- Welcome to Kalamazoo Lively Arts, the show that takes you inside Kalamazoo's vibrant creative community and explores the people who breathe life into the arts.

(upbeat music) - [Voice Over] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

- I'm Jennifer Moss, here at Miller auditorium.

On today's show, we explore a new partnership between Read and Write Kalamazoo, and The Civic that explores women in Kalamazoo doing some amazing things.

We also stop by the Epic Center and meet mixed media artist Josh Ford and painter Daniel Ellis.

- Here we are.

The annual Art Hop is out up and running and we find you an artist extraordinary.

Daniel Ellis, congratulations on your beautiful work.

- Thank you.

- Yes, take me back to, well, day one.

How did you get started in art?

- Day one began many, many years ago.

When I was about 11 years old, my father took me to visit one of my relatives who was painting an oil painting at the time.

And from that point on, I never wondered like what I wanted to be when I grow up.

The route it took to get there, that varied and had ups and downs, but I always wanted to be an artist when I grew up, and eventually I became that.

- Yay, and how do you describe today's art?

- I'm a conventional painter with oil paints, watercolors, pastel.

I use all the medium because I just can't help myself.

One, just one medium just doesn't satisfy me, it seems.

And also, I ventured into the digital world where, where you create paintings on a computer and us to me is another, just another media just as oils, watercolors and digital is another medium.

And I love it, just can't get enough of it.

- So, tell me about this piece.

- Okay, this piece here, the composition was posed, was put together from different aspects of different sources and the background, the mic, the dramatic mountain background... - [Shelley] Like through here.

- Yeah, that was taken from one source.

The individual was taken from another source, were a photograph and and just blended into the composition.

And it's just putting different elements together to come out with a digital painting.

- So what or whom do you paint?

And examples are up on the wall.

- Well, you know, portraits is sort of my thing and that's the area that I'm drawn to.

Now, this painting here was my black history painting of Booker T Washington.

- Tell me how this picture came to life.

- Now, this media is a mixed media, is watercolor or what do you call Gouache, colored pencils, pastels, a mixture of a lot of things.

And illustrators typically work like that.

It's no set set media, anything goes.

Because you're looking for a special different effect and illustrators are able to achieve that using different medias together to come out with a digital painting.

- But describe more of a digital painting.

So are you working with a computer?

- Oh yes.

Digital is always computer.

- How about the coloring?

How did you work with the shadows and the coloring?

- See that right there, that to me is what makes composition.

The contrast, the shadows, the color ballots.

Those are all things that determines a good composition, not whether it was done on a computer or not.

So, those elements you just mentioned, those are the things that you take in consideration when you're painting an oil painting.

And it's the same things you can take in consideration when you are doing a digital painting.

So, really it's all one and the same.

- How do you know what to choose and display at say an art hop like we're attending?

- Well, you know, I always try to be me, you know, and anything that represents me.

I try to display the times.

A great quote that I have by Nina Simone, "We as artists, we are to reflect our times" and through my artwork, I try to reflect the times.

- Well, Read and Write Kalamazoo, better known as RAWK partnered with the Kalamazoo Civic to bring you some stories from right here in our community.

I'm with Delaney McKenzie from the Kalamazoo Civic, and Victoria Marseti from RAWK, Read and Write Kalamazoo.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Thanks for having us.

- Yeah, thanks for having us.

- Well, this was a really exciting partnership.

Tell me a little bit about how it came to be.

- Well, we started, our partnership, I guess started in December, when we approached the idea of creating some videos of youth speaking and telling their stories.

And we partnered to create, I think it was a six week writing workshop where youth got to explore the art of giving a monologue.

And we used inspiration from Martin Luther king Jr and from other other folks within the same oratory realm of really capturing the power of one's voice and being able to use that to advocate for change.

And then those youth were able to record their own monologues that we shared on Martin Luther King day.

And that was so awesome that we decided that we needed to keep doing some cool stuff together.

So, when Women's History Month was sneaking up, we started talking about what that might look like and who we could lift stories up about during this time.

- And when you have a partnership like this, what is it that jazzes you up Delaney?

Like when you heard about this, what was it that sounded so enticing?

- Yeah, well, this isn't something that I would've come up on my own.

So, being approached by Victorian Candace from RAWK, looking for, uplifting the voices of these local women.

Besides, one of the women that we interviewed, I had never met any of these ladies before.

So, it was really interesting hearing their stories and it was actually supposed to be a much smaller project.

We were originally just going to have like 1, 10, 15 minute video that had all of our interviews just pick and choose the little bits here and there.

And through the interview process, we ended up with five hours of content where it's like, we can't pair these stories down.

Everyone's story was so personal that I wouldn't have heard any of them without RAWK putting this all together.

And we just, through a conversation that, we sat down and talked about how we could change our initial vision for the piece.

And okay, what about a video on each of the women's stories separately so, that we could highlight them all, and have them tell everything, start to finish that they wanted to share with us in the first place.

- What do you think partnerships like this do for Kalamazoo, for a city, a community, it's people.

- It's people, that's it.

that it's creating community.

It's doing the things that we're talking to our youth about.

It's recognizing that none of us can exist alone.

None of us should exist alone.

And we have a lot of things that we can share with each other.

So, the resources that we have at RAWK are things that we can share with other organizations like the Civic, and the Civic has amazing things that they're focusing on and things that they are really good at.

And things like Delaney's really good at, like editing and creating these videos for us.

So, we should definitely be sharing our gifts with each other.

- Yes, they're beautiful pieces.

They're beautiful pieces.

How did you choose the women?

Because these are women that are not only changing Kalamazoo, but really making changes in the world.

- We started with some suggestions, I mean, obviously we all have some amazing women that we look up to, whether they're within our community or not, but we put forth some names from RAWK, and our friends at The Civic gave us some suggestions as well.

And it was coincidental maybe that some of the suggestions from The Civic were people that RAWK are really excited about and are close to.

And we maybe were shy about lifting them up, like we got to interview our board chair, Marissa Harrington.

At RAWK, we know she's amazing.

We know that she's doing this fantastic work, but I guess maybe we were shy about lifting her up at first.

Our partners at The Civic were like, what about Marissa Harrington, we're like, okay, yeah, all right, we can do that.

So, that was another thing, like having this partnership and being able to share ideas, and build off of each other's ideas and then build off of each other's excitement as well.

So, it was a joint effort of deciding who we wanted to talk to.

- And in hearing their stories, did you notice that the women had anything in common?

- I think there were a lot of really common themes that came up.

Some of the things that I was really excited about was that these women uplifted themes that we highlight in the work that we're doing with our youth.

A lot of our social-emotional learning work, we're focusing on identity and belonging and agency as being some of those core tends of understanding our social-emotional existence, and then how to use our emotions.

Those were the through lines that I heard from all of them, especially the belonging, the importance of feeling and knowing that you belong to a community and to a family and to a group of people who understand you and support you and will uplift you.

And some of those stories were about the search for that belonging and that feeling, and what it was like to not feel that belonging initially, and then the changes that they experienced once they really felt like they were connected into that.

And I think that seeing the words and the ideas that we're talking about in our work culminate in a single person's story, but then several people's stories that we get to hear parallel to each other and understand that this is a through line through all of our lives, not just the people that we're lifting up as leaders.

Belonging is something that we all need.

- Who were some of these women?

And tell me a little bit about, if you can pick and choose maybe one or two.

- Sure.

Marissa Harrington's our board chair here at RAWK.

We also got to talk to Monica Washington Padula, who is an activist here in Kalamazoo.

She was pretty vital to the movement to help Paw Paw find a different mascot.

So she was a very big part of that organizing that was years in the making.

And most recently, she's done a lot of activism work around supporting on-house folks in Kalamazoo.

And she is also, as you see in the video, she introduces herself in her indigenous language.

So, she's been very active in uplifting the history of our indigenous people of this place of Kalamazoo.

- So, RAWK is kind of more of a youth-oriented program.

I'm just curious, why did you choose to kinda put your voice into some of the more adult programs?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

We are here for youth voice and uplifting youth voice, and we also recognize that part of uplifting youth voice is modeling for them.

What that means, what it can look like to tell your story, what it can mean to share your history with your community and with the world.

And I think for us, it's also knowing that young people are out there seeing these women already.

They see them doing the work, but they might not understand that they didn't just pop out the womb ready to do that work, right?

We all bring so many experiences into who we are right now that I think it's really important for youth to understand that these amazing people we see doing the work out in our community, went through are a lot of stuff too.

And maybe a lot of the same things that they're experiencing right now.

And that there is something that will happen after that, that those experiences that feel like challenges or it feel like, maybe even feel like things that you don't think that you'll even remember, could be the most important thing that you're gonna be sharing 20 years from now about how you got to the place that you are.

- What would you say the importance is of sharing these stories that you've shared, you know, both now and in the future?

- I feel like there's so much power behind hearing how how different adversity that these women experience earlier in their lives.

How it changed them and guided them down a path where they're able to help others.

That at one point they needed the help of their community, and now they're able to be that help for others.

And as I transplant to this area, I did not grow up in the Kalamazoo area.

Hearing these local stories has helped me personally feel a little bit more grounded in the community, feel like I know a little bit more about the history of at least these five women (laughs) that I didn't have before.

And as this is now my chosen home, where I've started to plant roots, it's good to see where local women have come from and where they're going.

- But hear stories that are positive, uplifting, inspirational for not only the kids, but as the adults, it's you know, it's you can't even put a price on it.

It's priceless.

- Yeah, I think it was also important for us to, to focus on uplifting women of the global majority, black and indigenous and other women of color to bridge some of that gap.

We've heard a lot of stories a lot of times from folks who are similar to each other, and this was an opportunity to to push against all of the history that has quieted the stories of women, and of black women and indigenous women and women of color in particular.

So, if we have a platform like we have, we should be uplifting as many people as we can, especially the stories that have been hidden from us.

- And you are doing some lasting work.

Thank you so much again for talking with me here, Delaney and Victoria.

- Thank you.

- Josh Ford, look at your art.

Describe it.

- I want to say it's eccentric, it's different, it's unique and it's very animated and very loud.

- Wow, how'd you get started?

- When I was really young, my dad always told me, "Hey, you're good at this, but maybe don't give up and keep on going with this.

Let's see where it takes you."

So, even from the ages of 15 to now, I always constantly practice different styles and different ways of drawing and painting.

- Yes, so these are paints, what's your medium?

- I try to dabble with anything from spray paint to acrylic, to house paint, to even cigarette buds and recycled material.

That's something that I try to stay in all the time is focusing on trying to work in mediums that can be recycled.

- Yes, is there somewhat of a theme?

I'm seeing a skull here, I'm seeing a skull here.

This is an interesting piece.

- Well, with the skulls, with this one right here, the main thing that I like to focus on is expressing the concept of pain.

It's easy to tell someone something.

It's much more easier to show someone something.

If I show you something, I feel it's gonna be easier for you to pick up on it versus me to tell you something.

Like if I can tell someone, "Oh, someone just got in a car crash", they might not register that as much.

But if I show you an image of a car crash, you're gonna be asking, are they in pain?

Are they okay?

Are they injured?

Now, when you see an image of something that is different and unique, it's going to leave you with different emotions, With different colors, different shapes and structures of something, you have more of a thought to lean to, ask things about it, versus painting something in a traditional manner.

- Do you know what your finished product's going to be like before you see the start?

I have a general idea of what the end product is going to be like when I am on the process of painting it, but before I even do that, I like to come up with a sloppy copy sketch.

I like to come up with the concept artwork before I start really painting.

- Let's take apart this painting.

First of all, does it have a name?

- Lady Lighthouse.

- Lady Lighthouse.

And the cigarette butts?

- The reason why I use cigarette butts for this particular piece is because I want show that someone can be toxic without showing that someone can be toxic.

The recycle material in this piece has representation behind it.

It's not just random recycled material.

The recycle material has meaning behind here.

- Go into details, such as?

- The wedding band represents obsession.

Someone's obsession to not like no all physical And treat the physical like... - The eyes.

- The eyes that shows that you know, childish behavior.

I got the eyes from, I really wanted stuff to show that someone can be childish without going full debt and fully deep into the conversation of how someone can be childish, but just show someone's childish.

- And light house?

Interesting to say that medium was very fond of light houses, Very fond of light houses.

So, I was trying to have a discussion about Individual's behavior, without really writing a paragraph about really what the person's fear off, about incorrect behavior.

And so lecturing someone and saying, Hey, you don't want in this manner.

The best thing to do is sometimes just show someone.

- So your art tells a story.

- Indeed it does.

I want to stay in the theme of storytelling.

- Josh Ford, keep up your great work.

Thank you, Miss.

- Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Kalamazoo Lively Arts, check out today's show and other content at wgvu.org.

We leave you tonight with a selection of clips from Read and Write Kalamazoo and The Civic'’s spotlight on Women's History Month.

I'm Jennifer Moss have a great night.

- I'll start off by introducing myself (speaks foreign language) (speaks foreign language) (speaks foreign language) So, I just introduced myself in our initial, which is a combination of the dialects of the Ojibway, the Potawatomi and the Odawa people and that language revitalization.

Our elders have been teaching us that when we introduce ourselves, we to introduce, we introduce ourselves in the language.

And so I've been working to practice that as a millennial and also practicing that to normalize it from the young ones coming up and also just to speak that energy back into the lands that we've always migrated in here.

- My mom, you know, she, she works really hard and, and one of the things that was a blessing, you know, even in the midst of all that, she always dared me to dream, always, even, even when you know, we're packing up our stuff, (laughs) 'cause we have to move again.

She always encouraged me to dream.

And so again, though, you know, up until 12, I was still wrestling with, with a lot of stuff because, you know, I found my thing at 12.

I found my thing, that thing that I needed purpose in, right?

That thing that like filled my cup.

I, I have that vocabulary now right?

But that's what it was like, the, the theater and the performing and being in that communal space.

I always say this of spaces of predominantly people of color, whatever it is, it just feels like a communal space right?

So for me it was an acting scope, but we were also a family.

- My name is Yolanda lavender, and I am the chief creative officer of soul artistry.

And with that organization, it's an arts consulting company.

And we work on providing opportunities for artists, specifically black artists, artists of color, those from other historically excluded groups to provide opportunities that they otherwise wouldn't have to be able to showcase their artistry and be paid for it.

I also am a performing artist, a singer and a songwriter with Truth Tone Records.

And I work as the Grant Program and Partnerships Director, with the Stryker Johnson F oundation.

- I definitely experienced, you know, biases, discrimination, racism, but I also found my strength was that regardless of the color that I was, if I did it better than everybody else, then they would respect me.

And so I started, you know, I got more involved in cheerleading and I ended up actually being the drum major, the first black ma, black drum major that Fort Riley Kansas had ever, ever had.

And so that was something that, you know, I just looked around my environment, my surroundings, and I was like, I'm gonna do something better than everybody else.

And that's gonna set me, it's gonna make my color not even matter.

- That I would want people to take away as to, even if you've felt like you haven't belonged.

Like you, you don't have a sense of belonging, that there's, there's always a, a place for you, for them, for people to go.

Like, I, I, I don't know.

I guess that's where I, I, I hope that people get from my story is that I, there are times in my life where I didn't feel a sense of belonging, where I didn't feel a sense of community and that, it's not a reason to give up, you know.

So continuing to, to pursue things that, that drive you, that you're passionate about, that you have absolute love for.

And despite all the obstacles and all of the barriers that might be in front of you, keep going in array.

- [Voice Over] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.