(dramatic upbeat music) (dramatic upbeat music fades) (energetic upbeat music) - [Presenter] See how Heather Layton blends art and citizen diplomacy.

Learn about Heather's current project.

I wish I could send you this glass of water.

(lively percussion music) and catch a performance from Heard.

It's all ahead on this episode of "aha."

(lively percussion music continues) (lively percussion music fades) - [Narrator] Funding for "aha" has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund, contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.

(bright lively music) (bright lively music continues) (bright lively music fades) (transition whooshing) - Hi, I'm Matt Rogowicz, and this is "aha."

A house for arts, a place for all things creative.

Heather Layton is a multidisciplinary artist with a creative practice that involves art making, teaching, and citizen diplomacy.

Now, before Jade interviews Heather about her current project, I wanna introduce you to Heather with a segment that originally aired on "aha" in 2021.

(gentle piano music) Artist Heather Layton splits her time between Chicago, Rochester, and the Adirondack Mountains.

We found her right here in Chestertown, New York on this very cold winter day.

Let's head inside and see what she's up to.

(gentle piano music continues) - If I made a piece of art and it didn't have a story to it or a place to start a discussion, it wouldn't mean anything to me.

Like there's, the beauty isn't in the art itself, it's in what happens when somebody looks at it.

(gentle piano music continues) My practice always has three parts to it.

It's the making where I'm making sculpture installation, painting and drawing and then I have the teaching part where I teach at the University of Rochester, and then I have the relationship building part.

And all, each one of those three parts can't exist without the other.

(gentle piano music fades) The relationship building that has been really developing relationships with people who are living in different countries, different cultures, different religions.

I've been so lucky to participate or be a volunteer in a state department program called the International Visitor Leadership Program.

And through that I've been able to host creative people from all over the world at our house for dinner, and also then go to travel to their homes and their communities, to all the positive stories about Saudi Arabia that we never hear, and all the positive stories about Pakistan and all the stories about Nagaland that I would've had preconceptions or fear in going to these places before I went.

And then you get there and people are people everywhere.

And so you have these incredible relationships with other artists and community organizers and administrators.

I couldn't make art if I didn't have this ongoing exchange with others who are also interested in building bridges between communities and cultures and nations, religions.

I couldn't make art and I couldn't teach without making art.

And I design all of the projects and all of my classes, I'm thinking through sculpture and through performance when I'm designing the projects.

I think I work like I'm writing novels.

So there is a conceptual theme throughout my entire, you know, last 25 years of work.

But once the series is done, that novel's done.

And I don't really often come back to the imagery or to the material or to the story.

(gentle piano music) In 2020 and before, so the four years leading up until very recently, I worked on a project called Coping Mechanisms.

And I feel at the time it was something that I really needed.

Like the last four years have been difficult for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.

(gentle uplifting music) Imagine if there were an unlimited selection of machines, tools, and mechanisms that had the ability to repair relationships, rebuild trust, and correct the record in turbulent political times, if all things were possible, what would people ask for?

What would people need?

The following are physical manifestations of the hopes and dreams of American citizens.

For example, (chuckles) there's the two-pronged stethoscope that allows users to consider what the other is feeling before judging what the other is saying.

There are earbuds that fact check speeches in real time, shoulder pads with inflatable helium pouches to lift that heavy feeling, an elastic guard that helps prevent damage from excessive tongue biting, a GPS navigation system to steer parents through the process of explaining politics to children and shoes that keep us from jumping to conclusions.

(gentle uplifting music continues) It always starts in writing and it always starts in thinking, you know, I'll think about a project and do research on a project for a full year before I start making in many situations.

And then I have to visualize like, okay, how can this story best be told?

(tense ominous music) My husband, Brian had done a lot of research into drone warfare, and we've been told that it is clean technology, that people aren't hurt, you know, until you go to Pakistan.

That's where we really learned about it, was on that trip.

Then you go back home and you're like, how is this not, how is this not a major issue?

This is before it came out in the news.

People are being tormented in their lives, just torn apart.

So we built this replica of a predator drone and I wanted it to be diamond studded, like jewelry.

So when you'd walk into the gallery space, it would just glitter.

So you just like wanted to be next to it when it was so beautiful.

But the idea was, if you spent a little more time with it, you would see that it was pointed at a wall size map of Massachusetts, which is the state where the exhibition took place.

And we took the first 341 drone strikes in Northern Pakistan and plotted them on a map of that region.

And then we just picked up, you know, as if you kept that pattern the same, you pick it up and you swap out a map of Massachusetts underneath and drop the pins again.

And then we drove to each one of those sites, a lot of them, and photographed who and what would have been destroyed, had a drone strike happened in the United States on that day.

And you can see the people who you're about to hit look like you.

(tense ominous music fades) (gentle melancholic music) The current series that I'm working on, I don't have a title for it yet, but it just started in 2021.

The theme now is work.

It's gonna take a lot of work to bring compassion.

It takes a lot of work to make things beautiful.

It's not a passive, it's never a passive act.

So the project I'm currently working on, they are groups of women in particular this time, and they're stitching and mending and pulling and pushing and climbing, in this particular painting series, everybody will be at work.

(gentle piano music) Art is a really fast form of communication.

I can be idealistic and optimistic that I'm not always able to do in words.

And so a lot of the work I make is like saturated in idealism and optimism.

And I think part of that, it's not saying that the violence doesn't exist, it's assuming that the violence is everywhere, you know, the danger is everywhere, the destruction is everywhere.

And so the work I make is like, okay, how can we imagine something different?

And that I think is where all of the work that I make starts is in that desire to think that things don't have to be the way they are.

There's always a way to live differently and to set up societies differently.

The war heroes, the presidents, the CEOs, that's what has been valued.

But just as easily you could be in a society that values compassion and collaboration.

That's possible if you make it, so... (upbeat music fades) - Hey Heather, welcome to House of Arts.

- Thank you so much.

I'm happy to be here.

- Yeah, so I wanna talk to you about your current project.

I wish I could send you this glass of water.

I know this is something you've been really intentional about working on recently.

Can you give us a little bit of background of like what this project is and what it means to you and how it began?

- This is an ongoing series of drawings.

It's a collaboration with three extraordinary young women from Gaza.

Remas is 15, Enas is 13 years old, and Retal is 11 years old.

And we have been exchanging drawings for the past almost two years now.

So I will, you know, I'll make the drawing and I'll photograph it and send it to their father through just social media messaging.

They make drawings on their side, the same thing happens in reverse and we go back and forth.

So that's where it started.

And this whole time they've been in the midst of absolute horror.

So forced starvation, dehydration, no medical supplies, no shelter, no, it's the worst horrors I can imagine.

And we've had this way through this drawing series to like imagine this other life.

So this whole time I've been thinking like, "I wish I could just get them food.

I wish I could just, I wish I could just, I wish I could."

And finally I just decided, like, I wish I could get you this glass of water and try to do it.

So the drawing series, it starts with me pouring a glass of water in my kitchen and then the water drains into a pipe.

It goes under the floorboards, out the window, down the street, through a gym, a grocery store.

It keeps going like under the highway, over the mountains, all the way into the Atlantic Ocean.

It's in there for a while, pops up in Italy, pops down, up in Tel Aviv and the water pipe keeps going until it gets to the border wall in Gaza.

- And they're all drawings, correct?

- [Heather] Correct.

- Like, these are all separate drawings that are all put together.

- Yes.

- [Jade] So like, leave this- - Like a very slow moving animated film, yeah.

- Love that.

So how did drawings become the main way you connected?

You know, so I'm like, oh, just do something over Zoom.

We're all, you know, we're on WhatsApp.

But like why was drawing the main reason you decided to, I don't know, connect with these youth in Gaza?

- It's a great question.

So many answers, that's a great question.

We have, all odds are stacked against us for maintaining communication.

So they're most comfortable, you know, at the basic level, they're most comfortable in Arabic.

I don't speak Arabic, vice versa.

So the visual imagery gives us a way to transcend that technology.

You have to travel quite far to get access and it's too dangerous for the kids to be outside.

And also art making is a gift, you know?

So it's like a precious, I spent my time, my energy, my creativity to make this for you.

Here's my gift and then they do that back.

And that's different than words.

That's different from like writing, texting back and forth.

It's a gift exchange, it's an exchange of love, I love you, I care about you.

You are not forgotten.

I remember you every single moment of every day.

- That's really beautiful.

And were the girls always drawing with you, or did you start first and then you added them on?

'Cause I know they do a lot of drawings as well with you.

- Yes.

I probably started because we didn't know each other in the beginning.

- [Jade] Oh.

- So the very, and that's how I started.

I started by drawing each of their names in like bubble letters.

And so I think I sent to them, it took them a little while to get to know me and then slowly they started sending them back.

And now it's like, we just go back and forth and back and forth and we tell stories.

It's all storytelling, yeah.

- [Jade] So when they started sending you the pictures back- - Mm-hm.

- [Jade] Did that shift something inside of you?

Did that change the project a little bit from what you thought it was gonna be in the beginning?

- Yes.

And I'm thinking there's three big turns there with them sending drawings back.

Once we started the project, the first one would be when they first saw maybe the first 20 drawings between my house and Gaza.

What I was not expecting was the girls to get together and send me a gift back.

So it's a series of five drawings.

The first, they're making a gift in this fictional kitchen, and then a post office person comes, picks it up, brings it to the airport, a plane flies outta the back of imaginary mosque, lands in the US, you know, and then you see in this last drawing, the post office, post office worker bringing it to my door.

And I say in their drawing, like, "Yes, I am Heather."

You know, so it's like so personal.

The second one, they changed the whole narrative.

In the original version, I was making all of the drawings.

And once we got to Gaza, they were based off of the stories that I have heard from them through the years in addition to media reports.

So mine was like, okay, I'm gonna get the pipe to Gaza and then we're gonna go all through the realistic horrors until it gets to them in the tent and they get the water.

So when the girls started drawing, they're like, no, that is not the way this story's happening.

When we hear that a pipe pops up in Gaza, like, you have to get a plumber.

(laughs) You know, so they run in their drawings, they get a plumber, they run to the wall and they have the plumber cut through it and branch it into three pipes, so that they can get to more places in Gaza.

And you'll see then, you know, one of the pipes gets to a shelter, another one gets to one of the tent encampments, another one gets to a water tanker where there's a big sign, you know, "Thank you, we have got your glass of water."

And then they hand the baton back to me, you know.

So, now, all of these drawings that I've made where it's like, it just gets to them, those all get tossed aside and now we're dreaming, like, I hadn't thought that they wanna dream on their side also.

So now the drawings, the black and white parts are the horrors that are happening in the midst of this ongoing genocide.

But the places where the water, we we're getting, you know, all of us, we're all getting the water too, are now this dream of like what we want it to be.

- Yeah and I like how they cut it so it could go to the community.

'cause the water was just going to them.

- Just going to them.

I was like, "Nope, all I'm doing is getting water.

I'm just getting the water to them."

And they're like, "Why would we ever do that?

We get it, it gets here, we bring it to everybody, everyone in Gaza's getting water."

- That's like such a beautiful, like, it just shows you, like, even in the midst of all of this, the care and the empathy is so strong within those communities.

- So strong.

- So with this project, what does this project say that a lot of big media and social media isn't, or can't, you know?

- I would say that the news is really good at telling you what is happening, but it's not necessarily the medium for telling you why you should care about it.

- Mm-hm.

- So I feel like this project is all about loving people and caring about people who are in harm.

In terms of social media, social media happens so fast and the news too, you know, like, you read the headline and then it scrolls by or goes by and it's lost.

Where this project, you really take, you get to take time to know the people who are making it.

You take time to listen to the whole story from the beginning to the end.

And it's difficult for news to do that.

You know, news is great too about like the statistics, the macro lens of how many people at this point have been murdered, about how many are at risk of famine and starvation.

I can tell the story, I can't do that, but I can tell the story of just one family that's there.

- So I know you said that this is a love letter (Heather chuckles) and a historic document.

What do you hope that this project preserves?

- Yes.

I hope that this project preserves a sense of shared humanity.

I hope that, you know, for one on the day, it's like macro and micro, it preserves our connection, so every single day there's a reminder, I love you, I love you, we're connected, we're alive.

I mean, that's part of it too.

It's like sending it, they send one back, it's like they're still alive, that's one.

In terms of it documenting the larger scale, these are historic documents.

Like, this is a tale of genocide and it can't be accused of being AI because we have the physical, like these are objects that we have.

- [Jade] Yes.

- We've so many objects.

So there's proof that this is happening.

It gives voice to kids.

Like a lot of times kids don't get voices and we now have it.

It can't scroll by, no one can say, "Oh, somebody else wrote that."

You know, the parent intervened.

- [Jade] Mm-hm.

- So yeah, this is something people will look back on and it's proof that this happened.

- And it's really beautiful that the girls are being able to, you know, they're already unfortunately involved in political history and warfare and genocide, but for them to have their stories memorialized and exist for all of eternity.

- Yeah.

- Like it's real.

It's tangible.

- [Heather] Yes, it's real.

- They did this, they wrote this.

- [Heather] Yep.

- With their hands.

- [Heather] Yes.

- And I think that's really important.

- And that's a great point too, because it's really hard to get stories out of Gaza right now.

- [Jade] Mm-hm.

- I mean, they're literally walled off.

But journalists are being, I mean, well over 100 journalists.

I don't wanna say the exact number, but there's a great effort to prevent stories from leaving the walls.

And this is one way we can do it.

To your point, getting the kids' stories out to the world.

- Exactly.

The girls wrote back to us a little bit, and I know you wanted to read a little bit of that.

- I would love to.

- [Jade] Yeah.

Let's see what you got.

- Thank you.

Okay, I have two short ones.

And thank you for writing these questions by the way.

They're perfect.

- [Jade] Of course.

- One question, "What do you like most about drawing with Heather?"

(Host laughs) Remas says, "The most thing I like in drawing with Heather is that it provides us with a platform where we can express our feelings freely through drawing, the 'My Glass of Water' project made us feel valued and cared for.

It made us virtually care for others too.

We felt more self-worth by acting like drawing partners with Heather."

And then another one of the questions, "What would you want someone far away to understand about your life through your artwork?"

And Retal says, "I want people to understand that people are being killed every day for seeking food or perish for lack of food.

I need people to know that instead of pursuing my dreams and carving my way toward being a dentist in the future, I now pursue food, potable water and wood with my sisters and dad.

I need people to know that the war has not just shredded, it has shredded not only our lives, but also our dreams and memories.

Also, I need them to know that humans come first."

- I love that.

And that's a beautiful statement that, yes, humans come first.

Thank you so much, Heather, for all the work you're doing.

This project is really amazing and I hope more and more people engage with it and see it.

And I think it's gonna make the girls and the family really proud too as well.

So thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you so much, Jade.

- [Jade] Yeah.

- Please welcome, Heard.

(gentle piano music) (gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music continues) (gentle instrumental music fades) (gentle somber music) Thanks for joining us.

For more Arts, visit wmht.org/aha and be sure to connect with us on social.

I'm Matt Rogowicz.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat piano music) (upbeat piano music continues) (upbeat piano music continues) (upbeat piano music continues) (upbeat piano music continues) (upbeat piano music fades) - [Presenter] Funding for "aha" has been provided by your contribution and by contributions to the WMHT Venture Fund.

Contributors include the Leo Cox Beach Philanthropic Foundation, Chet and Karen Opalka, Robert and Doris Fischer Malesardi , and the Robison Family Foundation.

- At M&T Bank, we understand that the vitality of our communities is crucial to our continued success.

That's why we take an active role in our community.

M&T Bank is pleased to support WMHT programming that highlights the arts, and we invite you to do the same.