- In this edition of ARTEFFECTS access to the arts through the pandemic.

- Through this pandemic, people have realized how important arts and culture are.

- Train watching.

- [Announcer] Train watching, isn't an expensive hobby.

Some simply sit and watch while others invest in binoculars, cameras, notepads and scanners.

- [Beth] An interactive installation.

- The vinyl, the windows, the pattern, the reflection, the interaction.

People can see the work without having to be near anyone.

- [Beth] And exploring the culture of craft beer.

- We don't just want a beer on the shelf, we want an expression of what we're doing.

(upbeat music) - It's all ahead on this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for ARTEFFECTS is made possible by Sandy Raffealli, the June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, HeidiMarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno members, and bye.

(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Beth Macmillan and welcome to ARTEFFECTS.

In our featured segment, we visit the Sierra Arts Foundation and learn why it's important to this arts organization that they continue to provide public access to the arts in our community.

Throughout the pandemic, they've maintained open gallery spaces and artists to display and sell their work.

Let's see how they're doing it.

(upbeat music) - Sierra Arts Foundation is a local arts agency.

We are all things art.

We are promoting arts and culture and elevating arts and culture professions in Northern Nevada, Northern California.

The different gallery spaces that Sierra arts oversees are the Riverside Gallery on Virginia street in the historic Riverside building.

We also have a gallery downtown sparks called the Depo Gallery (upbeat music) and our virtual galleries and depending on which virtual gallery you visit, you would actually see a walkthrough basically of this gallery, for instance.

You walk in the room, you can turn corners and you see high quality images of our artists work.

(upbeat music) It was decided amongst the staff and the employees here that in order to create a really inclusive experience for the arts that we couldn't rely just on the galleries that we had to go virtual.

So we created our virtual galleries and now no matter where you are, including our rural communities, our members can show and the community can see the art.

(upbeat music) Everybody deserves to have art in their life and when pandemic came and other agencies had to close their doors, Sierra Arts was able to keep our doors open.

We adjusted operations to make sure that we're a safe place to visit and particularly, arts.

Mask wearing, we all wear our masks during the day and anybody who wants to come in will be provided with a mask.

If you don't own one, we even have artists who've created masks and you can purchase one of their works.

(upbeat music) We are a grassroots endeavor.

We worked from home and we only allowed one employee here at a time.

We have an upstairs and a downstairs.

So we were able to greet people safely from upstairs and it was just really important to us that we kept it open to give our artists an opportunity to show their work.

(upbeat music) - With everything being closed, little outlets that support local events and different things like that are really kind of dwindling off.

That would allow me to sell my art.

So Sierra Arts, they've been doing a lot for the community lately.

- Due to the pandemic, our artists were so greatly affected.

Their venues were shut down.

They were unable to make rent, buy food.

It's so important to keep these folks vibrant within our community.

They are the life and soul of a community - Sierra Arts did the Artists Grant Reliefs and like that really helped out right at the beginning of the pandemic.

I got 400 bucks and it was like so helpful for me paying my rent and they did that to so many artists through the community and through this whole time, they have had been doing shows.

They've had to be socially distanced and maintained but they are open and they do allow people to come see artwork and it gives us something to hope for.

Like something to look at, something to reflect on besides our own lives.

(upbeat music) - It's been so important for us to keep our Riverside and Depo galleries open for the artists to be able to show their work, to sell their work.

It's been so important for our community to be able to come down and enjoy the work.

This has been a tough year and this is something people have been able to count on is that Sierra Arts Foundation would have art that they can enjoy.

(upbeat music) Through this pandemic, people have realized how important arts and culture are.

Just being able to listen to music, read great literature or come to a gallery like Sierra Arts Foundation and see what's hanging on the walls, it's been helpful.

It's been important and people are really realizing it.

- It's really a good opportunity to keep this pace of like normalcy and being out on the public and doing it cautiously.

An art gallery is a great place to do that.

There's a lot of space.

So it is a good space to have available to us as artists and community.

- Because we were allowed to stay open and our virtual gallery was operating, our visual artists continued to be able to sell their work and people are buying it.

(upbeat music) People are still buying art because it speaks to their soul and now more than ever, our soul needs talking to.

(upbeat music) This timeframe has really brought a light on how creativity can suit you, it can heal you.

It can create a community for you.

You can find your best friends in the arts.

It is important and it needs to be maintained and that is Sierra Arts Foundation's mission.

(upbeat music) - To learn more, visit Sierra arts.org.

As long as steam engines have rolled down the tracks.

people have gathered to watch them.

The city of Berea is a prime Northeast, Ohio destination for both casual observers and dedicated enthusiasts, also known as rail fans.

Spotters come here from across the country to get a glimpse of these remarkable machines.

It became one of the busiest crossing points in the county after the federal government stepped in to bail the rail industry out.

(train engine roaring) - [Announcer] Berea's connection to train states back almost to its beginning to a time when it was home to one of the largest producers of sandstone in the world.

Key to its success was the establishment of rail service in 1876 and the opening of the Berea Union Depot that connected to city to the world.

- Well, it all started with the quarries and then they started shipping it out by rail.

The original Berea station was about a quarter mile West of where we are today.

It was a dilapidated old wooden building.

Citizens of Berea voted to have a nice station built using the sandstone from the quarry and that was around 1880s.

- [Announcer] The development of new better building materials chipped away at the use of sandstone coupled with the decrease in passenger rail service and new ways of moving freight.

In 1958, the depot closed and rail service to Berea stopped.

Across the country, rail service slowed and companies merged or went bankrupt.

- With the startup of the interstate system, passengers declined because people now had vehicles, airplanes.

There was no need to travel by rail when you get to Chicago instead of eight hours, one hour.

So that's basically why that happened.

- [Announcer] In 1974, to save the rail industry, the US government enacted the Regional Rail Organization Act.

The first in a series of laws designed to consolidate bankrupt lines under a single brand operating under the name Conrail.

- Well, it was called consolidated rail corporation.

The government started to eliminate routes or abandoned certain sections that weren't profitable.

If they're both going to the same place, there's no point doing that and all the Eastern roads were Conrail.

(train engine roaring) - [Announcer] In 1997, two rail operators purchased Conrail from the government.

Just feet from where the Berea Union Depot once stood, rail lines from two companies come within yards of one another creating one of the busiest crossing points in the country.

(train engine roaring) - Norfolk Southern and the CSX went in and got everything and then divided it up.

Prime example is right here at the Berea Union Depot.

The original train was all New York Central, original tracks were all in New York Central and then when CSX took this half of the tracks which bypasses the lakefront on the other side of the tracks, it goes downtown which would have been into the terminal.

So they divided up the pie, so to speak.

- [Announcer] Today, trains run nonstop through Berea.

- January has been somewhere between 100 and 160 trains both on the CSX and on the Norfolk Southern.

It's a relatively cheap, generally speaking way of transporting things like automobile carriers.

The covered box cars that transport cars all around the country.

Again, you could never move that many vehicles without the use of a hundred million more vehicles and then of course, you've got road wear, gasoline consumption and a diesel runs very efficient.

(train hooting) - [Announcer] Train watching isn't an expensive hobby.

Some simply sit and watch while others invest in binoculars, cameras, notepads and scanners.

- Basically it's up close and personal without any grief.

You pull into a parking lot, you're 10 feet away from the trains and again, there're so many trains that go through here.

So many different movements that it's an easy spot for people.

Some people actually jot down the engine numbers, you'll see large flat cars with a farm equipment.

They come through here a lot.

There's also gravel trains.

You have, of course your fuel, oil, gas, mainly oil.

You also have grain, cars, cement.

Every once in a while, you'll see something from out far as West Burlington, Northern Santa Fe, Union Pacific, even and that's just, it's wow to sell a new car.

(train engine roaring) - [Announcer] Rail fans take pictures of trains, note their time, direction, and often take video as a way of documenting the legacy of this important mode of transportation.

- To me, railroads are fascinating.

The locomotives, the size, just the sheer power that's pulling all this stuff.

The diesel engines are very powerful nowadays and then they like to photograph stuff because 20 years from now what you're seeing today will be gone like steam engines and it is just a fascinating thing to watch.

Similar to somebody that likes airplanes or jets.

(train engine roaring) - Now let's take a look at this week's art quiz.

How old is the earliest known artwork?

Is the answer A, 6,000 years old, B, 27,000 years old, C, 100,000 years old or D, 1.84 million years old.

Stay tuned for the answer.

In response to the COVID 19 pandemic, artist Melissa Vogley Woods set up a public installation at her home that allowed viewers to connect with art at a safe distance.

We went to Columbus, Ohio for the story.

(upbeat music) - [Melissa] So this was back in March when I started the work.

It's just called Always.

(birds chirping) I really wanted to do a piece that was in the public eye that addressed the very fresh condition of dealing with the pandemic and I realized that I really wanted to talk about getting past this moment.

I started to look at art from different eras after certain plagues and the pandemic was the closest in relationship was the Spanish flu.

What they call Spanish flu.

So I started looking at work that was made an exact year when it ended which was 1920.

I found a piece by Raoul Dufy that was a pattern like a fabric pattern that he had designed, which I felt was perfect in that would block the window and block the view but also accentuate the space in between public and private.

We were stuck at home, I had to deal with what I had at my house and I just happened to have this high reflective vinyl that I had used on a similar project in 2010.

The vinyl itself is just like a very neutral gray and you can't really see it unless you use a flash.

(bright upbeat music) So the work itself can be seen in the daylight but it's most effective at night when you bring your cell phone and turn on the flash.

(bright upbeat music) Now because it's high density reflective vinyl it flashes back the equal intensity of the light.

So when you do use a flash on your camera on your phone all of the pattern lights back at you and so that just came naturally.

It was like the vinyl, the windows, the pattern, the reflection, the interaction.

People can see the work without having to be near anyone.

You can activate it from me your car.

(upbeat music) - So over my shoulder is a really exciting piece by Melissa Vogley Woods and it's called Always CMA and it's actually a piece that has a pattern that was extrapolated from a work from our collection.

It's Louis Bouche's Still Life with Flowers that was painted in 1919 during the Spanish influenza and Melissa had the wonderful idea to kind of remind everybody that we were in a very difficult moment but that it will pass.

With this work, it was the same concept to make the same point but it really leveraged art history in a different way because it is at an institution.

- And she took the pattern from this more traditional looking Still Life with a big, beautiful, energetic grouping of flowers and she made a very abstract geometric pattern which she then tiled into this beautiful wallpaper to cover this whole glass canopy.

- This the first piece that I've made that I didn't make with my hands.

It's been really, really collaborative, The museum, they did a lot of work to find this vinyl and I believe it's 130 feet.

(upbeat music) It's something that you're gonna be able to experience in any different kind of condition.

If there's a second wave, if it's cold, if it's rainy if you can't see the museum, if it's off hours, that's just, it's always gonna be there.

- And it creates a really beautiful entranceway to the museum especially as we'll be reopening after a long period of closure.

(upbeat music) - [Melissa] Also, if you put a little piece of colored cellophane on top of the flash only, it'll turn the entire piece of color.

Then you own that piece at the end.

(upbeat music) - This museum which was founded in 1878 has survived two world wars, the great depression, the Spanish influenza pandemic and we will survive this too and that basically was the message that Melissa's piece was also reflecting at the same time.

- Something about the light being brought to the piece from within that you have that light on you and this piece is just a reflection of what you already hold in yourself and I felt that was really important.

Shining this kind of beacon of hope back to the people who came to see the work.

(car engines revving) - We are at Hammond Harkins gallery and this is my exhibition called Out of the Blue.

(bright upbeat music) It's a series of 36 cyanotype photograms.

So a cyanotype is like a photographic print because it uses light.

When you block the sun, those areas don't expose and it just happens to expose to blue.

So there's some really direct contexts between the Always installations in this work, which is visible in this pattern and that pattern is pulled directly from a combination of the Always pattern at my house and the Always pattern at CMA.

The idea of this show really came out from the shadows that I see on the inside of my house when people take photos.

I started to think about, well what is the internal view of this external piece that I made?

And it became really important that I did a process that was photographic.

That was based on light because the other piece was based on light which then connects to my ideas about like history and leisure and what is brought to the light and what is suppressed.

- To learn more visit melissavogleywoods.com and hammondharkins.com.

Now let's review this week's art quiz.

How old is the earliest known artwork?

Is the answer A, 6,000 years old, B, 27,000 years old, C, 100,000 years old or D, 1.84 million years old and the answer is C, 100,000 years old.

In this segment, we imbibe in Reno's emerging world of craft beer culture.

From the alchemy of ingredients that make up these brews to the autistic designs on the labels representing them.

We get a refreshing look at how art can take on many forms.

(bright upbeat music) - The craft beer culture is just like the food culture.

They want a good beer, they wanna know who's making it.

Everyone's taking what they're consuming very seriously.

They want that knowledge and I love that part of the culture.

(upbeat music) We've seen a strong growth within the craft beer community here.

We've got breweries that are still opening.

We got breweries that are expanding.

We have breweries that I never thought that would distribute beer in the Reno market now sending beer into the Reno market and it just keeps going and then the knowledge base on what's good and what's not good keeps growing and now is just the beginning of what we're about to see.

Here in Revision Brewing Company, we've had the canning line for about a year and we hit a 2 million can.

So depending on the day, we could package somewhere between 500 cases a day.

So the numbers are huge.

So we do a lot of cans.

Cans make up close to 50% of our total production.

(upbeat music) - We don't just want a beer on the shelf.

We want an expression of what we're doing and I get to work with many artists to create our labels and sometimes we see a really amazing art piece and feel that it would fit the name of one of our beers that's going to come out.

So we reach out to an artist and I get to work with them along the process.

So sometimes we present a name and say, hey do you have a concept that would go with this?

Do you think you could create something around this?

And other times we have no name but we have a concept and they create a piece and then the name comes thereafter.

(upbeat music) - This different breweries coming together and helping the arts scene move along and move forward by paying artists to do artwork.

Anytime like a company or a person is paying an artist to do what they love to do is great for both of them.

It's a mutual connection that's helping the beer company sell their product and it's also helping the artists so that they can pay their bills and have food on the table.

(bright upbeat music) - I feel like we have a dual cool following here.

So the same way that you see with comic books, people look for different art releases on our beers and that goes forward, the beer releases as well.

So our brewmaster Jeremy Warren created quite the name for himself with his beer releases in the past and so we have that cool following for the next beer release.

So it just makes sense, the art and the beer work together so wonderfully.

(upbeat music) - I think the artwork on the outside of the can can really go with what's on the inside of the can especially like on the prior vacation.

I just really thought the yellows and the purples of that can we're kind of like the complexities of the beer that were inside of it.

(bright upbeat music) - We spend a lot of time developing a new beer and we start with what's important and it's the experience.

So, hey, what do we want this to smell like, taste like and then we take all of these things around us and we use those to help develop this product.

But every time we develop a beer, there's usually a backstory to the beer.

Why have this name?

Why is it this style of beer?

And then when we get to that point, we work with Darla and she reaches out to a lot of different artists and we kind of just say, hey, this is what this means to us.

This is the beer name and then we allow the artists to then take the outside of the can to the next level and it really allows us to not just connect with people through the beer but it also allows us to connect with people visually with what's on the can.

(bright upbeat music) - Our labels are really artistic partly because beer is artistic and I think sometimes that gets overlooked.

So there's so much that goes into beer than the flavor combination.

(upbeat music) - Each brewmaster has their own style of what they're creating.

I mean, it's really an art of its own.

- As a brewer, I look at everything around me as a blank canvas, what are we painting?

What do we want to achieve with this?

So we could start with the beer itself in creating new flavors and new mouth fills and the perception that one's gonna have.

Beer's always an experience.

So when we take all that creativity and really looking about how we're gonna create that can and letting them know how it was made, why does it taste this way, what's important but also putting it within an environment that's fun.

Someone's gonna look at the label and connect to it.

Maybe they connect to that label the way the art was intended for or sometimes they take a past experience and they kind of connect to it differently.

Same with beer.

(bright upbeat music) - We really want to express what's going on from start to finish with that beer and the art is an avenue to be able to do that.

(bright upbeat music) - To learn more about the intersection of art and craft beer culture, visit revisionbrewing.com and that wraps it up for this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

For more arts and culture and to watch past episodes visit pbsreno.org/arteffects.

Until next week, I'm Beth Macmillan.

Thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] Funding for AERTEFFECRS is made possible by Sandy Raffealli, the June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, HeidiMarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Meyers.

The annual contributions of PBS Reno members, and bye.

(upbeat music)