(peaceful music) - [Narrator] Browse the menu of Culinary Delights by Abby Kenny.

Hear from Voice Actor Nicole DamaPoleto Scott, and catch a performance from Dr. Ja and the Love Prophets.

It's all ahead on this episode of AHA.

- [Narrator] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chad and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fisher Malesardi, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M & T Bank we understand that the vitality of our community is crucial to our continued success.

That is why we take an active role in our community.

M & T is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Matt Rogowicz and this is "Aha A House for Arts," a place for all things creative.c Abby Kenney is a talented artist currently based at the shirt factory in Kingston.

Her paintings are succulent, tantalizing, delicious, and seductive.

I'm warning you it's best not to watch this segment on an empty stomach.

(peaceful music) - I make paintings of food and still lives using a variety of sources.

Some of them are pictures I take or recipe cards and other archival materials.

Each part of a painting or object is gonna be painted a little bit differently than the one next to it across a single surface.

So I'm kind of sitting down and really thinking, how can I best replicate each individual item or piece of food or text to kind of feel most like its actual object.

When I was in my first undergrad college painting class, I was a disaster.

The teacher kept coming over and she was like, you don't how to use brushes.

You don't know how to mix paint.

And I was just sitting there going, you know what?

I have no idea how to use a brush.

This is the wrong brush.

That's the wrong brush.

What's the right brush?

So, no, it took so much practice and just coming to studio every day and doing it again and again and again.

And then from that I did start painting wine bottles and I got, I had a studio visit that was like, you just need to narrow down what you're making to figure out how you wanna make paintings.

And so I found that really helpful and that was kind of that phase in my mind.

I think it was like me teaching myself how I wanna paint.

I started painting more food when I was living in Toronto.

It was during COV and I would go to the St. Lawrence Market, which is a huge, beautiful historic marketplace.

So it was just like kind of me grocery shopping and cooking and painting all day.

I also have celiac disease, so I have to be really on top of what I'm eating, where I'm getting my food because of that illuminated to me how much, wow, like food is just a central cultural basis.

So I see now how this is translating like culture and friendship and history in ways that kind of become more evident when you can't participate.

And then my grandmother gave me all her recipes before she passed.

So kind of thinking about ways we hand down knowledge and information and those kind of like led me into painting food as more of a stand in for these kind of bigger ideas.

So I'd always been kind of struggling, but like, how do I want to paint?

Like what is my touch in a painting?

What does that look like?

Oil paint was not the thing for me.

It's just you can't customize it to the same level and layer it in the same way that I like to.

It's a lot more tedious.

It takes time.

I found out you could make acrylic paint super easily.

And so now I make all of my own acrylics.

I use a lot of different additives and kind of bring in a lot of stuff.

I always work from an image.

Usually I will set up like a scene, I'll photograph it myself and then I usually collage those in Photoshop.

And then the other route is I will source images, finding recipe cards, my grandmother's recipes, stuff like that.

I have a painting, it's a giant kind of like corned beef dinner.

And there's a a girl in a field on a farm on the bottom.

And so kind of using juxtapositions to create narrative between the two and thinking about kind of the implications of the different images together.

So those two basic ways I start to make images.

Step two is drawing.

And drawing for me includes a lot of writing.

My process of writing includes like finding the back to the front and kind of like the layering to be strategic in the painting.

Like scrape four layers of paint and six colors and then sand it down and then wash it.

So that's kind of the planning phase.

And then I get to the painting phase.

I spend so much time mixing paint and slowly growing and layering the surfaces.

And I do have to kinda reevaluate as I go quite a lot.

Some paintings will happen quickly, which is like a month.

And then some take longer, which is more like six months.

But it's kind of a lot of back and forth.

I usually have somewhere between four and eight paintings going at any given time.

(bouncy music) I'm excited about the newer work I've been making with a lot of kind of like layering images and collaging them over each other.

I have a lobster painting I'm pretty excited about because the kind of like background image is really, really dense.

There's a lot of depth to it and texture.

I'm excited about that kind of layering where the background is maybe thicker than the foreground.

I have to come to the studio and work like I become a very frustrated, I am a like disorganized person when I don't get to make things.

If I'm proud of myself is a weird question.

I'm excited about what I'm making and I'm excited to continue making things.

So I think that's as close as I can properly say I come.

I think it's like artists are so self-deprecating a lot of the time.

It's challenging, but I find art exciting.

Painting makes me happy whether I'm making or or looking at it.

(upbeat music) - Nicole DamaPoleto always wanted to be a voice actor.

And five years ago, COVID gave her the perfect opportunity to start.

Jade Warrick sat down with Nicole to learn how she made her dream a reality and to get some voice acting tips.

- Welcome Nicole.

Welcome to House for Arts.

- Thank you for having me.

Honored to be here.

- Yeah, I'm honored to have you here.

So what is your origin story with voice acting like?

How did you get into this field?

- So I've loved it since I was a little girl and it started with, I grew up with my grandparents and my mom and my grandpa would always listen to Louis Armstrong and I would like mimic it for him.

I'd be like, it don't mean nothing.

And he would laugh and I was like, oh, this is really fun.

I love this.

And in elementary school they did a performance outside and they let me be the voice of the color green.

And I just, I loved it.

It's so fun and it's very versatile.

And during the pandemic, like everyone, I reflected on life and I went for it.

I just sought out community and found classes and folks from all over the country and I jumped in.

It's very fun.

- That's all that, that was a big thing during COVID.

I've noticed, it was actually ironically a growing spurt for a lot of artists because we had nothing to do but focus on our art.

So that's a beautiful, beautiful origin story.

So in your opinion, what makes a great voice actor and why is diversity and authenticity important to this field?

- Two very good questions.

- Right?

- A good voice actor has to be disciplined because many times, like other artists, you're isolated.

I think that many people like myself, when I jumped in and was like, you're gonna be going to a studio.

But I've heard of voice actors being like, oh, I'm in a hotel under a laundry basket, trying to get an audition in right now while on vacation with my family.

So you have to be able to keep to it.

There's a lot of auditions and a lot of rejection.

So there's discipline, but also being coachable because you're gonna get a lot of feedback and if you can't necessarily take that feedback, it's not, it's gonna hurt you from growing.

And then you asked about diversity- - And authenticity.

Like why is that important to the field?

- Oh, oh my goodness.

I'll say that a lot of people have not been able to tell their stories And they should get to voice their stories.

They should get to voice someone who's truly there.

And many times in the past, even with the best of intentions, if someone is voicing someone who's not their culture, their identity, it can come across as with stereotypes and mockery and doesn't make people feel good.

But even with the best of intentions.

But it's really important for people to be able to tell their own story and for people who have that identity to share it.

Because also a thing of voiceover is they want you to be yourself, speak as yourself.

You're not speaking as someone else.

Sometimes, I mean, depending if you're doing medical narration or something or you're talking as like it over, but you should be speaking with your natural tone because many times they're gonna ask, can you do this for three hours?

Can you talk in a graded voice for three hours?

Can you talk like this for three hours?

You have to be able to be consistent.

So if it's not you, authenticity, it's gonna waver.

- It's gonna waver.

- Yeah.

- And I like how you mentioned, you said, I think voiceover is medical.

So what are all the, I don't know if a lot of people understand how broad voice acting is.

You know, when I think of voice acting, I think of things that I, I play games and I watch cartoons, but there are so many varying, I guess, fields and I guess a spectrum.

So what are some, like, I guess, could you explain that to us a little bit?

Like what is the spectrum of voice acting?

- Oh my goodness.

When I learned how much you could do, I realized that's why people are so welcoming in the voiceover community because there's a space for everybody.

- Mm.

- If you're interested in romance books, you can go down that lane.

If you are interested in accessibility or you have a disability background, you could do audio description for movies, you have a medical background, you could do medical narration and training videos.

I mean, think about in your daily life when you hear voiceover in the car, public transportation, at work.

I mean, I mean ultimately, you know, you want to get to the cartoons, that's really fun, the movie stuff.

But there's so many different routes that people can take in voiceover.

I mean, besides any kind of book, but podcasting, this and that.

It's just, it's very rich in opportunities for people.

And I had no idea.

- Yeah.

- Very cool.

- That is awesome.

- Yeah.

- So I know voice acting is very similar to traditional acting.

Lots of auditions, lots of rejections.

Lots of auditions.

Lots of rejections.

- Yes.

- It can be kind of a whirly, doorly kind of art field.

So how do you get yourself through those challenges and some of the stressors that come with that?

Because it has to be challenging.

- Yeah, I've actually, that's interesting you say that 'cause I feel like I'm in a, not to say a break right now, but like you do get a lot of nos, before you get a yes, you just gotta keep going.

Because many times waste actors will be like, oh, I've been in this for 10 years and I just got a video, my first video game.

- Wow.

- Like a major video game.

I mean, there are smaller studios and whatnot and lots of opportunities, but it's an investment financially and it's investment of your time and creativeness.

So you have to fill your own cup.

You have to stay disciplined to yourself.

And many times you'll be like, am I actually a voice actor if I'm not landing things?

But think about the actors that you know, that they're not necessarily in a movie, but they're still an actor.

- Yeah.

- You're not necessarily in a play right now, but you're still an actor.

And you have to remind yourself that, yes, no, I'm not the voice of Cheerios.

No, I'm not the voice of A, B, and C, but I'm still a voice actor.

I can still share.

- Yes.

Oh, that's beautiful.

I love that.

Now here's the controversial statement.

- Okay, here we go.

- Ai, I know artists either hate AI or they love ai.

There's usually, I've not really heard an in between.

So what are your thoughts on AI and its impact on the voice acting community?

And is it a negative and why?

- Ai, I mean, it's going to be a part of our lives forever.

I mean it's, I don't think I realize that AI's been a part of my life.

I use Siri all the time.

- That's true.

- And I've used AI to edit materials at work, like from my communications job.

But you don't have any rights as an American to your voice and your likeness.

- Mm.

- And so there's an association called the National Association of Voice Actors Nava, that's working to fight that the no fakes act.

But for me it's, it's really tough because I saw all those cool AI pictures that people did of their profile pictures.

I was like, this is really cool.

But I also have a lot of friends who are artists who would love those commissions, who would love to support.

So I couldn't do it because I was like, why would I pay when I could pay someone else who's working on this?

And I've seen other colleagues like use fake voices and I'm like, I could help you.

Is it really gonna convey the actual emotion that you want?

- Yeah.

- No, and I mean, I personally, I don't want AI voices used and I don't want, because my name and my likeness is used.

I don't want someone to put a couple of my videos into some kind of software and then mimic my voice to say things.

- Yeah.

- It's just very dangerous and scary.

But I know it's gonna be a part of our lives - In the interview, I wanna ask you, what is the most rewarding part of your voice artist journey so far?

What brings you the joy the most about this?

- Honoring little me.

- Yeah.

- Little me loved voice acting and loved pretend and didn't have a lot of opportunities.

I grew up in like a very small town and I feel like I'm honoring her and things she enjoyed because I work for a nonprofit and it's great and I'm passionate about it, but I feel like this is fun.

And also honoring those, the questions of what do you wanna be when you grow up?

What could you be if you, you couldn't fail.

And it's fun.

- Yeah.

- Like I found a lot of joy in doing this, 'cause you can try different things and if it doesn't make it, it doesn't make it, but you tried something different, you can try on a new personality or a new voice, it's a really fun thing.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

That's awesome Nicole.

Well thank you for joining us today.

I hope folks can learn more about this beautiful art form of voice acting.

And thank you again for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- Please welcome Dr. Jah and the Love Prophets (upbeat music) ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Loving, that's my goal ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Coming from my soul ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Don't you know it's it ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Time has come to speak your mind ♪ ♪ Speak your mind ♪ ♪ Time has come for me to sing my song ♪ ♪ Sing it right now, sing it all day long ♪ ♪ You can see it's a piece of my heart ♪ ♪ To be real now ♪ ♪ It's got to be a piece of my heart ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Loving is my goal ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Coming from my soul ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Don't you know it's it ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Time has come to speak your mind ♪ ♪ Speak your mind ♪ ♪ Truly I speak now with the voice from within ♪ ♪ What will be or all of what has been ♪ ♪ Slice of my soul shining right on through ♪ ♪ Simple gift now all from me to you ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Loving is my goal ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Coming from my soul ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Don't you know it's it ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Time has come to speak your mind ♪ ♪ Speak your mind ♪ (funky music) (funky music continues) (funky music continues) ♪ So I bring it fresh and unique ♪ ♪ The song I sing, all the words I speak ♪ ♪ All I love and I know to be true ♪ ♪ Simple gift now, all from me to you ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Loving is my goal ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Loving is my goal ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ Don't you know it's it ♪ ♪ Freedom rising now ♪ ♪ It's time to speak your mind ♪ ♪ Speak your mind ♪ ♪ Speak your mind ♪ ♪ Speak your mind ♪ (bouncy music) ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Whoa, whoa, yeah ♪ ♪ Whoa, whoa, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ ♪ It's the up in sky ♪ ♪ Sitting on the steps on the Hudson River ♪ ♪ Crossing the dune ways and turnpikes ♪ ♪ Lovely place to smoke some ganja ♪ ♪ And dream of old summer nights ♪ (bouncy music continues) (bouncy music continues) (bouncy music continues) ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, oh yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ ♪ Some people come here for the schooling ♪ ♪ Others think they're sent here for the ruling ♪ ♪ I think we're sent here to send our love ♪ ♪ And so please turn around and share some moving ♪ (bouncy music continues).

(bouncy music continues) (bouncy music continues) ♪ Yeah yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Jah Jah says woo ♪ ♪ Jah says woo ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ ♪ Up in the sky ♪ ♪ Sitting on the step of the Capital Building ♪ ♪ Smoking a big fat joint ♪ ♪ I wonder if the trouble is watching ♪ ♪ Well maybe she'll come join ♪ ♪ Woo ♪ (upbeat music) - Thanks for joining us.

For more arts, visit wmht.org/aha and be sure to connect with us on social.

I'm Matt Rogowicz.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music continues) - [Narrator] Funding for AHA has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chad and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fisher Malesardi, and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M & T Bank we understand that the vitality of our community is crucial to our continued success.

That is why we take an active role in our community.

M & T is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.