Coming up next, when Art rocks the works of New Deal era muralist Conrad Al Bridger, the frescoes that are appreciated for the state capital, for instance, here in Baton Rouge at that is very consistent with this earlier kind of academic and very figurative style.

The subtle art of making one.

We hope this will be sustainable, and we have to figure out what that means.

An artist's discovery of unique forms within the wood.

And one of the things that that you learn in Halloween is to kind of visualize that that space on the inside is a 3D map and the unlikely history hidden in the LSU Campanile.

That's all.

Next on Art rocks.

Art rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

Hello, and thank you for being here for Art rocks.

I'm James Fox Smith, publisher of Country Roads magazine.

Urals.

And frescoes created in the 1930s by New York born artist Conrad Al Briscoe, still graced many public buildings all over Louisiana, including our state capital.

They depict iconic scenes of American agriculture and industry, and these New Deal era masterpieces are both beautiful and educational.

LSU art historian Darius Space gives us some insight on Al Brito and his enduring visual legacy.

Conrad Aparicio was a mid-20th century painter.

He kind of reached his peak during the 1930s through the 1950s, really the period of Second World War and the immediate aftermath of the war.

He was a muralist, so he painted wall paintings, such as the ones that we see here at Allen Hall at LSU.

stylistically, these frescoes are very, very close to what he did, only that they were painted by his students at LSU in the late 1930s.

And so these frescoes actually talk about the arts and sciences on campus and the agricultural aspects of the state of Louisiana, industry and so on.

So this was a student project that was done under the supervision.

this is what we call true fresco.

it means that, you actually have a plastered wall and you just paint on it.

There's another method for doing frescoes where you actually have, wet plaster, and you have the pigments that soak directly into the plaster.

One would have to look very, very closely to see the differences between the work of his students and Konrad Urquiza himself, because these differences are very subtle, and it's a testimonial to the very close collaboration between him and his students.

Also, in keeping with the style of the times, you really wanted to have a kind of, almost heroic figure.

Even these experiments, the students and the professors here come across as heroic figures.

And likewise, if you look at other frescoes by Fabrizio himself, you see the same kind of insistence on these aspects.

perhaps the best known example of publicly accessible murals, by Conrad a bishop can be found in the in the Union Station in New Orleans now that dates from 1954.

And by this point in time, his style has changed.

So these, murals are much more Cubist inspired, compared to these that you see here.

So they are much more modernist in a sense.

and, and very, very colorful.

So it's a kind of very colorful, kind of cubist inspired work that you have there.

The frescoes that, afterwards you did for the state capital, for instance, here in Baton Rouge.

that that is very consistent with this early, kind of academic and very figurative style that you also see here, for instance.

Now, most artists, abandoned, figurative art completely.

If you look at Jackson Pollock, for instance, he paints and abstract expressionist drip paintings.

So he starts out with this very figurative style, gets gets completely away from it.

that's not the case here with, breeds, you know.

Of course, he worked also in other media.

In order to do murals, you need to have preparatory drawings.

So we do have a lot of preparatory drawings by our Breazeale.

He was also very interested in mosaics.

And, I think this interest in mosaics can also be attributed to his Italian heritage, especially in northern Italy.

the area around Venice.

Murano.

You have a very, very strong tradition of, mosaics, artists working in mosaics, small pieces of generally glass, that are embedded in plaster.

and it's a very ancient technique goes back to medieval times, goes back to, Byzantine times, really.

And, there are specialized schools in north of Italy for doing mosaics, and there are some mosaics by him that have come down to us as well.

Conrad Fabrizio was born in New York to Italian immigrant parents.

Italy has a long tradition of great muralists going back to Michelangelo and so on.

So there is certainly something of his heritage that comes through in this preference for murals.

But also keep in mind we are talking about the 1930s here.

So this is the aftermath of the Great Depression and the New Deal era.

And for the one and only time, the federal government actually directly subsidized artistic projects.

It's called WPA art within the context of WPA art.

you'll find a lot of art that was created for public buildings, post offices, but also state capitals.

Conrad of Brazil actually did some murals, for the state capitol, the press room and, some of the court rooms, some of these frescoes have been removed and found their place in a different context.

but in any case, he was involved with that.

What stands out about a Brazil, really today is because he's a historical figure.

He's a very important painter in the state of Louisiana.

He really represents, this style of regionalism, as it was also called.

So there was a lot of kind of, turning back to the rural core of America at this point in time.

And he is descriptive of this day and age.

We do not have that many painters from this day and age.

and there are, you know, the mentalities are captured.

The style also is very typical for this specific period.

nobody would paint in the style today.

The values of this period are also captured here.

you know, diligence, hard work and so on.

and so, that's, I think that historical dimension, the historical value of this art and, the, opportunity this art affords us to kind of travel back in time, to the New Deal, era.

And to my knowledge, he never met Diego Rivera.

some of these Mexican muralists actually came over to the United States and worked here.

if you go to Dartmouth College, for instance, there are some interesting, frescoes by one of these Mexican muralists who came over.

and of course, a lot of American artists at this time, even Jackson Pollock, he might have two key figures of abstract expressionism.

Actually, for a while, studied with one of these Mexican muralists.

so that that was something there were a lot of exchanges going on.

But given that, breezy or was was really based in Louisiana, in New Orleans, that was not one of the hotbeds.

A lot of these exchanges took place.

Al Brito moved in some rarified circles while in New Orleans.

He socialized with the likes of authors William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson.

No matter where you live in Louisiana, opportunities to connect with the arts are everywhere.

You just need to know where to look.

So here's a few of the many Spring Festivals exhibits and shows coming up around the state.

To learn more about these and other events in Louisiana, visit the website at LP.

the.org/art rocks.

For more about these and other events.

Snag a copy of Country Roads magazine.

There are wrecks all around town, and also the Art rocks website has an archive of previous episodes, so to see any segment again, just log on to LP PBS.org.

Now a man pursuing a passion for the fruit of the vine.

After a long career designing interpretive museum exhibits, Jerry Ice to Hold tells us how he added the title Midwestern Winemaker to his resume.

Meet Jerry Eisner hold.

He holds a degree in design, photography and agronomy.

Was the third best soil judge in the big eight, and is the owner and lead designer of Eisner Hold Associates, a museum exhibition design firm that has worked with everyone from the Universal Islands of Adventure, Jurassic Park Discovery Center to the Rosa Parks Museum and countless others.

When I started, there wasn't a school where you could go and study museum design.

The quip I make is that it was all due to bad guidance counseling, that no one told you that you were supposed to get a job in what you were trained to do.

In my naivete, I thought you would get a job in something.

You thought you were interested and figure it out.

Fortunately, that paradigm has been a very successful one for Jerry.

The mindset you start with is naivete and stupidity because you don't know much about it.

but as you sort of come to learn it, you have to kind of keep mental breadcrumbs as to how you came to learn and understand it and recreate that experience.

Take the American Museum of Tort Law.

How do you best parcel out a branch of the legal system for the casual patron?

We created a series of graphic novels where each different case was assigned to an artist or an illustrator.

Well, the concept took about five minutes, but the museum we've been working on since 1999, those are a couple of categories of cases that we talked about.

This is a wonderful to establish the principle of an attractive innocence.

Was a much lower case the case of the Flaming Wrath.

One of my favorites is not shown here, but it's the, legal phrase was a recipe for luck with her.

Which means the thing speaks for itself.

We try not to just do the same old design and solution.

That means you have to, to some extent, kind of think things through from first principles every time.

Like, say, when the Johnson County Museum proposed moving the approximately 1300 square foot all electric house to a new home inside the old King Louis.

Some of the issues that we're trying to solve at this very, very early stage is simply how people are going to move around in the in the exhibit and generally how the content is going to be treated.

And we're also trying to figure out a good graphic treatment, because one of the things is everyone assumes that history is sepia toned.

And, you know, we're talking about the 50s and 60s when there was a lot of color, it was alive.

I mean, there was a lot of attraction to the suburbs back then.

And we're trying to, to gives people a sense of what it was like back then.

You want to look at the trends that were happening in, say, transportation or education, and then whenever those trends were disrupted, you know, what made that change happen?

And was it an idea of personal technology or or what have you, and that gives you those are little lessons that you can learn so that when you're thinking about where once Johnson County is going in the future, where might those changes come from?

I guess I would say that the field in general has been confusing enough that it's retained my attention, because you're always learning about a new topic.

Jerry's other passion started when he found a book by famed viticulture TV, Munson.

This is the vineyard.

We are located here, so, they can also pursue in the spare moments this little experiment with Native American grapes.

As a kid growing up, a little farm in Missouri.

We were upstream from on the Gascony River from Herman.

So it's basically the German culture that says you have to make wine out of something.

So we did, in that case out of wild grapes, which I recall to this day were pretty good and better than the Mensheviks, etc., that you would, you know, find that the of that was American, a notion which prompted the name Terra Vox or voice of the land.

And as most will attest, wine is best when properly paired.

So two with Jerry we have friends who like to describe us food and wine.

And so Jerry does the wine part and I. I do the food, but that's hardly all she does from the hours of 7 to 3.

Kate can be found at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, where she's the senior conservator of objects, making incredible discoveries.

We were asked to clean off some of the corrosion products to reveal, this, gold surface.

And so I very carefully under the microscope, picked it off with a scalpel.

And it's sort of like removing rust.

It's very hard to do.

And you have to do it very carefully so you don't scratch with the metal underneath.

And one of the real pleasures of this was not only revealing the gold, but finding the fingerprint of the last person who who actually handled this before is wrapped in the silk cloth.

From burial antiquities to caring for an intricate 16th century altar.

This is another one of my favorite, projects.

It's a shrine from India, and it had been in storage for so long that nobody quite remembered it.

It was all in pieces, and the curator wanted to explore what we could do with it.

And I mean, is it possible to clean it?

It was filthy.

It looked brown.

It was not at all interesting to look at.

It took Kate and a colleague nearly two years to etch away the centuries of grime and reveal the dazzling handiwork beneath.

But ironically, while Jerry and Kate's work both hinges in the museum scene, their approaches couldn't be further apart.

We're kind of professional enemies, actually, because designers want to show art in the best possible way, and they want it on display for a long time.

They want lots of light so people can see it.

They want to do fun things with the artifacts and conservators tend to be, well, you know, that's not really a good idea.

We're about the preservation side of it.

And can't we just put it in the basement storage and not ever have it out so it'll last forever?

So it's a bit of a conflict professionally, but we get along really well.

As of last night, we still have the ability to make each other laugh, think we appreciate the simpler, quieter things in life.

Although she might not believe it, sometimes up to with the pace that goes on.

But there is an appreciation of just being able to sort of sit and have a good meal and a little conversation.

I never thought I'd stay in one place for as long as I have.

I always thought I'd be traveling around and what they call a conservation gypsy jurist worked really hard at trying to make it work for me in every way, too.

So it's his dream, but it's also mine.

And as for the dream of American heritage grapes at Tara Box, we hope this will be sustainable and we have to figure out what that means.

With vintages of two cases.

It's not like we can, you know, establish presence in on a, on the shelf and a retail outlet.

So people have to be willing to come up here and explore along with us.

will either find those people or we'll go and, you know, make a nice lawn if, if this doesn't work out.

We.

Columbus, Ohio.

Wood Turner.

Devin Palmer crafts handsome bowls out of the cross sections of lugs.

His vessels represent family.

The breaking of bread, community and craftsmanship.

So let's take a trip inside Palmer Studio to see what he sees in the wood.

I work with logs, trunk, sections of logs, and looking for, hardwoods.

Anywhere from ten inches up to up to 30in.

And, it needs to be kind of fresh.

I would actually take a tree that was standing that morning and turn it that afternoon.

If I could, just because the wood is nice and wet, it's very stable.

It's easy to cut.

So it's it's the use of a lathe to make, round things out of sometimes Greenwood, sometimes dried wood.

I do everything from, making sellable.

That's probably my mainstay, kind of functional art to, architectural things and more sculptural stuff when we're actually cutting the wood's moving about 25 mile an hour underneath the tool tip.

today that'll be anywhere between 1200 to 1300 rpm.

I work with things called gouges that, help cut and sever the wood fibers.

I also work with, hollowing tools that are more of a scraper.

It has a little cutting tip that I'll guide throughout the inside of the piece to literally scrape the inside out.

It makes it actually, I think, one of the safer kinds of woodworking, because you're holding on to the things that sharp one of the major, the quality is having an even thickness, having it be a little bit light, lighter than you expect.

So as I start to hollow this piece, I'm going to check my thickness and I'm going to use that thickness and how it progresses to figure out where I need to go.

That's one of the reasons why I typically have very smooth curves on the outside.

It makes my location very predictable, and one of the things that that you learn in hollowing is to kind of visualize that that space on the inside is a 3D map.

So you generally know where your tool is at and you develop a relationship with it so that, you don't go through the side or have it catch and explode.

Typically when I make a wooden bowl, I'll rough it out into a rough shape and leave it extra thick so that when it dries and warps, I can get a perfectly round circle out of it.

So I have 3 to 400 bowls sitting down in the basement, just slowly drying over the course of of five years, anywhere from a year to five years for larger bowls.

and as I pulled out of that cache, I'll throw more in.

This wood has been infested with the emerald ash borer, kind of an invasive species that was carried over from China.

That has really decimated the ash population here in central Ohio and really across the the northeast.

And had this wood not have been infested by the boar.

Would it be this interesting, the fact that it can kind of move on to the next step in its evolution, almost like a a Phoenix type rebirth, I think gives it gives it value and gives it power.

And it's a good, kind of analogy for the way that we learn and the way my students learn, because you have to kind of sometimes make those mistakes to figure out where the gaps are so that you know better for the next time.

I really like for people to use these things.

The more they use them, the more connected they're going to be to them.

So I'll put on, walnut oil or I started using flax seed oil that's partially polymerized.

It'll actually harden into a soft finish that the end user can maintain.

And, for some of the other more decorative or artistic pieces, I'll typically use lacquer or other things like polyurethane.

That I don't let the wood tell me what it wants to be.

It's just wood.

It doesn't know.

Right.

So I'll have a very, very specific objective.

And what I want to see out of that, and that's part of the skill of it, is, is bending the medium to what I want it to be.

So as it approaches that final vision, that's when I know it's done.

Now, sometimes along the way, you know, wood's like a box of chocolates.

You never know what you're going to get to.

Your finished.

In fact, that's the secret to having everything turn out perfect is never telling anybody what you're making to completely done that way.

It always turns out right.

The LSU Clocktower, or Campanile, is perhaps the most immediately recognizable symbol of the state's flagship university.

Not only does the tower stand for the heights of academic achievement, it also serves as a reminder of Louisianans military contributions in times of conflict.

In 1919, LSU President Boyd asked architect Theodore Link to design a memorial in honor of the Louisiana men who served during World War One.

1447 Louisianans died during that war.

The plans were being drawn as a new campus was being built.

The tower was assigned a prime piece of real estate along Highland Road, a site that gives students and visitors a clean view of the tower as they travel along Highland Road.

Boyd made sure people can drive around the parade ground and get an even closer view of the 175ft tower from their vehicles.

Symbolically, the structure guards the academic community by the men who fulfill their patriotic service and an administration looking out for students, according to LSU Professor Paul Huffman, in 1928, the state legislature approved funding for a bronze plaque identifying the Louisiana natives who died during World War One.

Somehow, the names of the soldiers from Point Coupee Parish were left off the plaque.

However, a poster has been added featuring the names of those soldiers.

A lantern also hangs from the dome of the building, symbolic of knowledge.

It can be hard to believe, but illiteracy still prevents millions of Americans from reading and writing with fluency.

But some local communities are tearing down convention and making access to books a priority.

Through grassroots efforts, one Ohio community has created little libraries with the help of private and local partnerships.

Here's that story.

Well, we were thinking about we want to do something different and unique for National Volunteer Week.

So Hands on Central Ohio partnered with BSA to come up with this free little library project.

And really, the goal is to promote, literacy in our community and provide an opportunity for kids to have access to free books as well.

So the Columbus Dispatch, they donated six newspaper dispensers to Hands On and to BSA, and those two organizations came together, with some of our partners to paint them and make them into little, little libraries.

And so all around Columbus, we're going to place these little libraries in places where kids don't have as much access to books.

And that way they can take a book, they can leave a book and hopefully enjoy reading.

And yeah, really, the goal is, you know, some kids may not have transportation or they're not walking distance to go to a library.

So that way we're putting them where kids are already located.

So our community center and afterschool center.

So they while they're already there, they can have access to books or they don't have to go to another location.

In the site, locations are directions for youth, which is on the, east side of Columbus.

They have an after school program there.

Saint Stephen's community House, as well as the job Maloney Wholesale Health Center on the south side of town, and then Ashbrook Junior Youth Center on the west side.

And then there's also banquets and gardens to, garden locations that will also have, a library as well.

Now, we're also so excited about the, the number of book donations that we receive.

We have over 700 book donations.

Malala Foundation provided books as well as McGraw Hill.

Columbus Library also donated books as well.

So we're really excited.

100% volunteer driven.

And a lot of this is is made possible by by companies who just donate time, donate supplies.

The paint was donated by Sherwin Williams.

the dispensers, like I said, were donated by the dispatch.

And then the volunteers come out and paint everything.

We do a lot of projects best and manages just about 30 service projects a month.

We do a lot of, a one off projects community drives.

This one is one of the ones that has gotten received the most attention.

And so people from companies, from individuals, have really stepped in, stepped up and said, this is fantastic.

We need more of this in the community.

And so we're looking to do more little libraries.

Yeah.

I think it brings together so many different types of people.

You need to be creative to paint the libraries.

I think people understand that education is obviously very important.

Reading is important.

And, expanding opportunities for kids, for children to get books.

it's just it's a win win, but it's an opportunity for a child to keep a book in their home.

And I think it's really cool to see so many people coming together, rallying together for the common good for Columbus.

And that's going to do it for this edition of Art rocks.

But remember, you can always watch episodes of the show at lpb.org/art rocks.

And if you want more, Country Roads Magazine is a great resource for learning all about what's going on in Louisiana's vibrant arts and culture, close to home and all around the state.

So until next week, I've been James Fox Smith and thanks for watching.