Village.

(groovy music) It's time to go outside for a musical performance in the serene setting of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

This video is part of the series Great Outdoor Concerts.

Enjoy the music of husband and wife folk duo Caleb and Carolyn Spalding, also known as the Lowlies.

♪ It's not the working day so much I mind ♪ ♪ It's never been explained another line ♪ ♪ Hitchin' in the dark of day ♪ ♪ Drop the hammer, drive the blade ♪ ♪ We cut a crooked trail to the swimming hole ♪ ♪ And Papa let us bring the fishing pool ♪ ♪ The second harvest of the year ♪ ♪ All we need, we got it here ♪ ♪ Six days a week, the hammer in my hand ♪ ♪ Elizabeth at home till we turned the land ♪ ♪ We slowed down a spell ♪ ♪ Songs to sing and stories to tell ♪ - [Kabir] To learn more about the Lowlies and great outdoor concerts, be sure to check out Ideastream's "Shuffle" podcast, your backstage pass to Northeast Ohio's independent music scene.

Listen online arts.ideastream.org.

Thanks for watching, everybody.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

Join us next time for "Applause."

As we say goodbye, here's a little more from the Lowlies.

(mellow guitar music) ♪ It's not the working day so much I mind ♪ ♪ I've never been explained another line ♪ ♪ Hitchin' in the dark of day ♪ (bright music) - [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.