Coming up on Kentucky Life.

Kelly Brewers, Commonwealth of Kentucky project highlights Kentuckians from different regions of the Blue Grass.

The Kentucky Meat Shower was an odd occurrence in Olympia Springs that remains a mystery to this day.

Louisville artist Bri Bowers captures the city's iconic landmarks, and bike polo in Lexington is exactly what it sounds like, a game of polo played on bikes.

That's next on Kentucky Life.

Hey, everybody and welcome to another great episode of Kentucky Life I'm your host, Chip Polston.

Today we're back at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville.

Now, you may recall we visited their Kentucky gallery a little bit earlier this season where we thought we'd come back and give you a look at the rest of the museum.

That's coming up but first Kentucky artist Kelly Brewer has long been known in the Blue Grass for her paintings of dogs, Hereford cattle and race horses.

Joined by friends Beth Pride and Jill Johnson Brewer began a new project, The Commonwealth of Kentucky project where she painted portraits of Kentuckians representing the many different parts of the Blue Grass.

While Jill and Beth created both oral and video pieces that will be as timeless as these portraits in preserving and sharing the wealth from the lives of people around the Commonwealth.

Chip: In the spring of 2021, three friends combined forces to tell the stories of their fellow Kentuckians to share what they called The Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Kelly: I love to travel and I love to come home.

I definitely feel a strong connection to Kentucky.

It's just so much a part of who we are.

Chip: The idea began when Lexington artist Kelly Brewer, on the anniversary of the death of her mother, Joe B. Robertson received her mother's journal from her father.

And one line stood out.

I opened it up and one of the very first things I read, she had written at the bottom of the page.

What are you doing with your privilege?

Chip: Kelly and her family had begun a foundation to honor her mother a former teacher and this line spoke to Kelly and formed an idea that would grow.

Kelly: My mom was the best at making people feel special.

So, then I had this idea.

I was like, what if I paint people?

And maybe I could sell the portraits and raise money for her foundation.

Chip: Known for her paintings of farm animals and horses Brewer discussed her new direction for painting people with a close friend, Beth Pride who often helped Kelly market her artwork.

I had written a little bit in my journal about it and she sat down at the counter with me immediate she was like, "Oh my gosh, I love it."

We'll call it The Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Most people don't realize how important marketing is for artists in this day and age.

In this digital storytelling day and age.

Chip: Beth's plan was as Kelly painted Beth would record a conversation with the subject about their lives and how they connected with Kentucky.

Beth would then record footage of the subject's home region, its people and businesses and then edit these conversations for YouTube.

Beth: From the very beginning when Kelly first started painting people, I started just taking some video and some pictures and I would just stick it on social media.

And for every person who sat, I took a little teeny snippet of media and then I put it on her Instagram story.

We wanted to make sure that we captured at least sort of basic industries that represented Kentucky and sort of general sort of concepts of people who lived here.

Kelly: The river is going to do what the river is going to do.

Farming is a gamble and especially on the river bottoms because you can lose three crops in one season.

Male Speaker 1: Once everybody knows I'm from Kentucky all the conversation comes this way.

And if I had gone over 50 years ago, it wouldn't let me at the door because bourbon was incredible and I didn't have any way to sell myself without having some content going in first.

Kelly: The fact that people gave us their time and shared their stories with us.

I want a gift that they were that gracious and generous with us.

When people saw them, they loved them and especially people who live in Central Kentucky, but are from western or eastern or southern or wherever we were.

They say, "Oh my God, that's my home."

Chip: Another close friend Jill Johnson joined the project and proved to be a valuable addition with her great skill in conducting interviews and bringing out the best while Kelly painted.

Jill: I love and feel so honored to get for someone to share their story with me and to share it with the world.

Traveling through Kentucky in the way that we did, we were on the road, we were stopping everywhere we possibly could to feel their region and to understand the beauty of that portion.

Our state is gorgeous and none of us had really delved into Eastern Kentucky or Western Kentucky and stayed the many days that we did and felt the love and the warmth and the connection that people already had with one another.

Male Speaker 2: I'm a big believer that people aren't as different as the world acts like they are and I want to show them that.

Male Speaker 3: That we all want the same things out of life.

Female Speaker 1: Be proud of the place where you live.

So, live at that place will be proud of you.

Chip: The Commonwealth of Kentucky project also uses QR Codes to allow patrons at the exhibit in LexArts or readers of their book to scan the QR code and listen to the person talk of their lives as the viewer studies the beautiful portraits Kelly Brewer has painted.

Kelly: You know, I had this idea like, what could I do to give back?

And the reality is it's given more to me than anyone else.

It has been a privilege to sit across from these people.

I have felt my mom in so many ways that have just been a gift.

In 1876, an unexplained phenomenon occurred in Olympia Springs, Kentucky when a substance resembling meat fell from the sky over the Crouch Family Farm.

Now, was the substance really meat or was it something else?

This question has baffled many Kentuckians since the events known as the Kentucky Meat Shower, but is the answer really out there?

A local professor at Transylvania University has helped usher in renewed interest in this strange occurrence.

Kurt: It was a Friday morning March 3rd, 1876.

Mrs. Allen Crouch who was outside of her house at the time and sometimes it is said that her grandson Alan was with her.

They were outside making soap and they started to first notice things that looked like large snowflakes falling out of the sky.

And once they started to hear them hit the ground, they hit with what she identified as a cracking sound.

And as they looked at them, they realized that it was meat.

The Kentucky Meat Shower is a phenomenon that was never completely solved, but it rained meat or meat fell out of the sky for a period of about seven minutes in Olympia Springs.

Though it's a small town now.

It was a very kind of large and interesting town at the time.

It was the first stagecoach stop to be built from Lexington.

I assumed someone got on a horse and rode into town and said, "Come check out this crazy thing."

One man gathered up several of the samples, put them in alcohol and shipped it to a microscopy organization in Louisville and one in Newark, New Jersey.

So, pretty quickly it got to the New York Times.

I think the New York Times might have been one of the first big papers to write about it.

Also, the Hartford Daily Courant from Connecticut wrote about it.

And then there were other journals of microscopy that were very interested and sent slides around the country to look at.

I teach studio art at Transylvania University.

My interest started when I moved to Kentucky and I bought a book from a used bookseller.

And when I was still trying to figure out what was exciting or interesting about Kentucky, I just looked in the index of that book and found out that it rained meat.

I started to gather a lot of information that felt like this is knowledge that really nobody has access to or hasn't for many, many years because it's just been in research libraries.

I went through storage lockers on campus and I found just on a shelf, this jar, this one said Olympia on it.

So, I quickly made that connection.

This is the Monroe Moosnick Museum of Science, which contains artifacts, teaching aids and some oddities as well.

And this is the one known sample of preserved meat that's left.

Mrs. Crouch and Mr. Crouch were quoted to saying they thought it was a sign from God.

It quickly for them was solved in that way.

Immediate stories were that, potentially it was frog eggs that were picked up by a water spout and dropped down.

That seemed to be the quick solution until people started looking at it with a microscope, then it changed quickly because it was clearly meat of an animal and then the stories just got bigger and more interesting.

One of the ones that clearly was never supported in any way by research was that it was potentially some Kentuckians that were finally hashed in a knife fight.

William Alden Livingston wrote an article for the New York Times declaring that it was probably cosmic meat.

And the idea there is that very much like there are meteor showers that we know of which come from planetary fragments, there would be meteor showers, but of other type of meat where animals on the exploded planets would also be floating around and would have to rain into the earth at some point as well.

So, that cosmic meat theory, I can't imagine lasted very long.

A sample that came to Transylvania University was looked at by the chemist here, Robert Peter.

He shared this theory which is now the most believed theory, vultures either ate too much and then were startled and had to take off quickly and in order to lighten their load, they just vomited.

Black vultures also vomit as a defense mechanism.

So, maybe they were startled.

It is the only theory that has support.

This was super exciting to a lot of people all over the country for a period of about, I would say two weeks and then it almost completely vanished and it could very well be that things that weren't fully solved didn't trouble people in 1876 because there was a lot that people didn't understand.

Also, they didn't live in Kentucky, so they felt safe they weren't going to get meat rain on their property.

Chip: We've had a fantastic day getting to explore here at the Speed Art Museum.

Here to tell us more about the facility and everything going on.

This is Raphaela Platow she is the director of the Speed Art Museum.

Thanks so much for being with us here today.

It's absolutely my pleasure.

So, the Speed has been entrenched in the area here for almost a century at this point.

-Almost a century, yeah.

-How did all this come about?

What started all of this?

Well, a really wonderful woman Hattie Bishop Speed, who really truly believed that art should be accessible to all people and that the creative process should be accessible to all people.

Founded the Speed in honor of her late husband and the first building was built in 1927.

So, in just a few years, we are celebrating the centennial of this incredible institution that means so much to the area, to Louisville, to Kentucky and the rest of the world.

The facility itself is really more as you were saying than just a place to come see amazing art work like this.

You work really hard on engagement through events and initiatives.

-Yeah.

-Tell me about that?

Yeah, so, think of the art as our facilitator to connect to a lot of different people and we do that through multiple programs and events.

So, we have everything from youth programs to senior programs.

We have a lot of programs that engage entire communities.

We have community days every Sunday, once a month.

We have a lot of programs where we take either art making or artists into communities.

So, think of us as a very poor space that brings in a lot of different people for different learning opportunities, creative making opportunities, opportunities to celebrate.

We really see ourselves as an organization that celebrates art but also we deeply believe in the notion that art and the creative process are for all people.

And so, yes, we are in the community and we also want to be open to the community and bring as many people here as we possibly can.

And one day a week you're free, right?

Yes, every Sunday and this is really thanks to Owsley free Sundays.

The institution is free to the public and so everybody can come in for free.

There is no admission charge.

So, if you had somebody here and they had 10 minutes in the museum and you got to show them one thing where would you take them and what would you show them?

It would be different every time.

It depends on the person because art is very relational.

So, I would probably do a little bit of research of who I'm meeting with.

But since we are here in the European collection, I would probably take them to a beautiful piece that we have on loan right now integrated into the collection display.

And it is by Joos de Momper and it's a beautiful, beautiful winter landscape that he did in collaboration with Bruegel the Elder.

And this is a landscape created in the 16th century that just loses itself in the distance.

And it is veiled in a foggy snowy atmosphere and then Bruegel the Elder painted in very, very delicately the figures into the landscape.

So, it's a beautiful collaboration between two masters of very different genres, but they came together just in the most magnificent way.

So, I think since we are here in those galleries, that's the piece that I would like to highlight.

Raphaela, thank you so much for letting us be here today.

-We've loved our time here... -Thank you.

and can't wait to explore some more.

I loved it too.

Thank you, Chip.

Such a pleasure to have you.

Local businesses and landmarks can occupy a very special place in our hearts.

Maybe it's a restaurant that was the site of a first date or a family run business that's been a pillar of the community for generations.

Whatever it is, it's more than just a place.

It's a memory.

Well, in Louisville, a local artist has become known for her illustrations depicting some of the city's most well loved community landmarks.

A success she attributes to Louisville's passion for supporting local.

Christopher: Bri's work as an artist I feel like she's become kind of an iconic symbol here in Louisville because her artwork is so well known.

She elevates the reputation and awareness of all the different kind of local historic spaces in the city.

She paints historic, really famous spaces from Churchill Downs to local bars and things like that, but does it in a way that has warmth to it.

People identify something in that artwork that says this is Louisville and this is Kentucky.

When they see her covering iconic spaces or covering places in their neighborhoods that they perhaps grew up with that have been reinvented or become new spaces they say, "Oh my gosh, I know, I recognize what that is."

That's so Louisville to me.

[upbeat music playing] Bri: I've always been creative.

My parents are both creative in different ways.

In high school it was kind of like any of the projects that my teachers would have that were kind of like do your own thing.

Those are my favorite.

Water color is my main like commercial bread and butter medium that I use to illustrate.

Water color and then pin and ink on top of that.

But then when I'm kind of doing more conceptual work and things for fun I love sculpting, I like using unconventional materials.

So, cardboard, kind of anything that's lying around that's limiting.

I kind of get excited about turning something into something else that's otherwise would have been thrown away.

I've always just loved fiber arts as well.

I'm not so much of a seamstress but the element of fiber art that's decorative and also kind of goes hand in hand with illustration and embroidery I've always really liked too.

As you can see, a lot of my work is buildings and architecture.

I'm very inspired by not so much the architecture of them but really like resonating with the moments and memories that people have in those buildings.

A building or a business or a landmark can resonate with different people from the moments they had there.

They went on their first date there.

It's where they first ate when they moved here.

People will come in and see my work and they'll say, I remember when this place used to be called something totally different and owned by somebody else.

And so, I really enjoyed that about my work becoming like a conversation piece and learning about people and their lives.

When I'm looking back on like my work, I think it all stemmed from drawing my childhood home.

Basically, when I went to college, my childhood home, my mom sold it while I was at school.

And so, I was super obsessed with the idea of like, I never got to say goodbye to that house.

And so, I built the house out of cardboard.

I illustrated it.

I did all these different projects with it in college and then I think kind of developed over time.

Christopher: I feel that Brie really cares about the historic neighborhoods and all the local independent businesses in the city.

My husband actually works at one of the most famous bars in the neighborhood that Brie has painted.

When I look at those paintings of that bar, The Merryweather, I have memories here and a certain warmth and I think that's what a lot of people identify in her artwork.

She even painted my own house as a gift.

And as soon as I had that, I said, "I felt like now I'm in Louisville."

Now, I've kind of become a part of the intricate history of this city because of her artwork.

Bri: After high school, I moved to New York and went to Parsons for illustration.

And I met somebody in the military that was at Fort Knox and that brought me to Louisville, like right after graduation.

One of the slogans that Louisville used to have was it's possible here and that really resonated with me because I truly felt like what I wanted to do was possible here.

New York was very much wasn't as approachable I guess to think about achieving a job as an illustrator.

And then moving to Louisville, it really felt nothing like that.

People that own restaurants and bars are like, will you design my logo?

Will you paint my chalkboard sign?

And everybody kind of has opportunity for you and gives you a chance to develop.

When I wasn't as well known, I just loved going into Wiltshire, the Bakery on Barrett and I would go in there and I would have the best time and have the best pastries.

And then I was just inspired to paint it and so I painted it on the bag and then I gave it to the owner and they just played it on their shelf and I just thought that was so cool that she was touched by it and it was on the shelf.

And then a few years later she needed some illustration work done and then that did turn into a gig.

So, I guess that's something that I feel like is a good little story that kind of sums it up.

Like everybody being so open to people that move in from other cities and utilizing your talents and skill sets.

And that's why I loved it and could stay here because it was possible here.

Christopher: I think that Bri's artwork has kind of made people look at Louisville perhaps in a new way that we -- kind of the new Louisville.

It is a city of artists and musicians and people who are really passionate and really care about its history and what Louisville is becoming.

I think that's just such an incredible positive representation of the city.

I think I really just want to keep creating artwork that resonates with people in Louisville and building on the catalogue of illustrations that I have and kind of build a snapshot of time in Louisville.

They've embraced me and I want to keep giving back to the community that embraced me and allows me to do what I love.

On Tuesdays in Lexington's Coolavin Park a local group brings a new twist to an old classic.

Bike polo is just that, it's a game of polo played on bikes.

For years Lexington was the place to be for this unusual sport, even hosting the world hardcore championship back in 2017.

Now the players hope to bring Lexington bike polo back to its former level of popularity.

Mary: Bike polo is -- I like to call it a mix between BMX biking, roller hockey and horse polo.

So, basically it's just polo on a bike.

Ben: Bike polo actually was invented by an Irish guy in 1891.

So, it's been around forever and they actually did like a demonstration game at the 1908 London Olympics and then it kind of died off no one cared about it.

And then it got like an urban revival out in Seattle around the turn of the millennium.

'99, 2000, some bike messengers started knocking a ball around between their runs and then it sort of took off and all these clubs started playing it and it basically evolved through different forms until it became basically kind of like street hockey on bikes.

In a pickup game you just throw the mallets in the middle of the court.

Whoever wants to play, somebody mixes them up, makes the teams random.

Line up with your back wheels to the boards.

Girl: 3, 2, 1 Somebody says 3, 2, 1 play and you take off, you ride as fast as you can to the middle of the court, try to get the ball first and then it just becomes a game of who scores five goals the fastest.

When you get a high level game of people that have been playing for a long time, it's pretty smooth and fun to watch.

Mary: The group started playing I believe back in 2007.

They originally started over at Woodland Park and they started on grass.

They moved over here to Coolavin Park.

It was originally tennis courts and they restored the courts and created these courts here.

We have several different types of tournaments.

It goes all the way up to nationals and then to worlds.

We will play against other countries.

Actually, in 2017, Lexington bike polo hosted worlds.

Ben: When I was first playing in 2009, '10, '11 era, we would travel all over the country.

We played tournaments in Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Toronto.

We went to Puerto Rico and played.

Some people went to Geneva and played, went to New Zealand, went to Australia.

So, the coolest part about it was, yeah, you could travel anywhere in the world for cheap, basically for the price of a plane ticket and just stay with other people that were playing.

And it was like a -- yeah, it was a really cool underground way to see any part of the world you wanted to see that had a club.

Mary: I started playing in end of 2018 beginning of 2019.

I grew up playing sports.

I wanted to do something that was a little bit different.

Really the thing that drew me to bike polo to begin with was the community.

People are all kind.

We accept anybody and everyone.

Tuesday nights is pickup.

So, anyone's welcome to come.

We always have loner bikes, loner gear, mallets.

We want people to come regardless of your experience and we try to teach anyone and everyone who comes on the court.

We've had a blast getting to return to the Speed Art Museum here in Louisville.

We hope you've had just as much fun watching.

This truly is a remarkable museum and if you haven't been, you got to check it out.

For now though we'll leave you with this moment.

I'm Chip Polston cherishing this Kentucky Life.

[water splashing] [vehicle passing by] [birds chirping] [birds chirping] [indistinct chatter]