- I think you can find maybe not beauty but a good photograph almost anywhere, you just have to look.

- There are simple shapes of stars, and circles, and triangles, and hexagons, and really, they all kind of moved around.

It's kind of like a puzzle, they're moved around and suddenly, you this beautiful new design.

- I mean, I think it's fun to use what you have, and create something brand new out of it.

- [Announcer] Bay Area Bountiful is about agriculture.

It's about feeding us.

It's about land and water.

It's about the health of our planet.

It's about stories that matter.

(upbeat hopeful music) Bay Area Bountiful, cultivate, celebrate, connect.

- [Narrator] Bay Area Bountiful is made possible in part by Rocky, the free range chicken, and Rosie, the original organic chicken.

The Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation, and Open Space District, Made Local magazine, and Sonoma County Go Local, and through the generous support of Sonoma Water.

(cheerful piano music) To make sense of the world, we often draw on our backgrounds and life experiences in order to translate our personal journeys into something expressive.

A beautiful piece of art or an inventive craft.

Makers illuminate and uplift through artistry and creativity, raising awareness, and sharing unique experiences, qualities that are all inherently human.

Pinatas are the familiar, colorful decorations used at festive occasions.

(bat thuds) (people cheering) - Right.

- Nice.

(people cheering) (bat thuds) - [Man] All right.

(woman laughs) (bat thuds) - Look in the video.

- [Woman] Turn around.

- [Narrator] At one South Bay home studio, a traditional is taken to a new level by artist, Patty Botello.

- I create pinata sculptures.

So a pinata is created out of cardboard or paper mache, and then it's beautifully decorated with paper.

Most times you'll see them used for parties, and so they'll fill 'em with goodies, candies, and then they're broken at events.

(people cheering) (bat thudding) I do create those to break, but I also create pieces to be kept as art.

- [Narrator] Patty has taken a cultural staple, and transformed it into an art form all her own.

- I fell in love with making pinatas when I was really young.

Pinatas, I know of them through Mexico.

The woman who taught me, (laughs) essentially how to make them even when I was just three years old was also from Mexico.

They're used for festivities.

She created these in her spare time, because I was there with her while she was working, and she'd let me stir the paste, and let me attach paper, and so it was just so much fun.

For birthday parties, they're usually cartoon figures, or maybe it's a number, and it has some sort of little decoration that ties into the theme of the party, but I also create some that are more sculptural work, and that I've used at events, whether it was to exhibit my work in a gallery, or for music events, the outdoors.

They have a lot more detail, and they might even be larger in size.

(ambient music) Each piece is unique, if it's has sort of a round shape, I'll begin with a balloon, and then paper mache and a balloon.

(upbeat music) I like to upcycle materials.

I reuse cardboard boxes, cereal boxes, any kind of like thin cardboard is great for bending and molding into the shape that I need.

I think it's important to reuse items instead of just throwing them away, or recycling them to give 'em a new purpose just to get some of that stuff out of the landfill.

(upbeat music) I've also done a lot of robots in the past, and so the little knobs all get painted with acrylic paint.

The pieces are put together with really strong contractor tape, and so that'll keep my piece together while I make the paste.

Stuff that you have at home; it's water and flour.

You're going to put your stove to medium.

And it gives you a nice, thick paste, but definitely will give you a nice hard shell on your paper mache sculpture.

Once I have paper mache them, I use two different types of crate paper to cover the pinatas.

So my studio now because of the pandemic, we've actually turned our spare bedroom into slash studio and work office for my husband, so half the space is mine, half the space is his, and my artwork gives him, I think a great background (chuckles) for his meetings.

Look at the lights, baby.

You see the lights?

She's so shy.

(laughs) It's been really interesting also seeing my daughter kind of take an interest.

Definitely, wants to help anytime she sees me working.

Oh, oh, that's a lot of tape.

And I do post those videos as well, because it's real.

(chuckles) It's real, it's what's happening at home.

There's a project that I'm currently working on, and it's made possible by a grant from Macla.

Macla is a place where they have a gallery space.

They host different types of classes; classes for the youth, classes for adults.

It's a way to kind of bring the Latino community into these spaces where they can express themselves, and be creative.

So they decided to create this fellowship to help artists with their work and further their work.

And I was chosen to be one of 10 fellows for this fellowship, and the project that I'm doing with them is actually focused on street vendors.

I have these really fun memories of going to what is known as a frutero, or a man who sells fruit from a cart.

(bells ringing) Whenever I heard those bells, right, like, you know what it is, you know if it's a bell, it's a ice cream guy, and if it's a honk, then it it's the guy that has the chips, and the corn, and the mangoes.

There are street vendors on just about every corner, and we would go, and see him kind of do his magic.

They're slicing all the fruit, and packaging it up for you, and we would beg my dad to take us to these carts.

Part of my project here now is thinking about that, and those memories, and especially in the time that we are going through now with the pandemic, thinking about the connections with people, and getting to know the people in our neighborhoods, and kind of looking after them.

And it's usually Latinos that are selling items, and so I wanted to get the story from them, and to see kind of what their hopes and dreams are for the future while they're here, if they plan to go back home, so I was able to get quite a few stories.

- [Narrator] As part of her fellowship, Patty Lee's workshop's exploring her vendor cart concept.

(upbeat music) - We're going to be creating mini Paletero carts, or ice cream carts, and they're going to be created from cardboard pieces, little cardboard tubes, metal found objects like paper clips.

I'll walk them through kind of how to build it.

It'll have little ringing bells, and then they can decorate it anyway that they'd like.

(bells jingling) Even if it's something simple as a little pineapple, they can see what kind of time it takes to create these pieces.

He is so cute, so anytime I'm taking a photo of these pieces, it never fails.

I'm like, Bruce, please move.

I'm creating this life-size fruit cart.

It'll have the fruit inside, and the big, beautiful rainbow umbrella.

It's fun so that the fruit that I've been creating now is it's all life-size as well to fit into the card, and all the individual pieces are done one by one, and then I'll install them into the main piece.

Once you walk around, and stand where the fruit vendor would stand, there'll actually be a scene in the back, that'll show you a little bit about the vendor's hopes and dreams, maybe where they came from, but you'll be able to kind of stand where they stand, and see what their life is like.

A lot of vendors are coming in from other countries, Latin American countries, and I'm hoping that with this project, people will take the time to kind of get to know people's stories.

- [Narrator] Sharing stories through art is a powerful way to create connection between people from different backgrounds.

(upbeat music) In the North Bay, photo journalists, Jeff Kan Lee has been connecting communities through his work for decades.

- I don't think I can function as a human being without going out and working with a camera.

The things aren't right, if I don't do that.

Okay, let's go.

(ambient piano music) Finding the picture, clicking the shutter, I mean, I don't feel right unless I do that.

It's something I have to do.

I'm Jeff Kan Lee.

I started the Press Democrat in 1968.

I was there from 1968 to 2014.

(peaceful piano music) As a photo journalist, my role was to tell the truth.

Now you're there to tell truth.

(peaceful music) I was probably about 12, and my uncle had an adjustable camera, so I had to kind of learn how to use it, use shutter speeds, and F-stops and all that stuff.

And my mother had a very rudimentary dark room for doing contact prints, and she showed me how to do it, so I had the laundry room I could use as a dark room.

And I just thought, "Oh, this is cool."

And, you know, I started photographing for the the high school yearbook.

And I realized that, you know, I was just using that to learn photography, and by the time I got to UC, I loved photography so much, and I think I was addicted then, that I thought, "Okay, well, if I went to Daily Cal, I could work in their dark room, I wouldn't have to share a dark room with a ton of people who didn't know what they were doing.

I think the photograph I do remember in my development was there was a, during the Free Speech Movement, there was a convocation of the Greek theater.

Mario Savio got up on stage, and the cops drug him off the stage, and I got a shot of that.

(camera shutters) I just thought, "Okay, that's as good as anything anybody else got, maybe I should seriously think about doing this."

And yeah, and I really have to thank Mario Savio, and the Free Speech Movement for steering me in the right career direction.

(suspenseful music) Well, since I retired, I volunteer at La Voz, which is a bilingual English, Spanish newspaper.

Right after I retired, I really missed working with people, and the publisher at La Voz, Annie Weaver, and I have had a running joke for years.

She would say, "After you've retired you're going to come to work for me."

And I called her and said, "Okay, I'll work for you, I'll work, in fact, I'll do it free for you."

I'm there to show the life of the people that live in the Latino community to people that haven't seen it, and for the people that live in that community to see what their neighbors are doing.

Day of the Dead, that's always a very fun, colorful thing to do.

And there's, you know, an artist group that always seems to come up with something new every year, and it's always kind of fun just to see what they're up to.

(peaceful piano music) (camera shuttering) The kind of journalism I'm doing now is advocacy journalism.

Well, I'm just making their community a little bit more visible.

(ambient piano music) (camera shuttering) I don't think that they've been adequately covered you know, they're 28% of the population of Sonoma County, and I don't think they've had proper coverage.

(cheerful piano music) I'm shooting for me and the community, and I know that it has nothing to do with money, no paycheck involved, I designed it that way, so that I would just do it for fun and for the community.

I mean, that's why I'm doing it.

(people chattering) - [Woman] Combining his skill as a photojournalist with a talent to connect with just about anyone, Jeff volunteers his time to document community events and meetings, and he brings this to the entire community.

He has covered Cinco de Mayo, Day of the Dead, Pozoli night, art exhibits, graduations, La cien, harvest festival, just to name a few.

His work certainly has diversity, and so much love, and caring for this community.

Jeff has changed lives with his camera.

Many, many, thanks, Jeff.

(audience applauds) - The funny part about that is one of the things that I did in the '70s was to photograph winners of that award.

I never thought I would get one.

I wasn't looking for any rewards like that, but boy, that was to me, the ultimate reward for having fun.

(peaceful piano music) I think you can find maybe not beauty, but a good photograph almost anywhere, you just have to look.

If it catches your eye, the first time you look at it, and makes you slow down and look at it, yeah, I think it's a good photograph.

To give you an idea, because I'm not as mobile as I used to be.

I'll walk out and sit on the stoop of my house, and with a long lens, I would start photographing stuff that I'm seeing that might be flowers, it might be insects that land.

(camera shuttering) One of my artist friends says, "Are you really seeing this stuff sitting on the stoop?"

And I said, "You've seen the pictures."

You kind of have to look at wherever you're seated through the lens that you have on your camera.

A lot of people don't look at it that way, but it's fun just to find, and see, and record things that other people don't see, but it's there.

(cheerful piano music) Just had a hell of a lot of fun, (laughs) and it's not going to stop soon.

(cheerful piano music) (suspenseful piano music) - [Narrator] San Francisco's Center for the Book is where multimedia artist, Insiya Dhatt, can often be found working on her artist books.

- What is an artist book?

You know, not everyone knows the definition or agrees on the definition, but artists' books are beautiful, intricate.

It's basically what the artist wants it to be.

- [Narrator] An exhibition inside the center displays sample artists' books.

(jolly piano music) - A book has to have all the different components of content, somebody wants to read it.

It has the structure you've got to think about, the flow of the book.

To make one book takes takes a long time, sometimes it takes months, sometimes it takes years.

(cutter thuds) - [Narrator] Insiya's own books are especially time consuming to create with her unique focus on patterns.

(upbeat Indian music) - My projects have been very much related to geometric patterns, Islamic patterns, essentially.

I was born in India.

Patterns are everywhere in India.

It's not just the mosque or the temples.

It is on the homes.

It's you know, the windows there decorated, it's everywhere, so you grew up with that visual noise.

This is what some people say here, visual noise.

And so I've always been drawn towards making symmetry everywhere I go.

Some of the richness is what I miss, so then I surround myself with that by recreating them in paper and in wood.

So it's my way of kind of bringing that back with me, and helping it stay with me.

(peaceful Indian music) The pattern unseen book was there are habits that we all have.

The underlying pattern that exists in all of us is always there, and so this book kind of goes through page by page of the pattern dismantling.

I've used that as an analogy to show that we all have patterns unseen, and that's what the book is about.

(peaceful piano music) Illusions came out of this sense of everything around us is a sort of illusion of what it actually means.

(cheerful piano music) The Heart Longs book is about longing for something that has a bittersweet memory.

The book is sort of an interleaving book.

- [Narrator] Insiya's memory of difficulty seeing while wearing a traditional burqa inspired her design.

- The pages are covering the words, and that is to depict sort of that same restriction with the burqa where you can't see, and so you have to see through the pattern in order to see thee words behind.

The books are made by hand.

Literally, it's like I have all these sheets of paper.

I have so much paper in my studio.

(peaceful orchestral music) You take the paper, and then you are like, "How do I take this design and translate it?

Do I cut it?

Do I draw on it?

Do I paint on it?"

I sit on my computer.

I literally take each of the pieces, and then I mix and match and turn it around and mix the colors.

Squares, and circles, and triangles.

(laughs) It's like playing around with these constantly.

And then I cut it out, and then it becomes even more magical, and then you add depth to it.

It just goes on and on from there.

(jolly music) The cutting is done, some of it, I use certain machines.

Some of the cutting has to be done by hand, because it's so intricate.

It's like all these little pieces that get cut out.

When the cutting happens it's all over me.

I go out sometimes, there's papers stuck all around me.

My dog has probably right now some on the face.

(laughs) (jolly music) You're like almost all through, but then some cuts you just mess up and it's not recoverable, so you're pretty much have to kind of throw it away which you feel sad too, but you know, (laughs) that's part of the game.

(cheerful guitar music) You're gluing it.

You're folding it.

There is no machine for that part.

(cheerful guitar music) - [Narrator] When it's time to bind pages together, many methods are possible; stab binding is one.

- The binding has to appear on both sides.

It's the same pattern.

(peaceful guitar music) I first designed the Islamic pattern, and then I made the pattern of the binding exactly that.

- [Narrator] Insiya's current project is also rooted in Indian culture.

Henna dye is used to decorate hands before a wedding.

- I just, recently had an idea about using henna patterns.

I know that I do want some henna hands in it.

(suspenseful music) - [Narrator] After being output from the computer, a three dimensional polymer plate is made and prepare for printing.

- At the San Francisco Center for the Book.

Now I'm trying the letter press with the polymer plate.

(cheerful piano music) It has a nice deep impression.

It has an old world feel.

It has a sort of tactile feel to the book.

(machine whirring) I feel like the indentation is more realistic.

(cheerful piano music) I know I want a poem that reflects the feeling of a bride, but at the same time, I want it to not just be about that one moment in life, but be a journey that, arranged marriages and sort of what the implications of those are.

Somebody told me that ideas are like butterflies that are flying all around you, and you can choose which ones to kind of look at and keep, and which ones you let them fly away, and so I feel like I have all these butterflies all around me all the time, and it's very exciting.

That part is just, is what keeps me going.

(laughs) (cheerful music) (peaceful music) - [Narrator] Whether working with paper, paste, and found objects, capturing human moments in imagery, or creating intricate worlds in a book.

Making is not only a form of expression, but also a way of communicating, understanding ourselves, and understanding each other.

(upbeat music) (cheerful violin music)