Coming up, this time on Art rocks will meet a contemporary abstract painter, described as a visual poet by a giant of the genre.

A singer songwriter goes deep with Brazilian bossa nova and life sized bird images take flight.

These stories coming your way on art rocks.

West Baton Rouge Museum is proud to provide local support for this program on LPB, offering diverse exhibitions throughout the year and programs that showcase art, history, music, and more.

West Baton Rouge Museum culture cultivated Art rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

Hello.

Thank you for joining us for Art rocks with Me.

James Smith, publisher of Country Roads magazine.

Celebrated contemporary painter Robert Rector has spent half a century applying both intellectual knowledge and intuition to his abstract canvases.

An accomplished printmaker as well, Richter said he developed his passion for painting under the influence of Baton Rouge artistic icon Ed Primack.

Let's hear more.

You met Mr. Ed Primack, on one of my art classes and decided, I'd rather be a painter than an architect, but I studied architecture for three years.

As an architecture student, you have to take some drawing classes and yet take some art electives.

And, Ed was, a drawing teacher at first.

And, really, it's his personality that, really inspires you more than anything else.

But as I looked at his paintings at that time, he was doing those real hard edge, architectural looking paintings.

You know?

So he intrigued me a lot.

And the more I talked to him, the more I wanted to be him.

He's, He he's that persona that, he seems to have figured out life and art and music and happiness and, said, I want to be like him.

So, change majors and studied, as much.

Took as many classes with him as I could.

I like to put architectural elements and, relationships and try to make them relate to more natural or, abstract expressionist energy.

I play around with the sculptural elements.

Sometimes I break it out of the the rectangular form, sometimes, keep it in the rectangular form, but create different surfaces.

And I like to bring in sometimes different elements.

Some of the paintings in the past have, incorporated, wooden panels are aluminum panels are, different types of material.

I have done leafing or leaving.

So that has an architectural, element to it.

So I like to play around with surfaces as well.

And I still like building things.

I like to design furniture, and I like for the paintings to have an architectural element.

Sometimes.

It's not always, but I like to incorporate those ideas into the art.

I really want people to come in to the paintings a little.

You know, I try to draw them in.

And it's a lot of times it's why the, the elements, are the points of interest sometimes are at the edges.

That's for two reasons.

I want you to be aware of this thing as an object.

It's a it's a thing in itself.

It's not a picture.

It's a thing that I painted.

So you have these things, things happening around the edges to make you aware of that.

But then the center is where all the juices.

I want you to pull you hand so you can see what?

How I manipulate paint and what I do with paint, and what I can do with paint and how I can create this mystical space.

Ocean Springs is where I grew up.

Yeah.

Walter Anderson, Mrs. Anderson was my first grade school teacher.

His wife was my first grade school teacher.

First, fell in love with painting.

My father was, superintendent of paint where they built the Navy ships.

But as a small child, I was always impressed with what paint can do.

And, I like the fact that a brush and some color can change something completely.

And as a small child, of course, he didn't want to let me play.

And paint.

So.

And we lived in this house that had this old siding that, the paint was coming off.

It's kind of bare wood and, gray to silver.

So give me a bucket of water and a brush.

And if you brush water on there, it looks like you're painting.

So when I was a very small child, he let me paint the house with water.

The paint to me is very important.

The element, the actual material.

I really like manipulating it.

So I'm always trying to find new ways to, represent paint.

You know, I like to find new ways to apply paint and find ways, different ways that paint works.

One of my main tools are pieces of matte board.

I don't use brushes as much, but I'll cut mat boards into different sizes from this size that this man and, light layer the paint with, because I try to create a natural, surface or texture, but yet it has a human, I mean, a manmade element.

So it's mixing the nature element and the manmade element.

Out in these woods.

Out in these woods, where we are.

I mean, it's, it's a pretty, there's Louisiana landscape.

Definitely a a Louisiana landscape here.

But we get some incredible changes in light.

I see a lot of textures in nature that I wouldn't normally see.

And I apply those way I interpret those some of those textures and images in nature into the painting.

I think that, very strong influence.

But what the thing that is most unusual about being here is that kind of like we get at different times under different and, weather situations.

So we have some incredible, things that happen where these greens, it's very green as you, but at certain times these greens will turn orange and it's just blows your mind what happens with the light sometimes.

I think it has a southern romanticism to it, but it's not southern art.

I think being raised in the South, living in the country and then filtering certain ideas that come from New York through that southern romanticism, is how my work has come to be.

I wouldn't function as well if I was, say, in a studio with a building, a lot of artists and having to work that way.

I don't think that that works for me.

I need the solitude and it's still fun.

It's absolutely, you know, something that I can't stop doing.

I have been accused by my friends never having a job.

And unless I bring with them, it's just what I want to do.

What I have to do.

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We're off to New Mexico now because that's where you have to go to meet author and illustrator Zara Morgan.

She has published the picture book Where Butterflies Fill the Sky, which shares the true story of Morgan's immigration journey from Kuwait to the United States.

So let's turn the page.

What inspired you to write Where butterflies fill the sky?

When we left Kuwait when I was a child, I wasn't really sure what we were doing or where we were going or what was happening.

When we came to New Mexico, I didn't really understand why no one spoke Arabic anymore, or why we weren't going to my grandpa's house in a few days.

So I was trying to create that feeling of what it felt like as a child.

Why did you title the book Where Butterflies fill the Sky?

I don't have the right to live in Kuwait, but my mom's a quality citizen.

In 2018, she became sick and was hospitalized.

So I had to make an emergency trip home.

And I'm allowed to stay there only for three months on a tourist visa.

And there had been a lot of rain.

And every time I'd look up that spring, there were hundreds of butterflies in the sky.

And that's when I started putting the book together.

Where butterflies fill the sky.

And story of immigration, family and finding home to my parents.

Who should have never had to leave.

Who gave us everything they could get.

From the desert to the sea.

This is my home.

Where 100 butterflies are always in the sky.

Pigeons are kept and loved.

Boats sail the country.

Mama's on the shore.

My aunt is doing 30 baba slims in the open water.

His sister takes the boat out to sea.

Me and my brothers are in our own world.

This is where I sleep, where my ancestors live and are always watching.

So there's a lot of different motifs that are reoccurring in the book.

Can you tell me a little bit about them?

Sure.

Culturally, Kuwaitis keep birds at home, with their parakeets or parrots.

I like to talk about my oldest aunt who fights with her parrot every Friday at the family lunch.

And I have my mom's three sisters that keep appearing and, like, grounding pillars of, like, safety and protection and a sense of home.

And there was also two ancestral pools watching over you.

Right.

Can you talk a little bit about those?

Sure.

It's definitely a cultural faux pas religiously, being from a very conservative Orthodox family myself.

But there are ancient artifacts from the dome and civilization, or Mesopotamian sculptures that were found ten miles off of Kuwait shore.

And one of them was a bowl.

So I had these Mesopotamian bowls with the connection to ancestors in place that keep following the main character throughout the book.

So this is my favorite illustration in the book.

It's me and my dad.

People often sit on the ground in Kuwaiti culture, on Persian rugs.

Here we have a Dillman Bowl and he's packing watermelon.

They would often eat watermelon after lunch.

There are flamingos flying.

They naturally migrate to the Kuwaiti shores in the winter.

There's a picture of my uncle who was killed during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

He was killed with a grenade.

And this is also a point that I always keep in mind is how he can always be listed officially as Kuwaiti when he had died.

Stateless.

Fighting for our little home.

What does it mean to be stateless?

And why is it important to talk about this subject?

Citizenship is very complicated, and it shouldn't be at all.

Right.

Three of my grandparents are Kuwaiti citizens, and only one wasn't.

And that was my father's father.

And all of them are historically and culturally rooted in Kuwait.

My grandfather didn't apply before oil, and the window to apply was very small.

So although we're there, we're from there generationally, culturally and historically, we have no legal rights to live in our country.

And what does that mean?

It means you don't really have the right to an education.

You're not allowed to get married.

You're not allowed to leave.

You're not allowed to access health care.

You essentially don't exist.

Yeah, you're illegal, and yet you're there.

Baba tells me there is magic in the place.

We'll go.

I don't want to leave.

Mama says it'll be better for us.

I say my goodbyes without knowing why.

And travel far, far away.

To a new place where each day feels like a year.

Where no one speaks like me.

I, my ancestors still watch you.

What is it like to leave your home behind in Kuwait and come to New Mexico?

The last time I was in Kuwait was this January, and when the plane lands, it makes me cry.

And when the plane leaves, it makes me cry.

And I've become almost totally foreign there other than family.

And every trip back, I would notice has becoming further and further removed from my home, whether linguistically or culturally.

I think nobody really wants to leave their home.

Yeah.

How did it feel adapting to New Mexico?

I think it's a forever ongoing process of how, like, this is the only place where I feel like I belong, that I can live legally.

And at the same time, I realize I'm not totally from here.

Historically.

But there's always a sense of like, this is my home.

It's nice to feel like I belong at a place where I wasn't even born.

I mean, I still remember, like my friend Adam Romero playing tag with me in the third grade or the second grade when I couldn't speak.

So it's nice to know that there are people like that.

I'm so different from everyone here, but these new people show me I belong.

My family sends reminders that they are thinking of me, and I tell them that I'm thinking of them too, that I miss them and hope we can be together again.

In this new place of high desert, I have found a home.

Why do you have the balls resting?

Maybe that they feel a sense of comfort.

Or also feel a sense of home.

It can take a break from watching.

Like, what's the feeling that you felt when you were creating this illustration?

And film.

Maybe this one that I really do feel comfortable here, but there are things I understand and feel really lucky that I'm like, to have come to a place where people do treat you like you belong.

I feel like I've learned from people here to, like, be proud of my language and culture and heritage.

Even if there is like a system that tells you you shouldn't be.

And now to Ohio to hear some stylings by singer songwriter Meg Paulson.

Inspired by the Brazilian music that took the world by storm during the 1960s.

Paulson channels an infectious bossa nova sound that she's been leaning into ever since dropping her first track in 2015.

So have a listen and just try to stay still.

And keep and back from the 80s.

Use it whenever I want to.

Somehow manage to keep my composure.

Love and keep my body snatched.

No, I'm no good with money.

You're no artist with truth.

And if it ever gets to that point and bended knee.

I know just what you do.

Yes I do.

So you can do the same with the bag.

Cause who are you and?

And.

Hey.

Yes, I know, just watching you.

Did I hear you crying for a virgin safe.

You're like you're burning on a stake.

Cause you know I just want you dead.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I'm.

So you can do the rest, baby.

Cause you want you where in hell.

Yes I know, just want you did in I hear you crying for virgin safe.

You're like you're burning on a stage.

Cause I know you just want you dead.

So reckless with integrity.

It feels the sweetest part of me.

In a chasm within God.

And by my significant.

Soul for the rest of the day.

Cause you are you went.

And hell yes, I know I'm just wanting you.

Did I hear you crying for a virgin.

You're like you're burning on a stake.

Cause you know just what you did.

You tell me baby.

Think this hope for us, okay?

God forbid you know just what you did.

Now is race.

Finish what?

I start now.

But I'll this.

I'll call it quits.

Cause you know just what you did it, baby.

You know just what you did, baby.

You know you just won a you day.

In work that'll evoke echoes of John James Audubon for Louisiana viewers, printmaker John Costin creates exquisitely detailed, life sized etchings of Florida bird life.

So let's take flight to John's studio in Tampa to learn how his lengthy, challenging creative process unfolds.

One question I get a lot from people when they see my work, they look at it and say, well, why do you do etchings?

Why not do a painting and do reproductions?

Why not do that?

And I tell them they're not the same.

There's certain visual qualities that etchings have that these other processes don't have.

Most people do not know what etchings are and what is involved.

So I just say, well, he's kind of like a modern day Audubon.

What Audubon did with plates with birds.

John makes his birds lifesize.

They're all hand-painted.

They're extremely, extremely detailed because he goes out on the field and he studies other patterns, leg patterns, like, for example, the sandhill crane that he just did.

He spent 40 hours drawing those legs.

So I would tell people, if you want something very detailed and bright and beautiful, that you need to go see my husband's work.

My favorite thing about the work that John does is being able to just see him created it is incredible to me to watch something start as an idea and just watch that idea come to life.

It is what seeing something magnificent unfold.

It's like this magical side of art.

But I get to bear witness to one of the most interesting things that I have learned.

Going here and being a watercolor artist's assistant is color theory.

The way that John knows colors so intricately.

Blows me away.

Just on top of all of his other skills, the colors that he uses down to the shades of black are so specific, so that they really create a depth and dimension to these birds that brings them to life, that really makes them pop off of the paper.

I look at a lot of these pieces as a scientific experiment, where you have the series of variables, and they all have to be completed just right to get the right result.

So I document everything.

That way somebody can come behind me that I've worked with and trained and can achieve the same results long as they adhere to my notes that I take.

In addition to my own work, I've been collecting antique prints for 30 years.

I have an interest in how other naturalists approach that.

You know, how did they why did they do?

How did they do it?

And I feel that I want to add to that with my work.

That's one of my goals.

Knowing all of these things that have happened before me and then adding my own thumbprint on there.

A contemporary view.

So that is that for this edition of Art rocks, each episode showcases the work of a Louisiana artist, and you can find every one of them.

Archived online at lpb.org/art rocks.

And if stories like these move you, consider subscribing to Country Roads magazine.

It's a vital guide for learning what's shaping Louisiana's cultural life all across the state.

Until next week, I've been James Fox Smith and thanks to you for watching.

West Baton Rouge Museum is proud to provide local support for this program on LPB, offering diverse exhibitions throughout the year and programs that showcase art history, music, and more.

West Baton Rouge Museum Culture cultivated Art rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.