(upbeat music) - One of the reasons I wanted to do this is I don't want to ever have anybody in this area forget those 12 people.

- This has been our first in-person venture.

So it's been a challenge, but I will tell you this has been an amazing group of humans to work with.

- First, it's just photography, but the sea helps me to make these images unique.

- [Narrator] This is "Curate."

- Welcome to "Curate", I'm Jason Kypros.

- And I'm Heather Mazzoni.

Thanks for joining us.

The English origin of the word curate comes from the 14th century.

In middle English, the Corot was the member of a church in charge of the parish, the person charged with the care of souls.

- That seems appropriate for our 757 feature this week.

In May, 2019, our community suffered an unimaginable tragedy when a gunman shot and killed 12 people and injured four others at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center.

A shocked community looking for healing found an unexpected form of therapy.

Our 757 featured artists are a very special group of craftspeople who use their creativity to help survivors of terrorism and violence to heal through the art of tattooing.

(gentle music) - I think it's a really beautiful thing to watch these people truly getting some healing.

The true definition of what church is, this is it.

It's a community coming together to heal.

I tattooed a man named David yesterday, he's actually the police officer that's in charge of the active shooter courses.

And I tattooed a portrait of David and Goliath battling.

And I asked him, I said, "Why would you get David and Goliath?"

He said, "Well, I've had so many Goliaths in my life "and I beat all my Goliaths "and I just wanna keep beating more."

And it's brought me to tears man, and it just reminds you that we're human.

- I'm the active threat citizens defense coordinator for Virginia Beach, I designed the program.

I trained over 11,000 citizens, done over 350 workshops.

Some of those people in that building I trained, unfortunately, the building is right behind my office, so it's a constant reminder of both my success and my failure.

And that's my mission now.

I was gonna retire, but I'm not finished yet.

I never had a tattoo in my life.

And I never even thought about getting one.

But then my son told me that he's doing it.

So I figured what a better way to bond with my son and do something together than to do something that affected both of us that day and get tattoos together.

- Growing up, seeing him leave to go to work and come home and knowing he's just out there helping people always inspired me to be a police officer.

I was supposed to be off duty, yes.

I was actually hanging up the police car keys so I could go home.

And then one of my partners ran up to me.

He's like, you hear this call going on, when we got there, it was still an active incident, so we geared up and we ran into the building.

It comes back to me every now and then, but I find, honestly, just talking about it helps out, but I think this tattoo is a good reminder of what can help me.

I got my personal badge on me as well as half of a spartan helmet.

The badge itself, I'm so proud to be a police officer here in Philly, Virginia Beach.

And then I put the verse John 15:13 underneath it.

And basically it says, "There's no greater love "that someone lays down the light for her friends."

- I'm so proud of my son.

So anything that I can do it to be with him together, I'm gonna do it.

And so when he tells me about it, he said he was gonna do it, I was like, well, I'll do it too.

- So artists for Israel's Healing Ink Project brings the world's most talented tattoo artists to Israel to cover the scars of terror survivors and Israeli soldiers injured in combat.

We saw what an amazing impact it had and we decided to bring it to the States as well.

So each year we do a different American City that was affected by some sort of tragedy.

- Just after the shooting as the community was starting to plan memorials and figure out how we get through all of this, my mind went back to Healing Ink.

So I reached out to Craig and here we are today.

- We knew that there were many who were impacted by this, notably our own officers who were there.

So we work to bring the kind hearts of Healing Ink together with folks who probably would appreciate this and find some relieve.

We brought the local artists, artists from other parts of Virginia, Fredericksburg and Richmond who wanted to participate who said, "Hey, this is our state, we're all one."

And then we had Israeli artists who said, "Listen, you guys give so much to us.

"We wanna come here and give something to you."

So they flew in from Israel.

And then on top of that, when other artists who've worked with us in the past heard what we were doing, they said, "Hey, we're coming."

And I said, "No, no, it's only for local artists."

They're like, "We're coming."

I said, "No, but you were not taking care of your hotel."

They're like, "Yeah, yeah, we're coming."

So they're like, "We're gonna be there.

"So either you can give us people to tattoo "or we're just going to annoy you and be there."

So I said, "All right, let's tattoo more people."

This program de monetizes, everything.

We volunteer our time.

There's no money being exchanged.

All that's being exchanged is you're gonna get an awesome experience and a really cool tattoo.

- Okay, we're gonna start probably in the worst spot.

- Okay, that's fine.

- As you remember from few months ago.

- And do your best not to uppercut me regardless of how much I deserve it- - Right, I won't.

It'll be fine.

- All right, here we go.

- You're right, this hurts.

(woman laughing) - It's awful down there, I know.

It's awful, I'm trying to get out there so you can like it.

- It's okay, I'm just in my happy place.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this is although I know I will never forget it, when people see this, I want them to remember it too.

I don't want to ever have anybody in this area forget those 12 people.

If you read the song, it is about having faith through difficult times.

And that's exactly what this has been about.

This is one of the steps in getting through that.

- Kenny and I are friends for life.

I couldn't have got luckier úcause she was the coolest lady.

To know that she liked it at the end and it touched her that deeply, is I mean, I'm kind of on cloud nine at the moment.

- Anytime something like this pops up, I'm more than happy to come and give my time.

It's the greatest job in the world.

And then to be able to get back on top of it, it's a beautiful thing.

(upbeat music) Yeah.

- People happy.

I saw people walking out the door with their tattoo, literally floating out the door.

- They feel the change and you can see it.

You can see a person coming in when he walks in and you see the way they walk out and you can't deny it.

Just everything floats, that's maybe some of the magic that tattooing has.

- You're broken, broken can be fixed, never the same, but it can be fixed.

That helped me understand that, hey, you gotta look at your victories too and take consideration, all the people that did come to you after to hug you and thanked you and everything like that and just going on.

- And this weekend has been super heavy in a good way.

And I think it's a really beautiful thing to watch these people go from being scared, intimidated, to being completely relaxed, enjoying themselves and truly getting some healing.

And then at the end of the night, they walk away with something for the rest of their life.

And it's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, it's truly a beautiful thing.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] If you wanna learn more about these amazing artists and find a link to their website and social media, just navigate over to our website, whro.org/curate.

- The Virginia Stage Company and the Hermitage Museum and Gardens are two local institutions that have been entertaining us for decades.

But this past year has been an incredible challenge for both groups.

- This fall, the two iconic arts organizations combined their efforts to create one very ingenious production that brought together local history and socially distanced audiences at the Hermitage Museum.

- Working with the Norfolk State University Theater Company, they performed the "Beat the Surface", a lock Haven legend.

The production is a spiritual journey based on a real life tragedy that happened on the grounds of the Hermitage more than a century ago.

- [Narrator] She told of a man she had brought to the Hermitage, a lawyer on his way to become a circuit judge.

- COVID has been really hard on people.

And I knew coming in that for the people involved in the process, as well as the participants and guests that we wanted to make something that would be a little bit of healing.

(dramatic music) This has been our first in-person venture and it's been twice the work.

We have an amazing stage management crew that comes in early and deep cleans everything with gloves.

Actors arrive in costume instead of providing changing areas here, so that their costumes aren't breezed on by other actors or interacted with.

So there's a lot of different protocols.

So it's been a challenge, but I will tell you this has been an amazing group of humans to work with.

And the Hermitage staff has been amazingly supportive.

Andrew has been an amazing collaborator and co-producer.

- As public programs manager, it's my job to create events to support the art exhibitions.

And it's been a challenge, we're fortunate though we've got 12 acres of gardens and grounds.

There's a lot of room to spread out.

- This show centers on these letters about a man named James Hurd who had had a nervous breakdown.

And he came to the Hermitage and Florence took care of him.

- We had letters from the early 1900s from the American portrait artist and painter Douglas Volt to Florence Sloan who founded the Hermitage Museum.

And in one of those letters that talked about a man, she was referred to in the letters as the sick man.

We think as a family friend, Mrs. Sloan invites him to come here because she believes this is a restful restorative place.

A man who was brought into the Hermitage, in her letter she said to help him find himself.

But instead his stay here only helped him find his way out.

He ended Up killing himself here on the grounds on a boat that was docked on the other side of the property at the time.

(dramatic music) - How do we process loss?

How do we deal with unexpected things that happened?

The first three scenes I would say are exposition.

You meet him, you meet her dealing with a sick man, all heightened in more performance art and traditional.

Then as we move outside, and kind of moves into meditations on what happens beyond.

And then you kind of goes across the bridge, which I referred to as the Valley of the shadow of death to the final culmination, where then we dance it out.

In fact, it's a Patrick trademark that I end as many events as possible with everybody dancing.

- It is a different level of artistic performance because it is literally evoking the atmosphere, it's engaging the environment.

And what we feel as performers and to allow the audience to feel that as well.

- Great partners, Norfolk State University is an amazing co-producer on the event as well as warehouses Theater, who did the projections, CORE Theater Ensemble.

It's been a real gift in all those ways.

- So it's just great allowing the audience to navigate and create the idea of what they may believe or what they take away from the experience.

And finally getting them to a point of letting go of their trauma and finding something that they can leave behind or that they have beneath the surface.

♪ We are doing fine ♪ (cast clapping) ♪ We are doing fine ♪ - Photographer, Andreas Franke has added a new technique to his photo development, saltwater.

He displays his photographs highlighting the dangers of plastics in our oceans on a rack off the coast of Key West Florida.

That period in the sea left a lasting effect that makes his photographs even more beautiful and meaningful.

(gentle music) - The super cool thing with artwork on the water is that at first, it's just photography.

But after this, the sea helps me to make these images unique.

And I have no influence during this three months.

My name is Andreas Franke.

I'm a photographer and I love diving.

I'm very concerned about plastic in the ocean.

For my plastic ocean images, I collected real plastic trash from the ocean, from the Mediterranean Sea, very close to Venice, Italy.

So four of us went down there, collected only one hour on the beach and we had more than enough plastic to do all these 24 images.

Then I had a pool, like a tank, I placed girls as well as kids in this plastic and made like a still life.

Like a old classic still life and surrounded in the water, in the tank, the plastic pieces we collected around the talents.

So the reason why I came to key West and hang the artwork in key West on the Vandenberg is of course it's an outstanding shipwreck and also a wonderful type destination.

And for me, I really see it as a gallery.

All right, let's bring you down.

We're almost done.

We brought them down, all the 24 images and hang them with magnets on the side of the shipwreck.

So during this three months, while this exhibition was on the water on the Vandenberg, more than 10,000 divers had the possibility to see this project.

After three months, I came back and we brought this artwork up.

We brought them on land.

We clear coat them, that all the sea life gets stable and will not crumble.

Now after these images are clear coated, we will show it again.

And we will show it in a gallery.

During these three months, these images changed, because the good thing of the sea, the sea life become a part of my artwork and converted them.

So I do 50%, the other 50% is do in the sea.

After this three months when I bring them up, there's a lot of grows of microorganism and it changed these images and make them unique.

Also, if I would do it a second time, it never ever would look similar.

And that is fantastic.

And here you can see how the artwork looks before and here you can see the difference.

So what you see here and why I love this so much to hang the artwork on the water, it's like the water drips in these images and changed the colors and creates frames, like in the old times when we had Polaroids.

I call it awareness campaign.

And the reason why I came up with this, it's really such, one of our biggest problems.

And I love the ocean and I had to really the feeling I have to do something, you could cry.

You see every year how the sea gets worse and worse.

The nature dies and you find plastic everywhere.

But I feel the more often that people hear about this and see this, I feel, I hope it will help them.

(gentle music) - Cincinnati artist and professor Cynthia Lockhart tells stories through her art.

Her work, Journey to freedom is an amazing collection of quilts that recently sat on display at the Taft Museum in her hometown.

It tells a story spanning 400 years, a story of hope, that is the journey of her ancestors.

(upbeat music) - Ellen and Ann from the Taft call me up one day and said, "We'd be interested in coming over "to look at your artwork, the Taft is interested in you."

So I prepared the visit for them.

They came by, they looked at my artwork in the house, visited my studio.

And then probably about a month later, I get a call and with an invitation to do a show.

Journey to Freedom is a quilt that I did years ago.

But it's really at the heart of a story that I believe in.

I believe in a story of people who were slaves, of people who were brought to this country unbeknownst to what would happen to them, left their history came here and over a series of 400 years, became a vibrant and exciting part of this America.

Within my work, I build a story.

I research the project I read up on, I will look up the history of it and read several adaptations, books and what have you, maybe even look at a movie.

And then I start putting that together in terms of sketching.

And so I come up with the images that resonate in me that are strong, that are powerful and I get a nudge and it's like, okay, this is what you do.

This is what you put together.

And I began to put the colors together for the mood that I'm creating within the artwork.

And I will either make the fabric.

I've done something called fabrication where I'm literally putting tiny little pieces, bits and pieces like a collage to create a very dynamic look or I will dye the fabric or I'll do symbols and I'll silk screen as well.

I'm very proud of the history of the Taft.

Being able to embrace an African-American artists and also being involved in abolitionists movement and the integrity of the Taft to still continue to have a program in place that will support the African-American community with their dumping sin.

Again, I had to research the Duncanson murals and you have to select a piece of art in the Taft.

And I looked vigorously for many things and I was attracted to many things, but you had to narrow it down.

So looking at Duncanson's work, he does a phenomenal depiction of this environment that just looks like a place that you want to be, that you could just walk into this place.

And so that's critical for an artist for that the viewer actually can feel that.

And then he did something very whimsical was to put a Trompe-l'Sil frame around the artwork.

And I thought that resonated with me.

That's sort of playing tricks with things, I can be a trickster with with artworks.

I said with that whimsy and with those beautiful color-muted tones that he used, I could work with that.

So what I decided when I started sketching was is that in Duncanson's murals, I found an area where I felt a slave could have passed through one of his murals.

Therefore I decided to have a runaway slave passing through the image of the inspiration of the Duncanson.

♪ Swing low ♪ ♪ Sweet chariot ♪ The title of his runaway, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" which is an African-American hymn which depicts and guides the travelers to freedom.

So it was a song that was invented to give them instructions of where they would go to seek freedom.

And so with that, then I said, "Okay, now I have to come up "with some type of whimsy and some type of flight."

And I did that by using a figure that almost was like a camouflage figure that is escaping through the fields.

And again above him, there are the three faces that are singing "Swing low, Sweet Chariot."

I also created some orbs.

So the orb structures are just the round circles that you see in the work, are representative of travelers, representative of people who were no longer with us, but as a way to remember them, the circles.

So inside the circle is always a prayer, is always an aspiration.

And so the orbs surround the slave as the slave runs towards freedom.

What's always in my work is the attitude of hope and joy and unlimited possibilities of being able to be free and to be yourself, freedom is a very precious thing.

And as a part of the show, I said, "Whoa, I took on a big task."

This is my perspective about freedom, journey to freedom depicted through my ancestors.

What does everybody else feel about freedom?

And lots of writing talking about freedom, lots of writing.

And then it dawned on me there what do people think about freedom?

It's a huge subject.

It's one of the most important subjects that we have, our individual rights as human beings to be to be free, to be treated free and equally.

♪ Freedom sweet chariot ♪ ♪ Coming forth to carry me ♪ ♪ Whoa ♪ - You can find more Curate content on our website, whro.org/curate.

There you'll find all previous episodes, including four plus seasons.

- And you can follow "Curate" on social media.

We're on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

- We're going to leave you tonight with more from the Virginia Stage Company and the Hermitage.

This is more from their production, "Beneath the Surface."

- This is the big closing number from the show.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Jason Kypros.

- And I'm Heather Mazzoni.

We'll see you next time on "Curate."

♪ We are doing fine ♪ ♪ We are doing fine ♪ ♪ Hotel ring the bell ♪ ♪ And the folks go la da da da da ♪ ♪ And I can't just sit right there ♪ ♪ In your folding chair and die ♪ ♪ Hotel ring the bell ♪ ♪ And the folks go la da da da da ♪ ♪ Call home on the phone ♪ ♪ And the folks go la da da da da ♪ ♪ And I can't just sit right there ♪ ♪ In your folding chair and die ♪ ♪ We are doing fine ♪ ♪ We are doing fine ♪ ♪ We are doing fine ♪