Coming shortly on rocks.

Impressions of Louisiana seen through early settlers eyes.

Many of these artists really are wonderful painters and I think what's wonderful about them is that they are adapting techniques they've learned elsewhere in very different kinds of landscapes to Louisiana, putting theatrical on ice.

When I look over and see the person that I'm skating with have so much fun, it makes me want to have fun and like smiles are infectious.

So when you see someone else smiling and singing the words, you start to smile and sing the words.

A home fit for John de Rockefeller.

He was passionate about art.

A great collector of the arts.

By that, he meant he was going to study the environment.

Find where the best location for each of his outdoor pieces would be, and putting the spice into sugar and spice.

I kind of go with the flavors that I really like, like curries and particularly herbs, all that.

Up next on are rock art.

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

Hello.

Thank you for joining us for Art Rocks.

With me, James Fox Smith, publisher of Country Roads magazine.

It's difficult to drive around Louisiana without being struck by its ethereal waterways, primeval forests and teeming abundance of flora and fauna.

If you think our state is striking now, though, imagine the impression it made when the first European and South American visitors arrived more than 300 years ago.

Well, you don't actually have to imagine that.

The New Orleans Museum of Art's exhibit, Inventing Acadia Painting in Place, featured many of the earliest paintings made in this state.

Curator Katie Foale guides us through the works and the artists who made them inventing Acadia painting in place in Louisiana is the first big exhibition of Louisiana landscape painting and almost 40 years.

And it's bringing together artwork from collections all across the country that include artists working in Europe, the broader United States, Latin America, as well as Louisiana to reflect our unique culture and ecology and landscape of this place.

And really in many ways to look at how the history of landscape art set the stage for both the possibilities, as well as some of the issues and questions we're asking today about Louisiana.

The earliest thing in the show is the early 1800s and the most recent thing in the exhibition is around the turn of the century.

So the exhibition really follows 19th century Louisiana landscape art from some of the first painters who came to Louisiana all the way up through more contemporary work.

Many of the painters who came here were used to working in the forests of Fontainebleau, in France, in these dense forested environments that they were used to working in the mountains and lakes of the Hudson River Valley.

And they came here and encountered this flat, swampy delta landscape liable to floods and all sorts of other questions and issues.

And so as a result of that, the painters ended up having to sort of remake the ideas about landscape painting from within.

If you're used to painting a forest with the hills and valleys and lush mountains and you come to this flat delta, you have to sort of reimagine what landscape is from the very beginning.

And there's no single point of view or perspective.

There's no clear way according to ideas about composition to really paint this place.

And so that was both an esthetic problem or.

QUESTION How do you make a painting of this watery landscape, but also political one thinking about how we relate to landscape, whether you try and make it look like France or New England or whether you try and treat it as what it is.

Many of these artists really are wonderful painters, and I think what's wonderful about them is that they are adapting techniques they've learned elsewhere in very different kinds of landscapes to Louisiana.

But there's some that stand out.

Like Richard Clegg, who is this painter from France, who painted a lot of the kind of batture and flood areas of the city.

Others, like Joseph Fiercely Meeker, who made these visions of the swamp based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline.

I have a number of favorite works in the exhibition.

One of them is a painting by this very early Louisiana artist Toussaint Francois Bejo.

He was a river captain who made this very early painting of Louisiana that appears on the banner in front of the museum, as well as the frontispiece to the exhibition.

And he created this painting of the chapel at a base in one of the largest wetland swamps in the world in the 1850s.

That shows the scene in the aftermath of a hurricane where you see all of this flooded land, all of these felled trees, all these different waterways that are merging and colliding, and also all of these indigenous people who are kind of position at the foreground of the canvas, I think, as a way to demonstrate a very different way of living with this land.

And that that was often proposed by the European colonists.

So really showing the sort of danger of this place, but also presenting this vision for how we might live alongside land and water, which I think was really quite prescient.

One of the things that I find fascinating about that work is that the artist included no less than seven examples of indigenous basketry from the region in that painting.

I think as a way to point towards the art and culture that was already in Louisiana at the time that Europeans were coming.

And then to to me, of the most exceptional works in the exhibition, although it's a painting show, our sculptors, we tracked down this incredible work by this female sculptor Harriet Hosmer, who created this incredible sculpture of Medusa after she traveled from Saint Louis to New Orleans.

The next work I would cite is this work by a sculptor at Monia Lewis called the Marriage of Hiawatha.

This is a work that had Monia Lewis showed at the 1884 World's Cotton Centennial Exhibition and a sculpture that, like many of the paintings in the exhibition, was inspired by the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

She based this sculpture not Off of Evangeline The Tale of Arcadia, the one set in Louisiana, but rather the marriage of Hiawatha, in which this true love between two people and the marriage of these two people unites two warring indigenous nations in a new union.

And she presented this as one of the first art exhibitions by African-Americans that existed in Louisiana.

This is alongside the works by artists from Haiti and works by African-American artists from all across the country, and presented this vision of unity and coming together at a time when Louisiana was still very fractured as a result of the Civil War.

And the third painting that I would mention is a work that's not by a Louisiana artist at all, and not of Louisiana either.

We were very lucky to be able to borrow a painting by the artist Theodore Rousseau that shows the swamps in land, which is a flooded, swampy region of southwest France.

And Theodore Rousseau was one of the first painters who we would we would really consider what we call a kind of environmentalist who campaigned for the preservation of the forests in the French.

Barbizon, and in the 1840s, took a trip to the swamps of France and made a series of paintings of that place that tried to show that swamps and flooded landscapes could be beautiful in the 1840s as well as really throughout the 19th century.

Swamps were seen as these muddy, dirty places that shouldn't be treated as places to live, much less places to be celebrated as beautiful.

And Rousseau instead created these paintings that really showed the way that swamps could be thought of as places of beauty and celebrated for what they were rather than as was the common knowledge at the time, be drained and filled and made into productive farmland.

One of the other, I think really important and quite beautiful things in the exhibition is a selection of some of the most beautiful indigenous American basketry that I think I've seen from indigenous nations all across the region, especially the Chile Macha Kushida and the copper ishak people.

But those were also in fact made in that time frame between about 1850 to 1900.

I think in many ways the culture has developed around its history and the way people related to land.

And so you sort of see this transformation from some of the earliest artists and painters that came here who were painting these sort of wildernesses of swamps and delta landscapes and bayous to the beginnings of people beginning to build shelters and and habitations on this landscape.

And then, of course, as you kind of move further into the exhibition, you start to see the development of plantations and plantation economies and begin to have to grapple with a lot of those histories as well, thinking about histories of enslavement and the labor systems that produced this land and the sort of strange ways in which Louisiana was thinking about what it was as a place.

There are several works in the exhibition that are what we call allegories for Louisiana, with titles like Mother Louisiana or Spirit of Louisiana, where painters are trying to figure out how you would encapsulate the culture identity of this place.

And oftentimes they're relying on certain ideas that have been inherited from other places representing, for instance, Louisiana as this kind of archetype of ancient Greece and Rome, rather than what it really, truly was, which is, of course, this place where you have European American, African, as well as indigenous American people who are all together and negotiating a very complicated political situation.

So I think, you know, in many ways.

Right, you see Louisiana becoming settled, turning into the place that we see it as today, moving from wilderness to settled land, and in that process sort of constantly negotiating or renegotiating what its culture was and how it was going to be understood.

Noma already has a collection of Louisiana landscape art that has been on view at an upstairs gallery for a number of years.

And so we included a number of pieces the museum already has in the exhibition, trying to shed some new light based on some of the researchers and scholars that worked on the show.

Thinking a new Way is about those landscapes and their meaning and importance.

But we also do hope to continue to acquire in this area.

I think one of the things that this exhibition has hopefully made really clear is that these landscape paintings have been in fact very undervalued and not as recognized within the broader American art tradition.

So there's been some really wonderful things that have happened as a result of the show.

Museums we've worked with who because we've found and borrowed works in their collection, have decided now to put them out on view and things of that kind.

So I think a show like this is about pointing out the value of work as much as it is about bringing new light to the scholarship.

So that's a big part of our goal.

And making a show like this.

Although the exhibit, Inventing Acadia, is no longer on display at Noma, a handsome companion book containing images of almost every piece in the exhibit is available.

Inquire at the Noma Museum Store or visit Noma Dawgs shop.

Accomplished artists from near and far are showcasing work in communities near you.

So here are some of our picks for notable exhibits coming soon to museums and galleries in your neck of the woods.

For more about these and many more events in the arts, subscribe to Arts Monthly, The new Free E-Newsletter from the editors at LP and Country Roads Magazine.

What's more, the Art Rocks website features every episode of this program.

So to see or share any episode again, log on to LP dot org and navigate to art rocks.

We're off to Brighton, Michigan, now, where a group of young women are combining creativity with theatrics and unbelievable athleticism to create a competition on ice.

Come marvel at the lengths these skaters go to to showcase their unique form of expression.

It's pure excitement from skating.

When I'm on the ice, I forget about everything else going on and I can just be me and have fun and skate and show everybody what I made up.

Makes me feel good because I won't be the person that I am today without it.

Showcase is more for the artistic skater, the skater that likes to perform and become a character.

I think I decide to go on and showcase because it's more of a fun outlet and just more entertaining to watch and to perform and making people laugh and making people feel the sadness that you're trying to portray.

And some of them and the happiness and all of those different emotions.

When I was little, I just loved acting and I also found my love of figure skating.

So when I heard about Showcase, I was really excited to try it out.

You get to show your face more and just like other than smiling, you can sing your words, but if there is no words, you can show your emotions along with that too.

We have two different events in solo skating and showcase, and that would be light entertainment and dramatic, whereas light entertainment is more fun and lighthearted and can be silly or funny, and.

Whereas dramatic is more emotional and you know, you can leave the audience in tears if you do your job.

Today we are doing our run thrus of some of the selected programs where the kids that are skating tonight are going to have the chance to qualify for nationals.

We have a very good choreographer here.

I don't know how she comes up with things, but she does.

She's pretty amazing at it.

And I think the skaters really can relate to what she comes up with and they just it fits with the music and the character.

My friend, my duet partner, we're just crazy.

So our coach decided that we could be monkeys in a routine of stars and we get to be weird and funny.

Makeup kind of brings out that you're a monkey, and then they know what you're doing, so you can just kind of be weird and express yourself through that.

I'm doing my duet for nerds and we're trying to impress a lady that we see in the stands and we're trying to get her attention and make her squeaky clean.

When I look over and see the person that I'm skating with have so much fun, it makes me want to have fun.

And like, smiles are infectious.

So when you see someone else smiling and singing the words, you start to smile and sing the words more.

And it just encourages you to be just better.

They do double jumps, they do axels and phones, and I mean, they're just as good of skaters as anybody else.

It's just they're performing for the crowd and you're going to see a lot of different, you know, double cells, double moves, double flips, jumps that are consistent.

And we'll go with the program.

I like to jump and spinning is always fun.

And there's some fun footwork, things that are different in every single program that you can really make your own in those moments.

So I think footwork and those fancy terms kind of thing that you can just make your own moment or my favorite to do.

I'm doing a dance called The Double Show and I'm doing a spin called An Illusion.

People think it looks super easy, but then you go out and people can't skate backwards and they realize how hard it is.

Me and all the other girls included, put in so many hours every day and fall down so many times.

And you just have to keep getting back up and keep trying again and just keep practicing all those different things.

A great skater is someone that has really good skating skills.

If they make a mistake, can pull it off anyways and just make it like it was part of the program.

Laugh at themselves when they do make a mistake, entertain, that's huge and showcase skating.

We have five of the best duets in the country that won last year.

They have different routines this year and some of them are with different partners, but most of them stay together for a while.

That's what makes a good team.

So you're going to see some of those duets.

And then we have a lot of solos where we have all the way from the preliminary level, which is the lower lowest level that you can do at National showcase all the way to Senior.

I put in a lot of work, you know, I skate the whole year coming up to this competition is really my favorite competition.

The fun thing about Showcase is it's unique because everyone just loves to be around each other.

They want to watch the other programs.

They support each other.

I think Showcase is very entertaining.

If you're just looking to have a good time and come out and watch it, then come on, watch it.

You won't.

You will never not be entertained from someone doing a showcase program.

You'll go from feeling super happy and laughing to being so emotionally touched by a different program that there's so many different aspects of it that you can feel by coming out and watching showcase with its stunning landscapes and relative proximity to New York City, the Hudson River Valley was an important source of inspiration and subject matter for some of America's most influential painters.

In Westchester County stands CAI cut the classical revival style villa completed for John D Rockefeller in 1913 and one of the Hudson Valley's great estates.

A visit to clear cut offers a chance to see how the business magnate, widely considered the wealthiest Americans of all time, used art to make his estate complete.

Take it as the home to the Rockefeller family.

There were four generations of family to have lived in this home, and it was considered the family seat for John Davidson, Rockefeller, senior.

The word Typekit is an old Dutch word.

It means look out or overlook.

It is fitting because we are on the top of the hill.

We said 500 feet above sea level, perfect area for a beautiful home.

Houses done in the classical style and the gardens are gardens that you might find in the Italian villa.

The original building of it was in 1909 when the family moved in.

They redid the facade in 1913 with a pediment right below the roof, reminiscent of the ancient Roman temples.

Within that, Pediment said two large figures, one being Apollo, the God of the arts, and the other being Demeter, the goddess of agriculture.

And that was a symbol of unity between nature and culture, something that this estate was meant to embody.

There were two important architects that we had working on this home, one being Ogden Codman, who was responsible for the interiors of this home.

William Miles Bosworth created all the gardens that you would see throughout this estate, the ones that surround the house are much more formal, and the further out you go, the further your eye looks, they become more informal and graduate into the landscape.

John de Rockefeller Jr was the one who put a lot of classical sculpture on the ground.

Oceana's is the largest fountain we have on this estate.

It was placed here in 1913.

It was fashioned after the Oceana's that you would find in the boboli Gardens in Florence, Italy.

Oceana, Spain.

The king of the river guards commanding the seated figures to pour forth water into the oceans.

There are three figures there, and they represent the rivers of the old world, the Ganges, the Euphrates and the Nile.

And the reason it was placed in the east looking to the west is because we are going to link the Hudson River, the river of the new World, to the rivers of the old world.

NELSON Aldrich Rockefeller was the grandson of John D Rockefeller senior.

He resided here a third generation of family.

And what he gave to this estate was sculpture and art.

We have five art galleries in the downstairs area of this home filled with modern art.

We have more than 70 pieces of outdoor sculpture alone, ranging from Henry Moore to Gucci.

He was passionate about art.

A great collector of the arts, and he considered himself an environmental artist.

And by that he meant he was going to study the environment.

Find where the best location for each of his outdoor pieces would be.

So that sculpture would enhance nature.

And in turn, nature would enhance that piece of sculpture.

Triangular surface in space by the artist Max Bill.

It is set at the end of the rose pergola.

It overlooks the Hudson River and it is as if it's a telescopic view of the Hudson.

The inner garden is flanked by two sunken gardens.

When Nelson lived here, he had exchanged the sunken gardens and he put in sunken swimming pools, which makes the peace that he put in between the two pools perfectly situated.

Aristide, miles bather, putting up her hair, looks as if she's going to jump into the water.

And when Nelson lived here, she could have.

Nelson Rockefeller wanted everybody to enjoy what he had enjoyed throughout his life.

So he put in his will that when he passed away, this home would be given to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, along with 87 acres surrounding this estate that would be open to the public and tours would be given to the public by historic Hudson Valley at the Rockefeller estate is open to the public May through mid-November.

Up to Columbus, Ohio, now for a visit to the Cocoa Cat Bakery, a family run business doing beautiful things with chocolate and using some truly unusual flavor combinations.

We are inside the north market.

We've been here for a little over two and a half months.

Cocoa Cat was born out of the idea that we would be raising money to help spay neuter cats in and around our community.

I love to put really crazy spices and herbs into chocolate, things that you would never ever think.

Go with chocolate.

Now, these are not your normal, ordinary strawberries because they're dipped in white chocolate and dark chocolate, but then they're topped with things like toasted coconut with Jamaican curry.

We have fresh rosemary and pistachio on top of dark chocolate and hibiscus and candied orange chopped up and put on to a dark chocolate strawberry.

We also have our ginger, cardamom, lime truffles.

I kind of go with the flavors that I really like, like curries and particularly herbs.

So we grow a lot of our herbs on our farm, but then we also have a lot of our spice combinations blended or purchased them directly from north market spices here in the market.

Everything is very, very, very small batch and very handcrafted.

Such attention to detail all the way to our cocoa kitty items like Lego bricks with jelly belly in them, and little emoji poops.

These are the emerging groups, the biggest seller.

They are made of solid chocolate.

My name is Tosh and I am nine years old.

Well, I told my mom that not all kids like birds and spices in their chocolate, so they are Lego bricks filled with jelly beans and just solid chocolate.

And Columbus is definitely ready for all of these different combinations, and they're willing to try them.

And that's the biggest thing.

Are you willing to try my reckless abandon and kind of go to the edge of what you really think chocolate could be and should be?

A lot of people just want plain chocolate.

Well, we don't do that.

You've heard the expression don't knock it till you've tried it and we won't.

Dark chocolate, peanut butter dipped banana, anyone.

So that is it for this edition of Art Rocks.

As always, you can see search and share any episode at PB dot org slash rocks.

And if you're wondering what else you might be missing out and about in the Bayou State.

Country Roads Magazine is a resource for cultural events, ideas and destinations all across Louisiana.

With that I've been James Fox Smith and thank you for watching.