(upbeat ambient music) - Next on "you oghta know".

We've got the scoop on the much anticipated solar eclipse next week.

Spinning records and steeping tea, a Mount Airy man combines the two into a business.

Plus refocused artists help to bring life to empty storefronts and beautify the city.

Welcome to the show, I'm Shirley Min.

In observance of Women's History Month, we've given you an in-depth look at the relaunch of a groundbreaking Philadelphia exhibit on feminism.

Refocus encompasses works from artists around the region, and this week you'll beat six artists whose art fronts are bringing vitality to lifeless spaces.

(upbeat ambient music) - The Art Front Partnership is a public art project and it's a partnership between business and the arts community in which artists are commissioned to transform empty storefronts into illuminated exciting art spaces, which we call art fronts.

These five women specifically were chosen because of their concepts, which relate to feminism.

- I was asked to participate in this project and design something site specific for this storefront, it's an empty storefront.

The name of this piece is polarity.

It's really about the divine feminine and about the dualities that exist within the universe, chaos and control or life and death.

The divine feminine, giving life and birth and healing to chaos and dysfunction in the world.

I love the kind of drama around dressing up in character.

The hairstyles kind of look like anime female warriors, and I wanted them to be very kind of fierce and fun.

I didn't want this to be too serious a piece, I wanted it to be playful, but at the same time, speaking to very serious concepts around femininity.

- One of the things I really enjoy about having art in a public space is that there's a lot of people that aren't going to go into an art gallery or a museum.

And these are people that I would like to reach with my art.

I like the idea of Helmer's Odyssey and the story of the sirens that Lord Ulysses.

They're an interesting metaphor for how earthly pleasures can seduce us, and that can be good or it can be dangerous.

I used pyramids because I thought they were a good symbol for equality.

We talk about women raising to the top, and so a pyramid expresses that idea for me.

(upbeat ambient music) - The installation's name is "Inside Out" and it has a lot to do with public and private space and trying to converge them on the street.

I decided to choose a hand standing for the idea of pillars of strength, painting it silver and aging it was also the idea of lineage and women who worked with their hands.

The pieces are more like monuments, and then I embellish them with adornments that have some kind of sense of jewel, except they're made out of window screen wire and aquarium tubing.

So that also presents a paradox.

Identity today, we see it through the lens of multiplicity.

However, I think women stand strong and we also allow ourselves to have other personas and can dress for different occasions and fit in different environments.

So I wanted this piece to speak to a range.

- We are here at 27 North Third street Manufacturers National Bank at the site of Continuum, which is Meg Seligman's new installation for the "Refocus" exhibition.

The piece itself is about the juxtaposition between these feminine figures with the more masculine facade of the building.

These cycles of rebirth symbolized within the hologram as it breaks the two dimensional field.

This installation is unlike any that we've done before in that it's interacting with the outside world, with the exterior, which is really cool to be able to put our art from the interior and show it to the rest of the city.

(tranquil ambient music) - A lot of my artwork deals with women's bodies in relationship to the built environment.

And what do I mean by that?

It can be buildings, but it could also be fountains and other structures.

And immediately I got the vision, okay, I want to do something with the form called a caryatid.

Those are the female forms that take the place of structural columns in buildings.

The male figures are usually called either Telemans or Atlantas, and they're the ones that are struggling like this.

And what makes it different with the caryatids is they look like they're not exerting any effort, they're just standing there holding up buildings.

They're also sort of a symbol of life holding up the social structure.

And this type of wallpaper with all of the plants and all of the lushness is also a symbol of life, things blossom, they grow.

Caryatids a lot of times are almost invisible.

You see these women in the place of columns, combination of strength and grace.

But I hope people will think a little bit about what women do that's invisible and needs to be focused upon.

- Refocus exhibits can be seen around the city, here's how you can learn where to find them.

For some combining herbs to create the perfect blend of tea is an art form.

At Kraft Tea in Mount Airy, the owner carefully curates teas, art and music for a tasty blend.

(upbeat ambient music) (gong sounds) - The gong I find very symbolic.

I had a job that was sending me all over the world.

When I went to places like India and Japan and China, I would collect tea.

I got a blood clot, which you don't want to travel with, and that kind of turned my life upside down.

That's the the acupuncturist one I was talking about.

I'm not really a entrepreneur type, but when this all happened I was like, "Should I die tomorrow, I would want to go out on having started a business."

I got into kava kava before I got into anything, and that was my gateway into the world of tea.

It's like a powdery herb that I would prepare like a tea.

I liked it so much that I started collecting things that were similar to it, nerve tonics.

And at that point I was making blends to make music too.

I started having these tea and vinyl parties where I was inviting friends over into my basement and then putting on a record and making blends, and the combination was very warm and enriching.

It kind of intrigued me that I would be able to get my friends into tea that weren't already into it.

My business is called Craft Tea, in the very beginning, it was supposed to be like Craft Beer and instead of a beer, I would find an artist to make a cool artwork on a can of tea.

When my friend asked me to sell him tea, I had the cans that I was storing my herbs in.

I had just made a label around it.

My friend Billy, she helps me kind of establish what the cans looked like.

She did the first dozen tins, so all the artwork, she kind of set the tone and for years to come, people kind of emulated her style.

One of my favorite sleep records would be "Evening Star" by Fripp & Eno.

I couldn't tell you how that album ends 'cause it always put me to sleep.

So naturally when I was making a sleep tea, I knew what would pair with it.

(upbeat ambient music) On the back of the tin you have what's in it, what it's good for, what it tastes like, and what it feels like.

I give a little brewing recommendation.

And then I say a vinyl pairing.

So a record that fits the vibe of each tea.

With the tea, there's a vinyl pairing, there's a art, there's a catchy name, and then there's the tea blend itself.

I never know what's gonna come first.

So one cool thing about the tea business is working with different artists.

I hold a lot of the originals in the tea shop.

The vibe I'm trying to bring to tea is a non pretentious, relaxing way to hang out with friends or benefit yourself, whether it's a medicinal herbal tea.

I was able to experience a lot of really cool stuff in my traveling days and just wanted to kind of pay that forward to people in a way.

- With warmer weather comes thoughts of ways to improve your health and wellness, here today to talk about the upcoming My Health Means More in 2024 Conference in Delaware is Nicole Surratte, a holistic health and stress coach for women.

Nicole, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you for having me.

- Let's talk about your health journey and how it began.

- I've been on this journey quite a while, it started in high school when I became a vegetarian and started an interest in aerobics and sports and things of that nature, and just escalated from there.

- And then what made you start to take your journey more seriously?

- I was very surprised 13 years ago when I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Based on how I had been taking care of myself, I never drank, I never smoked, I exercised regularly, I ate properly, breast cancer.

It was again a surprise and then it was an advanced stage diagnosis at that.

So I really started to focus in and hone in on my health and how to become a better version of myself.

- Mm-hmm, and talk about a wake up call.

- Oh yes, yes.

And that's part of my mission as a stress and health coach for women is that I don't want other women to wait until they get a diagnosis of any type.

Those chronic health conditions shouldn't be the wake up calls that force us to pay more attention to our health and wellness practices.

- And I think sometimes when we say we're prioritizing health, we focus a lot on the physical, but the mental side of it is so important also.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

Our health is more than the physical.

We have to take into consideration, as you said, the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, occupational, all of that (Shirley laughing) because we're whole beings.

- Right, right, hormonal too.

(both laughing) That's a whole nother segment.

- I was about to say that.

- Well, let's talk about the My Health Means More in 2024 conference.

It takes place on Saturday, April 13th.

So tell us what's in store for that day.

- It is going to be an amazing day.

I chose April because April is stress awareness month.

It is a holistic wellness and self-care experience for women.

I want women to broaden how they think about their health, those different components that I mentioned.

So I'm bringing to the stage coaches with different specialties, a chronic illness, autoimmune disease coach, a gardening coach, a grief coach, a money coach, a nutrition coach, and I'm the stress coach, and I believe that stress is our modern day kryptonite that we combat through self-care.

So you don't know if something like yoga is a good fit for your self-care toolkit if you've never tried it.

So I'm bringing a yoga teacher, a Tai chi cha teacher, a sound healer, a meditation coach.

We're gonna have laughter therapy with an amazing comic, and my acupuncturist is not bringing needles but she's gonna teach us something on acupressure.

- Interesting.

And you really have all the bases covered, and what I love too is I think it's gonna help women understand more clearly what self-care means 'cause that can kind of this umbrella term where you don't really know what that means or looks like for you.

- Absolutely.

And what I want women to realize is that self-care is more than a hair appointment, a nail appointment.

Self-care needs to happen every day, even if it's just five minutes to go outside and inhale and exhale.

- Mm-hmm.

- We've gotta put ourselves first.

- What do you hope participants of the conference take away from it?

That they need to put themselves first?

- Put themselves first and I just want them to be inspired to make change.

Sometimes we can just be overwhelmed with the amount of change that we need to make that we hit that default button and we do nothing.

Just the little things, little lifestyle modifications can amount to big results.

- I love this Nicole, the conference sounds incredible.

Thank you so much for being here and much success to you.

- Thank you very much.

- Well, here's how you can learn more (upbeat ambient music) about My Health Means More in 2024.

Well, now to a story about an organization whose mission is to empower the next generation of leaders to ignite community-led change.

(tranquil ambient music) Here at the Academy of Palumbo is where folks from Philly BOLT meet.

BOLT stands for Build Our Lives Together.

Through the BOLT Youth Leaders Program, Philly High School students come together to identify the pressing issues facing their neighborhoods, and to learn how to take action so they can make a positive impact in their communities.

- I saw a lot of issues in my community and I didn't know how to go about change.

I want to change the way that people feel limited to use their voice, I want people to feel empowered to use their voice and that their voices are a tool that they have and they're able to make change in their community.

During the summer of 2023, I joined the BOLT Youth Leaders program and they taught me how to be a leader and how to like talk to people my age and empower them.

Through the project that I'm currently working on, I'm able to talk to students my age without the fear of judgment.

I wanna be able to cultivate a community where youth feel empowered and to remember that they're architects of tomorrow and that they're able to use their voice to find their passion and fight for what they believe is right.

- The Philly BOLT Youth Leadership Fellows program is a program where we meet with for 150 young people across the school district of Philadelphia where they learn about community organizing, the untold history of Philadelphia.

So the first half is skill building and really understanding the local ecosystem in their communities.

And then the next half is really implementing what they've learned and becoming the social change agents we know they are.

Some young people don't even know that they can call their city council person and be like, "Hey, I don't like how you voted on this or what are you doing about, you know, these streets being dirty?"

And BOLT really implements that you can do something about it.

And so if you don't like an issue in your neighborhood, you can organize, you know, you are two, five, 20 friends to do something about those streets.

- BOLT told me a lot about like organizing and bringing youth together, so actually me and my friends have a high school organization called Students Against Sixers Arena.

We're trying to do like art bills and like making posters and then posting it around.

We think that like people power is better than money power.

Hillary Doe is the executive director and founder of Philly BOLT.

As a proud Philadelphian, she dreams of a city where every neighborhood thrives led by the people living in them.

Here now to share more on her vision is Hillary Doe.

Hillary, thank you so much for being here.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Hillary, tell me about what prompted you to start Philly BOLT?

- Yeah, so for me, Philly has always been home, both my parents are immigrants to Philadelphia.

My mom immigrated from China, my dad from Vietnam and they overcame a lot of hardships to be here.

My mom was a single mom for most of her life, and so I saw firsthand how difficult it is in terms of not having access to a lot of resources and I feel very fortunate to have, you know, had access to institutions that did have access to a lot of resources.

And for me I saw that there are people in the neighborhoods in Philly who are doing the work and there are people across cities, across the country who are doing the work as well, and in Philadelphia, a place that has always been home for me, I wanted to make sure that people are getting access to the resources at those institutions and beyond.

And I also wanted people to understand that people who are in the community are actually the experts and they're the ones leading the change, they have a lot of knowledge, credible experience, and are doing the work oftentimes 24/7 paying out of pocket, working multiple jobs to support their neighbors.

And there's an incredible number of young people in these neighborhoods who also want to get involved.

So how do we make sure we're investing in the people there?

- And I love that because sometimes you may have a nonprofit where you are consulting the people in the communities that maybe you're trying to help.

So I love this concept.

We saw a clip of how you were working with students, but another big part of BOLT is working with adults and developing them into these grassroots leaders.

- Yeah.

- Tell me about that type of programming that you offer.

- Yeah, so that program is specifically called the BOLT School for Grassroots Leadership.

It's an eight month program where grassroots leaders, residents of neighborhoods who are leading the change receive over a 100 hours of social impact curriculum, they receive one-on-one monthly executive coaching.

This past year we fundraising enough to pay them $40 an hour and our purpose is to really build up their organizational and their leadership capacity to accelerate their visions so they can get to their visions faster.

- And BOLT was founded in what year?

- 2021.

- And so what changes have you seen from then till now?

- Yeah, so initially we started with our youth program working to serve public school students to build a pipeline of leaders with lived experience.

Since then we've launched our school for grassroots leadership.

We've seen a lot of demand for our programs and we wanna be able to expand that and make sure that we are meeting the needs that are there.

Our overall vision is for every neighborhood to thrive led by the people living there, and in that world BOLT would cease to exist, so we're really working towards that vision where our organization would no longer exist and all the people in our programs have access to everything they need to be able to thrive and lead change for their neighbors - Mm-hmm, and result in an even more beautiful city.

- Yeah, exactly, that's the hope.

- All right.

Hillary, I appreciate you taking the time to be here.

Thanks so much.

- Thank you so much.

- So everyone is talking about the upcoming total solar eclipse.

We caught up with some amateur astronomers and the next generation of scientists who can't wait for this rare event.

(upbeat ambient music) - Eclipses are magical.

It changes your view of how you place yourself in the world and you'll never forget it ever.

- The Delaware Valley Amateur Astronomers is a group of astronomy enthusiasts.

We're all amateurs, we come from all walks of life.

We are basically just sharing a passionate hobby that we love.

And seeing a total eclipse is very amazing.

It's not only that the moon covers the sun so that you can see the Corona, but all the earth around you is fooled into thinking that it's nighttime.

So the birds get quiet, the temperature goes down, the stars come out, and it's all happening in the middle of the day.

And that is really fun.

- It's basically the moon lining up perfectly between the sun and the earth.

And it turns out the moon is one 400th the size of the sun, but it's 400 times further away, so it almost perfectly lines up and it's sort of a miracle, it is set up for us.

I consider a privilege to view it.

(upbeat ambient music) - We have 250 members.

A lot of our events are specifically geared toward families.

We have lots of public events where everyone can come and we actually will have a local event that our club will participate in.

It's going to be at the Valley Forge Park Visitor Center.

We'll have scopes set up and they'll have eclipse classes for everyone.

So that'll be a great event that people locally can go to.

However, we'll only have a 90% eclipse here in Philadelphia.

Because of the way the sun and the moon and the earth all line up, the area of the earth that has a total eclipse is a fairly narrow band.

So if you really wanna see the total eclipse, you have to be along that center line 'cause those are the only places where you'll see a total block out of the sun.

- It's a thing that just doesn't happen to you, it's a thing that you participate in, you see, you connect with, you prepare for.

It's interesting to me, but this is very, very, very interesting to young kids.

- We have a number of things that are specifically directed at encouraging younger people to get involved.

- I've seen Jupiter, I've seen a lot of constellations.

My favorite was in (indistinct) Galaxy.

- Here I have a Celestron Astro Master 70, which at the moment has a solar film on it.

This is a 10 inch Dobsonian, it's primary use for me at least, is observing.

I'm 14 so I got started when I was around 10.

- I'm 15 years old, I've been in love with astronomy since I was in elementary school.

I've already went to Mount Lemon to do research on the Arcturus moving group, which is stars that might be from a different galaxy.

- I think astronomy is definitely one of the biggest interests in my life.

Over the summer I went to Penn to do an internship for research.

I was looking at the stars that host exoplanets and their characteristics compared to other stars.

- I've done research on finding lunar lava tubes, and this year I'm doing another project on quazars and I'm trying to find faster way to find the distance of it from the earth.

- We are a club of amateurs and these kids are probably gonna be professionals.

(upbeat ambient music) - If you're looking to join a watch party, check out, visit philly.com for some locations.

All right, that is our show, and now you are in the know.

Goodnight everyone.