- [Narrator] Next on Curate.

(upbeat music) - With COVID, there were so many unknowns.

Right, left, around, kick.

- [Angela] First, you might not expect any positivity to come out of a situation.

I'm finding silver linings to things.

- We've been doing lots (soft piano music) of pop-up concerts throughout the community.

It's been an interesting moment, revealing how hungry people are for communal gathering, (upbeat music) and listening to this music in person, again.

- You can feel.

It's all about your feelings.

You gotta feel it from your soul and from your heart and your mind.

- [Narrator] This Curate.

- Welcome to Curate.

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- I'm Jason Kypros.

Thanks for joining us as we embark on our fifth season.

- And we of course find ourselves in a year of challenges that have had a huge impact on all aspects of life.

The art world has definitely not been immune.

- All throughout this season, you'll see examples of how the pandemic has made us change the way that we create and experience art.

Despite Zoom calls, social distancing, and a general funk that has hung over us for more than a year now, artists are finding ways to rise above and continue to inspire.

- [Heather] This week, our 757 featured artists are a collection of creators who not only carry on but also manage to thrive in this most difficult time.

(fast paced piano music) - I was a teacher at the Governor's School for the Arts, and a freelance photographer.

- I was working at various art base businesses, as well as a contractor.

- I was working as an assistant professor of painting.

- I had some work I was doing for FlickIt Fridays.

- I was a professional dancer and choreographer.

- I was preparing a great thing, called Doodle fest.

(fast paced piano music) (beep) - All of my jobs stopped.

I felt like I lost my identity, because everything that I had going on wasn't going on anymore.

- At first, I thought that this is being made too much of.

This can't be a thing.

(indistinct) denial.

- I was hoping that as bad as it started, that we were gonna come out of it fast.

But I was like, "It's not gonna happen.

I'm probably not gonna work for a long time."

- I went into safe mode, like turn down and try to be helpful.

And that's not to judge anyone who was like super productive in their studios, I wish I could have done that.

I just couldn't get in the right frame of mind.

I'm a big worry wart.

I'm Italian.

I think I'm dying all the time.

- We had been planning a really big Doodle Fest.

We were excited about it.

And when COVID hit in March, was like "There's no way we're gonna get this done."

So we basically postponed it, into the fall.

- I was supposed to do a shoot in March in North Carolina.

I pushed that back and I was still trying to work on doing that like in late summer, 'cause I thought they were like, maybe we'll be out of it.

As things reopened in the summer, I got nervous, a little bit paranoid and just tried to stay to myself more.

I actually started playing video games a lot more too, something to keep my mind busy and not be thinking or dwelling on everything.

- The studio that I worked for, which is Music in Motion, was really fast when it came to the technology and using the virtual Right, left, around!

(shoes screeching) Opening that door for zoom.

And then also record us to be able to post the tutorials on YouTube.

I love to interact.

I love to yell as a supportive way, and with my students and to hear feedback from them, to let me know all the things that they wanna hear.

So it was really weird for me to be able to teach to a computer.

Oh and the energy is totally different.

I didn't like it, I'm gonna be really honest.

(girl chuckles) - I wanted to photograph my family and what was going on in my life, but it was really boring.

Like my kids were just zooming and my youngest is 10.

So it wasn't a lot.

Like I knew I needed something on a more regular basis so I wasn't insanely depressed.

The self portrait project started with me doing really quirky, funny iPhone self-portraits.

And every day, at some point in the day I would make sure that I made a picture.

For me it wasn't about making great images, it was about the process.

Been making it this like, matter of fact, I think helped me mentally.

- We all heard about the PPE shortage and the mask shortage and I have experienced 3D printing, like the frames of my paintings are made with 3D printers.

So I think I asked my Chair, Professor Eudenbach of the Art Department at ODU, if I could bring the 3D printer home so I could start kind of manufacturing mask parts.

And that was to me more satisfying than my paintings at that moment.

- One of the places that I love most is the Naro.

I was introduced to all my favorite movies at that cinema.

The theater had to close.

So I created a Naro poster for them and I, you know, signed everything, all the rights to it and they were able to sell it.

And anything that they collected per poster, was theirs to keep to help them out there.

I also did a drive for a cause, where I was actually delivering food for Panera and donated a hundred percent of my gratuities to help the Naro.

- We found that there were people interested in sponsoring and helping the possibility of an online doodle day.

And there is a national doodling day in May.

So we chose that day.

What started as like a handful of artists, but it ended up being artists and musicians with Chrysler museum helping share the live feeds on their Facebook, which had a huge following and like watching people doodle for a half an hour or 45 minutes.

There's a very Zen meditative aspect to it when it's really flowing.

And it brought people together, and that was amazing.

- With COVID, there were so many unknowns and I think there still are so many unknowns.

I was like, I had to reinvent routines in my life and discipline within my creativity.

And I was photographing myself in really vulnerable ways where I wasn't wearing makeup and I was crying and I had so many of my friends being like, "Angela, are you okay?"

These images are really dark and really weird, and I'm like, "Maybe I'm not okay."

But photographing them and showing you guys with my Facebook friends, it kind of gave me like 'the screw it.'

So it's like, "You know what, this is who I am."

And I think by showing it to the world helped me accept that I'm getting older and it's okay to be sad, which I never felt like it was okay for a long time.

- Recently I have gained some of the motivation, that I think I hit a wall on the video games.

I have been drawing a little bit, shooting a little bit.

Just try not to force it.

When I feel motivated, I'll try to draw as much as I can, before I get frustrated.

Then like put the pad down or put the mouse down.

- I had a lot of quiet time, which was needed.

I had a time to be able to get to know my family and friends, which helped me to reflect on who I was and to have better art to create.

(piano music) - I was setting up this whole year as insightful.

I think with everything going on, has made a lot of people have to sit with themselves.

They probably haven't had time to sit with themselves before.

- Where at first you might not expect any positivity to come out of a situation.

I'm looking, finding silver linings to things, so.

- And so, well, COVID sucks, it's awful.

And I still hate it now.

I'm really thankful for what it gave me.

(upbeat music) - [Heather] If you wanna learn more about these artists and follow their journey, find links to their websites and social media over on our website, whro.org/curate.

- Now, Heather, it's not just individual artists who are struggling with how to deal with the pandemic.

Larger arts entities like museums and performing arts organizations have navigated through the last several months by finding new and creative ways to get their work to the public.

- Throughout this season, we'll bring you stories about local organizations that are working to make sure they meet their mission and move forward, despite the challenges of COVID.

And we start with The Virginia Opera.

♪ 525,600 minutes ♪ ♪ 525,000 moments all dear ♪ - All summer, we were strategizing to figure out how can we still stay relevant, stay present, and of service to the community.

♪ How do we measure ♪ ♪ Measure our year ♪ And so we've been fundraising all summer long to come up with this program, which we titled, 'Stayin' Alive Initiative', which brings in four singers and a pianist.

And we've been doing lots of pop-up concerts throughout the community.

Curbside concerts, parking lot pop-ups, you know, on the steps of the opera house every week, that kind of stuff.

And yeah, it's been an interesting moment and it's revealing how hungry people are for communal gathering and listening to this music in person again.

(orchestra music) We get circles drawn on the lawn socially distance.

So we encourage people to wear masks.

So everyone feels safe and feels like the proper precautions have been taken.

(orchestral music) We've been really, really fortunate to have the backing of our entire statewide board that said, "Yes, pursue this, get those performers employed and keep as many people behind the scenes, you know, artisans and staff members and key team players to still be employed."

So that's really the intention behind Stayin' Alive.

It's to create the platform for the performances to continue, to ensure that we're alive after this pandemic is over (orchestral music) I think, people realize that being together, connecting with this art form, music, whatever it is that stirs your soul, connecting with the in-person is such an integral part of who we are as human beings.

And so I've seen that.

Each week as these performances have gone on, I've seen people come up and say, "Thank you so much for just bringing this music to us, giving us a chance to be together and to hear it and experience it live and in person again."

(orchestral music) We're figuring out ways to kind of repurpose our talents and in the process we're finding new communities.

These are faces that I've never seen before.

There's so many new faces that are listening to this art form, seeing these singers up close and getting that experience and saying, "Wow, I didn't know that opera could be for me."

I just think if people give it a chance they're gonna fall in love with it.

(orchestral music) (audience applauding) - We here at Curate are not immune to the effect of COVID.

Jason and I look closer than six feet.

- But, that's just a bit of digital trickery.

We show up on set in our masks, the crew, careful to stay socially distanced.

- [Heather] We shoot in front of a green screen and maintain a safe bit of distance between us.

- Then we add in the background, courtesy of our friends at Tidewater Community College, who allowed us to shoot in their TCC Perry glass wheel art center, in the Neon District in Norfolk.

And it all comes together like this.

- It's the magic of television.

- Voila!

- Now, on with the show.

In addition to great local features, we here at Curate are always looking out, beyond Hampton roads to bring you inspiring stories from elsewhere in the art world.

This week on Curate, we hit the road for Bayou country.

- And that's where Louisiana impressionist, Eddie Mormon continues to create, as part of a career that's lasted more than 60 years.

(upbeat music) - I learned how to paint from the (indistinct) down here, on the Brown, when five years old.

In the (indistinct), in the weeds, in the mud, in the creek.

I would take flowers, and make (indistinct) with it and get out the juice off it and try to color.

In a little bottle.

When the clay (indistinct) it get hard.

You can make pottery with that kind of stuff.

I paint on clay, paper, wood.

1969, I work in at Piccadilly Rose.

They had a little old woman, she a very (indistinct).

She had a good spirit, brown hair, and she would (indistinct) She bought my first painting.

I paint every day.

I be inspired with what God tells me what to paint.

(Western music) The duck painting, that's gonna be a fun read.

See, I'm an artist.

When people tell me what they want, I give them what they want.

If they want a building, I do a building.

(Western music) Look at chef John Folse.

(Western music) And I worked for 25 years on a water (indistinct) .

I used to get up early in the morning.

Early morning is the best time for me.

The moon, the star, the folk water, the second quarter, the (indistinct) and a (indistinct) quarter, and the star, despite being like Van Gogh.

(indistinct) I paint either by (indistinct).

(indistinct) carried me out of Houston, Texas.

(indistinct) paint, to cover that.

I painted some flowers, I painted the (indistinct).

(traditional music) I painted in Hawaii and I got some more commission to paint that Apple (indistinct).

I make my own color, show you primary color.

I don't go with all those (indistinct).

You make your color like you cooking.

I'm colorblind.

I see shadows in here.

(indistinct) I painted with a knife.

My favorite part about painting, it comes from your soul.

It's a field that you get.

And when the field you get will end, (indistinct) just saying again, if nobody can stop you, express yourself.

It's spiritual thing, really.

For anybody that do something from their soul, you cannot put a time on it.

It comes from you!

How long it take?

You take like you're a musician at Marvin Gaye.

All you are the state for (indistinct).

All the ones Stevie Wonder, all and beat on a record.

Well, you know what, it's a feel that you get.

It's a feel.

In all about your feeling.

You gotta feel it from your soul and from your heart and your mind.

(indistinct) you'll starve and go broke.

It's a very hard living to make.

If artists don't go on the road and get exposure, (indistinct) "Well, well, well, I've been doing it as a hobby, (indistinct) I went to Carter water green, New York, Paris, France.

If it came for me to get there, I'll be there.

I'm living to see my pain.

Praise the Lord.

(upbeat music) - Detroit, Michigan is home to an eclectic art scene that features must see museums, engaging galleries and public artworks, that are world famous.

Detroit artist, Sabrina Nelson will flex the world around her, in her current exhibit.

Here's her story.

(slow piano music) - I think my medicine is art.

My language is art.

(slow piano music) I think the term artist means to be responsible for what's happening in the world, how you see it, how you record it, how you make things that are a result of what you are trying to say.

Whether it's a question you're answering or a story you're trying to tell or here's something I need to make because it's just embedded in me, like I have to make something.

Detroit is embedded in who I am.

I've been here all my life since the rebellion in 1967, that's when I was born.

And so everything around me becomes a part of the story I'm trying to tell or the question I'm trying to ask.

My superpower is being able to visually communicate how I feel about what's happening in the world.

Nina Simone says, "If you're gonna be an artist it's your duty to reflect what's happening in the world."

And in the world that I live in, from the time I can remember remembering, there's always trauma and hurt and pain, and I'm not always talking about that, but you can't ignore it.

And on this day, I think about the lives that are lost, that are constant, but coming at me through different mediums.

And so I'm thinking about homicides and deaths of young people and how I'm affected by it.

But I'm talking about death where people aren't considered people like, "You don't matter, you're not important.

So I'm just gonna take your life.

I don't care how old you are.

I don't care who you belong to."

And when that person is missing from our communities, not just the blood family is affected, we are all and we should all be concerned.

You know, a life is a life.

A human is a human.

And so in this work, I'm talking about that pain.

The name of the exhibition is 'Why you wanna fly Blackbird?'

And I got it from a Nina Simone song, who talks about black women, like, "How dare you try and be happy in your life?

How dare you not expect pain?

Pain is gonna come.

You have to move through it, and you have to live, but pain will be here.

I didn't want the colors to be so seductive that it draws you in as pretty.

Like I don't like the idea of my work being pretty.

I want it to be impactful.

I want it to be deeper than just what you see.

And I wanted it to be large enough to have some girth to it.

So these particular pieces are very large drawings.

They're also reliquaries if you will.

So they talk about like the body, the housing of the bodies that we have, like the home and then what it's like to have a nest with no eggs in it, thinking about the empty nest of children who never return.

You know, I don't care how old they are, they never can return.

So I'm just talking about the darkness in that and expressing it with the most eloquence that I can.

The cages, well, represent empty homes.

That can be the home that they lived in.

That can be the community that they lived in.

How do you deal with that?

You know, that womb that's empty.

And so when we lose these people that are not treated with value out of our communities, how do you deal with that?

(upbeat music) So Lavanya Is helping me on the dresses, 'cause I wanna make dresses that will hang from the ceiling, just above the patrons heads.

But the bird cages will be the empty rooms underneath the dresses.

And so I'm asking him to help me figure out how I'm gonna make the dresses, which are made out of Japanese rice paper, so that they can be sure enough that the bird cages can go underneath them, and the patrons can see them with the lighting.

And hopefully they have the impact that's in my head and in my heart.

I want people to pay attention to it and to be more empathetic with others' lives.

If you see something happening and you can do something about it, why wouldn't you?

And so when I look at the homicide rates across the country they're incredibly high for African-American indigenous and also Latin-American children.

And so if this is all I can say and do about it, I want someone to know that I care, even though they're not my children, I care that they're missing, that they're gone.

That there's, you know, somebody should think about doing something about it.

The motion of movement when I'm making these things, like when I did the nest here, you know, the motion of drawing and drawing and drawing, you know that obsession of movement and what it feels like to do that.

These movements that we do over and over become very much ritual.

Maybe these are all prayers, visually, to say, "I'm sorry that your life has gone.

But I wanna say that you meant something, that you were important."

Every artist wants someone to look at their work for a long time and I didn't want to make it so obvious and op truce where it's like, you know, you see people getting killed.

But I think the work and the drawings and some of the paintings that I'm using can be seductive.

So I want people to make sure that they walk away with knowing that I'm in a world I am affected by it.

And don't just listen to the news and be in the world and not really take part in what's happening.

Think about what your voice is and what your superpower is and see what you can do to help.

I wanna say something that's important.

And I wanna leave this world with something that someone's learned from me.

My work might be central to draw you in, and then it's gonna slap you a little bit.

And that's what I hope, I show.

- [Jason] Well, you can find more Curate content on our website whro.org/curate, including all episodes from our previous four seasons.

- You can also find links to the artists that we featured here tonight, and lots more from the local arts community.

And you can follow Curate on social media.

We're on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

- We're going to leave you tonight with more music from the Virginia opera.

- [Heather] Thanks for tuning in, I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- [Jason] And I'm Jason Kypros, we'll see you next time on Curate.

(orchestral music) (man laughing) (orchestral music) (bouncy piano music) (orchestral music)