- In this edition of Artistic Horizons, an uplifting Drum corps, - The mission is to build better relationships with our community.

But our main mission is to get as many of these kids off the streets as we possibly can.

- A cinematic sports fable, - Champions of the Golden Valley is a film about a different side of Afghanistan.

It offers a new perspective of a country that in some ways is so much and misunderstood, - Exploring one's heritage through art.

- And I really do feel like I've unlocked like a part of me, like a new part of me that's really exciting and like it's kind of nerve-wracking 'cause I don't know where it's gonna go or where it's gonna take me.

- An artist who is always creating, - If I'm working on boats or if I'm doing glass, or if I'm drawing whatever I'm doing or working on my house even.

It's all about the creativity for me.

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

Hello, I'm Mark Ro and this is Artistic Horizons.

Since 2018, shark City Drum and Dance Core has been uplifting the community by allowing students to gain courage and flourish as artists.

We head to Virginia to meet the company's founder and find out more about the core's monumental impact.

- What started out as an experiment four years ago with just four kids has wrapped, tapped, and stepped its way into a league that's capturing national acclaim.

Meet the Shark City Drum Corps.

The man behind this talented group of drummers is Frederick Dixon, a percussion instructor with a dream he hoped would work.

- One day it was raining, I think we had like two people and I looked at my partner who's out there, Mr. Edwards, and I told him, I said, this is this not gonna work?

And he looked at me and he was like, it's gonna work because I believe in it.

So we took about two weeks off and we decided to go to Harbor Park and we looked up that very first day back and we had eight kids and then the next week we had 16 and then the next week we had 25.

From there we grew into a whole organization and three years later we have an autism group, we have an adult group, we have elementary school kids, we have middle school kids, we have kids my age, so we have a lifelong program.

Now - Shark City's youngest drummer is three, the oldest 82.

- The mission is to build better relationships with our community, but our main mission is to get as many of these kids off the streets as we possibly can.

Our streets are getting bad and gun violence in our area.

It's the astronomical levels.

So we feel that if we can bring them here and we can get 'em here for one day, they'll stay.

Somebody needs to step in and be a positive role model to be able to be around people and do things you love.

I believe it's a great opportunity and my goal is to get as many people to play drums as I possibly can.

I started playing drums when I was like elementary school.

I played in middle school, I played in high school.

Then in my 10th grade year in high school my, my mother passed away.

It put me in a very dark and depressing place.

Like I didn't, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I didn't know where I wanted to go.

I didn't know anything.

Everything had just stopped.

And I believe my family here realized that the path I was going and where I was at, I had only applied to two colleges, which was Norfolk State and Virginia State.

Well we can't put you in Norfolk State because you are already over here and your mindset ain't right.

We need to get you out of Norfolk to get you focused on where you need to go.

So I went to Virginia State, talked to the band director there.

I started playing drums there and I started loving playing drums again and I graduated and it was like I can teach as many people as possible and if I can share my story and if I'm able to make it and become what I've become, then how many people would benefit off hearing my story and be able to be whatever they would become during, - During parade season and local performances, you're sure to see the drum line, but when it comes to their annual showcase, they incorporate much more into their presentation.

- Our last trophy was in Atlanta, Georgia when we competed in 2019 and we won first place there and we had won nine trophies that whole season.

So we were on fire, COVID came and once COVID came, we couldn't do the trophies and the competitions anymore.

Then we came back this year we won two trophies.

So we're back on that path again.

- Even when they aren't competing, this group stays busy.

Like this Halloween video done to Michael Jackson's thriller.

- We do a lot of physical training because we try to get a lot of us in shape for playing the drums and being able to hold drums for a long period of time and sometimes just standing there, it's like a mental thing.

- I love this group because even with some of the other things my son is involved in sports, football, wrestling.

This group is really like a family and is a positive energy whenever he comes to practice.

He's always in a good mood when he practices and it's just a different vibe or energy to this group than other things he's involved with.

I went to Georgia, that was so much fun and just seeing the kids and their element, they got a a a big learning experience and some of these kids are taking what they learned here and going to college with it.

A lot of our kids are getting scholarships for rides to go to college.

So this is just another opportunity for him to figure out what he is most passionate about.

- Six of Fred Dixon's eighth graders will be playing for their high school drum lines this year and another four will be on the drum line at Norfolk State University.

- We got about 20 students at Marshall College right now for several HBCUs.

- The impact that Shark City Drum Corps has on its drummers is clear.

During summer camp we witnessed members who preferred to practice than eat.

- He doesn't really stop practicing if I'm in the car, I have to get him to stop tapping on things.

So he loves the drums and he just took to it and now he's just blossoming in it.

- I wish I was that way when I was that age, but if I can motivate them to be better, then I've done my job.

- And now for the artist quote of the week in the film Champions of the Golden Valley, which had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival.

Young athletes from rival villages converge on the ancient mountain town of Baan Afghanistan to pursue their passion for skiing.

We take a trip to New York City to learn more.

- It's thrilling and especially to be here with a film about Afghanistan, which is just on the other end side of the world.

I mean it's a clash of cultures, but it's all coming together so beautifully.

And I mean we can be more thrilled.

- Champions of the Golden Valley is a film about a different side of Afghanistan.

It offers a new perspective of a country that in some ways is so much and misunderstood.

- Skiing is a kind of a very navy sport to the country and it has been introduced since 2009.

- We'd heard about this amazing ski race in Afghanistan and we didn't know exactly what we were gonna find.

What kind of story was around that.

It really developed on its own two former rivals start to bond with one another through sport.

They were kind of divided by generational tribal conflicts in their small village.

And so you see their story unfold and how sport helps to, helps to cure that a little bit and and bring some peace between them.

When our team went there, we experienced the most amazing culture, beautiful people, incredibly accommodating and in so many ways just, you know, the antithesis of what you often see about Afghanistan.

So we really felt like it was our obligation, I think to, to try to share that side of the country and that story with the world.

- We have great mountain, a lot of ski slope which hasn't been shown to the world and hopefully when the people can go there and explore.

Also the beauty of Afghanistan - Skiing in our film, you'll see offers a way for people to come together to overcome their conflicts and their tensions.

And so what we hope is that our film offers that new insight.

- We are just trying to give opportunity for people to is ski with their homemade is ski and that's, that's our goal that we can create some winter entertainment.

It's been really a - Journey of, of discovery for five years as we've developed this film.

As many changes have happened in the lives of our subjects and we've just followed the story - Through this documentary, hopefully we can show a positive picture from Afghanistan to the world and to the especially American here.

I - Think our film offers a unique nuance perspective on what community looks like and what skiing has offered the Afghan people and then what's been lost since the Taliban takeover.

- Sports diplomacy, I think is the end goal of our film.

You know, sport can really lead to peace in a lot of ways and I think within our film you see that on both a, both a micro and a macro level.

- Never gave up.

It's a tough time in Afghanistan for, for everyone, but let's fight for peace.

- Now here's a look at this month's fun fact, whether it be through painting, drawing murals or fiber art artist Caroline Lou delves into the intricacies of the human experience in this segment.

We travel to New Mexico to meet Lou and hear about the ways in which she is inspired by memory, culture, and identity.

- In high school, I took a drawing class that was required.

I remember sitting down with a pencil for the first day and I made kind of similar drawings to the ones that are on this show and I had this moment of like, oh, I really enjoy this feeling and I really like what I'm creating.

And my teacher was like really excited for me.

And I remember he was just like, have you thought about pursuing art?

And you know, little 14-year-old me, I had never actually thought of it before.

I never thought that far ahead like what my career path may have been.

But when I really thought about it, like I really did enjoy making work and once it like sparked I was like, oh, I can actually like do this forever.

Like this can be my like career path that that's what changed the trajectory for me.

When I got the call from from Jorge, we did a little video call at first and he was, you know, telling me about the show and he was like, it's about, you know, the untold stories of the other side of the tracks and we really wanna like dig deep and kind of like figure out these like emotions and stories of like people that are often forgotten.

I was just like really gung ho about that.

I was like, yes, absolutely.

And so after the call I was like, okay, but I actually don't know much.

Like I really honestly don't know much about the Transcontinental Railroad.

And so I was like, okay, I need to figure out as much information as possible.

But what I found after watching all of these, these documentaries was that there was still maybe like 5% and that's like a, a generous number, but 5% talking about the Chinese workers at that moment, I just compiled every piece of work that I wanted to make for the show.

And so in this work you can see that I kind of bridged together this realism and this fantasy and it's kind of my, my take on cynical realism.

It's kind of like a ironic satire to re visualizing history.

And so I have this motif of the fish everywhere as kind of the symbolism of the Chinese worker, the Chinese person, the Chinese experience.

And you can kind of see throughout the different areas of the work throughout the different storylines, kind of a new retelling of history through that.

Oh yeah, my dad is an immigrant from China and Taiwan.

And so I kind of started putting together the pieces of like kind of what that feels like to be, you know, in a place that's that's a little bit new and you're trying to create this like home, like what, what that really feels like, what that looks like for my dad.

You know, he's in his late seventies and it still kind of feels fresh.

And so I really was thinking about the years in which Chinese have been here.

You know, like what is the history With that in mind, I was kind of thinking about this Chinese family that I found that lived in southern New Mexico.

They had a quite large, from what I can gather from my research Chinese garden.

So the installation inside of the vault is gonna be kind of my surrealist take on their family farm.

It's kind of a two part installation.

There's an installation in the front and then through that installation you have to figure out clue to be able unlock the treasury vault and get to the installation inside.

So it includes kind of portraits of 'em, fruits, vegetables, flowers.

I hadn't made a soft sculpture in about five years, but I made several large scale flowers that will be in the space.

You can kind of go in and feel immersed, you know, in this, this beautiful farm.

And then the outside of the vault is kind of like you're walking towards a trailhead and we built a trailhead sign and on the trailhead sign there are all these articles and photos and a lot of information about the family, about the history of New Mexico during that time period.

And so bureaus will have to look at the board and kind of like figure out the storyline and from there you can then enter the the vault to get to the installation.

So it's really kind of a lot more interactive than I've ever like done before.

But it's like really exciting.

I mean I really do feel like I've unlocked like a part of me, like a new part of me that's really exciting and like it's kind of nerve wracking 'cause I don't know where it's gonna go or where it's gonna take me, but I'm just kind of like all in, you know?

I'm like, yes, okay.

I'm just gonna keep doing this until it makes sense.

Yeah.

- And now here's a look at a few notable dates in art history along the St. Lawrence River in Hammond, New York.

One will find Scott RK working in his studio from stained glass creations to wooden boat restorations.

The artist does not put a limit on his creativity.

Here's his story.

- My name is Scott Otaki and I live in Hammond, New York, right by the St. Lawrence River.

And I'm an artist.

I got started as an artist right from the beginning.

I was drawing from when I was very young.

I remember in third or fourth grade I got in trouble 'cause my whole desk was just literally pushing up from being full of drawings.

What interested me in art?

I like the creativity.

I just did a podcast interview recently and the, we were talking about creativity and I was saying that the medium doesn't matter to me anymore if I'm working on boats or if I'm doing glass or if I'm drawing whatever I'm doing or working on my house even.

It's all about the creativity for me.

- After teaching art for 13 years, Scott went back for his master's degree in illustration at Syracuse University.

A challenge while in school was the creation of a Wild West project while in New York City.

- So we hired models and they were a fake cowboy and a fake in a fake cowgirl and a fake horse.

And we took all the, we all got the same reference shots.

So I did a drawing of this thing.

It was supposed to be a Western romance novel cover.

I went back to my friend who is a glass blower and I said, this is what I have to do.

And he said, why don't you do it outta glass?

And I said, well, because I don't know how to do glass.

And he said, well, I'll show you.

And that's a piece right there.

That's the first one I ever did.

And that was, I took that a picture of that.

And then that was supposed to be the illustration.

And then the people were like, you should do illustration outta stained glass.

Which I never really wanted to be in that business.

The illustration business, I just wanted, I ended up just doing glass within a couple years.

I didn't oil paint anymore.

Stained glass is a weird thing because a lot of this isn't stained.

It's this color when you buy it.

Okay, so you're buying blue glass and you're letting it together or you're foiling it together.

There's two different ways.

There's two different processes.

I mostly use letting, I do a lot of painting and firing.

So if you look at the, and the hands, there's something there that wasn't on the glass originally and that's the paint that's been fired on.

And you can see that there's real wood in the gun and some copper and some copper pipe that's been leaded over so that it's all, it's kind of strange 'cause it works well in here 'cause you've got this light as well.

But sometimes it's too opaque, it sort of disappears.

But it's a really neat medium and it allowed me to use my drawing.

So the process that I mostly use is called kiln fired glass painting.

And on this piece here, the faces and the hands, like I said, have been painted and then worked before they were fired.

And then once they're fired, it's permanent.

You can, you could put that outside that piece of glass outside for a hundred years and that paint wouldn't come off of it.

It's part of the glass now.

So, but I found ways to use it in a lot of different things.

And we're gonna see that the glassware that I sell has a variation of that on it.

But it allows me to use my drawing, which is my strength with a glass.

So this piece came about because I bought, I believe this is a transom that went up above a doorway in an old house.

I found this at an antique shop.

It had a piece of beveled glass in it.

So I bought it, couldn't pass it up, it came home.

I drew this, this is what we call a cartoon.

So I drew it really small first, but then I drew this full size.

I made two of these.

We have to cut each section out so we can make the pattern for the glass.

So this becomes this.

- In addition to stained glass, Scott also sells etched glassware.

And while he doesn't make the glass, the designs on them are his own.

- So this here is an example of the glass that wear that we sell.

And these are some of the my B drawings.

And this is one of our logos, glass goat.

So these are fired on in a kiln and they're a permanent part of of the glass.

Now, - In his spare time, if there is any, Scott enjoys restoring wooden boats.

- I've always wanted wood, a wooden boat, but I never got my hands on one.

And then a few years ago, a friend of mine was getting rid of one.

He wanted to get a new one.

It needed a lot of work.

And I had done wooden boats before, like this boat that's behind me, the transom and the swim platform.

This is a boat that I used to own on the river, but at the time I didn't have the skills needed to save that one.

I saved it originally, but seven years down the road, I couldn't save it.

The reason I don't look for work a lot of times anymore is because I'm also a boat captain and I restore wooden boats and I have a YouTube channel.

I make money in a lot of different ways.

And I like my year to be split up into different things.

So I'm just getting done with summer, so I'm not gonna be doing as much of boating anymore.

And now I'm moving into where the YouTube channel will get going again.

And I get, I've gotten on the commissions again.

So I like that little bits of things.

I have an Etsy store, just there's lots of little ways that I make money and it all works really well.

- Scott's videos posted on his glass, goat, and wooden boat experience YouTube channel often receive in excess of 100,000 views.

- It, it's a pretty long story, my online presence, but it all boils down to me educating people, whether it's glass or about wooden boats.

There's all sorts of ways through YouTube or through other people that are doing webinars that host me on there.

I'm teaching people how to do different things and it gets my name out there.

My career you're asking me about, I don't even know if I have a career.

So a career might be a strange way of putting it, but the diversity of my career is more to keep me happy than to keep people happy.

My whole life revolves around shrinking my footprint and shrinking my need for money.

I went from a big house and a car payment to no mortgage and driving an old truck.

But every morning I get up and I like what I do.

I never get up and go, oh, I gotta go to work today.

'cause I walk 30 feet out to the studio in the winter.

Nice.

I walk a hundred feet to my boat shed.

Or I might walk down to drive a boat in Chippewa Bay, but every time I want to do it.

- 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 Ro.

Thanks for watching.