ro music) - With the rise of websites like Etsy and Pinterest.

More and more people are discovering their creative talent making unique crafts while developing a following and growing as artists.

On this episode, The Arts Page, will meet people flourishing in the world of independent craftsmanship.

Learn how this Milwaukee based ceramics company creates funky and functional handmade mugs.

See this man's artistic process of melding art and science using scrap metal.

This Florida couple is using found wood to create furniture and plant future trees.

Plus step inside this century old letter press shop in Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood.

The Arts Page starts right now.

(upbeat music) Welcome to The Arts Page.

I'm Sandy Maxx.

Here in Milwaukee, Lolly Lolly Ceramics is a small ceramics and design studio with a big following.

Known for their mugs with their funky handles.

Owner and founder, Lalese Stamps and her dedicated team hand make every item.

In 2019, Stamps took on a challenge.

A 100 day project to make 100 mugs each with a different handle, for 100 days.

Which stretched her as an artist and brought her attention from around the country.

Her hobby exploded into a business and her mugs are highly sought-after sometimes selling out within minutes.

Milwaukee PBS Producer, Lexi Mack brings us this local story.

(gentle upbeat music) - Growing up, I didn't really see a lot of people who were like me.

Who own their own businesses.

And it was just kind of a scary thing.

I think that I always kind of ran away from the idea of being a business owner.

And, it's just kind of funny how life works that way where it almost hits you in the face.

And I woke up one day and I had like 7,000 new followers just overnight.

And I remember thinking like, is this a glitch?

Like, did something weird happen?

And over the course of the day just kept rising - For Lolly Lolly Ceramics, Founder, Lalese Stamps.

A hobby she began in her basement willed her into confronting her fears almost overnight.

- Lolly Lolly Ceramics is a small scale handmade ceramics brand.

We're based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin now but we just moved here six months ago, from Ohio.

(upbeat music) - Inspired by her high school nickname, the brand contrast, a playful moniker with more serious toned pieces.

Much like how ceramics was once her lighthearted escape from her full-time world of computer screens and graphic design.

- And I wasn't super formally trained in ceramics.

It was always more of a fun thing for me.

So one day I just had the idea like, to have one of the same object just create something different about it every day.

And the mug felt like the best fit for that.

And, it really is one of the best things I think I've ever done for myself as a creative.

I would say that they are kind of funky.

That's kind of the go-to word that I always use.

Really clean, simple lines but also I kind of describe them as like pushing the limit a little bit.

Anything that we ever do, I always wanna kind of push a limit of what that norm is and all the handles on our mugs kind of are testament to that.

- Many of Lalese's ideas, stem from the muses found in everyday life.

- Typically my style, I do a lot of like kind of sitting down by myself, just sketching a lot.

It's really fun to like, see other products that aren't ceramic and get inspiration from that.

Like even the plants that we have in this space sometimes.

Like, there's so many different styles of like leaves that, it's kind of cool to see a shape and be like oh, that like made me think of a certain idea for a ceramic piece.

We have this mug it's 12 out of 100 and it's like this squiggle handle.

And I do think that one is kind of like the quintessential, like go to Lolly piece.

It's so simple, but it's so interesting.

And that one was inspired by a bike rack that I saw.

And I took a picture of.

It's just like such a testament.

A mug testament to where we started and like seeing something out in the world and creating my own version of that.

(gentle guitar music) - Little did Lalese know, that her 100 day spark of creative inspiration would ignite the entrepreneur path she once feared.

- It was a hard decision to kind of quit my full-time job.

Cause, I really loved being a Graphic Designer.

But ultimately, I think the reason I decided to focus on my business full time is because, I saw like the bigger opportunities within that.

I think I was getting so much attention on my work.

Like, just an insurmountable amount of eyes.

We were getting so much press last year and our audience just kept growing naturally.

And there was like one day like that.

I got like 20,000 new followers within like a matter of 24 hours.

- The response to her work over the last year sometimes leaves Lalese's brain spinning with pieces flying off the Lolly Lolly shelves faster than she and her small team can create them.

- I feel like sometimes I don't really have the space to really process everything that has gone on.

One of our recent drops we sold out within like 13 seconds.

And for that, we had like a couple hundred mugs online.

(upbeat music) (heavily breathing) This makes me emotional, because again, it's going back to that thing where it's like, it's just so cool.

Like, the fact that we know, it's a good problem to have.

You know, it's not a bad thing to know that we can put product online and it just sells out.

It's hard because we spend so much time working on those pieces that they're kind of just like, gone like that.

But it feels really cool and really special.

- As her brand continues to gain popularity with national partnerships like American Express and wholesale accounts, with the Museum of Modern Art.

Her mission has become more than unique mugs.

- This is more than just about me.

You know, I wanna be able to use this business to open up opportunities for other young black creatives who didn't know that they could take their craft or their skill and actually do something with it.

- And although the pieces are almost certain to sell out Lalese says, there will soon be enough Lolly love to go around.

- It's not even about the money either.

It's just about knowing that we did that.

Like we created that and people are excited about it and it gets us motivated to do more.

The quality of the product speaks for itself.

The uniqueness of the product kind of speaks for itself.

And that's kind of the thing about authenticity.

It's almost like, you don't have to do much because you're genuinely being who you are.

It goes back to that little glimmer of joy that we kind of offer to people.

I mean, these pieces are things that people use daily in their lives.

They're just a really nice thing to have.

(gentle guitar music) - From throwing clay to molten metal, now.

Our Ohio artist, Fred McMullen, was compelled to start his artistic experimentation when he was a kid.

He continues to create and is particularly drawn to repurposing random metal objects while also getting inspiration from nature.

(upbeat music) - I had several older brothers, when we were little, of course I followed their path.

One of the things they did was they melted lead in the basement.

My dad would come home with this box of tire weights.

Probably preferred, he'd use the lead for something.

We would melt those down and pour them into molds.

I think one was called Creepy Crawlers or something like that.

They made great molds for the lead.

And so, I'd pour those in there and it would be shaped like what the mold was.

I think that started my fascination with the metal.

I remember trying to melt nickels with a propane torch to see what it would do.

And that experimentation was just always something we did.

(upbeat music) I've worked a lot of different jobs, management positions supervisory positions.

And for someone who's creative that can become kind of a grind.

When I started doing the bronze, everything just kind of clicked as something I enjoyed doing.

(suspense music) I liked the bronze process, cause there's so many steps in it.

It kind of uses all parts of your brain, you know, melting the metal to about 2100 degrees.

It's gotta be skinned off.

(suspense music continues) The molds have to be designed so that the metal will flow in correctly.

The bronze will solidify quite quickly.

We've busted out molds, you know, within 10, 15 minutes.

I like to wait at least half an hour.

They're still extremely hot when you pull them out of the molds.

A lot of times we'll just have a bucket of water.

We'll dip it in there and that's exciting to watch it.

(laughing) (metal grinding) And then, that's when you get down to doing the fine finishing.

A lot of times people pour stuff and they just like it the way it is.

Other kind of feel they wanna sand it and buff it and Polish.

It that's just a personal preference.

It's a great process to play around with it.

(laughing) (soft piano music) What I like about it is, it's figuring things out.

Using that part of the brain, where you're figuring things out, you're solving problems.

I like the creativity.

I'll have an idea.

And I like, solving the problem can get my idea to be made.

Is like solving a puzzle, but three dimensionally, creatively.

And with my sculptures where I have a found object.

I really enjoy those because it'll sit around for a while until something kind of hits me.

And I'll figure out, oh, I'll make a a figure doing this with that piece of found object.

And you know, it's very gratifying when it works.

And then when someone else likes it that's even better.

(upbeat music) So, this is my junk shelf and this is where I throw things that I'll find that have an interest to me.

mostly machine parts, things like that.

And people will bring me things.

Someone brought me a couple of these which I hadn't decided what to do with but they're a great form.

Old cast iron fence barn, I think.

This is not my found in a barn that I had on a property.

You know, it's a hand forged hook.

It's just really interesting because it's not perfect.

It's not machine made.

And it has a lot of character.

I don't let any interesting metal thing go to waste.

(gentle upbeat music) So the series was called toil.

I like the human figures just because, you know what is man's life, but kind of toil and getting through life.

So I ended up making figures that climbed or were laboring over something.

People that work hard for a living, do their jobs well.

I find that as an inspiration too.

And, I think that's reflected in my toil series.

you know, kind of as tribute to them.

(gentle upbeat music continues) This is a figure I did recently.

I was thinking about solitude.

So I wanted to make my representation of Rodins The Thinker.

I found a image of this older African American guy sitting on a bench contemplating mostly about the times we're in.

I'm curious what someone like that's perspective would be.

Who's seen so much through the last decades in America.

That's him.

That's my version of the thinker.

(gentle upbeat music) I love birds and find a lot of inspiration from those.

They're just amazing creatures.

We'll go to the park and we'll walk and I'll just see a branch that is really interesting.

Just the way it's formed.

That starts me with, you know I'll make the branch out of metal and then I'll find a bird.

And so I'll add those to the branch.

I'm just stealing from God.

But I think it's cool.

When you find something and it comes together.

It really scratches that itch of yeah that's what I was after.

And then the best part of all is when someone else falls in love with it and they talk to you about it.

It spoke to you when you made it, it spoken to them and that's worth more than any financial gain.

- See more of McMullen's creations, at his website at bentreestudios.com.

While found metal objects fascinate artist, Fred McMullin.

In Florida, Artist Kassidy Fritts, is inspired by wood.

Fritts turns what used to be trees into functional artwork.

Going by the motto that when it comes to trees save the ones you can preserve the ones you can't.

We visit the artist studio called, Washed Up Key West.

(upbeat music) - Hi, my name's Jamie Mattingly.

I am Kassidy Fritts fiance.

He started Washed Up Key West.

This is his wood shop.

What Kassidy does, is he uses local tropical hardwood trees Cuban mahogany.

If we can find dade county pine, you know, we get it from old houses, Jamaican Dogwood, woman's tongue.

He likes to take those cut them into slabs.

And once they're dry and ready to go he makes dining room tables coffee tables, serving boards, charcuterie boards.

What he likes to call functional art.

Art that people not only get to enjoy visually, but can actually use.

And he likes to push the boundaries on it.

So, he's always looking for new and fun ways to use the wood or to mix the wood with resins or other mediums.

It's definitely an eclectic style.

You see a lot of the graffiti outside a lot of the very bright colors.

We try to bring some of that in, but at the same time he could be very minimal, and islandy in his designs.

And, you know, just finding a really fun way to marry the two of them together.

(upbeat music) After hurricane Irma happened down here, a lot of big trees came down.

We actually helped salvage a lot of really old historic trees from around town.

One of them being the Shel Silverstein home which was destroyed by the giant banyon tree falling on top of it.

Now banyon trees are not normally a kind of tree that we would harvest to turn into furniture because it's not a hard wood.

But we did grab some of the trees and made coasters out of them.

And, you know, Key West had sort of dubbed that banyon tree, the giving tree.

It is a piece of Key West history and a piece of literary history.

And it's been a lot of fun to make.

It surprises some people to realize that, we are super big tree lovers.

We do not advocate for taking down any trees unless they are a danger because of lean or rot damage.

But if that tree has to come down, we wanna be the ones to get in there and take that log.

And we let it dry out for about a year, year and a half.

He slices it into slabs.

We've got wood dry everywhere, all over the wood shop but also all over our house, at home.

We probably have six or seven piles of wood just drying out right now.

Rather than watching these gorgeous pieces of wood go to waste, we now get to let them live on.

And, it's a really exciting part of the job.

Cassidy and I, both have been extremely lucky throughout this entire pandemic.

We've decided that, we really want to start using our businesses for good and giving back more than we've been able to in the past.

So we recently linked up with One Tree Planted, which is an organization that will, for every donation will plant a tree in your honor.

So we've decided that for every single piece that we sell at Washed Up, we're gonna have a tree planted.

December, was the first month that we actually got to do it.

And we planted 78 trees.

(upbeat music) We wanted to be able to start a collective and just keep giving homes to more and more artists.

So Debbie Fritts, Kassidy's mom, is Key West Island Art.

Debbie, has done a lot of these really cool con homes will show.

Ride around Key West and find really, funky looking houses and then create miniatures of them.

Kelly Raspa, is Concrete Ship Mercantile.

And she does a lot of macrame and fiber art.

She makes these really gorgeous unique earrings.

Gorgeous macrame.

And what we would like to say is like more modern macrame.

Nick Soto, from Made by Soto is a fine gold and silver jeweler.

He's actually one of the only jewelers down here keeping alive the tradition of Cuban hoops, which is, you know, the mixture of gold and white gold and like very intricate designs.

(upbeat music) A couple years ago at our old wood shop Cassidy had a 20 foot fence and he's always wanted to put up art walls to let artists come and do whatever they wanted.

Just have fun.

And if you walk around the shop, you'll see a lot of those walls that we had that kind of got us started.

What we hope to do for these artists is to give them a canvas to show off their skills so that other businesses around town that are looking for an artist to come to a mural will now see an example of their work.

Our goal is to create the Stock Island Art District.

Stock Island is more than just where the shrimpers and the fishermen take their boats out.

It's an artistic, very creative, beautiful, thriving business community.

- Learn more about how Fritts, creatively honors the history of trees and gives them new life, at the website washedupkeywest.com.

Back here in Milwaukee, we visit a century old print shop that is still in business.

Bay View Printing Company, continues to celebrate the process of ink and paper, while building community.

Author, Artist and Owner, Ashley Towne, explains her draw to this art form to Milwaukee, PBS Producers, Scottie Lee Myers.

- Let's pause for a minute, to think about words like we used to.

To remember a time when they meant so very much.

Before 140 characters dictated the volume of our thoughts.

Before texting and email replaced love letters.

(machine clicking) - Sweet.

- Let's go back to a time when we took great care of our words, when language was an art form.

(machine clicking) We are sitting in 101 year old letter press print shop.

That has always been a print shop, historically.

(gentle upbeat music) Basically I was teaching at MIAD full time but as an adjunct instructor and going to grad school in Chicago.

And in grad school, I actually focused on writing.

I ended up writing a book.

And then doing a lot of the like visual stuff that went with the book at MIAD.

So every time I printed out these digital prints it was like super flat and glossy.

And just wasn't like, it didn't feel, it needed to have a feel.

it needed to like, feel gritty.

- Yes.

- And so I was sitting at MIAD like looking at these prints sort of dejected.

And one of my colleagues was like, you know there's this old dude that has a letter press shop in Bay View.

Like you should find that guy.

So I met Jim and I kind of like sort of quickly told him what I was doing.

I really want to letter press print that or like print.

It needs to like, feel it, like, I didn't know the terms.

He basically kind of in a really nice way was like, you're crazy.

Like nobody does that anymore.

You don't know how to do that.

So he brought me down to the basement like down those stairs and we walked around this corner and I just like I couldn't believe what was here, like the all of the presses and all of the type and the machinery.

It was like walking into a different century.

I was like doing freelance design on the side and then coming to the shop and hanging out with Jim every day.

And I would say it was probably like a couple of months into that relationship where perhaps he realized like she is legitimately committed.

Like she keeps showing up here every day.

Pregnant, all sorts of pregnant.

(laughing) Taking naps on the floor and then like learning how to offset print.

And he sort of casually kind of one day said, gosh I really wanna retire, but nobody wants all this junk.

And it just like I very much believe in universal stars aligning.

And it just really seemed like this is what is supposed to happen right now.

Like, this is what I'm supposed to do.

So I said, husband.

I think we should buy this business.

- Would you stay?

- I love it.

- When I first bought the shop, Jim was still here like every day and I really didn't change anything for the first like six months to a year.

I kept operating his business, basically.

And then trying to introduce my little things along the way.

We have three sort of buckets.

One is classes and workshops.

The second is commercial design and printing.

And then the third bucket is another sort of community focus, which is the print Co-op.

I think when I first started the shop, I knew that I wanted to teach classes.

I feel like I've always entered into so many creative spaces, like another print co-op or like any sort of artist space.

And I am immediately intimidated.

Even like, as a designer or as an artist.

And I hate that feeling of like walking in somewhere and feeling like you don't belong.

Roll right on the surface at the tape - Which way, this way?

- It doesn't matter.

(machine clicking) Here we go, consistency, consistency.

- You doing great.

- Oh Gorgeous.

- So drink and ink started because it was like, well.

One, if we say drinking like everyone in Milwaukee will be interested.

So people come once a week, bring their own beers.

And we sort of like, cheers and then go over the talk about wood type.

And like, this is our collection and this is, you know what you can do.

And then everyone designs their own poster.

- So I usually don't recommend that.

- Okay.

- The first few classes are so where you get like, a room full of strangers and you give them a specific like design problem.

And then you see these folks that maybe didn't know each other before, like kind of problem solve together and like make artwork together.

And it's sort of magical.

I got to see like tiny communities coming together all the time, like in our space.

- You will go all the way to the end.

Yeah.

Oh, I like it.

- Oh, yay.

- Cool.

- This looks awesome.

I think typography is like visible language and that's probably why I love it so much.

So to be able to see that form is an actual three-dimensional form is totally different than seeing language on a screen.

I think for me, the love of typography is about like the beauty of letter forms.

But the love of printing is kind of about the production.

Like the work, the process, the magic of the press is it's definitely the sound while it's running.

(machine running) There's a rhythm to your body the way that you're moving, when you're printing there's the physicality that's like involved in printing.

- Awesome.

- I do kind of wonder a lot, actually if I'll be the last person to own baby printing and no one ever talks about that, cause it's sort of sad, maybe.

I wonder a lot, like, is there really like enough interest in something like this to keep a business going for long enough that in 30 years I can sell it to someone or I kind of feel like probably not.

- Thank you for watching I'm Sandy Maxx and please join us the first Thursday of every month for a half hour full of art on the arts page.