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

(smooth music) (smooth music continues) Coming up, we go behind the scenes of the "Antiques Roadshow" episodes filmed at Akron Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens.

Plus an auction house in Cleveland connects collectibles to bidders around the world.

And spring is in the air in Columbus thanks to the music of the Zakk Jones trio.

Welcome to "Applause," everyone.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

(crowd chattering) When producers and appraisers from the PBS hit, "Antiques Roadshow" set up shop in Akron, they found the perfect spot, historic Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens.

We were there too, as many people brought their antiques to Akron.

(upbeat music) - We're here in season 28.

I started doing the show in season four.

So it starts with, "Do you have space for Antiques Road show?"

"Yep."

We come make sure it will really work for us before we invest the time of planning to come here, and it worked out perfectly.

And we also wanna take a look.

It's beautiful.

- In general, I think that if you interview any appraiser here, they will tell you that the best things have only gotten more valuable, while the things that are sort of lesser things, middle market or lower, have gone down in value.

All right.

- Okay, well thank you.

- [Wes] Thank you for coming in.

- There's a lot of good pottery here, and you're gonna see some great pottery here in Ohio.

What else are we gonna see?

I can't wait to know.

I don't know.

- So we're seeing today a lot of prehistoric artifacts, arrowheads, a lot of variety in arrowheads, I should say.

- If we want to sort of look at something that was made in Ohio that has increased in value, stoneware, Akron, this area was the center of stoneware production in Ohio.

- What makes a great segment?

Story is king.

That is number one.

Good story, unusual item.

Have you seen it before?

Can you easily look it up online?

I mean, we're here today.

You have approximately 70 appraisers on set, country's top experts who can answer questions you can't search for online.

(upbeat music continues) - I'm from St. Catherine's, Ontario, Canada.

It's a very old book.

It's a handwritten manuscript from 1792, which is titled, "An Essay on Clock Making."

- It seems like a lot of people, they wanna know more.

Even just the word of the backstory, the iconography.

Of course everybody wants to know what it's worth, but the story's more of its own story, its own backstory.

'Cause a lot of this is seems to have come in through families.

"It was grandma's, it was my aunt's."

- This is my cousin.

And I've been visiting because we were coming to "Antiques Roadshow."

It's a painting actually by Aunt Martha.

- Our grandfather's aunt.

So we weren't caring about the appraisal, we just wanted to know if there was more history than we could find from the time period.

- Hi, I'm Carrie, I'm from Solon, Ohio - [Wes] And what brought you here today?

- And I brought my dad's Gibson ES-335.

It's a 1966 and cherry red and perfect condition.

He said it looks really great for its age.

It's all original, and we're gonna just pass it down to the family.

- Hi, I'm Aurora, and I'm from Barberton, AKA "The Magic City."

- Hi, I'm her grandmother, Debbie, and we got this comic book and it was $100.

My son gave it to her just to give it to her, and here's $100 and we love it.

- And we actually touch people's lives, and maybe make a difference, maybe not.

This is a place where there's community, there's education, there's love, differences melt away, and we need more of that in this world, and that's one of the things I love about this day.

- [Kabir Bhatia] So let's preview the shows now.

- It must have been a wonderful day in the neighborhood when you bought that box.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Questions are answered.

- This is more than likely his grandmother.

- [Painting Owner] Ah.

- [Kabir Bhatia] And secrets are revealed.

- You've honored and loved this for a while, but there's a little secret within that I bet you don't know.

- I don't know any secrets about it.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Don't miss the "Antiques Road Show" episode from Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens in Akron.

(smooth music) Let's go now behind the scenes to an auction house in Cleveland.

In business for nearly 20 years, Gray's Auctioneers is an ever evolving gallery of antiques, collectibles and fine art.

Step up to the auction block to see how objects make their way to Gray's before going, going, gone.

- Well, welcome everybody to our 184th auction.

I'm Deba Gray.

After working for three major auction houses, it was time for me to start my own.

- Oh, Deba and I were sitting at our kitchen table in New York City and she said, "How about we set up a a fine art and antiques boutique auction house in Cleveland?"

And I said, "Hmm, I'll move to Cleveland over my dead body."

- I had worked in Chicago and New York and Cleveland.

I got my start in Cleveland.

So I worked for a small, medium and large auction house.

And in New York, it felt time to start my own.

And it was the perfect decision because it was my backyard, it was my hometown, and I knew the history of Cleveland and the demographics, and I came back home to start my own.

- I saw how much she loved Cleveland, and we found this beautiful building here, well, Deba found it, and the stars aligned.

And I've come to love Cleveland.

Very much so.

We founded the auction house in 2006, and had our first auction Father's Day 2007.

The internet revolutionized our world, not only in being able to research objects, but also in how we reach the audience.

- Five bucks.

- We used to have a local audience, but with the internet, now we have a global audience, and that's been amazing.

We get inquiries on our website from all over the world, and we ship all over the world.

We've shipped dolls to Australia, we've shipped sofas to Venezuela and to Egypt.

It's been really an exciting development, and I think it's been very good for the auction world because I think it's leveled the prices.

- It's a way bigger and more fair and transparent playing field than it used to be.

I can research a painting in three minutes.

Before the internet, that would take me at least four days.

I'd have to go through book after book, catalogs and whatnot.

Now I can see what sold in Paris yesterday.

It's awesome, and so can everyone else.

So that information is accessible to everyone, which means more people can play in the world of fine art and antiques.

They can get involved in it.

It's not scary anymore.

- Generally speaking, art has always seemed out of reach to people, but what we've tried to introduce to our audiences near and far is that real paintings or real artwork, meaning it's not reproduced, real paintings are in reach financially.

And I think that's been our biggest success.

Obviously, we've had really great prices, $120,000 for a Warhol, $215,000 for a John Koch.

But generally speaking, we like to reach an audience with artwork that's accessible.

- And let's get it going for $200.

- [Bidder] $200.

- $200 to Gray's, thank you.

$225, who's next?

These are items that will be coming up for auction.

We've got furniture.

This is a fantastic music box from back in the day.

- If we wanted to plan an auction, it's based on what we have already got consigned, and we get such a variety of objects.

Microscopes and scientific instruments, and then incredible mid-century modern furniture.

And then of course the artwork, the paintings, the rugs, the decorative items.

There's a wealth of beautiful objects, and they come into the auction house all the time every day.

(elegant music) - We get our items from all of the D's.

Death, debt, divorce, downsizing, dementia, deaccession and dealers.

These are all really tough situations for our clients, and we're the island that they swim to for help.

We are the referee between a buyer and a seller.

We do not buy from our clients.

We help these people in the situation of the D's.

They have a treasured heirloom that they're three generations carried from family to family, and now there's no one left.

Our job is to get it in front of the biggest audience in the world and keep it going.

We're like an adoption agency for heirlooms.

I have the saying that you never really own art in life, you just take care of it for the next generation.

And that's what we help our clients do.

- We are the original recyclers.

The auction industry has been around for hundreds of years, and this is how we pass things on to new generations of appreciators.

We like to just introduce new people to the auction industry because we're such fans.

We, you know, we love this industry.

- The way our auction house works, it's like a conveyor belt.

Clients email us a picture of, "Hey, we've got this weird thing.

What is it?

Is it worth anything?"

That's the beginning of the conveyor belt.

If it is, then they bring it to us.

We talk about it.

Then we do research where I can show people why that painting or why that piece of ceramic is worth this much versus this much.

We're educating them too.

It's really cool.

And then from there, if they decide to put it up for auction, we negotiate, we establish the value, we then photograph it, then that part of the conveyor belt, we go and we assemble it into an auction.

And then the day of the auction, we will have three portals.

And from there, those people all over the world signed up to participate in the auction bid against each other in live time.

We also do phone bidding and absentee bidding, and people can see and hear me reacting to their bid, which is kind of cool.

Fair warning at $500.

Are we all through?

(gavel thudding) Sold, $500 it is to?

- [Speaker] 1-0-5-2.

- I'm introducing new art that people didn't know.

Well that's a huge honor, and it's an important job.

The world needs art.

It's just a treasure trove here, and it's constantly bubbling to the surface.

- [Kabir Bhatia] I've got an art lovers alert.

If you are looking for arts events and arts news in northeast Ohio, sign up for our weekly arts newsletter, "The To-Do List."

You can do that by visiting arts.ideastream.org.

And thanks.

From Cleveland to Columbus, we go, where the Goodwill Art Studio and Gallery fosters a welcoming atmosphere for anyone who loves making art.

Let's meet one of the goodwill artists, Andrea Kontras, who expresses herself in both serious and silly ways.

- My name is Andrea Kontras, and I'm at Goodwill Art Studio, and I do artwork.

It's mixed media.

I'm using painting on cross stitch material, and I'm line stitching lines in different shapes.

(upbeat music) I do interesting work.

I just do what comes from my brain onto the canvas.

Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's serious.

It just depends.

(upbeat music continues) I would probably be at home crying or bored to death if I couldn't come here on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 'cause I'm out in the community on Mondays and Fridays, with Alec, my daytime staff.

And then Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'm with Nicholas and Heather and Colleen and Ed here at the studio, and I really enjoy it.

It makes me feel a sense of accomplishment, and makes me feel like, wanted.

(smooth music) I am such a saleswoman.

I do a craft show in November, every November, and it's the only I do if you guys wanna come out and see me at the Grove City High School.

- [Producer] How does it make you feel when one of your pieces sells?

- I love it.

That's like cha-ching!

It makes me proud to have my artwork be sold, and it feels like a sense of accomplishment that somebody actually bought, and really enjoyed my painting.

(smooth music continues) (light guitar music) - [Kabir Bhatia] He's been known throughout northeast Ohio as "The Low Tech Troubadour."

On the next "Applause," singer songwriter Alex Bevan reflects on a career in folk music spanning more than 50 years.

- The guitar and music has been very good to me.

People have embraced my music.

- [Kabir Bhatia] Plus a studio in Canton provides a safe place for self-expression.

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

♪ Good night to this magic ♪ ♪ This silhouette scene ♪ (whimsical music) - [Kabir Bhatia] Inside the downtown Cleveland Public Library is a delicate yet delightful display of dried flowers that appears to float before your eyes.

It's the vision of British artist Rebecca Louise Law, but it was assembled by hundreds of northeast Ohio hands.

(light upbeat music) - People were really sort of in awe of the scale of this, something so big, yet made up of so many tiny pieces.

- First impressions were, it's incredible, way bigger than I imagined, way more immersive.

- I was overwhelmed.

We've had many great exhibits in this space, but by far this is the largest exhibit.

- Rebecca Louise Law has just been on my artist crush list forever.

Rebecca is an artist from the UK.

She lives in Wales now.

She is best known for these installations that are stringing flowers, but she has a pretty extensive artistic practice with lots of materials.

- Early in her art career, she was trying to sort of paint the world as she remembered it as a child, and she wasn't able to capture that feeling with paint.

And she started working directly with flowers.

- One thing that drew me to her is how she involves the community in the creation of her works, and also her stance on sustainability.

This installation uses over 500,000 flowers.

100,000 are from Cleveland, and they were saved from the landfill.

- Some of the flowers in "The Archive" are actually from her father's garden, and they've traveled all around the world over 20 plus years.

- People were bringing them.

We were saving them from funeral homes that we're gonna throw them out, grocery stores, drying them and then stringing them.

And then the other 400,000 are reused from past installations that Rebecca has done.

- Rebecca has really wanted to look at sustainability when it comes to her work.

She's wanted to look at how to get that sort of emotional sense of the natural world that we're in.

- Once this installation is done, she keeps them for the next one.

So that's why it really is the archive of her artistic practice.

And even when she came, I mean I knew she interested in sustainability, but she was saving every single petal, all the crumbs.

Nothing was going to waste, which was just amazing to see as part of someone's artistic practice.

- "The Archive" here is called "The Archive," because it has flowers from every single project she's worked on all over the world.

So we have a bit of every single one of her projects here.

So this is sort of the archive of her projects here at Cleveland Public Library.

- I mean, these are many, many years of exhibits that are part of this installation.

And then the hand of Cleveland residents in bringing their own flowers is a really cool collaborative effort.

(whimsical music) - She really believes that her art speaks to everyone, and that she likes what we did in Cleveland where you bring folks from all different generations, older folks and younger folks to work on her exhibit.

- Rebecca came to town, and taught us how to string them on the copper wire, and we divided them into different types, different colors.

We had volunteers helping immensely to string up all them on the copper wire.

- It was really cool.

I mean, seeing everybody learning how to take these flowers and wrap them and put them together, and then understand what the larger picture was going to be when it ultimately was done.

- Then we took all the completed strands, and put them in a blast freezer which preserves them more, make sure there's no pests, which is really important for the library.

We have never worked on such a project with so many community volunteers that are so involved and passionate and part of a project.

- What was one of the really great things about the volunteers is when they've come to see the exhibit, you will hear people say, "Oh, I worked on those!"

They can see, you know, did I string the pine cones, or was I making the clouds of baby breath?

- All of a sudden I'll be like, "Oh, I remember working on that table!"

And I like some of the stories that both people were sharing at the tables of the Cleveland volunteers, but then also Rebecca will say, "Oh, that's from my father's garden.

This strand, that was one of the first strands I worked on, and it's here now and it's like part of the whole story."

- There's like fungus in there.

There are these pods that look like birds, and you see things and you think, "How has that been here this whole time and I haven't seen it?"

So you do have that sensibility going through here that like your different days, your senses, are like attuned to different things.

So even though I get to see this most days of the week, it's a different experience most days.

So that's really special too.

- We had over 200 volunteers.

It was a very amazing team effort to pull it off.

- We worked with a local fabricator called Mercer Works.

They created this wooden structure here.

They have a whole team of people down in Kent, Ohio who worked on this.

If you zoom in on these, they're all strung on copper wire.

What's really amazing about this is you can see the hand touches.

Every single piece of this project was touched by human hands so many times throughout this project.

- One of the bonuses of bringing it inside has been we've been bringing more people back into the library, which is really important for us.

- The way that Rebecca's piece fills the space is just really special.

It's like that great marriage between a great idea and a great concept and a great execution in a beautiful space.

- So to have something that people are drawn to, that people are talking about on social media, and they want to come into our institution and see, has been really a big plus for us.

- After COVID, you know, just getting people back in our library buildings, and frankly back in public spaces and in downtown at the level that we used to be, it's been work, and I'm so happy that the library's been able to be part of that sort of reactivation and re-energization.

(whimsical music continues) - Every time I talk to folks about libraries, they still have the general stereotype of us sitting around shushing people, and the general stereotype of what a library is.

But libraries are so much more than that, right?

We are the community living room for so many folks who may not have an opportunity to see an exhibit like Rebecca Louise Law.

(whimsical music continues) - I'm especially excited to be able to come to this installation when I'm like craving some prettiness, some greenery, some pretty flowers, those kinds of things.

And so I love how this is, they're preserved in a beautiful way that you can see them throughout the year.

- [Kabir Bhatia] "The Archive" by Rebecca Louise Law is on view at the main Cleveland Public Library through July.

(whimsical music continues) Thanks for watching this round of "Applause," my friends.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia, leaving you with a jazzy Americana ode to spring in Ohio from the Zakk Jones Trio.

Enjoy.

(smooth music) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (smooth music continues) (logo whooshing) Production of "Applause" on Ideastream Public Media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.