(radio murmurs) (gentle music) - Art is everywhere.

It might be a dance with your favorite partner, or the dance of a butterfly's wings.

It might be a delicate fragrance, or a delicate orb made of glass.

It might be something you've never even imagined, because art is incorporated into almost everything and we're excited to share that everything with you.

Welcome to "ART Inc." - [Narrator] If you want to know what's going on... (upbeat music) (birds chirping) (audience applauds) (cars honk) (static hisses) (gentle music) - [Narrator] All hail the queens.

- [Interviewer] And now hopefully for one more time... - Ready?

Here we go.

(claps) (upbeat music) Hi, I'm Jennifer Gilli Cahoon, an artist who lives and works in East Providence, Rhode Island.

I'm primarily an acrylic painter who does portraits.

(upbeat music) The drag project is about celebrating and humanizing a group of people, who I feel are being unfairly targeted, dehumanized and mistreated today in our country.

- [Reporter] 50 members of the far right white nationalist groups, Proud Boys and Patriot Front, marched in the streets of Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday.

- [Reporter] A group of men shouted slurs, during a drag queen story hour in San Lorenzo, California.

- The Tennessee Senate passed a bill that would ban drag shows from public spaces.

But also... (gentle music) - What if I was being attacked because I used acrylic paint?

I just happened to like acrylic paint, and that was my expression, and then that laws came out against acrylic painters?

Across the country, we're seeing this groundswell of initiatives that are aimed at dehumanizing people that are just practicing their art form.

(gentle music) For this project, I chose a subject Bianca Del Rio, who was from "RuPaul's Drag Show" and just love her.

But in the process of painting her, it made me think about people that I've known for 30 years.

Friends of mine, involved in this art form of drag, have come under fire.

Nadia was a student of mine in a high school classroom and it's been fun to follow her journey and to see how the art of drag has really helped her come out of her shell and embrace who she is.

And she's wonderful at it.

I work with reference photos and the one of the trickiest thing is picking the right reference photo, something that I feel captures the je ne sais quoi of who that person is.

And at a certain point I abandoned the photograph, and it's just about having a conversation with the painting.

(upbeat music) Didn't really see it in LaDiva, where there's this light coming out from behind her.

This was the first painting I did after Bianca that focused on a local queen.

I met LaDiva when we were in our twenties.

I'm gonna do it as in part of, in their community.

And LaDiva has also been incredibly helpful in terms of helping connect me with other queens who might be interested, helping me find a venue.

So the idea is that they are going to be at The Stable in Providence.

I've already worked with the owner over there, Steve, who's fantastic and very invested in his community, and I'm directing at least 50% of the funds to the community.

Community is incredibly important.

Having a place that you can gather and bond, and laugh and cry and share.

Having a space, almost like a sacred space to do that kind of thing is very important.

Building relationships is key and making art and posting art and engaging on social media, and having shows those a way that I engage with my community, that's meaningful and important.

I'm only one tiny little redheaded woman in Rhode Island, but this is what I do.

If people see a work of art, it makes them feel something or change the way they associate or think about a person, a place, or a group of people.

That's powerful.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Ladies and gentlemen, Miss LaDiva Jonz.

(upbeat piano music) - I am Gary Jacques.

(shutter clicking) Also known as LaDiva Jonz.

LaDiva is actually me.

I think most people that know me well will definitely agree that when I am in drag, I am the same person, just with a full face of makeup on.

(laughs) ♪ You look gorgeous ♪ ♪ Tell me I look gorgeous, do I look gorgeous ♪ I drew a lot of inspiration from musical theater for drag.

I'm obsessed by musicals, but only a certain kind of musical.

I don't wanna see "Rent," I could care less.

I just wanna see "Anything Goes" over and over again.

♪ Anything goes ♪ ♪ Anything goes ♪ "The Drowsy Chaperone," "Thoroughly Modern Millie," anything that is set in the thirties or pastiche-y, or "42nd Street," or we're gonna put on a show, 'cause it's The Depression.

(laughs) I love Cole Porter.

I love "Kiss Me Kate," like I love his work.

I think it's just so clever and sophisticated.

Drag for me is just kind of like a sparkly, 1920s musical all the time.

I don't even know what it is about sparkles.

I don't know.

(gentle music) Where we keep the stuff is for the most part, probably the least glamorous of what we do.

Everyone keeps their things in the basement or the attic or a spare room or a sunroom tucked away in plastic bins.

My drag clothing is where I allow my imagination to go to.

Most of your drag that you would when you see it, not on you is probably not that glamorous.

A wig on a head by itself is really not much of anything, until someone's there to animate it.

Putting on drag is more of a process.

And again, although I think me and LaDiva Jonz are me, it's a heightened version of me.

(upbeat music) (audience cheers) You know, and I think it's not just a fantasy for me, but it's a fantasy for people coming to see our shows, or coming to see an appearance somewhere.

We're very lucky that we have a very strong following of supporters, you know, we have people that come to all of our shows wherever the show might be.

But to go into this, a room that holds 400 people, and see it sold out and not know almost any of these people, we ask ourselves that, like where these people come from, what brings them here?

How many of you, it's your first time in a drag brunch?

(audience cheers) - Oh, look at that.

- Now we can see.

- [Drag Queen] Some virgins.

- Oh, my hairdresser friend over there.

She's so cute with her hairdo.

I think sometimes the people we entertain the most are the people that were the least invested in what they were coming to see.

They are surprised that they had a good time.

Many times when like gay friends come to this show, they are surprised by the lack of gay people there, of queer people, like where are the queers?

Who are all these straight people?

And we're grateful to them, 100%.

We do try to make a point at some point in this show, generally to say something about that.

To say, you know, "If you are all here as allies, you need to take that beyond this room today.

It's great that you've had fun for an hour, an hour and a half with us, and you've laughed with us, and you've smiled with us, and you've had a good time with us.

But you need to remember when we go into the real world, that there are important issues out there.

And you have to remember to open your mouth, just as much when you are out in the real world, as you're doing in this room now."

Just being gay, the personal is the political.

Just your life becomes political, whether you want it to be or not.

I guess maybe sometimes I don't give myself enough credit for that or my friends credit for that, because we just do it.

Maybe it is a bold gesture, to just live your life the way you live it.

I can't imagine living my life any other way.

(audience cheers) - [Announcer] Miss LaDiva Jonz!

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Congress of the birds.

- There's flamboyances of flamingos.

Charm of finches.

It's pretty cute.

You have a murder of crows, like they're black.

Edgar Allen Poe doesn't really help either, with the, "Quoth the raven, "nevermore.""

(raven caws) It's all based off of how humans read them though, right?

All of these like names for these groups of birds were ascribing meaning to them without knowing what they actually do or who they actually are.

I am Sheida Soleimani.

I am an artist professor and a migratory bird rehabilitator.

I got into art when I was a teenager.

My mom always was doing stuff with wildlife.

So we would have birds or animals that would die, and I would always document the deaths of these animals.

(gentle music) Photography for me, I historically view it as a very non-consensual medium.

I think a lot about photography being like this white man, Eurocentric penetration of the lens into the landscape that's very much non-consensual.

And so how do you kind of create a consensual photographic practice?

And for me, that's through set building, through creating a landscape that can be in front of the camera that I'm building and I'm a part of.

And the camera might be watching or documenting, but it's not going into someone else's life, and probing and taking from them.

(can hissing) "Ghostwriter" is the first time that I am deciding to work with my parents and to discuss what happened to them, talk about their histories.

Both of my parents are political refugees from Iran.

They were persecuted by the government, for their pro-democratic actions.

And were able to escape and come to the states at different times.

A lot of my career, a lot of people have asked me, about my work and I've mentioned, my parents' story and people are like, "Oh, your parents were in prison?"

They're like, "Oh my God, there are political prisoners?

And they were tortured or like, they escaped, they're political refugees?"

And those things became like almost very exotic to people.

And I hate that idea that, people are ingesting trauma as a way to feel closer to something that they don't know.

And so that was a lot of my resistance in making the work that I am in "Ghostwriter," thinking about I'm not ready to have these conversations because I don't know how to control them.

I think a lot about like the quote unquote exotic, and what the West expects from the Middle East.

Rugs, oil, pomegranates.

Those are the kind of exotic things that we're introduced to that make our cultures palatable to Western audiences.

But I don't want it to be so easy.

I wanna make people work for the content, and actually learn something from it.

One thing I really am interested in is like the overwhelming color palette, but how that can read as welcoming and warm, even if it's about something sinister.

And so how can, like your eyes trick your brain in a sense.

And then once you are like pulled in because of the color, then you kind of have to start grappling with the content.

And only recently again, did I really start bringing birds into the work.

I've always wanted to keep it separate, because it's like therapy for me, right?

So like I teach, I make art, and then my third kind of hat is wildlife rehabilitator.

And it's kind of like where my self-care, or I guess my students would call it comes in.

If I'm interested in education as a professor, or in my work as an artist, why not also bring in these birds, and start thinking about a consensual photographic practice.

I don't wanna photograph these birds and scare them.

So I have rules and parameters, and to also create that lineage between myself, and my mother in the work that she taught me to do.

The caretaking.

We're gonna pick you.

I will do wraps, I will do wing wraps.

If it's a minor fracture, I could set bones, even feet wrapped.

If there's something's pigeon toed, literally.

I mean, we're small but mighty.

So right now in the clinic we have a red-tailed hawk, that was a victim of rodenticide poisoning.

She's been in our care for almost a month now, so I'll be feeding her and releasing her today.

(gentle music) (gentle music) She was like really psychotic as a hawk for sure.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] "ART Inc" Look Back.

(upbeat music) ♪ Thank you for the trees ♪ ♪ And just for today, great spirit, I thank you ♪ ♪ Great spirit, I thank you ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, aho ♪ - All right, let's do it.

- [Narrator] Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time on "ART Inc." (static hisses) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music)