(curious upbeat music) >> Laura: If I can capture it the way I want to, when someone else sees that painting, and they say, "Oh, this makes me feel so peaceful," like, then I feel like I've done the right thing.

Like, then I'm like, "Yes!"

I want other people to feel that way when they see my art.

>> Shannon: My high school job was actually working in the public library, our local public library in the children's section.

And I just kind of in my mind thought, "How cool would that be to someday write a book that could be on one of those shelves?"

(curious upbeat music) >> Neil: In the late '90s, I got involved in the South Shore Poster Art program.

And was very honored to be a part of that because I knew the history of the ones that had been done in the '20s.

The first one that I did because I had this overwhelming sense of being a part of history.

(curious upbeat music) >> Brandon: And I call them stillness of nature.

I'm trying to capture like, just a snapshot of what I see, whether it's like I'm hiking in the forest and I see moss, or I see the water like, near a beach or something, you know, like in Michigan.

If you could just look at it and say, "Okay, I feel like I'm there."

>> Narrator: Doing as much as you can as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

(upbeat music) >> I have a very strong connection to other students.

Everyone makes an effort to help each other.

I'll remember the feeling of being here, the feeling that I was a part of a family.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Support for programming at Lakeshore PBS comes in part from a generous bequest of the Estate of Marjorie A.

Mills, whose remarkable contribution will help us keep viewers like you informed, inspired, and entertained for years to come.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: "Eye On The Arts" is made possible in part by: South Shore Arts, the Indiana Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Additional support for Lakeshore PBS and "Eye On The Arts" is provided by viewers like you.

Thank you!

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Did you know that you can find all of your favorite Lakeshore PBS shows online?

Visit video.lakeshorepbs.org.

You can stream a large selection of shows, including "Eye On The Arts," "In Studio," and "Friends & Neighbors."

Missed the last night's episode?

No problem.

Lakeshore PBS has got you covered.

Search for your show and find your episode ready to watch at any time.

Visit video.lakeshorepbs.org to stream your favorite local shows.

(gentle upbeat music) >> I was a personal trainer for about 10 years.

I loved it 'cause I was working with people, I was helping people.

I loved the interaction, I loved the science of it, but I got really burnt out because I wasn't taking care of myself.

At the end of the day, I was just so exhausted.

I wasn't doing something to help myself.

And after about 10 years of that, multiple things happened.

I lost my brother.

And that just kind of threw me through a loop, and I needed to be home for a while.

And I found a craft called needle felting, just a little kit that I found at a craft store, 'cause I needed something to do with my hands.

If I was gonna be home, (laughs) I needed to be working on something that I felt would help me feel accomplished for the day.

So I fell in love with it 'cause I've always been a crafty person, but I had just shut it down for so long.

And it was really fun to bring that back, and I completely became obsessed with it.

(laughs) (upbeat music) Not many people are two dimensionally felting.

There's a lot of three-dimensional where you're creating sculptures and things that stand up, but I've kind of adapted it into more flat things that can be framed or displayed that way.

So my art, it's kind of like painting, in a way, except instead of using paint, I'm using fibers.

Like different types of dyed, colored fibers.

And I'm laying the fiber where I want it and using sharp needles to place the wool in very specific spots.

And I create pictures with the fiber that way.

Yeah, this is a simple process of lots of stabbing.

(laughs) Sometimes I will just be in a fiber shop, like a local place, and I will see a blend or a color, and I'll know exactly what I want that to be.

Like, a couple months ago, some lady had made this batt, a wool batt that just had all these beautiful blends in it.

And I was like, "That is an ocean," you know?

And I just knew that that had to be the center of my painting.

And then I was going to put the clouds around it.

It all just comes together sometimes from the wool.

Other times it's a photo or a place I've been, something that really just kind of struck me as absolutely beautiful.

And it sometimes is just the smallest little things.

And, you know, they're all moments that I found beautiful or peaceful, and I want to recreate them.

When I recreate something that I've seen, I'm able to appreciate it even more.

I'm able to just sit quietly and feel that again.

And then what's amazing is that if I can capture it the way I want to, when someone else sees that painting and they say, "Oh, this makes me feel so peaceful," like, then I feel like I've done the right thing.

Like, then I'm like, "Yes!"

I want other people to feel that way when they see my art.

Yeah, I want it to be something that they can just mentally escape to for as long as they want.

It's my way of sharing that with the world.

I hope that they can feel some kind of emotion that went into it.

I mean, I know that's kind of what we already said, but I guess they're just, like, it can also be so simple that I hope it reminds people that art can be simple too.

It can just be this tiny, little, two-by-three-inch thing that makes you feel a certain way.

Sometimes people see something in my work that I didn't see at first, or they see a different place that they've been.

I love when someone picks up on what I was feeling, and I love creating calm places.

I know we're kind of, we're living in some stressful times, you know?

And there were so many times in the last few years where I knew I just had to make something that, and even just give it to a person as a gift, that they needed it in their office, in their workspace.

And that feeling for me is what I crave as an artist.

Like, I want to help people in some way that I can.

It's a form of my own self-expression.

And, (laughs) I mean, maybe it is just my own feelings of peace and calm that's carrying on.

Feel like I'm finally doing something that is 100% me.

(upbeat music) >> My high school job was actually working in the public library, our local public library in the children's section.

And I loved it because kids would come, and I could match kids to a book I thought they would enjoy.

And I could read with them.

And I just kind of in my mind thought, "How cool would that be to someday write a book that could be on one of those shelves?"

(upbeat music) I taught for 25 years at the elementary level, but while I was teaching, I was writing and eventually got to a point where it was really hard to do that role as a teacher and as a writer at the same time.

And I finally got to where I thought, "You know what?

I did that first half of my dream, being a teacher, and now it was time for the next half, to pursue that children's writing full-time."

It was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make.

I teetered back and forth on what to do.

I prayed about it.

And I finally just decided, you know, I'll do a sabbatical leave.

That way I have a safety net.

You know, I'll just do one year and try it out, and if if it doesn't work out, I can go back in.

This was in 2020 in January, and I started getting all of these things ready.

I was booking events and author visits and making sure that my year was packed full, that I got the full experience of trying to be an author.

So in March, you know what happened, and I slowly started getting all of these emails of cancellation after cancellation.

And I remember going into the end of March.

By this time we had all been kicked out of school, so I was teaching virtually from my home to my students.

And I went to my principal and I said, "Instead of next year, could I maybe wait a year for that sabbatical?"

And he was like, "We just approved your replacement."

So I was like, "Okay, I'm really doing this."

But you know what, after the end of that year, I had to give the decision: Are you coming back, or are you going for it?

And I thought, "You know what, if I can make it through that whole year during a pandemic, then maybe I can do this."

And I decided to go for it.

(upbeat music) My first book was "I Am Not a Pirate," and it was about my daughter who had to wear an eye patch for three years.

And she didn't like it when people would say, "Oh, look at the little pirate."

So it was something that I wrote to just kind of show how Maddie got through that with a sense of humor, but also to help other kids who may, you know, feel different or have that same situation, or see someone with an eye patch and think, "Why are they wearing that eye patch?"

So kind of explained all of that.

♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, ♪ >> When my oldest daughter, Emily, was in high school, she drew this little bird, and I just thought he was adorable.

This fuzzy, colorful, little guy riding a scooter.

And I got this idea that I was going to write this story about this little bird named Scooter.

And I wrote it about not only the message being, you know, that it's the size of our heart and not the size of our wings that matter.

When I'm teaching kindness with my students in my classroom, I would always talk to them about how our words are so important.

How we say them and what we say matters.

And our words can help someone, or they can hurt someone.

(upbeat music) The very first conference that I went to, I took the story with me called "I Love Strawberries!"

It's about a girl named Jolie, and she is determined to have her own strawberry patch.

And a lot of those conferences have a contest that you can enter.

In the children's category, "I Love Strawberries!"

got first place.

And so I was very excited and encouraged, and I kept trying to send it to publishers, and no one was saying yes to it.

And it just so happens that book just came out in April.

So I finally found a home for it all these years later.

(upbeat music) When I was in fifth grade, it was the first time that my school ever had an author visit.

And it made a big impact on me because we had a school-wide writing contest leading up to her visit.

And so we were all gathered on the gym floor.

And I remember seeing her walk up there, and she was holding the book I wrote for the writing contest.

And she was holding her book, "Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man," Jamie Gilson.

And she called my name, and she handed me back my book and said I had won.

And she gave me an autographed copy of her book.

And I saved this.

And, I mean, that was in fifth grade.

It made an impression.

It was one of the first seeds that were planted that made me think about my writing being for someone else to enjoy.

(upbeat music) For me, the most meaningful thing is going to an author visit and having a kid say something about, "I love this book," or having a parent or a teacher say, "They made us read this over and over and over."

Or they send you a letter, you know, that tells why, you know, they resonated with a certain character.

Those are the things that really make you feel good and that you're doing something, producing something in the world that means something to someone.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) >> Well, I was very interested in art when I was six, and by the time I was eight, I had decided that I was gonna be an artist when I grew up.

Not really understanding fully what that would entail, but it was a passion even at that age.

(gentle music) Through my teen years and early 20s, I wanted to be a Disney animator.

But the more I looked into that, you know, in a movie, you draw one character over perhaps several thousand times, and it has to be done in the Disney style.

And the more I looked into it, the less appealing that was because I didn't consider that to be a very creative way of going about it.

And I believe that God led me to take a different path.

And that path included painting in several media, primarily in watercolor, acrylic, and oils.

Now, I use several supplemental media also.

And I really enjoy that, the variety of that.

In the late '90s, I got involved in the South Shore Poster Art program.

And was very honored to be a part of that because I knew the history of the ones that had been done in the '20s.

So it was kind of overwhelming, the first one that I did, because I had this overwhelming sense of being a part of history.

But it was also incredibly rewarding to do that.

(gentle music) First thing I think about is value.

Value is the lightness or darkness of a tone and of a color.

So they're connected, but I consider value to be a far more important element of design than color.

That might be kind of surprising to most people, but they work together.

So the first thing I think about is value.

So I decide what first of all is gonna be the dominant value.

Dominant means the percentage of the surface.

So is there going to be a larger percentage of light values or midtone values or dark values?

And the subject matter will determine that.

For example, a lot of times if you do a winter painting in which there's snow on the ground, you're probably going to be having a light dominance.

But if you're doing a night scene, you're likely to have a dark dominance and so on.

So you can see in the one behind me of the old man bringing a pumpkin from the fields for his granddaughter, you can see that I created a design and a composition that would create a dark all around him.

So that would give a greater feeling of light on his face and draw the viewer's eye to him.

And so everything else is supplementary, everything in the composition.

Probably, you know, for most people, the second thing that they would see would be the pumpkin.

And then everything, there's a pattern that draws your eyes through the whole painting and back to the center of interest.

The center of interest gives the viewer a way to enter the painting because that will be the thing that they see first.

And then it also gives them a way to exit a painting.

So it will be the thing that they can rest their eyes on at the end, and then find a way out.

(gentle music) Very, you know, happy and fulfilled to be doing what I'm doing.

So it's been a journey of about 75 years.

(gentle music) As a Christian, I am thankful to God for all of the gifts that he gives each and every one of us.

And those are the things that drive my passion for art.

And because he has given me those gifts, I believe that he wants me to use those gifts for his glory and honor, and to use them in a way that will bring glory and honor to him.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) >> I would say I would define myself as a mixed media artist.

For the most part, everything I do is really nature driven.

I would say, as far as the mixed media goes, a lot of what I do is metal art, sculpture, painting.

You know, I kind of mix it all up.

And part of the reason why I do that is because I kind of don't want to stick to one thing.

I really love all types of mediums.

A lot of my work would be kind of functional too.

I have stuff that's like rotating.

For a while, I'll do a series and kind of go down a certain gamut of medium, and then I'll go back to it and do some more sculptures and things like that.

(upbeat music) Yeah, a lot of the materials I use, most of them are like salvaged hardwoods.

Sometimes they're recycled metals.

A lot of the rust and the patina is what I kind of enjoy out of some of those pieces.

Even for a while I would take old car parts and put them together and make a piece out of that.

Really, I would just look at salvaged materials and just, you know, basically lay them all out and say, "Okay, what can I create out of this?"

You know, maybe I see like a bird, or maybe I see, you know, an animal out of this or a bison out of it.

And then I would create that based off of that.

Growing up, like, I was always a kid playing outside.

I never stayed inside.

I never like, played a lot of video games.

It was always like sports and, you know, being one with nature and like, really just, you know, taking it all in.

And, you know, I think that that's where I felt like it was home to me, was, you know, when I'm outside doing stuff and breathing the fresh air and just, you know, being one with nature.

So yeah, I mean, that's my whole life basically in a nutshell.

(upbeat music) Trailyard actually is a bunch of different pieces kind of wrapped up into one.

You know, basically their place is like an outdoors-themed restaurant, cafe.

They have a bike shop.

They came to me to say, "Okay, I want something unique."

They just looked to me to say, "Okay, what can you create that would like, make nature come inside, you know, our restaurant?"

I know I can wow them.

I just have to come up with the concept that's like, really in tune with what they do.

That's the one thing that really like, made me just like so happy because, you know, a place like that and they give you that artistic freedom is like, "Okay, I've just gotta run wild."

(upbeat music) You know, some of the pieces that you'll see, like the ones on the wall, I call them stillness of nature.

And basically, I'm trying to capture like, just a snapshot of what I see, whether it's like I'm hiking in the forest and I see moss, or I see, you know, like, the water like, near a beach or something, you know, like in Michigan.

If you could just look at it and say, "Okay, I feel like I'm there."

And then as far as the mixed media piece goes, we did a big, rotating, mixed media piece.

And that was one of the biggest, like, heaviest pieces that I was, you know, engineering to rotate.

There's a big bird that actually hangs from the ceiling.

That's one of the pieces that actually is what kind of made me who I am as far as metal sculpture goes.

Like, that whole place is really me.

They literally have a piece in every room.

I still see them all the time, and I still go up there, and they're like, "We're so glad we saw you."

You know, like, 'cause they're like, "We're gonna do another piece here."

Like, they want more.

(upbeat music) I'm still experimenting.

I think everybody is an artist.

It's good for them to experiment with different mediums and see like, what it is that works for them.

You find that path based off of just trying something, and then feeling if, you know, that's something that you really want to go down.

And I feel like that is kind of my calling, is like, I need to create, you know, pieces that kind of imitate stuff that I see in nature.

So that's kind of the lane that I've been, you know, going down for the last couple of years.

(upbeat music) One of the biggest things for me is like, we travel a lot.

We see a lot of different places.

And I think the one thing that always stuck with me was like when you're on the top of a mountain, and you just like, look out, and you realize like, you're the only one here, and you are small in this world.

Like, it kind of puts things into perspective.

And I think if you just embrace that, like, that's what drives me to create the nature pieces that I do.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Doing as much as you can as quickly as you can is important to me.

Life is short, and the earlier we get started helping our community, the better off our community will be.

>> Almost every single professor I've had I'm on a first-name basis.

By building that relationship with faculty, I was able to get involved with research.

It's one thing to read about an idea and a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Support for programming at Lakeshore PBS comes in part from a generous bequest of the Estate of Marjorie A.

Mills, whose remarkable contribution will help us keep viewers like you informed, inspired, and entertained for years to come.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: "Eye On The Arts" is made possible in part by: South Shore Arts, the Indiana Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Additional support for Lakeshore PBS and "Eye On The Arts" is provided by viewers like you.

Thank you!

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Did you know that you can find all of your favorite Lakeshore PBS shows online?

By visiting video.lakeshorepbs.org, you can stream a large selection of shows, including "Eye On The Arts," "In Studio," and "Friends & Neighbors."

Lakeshore PBS has taken great care to bring you the best in local content.

Not sure how to find local content?

Click on Shows and sort by only Lakeshore PBS shows.

Not only will you find local content on Lakeshore PBS, but you can also stream live TV right to your computer.

Click on Live TV and get instant access to Lakeshore PBS live wherever you are.

Lakeshore PBS is full of wonderful content created just for you.

Missed the last night's episode?

No problem.

Lakeshore PBS has got you covered.

Search for your show and find your episode ready to watch anytime.

Visit video.lakeshorepbs.org to stream your favorite local shows.

(curious upbeat music) (bright piano music)