(Mary) Coming up on State of the Arts, speed painting in an art battle, visualizing emotions on canvas, and revolutionizing what it means to dance.

State of the Arts has these stories and more next.

Hello, and thanks for joining us for this week's show.

I'm your host, Mary Paul.

In this first story, we head to Reno, Nevada to experience art battle, a live art competition where participants only have 20 minutes to paint a work of art, a unique combination of creativity and high pressure deadlines.

Four, three, two, one.

Let's paint.

My name is Alysia Dynamik and I'm the executive director of The Generator.

So art battle is a speed painting competition.

12 artists compete in three different rounds.

The art battle organization puts on regional competitions and so the people that win at these local competitions can be invited to go on to compete at a higher level.

I reached out to the art battle organization about becoming a host of the event and it just went from there.

My name is Bernardo.

I focus on ChromaDepth 3D art.

I'm an abstract artist.

My name's Bridget Grace and I am a multifaceted artist, painting and drawing, but I'm also a florist and designer.

Art battle is like, it's a fun little show.

Artists come together and compete for two rounds of 20 minutes.

So the winner of the first round competes against the winner of the second round in a final round and then they select a winner from that set of competitors.

You have 20 minutes not to do your best, but to do something that makes people entertained.

My first battle was actually all the way back in 2015.

This was my third time in the competition.

It's been a really wonderful opportunity.

I did one run, two runs last year.

I saw a couple of years ago, some people doing this and it's like, huh, that's interesting.

And then since I'm a member of generator, they say like, hey, we're doing this.

Would you like to do it?

Apply.

I was like, wow, okay, let's do this.

♪ WHIMSICAL MUSIC ♪ I select 11 artists beforehand.

I try to do a good mix of folks that are apart of our community.

We have a lot of repeat painters, which is certainly encouraged.

I try to also invite new people every time.

It's about participation, an opportunity for people to get to do things in the art world.

to get to do things in the art world.

♪ PIANO PLAYS ♪ To start, we have to have six easels in the space.

We usually kind of try to set the space up a little bit more of a party atmosphere.

Turn our lights off in the space.

We put up colored lights, things like that.

We get all the materials together.

We provide paint, we provide canvases.

Then our artists start to arrive and then we start.

I had a little bit of a technique each time I came and then wanted to do something that was like interesting and different, and for this last competition, I decided to do a life drawing.

It was an approach that I don't think a lot of other artists had taken because I had decided to ask someone in the audience at random to be the model.

Since I use ChromaDepth 3D glasses, I like the reaction of people when they see through the lenses.

The perception of reality in this short moment is changed.

I'm offering them or I'm giving them for the first time something that they never saw it before with abstract art.

So for me it's like, yes, I cannot even win but I touch your heart or some way, you know, like some art feeling inside of you.

I'm gonna spend the first five minutes on the composition in this sketch and the second five to seven minutes on background layers and not worrying about the details.

And then the last few minutes really focused on details.

In the first art battle that I did, I did like a couple of practice runs.

But then I realized that when you're over there, there's other factors going on.

You feel the pressure, you know, like you're seeing people and they say like, "Oh, this is cool."

"Or this is not."

"There's the music."

So I don't believe that it's something to practice about.

It's just something like, dude, just go and do it.

Then when you blink your eyes like, "Alright, I have 10 minutes."

You blink again like, "All right, I have five."

So it's like, you have to keep focused on the time itself.

The last few moments of the art battle are really crucial because I think that's where you really have the opportunity to do something unexpected and wow the crowd with something.

It's really important to take a step back and look at the work from further away.

Oftentime, especially under time crunch, you get very focused on like a small amount of the piece.

And you know, it's the pressure.

Like your heart's racing.

You're like, "Is this good enough?"

You're starting to look at the other folks' pieces and kind of scale them up against each other.

And it's really just a moment of like vulnerability.

With 20 minutes, you don't have time to think.

So you can't be over there like, "Steve, you know you're not in the Olympics."

"Steve, you know you're not in the Olympics."

♪ WHIMSICAL MUSIC ♪ Amazingly, they really tend to bust those things out in that 20 minutes.

It's a fast amount of time for these artists, but they really do a great job.

So at the end of the 20 minutes, the audience all votes.

The Art Battle organization has a text-based platform where they can both vote and bid because all of the paintings are for sale.

And then they give us the top two.

Then we do the second round, same thing.

And then in the final round, we have the four artists paint voting, bidding, and then they tell us the winner.

Tonight's winner is Bridget Grace.

Amazing job, Bridget.

For me, I was able to meet people and find other people that were interested in the same things I was.

And that was really inspiring to my creative journey.

I don't think that it's something that you should have any rivalry or it's like, I'm not gonna talk to you.

This is an art battle.

It's like, dude, we're doing art here.

You know, like the art world should be fun.

I think it is really important for people to know that there are access to the arts in our town and community and that it's okay to take a chance and get to know people.

And even if you're not competing in art battle, going to the art town events, going to the generator, donating to people who are promoting these types of events, artwork in our youth and schools, I hope that we can just continue to spread that artistic nature throughout Reno.

And, you know, I'd love to see it grow and continue.

♪ COMPELLING MUSIC ♪ Artist Mia Guile is fascinated by the relationship between color and form.

Through her abstract painting, she creates environments where emotions take shape and the internal self emerges.

♪ CAPTIVATING MUSIC ♪ (Mia) It's usually an emotional state, feeling something I'm working through and that gets displayed in both color and what takes form on the canvas.

You know, whether it be very abstract, or I still consider this abstract, but it's a little bit more planned.

I get more and more connected as the painting comes to life.

I don't always know what I'm gonna start with.

I mean, that's the beauty of it.

Sometimes I'll have a huge canvas and just start throwing paint all over it.

And sometimes I'll do something like this where it's a little bit more planned, but I don't know the end result.

All I know is that I wanna circle.

♪ ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC ♪ What's funny is I'm drawn to circles and I think they're sort of have a spiritual significance.

And then as my feelings or mood or something I'm grappling with come to light, then I base my colors on what am I feeling internally.

♪ ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC ♪ Sunlight is important to me, period.

And to my work, it really helps me with the colors.

I get to visualize the painting itself when I meditate.

And then I have to think about, well, what is this about?

I've learned that when people are buying a piece of art, they're buying it for sometimes just aesthetic value.

And sometimes it's because they feel a connection.

Part of my art is as an abstract painter, it's not a spoon-fed thing.

If you're looking at my art, I would like you to decide what you see.

So I try not to get involved in when somebody's asking me too many questions, if they say, "Well, what was this painting about for you?"

I'll say, "Well, what do you see first?"

♪ ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC CONTINUOUS ♪ The title that I wrote down while I was meditating is "The Hole is the Sum of its Parts."

And as a person who is becoming whole I've got this, like, half circle, quarter circle, and then I've got these parts.

I think these are my life experiences.

Some parts darker than the others, some parts lighter than the others.

I'm made up of all these pieces.

♪ ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC CONTINUOUS ♪ Born in Chicago, my father got his PhD in linguistics.

When he got his PhD, he did his studies in Amsterdam, in Holland.

So I think that kind of created a leap of like, I'm going to be traveling.

At some point, we ended up moving to South Africa, and my father was a teacher there for the men that worked for De Beers consolidated time in line, teaching English to the Africans that were living there.

We were not allowed to socialize with people outside of his work, but he did it anyway.

We did it anyway as a family.

He was actually advocating for human rights at the time, and that was not welcome.

I think he had done that several times.

The government said, "You're out, deported."

That threw my family into turmoil.

Our first landing spot was a family that took us in England, close to London.

It was trauma, didn't know what was gonna happen to us.

So it was a very difficult time.

I didn't come back to art until, I would say, 15 or 16 when I was enrolled in an art class.

Absolutely loved it.

Could feel the difference between living in a state of fear or crisis or stress versus being taken away from all of that.

♪ ABSTARCT JAZZ PLAYS ♪ So the catalyst for getting back to me was really that one point in my life, that moment of clarity.

What am I doing?

What am I actually doing in my life?

That was the ultimate reflection, right, of who am I?

What do I wanna be?

What have I been?

What do I wanna do with the rest of my life?

♪ ABSTARCT JAZZ PLAYS ♪ Opening up about myself has been a process.

I refrain from a lot of very personal things and experiences, but I do share some.

And some of the things that I share are obviously about my life because that is what I paint about and my feelings and my expression about what is happening.

And sometimes that can be difficult.

This mural that I was doing for the Virginia Beach Housing Resource Center, I proposed my idea and I said, these are the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing, what I'd like to do.

So the abstract trees were layered with colors and they had a root system.

They didn't have leaves.

They had arms that kind of connected each other to each other.

It was because of the mission statement of the Housing Resource Center.

We wanna help our clients find roots so that homelessness is temporary and brief.

And I said, I am strongly connected to what you're doing.

I have been homeless as a child.

I wanted the kids to be involved so that they felt some sense of agency, some sense of self-worth.

For me, that is the point of art.

That's why I do it because it is transformative.

Art as medicine.

♪ ABSTARCT JAZZ PLAYS ♪ From painting to sculpture to works on paper, Anamarie Edwards is an interdisciplinary artist.

Let's check out her first solo show held in Madison, Wisconsin, where she explored what it means to heal through joy.

(Anamarie) This is my favorite painting ever because a couple of things.

First thing, it looks really good.

It's Shakira and some kids from Columbia.

All the handprints are my handprints and the painting was made in college.

It's just a constant reminder of all of the work that it took.

♪ RHYTHMIC MUSIC ♪ It's fun seeing myself use paint and try to layer all this paint.

And then now I'm using photographs and hair and just all kinds of stuff.

The Home of Joy will be my first solo show.

With Joy, I think a lot about hair, whether it be just looking good or whether it be a form of self-care.

I decided to use a lot of kanekalon hair and different things out of the beauty supply store like earrings or barrettes, beads, hair rollers, hairpins.

I am in a process of using these materials to make art but kind of take them out of their context.

♪ RHYTHMIC MUSIC ♪ The relationship that I have with hair braiding is it's a love.

I feel like if you need a braider, someone knows a braider.

If you know how to braid, you're always trying to reach out to community and let the community know that you have those gifted hands in that talent.

♪ ABSTARCT UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ It's called My Work Hair.

My Work Hair is in the show for a lot of reasons.

It's in the show just to show off hair, show off braids, show off how strong it is because the piece is only held up by hair.

The process of braiding in general is just such a love binding process.

♪ ABSTARCT UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ That one is called Music History because it shows that a lot of things inform joy.

I just really wanted to pinpoint that because music is something we all enjoy.

Music is a way I found joy in making the work too.

Music really got me through a lot of studio sessions.

The studio sessions I may not have wanted to be in the studio.

The tanks are all under a series called In Living Hair.

In Living Hair is about how culture is a living thing.

They change with their environment.

♪ ABSTARCT MUSIC CONTINUES ♪ My goals as an artist, number one, I feel like it's to play and to keep playing and to keep showing how far play can get you.

This painting is called El Guajiro.

It means a farmer.

It's like a personality in Cuba and mariposas are the national flower for Cuba.

A lot of this is just kind of like, he's just like, here, here's my identity.

These are the things that I'm prideful in.

Another goal that I have as an artist is to properly represent myself.

It's something that I really just wanna hone in on.

How do I represent myself in different situations, in different places, different galleries?

Does my work change?

Why does it have to change?

And I want those things to be trackable for other people that come after me.

Because being an interdisciplinary artist sometimes it's really hard, because it's like, well, what do you do?

Are you a painter?

Are you a photographer?

For my practice, it depends on what I'm teaching.

So if I am teaching about music, I might be learning how to sing or hiring a choir to properly represent what it is to me.

♪ COMPELLING MUSIC ♪ And we close today with a story about a woman in Ohio, born with spina bifida.

Back in 1955, doctors wanted to institutionalize Mary Verdi-Fletcher, but her grandmother had other plans.

Decades later, despite her disability, she has revolutionized what it means to be a dancer.

♪ PIANO PLAYS ♪ (Mary) My grandmother had always said I was born with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face.

She knew I was put on this earth to do something special.

Well, I certainly inherited her tenacity.

♪ PIANO PLAYS ♪ The Dancing Wheels Company is a physically integrated dance company, so it's comprised of dancers with and without disabilities.

Using the philosophy, it's for all people of all abilities.

We have a byline under our title as the World Center for Integrated Dance and Arts Access, so we really want to make the arts accessible to all people.

The company's in their 44th season.

We'll be moving into our 45th season in July, there's a saying that access to the arts is a right, not a privilege.

So 40-plus years, things have changed considerably.

The idea of physically integrated dance is more known.

Accessibility is still an issue, not as prevalent as it was years ago.

♪ ROCK MUSIC PLAYS ♪ I was born in 1955, and I had spina bifida, so babies that were born back in that time with spina bifida were often times left to die or be institutionalized.

You know, my mother wasn't sure what to do when I was born, and so my grandmother said you take her home because the doctors wanted to institutionalize me.

And she said you take her home and you do the best you can, and if she survives, you've done the best you can, and if she doesn't, you've done the best you can.

So she took me home.

I was this little person, but I was pretty active, I guess, because I would break my braces all the time.

And then the doctors gave me really strong braces, and I broke my leg instead of the braces.

Three times.

So they put me in a wheelchair.

My mom was a dancer in the vaudeville days with her sister.

She would make up little dances for my brother and I in our living room, and she had my brother lift me in the air.

She just created little opportunities, I think, for me to enjoy music and dance.

I always loved music and watching dance, and I would move in my chair, and I moved to the point where I broke the axle off the wheel.

♪ RHYTHEMIC MUSIC PLAYS ♪ But it wasn't until the mid-70s that the disco era came about.

So there was a lot of social dancing that went on, and I would watch it, watch it on TV, some of my friends were just doing, you know, the hustle, you know?

And I would sit back and watch it, and then finally one of them said, "Well, let's just try."

And we did some dancing and twirled around the wheelchair, and I saw that it could move in a lot of different ways, and that actually it had this sort of, like, between skating and dance.

To dance back then was the greatest acceleration in my body.

I always equate it to, like, flying, because to dance on a stage where there's no barriers and you can take on a different persona, it really is a way of freedom that is indescribable.

Particularly for our young people growing up, if I can do it, they can do it too.

They see ability on stage or in the class that we teach.

It's like an unspoken knowledge that they gain by just seeing.

So seeing is believing.

You don't have to say a word, because when we set board or wheel on stage and we work together, people are seeing ability everywhere from the disabled and non-disabled dancers.

(Demarco) I was injured in a car accident.

Through physical therapy, I found out about Dancing Wheels and that it was possible to still move and still dance.

Came to audition.

That's where I met Mary.

I wasn't born with my disability, but Mary was.

And Mary inspired me because to see someone spend so much time with a disability that they were born with, showing the world and showcasing that you can still do something and still create and still be seen.

It's been amazing to have a place where you feel like you belong, a place where you feel like you can show who you truly are, even through adversity or even through having a disability or even just being different.

So I'm going to be 70 this year.

I look to be able to continue to dance, at least until the 50th anniversary of Dancing Wheels.

With any luck, we'll continue to do that.

I pride myself in being able to dance still, and I think part of that is when you continue to do something long-term, it stays with you and your body.

I'm dancing with 24-year-old people, and just the stamina to keep up with that is somewhat of a challenge.

But I often times forget my age.

I think if you think young, you will be young, you know.

When you want news that matters to you, turn to AZPM News.

Your voice, your news.

AZPM News at news.azpm.org.

Love this program?

Become an AZPM member today and receive exclusive benefits like access to AZPM Passport and stream hundreds of hours of PBS shows.

Donate now at azpm.org/give, and thank you.

And now our time has come to an end.

I'm Mary Paul.

Be sure to join us again next week for more stories from the art world.