Annc: COMING UP ON KVIE ARTS SHOWCASE... WE CELEBRATE ARTS IN PUBLIC SPACES, HOW IT BUILDS CONNECTION AND PUTS ONE'’S COMMUNITY ON DISPLAY.

A MISSION OF ART FOR ALL CONTINUES TO TRANSFORM SACRAMENTO.

David: We are able to make art available for everybody to see in any kind of setting.

Annc: SCULPTURES FOR EVERYONE TO EXPERIENCE Nicole: Over the years, I have come to realize that my passion truly lies in interactive public art.

"” Annc: LICHTENSTEIN'’S MODERN HEAD SCULPTURE Bruce: The sculptures of Roy Lichtenstein are often thought of as very technical, almost scientific in nature.

Annc: MEMORABLE EXPRESSIONS THROUGH PUBLIC ART Joe: I think art in a public space is great for anyone.

I mean, it just livens up a dead wall.

Annc: A VIBRANT SMOKE PERFORMANCE Judy: I'’m really excited to share "“A Purple Poem for Miami"” with you.

We'’ve been working on it for a year.

"” Annc: IT'’S ALL UP NEXT ON KVIE ARTS SHOWCASE... ♪♪ ♪♪ Annc: THE ART FOR ALL MISSION AT THE WIDE OP EN WALLS FESTIVAL IN SACRAMENTO IS TRANSFORMING THE CITY'’S REPUTATION AS AN ART HUB, WHILE SHOWCASING COMMUNITY EXPRESSION.

♪♪ ♪♪ David Sobon: Most people, I think if you take a look at the general population they don't normally go into museums, they're not normally going in the galleries.

To be able to make art available for everybody to see in any kind of setting.

♪♪ The purpose of Wide Open Walls was not to only give attention to the history of the murals in Sacramento but to make it really exciting and bring in an international cast with local artists.

We invited 12 international artists that we knew from their styles of the art, the type of painting that they did, that we would have a great balance, and then it was a matter of mixing muralists that have been creating for many years already in the Sacramento market and then we did something a little bit sort of unique.

We gave an opportunity to artists that have never created a mural before and I think that might have been my favorite part, is seeing the sense of pride from some of our local and regional artists that had not created on such a large scale.

♪♪ ♪♪ We made a pretty big impact being the largest mural festival on the west coast.

But I think to have as much impact we don't necessarily need to do as many.

There is always room for improvement of what the future of the festival looks like.

But if you take a look at the impact of what we are able to accomplish in a short 10 day period, the amount of attention that it received both local and internationally, it was pretty spectacular.

We not only had a volunteer list, we had a couple of volunteer coordinators.

There was literally 100 bodies running to support the artists, to bring them food, to bring them water, to make sure that they had all their supplies.

The support that it takes to do something like this takes an army of volunteers.

We produced a 40 page guide, we had maps both online and in app form so people were able to follow along and learn something about the murals as they were touring.

I think one of the greatest success stories of those tours is what the alley, the Improv Alley looks like on Sacramento right now.

It was probably known as one of the worst alleys.

We were able to get the alley paved and we created 7 brand new murals.

All the garbage cans were painted in the alley, even the grease trap bins were painted and there is now a 300 foot plus humanity mural with just some incredible messaging, a gorgeous piece of art, and 6 surrounding pieces of art, 6 other murals, and it's now become a tourist destination.

Cyclist 1: "Oh my god, this is one of my favorites!"

Cyclist 2: "Beautiful!"

David Sobon: Adding new landmarks, gathering places, economic development, we've put walls in areas that weren't necessarily the best parts of town and our goal there was not just to make it more beautiful but to drive people into that area to go look at the beautiful art.

Whether they're walking, riding their bikes, jumping off of the cars, they need to go have a place to take a break and eat a meal and grab a cup of coffee.

Why the name Wide Open Walls?

I think it brings a lot of different ideas to a lot of different people.

First off it makes things a lot more beautiful and that same concept of art for all is giving people an opportunity for everybody to see it.

Whether you're driving down the road and all of a sudden you're seeing something that's 18 stories tall that used to be a blank wall and be able to identify specific areas of town and specific buildings.

♪♪ There is new, modern, more contemporary artists that are coming up with new designs and new ideas and that's being enforced by incredible street art.

I think the duplication factor of it happening, whether it's Wide Open Walls in other cities or just additional cities participating in these types of events.

I think the future looks really bright.

Art has the capacity to change things.

It changes people's attitude, it changes their outlook.

It gives them hope, it inspires them.

All of those things can come from art that's in a public place that anybody can be exposed to.

You can have the worst day of your life and you can walk by a piece of art that you've never seen before and put on a big smile and go home happy.

How cool is that?

The gathering places, The economic development aspect of it, of being able to put on art that makes a difference to the community and brings people up, how cool is that?

I mean it's just all about art for all.

Let's put art out there for everybody to enjoy.

♪♪ Annc: RENO, NEVADA MULTIMEDIA ARTIST NICOLE ASHTON CREATES UNIQUE PUBLIC ART.

WITH HER LARGE-SCALE SCULPTURES, SHE ENCOURAGES INTERACTION AND PARTICIPATION.

♪♪ Nicole: I certainly am an artist who works in all mediums.

but over the years, I have come to realize that my passion truly lies in interactive public art.

It can reach the masses, it is there and lives on, will outlive me and will still be making an impact.

Interactive public art is something as small as a little painting on a wall, something that grabs your attention, draws you into it or something as large as a monument, something that you can go touch, feel, get inside of, be a part of it, move things around and anything that makes you feel like you are a piece of that art.

Public art doesn't work without people.

Curiosity kind of opens up to their own dreams, gets the mind going and hopefully, sparks something creative in all the people that go to see it.

All of my sculptures, they always start with a dream and it's more like they're a machine instead of art.

If I don't take the time to sketch it out, write things down when I wake up, I'll have the same dream the next night.

That gets repetition, so I finally just gave in, I was like all right, I'm gonna follow this, I'm gonna do this every morning and that's how Transcendent Souls came about.

That was my first solo piece that I worked on that was that large of a scale.

It was a crash course in structural engineering, how to figure out taking a model that's this big to something that's 28 feet tall and thinking about all of the structural engineering needs and wind load.

Transcendent Souls really is about the progression of own souls, going through the steps and acknowledging our faults, our strengths and doing everything in a manner of grace.

As long as you believe in what you're doing and just keep doing, do it step by step, that's the process that's worked for me.

♪♪ As You Wish was the project after Transcendent Souls and it is all about going in with the intention, knowing what your heart's desire is, what your wish is.

In that, I was kind of pulling from myself all my doubts.

The fear of not having funds to buy the materials and how it's going to work but when you're in that process and you've gone that far, you'll do anything you can to make it happen.

♪♪ Dreamcaster is an opportunity to look into all of the what ifs.

So it's really important when you're doing a large scale piece to do a maquette, so you can get a better idea of what your build process is going to be.

The pieces are going to be all reclaimed with the exception of structural steel inside the framework of those hexagons of the dome will be individual dreamcasters.

They're meant to all be different.

The top of the dome will have another crystal and this time, we're gonna go dig it out ourself.

Anybody can do this, it's all about just having the drive and the will to do it and I hope that that's what everybody who experiences it walks away with.

Public art, for me, it's meant to inspire, it's meant to excite, it can even be meant to get you angry, meant to push you to make a change.

Hopefully, it just gets their wheels turning and they go off and they do amazing things.

♪♪ Annc: ROY LICHTENSTEIN WAS A MAJOR FIGURE IN THE POP ART MOVEMENT.

RECENTLY, HIS ICONIC "“MODERN HEAD"” SCULPTURE WAS INSTALLED AT OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY IN COLUMBUS, OHIO.

♪♪ ♪♪ Paul: It's a little different than most other sculptures that we've done for the Lichtensteins.

It's about 31 feet tall.

Weighs in -- we believe it's going to be about 5,000 pounds.

It's -- I mean.

It's the most fun thing I've ever done.

♪♪ Jack: Roy Lichtenstein became first known as a pop artist.

And these pop artists came from the word popular artists, but they were using popular subject matter.

And in kind of a critique or an alternative to a very painterly style of abstract expression as of for the 1950s.

Dorothy: Well Roy was a very dedicated artist.

I mean he fell in love with art when he was a young boy.

And when it came time for him to go to university, he wanted to be able to study art.

And at that time there were really only a handful of colleges where you could get a degree in art.

Studio art.

And Ohio State University was one of them.

Well you know we're proud to count Roy Lichtenstein as a double alumnus of the university.

Back in the '40s, he achieved both his bachelors and masters degree here in fine arts, and was part of our teaching faculty for some time following that.

Jack: And Roy always held Ohio State University in high regard because of this experience he had here in the art school.

In more recent years, the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation has actually been looking for ways that they can continue to engage with the university.

And so, it's really through the foundation that we have this tremendous opportunity to actually be considered as the location for something as amazing as this "modern head" sculpture.

♪♪ The modern head sculpture, we figured we could build one.

To do a memorial, non-commercial cast of an addition that used to be four.

We decided to make one more addition to them.

This is a posthumous addition.

And that it would be donated to university in Roy's memory.

I mean we wouldn't really dare make anything new.

In fact, we got the plans from the original producer of the piece.

And we worked with a fabricator that Roy had worked with on many of his pieces.

Paul Amaral.

♪♪ Paul: We're in Rhode Island.

On the east bay just a little bit east of Downtown Providence Rhode Island.

And we're ready to build the Lichtenstein sculpture.

This one had been built before by other fabricators.

That was the challenge.

To build it from other peoples drawings and design parameters.

The input information that I got was analog hand drawn pieces.

From the early '80s so we had to correct all that stuff and get it right so that we could have complete faith in the computer file to produce a piece that is the shape that Roy intended.

Everybody started feeling really confident towards the end when we started producing small scale versions out of a water jet or a laser machine.

And everything lined up and matched and did what it was supposed to do.

Bruce: The sculptures of Roy Lichtenstein are often thought of as very technical, almost scientific in nature.

And so when folks from the foundation came and walked across campus, they found this space in the north campus area that actually aligns not only with where we're enhancing our arts district.

But also provides this really amazing synergy with some of our science buildings.

Particularly Smith and McPherson labs.

Jack: Which actually is closer to Roy's personal interests.

What Roy was -- an engineer.

He was a draftsman.

He worked in engineering companies.

He liked making mechanical things by himself anyway, Dorothy: I mean the whole purpose of art is really to engage people in thinking about imagery.

What it means.

So I'm curious -- I'll be very curious to see how the students at OSU deal with this.

What they wonder about it.

Jack: So I want to thank everyone in Ohio for making this as a good opportunity for us to have a work here that could be provocative for the tens of thousands of students who will be passing by it.

It's just a nice opportunity to maintain a relationship.

♪♪ Annc: NOW WE HEAD BACK TO RENO, NEVADA, WHERE ARTIST JOE C. ROCK CREATES ART FOR PUBLIC SPACES.

HIS LARGE, ENERGETIC MURALS LIVEN BUILDINGS AND STREETS, AND ARE AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE TO ENJOY.

♪♪ My name is Joe C. Rock and I'm a muralist and artist here in Reno, Nevada.

♪♪ I create all kinds of art, but I definitely tend of more of a street style graffiti art but then figure painting's my favorite, but muralism would be like the biggest keypoint.

The idea of like urban or grittines really appeals to me just because that's like who I am.

I listen to rap music, spray paint, these are all things that are very urban.

I love graffiti, I love, you know, buildings, and I love just that chaos of just traffic and people walking and honking of horns.

And that's the other part of it is, if you look at my painting, I love just making a mess, too, you know?

Like that crazy chaotic mess, and then the beauty on top of it.

If you look at this painting that same idea.

This door is just gross, old, but then there's the girl inside who is just very soft and pristine and painted very nicely.

And it's just that counterplay of ideas that is also great.

I've been drawing my entire life.

My mom taught me how to write really young, and I always just had a pen or pencil or crayons in my hands.

So I just really always had it in my blood.

When I was, you know, two or three my mom she had to like wine the house with butcher paper as far as I could reach 'cause I was like painting, so I guess I've been doing murals since I've been like three.

Starting a mural is different every time.

I don't really ever know how I'm gonna actually start like putting paint to the wall first.

It just really depends on the finished product as well.

Like the one at McConnell, that one, I chalked the drawing in first because I wanted a lot of the blue showing through the entire time.

Then from chalking it in, then I went into spray paint and doing that.

Then going back and cutting back with the wall color, fixing my lines up, then started doing shading and doing the different layers of shading.

It's really hard to judge on how long a mural's going to take.

It can be anywhere from five hours to 50 for the same mural.

So sometimes if I'm on it I can bust out a portrait really perfect in five hours, and have it be the same that it would take me 50 to render it, because you just sometimes make mistakes, and it goes, but sometimes everything goes well and it just lines up right from the beginning.

I love when people come up and tell me what they think about it.

'Cause I love that when I'm painting something and I never thought about that, and someone comes up and they're like, "Oh, is that Marilyn Monroe and JFK?"

and, like, you know, you just hear these things, and I'm like, "No, but it could be."

Like I'm not saying it's not.

And I love that about it.

I would love for people to come away from my art feeling happy.

That's one thing, or like moved, or just people taking notice of it is great, you know.

And I think art in a public space is, just, it's great for anyone.

I mean it just livens up a dead wall, you know.

It gives someone something to look at.

Reno is full of murals.

There's murals all over.

If you walk from Plum all the way downtown it's just this corridor of murals everywhere.

It's an easy way to change an area, and that's kinda what happened here, was we started painting murals on a lot of businesses because younger people started opening businesses.

A building that looks dilapidated, if you paint a mural on the side, it becomes an attraction, you know.

It becomes where people are sittin' there taking pictures in front of it, selfiein'.

People tend to congregate around them, so it's just an easy way to change something.

♪♪ ♪♪ Annc: MIAMI, FLORIDA ARTIST JUDY CHICAGO'’S "“A PURPLE POEM FOR MIAMI"” IS A MEMORABLE SMOKE PERFORMANCE THAT COLORS THE URBANSCAPE WITH BLUES, PINKS, AND PURPLES.

♪♪ I'’m really excited to share "“A Purple Poem for Miami"” with you.

We'’ve been working on it for a year.

We'’re giving Miami - we hope - a gift that you will enjoy.

So please, please enjoy "“A Purple Poem for Miami"” (Performance and crowd) (smoke visuals) Before this is over, let me tell you that one of my goals for these pieces was to soften and feminize the environment and show the world what it would look like if we were all kinder and more generous with each other.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Annc: Episodes of KVIE Arts Showcase, along with other KVIE programs, are available to watch online at kvie.org /video