- [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 and Culture.

(upbeat music) - [David] Coming up, the winners of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards celebrate diversity and fight racism in their writing.

Plus meet a crafty maker who turns the pages of her books into art and an artist is painting signs with an old soul in mind.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett and it's time for another edition of Applause.

(upbeat music) The power of the written word to battle racism and elevate social justice was on display in Cleveland this week as five authors from across the country were celebrated at the 87th annual, Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.

Each of the honorees will be profiled in an upcoming Ideastream Public Media documentary.

We've got a preview for you offering a taste of how these literary lights give us new perspectives on an eternal struggle.

We begin with the story of a plain cotton sack that carries the weight of the American slave trade within its worn fabric.

A very personal history was written in thread on the sack by a South Carolinian named Ruth Middleton who in a few simple lines distilled the stories of her grandmother, Ashley, a former slave.

Tiya Miles is one of two Anisfield-Wolf nonfiction honorees this year for her investigation of Ashley's sack.

- Most of the artifacts that we do see are well, I mean, frankly, they're implements of abuse and torture.

I mean, we often see chains, we see shackles in museums, in images.

And this was something entirely different created by enslaved people themselves which was an artifact shaped out of love, shaped for the purpose of sustaining kin and especially young women into the future.

- [David] Family ties are powerful.

Nowhere more so than in the lives of immigrants and refugees who may arrive in their new homes with little else in their possession than their hopes and dreams.

But the new homelands don't always welcome outsiders.

George Makari, this year's second nonfiction winner, delves into how strangers have long been a focus of fear throughout history.

Makari's book takes the reader from the European colonial era up through modern times helping us understand the emotional underpinnings of xenophobia and hopefully ways to overcome it.

- If we can more and more understand that there are irrational forces that get in the way of recognizing "oh, that guy's not dangerous.

"That person isn't a threat to me."

That's what we really can do something about.

- [David] A distrust of strangers is also at the heart of the Anisfield-Wolf 2022 fiction prize winner, The Trees.

Percival Everett begins his story in Mississippi where two black detectives are investigating a series of gruesome murders of white people.

As the investigation proceeds, the detectives start to suspect that these killings are somehow connected to the historic, 1955 Mississippi murder of a black teenager named Emmett Till.

- The Trees, it's about American justice.

Ostensibly it's a story about lynching and mindless violence and killing, especially in the killing of black men in the United States.

But it is as much about the idea of a culture coming to terms with its guilt, as it is with anything.

You can't undo what's been done, but one can fantasize about karma.

- [David] Another award winner confronting the brutality of the past is poet, Donika Kelly.

In her book, The Renunciations, Kelly chronicles two emotionally fraught episodes in her life.

Memories of childhood sexual abuse and a divorce from her first wife.

The way that Kelly's words work through personal trauma has touched a chord in her readers.

- That was maybe the scariest part of the publication process.

Not writing the poems but like thinking about them being published.

I was like, people are gonna wanna talk to me about their experiences and I've just got a handle on mine like, you know, barely recently.

(laughs) And, but I think that is the power of poetry and it's the power of literature is we can feel so close to someone even if we don't know them, you know, that the work brings us closer to each other.

And that feels important.

- The prolific Ishmael Reed is this year's Anisfield-Wolf honoree for lifetime achievement.

Over the course of more than half a century, Reed has produced a staggering amount of work as a poet, a novelist, a playwright, essayist, and even a musician.

He's best known as a satirist and social critic whose guiding principle has always been Writin' is Fightin'.

- I think the mainstream media likes, prefers blacks who are toned down.

You're always asking me, "do you have hope?"

You know, they like a black point of view that doesn't offend their audience.

- [David] Reed has used his pugnacious spirit to punch through some of the hypocrisy he sees in mainstream culture.

But he's also used his own cultural capital to put the spotlight on up and coming writers through small presses and publications.

Working to promote some of the voices of tomorrow.

- American readers might behave more intelligently if they were exposed to the best.

Not the movies, not television, not the wire.

Gone with The Wind, or something like that.

But if they listen to people tell their stories and not to have their stories interpreted.

George Bernard Shaw said, when you don't tell your stories others will tell them for you.

And they will vulgarize and degrade you.

(gentle music) - [David] The Ideastream Public Media documentary on the 87th Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards is due to air in November on WVIZ PBS.

Books aren't only for reading.

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

In Cleveland Heights, several different examples of artists books are currently on view at the Heights Arts Gallery.

One of the artists featured is Gene Epstein.

She shares her creative process with Ideastream Public Media's Carrie Wise.

- [Carrie] Gene 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 preplan 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 other pictures and other pictures in the book and get a palette 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 a element of time in it as you, 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 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?

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 "for each letter."

Each of the letters has its own little explanation.

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.

I would get bored real quick with that, and I would lose interest.

- [David] You can page through some of Gene Epstein's art books in a group exhibition called Impagination.

The Heights Arts Gallery show features a variety of examples of local book art on view now through October 16th.

If you've bought any beer recently, you know that artists are making their mark now on pipe cans.

On the next round of Applause, travel to three Northeast Ohio breweries where the beer can becomes a canvas for art.

Also preview the new documentary, From Mopping the Floors to Making the Cakes, the story of Archie's Hough bakeries.

And honey, you don't wanna miss our next Making It, which is as sweet as it can be.

All that and more on the next round of Applause.

Cleveland resident, Alan Giberson, studied the craftsmanship behind the lost art of lettering before opening his own shop on the west side of Cleveland.

Take an up close look at his work with the latest installment of Ideastream Public Media's Making It series.

- There's always jobs that I'm happy with but I really like it when the client is happy.

Like a restaurant could be building out their space for two years and then once I do some simple lettering on the window that's when their business comes together that they've been like working on.

They're like, oh my name's up now.

And then it hits them, and then you're like, "cool."

(slow guitar music) My name's Alan Giberson, I run Old Soul Sign Co.

I specialize in hand painted signs and gold leaf lettering in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cleveland just worked out for me 'cause I'm from here and there wasn't anyone doing sign painting at the time when I got into it.

So that was definitely a plus.

Cleveland's just like perfect size.

Small and you know, no competition here and I just love this city.

The only jobs I've had are restaurant jobs.

Just worked in kitchen jobs around here.

And I always wanted to just work for myself.

I just want do my own thing, make my own hours and all that.

And after coming into sign painting, I saw it was like really popular in California.

So I thought it could work out and I did, yeah.

I'd say most of my work is like on site.

Like I do a lot of windows and brick walls that have to be painted.

Most signs you see nowadays are, you know, vinyl or made on the computer.

I do strictly painting.

I'll do the design full size on paper, transfer the design from paper onto the wall with chalk and like perforated dots and then paint it.

(slow guitar music) This is a sign for a tattoo shop in Lakewood called Lakewood Electric Tattoo.

I like doing sign for tattoo shops because they're also artists that they understand designing according to someone else's like specs, you know.

They know like I'm the sign painter and that's what I do, so they're just like, let me roll with it, you know.

I've done a water tower, like the whole water tower before.

Really high up on stages that are just attached by strings.

You know, you go there at nine in the morning and you're all like coffee-shaky, but then by like noon you're kind of just hanging off the lip, you know.

I couldn't be any happier working for myself.

I guess it's just having the freedom to do what you want.

A lot of the stuff you see in the shop I've done it on my own time.

They're not jobs but they do kind of like bring the space alive and it doesn't always have to be like work, work, work, you know.

- [David] You can meet more Northeast Ohioans, with that entrepreneurial spirit.

Just surf your way over to arts.ideastream.org for a link to the Making It series.

Photographer, Will Wilson, is a Native American artist and a member of the Navajo nation.

Not too long ago, Wilson paid a visit to Granville, Ohio to exhibit his work at Dennison University.

(lighthearted music) - Well, I'm an artist and a photographer.

I'm the program head of photography at the Santa Fe Community College.

I grew up between San Francisco, California and Tuba City, Arizona, which is on the Navajo nation.

And my dad was Irish and Welsh, my mom was Navajo.

I think one of the reasons I was so drawn to photography because when I found photography, it was like this language that enabled me to kind of express myself in a way that I, you know, I couldn't linguistically.

Some of the kind of early forms of photography that I was involved in, you know, traditional black and white.

I was really drawn to that kind of documentary kind of style, you know.

36 shots to a roll.

(laughs) It was a different, different time.

Now I use a digital camera all the time, but I am drawn to the historic process.

So, you know, in particular some of the images you're seeing in this show were made with a process called wet plate.

Wet plate collodion was developed in 1851 and was kind of the photographic process until about 1880.

So first step of the process is to take this plastic off.

With the wet plate process, it's a bit labor intensive.

You're essentially making your own film.

They call it wet plate because it has to stay wet throughout the process otherwise you don't get an image.

Step one is you get a plate, either glass or black metal, and you pour this stuff called collodion on that plate.

Collodion pretty much sticks to anything and it also has some chemistries in it that when it's combined with silver nitrate, and this happens in a dark room, right.

So you pour the collodion on the plate, you take that plate to a bath of silver nitrate, you drop it in there.

Three minutes later, a emulsion has formed, a light-sensitive emulsion.

And so at that point you have to use a safe light or do this in the dark, right.

And so you load that plate into a film holder, carry that film holder to the camera, and you know, you've already kind of set up your subject and they're kind of waiting.

You make the exposure and then with this process, you know, one of the great things is you can take the subject with you back to the dark room and they get to like, experience the actual kind of magic of analog photography, right.

So you have that exposed negative, you take it out of the film holder, you pour a developer on there and a negative image starts to form.

And so you kind of judge that and then you stop it with water.

And then when you put it in the fixer, this amazing thing happens.

And at that point you can actually turn the light on.

So it kind of does this transition, this magic transition, from a negative image to a positive image.

So it kind of becomes this foggy kind of, you know, it's not something that you can read.

And then out of that emerges this like beautiful, positive image.

And, you know, people are, I think really moved and fascinated and every time I see it, I'm just like, re-energized, I'm like, yeah, let's go make some more.

(chuckles) So with this CIPX project, or the Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange, which is what it stands for, I'm using a historic photographic process to kind of investigate portraiture.

Kind of thinking about what photography would be if indigenous people invented it, you know, would there be a different kind of set of ideas, kind of protocols in relation to making someone's image.

It's a fairly kind of intimate process, you know, I think there's a certain level of vulnerability that you kind of extend or offer.

When I use wet plate, it enables me to kind of slow things down.

It takes about 30 minutes to make one portrait.

So I can have kind of a, you know, a slower engagement with an individual in kind of deciding how they want to be represented.

- [Tablet Video] Bupa, years ago, you served the people in the Pueblo revolts in 1680.

- I was also incorporating another technology, a 21st century technology called augmented reality with this historic photographic process.

Through the augmented reality technology, I have been able to bridge like this historic photographic image of her with her performance as a dancer.

And I've called these Talkington types.

(violin playing) So Will Canam is a violinist and he did a rendition of 10 Little Indians and he talks about like that song, that nursery rhymes' relationship to kind of a history of genocide.

So, you know, you're kind of, I guess, moved by this nursery rhyme almost, but then he like, gonna hit over the back of the head with like what it's really about, you know.

And his kind of reframing of it, I think, is you know, it's a pretty powerful kind of expression of you know, indigeneity today.

(violin playing) I hope that people are really drawn into, you know, a kind of different way of looking at portraiture.

(gentle music) It's kind of unusual, there's a certain level of uncertainty with this portraiture.

You know, there's these strange chemical-like aberrations that occurs.

In terms of the indigenous folks, hopefully people are moved by the diversity, the, you know, agency of the people.

Yeah, I mean on a broader level, I hope that it makes people think about what it means to share the portraiture process with someone.

Slowing things down and, you know, thinking about what it means to make yourself vulnerable, to make yourself available to this kind of engagement.

I mean, every time I have one of these kind of engagements or work with people in this way, I think it, you know, it excites me to make more and it just kind of propels the project forward.

(gentle music) (contemporary classical music) - [David] American composer and conductor, John Adams, has a long-standing relationship with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Recently, he took the podium at Severance for an evening of contemporary classical music.

And Adams rounded out the program by performing his own composition with the, tongue-in-cheek title, Must The Devil Have All The Good Tunes?

(contemporary classical music) This entire concert by the Cleveland Orchestra is available on the Adella app.

And don't forget about our app where you can watch each and every Applause from this season on demand.

Thank you for watching this week's episode, I'm Ideastream Public Media's David C. Barnett.

Catch you next time right here on Applause.

(contemporary classical 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 and Culture.