- [Jason] Next on Curate.

- [Tom] I'm taking my cues from this real intimate place that I call home and I'm applying it to the space beyond this space.

- [Peggy] Crisis is a playground for change and the industry for opera is ready for it.

- [Brendan] We wanted to make a very strongly stated message without saying words.

- [Heather] This is Curate.

- Welcome.

I'm Jason Kypros.

- And I'm Heather Mazzoni.

Thanks for joining us this week as we come to you from the Harrison Opera House, Norfolk's home to arts and culture for nearly 80 years.

- [Jason] And more on that in a moment, we start with a Hampton Road's photographer whose sense of home and shelter is a huge influence in his art.

- [Heather] It's a theme we'll visit often this season on Curate.

Tom Siegmund has been honing his skills as a photographer for all of his adult life.

While passing his appreciation for the medium onto hundreds of students over the years as an instructor in TCC's visual arts center.

His most striking work features amazing world-building compositions, constructed from items found around his farm in Windsor.

Our 757 featured artist invited us into his home to show us the inspiration for his work.

(inspirational music) - [Tom] So I'm taking my cues from this real intimate place, that I call home and I'm applying it to the space beyond, beyond this space.

We kept moving further and further out trying to get more space.

And you know, when I am here, you know, I'm pretty content.

(inspirational music continues) (camera clicking) I never really did a lot of still lights, till my first home I bought and I started actively change that home and renovate, you know, and where a lot of things came together.

I became real aware of objects.

I'd find things, strange things.

I like having a bunch of stuff in the studio that are, this little piles growing and that little pile is growing and I sort of get to feel it out, you know?

And, and then eventually I realized I think I could do something with this now.

I like the ideation phase.

I like this incubation period.

I liked the studying and thinking about the work.

The individual pieces and how it's all coming together.

As I began to figure things out, you know, I think I've become more sensitive over the years.

I think it all comes back to home.

You know, a home, a nest, roots.

I might stay enough just for a test shot.

I want the thing to look like what I want it to look like.

And I want the shadows to be set and I want the lighting to be set and I want the composition to be what I want it to be, the cropping and the framing I want that all to be the way that I imagined it to be.

So as I kind of make stuff and I work, I'm doing test shots along the way just to see photographically if it's going to look like what's in my head.

I'm constantly running back to the house to check it on the big screen and see what it looks like.

For the most part the thing is built the way I want it to.

So I'm just getting some light on it and seeing how that looks.

And then, you know, you can see here I've made some notes based on my observation, you know on the printed set up on some things I need to lighten up or darken or so forth.

So I think that's really important.

Once I get it off the table and I get it on the computer and I think it looks good, then the detailed work can be kind of exciting.

That straight horizon line really bugged me.

So that was one of my earlier kind of changes.

It's almost like the curvature of the earth.

And, and then everything else is sort of piecing it together.

You know, the older you get, you become a better teacher and it's probably because, you know at some point in time that you realized that there are probably relationships, the most important thing.

I characterize myself as a teaching artist.

So, I'm working and I'm teaching.

So I get to tell that to students, it's like, "Hey, I'm working hard to, you know, I have the same schedule you have.

You know, the same, you know, deadlines and hey, welcome to deadlines, you know, because I understand what you're going through."

So I just think that it's to be fair, I should be working hard if I'm expecting them to work hard and I think that's worked well for me.

I think they've seen that, you know, they can see that around town and they can certainly look at my website and see that and so I think they feel better about it.

You know, the first day at school.

I said, you know, "Hey, you should look at my website.

You know, I really liked doing this.

I really do."

And if someone were going to be bossing me around for the semester, I'd want to know what they did and it's like I think you should take a look.

So I think it helps out.

I really tried to take my cues from the world that I live in.

(lighthearted guitar music) What I'm supposed to make, what I'm supposed to do.

Some of the work that I've done is speaking to current events and this political place that we're in.

This awful political place, kind of working through that.

Some of this work has probably helped me do that.

You can see that in some of the titles, "Land of Promise", "No Hope Road" is probably that frustration and anxiety, you know, building these houses on these cliff structures.

I think, you know, it's coming from that.

I feel genuinely, you know, sad about the fact that we can't treat each other nicely.

That's probably one of the things with animals.

I can do something I can make a dog's life terrific.

I can affect that.

You know, dogs, I think they want to be in the same space as you are generally.

So, so I think they're pretty trusting for the most part.

I think the first dog that Missy and I got together was Casper, this Wine Reiner.

And when we just started to photograph him just in the normal kind of snapshot way that you photograph your animals and realize that he's really photogenic.

And we realized that not only that, but we'll do whatever you want them to do.

You know?

I mean, I literally like tell them, look at the camera and he would just, you know, stare into the camera, tell him to do something else.

Coming?

I have some horses here and I'll tell you, horses are totally different.

You know, they're skeptical of everything.

The first time I ever thought, oh, cool, we've got horses, I'm starting to take a picture, waving the camera around, you know, they just get really weird.

I'll be photographing them a little bit, but they're quite different.

It's amazing how you do what I would characterize as a nice piece of work that kind of stays relevant.

A nice piece of work stays relevant.

I guess that's the work that I reflect on the most.

The idea is to kind of make the work that will speak that way and it doesn't always work.

You know it's not always, I don't know what the word is, temporal or timeless, but some of the work is and that's really rewarding.

- [Jason] Tom's story is available on our website where you can see all of our first five seasons full episodes, 757 featured artists and other features.

It's all at whro.org/curate.

- [Heather] Opened in 1943, this building was known as the Norfolk Center Theater, and initially served as venue to stage USO shows during Wold War II.

It's been the home for Virginia Opera since 1974.

- Now this main theater was added on in 1993.

The original auditorium remains behind the main stage.

It's now used for set construction and storage, but the Virginia Opera's most recent production took place outside of these hallowed halls at of all places, a driving range.

- Yes, you heard that right.

Looking for a safe and spectacular place to stage Wagner's "Das Rheingold", the opera chose top golf.

Here's how this unique and wonderful production came together at a most unlikely place.

(opera singing) - [Adam] This whole idea was born out of like, how can we completely revolutionize how we present opera?

What would be the right kind of piece to come back bigger than ever.

Wagner, you're like big and bold and bombastic.

(opening singing) I was talking with our new general director and I just said, "I know this is a crazy idea but what do you think" She said, "I think it's brilliant and I think we need to do it in a really new, innovative, crazy way".

- Crisis is a playground for change.

And the industry for opera is ready for it.

I don't want to see a canceled show and nobody wants that anymore and I thought, let's just pull the trigger.

Driving by Top Golf in the right direction just all of a sudden, light bulbs.

- She told me about it and I said, "You're crazy.

There's no way this is going to work".

- [Peggy] You've already got the opera boxes, which are the bays they're partitioned off for safety.

There's TV screens, so you can see the surtitles or closeups.

We can have food and drink.

Are you kidding?

- And so Peggy said, "Well, why don't we just go to Top Golf and visit it?

And we'll have a pitcher of beer and, you know, hit some balls or whatever".

And I really enjoyed myself.

We approached Top Golf and he said, well this would be a first.

(opera singing continues) - And then we found this crazy director who I love.

- [Mary] Well, I love spectacle.

I love doing the impossible.

Looking at the combination of Wagner, which we consider high art and Top Golf, which we consider sort of every Friday night, let's say the temptation to intermingle the two and figure out how they could communicate with each other was too enticing for me.

So I had to say yes.

You can feel a Wagnerian sort of theatricality about the building itself.

- Glaring issue.

(loud vehicle noise) There is a loud highway going right through our stage In opera, number one is sound and so we hired this crew to come in and this is what they do.

Outdoor amphitheater, great quality.

We have got towers of speakers and the sound will not be compromised.

(orchestra playing) - [Adam] The orchestra is inside in a conference room that's onsite in the building.

It's climate controlled.

That's a very important part for musicians with wooden instruments.

I'm sure, they can stay in tune and play their instruments in the oppressive Virginia heat.

- [Peggy] And they were game.

Virginia Symphony Orchestra, thank you very much.

I'm so grateful for you guys and of course they play beautifully.

(opera singing) - [Mary] The operative is about these two gods having built this place called Valhalla, and they've made a deal with some giants to build the dream home.

And what they've bartered away is their sister-in-law, who has these apples that give the God's eternal youth.

They've done a shady deal to get a place that will give them security.

It will give them comfort.

It will cloister them in.

So they never have to fear for their lives or worry about outsiders coming in.

(opera singing continues) - [Adam] As you look across this field, this epic landscape in front of you with those giant towers, the netting surrounding the field and the Greek amphitheater style seating on three levels.

For me, it captured the spirit of this moment trying to be innovative and re-imagine how we present this incredible art form to our audiences.

- If you're willing to bend the rules here and there, I think people will appreciate it and they'll come and they'll give us a try.

And hopefully that's the start of something adventurous and fun.

Opera has throughout history changed with the times and I feel we are in one of those times.

- [Adam] I wanted to spell them this, this is not some hallowed sacred ground.

It's a special place to experience theater.

I want everyone to feel welcome.

I want to open the doors to the opera house.

- [Peggy] We were forced into this position and I'm thinking, man, wouldn't it be great if we thought like this all the time.

Like we just kept those doors open and what's possible.

Maybe we don't always go through them, but maybe we do sometimes.

(opera music ends) - Columbus, Ohio artist, Brendan Spivey's work makes you feel alive.

Bold and brightly colored and full of kinetic energy.

He's using his positive flow to bring hope and understanding to his community.

- [Brendan] I've never really given myself like a label.

A lot of people say that I paint with joy, energy so those who know me know that I can be very energetic and I think a lot of that personality comes out in some of the colors that I use, shapes that I use.

There's never gonna be anything overly dull or dramatic.

I like action, so you'll see large swipes, bright colors, texture.

So that's kind of how I view my work.

(scratching sounds) (bottle spraying) So I'm a big fan of abstract, which is kind of ironic 'cause that's what I do.

It was more about the, I didn't like the literal interpretation necessarily of like skylines or barns and trees.

I liked being able to have my own vision of what the art piece meant.

Because I think abstract painters paint with intention, but we also paint with intuition.

So I found it really kind of fascinating just to see like what, what do I see going into the piece versus like what they said that they saw.

(upbeat music) 2017, I was looking for something a little more productive to do as far as stress relief.

You know, I used to run and lift and not that that's not productive, it just takes a lot of time and dedication, but I wanted something a little more.

So I think for me, looking at artwork was always kind of therapeutic.

So I wanted to give that a shot and not being trained to do this was kind of, it was different.

This is the Hayley Gallery.

(cheerful music) For me, this place is very homey and what I like about it is, I can find everything that I want.

So if I'm looking for abstract art or if I'm looking for glass, I'm able to find that here.

So it's not just a gallery to me, it's like a home.

So I will have rotations of artwork.

And so I typically will have between three to five pieces at a time and this one is called "Rise Up".

So this kind of all goes back to some of the movements that we're currently going through with social unrest and all that stuff.

So I wanted to give something and you look at the tones of browns and earth tones.

So it's, it's kind of pushing you a certain direction without necessarily taking you all the way there.

(somber music) We want it to kind of get involved and the whole Black Lives Matter movement, not necessarily through protest and those means, but how can we use our artists' voices to make a very strongly stated message without saying words?

And the two murals that we did, the first one was at the Ohio Theater and it was a compilation of fields of flowers and young children that were Black and she was picking flowers and the young boy had a paintbrush.

And then I came in as the artistic abstract sky of shapes and color and Will came in with the city scape.

And it just, I think it was a really great fusion of all of our talents together because normally you would not have an abstract painter mixed with two more traditionally trained artists.

But I think that to me was, that's what made the work so powerful.

Spencer that's awful close, buddy.

So Spencer is my double doodle.

High Five?

Yes!

He's another reason I do a lot of the things that I do.

Give you all the treats.

I get joy out of seeing him enjoy things in life and it's the money that comes in from art sales helps put him in the daycare, pays for his vet bills, they are so expensive and just overall, that's everyday thing for him.

Like that's my buddy.

Can you lay flat?

He just, he brings me joy and I think having more joy in my life, I think has also probably helped my artwork transcend.

You deserve to see how handsome you are.

I think another thing that kind of drove me to wanting to become a painter was being told that painters are born this way.

Artists are born artists and they're artists their entire lives.

That for me was a personal challenge.

So not only was I wanting to like get out there and paint and find a way to relax, I wanted to prove somebody wrong.

(Brendan laughs) And, I've been a hit so far so, I was right.

You don't know what you're capable of until you do it and I live my life that way and then I want to get out there and just try it.

- Despite its political shifts, Cuba has always been a creative place for artists.

One of its most interesting voices in the first half of the 20th century was recently featured in a Miami exhibit.

The work of Conrado Walter Massaguer shine at historic light on the culture of the island nation in the days before Castro.

(Cuban music) - [Francis] My name is Francis Lucca and I'm the Chief Librarian here at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University I'm the curator of this installation that's looking at Conrado Walter Massaguer, a Cuban publisher, art director, illustrator, and caricaturists.

(Cuban music) He was born in Cuba in 1889.

He actually left and fled with his family when the Spaniards invaded during one of the Independence wars and so he grew up kind of bi-culturally and then multi culturally.

And so I think for that reason, he was influenced not only by the artwork in Cuba, but what was happening in the modernist movement all around the world.

He actually introduced the modernist aesthetic to Cuba with a lot of art deco design covers for his magazines.

Social was one of his most important magazines and that one aimed at in elite audience.

So this was designed to get the who's who of Cuba interested in modernism.

He had an entire section in Social Magazine called Massa-girls.

Which is a play on his name, sounds like Massaguer, Masa-girl and what he was doing with that was showcasing this new woman that had suddenly appeared first on the American scene and then he helped import into Cuba.

He loved beautiful young women.

He was a little bit of a machista in that way, but he wasn't so thrilled about their being so outspoken and liberated.

That I think was a little bit threatening to him as well.

So you sort of see that little bit of ambivalence in these kinds of portraits.

(Cuban music) He was also very famous for his caricatures.

In fact, that's how he's mostly known today and he did over the span of a lifetime, tens of thousands of caricatures.

And he did them in a very modernist style.

He said the best caricatures are done on the sly with a furtive hand where you're just sketching them and they don't even know that you're sketching them.

Some of his characters got him in a little bit of trouble.

He was not shy of expressing his disdain for certain Cuban presidents.

You look at Machado sitting in the chair not so handsome and then you look at the portrait that's being done and it says, oh, he's young and handsome.

That's a completely different individual.

Massaguer spent a lot of time working for the tourism industry in Cuba, which began in 1919.

Since this exhibit focuses exclusively on the work of Conrado Massaguer.

I wanted to sort of show him in the context of some of the other contemporary caricaturists from Latin America.

And so it's called Caricatures.

(Cuban music) Once Castro's revolutionary seized power, Massaguer continue to live in Cuba though in relative obscurity until his death in 1965.

Here is someone who was the cultural ambassador for all of these visitors, especially from the United States and all of a sudden there are no visitors from the United States after 1959.

He ends up working in the Cuban National Archives just spending out his remaining days there.

To me, the most important thing about this exhibition is the fact that we can showcase this artist who was well-known, well-renowned in his period, but has sort of been eclipsed because of more than 50 years of strained relations between Cuba and the United States and his artwork is reflective of this earlier period, this period of warm relations and cordial relations.

- [Heather] You can find Curate on the web, check us out at whro.org/curate.

- [Jason] We're on social media too.

You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

And we want to say, thanks again to Virginia Opera, who just last week brought audiences back here to the Harrison.

Their production of Puccini's La Bohème Rodolfo Remembers continues this weekend and next in various venues throughout Virginia.

- Check out Virginia Opera's website, vaopera.org for all the details.

We're going to leave you with more from the Opera's production of Das Rheingold performed at Top Golf.

- [Jason] Thanks for joining us.

I'm Jason Kypros.

- [Heather] And I'm Heather Mazzoni.

We'll see you next time on Curate.

(opera singing)