(bright music) - [Mark] In this edition of "Artistic Horizons," photographing what an architect built.

- Paul Revere Williams put his ego aside to navigate through racial barriers, to give everyone of every socioeconomic class the comfort of a home.

- [Mark] A mixed media artist.

- I do interesting work.

I just do what comes from my brain onto the canvas.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Mark] Sculptural paintings.

- Creating pieces that have that kind of emotional value mixed with the three dimension unlocks a different experience.

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

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

Groundbreaking Black architect Paul Revere Williams designed more than 3,000 structures over his decades long career, including many eye-catching buildings in the state of Nevada.

In this segment, we meet artist Janna Ireland, who celebrated the trailblazer through photography.

Take a look.

(bright music) - Paul Revere Williams designed structures that everyone uses throughout their daily lives.

- He goes beyond designing wonderful structures.

He goes into designing communities.

- The thing about his body of work is this extreme attention to detail.

The quality is consistent.

- Williams was really a master, not just at giving his clients everything that they wanted, but specifically tailoring his design so beautifully, whether that was a mansion in Beverly Hills or a ranch house in Nevada.

- He put his ego aside to navigate through racial barriers to give everyone of every socioeconomic class the comfort of a home.

I feel that every Nevadan should realize that Paul Revere Williams was a genius that stands the test of time.

(upbeat music) Paul Revere Williams was born in 1894 in Los Angeles, California.

In 1919, he graduated from USC with an architectural engineering degree, becoming the first African-American graduate of the university.

In 1923, he joined the American Institute of Architects, becoming the first African-American member of that institute.

Some of the designs that he focused on are Mediterranean, Spanish, Colonial, Neoclassical, and after World War II, he focused more on mid-century modern.

I'm Carmen Beals and I am the curator of the exhibition "Janna Ireland on the Architectural Legacy of Paul Revere Williams in Nevada."

You'll be able to understand the rich history of designs by Mr. Paul Revere Williams, and you will be able to see it through a unique lens of contemporary art developed by artist and educator Janna Ireland.

- A lot of my work is about people, whether that is human relationships or the built environment that people create for themselves.

- [Carmen] She has this beautiful, profound way of capturing a linear design, something that's varied signature of his piece, such as a curve or a window that has natural light beaming into a specific facility, followed by this gorgeous shadow that creates a rich moodiness.

- [Janna] For the exhibition, I came back to Las Vegas.

I also visited Reno and some small cities outside of Reno.

- Janna and I had the fabulous opportunity to visit each of these sites together.

- For me, it was this really exciting opportunity to do this new body of work, to meet these new people, to learn about and really study another person who I wouldn't have thought to look into on my own, and to learn a lot about the field of architecture.

- Paul Revere Williams began working in Nevada with his first project in 1934, which was a commission by Miss Luella Garvey.

(gentle music) - Carmen and I showed up hoping to photograph the outside, and then we met someone who introduced us to someone else, and we were able to just photograph it on the spot, which was one of the wonderful surprises of working on this project.

- [Carmen] Some of the characteristics of the Garvey residence include ironwork in its exterior.

It has the beautiful signature staircases that Paul Revere Williams is known for.

It has many large windows to capture the natural lighting, and it is a wonderful L-shaped property that is made in a colonial revival style.

- I am very drawn to shadow.

I'm drawn to the way light comes through a particular window at a particular time of day.

I'm drawn to the way that the corners of a room might come together, or to things like the place between two rooms where you can see the flooring change from one kind to another.

Just the seams of it I think are what I keep looking at.

(bright music) Rancho San Rafael was the first place that I visited in Reno.

So my first morning there, I got into Carmen's car and we drove out there.

- In 1936, Dr. Raphael Herman, his brother Norman Herman, and his brother's wife purchased 375 acres of land right outside of Reno.

They immediately named it Rancho San Rafael.

They were able to connect with Williams to commission him to design their property.

- The Herman House is a really good example of how Williams was very precise in his architectural drawings of delineating very specific character-defining features, and that's found in everything from the curvature on the mantle to the pediments above the doorways, and even the specific design of the ironwork in the staircase.

- Photographing in black and white really allows me to focus on the architecture and kind of strip out detail that I feel is extraneous, whether that is color or texture or furniture.

It's just one way to zero in on what I'm really looking at.

Another really neat set of properties that I photographed was the El Reno Apartments.

- Or in one of the El Reno Apartments, which are actually self-contained homes, but they were treated as apartments when they were built in Reno in 1937.

One of the things that makes these homes so unique is that they look from the outside like they're made of wood when it's actually steel.

These Lea Steel homes came out of this philosophy that good architecture should be available to everyone.

- [Janna] The ones that we were able to visit are being used in really different ways, which is something that was really interesting to me.

So there are some that are private homes.

There are some that are kind of abandoned.

Nothing's really being done with.

Maybe they need some extra care.

There was one that is sort of half museum, half office space.

Another one is a restaurant.

So it was fun to travel around the city and look at these different places and the way that the same architecture is just being used to do different things and seeing the same architectural details repeat in these different contexts.

- The first Church of Christ Scientist is another Paul Revere Williams facility.

Today, it's known as the Lear Theater.

It's located downtown along the Truckee River.

It has twin balustrades that lead up to a beautiful entry portico, and the facility is supported by four thin columns.

As you go into the facility, it's two stories, and you can see his signature elements of bringing in natural light that bathes the walls.

Janna and I went to visit Central Nevada, Circle L Ranch, the Tharpe residence, along with the Lovelock Inn, which still stands today.

- The experience of getting into the car and seeing this brand new landscape, trying to find Dyer, Nevada, this little town that I hadn't heard of before, and then having the opportunity to spend hours and hours wandering around this unfamiliar space, which is something that is exciting to me every time I get to do it.

(upbeat music) - Las Vegas was an area in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

It was almost primitive in the beginning.

Paul R. Williams comes here and is able to take a place like that and not just construct buildings in communities to house people, but he was able to construct buildings on the Las Vegas Strip.

There are two places that Paul R. Williams designed that are just amazing.

One is the La Concha Hotel lobby.

- The building is a architectural style called Googie Architecture, which is this really fascinating, jet-aged, sleek, futuristic style.

- That lobby is amazing.

It shows what Las Vegas can be.

It shows what the future is of the Las Vegas Strip.

There's also another thing that he did, and this is not just because it's so elegant, but because he did it for the African-American community, Berkley Square.

(gentle music) - Berkley Square is the first middle class suburb of Las Vegas, and it's located in the Historic West Side, which is the community that was segregated in red line for people of color to stay.

- [Claytee] The 148 houses are three bedroom, two bathroom.

- [Carmen] The homes are single story homes, and they have low-pitched roofs.

- And these were designed for middle class Black Americans who didn't really have any development in the West Side community that they could really buy into.

(gentle music) - [Janna] I think this building that we're in right now, the Guardian Angel Cathedral, has been my favorite building to photograph in southern Nevada.

One thing that I really love about this building is the way that the art and the architecture feel so firmly integrated.

- [Carmen] The stained glass and mosaics were designed by the Piczek sisters, Isabelle and Edith Piczek.

- My favorite window personally is the window directly behind me in the sanctuary on the south side.

It shows casinos that were the neighbors of this building when this building was built.

It's a threshold between what was, what is, and in the eyes of faith, what will be.

And I think that speaks well of how architecture serves both the function that it needs to serve to be a worthy place for people to gather, but also forms its own identity as part of what it is in a living metaphor.

- I am hoping that this exhibit is just going to blow your mind and just teach us something.

- It's only by learning more about the incredible architecture of Williams in Nevada that we can gain more appreciation for that architecture, for its beauty, and for the momentous life of Paul Revere Williams and everything that he can teach us.

- If you think about it, a lot of the designs that he has, they were so superior that they are still standing today and we are still talking about them right now.

- I hope that people see this as just kind of the tip of the iceberg, that it is a little tiny introduction to this enormous body of work that Paul Williams put out in his lifetime.

I also hope that people understand it as my interpretation of the work, and that they realize that if they visited these spaces, they would see completely different things and have a completely different experience of the work.

(upbeat music) - [Mark] And now for the artist Quote of the Week.

At the Goodwill Art Studio and Gallery in Ohio, artist Andrea Kontras enjoys working with a variety of mediums.

She approaches art making in serious and silly ways, and always with enthusiasm.

Here's her story.

- My name is Andrea Kontras, and I'm at Goodwill Art Studio, and I do artwork.

It's mixed media.

I'm using painting on cross-stitch material, and I'm line stitching lines in different shapes.

(upbeat music) I do interesting work.

I just do what comes from my brain onto the canvas.

Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's serious.

It just depends.

I would probably be at home crying or bored to death if I couldn't come here on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I'm out in the community on Mondays and Fridays with Alec, my daytime staff.

And then Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm with Nicholas and Heather and Colleen and Ed here at the studio.

And I really enjoy it.

It makes me feel a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel like wanted.

(upbeat music) I'm such a saleswoman.

I do a craft show in November every November, and it's the only one I do if you guys wanna come out and see me at the Grove City High School.

- [Interviewer] How does it make you feel when one of your pieces sells?

- I love it.

That's like cha-ching.

It makes me proud to have my artwork be sold, and it feels like a sense of accomplishment that somebody actually bought and really enjoyed my painting.

(upbeat music) - [Mark] Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

Gavin Jordan creates in three dimensions.

His striking sculptural paintings are made up of hundreds of industrial screws.

We head to Florida to find out more about the artist as well as his gallery space in Fort Lauderdale.

(upbeat music) - It is funny because halfway through most of these paintings, I'm like, "Gavin, what are you doing?

Why don't you just paint normally?

Why are you going through this?"

But when the painting is complete and I step back and I'm like, "Wow, I did that."

So it's a difficult technique to do.

What keeps me doing it and keeps me going is actually the reaction from viewers.

Because there's 2D, but 3D adds a different dimension to the experience of seeing the piece.

My name is Gavin Jordan.

I am the gallery owner of 24 Marie Fine Art Gallery.

I'm also an artist.

And some of my work is here at the gallery as well.

And Gavin is also an executive, right?

A business executive, a CPA.

So Gavin is many things.

So in 2016, I was doing an assignment in New Jersey for a Jamaican-owned business.

And I was the CFO for that business.

It was a stressful experience.

And I remember I was driving by a Michael's Art Store one Saturday afternoon.

And I said to my wife, Tamika, "You know what?

I want to stop at Michael's, and I need to get some pencils because I want to start sketching again."

When I think about it, I can't really tell you why it happened the way it happened.

I often tell people it's like when Spider-Man just got bit by that radioactive bug, and then suddenly he has superpowers.

It kind of felt like that, right?

I was posting my sketches on Facebook and Instagram for a while, and the response was overwhelming in terms of the reaction to pieces.

That passion that was reignited in 2016 caused me to go through a process of significant exploration.

So I started with sketching with pencils, then charcoal, painting with acrylics, inks, oil paints.

And I eventually started working with mixed media.

I was doing a lot of research.

This is my mechanical brain now.

As soon as I started painting, I wanted to have a style.

I was like, I need my style, I need something to show that this is me.

It's very humbling, right?

It teaches you about patience, right?

You have to be vulnerable, and then you have to figure out how you get your authentic voice to come out in your paintings.

So it took me a while to figure that out.

So I started exploring with mixed media, and after that process, I decided to merge that three dimensional element with traditional painting styles, so more impressionist.

Then you have the mixed media coming in.

So I decided to go the route of screws.

So doing my exploration with nails, after the disaster of hitting my fingers a few times, I said to myself, "What is easier to use than actual nails?"

So this is the tool of the trade.

So I have my drill, so I paint with a drill at my feet, and I also paint with brushes here with my oil paints as well.

So given this particular piece that I'm working on, so I will, after going through the process of doing the sketch, and I've worked out how I want this piece to look on screws, then I will look at the sketch, and with intuition, determine the depth of each screw, the positioning of each screw, and so on.

So I will go through this until I'm satisfied, and then what I will typically do is just rub my hand over the screws to just ensure that what I'm feeling is the indentation of the face, right?

And these are the cheekbones here.

The nose is also here.

There's an indentation here and so on.

So I will go through that process until I get the perfect sculpted image on screws.

(upbeat music) If I'm not connected to a painting emotionally, it's hard for me to complete the painting, right?

So I can't just paint random objects without any sort of emotional value to it, right?

And what I've found, creating pieces that have that kind of emotional value mixed with the three dimension unlocks a different experience for my viewers, right?

So I want people to experience what I call the other side of the story and not focus on the single story.

When I came up with this idea for opening a space, one of the issues I had in my creative journey was finding spaces that were open to showing my work.

So when I opened this space, I decided that you know what, I need to figure out how I also help those other artists to get exposure.

So we decided to set up this space in the Flagler Village.

There's a lot of history as it relates to African-Americans on Sistrunk.

I mean, it was one of the largest settlements for African-Americans in Fort Lauderdale.

We decided that, you know what, this upcoming area would be a great area to have a gallery that's dedicated to the African experience, right?

Because our culture is, there's a thread that ties us all together, but our experiences are just so different.

So this guy's walking, having done a day's work, I mean, does he feel fulfilled?

Has he lived a life that he's comfortable with?

And I decided to name this one "Old Life."

So it was kind of me asking myself that question as well.

Have I done what I wanted to do?

So one of the responses to that question was actually for me to pursue my creative journey.

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

(upbeat music continues) 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.

(upbeat music continues) (bright music)