- Up next on Curate.

- When you allow yourself to be free and just play the music as it comes and is given to you, you become one with the instrument.

- I love things that have a story to them.

This is actually almost entirely made out of reclaimed materials from houses which have been damaged by the effects of climate change.

- Greetings from the WHRO studio.

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

- Eric Taylor has traveled the world sharing his amazing skills as a violinist, - And whether he's performing at a local celebration or on national television, he leaves his audiences both captivated and longing for more as he plays out gospel jazz or even classical tunes.

- And what makes this phenomenal performer even more amazing is he's never had a violin lesson.

- I have to admit that this is a gift.

This is something that I've been gifted to do, and my allegiance will always be to God.

I can play all styles of music, but my roots will always be in gospel.

Total Praise.

That song has been the anthem, and it just kind of wraps up everything in a great big bow.

I have to give him total praise for how far he's brought me through - To watch and listen.

As Eric Taylor plays can be transformative, his energy high, his moves athletic as he allows the music to transport him.

- It's hard to describe.

You become one with the music.

You become one with the instrument, and it takes over when you allow yourself to be free and just to play.

Don't worry about anybody, just play the music as it comes, and it's given to you.

And I think that's what happens.

And so I'm not even aware of what's all going on until someone may show me a, a tape or something and I'm like, oh, I didn't even know that happened.

It encaptures me and I just flow with whatever's happening.

- Surprisingly, Eric's journey didn't begin when he was little, or even in middle school.

- I started playing violin around the age of 14.

A choir director at my church was also a music instructor, and she had a vision of me playing and she said, I want you to try this.

And she gave me my first violin, and that's where it began.

I'm an only child, and so it, it gave me a, a bit of something to try.

It was a bit of a challenge, and I wanted to see what I could do with it.

And also, I was introduced to the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, and I was inspired by watching just all of them play together in the collective sound.

And it just encouraged me that, you know what?

I can do this too.

I played cello actually in high school.

It was the only instrument left.

So I started with cello and I was introduced to violin.

Later after high school, I went on to college, Virginia Commonwealth University, and I pursued music as a minor and I wanted to be a journalist as my major, but it just got to be where the violin and the music just took over and I began to travel.

So I actually ended up pursuing the violin as my career choice around the age of 22 or 23, I began to be passionate about the music, and I felt connected to it in such a way, and I really felt like this is no longer a challenge.

This is actually fun.

My favorite jazz song, I like Misty, but there are so many that I also love in the jazz genre, - Just holding.

- I saw how it brought happiness to my audience and the stories and the inspiration of their children and older alike.

It just made me feel like this is really my purpose.

I love to feel that they are feeling what I'm feeling and that the message that I'm trying to portray to them is being received.

It's really beyond what I can describe in words.

I love people and I'm passionate about what I do.

I'm very happy and satisfied with myself and my life direction.

And I hope that I'm inspiring someone.

I'm, I'm hoping that I bring a smile to someone's face and that I encourage them to utilize their own gifts.

We all have something that's given to us that's unique to us that we can do, and only we can do like we do it.

It has been so incredible the places that I've been able to go.

I've most recently played in Dubai.

I toured in Germany and France, Trinidad, Tobago, London, The Bahamas all across the country.

And I have an invitation to go to Australia.

And so that will be my next abroad trip.

- The father of two daughters and two sons.

Eric and his wife Angela, always make sure they take time for family and each other.

- My wife Angela, who's a great support, my number one cheerleader, she's always with me as much as she can be.

I've got a grandson, so gonna spend some time with him.

I like my parents and caring for them, just kind of finding things to do that unwind from the music genre for balance, traveling, vacationing, just to do that.

- And even though he's never had a lesson, Eric says he never stops learning.

- With my latest trip to Dubai, I dressed in their traditional garments to play, and I wasn't sure exactly what I should play, but I'm glad I had the experience.

It, it went super well and I'm, I was in invited to go back in April.

I like that.

That's what keeps it fun and interesting.

Next time I'll learn some of their language and begin to interact with some of the locals.

That way the right moments are always great.

They will literally bring tears to my eyes when you see something and it just went so right.

The wrong things are cool too because they, they help me to grow.

They help me to remain centered, and it keeps me humble to say it's not gonna be perfect all the time.

I'm not a technical violinist.

I play from heart and feel.

And so things are going to happen.

And it's not what happens to you, but how you respond to what happens to you.

And that's a lifelong journey.

- FNX is the first and only national broadcast television network in the United States, exclusively devoted to Native American and world indigenous content through native produced and themed programming.

FNX strives to accurately illustrate the lives and cultures of native people around the world.

Watch now on Cox.

Channel 1 0 6.

- Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Set my soul on fire.

Put on your red shoes.

Satisfy my desire on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

Put on your red shoes.

You know the ones that I like on shoes, they make you look so hot on your on on red shoes.

On your red shoes Put on your red shoes Put on your red shoes Put on your red shoes Put on your red shoes Put on your red shoes.

You know the ones that I like.

They go click, click, click.

When you walk through the night, got those calves, girl, her looking are so tight.

And you be out on the desk and you be doing it right.

Put on your red shoes.

Red shoes.

You know what I need?

They take away my blues and make me feel like - A fortuitous meeting in the desert.

3000 miles from Hampton Roads set in motion, an unlikely collaboration between a New Orleans artist and Norfolk's Hermitage Museum and Gardens.

- That connection brought whimsically massive sculptures to life, inviting visitors to see the world through the quirky and eccentric eyes of Walker Babington.

- Sometimes I feel a little bit like I'm a, a New Yorker cartoonist.

Instead of making a, a drawing pulls out a saw.

I am the head and sometimes sole member of a somewhat a meic group of artists in, in New Orleans called Saboto Studios, which is an acronym.

It stands for Splinters and Blisters and Tetanus.

Oh my.

Because we largely work with dirty old Splintery wood, rusty metal, and the like.

The piece is called The Burden of the Beast.

We Humanity are are, are the Beast.

And it is sort of an allegory of, of where we are in the world right now.

- Nobody wants to get hit over the head with a message about sea level rise in a very kind of dark, doomsday manner.

I think that's what's so interesting about Walker's work.

He does address these serious topics, but in a way that is approachable.

- There's a bit of improvisation with my process.

I love things that have a story to them.

I use reclaimed materials partially for aesthetic.

I love the way they look, but also as part of the, the statement of the piece, this is actually almost entirely made out of reclaimed materials from houses which have been damaged by hurricanes and the effects of climate change.

I actually took the, the siding from old houses, the roof shingles we actually made out of fences that were destroyed during Hurricane Ida.

The legs are 13 feet long, which if you're building anything new along the bayou, you've gotta build it 13 feet off the ground.

It's the a hundred year flood mark.

There's something funny about in New Orleans, your door frame is never straight.

It's all built on swamps, so everything's always settling.

So if you look at the door frame from the front, you can see it's just kind of outta skew.

It is enough to make the framing an absolute nightmare.

I've always been a math kid.

It definitely plays a huge part, but I like to, I like to hide the math.

I don't want you to see it and think that looks like a math problem.

And it is full of full, full full of math problems.

I don't want it to look like sacred geometry.

I do like it to lean more heavily into the folk art.

I walk this funny line.

Obviously if something's this big, it needs to be engineered, but I, I like it to feel a lot more handmade.

This was my first big piece going out to Burning Man.

Biggest thing I'd ever done.

And as we were coming in a hurricane for the first time in like 80 years was coming up through like, it came up through California.

I was heading straight through the desert and I was getting dismayed.

And then I remember this whole thing is about persevering in the face of a hurricane.

So we carried on and while we were at Burning Man, I, I had a panel.

I, I sat for a panel discussion - And I got to listen to him talk about his work, particularly the large bison piece, burden of the beast.

- And we, we followed up after the event - And I knew that it would resonate with the, our community here in Hampton Roads.

- It's based off the North American Plains bison, which was on the brink of extinction and carried on.

When there's a storm coming through the bison, you know, they understand it in a way that they'll actually run the opposite direction and as a result they'll wind up in that storm for less time.

So it's, you know, a, a perfect metaphor for, for weathering a storm, for getting through it.

I also just love the, the image of it.

It's a beautiful silhouette and it's just kind of this classic American icon of strength.

You're supposed to have this sort of sense of nostalgia.

My goal was to make it feel like everybody's grandmother's house.

Like it's just sort of supposed to have this element that that feels like it's from your past.

My style is a large scale dream scape symbolist folk art.

One of my biggest inspirations is the symbolist movement.

They sort of took the inherent meanings of different imagery and animals and biblical characters and mix 'em all together to kind of put together a new statement.

And that, that's what I kind of feel like I like to do.

Zoso Bot is, is actually about artificial intelligence.

Zoso Bot is a giant robot clown toy.

It's not so much a, a commentary on artificial intelligence and the, the, the dangers of it.

It's more how we interact with it and saying that's really important and we need to think about it.

It's sitting down and it's a staring through a scope into his hand and that that hand is perfectly sized for a human to come down and sit, lean into and look back up the scope.

And it's sort of saying that, you know, artificial intelligence, it, it, it does have its capacity to learn quickly and, and give us these answers.

But what it's learning about humanity is it's learning how we treat one another.

That that's how it, it's going to learn to be human.

And if, if it does wind up destroying us, it's kind of our fault.

- Well for two years now, we have been working together to create this amazing project and I'm really excited for our community to experience it.

- I like to start as dreamy as possible and then figure out how to make the impossible possible.

- Welcome back to Curate Presents.

I am Kata Plus and I am here with Xavier Miles.

How's it going, Xavier?

- Great.

Glad to be here.

- Glad to have you.

I wanna know how you got into filmmaking.

- I remember looking up the WGA minimums for like selling a screenplay.

It saw like $30,000.

So I was like, oh, I'll just write a screenplay real quick.

Perfect.

Yeah.

And once I finished the script, I didn't want to just give it away to somebody else to do what they will with it and I fell into directing like that - From there to now.

How many films do you have?

- So I have got maybe five or six short films that I've done floating around there.

Some that I don't even want my name attached to.

I have shot four features, three of which I wrote and directed.

- You said how, how many films?

- Four.

Yeah, - I know one of 'em is is named All The Shine.

- All the Shine.

- Tell me what that one's about.

- It's a story about these two women who steal a secret from this gang boss and they flee to this haunted farm in the middle of Detroit.

And the story kind of follows one of them getting possessed, the drama that ensues from there.

- Is that the type of thing that we should expect to see on Mindy tv?

- What you can expect to see on Mindy TV is gonna be a variety of indie content.

One of my hurdles in filmmaking is the distribution side.

So you've spent all your money, you've done pre-production, you've got the sound, you've paid everybody hopefully.

And a lot of times you end up giving your dream your baby to this distribution company who may or may not have your best interest at heart.

Right?

And then they've got you for three to five years.

So what I wanted to do was, as a filmmaker, put my film on this platform, but also in a way that I could control and where I could build a community.

So that's what I want to do with Mindy.

- That's nice.

And you're still building that now?

- We've been working on this for about eight to nine months.

The goal is to launch late spring of this year with over a hundred films.

We're working with advertisers now and yeah, getting content creators.

- I heard you throw Dad in there.

So you are Yeah.

A filmmaker, - Right?

- And a dad.

- Yeah.

- And now I it building a streaming platform.

Yeah.

So how do you balance all of that?

- Well, I only have one kid, so that helps, you know, but it's changed who I am, my patience and even my perspective.

So being a dad is something that, you know, I just enjoy.

- So this movie you have called Downers.

- Downers, yeah.

- Tell me about that.

- Okay, so Downers is about a young couple who runs a foul of a killer cult that is making human sacrifices and one of their sacrifices is found by our protagonists.

The protagonist steals the mass off the sacrifice and then the problems that they solve cause more problems later on.

Mm.

So - I'm thinking about how you manage to do all of that and still do all the other things that you're doing.

Like you must have a really good calendar - When I say that I'm hyperfocused on this, I'm hyperfocused, hopefully not to a negative, but definitely to where I've got goals set and they're not gonna reach themselves.

So, - Okay.

So Xavier, thank you for coming.

- Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

Thank you for you know, having me.

It's been a pleasure.

- And with that we're gonna go to the trailer for downers.

- You are so pathetic.

You let white, white punk you.

You let Copper John use you as bait and you let that fat treat you like a whore your ass with smartphone and barbecue.

You it my brother?

Yeah.

Now you'll hear me.

Oh, - It's close.

I - Got two blind.

Just - See, - Mr.

Put - Your hands up.

You stole it off.

A dead guy.

That's gotta be bad luck.

- I make my own luck.

- If we solve this thing, Roddy, we could be big.

- It's got everything.

Mystic male victims a twist.

But it works maybe even better because of it.

We are a blessed congregation, A hook thrust into the flesh of this world.

You have taken something that does not belong to you.

- What kind of mess the family is this man.

- Okay.

If y'all feel loved and respected by your little masquerade, click then that's cool.

I ain't got no camel.

- You're killing my brother.

- Get me hold.

- Not until you revenge your brothers steal yourself.

You know, this is awesome.

Dead son.

- Why?

- There you have it.

Another episode in the books.

You - Know, as always, the amount of multifaceted artists in this region is so unbelievable.

I just can't get enough.

- And that's exactly what we'll be back next week with another episode of Curate.

- Everybody has a blue story, a blue story of their very own from the day you were born to the day you go to Glory.

Everybody has a blue story.

Everybody has a blue story.

Some are happy, some are sad.

From the day you were born to the day you go to glory, everybody has a blues story.