[announcer] "Art Loft" is brought to you by, [announcer] Where there is freedom there is expression, the Florida Keys and Key West.

[announcer] And the friends of South Florida PBS.

[narrator] "Art Loft," it's the pulse of what's happening in our own backyard as well as the taste of the arts across the United States.

[marjorie] The artists that we showcase in the Grassroots Gallery have never had an exhibit of their own.

[narrator] In this episode, artists resources.

Groups spanning all corners of south Florida are finding inventive ways to help makers find studio space, turn their practices into new mediums, help market their works, and provide low-cost gallery space to display.

[evan] We feel now more than ever that there's a strong need for artists and creatives to have places to be able to create in outside of their homes.

Time and time again, artists are telling us that they're fighting over the dinner table space where they make their artwork on, and that impetus has really created the growth and the demand for Zero Empty Spaces.

Evan Snow, co-founder and managing partner Zero Empty Spaces.

Andrew Martineau co-founder of Zero Empty Spaces.

The initiative came through some of our other arts advocacy initiatives where we had formed so many relationships with artists over the years, that they were continually asking us where are the studios that let alone affordable?

We found this was a great vacancy-management solution to activate vacant space to make affordable art studios.

Once we decided that we wanted to look and pursue trying to get chronically vacant spaces initially, we did a little bit of research on where are the other affordable artist studios in south Florida.

and all of them were non-profits.

So very limited number of people could actually be part of it to be able to pay that low rent.

So we kind of took that number and tried to create a program and a model that could still afford the artists to be to pay $2 a square foot with us paying all the utilities.

We do a month-to-month deal with both the artists and the landlords, so it's fully transparent.

Because we take big spaces and we break them up into much smaller spaces, the artist doesn't have to take over a 3,000 square foot space.

They can take 100 square feet, 200 square feet, 300 square feet, so the amount of money that they pay is a lot smaller.

I am ecstatically happy to be here because I was occupying three bedrooms, two bedrooms and a den and a garage at home.

I'm Barbara Ziev and I do many, many different mediums.

But this has many meanings behind it.

It started out that a white square actually is another sign for peace.

As I got into it, the baby comes out.

I found this baby, it's like these things were just popping in front of me.

And I thought, you know, that's really about classification.

So it is about peace, but I ended up naming it "Classification."

Because I think we're all born into a classification because people look at us and judge us.

I really, to be honest with you, I have a hard time calling myself an artist.

I call myself creative.

But lately, I'm starting to say, "Okay, I guess it's okay to call myself an artist."

Another inspiration for the concept was obviously the early days of Wynwood.

And artists going into Wynwood and going into these vacant warehouses at the time, which weren't incredibly expensive to rent.

So the idea is that artists really kind of create that activity in areas and places that maybe didn't have that much activity.

And they create a lot of positivity in these areas as well.

And that certainly attracts investment and attracts other people wanting to come into this area to really kinda be part of that creative energy.

Having a space that is activated it really kind of helps the walkability from space to space.

So you don't have to like pass by a dark storefront before you get into the next location.

So it really kind of creates additional activity for the tenants in the area.

So one of the greatest things about the program that we found as arts advocates, some of the artists have only ever created in the privacy of their home and never sold it, never published on social media or any of those things for many, many years.

And now that they're in a space where they're gettin' to see other creatives it's been really beneficial for artists' careers in many various levels.

I'm very comfortable with if there's something I don't know how to do, I'm sure I can find somebody here that can say, "Here this is how you do it."

And I'm excited about that.

[evan] The spaces are open daily between the hours of 12:00 and 5:00 p.m. to the public.

It's a really free and open kind of opportunity for people to come through and just really take a tour and see the kind of work that's kinda coming out of the space.

There's been a very organic, authentic, grassroots-driven process that thankfully the community is really responding well to.

[narrator] To apply for a studio space, artists can register online at zeroemptyspaces.com.

Plus, all locations are listed for those wanting to visit and view the art and artists.

[jen] We hope that we can give artists their dream project because we can defy gravity and we don't necessarily have to have performers or lights or anything, it's just a person walking up with their phone.

My name is Jen Clay.

I am a co-founder of Interactive Initiatives.

Hi, I'm Samuel Lopez De Victoria and I'm the founder of Interactive Initiatives.

We started Interactive Initiatives because Sam is a very altruistic person.

He really wants to teach.

And we think about artists who maybe are frustrated or maybe at a dead end in their practice or even like Catch-22s where like you need to have work already made to do like an open call.

Like sometimes that happens with public art or video work.

We saw an opportunity in a space like primarily in south Florida, that there wasn't really a facilitator for artists to be able to make interactive art work.

And there were so many opportunities to be able to do that.

So we kind of wanted to step in and be kind of a helping hand for artists to be able to get there.

We also really love video art.

Yes.

And we're like, "You too can be a video artist."

Yeah, yeah.

With digital art like a big opportunity there that even like kinda goes beyond the technology itself is interaction.

If they paint then that can be a stop-motion animation.

And then that can be a video.

And then you can project it on a building.

And it can also be included in a video game.

We primarily try to mentor them and kind of show them how to use tools in an intuitive way, so that it's like more a part of their practice rather than this obtuse thing that they have to learn.

When we are telling artists what they can do in the augmented reality space, we showcase to them that you're not limited by the physical world, the rules, and they can kind of set their own rules.

So something can be grounded or it can be floating.

So right now, Sam's created this AR app called Tropi.

The app is free.

Sam worked with 12 artists for the Hollywood area, mostly centered around Arts Park.

He's made over 100 virtual works in the app.

So it's similar to kind of like Pokemon Go where you interact with the work.

You can collect the work on the app and learn about the artist.

So you come out here to Hollywood and pick up artwork.

And then what you can do with the artwork that you've collected so far, you can actually place it around you.

So here, I'm just gonna choose this artist Alissa Alfonso, who's a local artist.

I can also place a different art piece if I wanted to.

So you can place like these little palm trees, put a little flamingo over here.

If you're looking at artists and you wanna find out more about that artist, you can choose one of the artworks and press this button and it actually has a little info card.

When you don't own an artwork, but you wanna get a specific one, you can search for it in the menu here and then click on it and it'll show you where you can actually pick up that art work.

You can kinda make your own little gallery space of work you've collected and just kind of be your own curator.

We actually worked with local artists to create a number of their work, but digitally, and most of these artists don't work digitally, so we have sculptors, we have illustrators, painters- Fiber artists.

Fiber artists, musicians.

We have poets also.

We've helped them translate their work into three-dimensional interactive piece that is publicly available to anybody to interact with.

We're hoping that we can expand the app from Hollywood to Miami, Miami Beach, even Pompano.

What helps is getting feedback from the local community and actually hearing what it is that they're looking for.

And then we can create that programming for them, either it be remote or when doable in person.

[narrator] Contact Interactive Initiative online at interactiveinitiative.org.

When it comes to my art, I am forced to create something every day.

I'm very driven in what I do.

I can't see really doing anything else.

What I want the visitors to this exhibition to connect with is putting themselves in the position of the people that's in my art.

I don't necessarily want them to feel a certain way because I don't feel like, what I do as an artist is I'm capturing the moment, I'm capturing the reality.

Things that inspire me to create is black people, people of color, curly hair, brown skin, very dark skin.

You would find in my work that there is several different bright colors that complement the brown skin.

When seeing my work in this exhibition, "The Right Side of History," I want you to be just as tired as I am.

And I found it as a chance to state clearly what is going on in our minds every single day.

It's unapologetic.

I want you to feel something when you walk into a room that's housing one of my paintings.

"Cool Colored Kids" is at the top.

The reason I painted it, it's for a series called "Supremacy Negated."

And what that essentially means is when you take the symbol of power away from an oppressive group do they still retain that power?

You have three black gentlemen wearing the garments that are meant to instill fear in them.

And those same garments are made to make their oppressors feel power, right?

You hide under something you feel power.

Now, when you have the group that you're oppressing wearing that same garment and they're colored, do you still have that power?

Does it still instill that fear that you want it?

It does not.

Where do you go from there?

My work is an extension of myself and my works stand as a voice for those who aren't able to express themselves.

This is my painting "Superhuman."

And I titled it as such because when creating it I felt a moment of stress, a lot of anxiety.

And I was creating these beautiful human beings and their skin, their beauty is just, I was so in awe.

I come from a Puerto Rican family.

My dad is white Puerto Rican and my mom is Afro Latina.

So she's Puerto Rican mixed with Jamaican.

I could remember growing up and I had this curly 'fro.

And when I would go to my dad's side of the family or to my mom's, they would always say your hair so nappy, and there was always a negative connotation about it.

The thing was, I love my hair.

This one is called "Butterfly Nose."

I wanna be able to show self-love in my artwork.

I'm self-taught, I'm kind of free with what it is that I do.

I like to paint a lotta distorted images or distorted caricature-like portraits.

So some of the things that inspire me to create are usually like the stories that I hear.

Hi, my name is Marjorie Waldo, I'm the president and CEO of Arts Garage.

The vision of Arts Garage is to connect our community to the world through the arts.

We want emerging artists to have an opportunity to showcase their skill and their talent.

The artists that we showcase in the Grassroots Gallery have never had an exhibit of their own.

So they are truly in the purest form, emerging artists.

And it allows them an opportunity to, many for the first time, be seen by the public.

To have people ask them questions, why they do what they do, what inspires them?

The gallery world is a difficult one to get into and often the artists have to pay to exhibit.

We wanna help people find their joy and hopefully help them learn to make some money doing it.

For this exhibit we said, "What is happening to you?"

We're really driven and have been for some time to promote equity and to be allies to the BIPOC community and this exhibit is one example of that, but certainly not the only one.

Everyone is safe here.

We try to do a little bit of everything for everybody.

So we have group bands that come into the Arts Garage on the main stage who are internationally known sometimes, but we also weave into our programming as much opportunity as we can for local artists to find their skill and develop their skill here, and their talent.

We are programming 365 days a year.

We have an open call to artists all the time.

So you can constantly apply online at artsgarage.org.

We have amazing volunteer opportunities and we know not everybody can purchase a ticket and the only way to stay in business is to sell tickets.

So we make sure that if you want to volunteer here you're earning credits if you will, towards a show.

We also provide a significant amount of scholarship opportunities, thanks to amazing donors, for any of our children's art programming.

So any child whose mother wants them to attend a painting class, a summer theater camp, a dance class, anything they want, they have access.

I will find them a donor.

We will not say no.

[narrator] Visit arts garage.org to submit work and find upcoming shows.

We want the artist to be the artist.

And for us, we handle all the nitty gritty stuff.

Maxence Doytier, I'm the creative director of 26 North Productions based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

So 26 North Productions is a multidisciplinary art collective.

We're an art agency as well as event production company.

Our company is three part.

So it's the artists' collective.

The collective is a management that we assist artists.

We look for local artists and we inspire them and give them artistic direction to help them grow as an individual.

From the art agency aspect, this is where we work one-on-one with clients that have budgets in play, are looking for art, and are looking to give back to the community.

And then the event production side, pop-up art shows at restaurants and hotels.

At all of our art shows we have an artist that's live painting.

We wanna make sure that all senses are activated.

26 North has curated a project, the Virginia Schuman Young mural project.

Projects like this are really near and dear to me.

My mother works for Broward County Schools as an art teacher.

Father is a curator as well in the Wynwood area.

And we started with the art corridor and we worked with artist Aaron Bodden, and he's got a beautiful beautiful work, beautiful presentation that's the Monarch migration.

We have Steven Teller, who's painting in the science portion.

We have Eric Karbeling, who painted a beautiful peacock for us on the outside.

This area actually has a flock of peacock that live in the neighborhood.

It's 70 feet across by 20 foot high.

Another artist is Carlos Solano, a Miami-based artist who painted our Romeo and Juliet balcony.

And he painted some beautiful inspiring words of peace, love in multiple languages.

Fabio Onrack is an international artist.

He's born in Brazil and he's got two children.

It's called hyper realism.

The mural spans 155 feet across by 30 feet high.

It's actually the largest public school mural in Broward County.

Fabio's inspiration was to create a monochromatic background.

So you've got multiple colors, multiple shades that run east and west, which actually follows the flow of traffic as well.

And so there's a unity in that flow.

And you just see joy and compassion and love.

You see it in their eyes, you see it in their face.

You see it in the wrinkles of their nose.

These large blank walls, something to which our company looks at as a canvas, as a blank canvas to create and inspire.

I'm Steven Teller, artist and muralist from St. Augustine, Florida.

Lately I've been painting a lotta large-scale murals in the public sector and it's just a great way to really get your artistic voice out to the public, and really make a stronger impact with your work.

And that's what really calls to me about public art is I can make an impact on someone's day, a lot more than me just kinda working in my studio.

So I think a lot of my work has shifted in the last few years because of my experience in painting in the public sector.

I've really shifted to more harmonious, beautiful color schemes that are kinda found in nature, really based on some of the rainbow and using those bright evocative colors to bring out emotion and then working with nature, flowers, and plants and flora and fauna, animals.

Yeah, there's so many options of what you can do with spray paint.

I was always trained as a realist painter, even from when I was really young I was super interested in the Baroque painters and realism.

I try to bring in this old sense of realism to my paintings while bringing in sort of a graphic abstraction.

And you'd be really surprised at how realistic you can get with spray cans.

A lot of people are really surprised a lot of the times, so much paint coming out so quickly, but with the right nozzles and I guess the right color theory you can really get the realism if you're putting the colors in the right place to trick the eye.

Definitely the idea of making the flowers oversized was a huge part for the kids because usually you're looking at flowers on this tiny little scale.

So when you paint things realistically in hyper realism sense, in that larger than life scale, and it really sorta like challenges the size of your body against what it is, it really makes it like a wonderland.

And even for you and me, someone took pictures of me in front of this the other day and I was looking at it that way, and it feels almost fairytalesque without creating sort of an illustrational kind of vibe.

Yeah, it's totally remarkable.

Such a full circle project.

So I went to school here at Virginia Schuman Young Elementary.

I think I graduated in 2001.

It was huge for me because I think it instilled creativity from the beginning.

It's just been so full circle to be back here and to be able to paint and give back to these kids and hopefully kind of instill that same sort of inspiration that I got from the place.

It's really nice to be part of this community.

And we're very, very excited to just grow and blossom in the city of Fort Lauderdale.

[narrator] Check out Twentyy6North.com for more.

Morada Way Arts and Culture District was formed in 2011.

We are a not-for-profit 501 .

Our mission is to provide the physical and social environment for artists to create, to entertain our residents and our visitors with some of the finest art we can find.

A lot of our art is nautical of course, because we're a nautical community.

We create opportunities for artists by providing the infrastructure.

We try to find affordable studios, affordable spaces for galleries.

The idea being that we'll bring artists together to draw our community together.

So far, the formula's worked just great.

When we began in 2011, we decided to have an Artwalk.

So we contacted all our local artists and asked 'em how they felt about displayin' their work.

Hired a couple bands, brought some food in, had a street party.

And it was an immediate success.

And after that we didn't have to contact anybody they started contactin' us and the event's grown.

It's huge, now.

We have upwards of 1,000 to 2000 people on the roads, third Thursday, it fills an entire street, sometimes a mile long if we're lucky.

Obviously our events are larger in the winter when we have a lot of visitors here, but they go all year, they go through the summer.

We condense 'em.

We do whatever we have to do to make 'em work.

But connecting with artists is easy when you're an art district and you're growing fast.

[narrator] Artists and patrons can find the latest on Instagram @Morada.Way.

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Find full episodes and segments on a brand new website art loftsfl.org and on YouTube at South Florida PBS.

[announcer] PBS "Art Loft" is brought to you by, [announcer] Where there is freedom there is expression the Florida Keys and Key West.

[announcer] And the Friends of South Florida PBS.