(drum roll rattling) - [Mark] In this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

(whimsical music) - I like that people are a part of my work.

I never thought that people would be as weird as me, and I love that they wanna just get on board with this strange cozy train.

(upbeat music) - One of my favorite, most gratifying parts is seeing people actually take in the work and be in the space and say, "Oh wow, this is something that is affecting me right now."

(energetic music) - [Marc] We want everyone to enjoy themselves when they're here.

No pretentiousness, you know, you're here to enjoy it however you enjoy it, and that's fine by us.

- It's all ahead on this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

(lighthearted music) Hello, I'm Mark Cernero, and this is "Artistic Horizons" artist.

Kristin Skees works in a variety of media.

Combining experimental fibers with photography, she approaches art in an imaginative, quirky way that has led her work to being shown in multiple collections.

We head to Virginia to find out more.

(whimsical music) - So I knit cozies for people.

Think tea cozy.

(triumphant music) Like a British tea cozy, just a warm covering to keep something warm and snuggly.

But my cozies are a little more aggressive in their cozying.

(laughs) They are full-body coverings that covers most of their identifiable features.

The legs, they're almost always bare because I find that hysterical to feel like people aren't wearing pants under the cozy.

And I also think knees are kind of funny.

(whimsical music continues) I love art history in general.

So I was really inspired by portraiture painting and estate painting with people showing off their estate by posing in a painting.

And so I thought of these very constructed, very posed, very formal photographs, and that's how I kind of began to think of them not as cozies but as cozy photographs.

So for me, the photograph is the piece.

The cozy is a part of the piece.

Through that, I kind of have this conversation with them about how they present themselves to the world, what's important to them, and how we communicate to an audience who they are as people.

(whimsical music continues) It started with my friends and family, because they are very willing to go along with my ideas.

Oh, yeah, there we go.

Yeah, there you go.

My crazy artist things that I come up with.

So they're used to that.

This very first of the series.

That is my mother and dad.

And basically, how it went was, "Mom, Dad, can you tow your Airstream to the Walmart parking lot and stand in these knitted things for me?"

"Okay, fine.

I guess."

I had planned their cozy colors to coordinate and also go with the silver of the Airstream a little bit and feel a little mid-century in palette.

I wanted you to know where they were, and I wanted the mountain landscape in the background.

And then this yellow stripe up front is just a nice pop of color.

This was kind of at the height of that, like a culture of RV people who would camp out in Walmarts, which felt very Americana to me.

It just felt like a portrait of a certain segment of America.

And now every time this is shown in a gallery or I sell a print of it, like, my dad asked for a commission.

I'm like, that's not how this works.

But thanks.

(laughs) (gentle music) Once I had done a few, and people saw the photographs and saw what I was doing, I had some requests.

I have other friends wanting to be a part of it.

Usually, it's somebody I know and have a wonderful idea in mind for them.

This one was particularly made for the Alabama Theatre in Birmingham, was my good friend Pat, who I worked with.

And she always had cargo pockets full of stuff, so I couldn't imagine, like, making a cozy that it didn't have pockets for her.

So that's how that design decision came about.

But I also do cozies for people who I've never met before until we have a conversation about the cozies, and I'm excited about them, or they're excited about me, and we have a really interesting dynamic, and we can do wonderful photographs that way.

So it's grown and sort of changed over the years.

If I cozy you, it's meaningful to me as a person to be like, "I wanna cozy you," because it means you're sort of important in my life.

This is one of my newer photographs, Jay in the Dismal Swamp.

And it's an interesting story.

We went and scouted this location.

Clouds were puffy and perfect, and the sky was blue, and we had this beautiful horizon line, and I thought that would be a wonderful shot.

And then I knit the cozy, we go out there, the sky was overcast and moody and cloudy, and where I had framed it up, it was much flatter.

It was on a dock, and they had replaced the railing, and it was just not the same shot.

And I was very disappointed.

And at the last minute, I was like, "Go stand on this boat ramp."

And I saw this corner, and I saw the trees, and I saw the really dramatic clouds.

And I think this photograph is better than what I imagined it to be.

And I love when that happens.

I think this one just has so much drama, the way the light is hitting and the clouds.

I do love this photo.

The way my projects come together sometimes feels more perfect than others.

And I think this one just, all the elements wound up being there for me.

(relaxing music) So the actual sitting down and knitting is when I get to go to my studio.

I can't even really listen to music or podcasts or anything because I have to keep count.

So it's a lot of setting up the machine, which she is old and finicky.

So, you know, I have to oil her down with WD-40 before we begin and make sure she's ready to go.

The stitch pattern is pretty unique.

It's something I developed early on in the series, and it's like two stitches, skip a stitch, one stitch, skip a stitch, two stitches.

And it's just something I made up.

I liked the pattern, I liked that it was a little, had a little gap there and created a vertical stripe.

So that is in every one is always that sort of three-stitch pattern.

And then I have to do the threading and make sure it's just right before I start knitting.

♪ Oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ I start it the same way every time.

(relaxing music continues) I have a very specific pattern to begin with.

I do sets of 20, and I always start on the same side, because I do have ADHD.

And if my mind wanders and I lose count, I have to kind of start all over.

So I have a clicker, and I have a system so that I keep myself on track.

It's very meditative.

Just emptying my mind and counting is nice to do.

Anytime my mind wanders, I am in trouble, so I have to...

It is very much a practice.

(relaxing music continues) So that's the second half.

(whimsical music) Well, I'm always happy to have like a whole conversation and see what kind of interesting things we can come up with, 'cause it's so fun.

And I enjoy talking with people and working with people, and I like to facilitate these experiences.

I think it's memorable and interesting, and I like that people are a part of my work.

I never thought that people would be as weird as me, and I love that they wanna just get on board with this strange cozy train.

(whimsical music continues) (energetic music) - And now for the artist quote of the week.

(lighthearted music) The work of Ohio-based artist David Butler creates conversation.

Within the figurative painting tradition, he explores culture and history, and shows the intersection of identity, race, and equality.

Here is his story.

(bright music) - My inspiration comes from my existence as a cis-het Black male in society.

I have a certain viewpoint of how, of the world that was given to me, and I'm also going through a lot of processes of unlearning the things that I learned throughout my life.

I think that to be better humans, we have to begin to unlearn.

And for me, my artwork is always a process of, like, asking the questions that are hard for me to answer and then also trying to pose those questions to society to see if I'm alone in this pursuit, or am I on the right track when it comes to how I'm thinking about this.

Sometimes I get it right.

Sometimes I don't.

(bright music continues) This body of work is a group of paintings called "Idol."

They are a series of appropriated pulp fiction novel covers from the 1950s all the way to late '60s, early '70s.

(funky music) I took those covers that originally had white ingenues on the covers and replaced them with women of color who I knew, and also some who I don't know, and to try to have a conversation about how we see Black womanhood within society, and whose gaze is the Black woman for when it comes to being on display in this type of way.

Most of these covers kind of cover issues of romance, relationships, but they also were like kind of these propaganda tales to keep you away from the, you know, harlequin women, you know, to keep you away from the jezebels of the world.

And I think that framing of misogyny is kind of what I was injected with as a young man.

(curious music) Most of the times, when we talk about the creative arts and when we talk about paintings in general, we are always talking about how archivable they are, what they're worth, and how you're supposed to sell them.

So when people see these frail paintings that are on paper, one of the main questions I get is like, how are you supposed to sell these?

Well, I've never intended to sell these until they had their lifespan.

So when grad school started, I created a body of work that was solely for not being in the archive.

This is gonna be work that actually has a lifespan, that actually goes through things, that actually gets crumpled up, that actually gets beat up, bent, you know, punctured.

And then at the tail end of it, which would be 10 years this year, then I will try to take what is left of the artwork and turn it into something that is archivable for people to possibly purchase.

So when you think about the fact that this artwork was created with our gaze of how we see women in Black womanhood, and we think about what women have to go through in society, it's an allegory for their lives as well, thriving through all these different bends, twists, turns, and kind of this crumpling by societal norms and the gaze of how, the boxes that we put them in all the time.

And so, now, is she worth something?

Is she still important to you, even though she's been through something and had a lifespan that has a history to it?

So is there still beauty there?

And I think that that creates a larger conversation for the work and allows for us to kind of engage with it in a way to where this work is uniquely already archived in a way.

It's had nine different provocations since I put the work up in Philadelphia in 2013.

And now that we are 10 years and beyond, we now can start to see these characters, their story end, but kind of a new story is beginning.

So when you see something that says, "too black for HEAVEN," original meaning of too Black was mostly like, you know, being too bad, being a bad woman, but being too Black, if you equal bad to Black, and there's a Black woman on the cover, it has a whole different cultural context now.

So that's where I am starting to kind of toy with the original type and text of the covers to kind of build out this idea that, you know, these were original thoughts about just women in general.

And when we place these thoughts into a cultural context, and we start to think about things in a more intersectional way, then we can have like larger conversations about how those original thoughts that were made for a certain group of people kind of perpetuate themselves through different cultures and subcultures that we exist in today.

(upbeat music) I would say the most rewarding thing for me is the share-out, is the exchange, and the participation with the exchange, that's the best part.

We make the things, and people come see the things, and we have conversations about those things, or we share in the energy of those things.

And sometimes words don't need to be said.

Sometimes explanations don't need to be given.

Sometimes it's just taking it in and seeing people take in the work.

That's one of my favorite, most gratifying parts is seeing people actually take in the work and be in the space and say, "Oh wow, this is something that is affecting me right now, and I don't know exactly like, oh, how or why, but it makes me feel a certain type of way."

And I think that that's the best part about being an artist is just making sure that you are engaging in the exchange with the people.

(upbeat music continues) (energetic music) - Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

(lighthearted music) Finally, we travel to Florida to visit the IGNITE Broward art and light festival, presented by the Broward County Cultural Division in partnership with Mad Arts.

This week-long event features large-scale projection mapping and an assortment of light sculptures and installations that leave visitors amazed.

Take a look.

(energetic music) - I've always loved the concept of projection mapping and light festivals that utilize outdoor and public spaces in creating really unique environments.

Technology is so great and so much a part of our lives that as we looked at IGNITE and creating these experiences, we've really evolved the festival over the past few years to create something truly unique to Broward County.

(energetic music continues) This is our third year of IGNITE, and we've essentially doubled the number of art installations that we have between downtown Fort Lauderdale and here at the location at Mad Arts in Dania Beach.

- This artwork, it's called "Resonances."

It's by the French Canadian artist LP Rondeau.

And it's a play on memory.

So basically, when you pass through this triangle, (soft electronic chiming) (faint chattering) (laughs) your image gets recorded and displayed in the screen, and it's a play on memory.

Some things get, stay in time, and some things just disappear and get blurred.

(energetic music) - I'm a fan of this type of artwork.

I'm a fan of these artists.

I'm constantly engaged and looking and talking to artists, you know, that work, you know, in this medium.

I oftentimes see who they're fans of, and then we reach out, and we do just a lot of conversations with a lot of artists.

- We have artists from the US, artists from around the world, really, and we focus on art that is at the intersection of technology and art.

You'll see light sculptures.

You'll see projection mapping.

You'll see interactive pieces.

You'll see things that you sit, and sit in the environment and enjoy.

- We have three local artists that we're working with.

I feel like each piece is very unique, and you don't have much overlap at all, you know, in the different pieces.

(energetic music continues) (machines whirring) - [Sofia] So basically, all of these pieces are analogs.

So he's doing, you know, he's recreating something, basically a lot of things, computers and electrics and things like that, but he's doing all of it analog.

In this artwork, Richard Vergez manipulates live sound and light to create intermedia audiovisuals installation.

He works with surveillance cameras, projection mirrors, and contract microphones to create an immersive hallucinatory reflection and refraction experience.

All of the work is analog in a way.

And so he can play with it, and he just tunes it.

He's constantly, you know... (bright electronic chiming) - We are Davy and Kristin McGuire, founders of Studio McGuire, and we do a immersive art.

(dreamy music) - [Davy] We have three pieces here.

We've got a piece called "The Hunter," which is a paper diorama that comes to life with projections.

- [Kristin] We've got "Ophelia," which is an underwater projection of Ophelia, which is a Shakespearean character of a young woman drowning herself.

And then we have "Sirens," which is mermaids projected into water.

- The public perception of immersive art has really changed, and I think there's so, there's kind of an explosion at the moment, - Just that, watching a couple of people, I have noticed what I expected, which is a lot of immersive art is very big and spectacular and colorful and made for amazing Instagram moments.

And this piece, I think, is almost, is an antidote to that.

It's very small, very detailed.

It's very slow, it's- - Quiet.

- It's quiet.

It's intimate.

You need to sit down, you need to contemplate it and just immerse yourself for 15 minutes and think about what you're seeing.

That is something that we really like doing, is combining analog physical with digital.

So the two, they work together, and we love doing that.

We love animating surfaces and objects and water and all sorts of things with projections.

(dreamy music continues) - This art work is called "Core."

It is by Adrien B and Claire.

They are a group, an artist collective from Paris.

And it's a play on sound and the reaction of light.

It's very meditative.

- We have to be really conscious about accessibility of art and art experiences, and technology and art has a unique way to engage people in a way that traditional museums don't.

But since technology is such a prevalent part of who we are as humans and how we've evolved, technology-based art helps break down a lot of those barriers and create accessibility in a way that isn't necessarily possible with other art forms.

- This one is called "Luminescent Sylvia," and it's actually a work by our MadLabs, which is the partner of Mad Arts.

And this one is interactive, so.

(dreamy music) (bright music) - Mad has been a great partner in developing IGNITE.

We wouldn't be able to do it ourselves.

Mad knows the technology.

They can talk to the artists.

They bring such a wealth of knowledge that compliments the Cultural Division and what we're able to do.

- After IGNITE, some of the exhibits will go, and then a lot of the exhibits here will stay as part of the museum.

- This is a permanent commission of the museum by artist Miguel Gonzalez.

He's local.

And it's a play with music and also light, so music and light are synced.

(upbeat music) - When we had the first IGNITE festival, it just felt like it was for everybody.

And I saw the engagement with the art, and you had people that were definitely fans of this type of art, knew the artists, and came to see the work specifically.

And you had other people that just came to take Instagram photos, and you know, I thought that either of those were great.

And then if you could convert the people that didn't know anything about the art into fans of this type of art, you know, all the better.

You know, we want everyone to enjoy themselves when they're here.

No pretentiousness, you know, you're here to enjoy it however you enjoy it, and that's fine by us.

(upbeat music continues) (energetic music) - And now here's a look at a few notable dates in art history.

(lighthearted music) And that wraps it up for this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

For more arts and culture, visit wpbstv.org.

Until next time, I'm Mark Cernero.

Thanks for watching.

(lighthearted music) (gentle music)