- [Announcer] Next on Curate.

- [Swamp Dogg] My music now is opening up avenues that I've never really traveled.

- [Holly] People have really been fascinated with the interactive nature of the works and also just their beauties.

- [Sam] The process is called happenstance, whatever happens happens, and that's what I really dig about this process.

- This is "Curate."

Welcome, I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros, thanks for joining us.

We're on the Portsmouth waterfront this week with the Elizabeth River and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum serving as a backdrop for this week's show.

- And we're here because this is where our 757 featured artists got started.

Born July 12th, 1942, right here in Portsmouth, Jerry Williams Jr. has grown into one of the great cult figures in music.

- [Jason] You may know him better as Swamp Dogg.

He's been a huge influence on funk, soul, R&B and hip hop, and even country music.

As a singer songwriter, musician, and producer.

- [Heather] From Portsmouth to Muscle Shoals to Los Angeles, he continues to make a huge impact on music nearly 80 years into a prodigious musical life.

Swamp Dogg is our 757 featured artist.

(smooth jazzy music) - One thing about being a dog, the dog can do almost anything he wanna do.

He'll (dog barks) in the house.

(record scratches) - [Director] Just cause this is PBS, can you say he'll use the bathroom in the house?

- Oh yeah.

(record scratch) He'll use the bathroom in the house.

You might hit him on his backside with the broom, but you'll forgive him.

I can go on stage and I can sing "God Bless America for What," and then do "Sam Stone," which makes everybody cry.

♪ I was born blue ♪ - And that's a reason that I'm happy to be a canine.

(upbeat music) My mother and my stepfather played what we would consider a cocktail circuit.

When I was 12, my parents set up a recording date and I ask him, can I make a record?

♪ Let me introduce myself ♪ - And they said, oh no, you ain't cutting no record.

I cried and ballyhooed.

Somebody said, let him make a record.

I sat down and started playing heart sick, troublesome, down and out blues.

♪ Hey baby ♪ ♪ I'd like to tell you how I feel ♪ - At that time, you get your record played by Jack Holmes, you had a hit.

Jack put it on and said, "here's a kid, blah, blah, blah".

Phones lit up, and people liked it.

Before I knew it, I was opening for Sam Cook, the Drifters.

And Mechanic Records.

They said, we'd like put this out.

My mother got angry.

She didn't understand.

Why are they signing you when I'm the singer?

She took all of the records and just, and then threw 'em in the trash.

Well, I went and got mine.

(soft music) I never considered myself leaving Portsmouth for good.

There came a point that Portsmouth left me, ♪ Baby, baby baby, baby ♪ - Bracket called me.

He said, kid, I wanna talk to you.

And I got over to Birdland record shop.

He said, boy, you can't sing.

Why don't you stop trying to sing.

You ain't gonna never be nothing.

I said damn.

That hurt me in my heart.

In 1970 I gave birth to Swamp Dogg.

It was because people were holding me down, pushing me down, knocking me down.

And I ain't like that (dog barks).

I was smoking a lot.

Drinking a lot.

Know what, I gotta go to bathroom.

♪ My Ice cream, my coffee, my sugar, my cream ♪ ♪ My reason for living, each and every day ♪ ♪ If you ever turned your back my life would fade away ♪ (jazzy music) I've released at least 25 albums.

When I come out, it's got to be oh Lord, him again.

After I cut "Total Destruction to Your Mind," I was getting tension from the FBI.

I thought in the United States, you can write what you feel.

As far as being the worst album cover in the world, it ranks in the top 10 every year.

And maybe it's me, I don't think it's that bad.

I wanted records, that's why I've cut so many records.

I done cut some of everybody, Patti Labelle, Wilson Pickett, Ruth Brown, Ray Charles sung one of my songs.

I was the first to cut the Commodores.

And you know, I did Jean Pitney.

This was before they was letting blacks produce white boys.

Gary U.S. Bonds, and that, we used to all write at my house because we had a piano.

He had this song, "Don't Take Her, She's All I Got."

We got nominated for country Grammy.

We got songwriters of the year.

We got everything.

Then I started going with rap.

I was managing Dr. Dre when they were The World Class Wrecking Crew.

Kid Rock, he sampled one of my songs and he went on and sold 17 million.

He might have sold more than that, now.

DMX, 50 Cent, MC Breed, lot of music.

There's a lot of memories and a hell of a lot of love for these records.

If I can get up, I can show you another one real quick.

(Swamp Dogg grunts) You can cut those grunts out.

♪ I'll Pretend that you're gone on vacation ♪ - I kept recording, but there was nobody interested in Swamp Dogg.

Record companies were afraid of me, but I was determined.

My last two releases is on Joyful Noise Records.

Ryan Olson and Justin Vernon came up with some great music.

I was trying different sounds and song structures.

It came out good.

This generation is more hip to my stuff than my generation was.

People had counted me out because they hadn't seen or heard anything.

♪ I Love you ♪ ♪ And I forgive you ♪ - [Swamp Dogg] It was almost like coming back from the dead.

(rhythmic music) ♪ There's no food on the table ♪ ♪ All the furniture is sold ♪ ♪ They've given away their pride, now ♪ - The other album is "Sorry You Couldn't Make It."

That's the one where for Swamp Dogg, we went wild, 'cause we were trying to capture some country.

80 percent of the songs that I've written, if you break 'em down, they're country songs.

I've been singing country all my life, but they weren't letting black people in.

That was dead.

My music now is opening up avenues that I've never really travel and that's naturally good for me.

Because I want people to have the best of what I can do.

(bright music) ♪ Don't it make you want go home ♪ - Whenever I get up and I feel like I haven't accomplished anything, I walk out in my hallway and I see all the gold records and platinum records.

It gives me a feeling of worth.

I used to get over it with Valium, (chuckles) but I don't have to do that anymore.

No, And I don't think anybody figured I would make it as far as I made it.

I've actually had a chance to live the big life.

I've been all over the world.

It's been fun, and the future looks good.

We still working.

Still got contracts.

Hell, I made a deal yesterday.

I'm gonna always make music.

I'm gonna cut a couple of tracks at my funeral.

That's supposed to be funny.

♪ Don't it make you wanna go home ♪ - That's the story of a Portsmouth boy who became Swamp Dogg.

Will be Swamp Dogg for the remainder of his life.

♪ Don't it make you wanna go home ♪ ♪ I wanna go home ♪ - [Heather] You can watch this Swamp Dogg feature again on our website, WHRO.org/Curate.

- [Jason] Go there to find all of our 757 featured artists from six years of "Curate," as well as every broadcast episode and other great "Curate" content.

- Newport news is home to one of the newest places to go and see amazing art in Hampton roads.

- The Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center opened recently on the campus of Christopher Newport University, and they did so in spectacular style.

The museum has kicked off with an amazing exhibit, Nightlight, and they invited us over to be inspired.

(majestic music) - The Torggler Center just opened at the end of October, and we are a brand new visual arts center and we are here for the region and the Commonwealth and the general public, as well as for our students here at CNU.

We have to give president Paul Trible a lot of credit.

He always believed that we should have a fine art center here on campus to compliment the performing arts center that is next door in the Ferguson, and that is why the two of them are kind of visually connected.

Everything here related to our exhibitions is going to be free and hopefully fully accessible to everyone in the public who wants to come visit us.

Our mission is really to serve the broader public with exceptional fine arts programming.

We are the caretaker of the legacy of PFAC, so the wonderful programs that PFAC produced, all of those things are elements that we will continue to provide here at the Mary M. Torggler Fine Arts Center.

(bright music) Our inaugural exhibition called Nightlight is focusing on five international artists who work at the intersection of technology, design, and nature.

So these are artists who are using light as a protagonist or an essential tool to explore natural processes, and also using technology to create installations that are immersive, kinetic, or otherwise experiential.

There's a piece called Fly Light that's based on the murmuration of starlings.

Each piece in that installation represents an individual bird and the pieces are created from these hand-blown tubes that are installed with LED lights.

And the lights actually sends you as a viewer, when you move into the flock, the lights know that you're there and they come to greet you and check you out and that sets off an algorithm of flocking in the lights.

It's a piece that really depends on the viewer for it to do its thing.

(majestic music) Johnny Lemarcia's installation is a favorite.

What he has done is create this projection of a mountain top, a very remote snowy mountain top.

When you walk into the gallery, it appears that you're looking at a vast window with this landscape out in front of you.

And it looks like a real landscape because the combination of Johnny Lemarcia's projection and the gridded wallpaper creates the perception of a three dimensional piece of art, when in fact, it's of course all flat.

There's something about Nightlight that references seeing in the dark in ways that illuminate us.

The change of day and light that becomes nighttime.

And they're examining nocturnal animals, we're examining the passage of time.

It's a very figurative title, but I think it's applicable to all the works in the exhibition.

I have had a few people say, this is really beautiful, but why is it art?

And so we talk about the fact that just like all of us today are engaging more and more with technology and our work and our lives, artists are exactly the same way.

So they just have a different toolbox now than they had 100 years ago.

And that toolbox has led to these kinds of works that are enlivened by technology.

And people have really been fascinated, I think they've been fascinated with the interactive nature of the works.

Also just their beauty, they're beautiful pieces.

And so we've had a really wonderful response.

(bright music) - The Torggler Fine Arts Center is open every day except Mondays.

Check their website, thetorggler.org, for specifics.

Photograph instructor Sam Hughes and Michael Deberry do more than just teach at Norfolk State and Hampton U, respectively.

They are also working photographers.

And last summer the two set out on a journey across the south.

Michael shot and edited the video, while Sam used a technique called happenstance to create some unique moments from their journey.

(bright music) - Over the past couple of weeks, I've been traveling throughout the south.

We traveled about 3,300 miles and all of those miles were actually done on two lane roads.

So there was no interstate travel whatsoever.

I felt like that that's where I would find some really, really interesting items to actually be able to photograph.

And these would be items that you might pass every day and not think twice about it, but I find a kind of a quirky, weird kind of feeling about these things.

So we would stop and shoot, and then I would bring those negatives home to do the next part of this process.

(bright music) So sometimes you go on these journeys and you just really don't know what you're gonna find.

But I think this time we really found the mother lode of 'em all.

It's really exciting when you turn a corner and see what I'm seeing right now.

Take a look.

(calm music) So the next part of the process actually includes going into the dark room.

It's not like I'm using an enlarger or anything, I just have a wet sink in a big area that I can actually work in.

And I actually cut those negatives down a little bit and use a chemical to scrape the kind of, not necessarily imulsion, but the black just gookiness that's on the negative off of the negative, and whenever I do that, during that process it actually kind of messes up the negative.

And so the process is called happenstance, so what happens happens.

We do the scraping, it might give me a color shift, it may fade the negative a little bit, whatever happens happens, and that's what I really dig about this process.

Then we'll take those and take them to a high res scanner.

And then once the digital file is created, I will select a paper that I actually wanna use for that project or for that image and then print the image and get it ready for another show.

So there you have it, that's what we do.

(bright music) - WHRO and Old Dominion University have teamed up once again this fall to provide a real world experience for student filmmakers.

A documentary class provides students the opportunity to create short films that end up here, on "Curate," for a segment we call Curate You.

In this particular video, students profile local artist, Aimee Bruce, whose vibrant work can be seen all around Hampton roads.

(upbeat music) - My name is Aimee Bruce, also known as High On Your Supply.

And I am a local artist, muralist, illustrator, designer, working and living within 757 Virginia, yeah.

I graduated in 2016 and then right after that, you know, my first job was working as a mural artist for the city of Norfolk.

So we put together a mural working with high school students, it was kind of cool.

(upbeat music) Brian's Zewaki, the co-owner of Zeke's in Norfolk, He contacted me, but he was telling me about how he got into here and he was like, Hey, it would be cool if you were like the monthly artist for October.

And I was like, awesome.

And then he approached me again and he's like, but also if you can paint a mural on the back patio, that would be cool too.

And then I also got a chance to hang up my art.

(upbeat music) So typically I start off with some like rough sketches, some rough doodles in my sketchbook.

From there I transfer them onto my iPad, I digitize them, and then I can start figuring out definite line work and like the color schemes, depending on what the client wants.

Or sometimes depending on like how I feel it kind of vibes with the aesthetic.

Once I figure out the color scheme, the sketch itself, the next step would be to somehow transfer the image onto the wall itself.

So either using like a projector, I sometimes like to use the grid method, but more recently I've been dealing with using the lazy grid technique, whereas like you start off with crazy shapes and doodles on the wall, and then you just put your image overlaid and then draw it accordingly.

It's it's a different way of thinking.

From there I just lay down the base colors, the line work, finishing touches, and then boom, it's done deal.

(chuckles) (jazzy music) Helping hands out Mount Trashmore, I want to say that took about two weeks.

And that was just because the first week it literally snowed, it was like the end of April.

And then the next week it was the heat wave, which I just kind of knocked everything out.

Really working with the weather out there, it can be so crazy.

(jazzy music) There's a lot of back and forth in the planning process.

Sometimes the clients are like, let's go with that, awesome.

Others, they take their time, they play around with the colors, they're like, you know, little in and out on the fence about things, but once we figure it out, it's a good deal.

(chuckles) So it depends.

So when I'm not painting murals or I'm not completing commissions by clients, I'd like to make my own merch and I like to go to markets, like art festivals.

I have stickers, I make buttons, I make prints out of my original artwork, and a lot of other stuff too, like I'll paint on skateboards, I'll have painted glassware, just to spice it up, yeah.

(chuckles) Because of the pandemic I lost my job.

Everyone got laid off, it was a weird time.

And so I think that gave us enough time, enough pause for me to really think like, hey, I think I should just go full force with this.

Be creative and just keep creating and help inspire others.

(bright music) - [Heather] You can watch "Curate" anytime.

it's online at WHRO.org/Curate.

- And follow us on social media for additional content.

Look for WHROPublicMedia on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

That's going to do it for us on "Curate" this week.

- But before we go, here's more from Portsmouth's own Swamp Dogg.

Thank you for joining us, I'm Heather Mazzoni.

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

♪ Go where the sun will shine, shine, shine, shine ♪ ♪ I'm gonna do total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction ♪ ♪ Total destruction to your mind ♪ (band mates laughing) - [Band Member] There ain't no better way to end a song than like that.

(dog barks)