- In this edition of "ARTEFFECTS", art and music illuminate downtown Reno.

(gentle music) I don't think you can do a festival at this scale without that community of believers who are as passionate as you are to bring it to life.

(gentle music) - [Beth] A renowned stained glass studio.

- There's something very inspirational about when the sun comes through a piece of glass.

How it makes you feel.

(gentle music) - [Beth] And a juke joint full of musical history.

(singer vocalizing) - I'm sitting on the dance floor of the Do Drop Inn where you can see the floor's are worn and every little scuff and gum and cigarette burn tells a story.

♪ That's all right now, Mama ♪ - It's all ahead on this edition of "ARTEFFECTS."

(gentle lively music) - [Presenter] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffeali with Bill Pierce Motors.

Heidemarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell.

The Carol Franc Buck Foundation.

And by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(gentle melodic music) - Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS."

Each year in February, the Western Lights Illuminated Art Festival fills the heart of downtown Reno with music, art, and activities for all ages.

The event is designed to celebrate public art and creative expression.

When it comes to Western Lights?

The brighter, the better.

(gentle sober music) - Western Lights Illuminated Art Festival is a large scale illuminated art festival where we transform all of downtown Reno into an open air art gallery for three magical days.

(bright upbeat music) We closed down the center of the heart of downtown Reno from Virginia Street Bridge all the way down to 6th Street.

And we program sculptural art, performance art, music all throughout the downtown core.

(upbeat lively music) - For the 2026 festival, we've expanded the footprint by almost two times the size of last year.

We have more art, more than 50 installations this year.

- We have over 70 live performance artists between Fresh Bakin' who coordinates all of our music to a local non-profit circus that we partner with, Biggest Little Circus.

- To be able to showcase the artistry that we have in our local circus community is what Biggest Little Circus was founded for, was to give more robust opportunities to local artists.

And so, this festival is a really instrumental piece of being able to provide that.

(soft techno music) - Nearly 70% of our art and over 80% of our performance art is all local in the Reno Tahoe area.

(gentle lively music) - The city of Reno did a study.

And in that study it was all about how we revitalize our downtown.

One of the key recommendations from the group who did our study was to come up with one to two next generation of what we call legacy events.

So, what's that big event that brings Renoites and visitors back downtown to gather, to celebrate and to connect.

Hands down across the world, these large scale illuminated art and technology festivals are all the rage.

So, we started some visits.

We went to Napa Lighted Art Festival.

We went to Blink in Cincinnati.

We went to Portland Winter Lights Festival and drew a lot of inspiration.

And Western Lights was born.

(upbeat music) We've added a lot in 2026.

One of the biggest things we added is more community partnerships.

We've partnered with the University of Reno, Nevada and they're doing a dome takeover on Thursday opening night with the planetarium.

- Some of these objects in the universe are absolutely stunning.

So we thought, "Well, let's look at some of the brightest objects ever during Western lights.

That'd be a fun combination of art and science."

I love it that people have been combining art, music, technology, science as a way to engage us all in learning about our place in space and exploring the universe.

So, we love that we get to continue that and we love to get to partner with our friends here at the festival.

- Some of the key elements for being the executive producer is just taking a lot of information from the artists, from the build, from the logistics standpoint.

- This behind me is Fios, the Sea Stallion.

We made Fios in 2018.

That was like a collaborative group project that I did with a handful of friends, and it's all handcrafted.

We built the steel skeleton and then the whole front is copper.

The phoenix is also handmade.

It's made out of cedar.

All those feathers on the wings and the body are all individually hand carved cedar feathers and copper, and the eyes are glass, and she was made in the year of the fire rooster.

It's really special to bring it down to be seen by a place that's never seen it before, you know?

It's like, a lot of love went into this piece.

- Keeping the festival free is really very core to our mission.

We wanna make sure as many people as possible can attend and there's really as few barriers to entry as possible.

And in order to do that, we have some paid experiences like our VIP.

And then, we're raising dollars through sponsorships, in kind donations.

We have a individual giving program, a crowdfunding campaign.

All of the ways that nonprofits raise money, we are actively doing and will continue to do.

(gentle music) - Being able to collaborate with the City of Reno, with Rachel, with Megan, the team that's built Western Lights to what it is today, and hopefully to grow into the future, I would've never met these people if there wasn't this opportunity to work with them and work with the artists and the musicians that are local and some of the traveling musicians and artists that come in.

Just a big collaboration, a lot of different parts.

So, that's probably like my favorite.

Building something new and being creative with a bunch of cool people.

- I really see Western Lights as addressing three core problems.

One is that downtown Reno is really not living up to its potential and really needs some revitalization.

And I'm inviting people through this festival to have a new relationship with downtown and to imagine what's possible.

Number two is that we have an incredible community of arts.

Artists and creators in Reno.

And we really wanna elevate them, give them more opportunities and more exposure.

And number three is probably the one closest to my heart, is the fact that we're really seeing an epidemic of loneliness and social isolation in Reno and across the country more broadly.

And we need third spaces.

This idea of places where people come, not where they work and not where they live, but where they can interact, where people across social divides, across economic divides, across political divides, can all come together and have a shared experience together that really creates like a sense of belonging and a sense of identity and connection both with each other and with the place and the city that we live in.

- For me personally, this event has a tremendous amount of significance.

I'm really motivated and inspired by increasing our youth's access to art and artistic experiences.

And I want a kid to walk up to that sculpture and say, "Mommy, daddy, I wanna make that," and know that they can someday.

So, really for me it's inspiring our youth at the intersection of art and technology, and helping them see whether it's a DJ, a circus performer, a musician or a sculptor, to see it, be inspired and know that anything is possible.

(gentle music) - To learn more, visit westernlightsfestival.com.

Now let's head to Middletown, Ohio, where a stained glass studio continues a stunning tradition.

Tracing its roots to the 1800s, BeauVerre Riordan Studios practices traditional stained glass and art glass techniques in a historic facility.

- We're the oldest continually operating studio in the United States.

- [Linda] Stained glass was started when the peasants couldn't read.

The true stained glass window was created to teach in their Bible stories.

William Coulter started the studio in Cincinnati, and he took on a partner named Finagin.

- They sent for GC Riordan from Ireland because he was a noted glass artist.

And GC ended up buying the studio and it was called Riordan Studios.

In 1955, John Riordan who succeeded GC heard of Walter.

Walter was from Austria.

He was slated to be in a concentration camp when he was a teenager.

And to save him, they ended up putting him in the stainless monastery studio that dated back to the 15th century.

So, Walter traveled all over Europe learning the trade.

Riordan heard of him and Riordan sent for him to come to the United States.

I owned BeauVerre Studios for 20 years.

And every time I went to quote a big job, Walter was there to quote against me.

There was a job that Walter was doing in Cincinnati and his wife called and said, "Is there any chance you could help us finish this?

Walter is sick."

When the job was finished, Walter's wife asked, "Is there any chance you could carry the studio on?"

So, we merged the studios.

That's how we became known as BeauVerre Riordan Studios.

BeauVerre was my studio.

BeauVerre is French for Beautiful Glass.

And the possible task was he had 25,000 pounds of glass that had to be moved.

But the most rewarding for me was the archives.

They had over 400 watercolors.

That's one of my prized possessions of the whole career is the watercolors.

What they are is a true representation to the client or church of what the window was gonna look like.

I started in my basement, self-taught.

And I continued working my job at GE and doing the stained glass.

And then, after a while I was doing both of them 40 hours.

So I said, "What if I opened a studio and got somebody to run it during the day?"

- We teach classes, we do restoration with new work.

We repair.

We sell finished product.

We sell glass and lead to make product.

There were people that came to us and said, "We would really love to help restore this building," because this was like part of everybody's lives when they were growing up.

This is where when they were building the Miami Canal.

This is where the canal builders lived.

And after the 1913 flood, we're real close to the Miami River here, came through, it devastated everything.

After that, a man that owned a department store here took this and turned it into John Ross Store and then GC Murphy's bought this and turned into a five and dime store.

Jay wanted it to look like the old studio when Riordan had it.

- So, it starts out with a rough sketch.

- I think that people that order art glass from us or stained glass, it's something personal.

- [Jay] I always wanna make a site visit, whether it be to the church or your home, and see what your taste are and colors.

Then, we'll do a finished drawing.

Then, you have the opportunity to come and see the full size drawing.

- We cut all the glass and on the pattern we make sure all the glass fits within each piece.

And then we start leading.

The only surprise I think we have for people is we said, "Do you want a stained glass window or an art glass window?"

So, that's always confusing to people 'cause everything stained glass.

If we're doing a figural window, it's gonna be a stained glass window because we'll actually take a paint or a stain and apply it to the glass to create faces and hands.

And that's a true stained glass window where art glass, we just, the glass comes, so it's already colored and we cut it up.

So, obviously the stained glass is gonna be much more expensive because it's all hand done.

These windows were put in the '50s.

Different panels puts together makes one big window in their church.

So, we literally have to bring in those back here and we start disassembling them.

We have to make up our own pattern.

We put them under water because back years ago, they used to put red lead in the putty that holds everything together.

So, we don't breathe that or get it in the air.

We take them apart, we clean them, and then we start reassembling them.

We aren't actually cutting all the glass 'cause it's already cut.

We're just putting it back together, releading it, soldering it, putting it, and cleaning it.

Cleaning takes forever on a stained glass window.

- We're such advocates for downtown that we got to meet everybody that loves Middletown.

- We give tours and we tell people the history of the building, the history of the studio, the history of the windows, and teach them what they're looking at.

And there's something very inspirational about when the sun comes through a piece of glass, how it makes you feel.

It makes people feel all warm and fuzzy.

And there's like, they're like, "Oh my gosh.

this is so beautiful."

- To learn more, visit BeauVerre.net.

Now it's time for this week's art quiz.

In early glass production, which color was the most expensive color to produce, because it required oxidized gold?

Is the answer A, red, B, yellow, C, green, or D, blue.

(gentle music) And the answer is A, red.

Now we head to Virginia's eastern shore about a mile off Route 13 to visit a place like no other.

The Do Drop Inn.

Ever since its founding in 1967 during the Civil Rights Movement, it's been a welcoming place for the community to gather and celebrate culture through music.

♪ At the Do Drop ♪ ♪ The Do Drop Inn ♪ ♪ Come on get down on the dance floor ♪ ♪ Get a spin ♪ - Now, you'd said Do Drop Inn and they would think juke joint.

- One of the last juke joints.

No doubt about it.

You don't find places like this more or less anywhere.

We're in a rural community down some back road.

You gotta know how to get here.

You gotta know when it's open.

- It was always, we call it a jumpin' place, juke joint.

But it was a nice juke joint.

- Well, I'd say it's an old roadhouse, an old juke joint kind of place that has a lot of history.

♪ That was neat, man ♪ ♪ Give it up for Miss Jane ♪ ♪ Oh!

Yes ♪ - Everybody calls me Mama Jane because that's what I wanted them to call me and feel at home.

(bright upbeat music) This is where my father and mother would like for us to be and like for us to be doing with the Do Drop Inn.

So, this is their dream.

- Well, you know, I think about the struggles.

Granny and Lloyd didn't give up.

They were impactful in the community as entrepreneurs.

Some of the first business owners.

And no matter what those obstacles were, they overcame them.

And the Do Drop is still standing because of their persistence.

- I remember when my grandfather was in the building, day by day.

He was a hardworking man.

He worked for one job, he'd come here, and do his little part every day.

- I was quite young when it first started in '68.

But it means a whole lot to us.

We used to come and help our grandfather after school in the evenings.

- And of course, Daddy was a carpenter by trade.

♪ Yeah ♪ - I can remember when we were young and we wanted to go out and play but he needed us to help him, you know, to get the boards in line and pull nails out.

Just to get the place going.

(bright upbeat music) - Oh the food was delicious.

Oh my god.

Granny, I'm telling you she could cook some food.

Oh!

- Mama used to work in, she was a domestic worker.

Used to work in the field.

She would come home and cook out, and I'd peel potatoes.

Make potato salad, make hamburgers, the pig feet, and the chitlins, and all those kinds of things.

So, she worked very hard here to have home cooked soul food so to speak.

- I remember the smell of onions and peppers and fried chicken and just home cooked food.

- And you'd come in, we'd have cooked chicken and bread it like it was supposed to be and everything.

And brown it real nice in all this.

And that's why they like it so good, flavored up.

(energetic music) (bright country music) - In the earlier years, it was the jukebox.

So, you could put your money in and hear music forever inexpensively.

As the years progressed with people wanting to hear bands, then bands came.

- The Crudup family was a big part of this room.

♪ That's all right ♪ - And she start telling me about Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup.

Some things I didn't know.

She said, "He played here."

Said, "Do you know the first song that Elvis ever did?

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup story.

"Mom, I said, no I didn't know that."

And I said, "Hmm, Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup played here."

I said, "Ah, what about Black Elvis getting a corner there?

She said, "A corner?"

She said, "Yeah, okay, I don't care."

♪ That's all right now Mama ♪ - I'm in my happy place.

I'm sitting on the dance floor of the Do Drop Inn where you can see the floor's worn, and every little scuff and gum and cigarette burn tells a story.

I have friends that are pretty famous Blues players, and they always said, "I'd like to walk that room.

Like to be here because it's the real thing."

♪ That's all right now, Mama ♪ - Oh it's a great place.

It's everybody comes here.

It's super friendly.

People here appreciate the music.

They listen, they dance.

It's one of the best places to play.

♪ When you come home baby ♪ ♪ Write me a few of your lines ♪ - As a musician, you want to communicate your music with people.

They're the other part of the quotient of having a good night.

I call it going to church.

When the audience is either dancing or listening, they're part of it.

(bright music) (gentle upbeat music) - The place had to change with the times.

The demands of the community and the needs of the community.

So, it was not about just fun anymore, it was educating people about health and political issues and community involvement.

- Jane has created this community here, and she continues to with her Martin Luther King annual community breakfast that we have at the high school, and with the Juneteenth festival.

And then with the events here at the Do Drop.

- So, the Do Drop Inn has actually become a little bit of an institution.

I've come here for dances, banquets, conferences, seminars, board of supervisors debates, and this had become the community center potentially for Northampton county because we didn't have a place to do those types of things.

- These are my big babies.

- Big babies.

- Big babies.

- These are mine.

So, the students have an opportunity to volunteer where they wanna come.

The students put down that they wanna come to where we are.

- She would always welcome them to the Do Drop Inn.

Slip them at the Do Drop Inn and trying to help the community as a service-oriented place to be.

- And what I tell them in my talk, in my reflections to them is I hope you get something from here this week that you'll be able to use through life.

And if you stumble and fall, get up and go again.

A rose, Black Elvis rose.

- Thank you.

- For feeling that way about sitting in this chair.

- Wow.

- So, Mama really.

- Thank you, Mama.

Come here.

We got to go to a school, in elementary school.

And we got to, every single kid here got to go to a classroom and kinda serve as an assistant teacher for the day with a lot of kids, and that was really cool.

That was definitely the coolest part for me.

- There is one little boy who just clung to me.

And I think like, I'll probably remember him the rest of my life.

When I left, I was literally crying, just because there's so much love and also there's such a need for people to also give.

I'll remember for the rest of my life spending time with those kids, and it's so nice that Mama Jane allows us to stay here and gives us opportunities like that.

(bright music) - When you come to the Virginia Eastern Shore, Jane Cabarrus' name is the one that they tell you to connect with.

When you want to find the community, the Do Drop Inn was a place to meet the community.

- 23 years ago, the community was in a understandable uproar about... The state had decided to locate a maximum security prison in the lower shore.

And they were placing it right in the middle of an African-American community.

And Janie was a big part of pulling the communities together.

And we came in here, we all just celebrated.

I get goosebumps thinking about it.

You know, coming together and getting to know each other better.

And knowing that we had the same hopes and fears and dreams for our children.

To me, it was an amazing time.

And Jane and the Do Drop Inn were right in the center of that.

♪ That greyhound bus was leaving ♪ - As soon as you walk in, the warmth of this place, it just attracts you right away.

- I think what's so memorable about the Do Drop is the sense of community you feel when you come here.

- Because my dad and parents in the 60s built this building and they would be so proud looking down at all of us together having fun, eating together at round the tables.

- Miss Cabarrus had done a wonderful job of doing things to bring this community together.

And the gathering place has always been the Do Drop Inn.

So, we gotta overlook the facade of the facility and look at the soul within the building because it has done a lot of great things for this community.

♪ Let me tell you about a girl I know ♪ ♪ She's my baby and she lives next door ♪ ♪ Every morning when the sun comes up ♪ ♪ She pours me coffee in my favorite cup ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ Oh I know ♪ ♪ Hallelujah has a lover's soul ♪ ♪ Every time when I have no friend ♪ ♪ She'll be there till the very end ♪ ♪ My friends asked me how I knows her ♪ ♪ She'd be like, Billy Boy I told you so ♪ ♪ I know ♪ ♪ Oh I know ♪ ♪ Hallelujah has a lover's soul ♪ - And that wraps it up for this edition of "ARTEFFECTS."

If you want to watch new artifact segments early, make sure you subscribe to the PBS Reno YouTube channel.

And don't forget to keep visiting pbsreno.org to watch complete episodes of ARTEFFECTS.

Until next week, I'm Beth Macmillan.

Thanks for watching.

- [Presenter] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffeali with Bill Pierce Motors.

Heidemarie Rochlin.

In memory of Sue McDowell.

The Carol Frank Buck Foundation.

And by the annual contributions of PBS Reno members.

(gentle bright music)