One, two, three, four.

Get my shoes then out the door.

Five I'm alive, six, seven, eight feelin' great.

Nine, gonna shine, life is good I'm doing fine.

Ten, Gonna do it right then do it again.

Yeah yeah.

I look up to the sky with all the beautiful color but, there's more than just for me so gonna share it with another.

I got to show, to give, let out, I want to sing and shout.

Take a look and see A beautiful morning that turns into beautiful evening.

And together make a beautiful life.

And if you want see, then come along with me.

That's right.

Hey, it's Irish Dave.

And welcome to this week's episode of Experience Michiana here on WNIT I'm in Goshen and I can't wait to tell you what I'm doing coming up on this week's show.

Kelly got to go to the South Bend Museum of Art to find out about visualizing innovation exhibition that's going on.

Courtney She always gets to go to the zoo.

I'm so jealous.

She got to go see some baby flamingos.

Also, the giraffes.

Very excited about that.

And even a skunk.

Okay.

I didn't even know there were skunks at the zoo.

And right now I'm here in Goshen at the Clay Artist Guild.

I'm about to get my hands dirty.

I'm going to try pottery for the first time ever.

So come on in and join me.

All right.

So, Fred, tell me a little bit about the the the guild here and for people, because I had no idea it's here.

You're in an absolutely beautiful location as well.

The Goshen Clay Artist Guild, was started approximately 22 years ago.

A ragtag group of wannabe potters got together with a landlord and we talked about the possibility of starting a guild, and that was 22 years ago.

How do you even know you want to do pottery?

Like, how does that even come into your life and start?

Or how did it for you?

At least.

For me, it started in high school and so everyone has a different story.

Every potter has a different story, but it's it's kind of oftentimes it's love at first sight.

You get involved with clay and you feel like you can't get away from it.

I like the feeling of it.

It's actually very relaxing,.

Very tactile.

Very.

Yes.

It's it's therapeutic, actually.

It is very therapeutic because your your mind is only thinking about this and nothing else going on in the world right now is amazing.

But it's it's really relaxing.

So how do people get involved and I know , at the end of September, you have an event coming up because obviously you do want to keep this love that you have for this to yourself.

So we have classes year round, 48 weeks out of the year, we're teaching classes and we have guild members who are faculty or teach.

So that is kind of our intersection of community and the guild.

We teach classes to adults and usually our classes are fairly full so that we want to be involved with our community.

The, the, the Potters that are members of the Guild, there are 28 members of the Guild.

And we have a short waiting list of people who would like to join if we had a larger facility.

I think we may we could have more members, but we're just we don't have the facility to to get larger.

You can't even concentrate on how bad I am right now.

Well, would you like to start over?

No, I don't want to.

I don't want you to go.

I don't want you to go bankrupt because I use of all your clay.

You know, it's also fair to say that you probably have one of the most beautiful locations of any clay guilds in the entire country.

I mean, it's absolutely spectacular.

This location.

Other than being in the mountains, this is a very, very enjoyable location.

We're right along here along the mill race in Goshen, Indiana.

This is about to go very wrong.

And the building the building was actually built for the Potters.

For the Potters Guild.

Yeah.

Because the owner of this entire complex, because there's different guilds in this complex, so very much a passion project as well for the owner of it.

Right.

Correct.

Look what happened.

How can I fix this?

Hang on.

My pinky finger just went in and removed it all.

So that clay is still good.

We can recycle the clay.

We don't have to throw it out.

Love the feeling of it.

It's very sensual, isn't it?

Yeah, it's.

It's lovely.

It really is lovely.

So also at the end of September, you're going to have a tour for people that don't necessarily know they want to join yet, but they want to come in and just see what it's all about.

So how can people get more information about that?

So the event is called the Michiana Pottery Tour.

Here we can just shut the wheel off the Michiana Potters Tour.

And there are approximately 25 to 30 potters involved in that event.

There are about nine stops.

So within a circumference of 20, 25 miles, there are a person could visit that many workshops or.

And so.

It's in September, at the end of September, the last weekend of September 24th and 25th of 2022.

And.

Come in.

We have some maps online.

There's there's Michiana pottery tours website that you can go to.

They're also on Facebook and you can link to that and find out all the information.

All right.

I think it's Michianapotterytour.com, right?

Yes.

I know as well that some of your pieces are actually available at the farmer's market because it's not all about teaching, obviously.

You're trying to sell some of the pieces to.

Correct.

So we have two yearly sales.

And then in addition to that, we sell every week at the farmer's market here in Goshen.

And there are approximately a dozen members from the guild who like to sell their work there.

And so we take turns and we man the booth or woman the booth, depending on who, who is there.

And that's every Saturday and every Tuesday.

Okay.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for showing me around.

I enjoyed this.

I didn't get too dirty, which is good.

And, yeah, I like the feeling.

I think you might have a new pottery fan.

We give classes, so you'll be welcome to join.

Now, I got the hint.

You got the.

I Got.

I got the hit.

All right, so I'm talking I wasn't very skillful.

Thankfully, this person is very skillful at it.

Cindy Cooper Cindy you don't be laughing.

They'll be modest now.

I mean, look what you're doing here.

First of all, what is this that you're making?

Well, I think it's a sculptural vessel made out of clay.

And I tend to work different than than a lot of people that work on the Potters wheel, I think of a clay as a universal tool.

And so although I started the same way you did today.

Hopefully it wasn't that bad.

And I teach that this is my preferred way of working and most my pieces take 4 to 6 weeks apiece to start from start to finish.

And so I may make one piece where a potter might make, I don't know, 50 to 100, you know, so it's just a whole different ballgame.

Well, thanks for sharing your passion and your talent with us.

And yeah, this is a wonderful piece.

I especially love the turtle on.

yeah, I've got two get this wings coming down and now it's going in.

So.

Yeah,.

I love it.

I thank you.

A new exhibit just opened up at the South Bend Museum of Art, and it opened up July 23rd, and it's going to run until October 9th and it's called Visualizing Innovation.

Mark, so glad that you could be with us now.

I'm sure that when you're figuring out, okay, what, what what exhibit should we bring here?

There's a lot of themes and topics that come up.

Why?

Innovation.

Innovation seemed like this is way the way that we wanted to address where South Bend is right now and where South Bend is going.

We've got this is our 75th anniversary year here at the museum.

We've been around since 1947, grown with the community.

We've got an exhibition in our permanent collection gallery is called Becoming SBMA, which talks about our first 75 years.

And then we had prior to this exhibition, we had Around the Bend, which was an open call to artists within Saint Joseph County and all the surrounding counties that included over 200 artists, all living and working in our community.

And that kind of represented the present.

So we had the past, the present, and visualizing innovation was our chance to address the future.

Where are we going and how do you get to a new place?

How do you grow as a community?

Well, through innovation.

And one of the other points of inspiration for the exhibition was actually brought to our attention by a friend of the museum.

This poster right here, which this image is courtesy of the library and the great folks over at the History Museum.

This poster comes from the cover of a pamphlet that was produced in 1922 for the City of South Bend, 100th anniversary, which is going to take place in 1923.

And this is the cover image, and all the pages of this pamphlet talked about different institutions within the community education, manufacturing, engineering, transportation and like the sense of pride that was in this pamphlet is just so palpable.

And right here we have like one of the paragraphs from the introductory text, and it talks about creating and creating and creating and how South Bend just kept on creating to become what it was in 1922.

So gosh, what better way to talk again about creating than through the visualized images of these amazing artists and these amazing murals giving image and something to see in terms of innovation, like making it.

Real.

Yes.

And, you know, speaking of community, this was very much a community project.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

We invited once we once we focused in on this this show is going to be about innovation.

We we thought, well, who could we involve in the community to come in?

And the way we wanted to start this this process was to have a conversation about what innovation was.

So we invited, I think it was about over a little over 20 people from the community, from different sectors, people that we identified as leaders in innovation and innovators within our community.

They all came here to the museum along with the artists, and they had a discussion that we started with a base.

The basic question of like, what is innovation to you?

Right?

And it really went forward organically from there.

And it was a wonderful discussion.

The artists were there and what they were able to do was take that conversation.

And that was the inspiration for what you're going to see on the walls here.

That's great.

Now you chose five artists.

Tell us a little bit about them.

They're just right over there.

They're going to hear everything that I say, but they're all amazing.

And what we want to do use local muralists.

So these are all artists that are active in our community and transforming the face of our city right now.

And the really exciting thing for me, too, is that, you know, I don't consider myself old, but they're all younger than I am.

So these artists, they're going to be continuing to just make these inspirational images for decades to come and really contribute to our community.

And we, you know, we want to champion them.

And this is a showcase of their work and everything that they do.

That's great.

I can't wait to meet them.

But tell us a little bit about the lunchtime talks as well.

Yeah, the lunchtime talks, they're going to be gone for the next couple of months and you can find out those dates and the times and and also the chance to RSVP for those.

They're free.

But you do need to RSVP so we know how many people are coming and that's all available on our website at SouthBendArt.Org.

Great.

And speaking of lunch time, you have a café as well.

Exactly.

And those are we have free coffee and we're just inviting people to come to the gallery, hang out, see the artwork, and hopefully meet others and connect with others and, you know, promote discussion among various people that might show up.

And those take place on Thursdays 2 to 4.

What are you hoping that will take place during these talks?

I think that, like I mentioned, it's a chance for people to connect, for ideas, to be shared, because there was something that really came out from our innovation conversation that it's really innovation comes through collaboration, that comes through somebody's vision.

Someone has to have that original vision, but they need the help from others in the community to make that vision a reality.

So absolutely.

We're trying to facilitate that.

Well, you're doing a wonderful job, and I can't wait to meet the artists.

Oh, yeah, well, they're right over there, so we'll bring them on over.

Alex is one of the muralists that are going to be here at the exhibit.

And boy, I know you're not done, but this is absolutely gorgeous.

How did you get involved in art in the first place?

That's a question I get asked often.

I think it started back back in high school about ten years ago.

But I quit my job around four years ago to do this full time.

And so that's kind of when I took it full force, so.

And how did you get involved with this exhibit?

Yeah.

So Mark reached out to me and all the other four artists, and I just jumped at the idea because this is this is not every day where you're able to paint on the walls and museum, and it's the coolest opportunity.

I'm just so happy to be part of it.

That's wonderful.

Now, you don't want any help, do you?

Oh, no, that's okay.

I don't want to ruin it for you.

It's too beautiful, Alex.

So thank you so much and congratulations.

Thank you.

Lauren is another one of the muralists here at the South Bend Museum of Art.

And we have to give you know, what I love is that they use artists that are from South Bend.

And you actually went to IUSB, right?

Indiana University, South Bend.

All right.

Well, great.

I mean, so what does it feel like to, you know, go to college here, grow up and then to actually have one of your murals in the museum?

Honestly, it's a it's very humbling.

And also, it feels like like a milestone for me.

I remember when I was a teenager, I showed my mom, who has who's passed.

She I showed her, oh, it's okay.

But I showed her this piece that I made, and she's like, that should be in a museum and not in the museum, so.

Well, I'm sure she's looking down on you when she sees this.

And I have to tell you, I was so drawn to this.

And so tell me a little bit about the thought process that went into you creating this beautiful mural.

Thank you.

Well, in my smaller works that are more like for a house, I stretch found fabric and I build my own frames.

So I wanted to incorporate the fabric.

And I asked Mark if we could use wallpaper, but removing wallpaper is horrible.

So he was like, you could stretch it on the wall.

So.

And.

So this is fabric.

Yeah, they're actually sheets.

Wow.

Like bed sheets.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I love.

I love floral fabric.

That's like a thing for me.

It feels very, like, homey and nostalgic, almost like I'm sitting in my grandma's living room or something like that.

Absolutely.

And then what I love with her hands that are all that border it.

So tell us a little bit about what this concept is all about.

Well, during the innovation conversation, someone literally said that innovation feels like bringing light to dark, which is the title of the piece.

And for me, I like using hands to tell a story because it's like they say so much without actually giving it a face.

And so I literally saw when someone said that just peeling away some of the darkness so that you can see what was underneath.

And that is what the innovation felt like from that person's perspective.

I wish I could remember who said that, but That's okay.

And I can imagine also the great conversations that will happen as people stand around the murals, because just like you said, this one about the darkness into light, we definitely need more light in our communities.

So thank you so much for what you do.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

I was noticing these blank walls that says your mural here.

Can you explain that to me?

Does this mean that I can come and paint here?

Yeah.

This one is designated specifically for you.

Specifically for you to come and paint your own mural?

No, actually, they're here for community groups to come in.

They can schedule a time with Casey Smallwood, and that contact information is on the labels right here and also on our website.

So a group can come in and do an artist led mural project and their work will become part of the exhibition.

And if we run out of these walls, we've got more walls in the back.

We'll just bring out more.

That's great, because there's so many great organizations out there, but they can't paint maybe.

So an artist will do the work for them.

Well, the artist will help lead it.

So it could be something similar to what Alex is doing on her work, where the outline is made, and then it becomes a paint by numbers project.

Or it could be something more freeform and more abstract.

That's wonderful.

Now, what are your hours here?

The gallery hours are noon to five Wednesday through Sunday.

But in terms of the projects, those can be even outside of gallery hours when those are run.

Okay.

And the website is right on the screen.

And you can also go to Experience Michiana.org for some more information.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

There's some exciting things happening at Potawatomi Zoo.

I'm excited to be here with you, Jami.

Who is the curator here at the zoo there's many new faces to see.

Yeah, yeah.

As you can see, we've had so many things going on this spring.

We've had lots of babies.

And some of our newest ones are right here in this building with us, the Flamingo Chicks.

They were born July 11th, and July 13th is when they actually hatched out.

And so, you know, they're all excited, too.

Yeah, they're there.

Like, why are people in here?

Cause we're pretty hands off and let them do their thing.

Which is why you can tell the building's a little dirty.

Because the more we're in with them when they're first hatched, it stretches them out.

So we kind of just do minimal cleaning there.

There's a really interesting thing that you guys did with parenting.

I know you did that last year, too, where one of the chicks is actually being raised by a different parent.

Yeah, it's really cool dynamics here.

We have a really small flock of flamingos and the largest flock.

Usually your flock has to be like 20 birds or more to actually get chicks and lay eggs.

And we had 12 birds last year.

We had 11 and we actually had eggs.

And we've only ever had one pair that have had fertile eggs before.

That's boyfriend.

And pinky.

Boyfriend is a little clumsy of a dad, but our other flamingos have laid eggs and incubated them really, really well.

But their eggs never hatch.

They're not fertile.

And so we got the idea of we could get more chicks if we swap eggs.

And the ones that are really good at incubating raised the chicks.

So they're kind of like foster parents.

So that's what we did.

Brick and Lila, their chick is actually boyfriend and Pinky's egg, and they hatched it out in cherry blossom.

We don't know what happened there.

Oh, she didn't have a mate.

And she's single mom.

She's a single mom.

And her chick actually hatched, so somebody fertilized it.

We just don't know who.

Okay?

And nobody's helping her raise it.

And she's she's doing a great job.

Okay.

And now that it's official, do we know the actual genders of the chick?

Yes, we do.

We had to send out some blood to get a DNA test to actually tell.

No, you can't.

Nope.

So the DNA sample came back first thing this morning and just in time to let everybody know that we have two girls.

Girls, you know,.

We have a house full of girls too.

Oh my word, this building is a four boys and ten girls.

And they're so much fun now.

How much experience you have with flamingos?

I have been working with these guys my entire career.

So at 13 years here at Potawatomi Zoo and we we have tried for a number of years to get them to lay eggs.

And we finally it took us probably six or seven years to finally get them to lay eggs.

So what do you think that transition was?

Oh, it was a lot of little things.

First, their nesting site was outdoors, but every night we would bring them inside and they wouldn't be able to continue to lay on their nests.

So we got this idea to build them an indoor nesting area.

That was our first step.

And then the next step was we would have to different.

Like one time we had a nesting site over here and a nesting site over here, but they are very social and they want to lay all in one spot.

So we found putting their nesting site in one location and making it a little bigger for more multiple nest to be built was key.

And then voila we started having eggs.

And then one year we finally had a fertilized egg and we were like, Okay, what can we do to get more chicks?

And this year we finally have two chicks.

And it's very, very exciting for us.

And the baby, the babies are staying in here for now, but there's other faces that people can see, too, when we go check out some of those.

Yes, that sounds great.

We have something new and exciting that just arrived last week.

All right.

Okay.

Jamie, confirm with me.

I'm not going to get sprayed right now.

Right?

Well, I don't know.

It's up for debate.

It could be a surprise.

No, she is descented.

Okay, but this isn't new face.

This is brand new.

She was born on May 25th, so she's only two months old.

And we just got her for our ambassador animal program.

Okay.

So explain a little bit what the ambassador program is.

Yes.

Yeah We have certain animals that we try to get at a young age so we can handle them.

And they're used to it and they choose to do it so we don't have to.

It's just it's their choice to be a part of arm and they're just more used to us handling them so we can use them for educational purposes.

So for classes or.

Which is great with school starting, you know, things like that.

Yes, we do lots of outreach programs and they just serve as ambassadors for their species and for the zoo to teach you about conservation.

And we a lot of times like to do some native wildlife and her being native species.

We can get a lot of great conservation stories and what you can do in your backyard to help the wildlife around here.

So she's going to be a great addition to our Ambassador Animal Program and we're so excited to have her.

Awesome.

And if people want to get more information about the ambassador program, where can they get that?

They can go to our website at Potawatomi Zoo dot org and look it up.

There's there's like a lot of educational things on there.

I think there's a whole tab that's like education.

So that's such a cool thing.

And there's more faces for everyone to see here at the zoo.

And we're going to go check out, I think maybe one more.

So, Jimi, this is so cool.

This is my first time being up on the platform.

Yes.

It's one of those things.

I just flew.

To the becareful.

It's one of those things that's been a slow process.

But more and more, we have Kellin and Max, who are getting more and more comfortable with being out in the Savannah Giraffe exhibit and coming up and actually feeding with a big group of people here with keepers.

They're really comfortable with Colin, one of their main keepers, and the one that was just up here was Kellin.

And he I don't know, do you want to try and hold one and see if how.

They come to me?

Is there like a start with me and then they'll kind of make their way down?

With Colin right here.

Just stay close.

Stay close.

Okay.

Act like you're me.

Now people want to come and feed them.

Is that.

It's open now.

It's not.

Not yet.

taking their time.

To ajust.

Yes.

And it's kind of random when they choose to do so.

And so the keepers, at least once a day, they come up here and and keep getting them used to it.

And they're and they're starting to.

So hopefully here they come.

Don't put your hands up, Jamie.

I know I'm a.

But they're making so much progress.

I mean, I remember when we first came here.

Look at that.

Now, which one was it?

This is Kellin.

Okay.

Okay.

he'll come to you.

Oh look at that, Oh, so cool.

He'll pull it.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, wow.

One of his favorite things to do is to.

To grab on and take it and run.

Like a puppy dog.

But if you hold your breath.

I was like, kite surfing again.

I did this.

I did this.

Did I do nothing with your hands?

That is so cool.

I'm so excited to see that they have been progressing so much.

And I know there's other stuff that you have going on here at the zoo, too.

What else is coming up here?

Yeah.

Keep an eye out.

We have a brand new leopard that people can come and see.

She's still getting used to the exhibit.

We are in the middle of which we everybody kind of knows we have a baby sloth, but we're she's he's in the back while we're keeping a close eye on him.

But eventually he'll be back on exhibit.

Yeah,.

And new birds too.

Oh, yes.

We have lots of new birds.

There is a new bird out here.

She's way over there.

Her name is Ethel.

She is a marabou stork.

And she can share her space here with?

She does.

And her and Max have become really good friends.

Really good friends.

And then out in our other Africa yard, with our kudu and our cranes, we have a saddle bell stork.

And he is probably one of the most impressive birds I've ever seen.

He's like this tall and beautiful colors, so you can't miss them out there.

So it sounds and looks like there is so much to do here at the zoo.

You guys have just grown so much over the years.

Yes.

and it just keeps coming and we're so excited to share it with everybody.

Awesome.

We'll see you out here at Potawatomi Zoo.

So another great show this week.

Thanks so much to Kelly.

And Courtney.

Really loved what they went to experience at Michiana.

And look what I was able to do.

I mean, I've only been here a couple of hours.

I'm giving Cindy Cooper and everyone else here a run for their money.

I even had a chance to paint them.

I think that's what this is on top of the clay.

So I did that as well.

So thanks so much.

And don't forget, as always, if there's something that you think we should experience, you can always go to our Facebook page or Instagram and use the hashtag Experience Michiana.

Till next week.

Thanks so much for watching.

Experience.

Michiana is made possible in part by the Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County and the Indiana Arts Commission, which received support from the State of Indiana and the National Endowment for the Arts.

This WNIT Local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.