- [Heather] Next on "Curate."

- My work is about telling a story of the experience of being a mother.

- I miss the team.

I miss being in the schools, but I'm proud of Arts for Learning and the fact that nobody's given up.

- So, that's what I'm always trying to do to get you to look at something in a completely different way.

- [Jason] This is "Curate".

- Welcome to "Curate".

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

Thanks for joining us.

Photographer Megan Wynne's art captures her life and what's important to her.

With thought-provoking imagery.

- Much of her work looks at motherhood with a very sly wink.

As she captures the subject with a slightly skewed lens highlighting the fun and funny moments.

- This week, we take a deeper look at the work of Megan Wynne, our 757 featured artist.

- I always made art about relationships.

When I became a mother, I was really affected by the intimacy and the vulnerability, unlike any other relationship I'd ever had.

My work is about telling the story of the experience of being a mother.

I was adopted at birth.

So it was also very strange to physically have my own child.

How dependent they were on me.

I never grew up seeing anyone breastfeed and I did it, just so intense.

(laughing) I started to document it.

That was my very first experience of making work on motherhood.

I'm inspired by visual ideas and ways in which I can imagine my kids can engage.

And that requires a lot of thinking and planning because, I often have one shot that I can do it.

I don't want to do something that's not fun for my kids cause then they won't want to make art with me.

(upbeat music) My plan was to become a professional tap dancer but, you can't major in tap dancing in college.

So, I went into fine arts school.

I started out in painting but I did photography when I was a Sculpture Major.

And then I got an MFA in new genres.

This piece is from my MFA thesis exhibition.

I was interested in 16th and 17th century anatomical engravings.

I thought of them and how they were done as kind of metaphors for human frailty.

And here's an example of something I was inspired by.

It's essentially a cadaver holding open their skin, so that you can see their insides.

So it just seemed like a metaphor for frailty and exposing oneself.

(soft piano music) This is another piece that I have up in my studio.

It's from a series called Foundation.

With this series I thought about the idea of a mother being present or having a trace of herself there.

Kind of a haunting feeling.

They speak to the invisibility of caregiving.

All kids are good artists.

That's why my husband's an elementary art teacher.

He just loves the work he sees every day.

It's so inspiring.

It feeds his practice.

And he used to teach college.

He used to teach at VCU and it's like, he can't compare it to the joy he gets from seeing the work of first graders.

(laughing) ♪ I will drive past through ♪ We take our kids really seriously.

We don't take ourselves too seriously.

It's kind of asserting the validity of the creative impulse in the children.

We encourage them.

We create... We try to create an environment where they feel free to express themselves.

And sometimes I'm shocked with how comfortable they are.

(upbeat music) This project I've worked on with my kids.

I revisited a concept they've already worked with in the past.

And that piece is called Basket Motherhood.

- I painted your mouth.

- I actively choose to give up control and see what will happen and how far they would take it cause you don't really know.

- This doesn't look like you're sick at all.

But it looks like you're happy.

Happy, happy.

- I wanted to experiment in giving up control.

A metaphor for being a parent, being a mother.

I wanted to revisit the idea with three children and they're are different ages now.

(upbeat music) ♪ Fear no more oh ♪ ♪ Fear no more ♪ ♪ Fear ♪ ♪ No more ♪ My son was delighted but you could see him climbing on my head.

It was more violent than the last time.

(laughing) Some reason that dance, it's like a circus.

That dance is thrilling to me.

It's exciting.

Just free experimentation, which I think is beautiful.

(somber music) The more I think about my work and it's evolved, I think about the fear of failure.

I started realizing more the kind of everyday struggle of motherhood combined with the joy and humor of it.

Like with a lot of my work, it's an exercise of letting go allowing myself to feel the anxiety and doing it anyway.

I feel like when my pieces are successful, they have that element to them of me really allowing myself not to know what's gonna happen and not being afraid.

The experience of any relationship is not all perfectly serene, nor should it be.

And that's kind of how motherhood is in general.

It's an exercise in being in control and then selectively letting go of control.

You can't completely be in control all the time.

How do I let them be themselves and grow as a person and yet also protect them and keep them safe.

That's a struggle I have every day, as a mother.

So, I investigated it in my work.

(upbeat music) - [Heather] You can learn more about Meghan Wynne on our website WHRO.org/curate.

- There you can access all our previous 757 featured artists.

Plus, find previous episodes stretching back nearly five years.

So much of our content this season has been influenced by the often difficult life changes brought on by COVID-19.

- Here's a look at how several local artists have coped and are finding their way through what has been a very challenging year.

(cheerful music) - I was teaching printmaking at Norfolk State University.

- I was working as a professional painter.

Selling my watercolor landscapes.

- My job was to support live performances, workshops and residencies with arts for learning.

- I was teaching at the Governor's School for the Arts.

- My band, The New Mutiny, was playing regional shows and getting ready to go into the studio.

(cheerful music) - When the shutdown came, it was at the busiest time of the year for Arts For Learning, so, so many performances, so many workshops, everything got canceled.

- And then as the weeks went by, I'm just sitting and I'm thinking like, nobody's gonna be buying my art right now.

And I've got a lease now, the studio space that I'm responsible for.

A lot of my income was coming from classes and from selling art.

- We were planning on not being super active on the road and going into the studio anyway.

We had a couple of sessions done with our producer but, he has his grandmother living with him and he works out of his house.

The studio's set up at his house.

So obviously she's older, so we had to kind of put the brakes on that as well.

(soft piano music) - I was teaching print making workshop at Norfolk State university and by the end of spring break, they sent out notices that the classes would continue virtually.

I had to create a project that they could do at home, using some materials they might have that represented print making processes.

For me, it was the challenge cause it gave me a reason to go to work in my studio and come up with some new ideas and explore some new things that I couldn't even do in my own work.

And also, think they had some fun exploring not expecting to create, you know, a super fine finished piece of artwork.

- So we wanted to find a way to create some paid work for the artist.

And then also thinking of the students and the young people all of the programs that they were gonna be consuming were all canceled.

And wouldn't it be nice if somebody just kept pressing on to create some art?

The funny thing is, I started in January and the shutdown happened in March.

It was still a brand new job.

So I hadn't even really settled into the position before it completely changed.

- One of my main jobs as an artist is to be a creative problem solver.

So it's, how am I gonna move forward?

And so I've been consistently doing zoom classes since then and it's been awesome.

It has opened up this where I actually get to connect to students that wouldn't be able to physically come into my space.

But it took me a while to just get over the fear of the technology of it and realize that COVID's not going anywhere.

So I need to figure out how to evolve with it and make my business still work.

- Teaching online is so much more exhausting than teaching person.

You wouldn't think it is.

But a lot of times it feels like being a standup comedian.

That's just bombing.

Like, performance after performance after performance because when the screens were black, you got nothing.

But even now when you have their faces there's just this mask with a lot of them.

And we get them in the afternoon so they're already sick of zoom.

- Now, my days are very different as I work in kind of the video filment and we've been creating new offerings so that we can do virtual programs.

I'm not a skilled videographer.

I'm watching YouTube all the time about how to create a three point lighting effect and how not to shoot things out of focus as I was doing and figuring out what I was doing as I was going along.

- You know, as far as playing live- (murmurs) Yeah.

- (murmurs) immediately.

- Yeah.

- We've done a couple of the online shows and it's cool because you know, it still gives us an avenue to connect with people that want to hear the music.

But, it's bittersweet.

On the one hand you get to still play rock and roll and people get to hear it, but- - It's not seen.

You can't feel it, man.

You can't feel it.

(rock music) - I was still wanting to create, but I just couldn't create in the ways that I was normally looking to do.

And so I had to remind myself that, you know, what I created didn't have to necessarily be a finished work that was to seen by the public.

I kind of went back to now my roots.

Going in my sketchbook and thumbnailing or just putting my emotions down on paper.

And it allowed me to just, you know get whatever those energies out.

And it made me feel good about the fact that I was creating and I was letting it go.

- So I had decided I would give away free art.

Just to kind of like brighten our day.

And then kind of say like, a little piece of connection like we're all in this together.

So I made these four by six watercolor paper original paintings.

So I did my Instagram live and it like, blew up.

I ended up doing 675 paintings that I had to cut off.

So it was like, a much bigger task than I thought it was gonna be, but I'm glad that I did it.

And I get so many people reach out and say like, how much it meant to them.

And I don't know, like a connection during this time based around something creative.

Based around art.

- The plants it's like portraiture for me.

The one that you can see in the back, it's a weed.

And there are all these different plants that we just step on or mow over or walk by.

We don't know what they are and we don't really care but, that plant takes up that space.

I like to equate that to how we look at each other when we're walking down the street.

How we don't look at each other.

I'm guilty of it too.

I'm constantly trying to better myself and slow myself down to really take a look at people as individuals and not lump them into these categories.

I feel that's part of the reason why we have not been able to address this pandemic as a united country.

(somber music) - So I miss the team.

I miss being in the schools and seeing students' reactions to performances.

But I'm proud of Arts for Learning and the fact that nobody's given up.

- I think I'm in a pretty good space now that I got a sense about this nation is moving and where I fit in it as an artist.

- We got some good music recorded.

As soon as we got out of the studio, it's kind of like, okay, we can't play shows I guess we're gonna start writing.

So, we're poised to repeat the same cycle and hopefully the year doesn't repeat the same way in 2021.

- You probably know John Waters from his colorful films about life in Baltimore.

But he's also an artist.

And his art has always followed that same low brow fun script.

His work recently exhibited at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus.

Where he talked about his unique way of looking at art and life.

(cheerful music) - John Waters is someone who the Wexner Center has been friendly with since 1999.

He was here in disguise as a filmmaker.

I had heard...

I knew vaguely that he also was kind of venture into the art world as a visual artist.

- Yeah.

A lot of my fans have no idea I did this and I very purposely, kept it separate.

- And he's very modest about the Veracon lowbrow low-tech means of production.

And so for him, it's all about telling stories.

- I'm trying to kind of discover all the stuff the insider jokes of what can go wrong in show business the art world in editing a mistakes.

You know, I started by just taking pictures off the TV screen.

You can't get lower tech than that.

(rock and roll music) - He's also...

He works from the aesthetic of a fan.

He only makes work about things he likes.

But the things he likes are the things he likes making fun of.

Which are movies, the art world, celebrities, gossip, things like that.

- I do make fun of celebrity art.

I hate it too.

Justin, who I met and liked, and he drew on my mustache once, when he was in London.

This is in LA people start getting faces when they're really young.

And I try to imagine, why would you do that?

Cause they all just look like surprised aliens.

They don't look old though.

Joan Rivers didn't look old.

She looked bizarre, but she didn't look old.

But why would you want to look like you're 20?

That was like really scary, I think.

(rock and roll music) The only mean-spirited one here at all is not about me, is the one that just says, "Starring Melissa Rivers".

Now there has never been that shot that's made up.

Cause that would mean she would have top biller.

And that has not happened yet.

But I like to imagine that movie, sort of.

(laughing) The scariest piece in the whole thing is called 9/11.

But all this, it's the shots of the most forgotten movies.

"Dr. Doolittle 2", "Nightmare".

Those were the movies that were playing on the plane to 9/11, but they never got to even put them in.

So they would have been seen.

So that's at least positive they were'nt watching them.

So, that's what I'm always trying to do to get you to look at something in a completely different way.

(cheerful guitar music) The first thing I always do is what would make me laugh.

- He's got a breakthrough film was called "Pink Flamingos".

And it was kind of notorious for how... What bad tasted was in.

And a couple of years ago, he gathered a group of children in Beverly Hills and do a table reading by children of the script of "Pink Flamingos".

So that's in the show.

- Well, there's one whole series I did call "Marks" which is when I was making a film called "Pecker".

I noticed that every day in every movie, the crew puts down tape marks, right before you do a shot where the actor has to hit that to stay in focus.

You never see them in a movie because the camera cuts off there.

So I...

When everybody cleared the set, before we moved on I saw them there and realized they were drawings basically.

But someone did for me without knowing.

So I started photographing them.

So they were movies stills, but what was in it was the only thing that can't be in a movie still.

Can art be funny?

We all know contemporary art is witty, but can it be funny?

And I have a piece that sort of satirizes some museums that were...

They have a collector that they're... What they lend the piece is so valuable, they put an insurance tape on there.

So if you get near goes bzzz or something.

You can't get too near it.

Or it might squirt you in the face.

(rock and roll music) There's one that says, "Contemporary art hates you".

It does.

It hates the right people.

(murmurs) My kids should have done that.

Well, stupid.

They should have, it just sold for eight million dollars.

Who's the fool?

I'm seeing them hanging the show everybody has some gloves and stuff, moving this thing I had in my house over and thrown it in the closet.

You know, (laughing) I find that delightful.

I make fun of it with love because I think it's great that it's somehow...

It's magic.

That, that thing that I found in a thrift shop I finally did it here, it's sold in the gallery.

And now it's in a museum.

That's a magic trick, but I'm proud.

And I planned it.

And I think the reason I do get away with it, is cause I make fun of things I like.

If you like my movies, you'll like those.

I mean, it's the same kind of humor.

It's just a different way for me to tell stories, I think.

Hopefully.

- Reno, Nevada muralist Joe C. Rock creates art for public spaces.

Bold and energetic are adjectives that describe the art and the man who creates it.

- My name is Joe C. Rock and I'm a muralist and artist here in Reno, Nevada.

(upbeat music) I create all kinds of art but I definitely tend to more of a street style, graffiti art, but then figure paintings my favorite, but muralism would be like the biggest key point.

The idea of like urban or greediness really appeals to me just because that's like who I am.

And I listen to rap music, I spray paint.

These are all things that are very urban.

I love graffiti.

I love, you know, buildings.

And I love just that chaos of just traffic and people walking and honking of horns.

And that's the other part of it is if you look at my painting, I love just making a mess too, you know, like that crazy chaotic mess.

And then the beauty on top of it.

If you look at this painting, that same idea.

This door is just gross, old but then there's the girl inside who is just very soft and pristine and painted very nicely.

And it's just that counter play of ideas that is also great.

(upbeat music) I've been drawing my entire life.

My mom taught me how to write really young.

And I always just had a pen or a pencil or crayons in my hands.

So I just really always had it in my blood.

When I was, you know, two or three, my mom she had to like line the house with butcher paper as far as I could reach.

Cause I was like painting.

So I guess I've been doing murals since I've been like three.

(laughing) (upbeat music) Starting a mural is different every time.

I don't really ever know how I'm gonna actually start like putting paint to the wall first.

It just really depends on the finished product as well.

Like the one at McConnell.

That one I chalked the drawing in first because I wanted a lot of the blue showing through the entire time.

And then from chalking it in, then I went into spray paint and doing that then going back and cutting back with the wall color, fixing my lines up, then started doing shading and doing the different layers of shading.

It's really hard to judge on how long a mural is gonna take.

It can be anywhere from five hours to 50 for the same mural.

To sometimes if I'm on it, I can bust out a portrait really perfect in five hours and have it be the same that it would take me 50 to render it because you just sometimes make mistakes and it goes but sometimes everything goes well and it just lines up right from the beginning.

(upbeat music) I love when people come up and tell me what they think about it.

Cause I love that when I'm painting something and I'd never thought about that and someone comes up and they're like, Oh, is that Marilyn Monroe or JFK?

And like, you know you just hear these things and I'm like, no but it could be like, I'm not saying it's not.

So, and I love that about it.

I would love for people to come away from my art feeling happy.

Like that's one thing or like moved or just people taking notice of it is great.

You know.

And I think art in a public space is just...

It's great for anyone.

I mean, it just livens up a dead wall.

You know, it gives someone something to look at.

Reno is full of murals.

There's murals all over.

If you walk from Plum all the way downtown it's just this corridor of murals everywhere.

It's an easy way to change an area.

And that's kind of what happened here was we started painting murals on a lot of businesses because younger people started opening businesses.

A building that looks dilapidated, if you paint a mural on the side, it becomes an attraction.

You know, it becomes where people are sitting there taking pictures in front of it, selfing.

People tend to congregate around them.

So it's just an...

It's an easy way to change something.

(upbeat music) - [Heather] You can find "Curate" online visit our website WHRO.org/curate - And follow "Curate" on social media.

Including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

- [Heather] You're looking at works currently on display at the TCC Perry Glass Wheel Arts Center in the NEON District of Norfolk.

- [Jason] We want to thank Tidewater Community College for providing a backdrop all season long.

- Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Heather Mazzoni.

- And I'm Jason Kypros.

And we'll see you next time on "Curate".

(soft violin music)