(snare drum beating) - [Mark] In this edition of "Artistic Horizons."

An extraordinary child prodigy.

- To me, an artist is a person who has an idea in their head and they just share it with the world.

(lively orchestra music) - [Mark] Sculptures that spark discussion.

- My hope that it would instigate conversations about personal migration, immigration for people.

(mellow music) - [Mark] Rediscovering art.

- I want my paintings to not just be nice to look at, but I want them to penetrate that soul 'cause it comes from my soul.

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

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

At only eight years old, Juliette Leong is a force to be reckoned with.

Based in Sparks, Nevada, Leong is a skilled violinist, art prodigy, philanthropist, and kid who loves to roller skate and just have fun.

Here's her story.

(jaunty music) - My name is Juliette Leong, and I'm eight years old.

My most favorite thing to do is play with my friends.

Second is reading.

I like graphic novels, fiction, nonfiction.

I love reading so, so much I get in trouble for reading.

(jaunty music) (Juliette giggling) And I love painting.

(jaunty music) I started painting when I was eight months old.

My parents put me on the dining room table and gave me paint on paper to play with.

I guess they wish they didn't really do that because I made a mess on my table.

I just like splatted my hand in the paint and like basically fingerprinted the whole table.

(jaunty music) I use colored pencils, acrylic paints, watercolor paints, and garage paint.

And I tried oil paint, but it took forever to dry in.

I don't like waiting forever.

I'm impatient.

(Juliette giggling) (jaunty music) Gathering materials is kind of the first step of painting, but an idea is really the first step.

I paint landscapes, abstracts, animals, and portraits.

Oh, and abstract realism.

(jaunty music) Sometimes, I feel stressed when I'm doing it in live competitions or I have to like paint in person with other people that are not kids.

But, when I'm just painting for fun, I feel happy and excited.

(jaunty music) I donate the proceeds from the sale of my paintings to raise money for nonprofit organizations that help others, such as AADP, or Asian American Donor Program, Race to Erase MS, Ladies Who Rock for a Cause, and many more.

(jaunty music) It makes me feel great, helping people and trying to save their lives.

(jaunty music) When I'm not painting, I'm usually playing my violin.

(inquisitive music) I first saw a violinist play at San Francisco City Hall when I was about two years old, and then after I saw Ray Chen perform, then I really wanted to play the violin, so that's what got me started.

(lively violin music) I love practicing my violin while roller skating.

(lively violin music) You learn how to hold your bow straight, and it has to be straight and not like crooked because then it'll go off the fingerboard, it'll be all over the place.

(somber violin music) I got to play with the Reno Chamber Orchestra because I won the Concerto competition in March, and it was so exciting.

(audience and orchestra applauding) They like made a big box for me to stand on.

(Juliette giggling) That was funny.

(Juliette laughing) ("Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3") My favorite concerto is the "Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3" in G Major.

("Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3") The Reno Chamber Orchestra is really fun orchestra.

I get to meet some of the solo violinists, they always come out, and I love the Reno Chamber Orchestra.

("Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3") I wasn't nervous because I just think of it as another public performance, or if I'm practicing at home.

("Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3") I love performing so much.

To me, an artist is a person who has an idea in their head, and they just share it with the world.

("Mozart Violin Concerto No.

3") (audience applauding) (gentle upbeat music) - And now, for the artist quote of the week.

(gentle upbeat music) Up next, we visit the studio of sculptor Lauren P. McAloon, located just north of Key West in Florida.

In her space, McAloon creates using found materials, like wood and metal, and with her latest series, she speaks to immigration.

Take a look.

(upbeat music) - Lauren McAloon, Lauren Proctor McAloon specifically.

And I'm a sculptress.

I've been here for about 30 years.

I work in a variety of materials.

More recently, I've been really honed in on the base of most of the work of being in boat shape or vessels, and so I call them "Vessel Series."

And they've been coming out for me for the last, I'd say ten years, and this is a very specific...

This exhibit is a specific body of work within that "Vessel Series."

(gentle upbeat music) My studio is located on Stock Island, the next key up going towards Miami from Key West.

Quite a few artists are out here.

I'm in a compound called the Stockyard Studios, and there are stone workers, woodworkers, painters, assemblage artists, so it's a really good community here.

We kind of leave each other alone, but also pop in on each other.

And if I need a critique or, they're all... Everybody's always happy to help.

(Lauren laughing) (lighthearted music) (nails clattering) I come from a family that's very... uses their hands a lot for doing things extremely creative.

Mother was a painter, father was an architect, but also could pretty much do anything.

I had incredible childhood growing up, and since then, have dabbled... One of those people that knows a little bit about a lot of things.

Worked on boats for a while, building boats for a while, fishmonger for a while here in the Keys.

But I realize all of it kind of fed into a sense of design and three dimensions, as opposed to two-dimensional work.

It was my joy.

And here in the Keys, started to take it seriously.

Had a piece accepted when I first learned welding for Sculpture Key West, which used to be an annual exhibit out at Fort Zachary Taylor, and then different other venues.

And when that piece was accepted to be shown, I kind of started really thinking seriously about it.

The "Boat Series," the "Vessel Series" that I've been working on pretty much for the last ten years, started with starting to learn about ceramics, and I literally dropped a piece of clay through... Not, well, I dropped it and it elongated out, and I was like, "Whoa."

And then I purposely threw it and continually.

And depending on the clay body and how malleable it was, this boat shape would come out.

And I've been playing with that for quite a while, and then taking them apart and putting them back together, adding things to reference, basically, what I'm thinking about.

(uplifting music) "I'mmigration."

It's immigration, but with the apostrophe.

It's pronounced I'm migration, and that is a reference to the fact that we all, by force or by choice, have migration or immigration in our personal histories.

And that's really important for people not to forget.

(uplifting music) The reaction to the exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive and actually humbling.

So, a lot of people have seen my work over the years, one piece here, one piece there.

But to see a quantity in a number of pieces and all within a theme within the "Vessel Series," surprised a lot of people, I think.

They were like, "Whoa."

But a lot of people were waiting to see; the pressure was big time.

Waiting to see what I was going to do after having left the studios, having time now, and having this incredible space to work in, people...

I was able to go big and bigger than I ever been able to before, and that was a lot of fun.

The rudders, those are off of the Dry Tortugas.

Back when there was the Wet-Foot-Dry-Foot policy.

So, they're all bent because getting close to any type of landform, you didn't go slow, you (Lauren mimics car revving) ride up on land, and so all the rudders have this bend in them going up on land.

And each one is so different from another.

And to me, it just is amazing that people put their trust in something that looks so simple to get them all the way across.

They're just amazing.

I mean, the rope was on it still.

I have a few others.

One had carefully stitched leather on the handle, but I mean, they're all different, they're all homemade out of what people could find.

(uplifting music) My hope that conversations, it would instigate conversations about personal migration.

Immigration for people happened, at least at the opening.

"Where's your family from?"

"Well, my family came on the Mayflower."

"Oh, mine came two years ago."

And people, especially with the current situations with immigration and migration all over the world, has been right at the forefront of a lot of people's mind.

And there was a space to have it be okay to have a conversation about it, and that that was really heartening to see happen.

(mellow music) (lighthearted music) If it keeps coming out, and I'm just going to keep doing it because I really enjoy it.

There's other things I've been playing with.

The palm fronds, the royal palm fronds, I've been collecting them for a while now because some of them come down and they're extremely dress-like, and I really like that.

So definitely now I have the space to continue working with them.

Sometime, I would get enough of them that I like that I want to make all these, dancing dresses, all in a circle.

(uplifting music) People always ask, "What do you like about Key West that makes you stay?"

And generally the answer is, "Well, I like the water.

I like the weather.

The people, of course."

And for me, (uplifting music) environmentally, it's the sky.

The sky here is just phenomenal.

And people wise, it's one of the very few places I've ever lived where people don't pigeonhole you.

They allow you to...

They truly allow and support you to change on your own personal journey.

When I came here as a fishmonger, they supported me at that.

And then morphed into spending more and more, then the facilities manager at the Studios, and there was great support for that.

And my artwork, I mean, it's overwhelming, the support for that change, and I've never seen that anywhere else where people truly support a person's journey as it changes over time, as it's inevitable, it should.

And to me, that's what the Keys has done.

(uplifting music) (gentle upbeat music) - Now, here's a look at this month's fun fact.

(gentle upbeat music) In his youth in Egypt, Hani Hara loved to paint.

After having to leave his home country at a young age, he built a new life for himself in America and was able to rediscover his love of art.

We head to Columbus, Ohio to learn more about his vibrant creations.

- I was born in Heliopolis, Egypt, which is a suburb of Cairo.

In 1951 or 2, President Nasser took over the country, and at that time, especially around 1956, the Suez War.

And so at that time, the Jews were asked to leave.

- [Reporter] A smoking Port Saeed greets British expeditionary forces as they arrive for an assault landing.

The city had been consistently bombed for days before the amphibious operation.

Oil dumps go up in flames under the pounding and the harbor is littered with sunken vessels, some bomb victims, others scuttled by the... - We had bombs coming down.

I was sleeping in my parents' bed, the whole family was in there just because we could hear all of the bombs going off.

And that's when my dad decided, "That's it," and he applied for a visa.

And so we went to Paris for one year, waiting for our turn to come into the United States.

And in 1959, I was 11 years old, we arrived in New York and took a train ride to Columbus.

We were sponsored by HIAS, the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, which really helps a lot of people, not just Jews, but anybody that wants to go to another country because they're being abused, they'll pay their way, and then you have to pay them back, and I remember my dad every month, we'd put that check in until he paid it all off, and again, we just lucked out so much that we got to come to the United States.

I love this country.

As a child, it took a year or so to get accustomed to it.

They put me back a grade because of my language, but eventually, I caught up pretty nicely.

And my parents, God bless them, they're both gone, but they really wanted us to speak English at home.

If you speak English at home, we're going to learn English as well, and so it wasn't keeping the old country in.

It was welcoming the new country.

(bright music) I loved painting as a child.

And I would always doodle, and my relatives, "Oh, you're good at this, you should keep going."

And in high school, I did it.

I went to college for one, two semesters in fine arts, but then my dad said, "How about switching to something that makes money?"

Which I should have never done.

I went to mechanical drawing, and then Ohio State asked me to leave after that 'cause I wasn't doing so well.

(lively music) But I didn't really do any art until I turned about 40, 41.

I took a class with a local artist here in town, Lindsay Staff and she really was so supportive, and she said, "You've got to keep going, you've got to keep going, you've got talent."

And from that, I was able to create career in the art, as well in sales and business.

You better love color.

It's my thing, I love color.

I started out with watercolors, and originally when I turned 40, after I took that class, and it was a watercolor class with Lindsay, and the colors for me weren't bright enough, they weren't striking enough, so I switched to acrylic.

And the way I start, I really have no idea what the piece is going to look like at the end.

I kind of start with colors and shapes.

And then if you notice my art, it's all about faces.

And my faces, as primitive as they are sometimes, they really do exude a feeling, a mood.

And a lot of times, my collectors will say, "I see something different every time, every time I look at it."

And to me, it's about that you change every day.

We all can get up in a certain mood so that painting may strike you a little bit different.

So yeah, it's...

I love my faces 'cause I get lost in them, and in reality, they're all the mood I'm in it when I'm doing it.

As the painting comes together, a lot of today's topics come out in it.

That whole thing about immigrants, how do we get here?

How we strive here, how our country is really...

It's so great because of the immigrants.

And now, when I see people wanting to keep them out, I'm thinking, "That's crazy."

So that does come out in the paintings a lot.

The people against other people.

I'll do some paintings that way that eventually will come out.

I did a show on the homeless one time.

Those topics somehow come out in the paintings.

I travel a lot, so those inspirations come out when I walk around the streets of Brazil, Mexico, Europe.

You come back and you can't wait to start painting again, and those travels come out in the painting.

So to me, it's about everyday life that shows up.

(mellow music) A couple years ago, my son said, "Dad, you should try the digital art," and he got me started with a couple of the apps.

And what happened is over time, I became pretty good at figuring out what brushes, what the colors.

And so it's the kind of thing that...

I could be watching TV with one eye and drawing on the other, with the other.

And so over time, it really became the way that I could create, here's one, "Walking By The Pyramids" to talk about my background.

So it does come out.

There's a parking, I mean, a coin for the parking in the middle of it.

(mellow music) This came out, too.

Let my people go, in a sense.

That was also the theme.

It's funny how it just comes out.

It's not like I really plan it, but listen, if it's gonna come out, it's gonna come out.

I love this piece that I did about "Family," even grandma cooking with the love, the food that she makes.

I just get lost in it.

(mellow music) I want my paintings to not just be nice to look at, but I want them to penetrate that soul because it comes from my soul, in a sense.

And when somebody looks at a painting, I want them to at least take a few minutes and look at it and see what I'm trying to portray in there.

(mellow music) (gentle upbeat music) - And now, here's a look at a few notable dates in our history.

(gentle upbeat music) 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.

(gentle upbeat music) (lighthearted music)