- [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

- [Kabir] Coming up, neon makes the art glow brighter at the Akron Art Museum.

The colorful folklore of Central Asia is illustrated by an artist in Sagamore Hills and a Medina County guitarist remembers his loved ones through the making of his guitar.

♪ I say when death came knocking ♪ ♪ On my mama's door ♪ (upbeat funky music) - [Kabir] Hello and welcome to "Applause" everyone.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

Neon is calling our attention to the Akron Art Museum, step inside the exhibit "Glow, Neon and Light", and meet two Northeast Ohio artists creating with neon.

(techno-pop music) - One of the things that I wanted to showcase was how many different working styles there are within this medium.

So there are artists who work with professional neon manufacturers.

We have artists who've bend their own neon, and then two artists who even use recycled neon from wherever they can find them out in the world.

And then they combine them into these new compositions.

So it's really beautiful to see all these different working styles, to see artists who are minimalists, to see artists who are maximalist, and then the variety within that.

(exotic music) Max Hooper Schneider, he's taken a helicopter wreckage, suspended it from the ceiling and from that are all these chains with fluorescent tubes, just the kind of thing you would find in a hardware store.

And then he's created this resin pond with all of this kind of detritus, this material that's embedded in it.

And then there's these plants that are growing out of it and then all this neon.

And the neon is activated.

And then there's also these Tesla coils that sort of draw energy, kind of like static electricity from the air.

And once they have enough energy, they activate, they send off these sparks, and then the fluorescent tubes are lit up (tubes flutter) and it's loud and it's this kind of bright flashing light and it almost feels like a lightning strike.

- My whole modus operandi, as they say, is from recycled material.

And if it's the glass is not broke, chances are it still works.

So that can be a challenge to get it to light up, because it's always a surprise.

You never know what kind of gas is in it, because neon and argon are two different gases in two different colors.

And the phosphorus on the inside of the glass is what gives them many of the colors.

When I get glass, I like to take that paint off, so I can see the whole thing.

Even with this piece back here, I have removed a lot of the paint that was on those, so that those little blue specs can come out and it gives it a whole nother color in there as well.

So argon is the blue and the many other whites, there are like 10, 12, 14 different whites that you can get.

The cooler colors, the cooler colors are argon, the warmer colors, your oranges, the reds and the other kind of warm colors are neon, which is why it's so prominent, because people wanna be able to see that and then they can see it from across the street.

This is the "View of the City Threw a Keyhole", and it was actually in a different version of this one before somebody brought me the big orange piece and I took that old piece out, 'cause I really wasn't happy with it.

Put that one in there.

I'm going, yes, now it works.

And it's a pretty literal piece.

I mean, you can sort of see what's going on there, whereas this one over here, it's argon, it speaks for itself.

(ambient music) - It wasn't really until the sixties that artists started exploring how you could work with light, how you could manipulate light in different ways.

And one of the first artists to really think about neon was Keith Sonnier.

And he is in our show, he's from Louisiana originally.

He started experimenting with neon and plexiglass and rubber and mirrors and really started being very playful with them.

He creates these works that are sort of gestural, like a drawing, but when you think about it, it's not a drawing at all, because you have to bend these to these exact precision.

But he's created a work that's so playful and feels improvisational, but that would've been highly structured in the way that you make them.

- Breakneck Creek, which is a tributary to the Cuyahoga River, is right behind my house.

And I walked back there almost every day.

So I was walking back there and I came across this sort of horizon of ice in the forest, which I hadn't seen before.

And you know, it was like these frozen circles of ice around trees and it just really struck me and I just stopped there and listened and watched.

And it was sort of like one of those vista moments.

It just, it was there in that time, in that place, experiencing it.

And what had happened was it flooded and when the water was high it froze.

And so, there was this like two-inch layer of ice stuck on the trees and then the water went back down.

And so, it was just hovering there in this plane.

It changed the space that I see every day into something other and something new that there was always something new to discover.

And I would hope that the people visiting the gallery for the first time, come in and have a similar feeling where, you know, they're taken a bit out of what's normally running through their mind and into a space where they're more focused on the present.

- I want people to think about how their senses are activated and how that impacts how they feel in the space, their memories of the space.

There's a lot of different topics that we're addressing within the show, so I hope that they, you know, engage with those and think about some of the things that we're bringing up.

But ultimately, I just hope that by activating your different senses you can really create a positive core memory of this exhibition and your time at the museum.

- [Kabir] The exhibit "Glow, Neon and Light" is on view at the Akron Art Museum through February 9th.

Memories and stories from childhood make their way into Dinara Mirtalipova's art, whether she's illustrating children's books or designing colorful patterns.

Ideastream's, Carrie Wise takes us to her studio in Sagamore Hills.

(bright string music) - I call it folk art, because folk art means art of the people.

- [Carrie] Dinara Mirtalipova paints from her heart.

She draws influence from what's familiar, whether it's old scary fairytales or the flowered patterns her grandmother wore.

- I grew up in a culture that had lots of those mixed cultures.

Uzbekistan is the place where I was born.

It's like a crossroad of so many different cultures.

It has like a very interesting history all the way from Genghis Khan to being under the Soviet influence for such a long period of time.

- [Carrie] Living in the U.S. as an adult, Mirtalipova turned to art from sketching to painting.

- So I work mostly in gouache and gouache is a water-based paint.

My scale is very small and with gouache it's possible to get those tiny details with the tiny brush.

But sometimes when I paint larger I go with acrylics, because acrylics is more like water-resistant and it stays longer.

- [Carrie] For years, she's been sharing her art online, initially through blogging and more recently through Instagram.

Her online posts have led to all sorts of collaborations.

- So I've been mostly sharing my work and my personal work.

And to my surprise, I started receiving some requests to illustrate a book to everything from little projects like stationary to wallpapers and murals.

- [Carrie] For her children's book "Woven of the World", she spotlights familiar Uzbek customs such as how her grandmother wore clothes with multiple patterns.

- Everything mismatched and it was totally okay by her.

She liked to just wear things that are colorful and she didn't really care, if this color goes well with this color.

And I kind of find that cute now.

- [Carrie] In "Woven of the World", she's illustrating the craft of weaving through a variety of cultural traditions.

- So it's not just about weaving as the craft, it's about how we are all like woven one culture into another.

- [Carrie] She also collaborates on books with her daughter who writes the poems.

- So I'm illustrating the book and she's writing it.

So it's a book about the North Pole village.

It's what is happening in the North Pole.

And most characters like Mr. Claus, Polar Bear and his little helpers, mice who do all the charming work of wrapping up gifts and preparing and creating and painting toys.

- [Carrie] Mirtalipova says, "Making art is like yoga for her fingers, providing relaxation and a way to separate from the stresses of life."

Self-taught in her practice, she encourages others to create too.

- If the process brings you peace and you enjoy it, you call yourself artist and anyone can become one.

So art should make you feel happy or I would say, provoke a reaction.

Sometimes the reaction maybe that you have to wake up and realize what's going on in the world, but sometimes it has just to bring you peace.

And I guess it just depends on the person.

What is it that you are seeking in life?

What is it that's missing?

And if you find art that somehow communicates that, that's awesome.

- [Kabir] Dinara Mirtalipova's book with writer Katey Howes, "Woven of the World" is available from Chronicle books.

Now let's head to East Main Street in Columbus where artist David Butler sets up shop at a place called the Streetlight Guild.

Butler's paintings explore race and gender issues with a nod to the nostalgia of pulp fiction.

(ambient music) - My inspiration comes from my existence as a cishet black male in society.

I have a certain viewpoint of the world that was given to me and I'm also going through a lot of processes of unlearning the things that I learned throughout my life.

I think that to be better humans we have to begin to unlearn.

And for me, my artwork is always a process of asking the questions that are hard for me to answer and then also trying to pose those questions to society to see if I'm alone in this pursuit or if am I on the right track?

When I come it comes to how I'm thinking about this, sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don't.

This body of work is a group of paintings called "Idol".

They are a series of appropriated pulp fiction novel covers from the 1950s all the way to late sixties, early seventies.

(smooth rock music) I took those covers that originally had white ingenues on the covers and replaced them with women of color who I knew and also someone who I don't know.

And to try to have a conversation about how we see black womanhood within society and who's gaze is the black woman for when it comes to being on display in this type of way.

Most of these covers kind of cover issues of romance, relationships, but they also were kind of these propaganda tales, so to keep you away from you know, harlequin women, you know, to keep you away from the Jezebels of the world.

And I think that framing of misogyny is kind of what I was injected with as a young man.

Most of the times when we talk about the creative arts and when we talk about paintings in general, we are always talking about how archivable they are, what they're worth, and how you're supposed to sell them.

So when people see these frail paintings that are on paper, one of the main questions I get is like, "How are you supposed to sell these?"

Well, I've never intended to sell these until they had their lifespan.

So when a grad school started, I created a body of work that was solely for not being in the archive.

This is going to be work that actually has a lifespan that actually goes through things that actually gets crumpled up, that actually gets beat up, bent, you know, punctured.

And then at the tail end of it, which would be 10 years this year, then I will try to take what is left of the artwork and turn it into something that is archivable for people to possibly purchase.

So when you think about the fact that this artwork was created with our gaze of how we see women in black womanhood and we think about what women have to go through in society, it's an allegory for their lives as well, thriving through all these different bends, twists, turns, and kind of this crumpling by societal norms and the gaze of how the boxes that we put them in all the time.

And so, now is she worth something?

Is she still important to you even though she's been through something and had a lifespan that has a history to it?

So is there still beauty there?

And I think that that creates a larger conversation for the work and allows for us to kind of engage with it in a way to where this work is uniquely already archived in a way.

It's had nine different provocations since I put the work up in Philadelphia in 2013.

And now that we are 10 years and beyond, we now can start to see these characters, their story end, but the kind of a new story is beginning.

So when you see something that says "Too black for Heaven", the original meaning of "too black" was mostly like, you know, being too bad, being a bad woman, but being too black if you equal bad to black, and as a black woman on the cover, it has a whole different cultural context now.

So that's where I am starting to kind of toy with the original type and text of the covers to kind of build out this idea that, you know, these were original thoughts about just women in general.

And when we place these thoughts into a cultural context and we start to think about things in a more intersectional way, then we can have larger conversations about how those original thoughts that were made for a certain group of people kind of perpetuate themselves through different cultures and subcultures that we exist in today.

(upbeat music) I would say the most rewarding thing for me is the share out, is the exchange.

I'm just in participation with the exchange, that's the best part.

We make the things and people come see the things and we have conversations about those things or we share in the energy of those things.

And sometimes words don't need to be said, sometimes explanations don't need to be given.

Sometimes it's just taking it in and seeing people take in the work.

That's one of my favorite, most gratifying parts is seeing people actually take in the work and be in the space and say, oh wow, this is something that is affecting me right now.

And I don't know exactly, well how or why, but it makes me feel a certain type of way.

And I think that that's the best part about being an artist is just making sure that you are engaging in the exchange with the people.

(upbeat funky music) - [Kabir] Here's what's coming down the pike for the next round of "Applause".

A particularly large mural is brightening a Cleveland neighborhood.

Meet the artist transforming a 750-foot brick wall into a community work of art.

Plus the Cleveland Cavaliers are on the court with a basketball kit designed by a world-renowned artist and the Cleveland Orchestra performs Gustav Mahler's charming "Ode to Childhood".

All that and more on the next round of "Applause".

(Gustav Mahler: "Ode to Childhood") Medina County guitarist Gavin Coe dug deep into his family history and fashioned himself a unique instrument with echoes of the past.

Coe sat in on guitar during "Applause" performances in 2021 with singer-songwriter Liz Bullock and shared the story of his beloved instrument with Ideastreams' David C. Barnett.

♪ I belong, yes, I am ♪ - I can't help but notice the C-O-E on the top of the guitar.

Is this a custom-made guitar?

- Yeah.

- Tell us about this.

- This was built by my luthier, Atilla actually in Parma and it's basically, long story short, I'm really into my family genealogy and I went back to nine generations and 250 years of Coe houses, Coe farms from all my grandfathers going all the way from Ohio to Virginia.

And I got a piece of wood from every single one of my grandfathers going back 200 and some years.

- Whoa, how cool is that?

- And I had Atilla put it all in the one big guitar.

This is the siding of the Civil War captain grandfather's house.

This is a window sill from his settlement that his dad was a part of.

- Oh my God.

- That cross was from a church that my revolutionary war grandfather built.

- The key?

- The key, that was my great-grandfather's dad's house key.

- Oh wow.

- And that was my great-grandfather's buckeye that he kept in his pocket for good luck.

- Nice, wow, look at that.

- He had it up there up until he died.

My grandfather got these silver dollars for Christmas when he was a kid in the sixties from his aunt on the Italian side of the family.

Then the co-part's actually really cool.

That was kind of Attila's idea.

The inside of the guitar is made out barn beam and when I got it, it had all these old 1800s iron nails out of it.

So I had to take a soldering iron and nail plier things and just pull it out.

- Pull 'em out.

- It took like six hours.

- That's great.

- But I had a bunch of 'em when I was left over and Atilla and I were talking about it and what he did was he took a torch, like a blacksmith and melted them down and he spelled my last name outta nails that the Civil War captain grandfather put in the wood himself.

- Oh, that's metal?

- Yeah.

- I thought it was like wood-burn or something.

- No, that's 1800s' iron nails.

- Oh my goodness.

- Yeah.

- Fantastic.

- Yeah, Atilla does a really good job.

I mean, he's best luthier in town by far Atilla custom guitarist.

(bright music) - [Kabir] Okay, it's time to say goodbye you guys.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia sending you on your way with more music from Gavin Coe and his band featuring late blue singer Reese Black.

Here's Black and Coe with the song "Traveling Shoes", filmed at the old Coe family barn in Mansfield.

♪ Let's say when death came knocking ♪ ♪ On my mama's door ♪ ♪ Singing, come on mama, are you ready to go ♪ ♪ You know my mother stooped down ♪ ♪ And buckled up her shoes ♪ ♪ She moved on down by that Jordan stream ♪ ♪ Well, I heard her shout ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I've done my due day ♪ ♪ Got on my traveling shoes ♪ ♪ When death came knocking on my papa's door ♪ ♪ And singing, come on papa, are you ready to go ♪ ♪ My papa stooped down and buckled up his shoes ♪ ♪ He moved on down by that Jordan ♪ ♪ I heard him shout ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I've done my due day ♪ ♪ Got on my traveling shoes ♪ ♪ When death came knocking on my sister's door ♪ ♪ Singing, come on sister are you ready to go ♪ ♪ My sister stooped down she buckled up her shoes ♪ ♪ And moved on down by that Jordan ♪ ♪ I heard her shout ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I've done my due day ♪ ♪ Got on my traveling shoes ♪ ♪ When death came knocking on my brother's door ♪ ♪ Singing, come my brother are you ready to go ♪ ♪ My brother stooped down and buckled up his shoes ♪ ♪ And moved on down by that Jordan ♪ ♪ I heard him shout ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I've done my due day ♪ ♪ Got on my traveling shoes ♪ ♪ When death came knocking on my preacher's door ♪ ♪ Singing, come on preacher, are you ready to go ♪ ♪ My preacher stooped down and buckled up his shoes ♪ ♪ He moved on down by that Jordan stream ♪ ♪ I heard him shout ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, I've done my due day ♪ ♪ Got on my traveling shoes ♪ ♪ When death comes knocking on my front door ♪ ♪ Singing ♪ (bright music) - [Announcer] Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.