(gentle music) (gentle music) ♪ Concentrate on the darkening tree line ♪ ♪ Concentrate on the sinking dot ♪ (gentle music) >> Roberto: All these pieces are created based on memories from me learning Mexican history.

The descending eagle, which would be the translation of Cuauhtemoc.

Cuauhtemoc was the last emperor before Hernan Cortes finally conquered the city of Tenochtitlan which is now known as Mexico City.

>> Muriel: When I was young, if I was having a bad day, I could take up my guitar and play something bluesy and create something, and I could take this bad emotion and turn it into something beautiful.

And what a gift to have, to have a guitar, to have an instrument to do that with.

(gentle 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, then I'm like, "Yes," I want other people to feel that way when they see my art.

>> Dale: 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: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, La Porte and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit ivytech.edu.

>> Narrator: Family, home, work, self.

Of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

NorthShore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess, and put yourself first.

From medical to dental, vision, chiropractic, and mental health, North Shore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running, so make sure to take care of yourself.

NorthShore Health Centers building a healthy community, one patient at a time.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: "Eye on the Arts" is made possible in part by South Shore Arts, the John W. Anderson Foundation and the Indiana Arts Commission, making the arts happen.

Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) ♪ Getting across the lake in my little boat ♪ ♪ The surface of glass ♪ ♪ I am bound for a notch in the trees ♪ ♪ Rotten wooden steps ♪ ♪ It's difficult to see in the waning light ♪ ♪ Northlands October evening ♪ ♪ Concentrate on the little pool of water ♪ ♪ Travels bound astern ♪ (gentle music) ♪ I have a small outboard ♪ ♪ Lent to me by my uncle ♪ ♪ I need a slight repair ♪ ♪ Feels like it's taking forever ♪ ♪ To reach the farthest shore ♪ ♪ When I see a scrap of neon ♪ ♪ Floating like a balloon ♪ ♪ Caught in the trees ♪ ♪ Concentrate on the darkening treeline ♪ ♪ Concentrate on the sinking dot ♪ (gentle music) ♪ I hear voices from above me ♪ ♪ In this deepest part of the bay ♪ ♪ And I listen for the voice of my father ♪ ♪ On the pines ♪ ♪ There's a bar at the top of the staircase ♪ ♪ It's hidden in the leaves ♪ ♪ Concentrate on the face of my father ♪ ♪ Concentrate on the last shirt I saw him wear ♪ (gentle music) ♪ There's an Asian fishing boat at the dock ♪ ♪ Mostly sunk into the mud ♪ ♪ The steps are all but gone now ♪ ♪ Rotten to my trip ♪ ♪ I cling to branches to keep from slipping ♪ ♪ The rain is coming on ♪ ♪ Concentrate on never falling ♪ ♪ Concentrate on never climbing back down ♪ Songwriting, even the instrumental parts, is extremely personal.

It's also a kind of fiction, you know.

The songs that I write, I start with what I know because that's what I have.

And then if everything works, I'm writing from what I know into what I don't know.

So I end up with a thing at the end that feels very much like it's not about me, it's about something else.

And I'm not really sure what it is now, because I've written away from myself.

My life hasn't been, you know, going along in these very specific kind of things with a story arc and a climax.

You know, that's not how my life feels.

My life feels more like a series of snapshots, of weird kind of misremembered things, that I don't know if they're, how much of this is true and how much of it's not.

The part of your brain that is the part that controls memory is also the part that controls imagination.

So it's likely that your memories are also partly imagination, which you know, you find is true all the time.

I remember something this way, and your buddy doesn't remember it that way at all.

You know, and the way I write is I actually write stories.

You know, it's a thing, I write it all out.

It looks like an epic poem that goes on for pages.

And then I start deleting details.

Just, you know, if I have a thing, there's only 10% of that thing that's gonna be a song, that would make sense to actually sing a song about.

You know, I don't wanna sing about details and it doesn't sing as well.

And I think it relates better too, because then you free to like plug in your own details because all that the singer has done is painted a kind of a broad picture.

And you're in the picture too, 'cause everybody is.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) >> Well, I grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois, a great little town, still is.

I still visit my family, my parents there.

I almost felt guilty that I had such a happy childhood.

You know, I said, "How am I ever gonna be able to play the blues?"

(laughs) You know, my parents supported what I did.

They supported learning to play the music I wanted to play, and eventually ended up going to the Old Town School in Chicago.

And my father would drive me there every week, because I was too young to drive myself.

I attended the advanced class there, and eventually have started teaching.

The harp guitar, it started intriguing me when I was writing songs that were calling for these extra low resonating strings, that weren't on my guitar.

So, and I'd seen a picture of 'em.

I knew I had to have one built.

And this one was made for me by Mike Dolan.

And the original ones were much bigger than this, and had steel strings.

And as I was traveling so much, I asked Mike if he would make me a travel harp guitar.

So this is designed smaller, so I have it tuned up higher.

I asked him to make it with a nylon strings instead of the traditional steel strings.

Then I asked him, "Well, could you make seven sub bass strings instead of the normal six?"

And they just go down the scale.

(guitar playing) And the lowest note is whatever I want.

And then I asked him, "Well, could you make super trebles?"

Not many of the hard guitars have extra treble.

So this is one of the few instruments that has steel strings and nylon strings on the same instrument.

It started off just being an instrument that I could take on the road and learn with, ended up being a whole different instrument.

So I found it had this lovely lute like sound in the middle, a richness in the bass, and a sparkly in the treble, that I didn't really find in other instruments.

(gentle music) ♪ I'd like to sail the world again ♪ ♪ Feel the wind across the waves ♪ ♪ Live from day to day ♪ ♪ Well, life is not predictable ♪ ♪ Wondering what is round the very next bay ♪ ♪ I'd like to raise the sails again ♪ ♪ Watching for the whales again ♪ ♪ And never have to say ♪ ♪ I wish that I had done the things that I can't do ♪ ♪ When I'm too old to play ♪ ♪ To breathe again, love again, laugh again, love again ♪ ♪ In real life ♪ I guess I always wanted to be an inventor when I was little.

And so now I'm doing that kind of through my music, not only through the techniques and the composing.

I had this idea for a CD that lights up, designed it to light up with fiber optics when you push the moon.

And we came up with another project, a cookbook, that has music for each recipe.

Of course, you have to have music for every recipe.

Brian, what I didn't know at that time, is he is a sailor.

And so we ended up going sailing and that became the inspiration for my latest album.

And we thought of, well, how do we expand this to make it more creative?

And we thought, well, we'll make it into a board game as well.

I think falling in love with different types of music and having new experiences that want to express themselves in the music keeps it fun and interesting.

And now that with this new project of sailing, this sailing has brought the music alive again to me, and gave me the idea, I wonder if this sailing trip's gonna result in an album.

And it did.

That has been the best part of this whole project of the "Sailing Dreams."

We were anchored at Seal Trap Cove in Penobscot Bay, Maine.

And I was awakened.

(guitar plays) In the middle of the night.

(guitar plays) By the sound of an owl.

(gentle music) And then another answered.

From the other side of the bay.

(gentle music) So I just laid there listening.

(gentle music) To the sound of those two owls.

(gentle music) Singing melodies back and forth to each other.

When I was young, if I was having a bad day, I could take up my guitar and play something bluesy and create something, and I could take this bad emotion and turn it into something beautiful.

And what a gift to have, to have a guitar, to have an instrument to do that with.

I think that music is one of the best therapies.

They say that all the time, but it can help with so many things in life.

And I started a charity, small charity, called Music for Life Alliance to help support all those grassroots organizations that are getting instruments and lessons to kids.

I think it's something that's needed more now than ever before.

It's needed not only for people's emotions at any age, take a time with your instrument every day.

Just have a time that you can take it out of the case or pick it up and play it and have it be your friend.

Have it be part of you.

So I think keeping the love of the music alive is more important than a strict schedule.

So, at least it is for me.

But everyone learns in a different way.

And it seems that everyone finds their own way that works for them.

(gentle music) (gentle music) >> I started sort of like playing with wood since I was a kid back home in Mexico.

My cousin had a very modest wood shop and I just liked all that beautiful furniture.

I have always been artistically inclined at some point, like from building furniture, I started leaning towards like carving and sculpting.

And that's where I am today.

Growing up in Mexico, churches, they're everywhere.

They're from colonial times.

So you see all those paintings and sculptures and the architecture and the carvings on the wood.

I think that is how I started to develop my work.

Based on all those memories.

I would see things and wonder how it was made or how could I make it.

Or like how could I learn how to make that?

I was always attracted to handmade items.

One day I was driving by the side of the road, and I spotted some logs and I just liked the shape of the trunk and I thought, "I think I can make something out of it."

I just started carving it.

Once I started learning techniques, I pretty much fell in love with it.

(gentle music) This is some of the work that I actually developed.

I call it my signature work, because as far as I know, nobody was making something like this.

When I mean something like this, I'm talking about the shape.

It is a technique that involves both turning and carving.

The black part was actually burned with a wood burning pen.

The embellishment on the piece, it is called the quinto sol.

It represents the elements of life as well as the transition of life and dead had in Mesoamerican cultures.

These two pieces that you see are part of my Mesoamerican series.

They represent important aspects of Mesoamerican culture.

In this case, this is Cuauhtémoc.

It has feathers carved around that represent the status of a chief.

And then the descending eagle, which would be the translation of Cuauhtémoc.

Cuauhtémoc was the last emperor before Hernan Cortez finally conquered the city of Tenochtitlan which is now known as Mexico City.

It means endurance, resistance, Indigenous pride.

It's like a hero to us, you know, because he was the last one who actually stood his ground against the conquistadors.

All these pieces are sort of like created based on memories from me learning Mexican history, and visiting archeological sites.

You know what I saw there was things carved in stone, you know, was not like marble, like really smooth.

It was more like porous, in a way.

That is what I am trying to represent.

(upbeat music) Both pieces that you saw.

They are colored with the dry brushing technique.

The difference is that on this you see a little bit more of the natural wood, the walnut.

What I did is just to highlight the texture that I applied.

This work that you are seeing now is the development of driving by the road and seeing like, "Oh, that piece of wood, I can make something with it."

So that, you know, this is the progression of it.

I was already an adult when I set that goal for myself to develop a type of work that I could call my own.

I also think that whenever you get stuck into something, you stop growing.

Every little thing or technique that you can learn from different disciplines, if you apply to work, it can only make it grow.

Artistry and craftsmanship are closely related.

One cannot exist without the other.

You cannot make a bowl, you know, like a simple bowl.

You cannot embellish that bowl, and make it look nice if the profile of the bowl is not right because your eyes will be drawn to that profile because it's a natural thing.

In order for you to apply the artistic part to the bowl, you first need the craftsmanship to create the bowl.

And I think that holds true to just about any discipline you practice.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) (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.

I needed to, 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.

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 is 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'll see a blend or a color, and I'll know exactly what I want that to be.

Like, couple months ago, some lady had made this bat, a wool bat 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 it's 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.

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 and then that's carrying on.

I feel like I'm finally doing something that is a hundred percent me.

(gentle music) >> Dale: 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 in a book versus physically doing it and seeing the results.

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Ivy Tech offers more than 70 programs with locations in Michigan City, La Porte and Valparaiso.

New classes start every few weeks.

Ivy Tech, higher education at the speed of life.

To get started, visit ivytech.edu, >> Narrator: Family, home, work, self.

Of all the things you take care of, make sure you are near the top of the list.

NorthShore Health Centers offers many services to keep you balanced and healthy.

So take a moment, self-assess, and put yourself first.

From medical to dental, vision, chiropractic and mental health, NorthShore will help get you centered.

You help keep your world running, so make sure to take care of yourself.

(gentle music) >> Narrator: "Eye on the Arts" is made possible in part by South Shore Arts, the John W. Anderson Foundation, and the Indiana Arts Commission, making the arts happen.

Additional support for Lakeshore Public Media and local programming is made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

(gentle 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 in the Arts," "In Studio," and "Friends and 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.

>> Narrator: As you travel across Northwest Indiana, and into Chicago take Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, along for the ride.

With our newly expanded signal we're with you from the southern corner of Michigan and into Chicago and of course across Northwest Indiana.

From the dunes at Lake Michigan, to the windmills of Wolcott, Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM is along for the ride wherever you call home.

(gentle music)