Production of “Applause” on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Coming up on “Applause”, doggone it, it's a carnival of canines in Lake County.

We visit a museum dedicated to all types of pooches and pups.

And these blues cats strut their stuff.

In CBUS.

Put your paws together for a special edition of “Applause” I'm your host, Ideastream's Kabir Bhatia, and I say special Because we have a special guest here, Mr.

Yogi.

Now, Mr.

Yogi and his brothers Indy and Windy here on my shirt, these are the best dogs ever.

But unfortunately, they are not competition worthy.

And you know who is?

The hundreds of canines who descend on Northeast Ohio for the Regatta Classic Dog Show every summer.

A local family brought their caravan of collies to the show in Madison, not so much for the competition, but for the quality time together.

They've kept this tradition going strong for about 3 decades.

Let's go see how much that is in dog years.

This is Lucky.

He's 6 months old.

It's his first show weekend.

And what we're doing is just kind of getting him ready.

So we're going to bring him over here, grooming table.

So we'll groom him, we'll bring him to the show, we take him in the ring and have a good time, hopefully.

And this is basically a washless shampoo.

Like, I don't need to rinse this out.

I can kind of just put it into his coat.

So Lucky is super special because I bred him, which was really fun for my girls because he was born the day after Christmas.

My girls are third generation.

I've been doing this with my mom for 30 years, and now my girls are getting into it, which is so much fun.

Collies are so great, great family dogs.

They love kids, so that makes it easy.

Right now I'm just kind of brushing out any dirt, tangles.

Lucky, and he loves it, you know, he loves getting pampered.

He's just a baby.

So just like people, Lucky's gonna get his makeup done.

And we always think this is kind of funny because this is what Lucky's using, L'Oréal, you know, so they're sometimes using people products too that of course are safe.

For me as a kid, it was just, I loved coming to spend time with my mom and the animals.

It wasn't so much about the show or the grooming.

It was just something that we got to go to all these different places and I got to be outside and just be with the dogs and my mom.

I've been breeding collies since 1988, So I've been in collies a long time.

And when I had Katie, I was like, you know what, I'm taking her with me.

And I'm like, you know, this is a great family sport.

It's a lot of discipline, you know, with the dog show.

You don't win every show.You kno I said, you got to learn how to lose because you don't win every single time.

You know, so that's a good learning experience, especially for kids.

And I took her to every dog show with me, and now I'm bringing my grandkids with me.

Give him a good luck.

Say good luck, Lucky.

Good luck, Lucky.

So every breed has a standard that was made by their parent club.

So for collies, they are looking at the structure of the dog.

So they're going to check out the muscle, the muscle tone and the coat texture.

They're also going to be looking— the key part of a collie is the head detail because any breed can be muscular and have a great strong body, but with the collie, it's the head that sets them apart.

They have this beautiful wedge-shaped head, these beautiful eyes, almond-set eyes, round mushy muzzle.

So that's what sets the collie apart is just their beautiful face and expression.

So that's what the judges are looking for.

They're gonna come in, they're gonna step back and look at the dog, but then they're gonna come up, they're gonna run their hands along his face and just look at his, his beautiful expression.

And his pretty eyes.

So every breed has different characteristics that set them apart.

Since he's a puppy, he's in a class called 6 to 9 puppy dog So the puppies are all just based on age.

He will compete against all the dogs here, the boys I should say, all the boys.

And if he wins, then it will be between him and whatever girl dog wins.

Every day is a new day at the dog show.

He's done great.

He's taken winner's dog the first 2 days.

And my main thing is that he behaved because it's his first show.

So I just wanted him to go in there and have fun, which he did.

He wasn't scared, he just had a blast.

So Lucky is 100% my girls' dog.

So they helped me whelp the litter, which was very exciting, very fun, and they just have they love taking him places and playing with him.

So, you know, they want, let's take Lucky to the park, let's take Lucky to PetSmart.

Can we give Lucky a bath?

Can we groom him?

It's a great tool for them having that responsibility of, you know, raising a dog from birth.

It's a, you know, you learn a lot.

So it's not always easy.

It's a lot of hard work starting from the beginning, and they're doing a great job with that.

I mean, without the families and the kids coming in and interested, the sport will die.

We need kids.

We need families.

It's just something great you can do as a family and get outside and meet new people and, you know, have a great time with your dog.

I started out, I was in my late 30s, you know, early 40s, and now, you know, she's taking my footsteps.

You know, she's going where I am.

I've taught her everything I possibly can teach her, and seeing her excel and do what she's doing now It's amazing as a parent, you know.

It gives me goosebumps.

It gives me goosebumps, you know.

So what did you think of that segment?

That was good, right?

Inspiring?

I'll sing “Hound Dog” to you later.

While Lucky didn't take home the top prize at the show this year, he certainly gets extra points in in the cute category.

If you want to compete next summer, or more accurately, if your dog wants to compete next summer, the Regatta Classic Dog Show takes place every second weekend in July at Bill Stanton Community Park in Madison.

And, uh, maybe we'll just go and watch.

Now let's head to a place where dogs are more than furry balls of fluff who make our lives complete.

At the AKC Museum of the Dog in New York City, the canine is the inspiration for art.

The one thing you have to realize when you come here is the fact that it's an art museum first and foremost.

This is a collection, possibly one of the greatest collections of dog art in the world.

It comprises about 1,700 objects, primarily fine art work, and there are paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, a whole variety of things all dedicated to the dog.

We've had several exhibitions.

We have a robust schedule.

Some that come to mind are the Women and Dogs in the Arts.

We found that in going through the collection how many women were involved and really good dog artists, and we want to show that off.

We've had Hollywood Dogs.

We have a number of posters.

We have presidential dogs, and we do that every 4 years, talk about the different pets and dogs that different presidents owned.

Recently, we've hosted an exhibition of Dogs of War and Peace.

We have a lot of images of dogs that— how they helped on the battlefield and off the battlefield as well, as therapy dogs and helping people come back.

Particularly poignant was the Wounded Warrior Dogs by James Mellick.

An Ohio artist who crafted these allegories of dogs and reflecting the injuries and the suffering that not only the handlers but also the dogs incurred.

One of the great joys of bringing this museum to New York was the, the reception we've had for the library.

The library is always packed.

We have an activity center.

We have about 4,000 volumes of the AKC library.

We not only have a great collection, but we also have state-of-the-art digitally interactive displays.

You can train a virtual dog.

I think I just heard her, Molly.

We took a 10-year-old lab out in Los Angeles, put her in a motion capture suit, and then filmed her there.

So all the motions and the reactions are in real time the way the dog would have done it.

Probably the most popular is the Find Your Match, not the dog you should have, what dog you look like.

It takes your photograph and through AI decides what dog you look like.

We have a Meet the Breeds table where you can learn about all 200 breeds in the AKC.

The oldest work here is a 30-million-year-old fossil of Hesperocyon, which was an early dog.

Most of our paintings start around the 1670s and then go on to today and show a variety of different activities that dogs engage in.

Queen Victoria was probably really the most important person in the 19th century in elevating the status of the dog rather than just being a working dog in the field.

To be a dog in the home.

It became very popular to have dogs as pets.

I think the, the crowd favorite here is Silent Sorrow, a very sad painting.

It shows Caesar, Edward VII's dog, after the king had passed away.

Edward VII inherited his mother's, Queen Victoria's, love of dogs.

Edward VII stipulated that Caesar was in his funeral procession.

Ahead of 9 heads of state.

It was that important to him.

It's painted by Maud Earl, and it shows his dog Caesar leaning his head on his master's armchair as the armchair slowly fades into the background in obscurity.

Another work we have here, which is probably one of the greatest American dog paintings, is Sensation and Bang Bang.

It's painted by John Martin Tracy.

It's a magnificent painting out in the woods.

This is by far his best work.

The light filtering through the trees, the atmosphere that he brings to it, it's just a stunning work.

There were 2 pointers that were imported by the Westminster Kennel Club back in the 19th century.

One of them, Sensation, is the dog that eventually became the logo for the Westminster Kennel Club, which you see at their show all the time.

Another popular piece is not a painting, but it's actually Queen.

Queen is a carousel dog by the Looff Factory, probably around the 1890s, that shows a mastiff.

It hit me after looking at a lot of dog paintings throughout my life.

I'm starting to look at dogs differently.

And I would see things I didn't see in the dog that the painter was telling me.

And really, all of a sudden, it was like a moment where I said, this is really the goal of art, whether it be a dog painting or conceptual work or abstract work, is to make you see the world differently through the artist's eyes.

And that's what you learn.

You learn about dogs, you say, I never really noticed that, that's an interesting thing.

All right, now I got your legs, I got your paws look good on here.

I got your tail.

I just am getting the top of your head.

That's all I need.Just don't move.Okay, you ready?

What do you think of this?

This looks— it looks just like you.It looks just like you.

You can't tell because you can't see colors.

This is what's going to get us into the dog museum.

Not that attitude.

I'm signing this and I'm sending it over.

However, if you also know an artist who draws dogs, sketches dogs, sculpts dogs, paints dogs, and maybe isn't appreciated either, send us an email.

Maybe they can be on a future edition of “Applause” We're at arts@ideastream.org.

Now, in this next story, at 700 feet long, it's one of the largest murals in all of Ohio.

It can be found along Cleveland's Woodhill Road, where a former housing project once stood.

In 2024, a group of local artists took on the challenge of painting this mural that reflects the history and culture of the surrounding neighborhood.

That's 4,900 in dog.

This is a 728-foot wall and essentially a lot of brick.

It's directly across the street from what was once Woodhill Community Center and Morris Black Public Housing project.

And it's almost a perfect wall because Morris Black is being demolished, but, you know, this is an opportunity to sort of memorialize that— this area and memorialize, you know, pieces of this area which are being either demolished or reimagined and the folks that lived here and contributed to making this area what it is.

I got immediately attracted to the scale of this mural.

I've not done one quite this large before, so, uh, I was already very, you know, interested, excited, and then also just felt like it would be such a great piece to make for the community here.

Him and I have worked on a few projects in the past, and we've been trying to work on something large, and we saw this as an opportunity for us to really kind come together.

So we applied, we put together a proposal, and we honestly didn't think we were going to get it.

It started off with a lot of meetings with people in the community, kind of learning about the neighborhood and hearing stories that might be, uh, kind of untold.Essentially what Derek and Chad are doing here are creating like what I like to call these little scenes, and you're seeing different images and things that you would see if you were driving all around the neighborhood.

So it's very location-based.

So you have Woodhill, Buckeye Shaker, you have Shaker Square, but it's also very, I guess, life-based.

You have pictures of people barbecuing or skating or getting their hair cut.

Very much everyday life stuff.

Section that we're standing next to, this is like to honor the Woodhill Homes that are just right across the street.

And, uh, and they're actually going to be, you know, torn down.

And, you know, even before that, there was an amusement park called Luna Park.Uh, so that's kind of like the— as you can see here, this is the kind of transition from, from Luna Park into the Woodhill Homes.

Trying to show different time periods in this mural, and they're kind of all interwoven together.

We were actually another group that also applied for the project.

Chad and Derek actually came to us and was like, hey, you know, would you like to be a part of this?We know your worth.

And I thought that was pretty honorable and awesome.

Originally, me, Daze, we were on a team and we had applied for this wall along with like a few other teams.

So it's really dope to be a part of something that gets to like pretty much stamp that history or showcase that history on such a grand wall.

I lived in this housing project at one point in time.

You know, I feel like here I am once again giving back to another neighborhood in Cleveland that I lived in.

So we're like helping change the dynamic of our city, right?

The love movement, right?

Show how much we love our city by painting and beautifying our canvas.

Our temple, right?

The challenge is always kind of like— I love a good challenge and pushing myself to try new things and going bigger.

But with this one, I feel like my friends needed me and I was here.

And I was actually a finalist for this project as well.

So the fact that I was also called on to assist was just perfect.

And I feel like it was just like a challenge that was calling my name.

This is actually the first project that I have used spray paint, and that was one of the things that I actually wanted to learn that I've never used before.

This was one of those kind of ventures where, you know, I had a chance to work with other artists in doing this project, but also I got a chance to learn a new technique that I can carry on to my next projects.

This wall for so long was just a brick.

It's not even relatively pretty brick.

It was just a brick wall.Now for for people as their commute back and forth, they get to see it every day.

I think it's just a nice little thing for them, a little moment for people to appreciate art in their everyday lives.

The more color we add, the more paint, we hear people driving by stopping, saying thank you or honking their horns, coming to take selfies, coming to take pictures with us and just, I don't know.

You just feel the love while we're working on it.

You know, a lot of times I think in Cleveland there's a lot of people who don't actually get to go and see art.

I've been able to help, I guess how you could say, change the landscape of my neighborhood, beautify the area I live in.You know, the streets is my canvas.

When people are living in an area that like looks like it's kept up, looks like it's important, looks like love is put into it.

They treat the area different, they treat each other differently.

I feel like a lot of the times this type of energy is going into areas that already have the resources to be great areas, and then you got areas that are just forgotten about.

And it's, it's an opportunity for people to actually see that they're not forgotten about that, you know, it's people that care about the community, it's people that care about, you know, this part of Cleveland.

I grew up down the street from here, and I also live now around the corner from here.

We didn't really have a lot of public art on the East Side when I was growing up, and we certainly didn't have public art that I felt like I resonated with.

And I feel like this mural is an opportunity to, to see, you know, pictures and images of my life, things that I resonate with, things that I know my family and friends will resonate with.

And I think the impact is giving folks a reason to feel like this is theirs, because it is.

And while everything is changing, you know, this is still theirs.

On the next round of “Applause”, film is not dead, and we've got the proof in North Olmsted, where a cinema is showing a blockbuster on film at a grand scale.

The way that this movie is struck is exactly how it's intended to be filmed.

It's not being scaled down at all, so what you're getting here on the image is a much sharper resolution than what you're limited to at 4K resolution on a digital projector.

And a Cleveland Arts Prize winner makes his debut at the Tri-C Jazz Fest with his super hot band, Black Voltron.

All that and more on the next round of “Applause.” You know, whenever we bring the show to a close, I get the blues.

So it's fitting that we end with a rockin' blues tune to cheer me up.

I'm Ideastream's Kabir Bhatia, and this has been my co-host Mr.

Yogi, leaving you with Columbus' Blue Spectrum, which takes its name from lead guitarist Zane Harshaw, who was diagnosed with autism as a child.

Here's Blue Spectrum with the tune, “Long Time No See” Hello baby, long time no see.

Hello baby, long time no see.

SINGING Production of “Applause” on IdeaStream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts arts and culture.