Coming up next on Art Rocks, the River Oaks Square Art Center, and what it represents to artists and residents of central Louisiana.

River Oaks has provided me with an outlet to show my artwork to a different audience that perhaps I wouldn't have been able to do back when I was painting at my house and an amazing educator tional opportunity on the banks of the Mississippi in downtown Baton Rouge.

That's all right now on Art Rocks.

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

And thanks for joining us for Art Rocks.

We begin in the town of Alexander Adria, a small central Louisiana city with a whole lot of art at its heart.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Alexandria has a population of about 48,000.

Even so, the city boasts a contemporary visual arts and fine craft center that is the envy of much larger communities nationwide.

The River Oaks Square's director, Rachel Josette, tells us how and why it works.

River Oaks was donated to the city of Alexandria in 1979 in an agreement that it would be used solely for the arts.

And in that agreement, the City of Alexandria underwrites our utility bill and our major maintenance bill.

Now we have to raise all of the ongoing operations for our center.

River Oaks is comprised of two facilities.

We occupy almost an entire square block area.

And downtown Alexandria is Cultural Arts District.

One building was opened up in 1999.

We refer to it as our Studio Annex, its building and it's a 15,000 square foot building.

It's connected to the original complex that started it all.

The Walton House, which is an 8000 square foot antebellum home that's exemplary of Queen in revival architecture.

The Bolton home was built in 1899 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Oftentimes, we'll have guests that stumble upon us to view the historic element of the Bolton home, and then they stumble upon the art that goes with it.

And then we have vice versa.

We have some that come specifically for the art and stumble upon this gorgeous home that we're sitting in.

There are over 35 artists that maintain studio space at our facility.

Our group spaces run around $50 a month and that is heated and cooled.

And our largest space runs at approximately $300 a month.

So when you're talking to artists from New Orleans or other areas, they're floored with these amounts because it's extremely economical as far as their individuals studios.

They basically furnish everything that they need within their studio, but they also have access to state of the art ceramic facilities if they want to get involved in ceramics or pottery.

We have a ceramics lab that's comparable to most university systems, and a lot of our artists here take advantage of that.

They also take advantage of a lot of the ongoing classes that we feature.

Last year alone, we paid out over $180,000 to visual artists from across the state, and that's for instruction in classes.

That's for exhibition sales.

That's for a multitude of things.

But our main missions is to compensate working artists for their time and talent.

Local, regional and nationally renowned artists, they come in not only for showcasing their work in our exhibitions, but they also have an educational extension to it.

Oh, working here at River Oaks is tremendous.

And one of the first things I'd like to talk about is the camaraderie with the other artists.

There are some very talented, talented people here and there is an exchange of ideas that goes on informally in the hallways with artists who work in different media, who are of different ages, of different genders.

And everybody is working on their own art, but sharing that information with each other and that kind of intellectual interaction is really stimulating.

And I think it's tremendous.

Everything here undergoes a jury process.

So if you're showcasing your work in our main gallery, it's by invitation only.

If you're showcasing your work in our resident artist gallery, you naturally have to be a resident artist at the center.

We have a third gallery that we kind of use for impromptu shows to showcase the works of local artists who may not have a studio space at River Oaks.

All three are basically by invitational.

I think Louisiana is the greatest muse any artist could ever have.

It's a cultural melting pot of all things.

There's so much subject matter to touch on here.

You've witnessed several of our artists already who have shown you what their repertoire of work is, and it's 90% Louisiana, Louisiana landscapes, Louisiana wildlife.

And I think that's a strong element with any artist, because when you can create work that resonates with an audience, it's things that they've seen.

It's things that they see on a daily basis.

I think you hit a target audience with that, but more so you affect them deep down because it's something they want to remember or it's something that they love or it's something that they can connect to.

So all of our artists tend to pick up on those Louisiana vibes.

You do get a tremendous sense of place with so much of the work that's produced here by the artists.

River Oaks has provided me with an outlet to show my artwork to a different audience that perhaps I wouldn't have been able to do back when I was painting at my house.

You really do need some of that marketing that comes with what River Oaks has to offer.

I call them the River Oaks family because that's what they are.

They they always are there for me.

River Oaks features well over 20 exhibitions a year.

In that given year, we will feature well over 300 artists.

And we do that because we have two national calls.

We have one called Called Our Dirty Self Hope Call in competition and we have our five by five by five show, which is an annual works of miniatures.

Those two shows alone garner response from well over 300 artists from across the United States, even some internationally.

We have a local foundation here known as Gaita.

It's the Greater Economic Alexandria Development Authority.

It helps us underwrite a lot of these calls that we do in addition to the exhibitions that we offer.

We offer a lot of outreach programs.

We have programs for developmentally disabled youth going on six years strong.

We work with approximately 100 developmentally disabled youth and adults in a given year.

They come here once a week.

They do ceramics programs.

Those outreach programs for us are vital, and it's one of the ways that we truly impact our community.

We also look forward in the upcoming years to implementing a COSSA camp for Costa kids.

We started that this past year.

We definitely have a feel for what our community needs, what it gravitates towards and how do we go out and bring art into our community no matter where you live in Louisiana?

Opportunities to enrich your life by connecting with art and culture are everywhere.

The trick is knowing where to look.

So here are just a few of the exhibits, performances, festivals, getaways, trips and tours Coming up around the state.

To learn more about these and other events in Louisiana, keep your eyes peeled for a copy of Country Roads magazine and while we're at it, Help Ease.

Rock's website features an archive of previous episodes.

So to see any episode again, just log on to LP dot org.

Changing our tune now to focus on country music legend Patsy Cline.

She began her career at a time when men dominated the industry.

However, Cline's determination and talent led her to overcome bias to become one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century.

Come along now to find out how bringing Cline story to the screen for the PBS series American Masters became a labor of love for filmmaker Barbara Hall.

You think of her music for the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall.

And finally, when you're in America, you're seeing more and more people in decline.

I just always felt in my gut.

Patsy Cline is an American masters.

And somehow when I think of what she did, I thought, I can't just drop the ball.

I got to keep pushing.

This is where she is meant to be with these other fellow American masters.

So I just kind of didn't take no for an answer.

And I sort of learned that through her.

Her pioneering spirit within the music industry is something we should celebrate.

I find her story incredibly inspiring, and I don't know anyone who's heard her music who doesn't just love it.

I think Findlay also where we find each other when we write and to bring back Patsy Cline in a deep way, not in a oh, it's just a one song.

But let's understand where those songs came from and what they meant to her seems really important to do.

My worry about the Patsy Cline film was there wouldn't be any great footage, and filmmaker Barbara Hall proved the contrary.

There is amazing footage.

My favorite is the Arthur Godfrey Show, where it's not actual footage of her performing there, but you hear the interaction between Godfrey and Patsy Cline's mom and Patsy singing, and she wins the contest and it changes her career.

Well, what many women today call country music still a good old boys network.

And it's very difficult to to find some sort of a quality there.

So back 50 or 60 years ago that she earned and I believe earned the hard way the right to have an opinion and to call her own shots and to be heard.

I just took straight up guts, confidence and skill and she just had the goods.

She just had the ability.

Patsy is a real pioneer.

She is.

She drops out of school in the eighth grade.

She's working in drugstores.

She's working in bars, or her mom is sewing clothes for other people.

I think they move over a dozen times when she's a teenager and she literally puts her face on the window of a radio station to try and get in and be on the inside and and sing for them.

And it's that kind of grit and resilience and, of course, her amazing talent that wins out.

I think one of the things we've learned along the way is that this is a family member and loved one first and foremost and and not just a commodity or an artist.

So we have we built a personal relationship with the family.

And I think we have their trust.

And and we were very honored to be trusted with her story.

I will say, Charlie, her husband, extremely protective of her legacy.

So it took a long time to build up that trust.

And I really don't want to do anything to damage it.

I have to tell you, I cried for like three or four months once we really delved into it, because it just seemed that she got a couple of steps forward and knocked down a couple of steps forward, not down like I thought, How much does this woman have to take, really?

You know, she she just seemed to dealt some so many bad cards.

I think what she's done for me truly is no pity parties for me.

I mean, it's a cakewalk compared to what she had to what she had to fight for and navigate for.

So, yes, made me a little more resilient.

And I think for her, you know, know meant try another way, you know, go through another door, come back later.

So I think I'm I'm hoping that I take that away.

I am I have to win out in order to have to minimize certain.

Now let's open a window into another world.

In Korea, it is a long standing tradition to wish newlyweds health, prosperity and long life with gifts of Han Ji.

Intricate artworks created out of handmade paper.

Paper maker and artist and writer Amy Lee is the leading practitioner of traditional Korean hangi working in the United States.

Here's her story.

In Korea, there's a tradition when people get married that one of the very common gifts they get is they get pairs of wooden ducks, wedding ducks, and they're carved and then they're painted these beautiful colors to signify Mandarin ducks, which are a species that are known to mate for life.

I always grew up seeing them, you know, every kind of household, every married couple has them.

The Korean tradition of offering newlyweds wooden ducks dates back 2000 years to a time when male suitors offered families live ducks in exchange for someone's hand in marriage as a way of paying homage to this custom.

Amy produced a series of Mandarin ducks using another ancient Korean practice.

Papermaking Papermaking in Korea is almost 2000 years old.

It has very long history and it was maybe one of the second kind of big cultures that started to make paper in the world.

And so it started in China and then went to Korea because they were very closely connected and it came first as a vehicle for religion, for Buddhism, for a way for them to copy their sutras and then be able to disseminate this information.

And then beyond that, they started to realize how strong this paper was, and they realized they could turn it into so many other things.

And you had paper chamber pots, you had paper furniture, white hats, you had all kinds of things.

The paper Amy uses to craft her ducks is derived from the mulberry tree.

The plants are grown at the Morgan Art of Papermaking Conservatory on East 47th Street in Cleveland, where Amy teaches the ancient art of Korean papermaking.

We waited until all of the leaves had fallen, and we're cutting all the way at the base of this plant, and it will grow right back the next year.

So this inner bark, the white bark is what you want for papermaking.

It's the only kind of public place where people just can come in from anywhere and learn how to make paper in the Korean tradition from scratch.

Extracting the pulp used to make paper is a laborious process.

It starts by steaming the branches so the bark can be removed.

The inner stem is then boiled and the long fibers are removed.

After cleaning the fibers material is beaten, creating short strands of pulp that go into a watery solution known as a slurry.

A large screen goes into the slurry many times and in many directions to evenly distribute the fibers and drain off the water.

What's left behind is a thin layer of fibrous material that becomes paper.

After the paper dries, Amy begins assembling the ducks by first cutting hand-made paper into one inch strips that are woven together into string.

I use my hands to essentially twist and ply the paper.

It's exactly like making rope.

This is the process known as chiseling and she song is this very old craft form in Korea of taking these these strips of paper and then twisting them.

And I have to do that then for hundreds and hundreds of pairs so that I get hundreds and hundreds of cords so that I can start weaving.

The process is called twining, which is a basketry and very old process that almost every culture in the world actually is developed.

And so you have to take these paper cords.

And I usually start with a knot that ends up giving me eight different cords, comes shooting out of a center and just go round and round and round and round until it gets bigger and and to make it get bigger and stay flat.

I have to then add more of these ropes, which I usually called spokes because it is like spokes in a wheel.

And then the pieces that go around, the threads that go around are called weavers.

Using these traditional papermaking techniques and sustainable practices are essential to Amy for many reasons, but especially as a way of connecting to her Korean heritage and her love of history and humanity.

It's important to me, I think, in the big picture, just as a human being on this planet that cares about preserving craft traditions that humans have figured out over hundreds of years, you know, it took a long time to figure out how to make such a fine and beautiful and useful product.

And also to it's important for me as a paper maker to round out papermaking history.

There isn't there hasn't been a lot of information about Korean paper and there's been a lot more research done in other kinds of paper making.

And so I just wanted to kind of fill a gap that that I saw and back home now for another of our Louisiana Treasures segments, you'll find one of the most amazing educational opportunities and tourist attractions in Baton Rouge for kids and adults alike, right on the banks of the Mississippi River in downtown Baton Rouge.

Keith Dixon tells us about some of the amazing opportunities you will find at the Louisiana Art and Science Museum on River Road.

The organization has been around longer than we've been in this building.

We've been in this building since the mid seventies.

It is the old railroad depot for Baton Rouge in fact, at the north end of the building is a chalkboard.

The train schedule that you can see, it's really kind of neat.

You can go to Saint Francis Ville, you can go to San Francisco, you can go to Houston.

So a lot of places used to be able to go to from Baton Rouge.

Prior to being in this building.

We were at the old governor's mansion and then we moved here in the seventies, built an extension of the art gallery, which we're in now.

And then early 2000, opened the new planetarium and the atrium and the entire south end of the building.

So the building has been through a lot and seen a lot over the years, even with just us being here after its days as a train station, one of our most popular galleries is our Egyptian Gallery, which features a 2300 year old mummy.

We used to think it was a girl, but we have since learned it is a boy and it also features artifacts from the era.

And then in the collection of art, science, astronomy, there's information about stars and navigation and stargazing.

During the Egyptian period.

And it really is probably one of the most popular things that we have here at the museum.

We've had the mummies since early on, since the early sixties, and so it's been a staple of what we do.

And what we offer here.

One of the unique things about the Louisiana Art and Science Museum is we do have changing exhibitions.

We have a permanent collection.

But in addition, our feature in our main galleries is usually a changing exhibition.

They run anywhere from 3 to 4 months and we'll bring things in from around the world featuring local artists, featuring international artists, everything from a feature several years ago on Jim Henson to things about colors and tapestries and the cartoons of Warner Brothers.

So you never know quite what you're going to get.

It's a great place to come and see something different every time you come.

Our newest resident at the museum is Jason the Triceratops.

He is 65 million years old.

He shadows the mummy quite a bit.

And we've been fortunate through a long term loan from Todd Graves and Raising Cane's to have him here in our building and it's allowed us to take our solar System gallery, which is a part of the planetarium area and talk about dinosaurs, talk about geology, talk about how the earth came to be through activity in our solar system from meteors, moon, rocks, you name it.

It really has allowed us to to make some changes.

But Jason's been a great addition to our our building.

We are open Tuesday through Sunday.

During the week we are open 10 to 3 and then on the weekends on Saturday we open 10 to 5 and Sundays, 1 to 4.

On the first Sunday of each month we offer what we call our free first Sunday.

Anyone can come in and enjoy the museum without cost and it's a great place to spend an afternoon.

There's something for everyone.

We've got hands on science activities, We've got great weekend programing from our BASF kids lab program on the second and fourth weekend of the month to our hands on happenings on the first weekend and a great stargazing program on Saturday mornings for younger children, hands on activities throughout the building.

So there's always something for everyone.

You've got to go to Kansas City, Missouri, if you want to catch fashion designer Christian Michael SHUSTER in his native habitat.

But when he's not boasting buttons, choosing colors and picking patterns to make a splash during Fashion Week, SHUSTER has his eyes on a different runway, the Civil War.

The more I thought about it as an artist, if you're not pushing yourself to try something new, if you're not expanding the palette in which you work, then then what's the point?

My name is Christian Michael Schuster, and I'm a menswear and womenswear fashion designer from Kansas City, Missouri.

I've always been a menswear designer and had really stayed true to my guns in that I'm a tailor and that's what I know.

Pattern sewing and cutting and drafting.

And I've always felt that my design sense and design, I was around menswear, so I started to become very excited about the idea of producing a first women's wear collection.

But at the same time staying very true to who I am.

So we are working to rebrand, do a complete women's wear collection under Xi by Christian Michael, and then a complete menswear collection by Christian Michael.

And it adds up to essentially two separate collections 12 works each, 24 works total and 53 pieces of clothing.

So along with the Christian Michael Modern Men's Wear Fashion label, I also run a business as the Civil War tailor, doing some custom costuming for the right clients, civilian men, Civil War era.

And it's really about class from an economic standpoint.

So this is going to be like a middle income to upper income, which is really based on the frock coat and the length of the frock coat.

So it's all natural material with a wall, but because it's a single breasted frock coat, they like to pair print on solids and match colors and prints together very well.

This is my Confederate staff officers military uniform.

It's a double breasted officers frock coat featuring sleeve braid, custom buttoned and shoulder collar, a ranking of the sleeve braid is essentially a piece of the Confederate uniform that helped designate rank.

I transfer paper it on to the wall and then pick stitch and hand stitch each individual row of these.

Each one of these rows took me about an hour, two and a half, hour and a half to stitch on there.

Another point that I use in all my costume work, especially in the Civil War side, are period correct hand stitch, button holes.

These button holes average about 80 to 90 stitches per individual button hole and take me about an hour per button hole.

This jacket features nine button holes on this individual jacket just for the front alone.

The lieutenant colonel and a staff officer brought The rank is also denoted on the collar rank, as well as the sleeves.

And you can see that by having two stars on each side of the collar.

My love and initial interest in the hobby was so much around the costuming.

Then it led into the fashion side and my first ever runway collection with Kansas City Fashion Week was very uniform, inspired, very Victorian.

In military era, you can really, truly see the transition of my love for that time period in the fashion, and I've always kind of stayed true to that.

And that is that for this edition of Art Rocks.

But don't despair.

You can always find episodes of the show at LP B dot org slash art rocks.

And if you want more, Country Roads magazine makes a handy companion for making the most of Louisiana's vibrant arts and culture close to home and all around the state.

So until next time, I am James Fox Smith and thanks for watching.