- [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

(jazzy "Applause" theme music) - [Kabir] Coming up, vintage car aficionados find comradery in Summit County, plus meet an artistic transplant from Lebanon celebrating his heritage as a printmaker in Cleveland and Franz Welser-Most and the Cleveland Orchestra decorate Severance with a colorful composition from the 1920's.

Hello one and all, thanks for joining us for this edition of "Applause", I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(jazzy music continues) The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum grew from a small personal collection started in the 1930's to the centerpiece of the Western Reserve Historical Society.

For the past 20 years, a group of dedicated volunteers has maintained the museum's fleet at a facility in Summit County, making old cars new again while also making memories.

(serene vintage music) - Worked for Lubrizol and I worked for 35 years there and retired in 2009 and this is my retirement job.

I'm the volunteer coordinator, so I kinda keep track of people's names, addresses, phone numbers, making sure we stay in touch with people.

We've got elderly people here and some of the people we have to check on from time to time, make sure they're okay.

You don't have to have a lot of experience but it always helps and we've got a lot of people that may not be engineers and that kinda stuff, but they have a love for cars.

We just, we need people who know what they're doing, who are willing to learn.

(serene vintage music continues) - I'm a retired rabbi and a part-time student in the Auto Tech program at Cuyahoga Community College.

I began helping out here at the Crawford as part of my college internship.

The vast majority of my classmates, who are admittedly somewhat younger than I am, are taking work as interns in auto shops or in auto dealerships where they're hoping to make careers.

Because my interests and needs are a little bit different, Tri-C and Crawford were so wonderful in figuring out a way for me to do my college internship here at Crawford, so I'm really learning, not only the basics of automobiles, but also how these cars are cared for, how they work, how the automobiles were developed and the history of the automobiles as well as the equipment that went into them.

(upbeat vintage music) - My name is Larry Davis, I'm the Collection Manager of the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum.

Mr. Crawford started his collection in 1943, so he had his own facility that basically, when he was looking to retire that facility, the collection, (metal clanging) the core group of our collection, he donated them to us.

So, we now have approximately 50 cars were in the original group of automobiles and we now have almost 200, and that's just automobiles, and then we have aircraft and we have motorcycles and we have a ship, a boat, we have parts for the Goodyear Blimp.

This is our restoration and preservation facility for the Crawford.

(upbeat music continues) So, it's 60,000 square feet, it's really a great blessing for us, a lot of museums do not have a facility like this and we're able to work on our vehicles.

We have the equipment you would find in a normal repair shop, we have a machine shop, we have a weld shop.

Our job here is to basically make the cars safe, able to drive, we take 'em to shows, we take 'em out to different programs.

So, we have 30 vehicles that are over a hundred years old all the way up to things like this '69 Camaro right here.

I have approximately 52 volunteers who work for us of various backgrounds.

I believe I have 12 degreed engineers that work for me.

I have two dentists, I have multiple skilled trades guys, salesmen, executives from big companies in the Cleveland, Northeast Ohio area, almost all of them are car guys.

We get together once or twice a week, We take care of our vehicles, we preserve them, restore them if, you know, we've been given vehicles that need work.

(upbeat vintage music continues) (lively orchestra music) - I'm a lifelong car restorer and collector, so it became a nice retirement job.

Well, number one, it interested me, the vehicle itself, I have recollections of these vehicles from out at Glacier and Yellowstone, and as a young man, I remember seeing this in the museum.

We always have a couple fire extinguishers ready to go (starter revving) (engine rumbling) (lively music continues) but now it runs pretty well.

- Prior to that I started volunteering, I was a dentist, practiced for 45 years and was always interested in automobiles.

Just a great place to volunteer, they'll let you do just about anything that you're interested in doing, but most of the people here know what their limits are and there's always somebody up here that knows something that you don't know.

You get into a problem, you ask somebody and they all have ideas and between maybe six or eight guys, one guy's right outta the bunch and the trick is to figure out who it is before you break something.

(all laughing) (lively music continues) - It just keeps me busy, it keeps my mind going, it keeps me active.

I love the guys that I'm working with.

They're just, they're tremendous, they're just, the variety of talent that's here and the experiences they've had and especially when you talk to people that have been here long enough to know that "Oh yeah, I remember when we took that car to that show."

(car horn wheezing) (lively music continues) - And it has been wonderful to develop a group of friends who not only are teaching me and have wonderful patience with me, but there's a sense of comradery, a devotion not just to the cars, but to the mission of Crawford that is here among the volunteers.

- Well, I think what I enjoy about it is the other fellows that are here that have similar interests.

The fact that I get to, for a change, (lively music continues) restore a car that I don't have to pay for the parts, that would be a good thing.

(laughing) For me, it's just the joy of getting to be a part of putting some of these things back to life.

- One of our best asset is the group of people that we have put together.

As you can imagine, I have grown extremely close to a lot of them.

You know, my father is 75 years old, a lot of these men here are like my dad.

They're, I, they call me to make sure I'm okay, I make sure they're okay, I love, and I think they love, that they come up here and, you know, there's no shortage of carbohydrates, (laughing) so the donuts come, coffee flows, everyone gets along, they have a great time.

We haven't really came across anything that we haven't been able to handle yet, so I'm very blessed (lively music continues) and very thankful to have them.

(quiet guitar music) - [Kabir] We take you now to the Queen City to check out the colorful creations of quilter, Cynthia Lockhart.

Recently the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati turned its spotlight on her work in the exhibit "Journey To Freedom".

(upbeat guitar music) - Ellen and Anne from The Taft called me up one day and said, "We'd be interested in coming over to look at your artwork, The Taft is interested in you."

So, I prepared the visit for them, they came by, they looked at my artwork in the house, visited my studio and then probably about a month later I get a call and with an invitation to do a show.

Obviously, the title of the show and the design and depicting of the show was up to me to come up with, and so that journey to be associated with The Taft started.

"Journey To Freedom" is a quilt that I did years ago but it's really at the heart of a story that I believe in.

I believe in a story of people who were slaves, of people who were brought to this country, unbeknownst to what would happen to them, left their history, came here and over a series of 400 years became a vibrant and exciting part of this America.

Within my work I build a story.

I research the project, I read up on, I will look up the history of it and read several adaptations books and what have you, maybe even look at a movie and then I start putting that together in terms of sketching, and so I come up with the images that resonate in me that are strong, that are powerful and I get a nudge and it's like, "Okay, this is what you do, this is what you put together", and I begin to put the colors together for the mood that I'm creating within the artwork and I will either make the fabric, I've done something called fabrication where I'm literally putting tiny little pieces, bits and pieces like a collage to create a very dynamic look, or I will dye the fabric or I'll do symbols and I'll silk screen, as well.

(drill whirring) (upbeat music continues) I'm so impressed with the story that The Taft has with Robert Duncanson.

I'm very proud of the history of The Taft of being able to embrace an African-American artist and also being involved in abolitionist movement and the integrity of The Taft to still continue to have a program in place that will support the African-American community with their Duncanson.

Again, I had to research the Duncanson murals and you have to select a piece of art in The Taft and I looked vigorously for many things, and I was attracted to many things, but you had to narrow it down, so in looking at Duncanson's work, he does a phenomenal depiction of this environment that just looks like a place that you want to be, that you could just walk into this place, and so that's critical for an artist, that the viewer, actually, can feel that, and then he did something very whimsical, was to put a trompe l'oeil frame around the artwork and I thought that resonated with me, that's sort of playing tricks with things.

I can be a trickster with my artwork, so I said, "With that whimsy and with those beautiful color muted tones that he used, I could work with that", so what I decided when I started sketching was, is that I, in his, in Duncanson's murals, I found an area where I felt a slave could have passed through one of his murals, therefore I decided to have a runaway slave passing through the image of the inspiration of the Duncanson.

♪ Swing low ♪ ♪ Sweet chariot ♪ - The title of this, "Runaway: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", which is an African-American hymn, which depicts and guides the travelers to freedom, so it was a song that was invented to give them instructions of where they would go to seek freedom, and so with that, then I said, "Okay, now I have to come up with some type of whimsy and some type of flight", and I did that by using a figure that almost was like a camouflage figure that is escaping through the fields, and again, above him, there are the three faces that are singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot".

I also created some orbs.

So, the orb structures are just the round circles that you see in the work, are representative of travelers, representative of people who are no longer with us, but it's a way to remember them, the circles.

So, inside the circle is always a prayer, it's always an aspiration and so the orbs surround the slave as the slave runs towards freedom.

What's always in my work is the attitude of hope and joy and unlimited possibilities of being able to be free and to be yourself.

Freedom is a very precious thing and as a part of the show I said, "Whoa, I took on a big task.

This is my perspective about freedom, journey to freedom depicted through my ancestors.

What does everybody else feel about freedom?"

and I, lots of writing, talking about freedom, lots of writing and then it dawned on me that, "What do people think about freedom?"

It's a huge subject, it's one of the most important subjects that we have, our individual rights as human beings to be free, to be treated free and equally.

♪ Swing low, sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming for to carry me home ♪ (upbeat music) - [Kabir] Photographer Ruddy Roye recently moved his home base from New York City to Northeast Ohio.

- Cleveland afforded me a space that made me feel like I was a photographer again.

- [Kabir] See Cleveland through Roye's camera lens on the next round of "Applause", plus Akron band Easton Union (country rock music) kicks it into high gear with a countrified rocker.

All that and more on the next round of "Applause".

(country rock music continues) Shadi Ayoub pours his heritage (upbeat music) into making prints that spell out Arabic words.

See how the Lebanon native is settling into Cleveland's creative space.

- I was born in Cleveland, but I grew up in Beirut, Lebanon.

My family owned a print shop and that's how I got into it.

After my dad passed, I was taking care of the business, this is how I got interested in all these beautiful machines and got better at knowing how to run them and manage these presses.

(printing press whirring) Hi, my name is Shadi Ayoub and I'm the owner and founder of the 961 Collective.

Most projects are made on these beautiful old machines using traditional processes in order to produce stationary, wedding invitations, business cards.

I'm also a paper maker and use most of the trimmings that come out of other projects in order to make more paper.

(water splashing) (upbeat music continues) Once you're done building up your post with the quantity that you need, you lay the last felt on there.

(press clanking) (upbeat music continues) The goal is to squeeze as much of the water out as you can.

After the sheets are blotted and the moisture is taken out of them, they're put in a dry box and the dry box will cycle air through overnight.

The next morning you'll have your sheets of paper all ready and dried and good to go.

We're going to print on these a wedding invitation.

(metal clicking) (upbeat music continues) (switch thumping) (power humming) When I first got to Cleveland, I wasn't sure what to do and all I knew was print and I knew that I loved doing print and I wanna keep doing that.

I didn't have any presses but I wanted to explore the community and learn about other artists within this community and it was very helpful going to local art nonprofits.

That's how I started to build the community and have friends that are doing the same thing as me.

(upbeat music continues) I weigh out my sheet of paper and zero out the scale and then I will add my components.

Once those are all measured out, I will add them to this ink mixing slab and this will give you a good idea of the color that you'll expect on press.

So, this is an aluminum base and then I have made this plate of the invite that we're going to be printing.

Once the plate is made, you apply double tape adhesive on that and tape it onto this aluminum base.

It squeezes everything out within this chase so that it all becomes one unit that you can carry into the press.

When I moved here I had no access to my Arabic type that was back in Lebanon, so I resorted to using dingbat borders which are usually used for ornaments and I set 'em up in certain ways to spell out Arabic words and that's how I created some Arabic prints.

(press humming) (upbeat music continues) - [Kabir] Meet more entrepreneurs making it in Northeast Ohio online at ideastream.org.

Along the Muskingum River in Central Ohio sits the city of Zanesville (lively orchestra music) where artists are invigorating this historic town.

One of them is fiber artist Susan Stubbins whose studio can be found in the city's Art Loft.

(cheerful music) (paper ripping) (brush rustling) - Actually, I am starting to build up layers.

I had this piece of wax paper (paper rustling) that had paint on it and I laid it on here and I thought it looked pretty cool.

(paper rustling) (cheerful music continues) You can still see some of the underpainting through this and I really like the fact that layers are still visible through the different pieces of paper.

I like organic edges (paper ripping) for something like this.

(brush rustling) I'll sit and let them sit and look at 'em for a while and then make other decisions.

I have a color palette that I really like.

(upbeat music) Those are blue and orangy-browns and I tend to work with those colors a lot.

I don't always stick with 'em, sometimes there's something that, a piece of paper or something that leans toward another color direction.

(brush rustling) (upbeat music continues) I like texture, I like the layers, I like incorporating transparent and translucent things together.

(paper rustling) I got that in Venice.

If you look around, there's all kinds of amazing paper, some of it has designs, textures.

I like to pull things out of, maybe the trash (laughing) or whatever and repurpose them into something.

But all these were from the teabag.

Teabag.

This has a lot of colored pencil on it, it sat on my desk and I just started kinda doodling.

This was out of an advertisement, several advertisements, and we had been on a trip someplace.

Some of it has tissue paper but acrylic paint, sometimes I pull things out because of the color, sometimes the texture, sometimes just the shape.

There are several of them, I just used maps out of an atlas and started building.

I would put color on it, I would, I had some photographs that I had taken and I cut those photographs up and incorporated pieces of the photographs.

The quote, "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step".

A lot of times I incorporate quotes and the quotes add a different, they pull in another aura, maybe.

(brush tapping) (water splashing) I have other projects that I've started, the quilts up here, (downbeat music) and this is an example of one of the vintage collars.

During the pandemic it was very meditative to just sit and hand sew.

You are not really worrying about tomorrow, you're not really worrying about yesterday but you're just focusing on what you're doing with your hands, your mind, your motions.

These pieces were from a series I did a number of years ago and they are shoulder pads that I embellished with beads and buttons, and this one I titled "Eve".

In all of these pieces I added fishing weights and they're shoulder pads, so that kind of represents the weight women have on their shoulders.

(upbeat music) There's quite a community of artists here and that's been really especially nice for me because not being from Zanesville, but there's incredible generosity and creative energy that's really nice to share.

(upbeat music continues) - [Kabir] And now for a little classical music.

The Cleveland Orchestra's Franz Welser-Most recently led the musicians (classical music) in Arnold Schoenberg's "Variations for Orchestra".

Written in the late '20's, the piece utilizes all the orchestra's players.

(pensive classical orchestra music) (dramatic classical orchestra music) (pensive classical orchestra music) (pensive classical orchestra music continues) (pensive classical orchestra music continues) (pensive classical orchestra music continues) For more of this and many other performances by the Cleveland Orchestra, visit the Adella app and for more of "Applause", visit the PBS app where you can find each and every edition of this season and beyond.

(classical music continues) You guys are the best, thanks for taking the time to watch.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia hoping you join us for another round of "Applause".

(dramatic classical orchestra music) (dramatic classical orchestra music continues) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by the John P. Murphy Foundation, the Kulas Foundation and by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.