- [Shelley] 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) - [Announcer] Support for "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of Greater Kalamazoo.

- On this episode of "Kalamazoo Lively Arts," the Merze Tate Explorers learn about media and talk history.

Jordan Hamilton guides us on a journey through the stars.

But first up this week is Maya James.

Maya opened her first art installation at Fire Arts Collaborative, visualizing her five year plan in a unique way.

Let's check it out.

Well, isn't this awesome?

I feel kind of like a queen in a castle, but I think you are the queen according to your earring, Black Queen.

Maya James Art Studio, we are in, well, an installation of yours.

I'm gonna say right away, congratulations.

This is cool.

- Thank you so much.

I've had so much fun creating this.

- All right, who's Maya James?

- Well I am a lot of things.

I'm an artist, I'm an activist, I am an author, I'm an illustrator, I'm a graphic novelist, a muralist.

And now I make installations.

- As a little girl, was this the dream?

- I was one of those kids that wanted to do a lot of things.

So one week I was gonna be an actress, and the next week I was gonna be a veterinarian, and then the next week I was gonna be an artist like my dad.

And then the next week I was gonna be an author, and then the next week I was gonna be the president.

And I think I kind of settled down to what I just do and this is what I do.

And even down to the wall collages, this was something I did when I was a teenager and I would just cover my entire room in wall collage.

- You mentioned your dad was an artist, is an artist.

I mean there had to be some DNA, you had to have been exposed to art as a little girl.

- Oh yes, so one of my favorite things to do was to go into my dad's studio and work with him.

I would make little dolls out of his like woodworking materials.

I would paint with him, I would collaborate with him, and he would teach me things, and there was really no limit to what I could create.

And he always told me, just go for it and do it.

And so this is where that led.

- When did you realize you could go for it?

High school?

Did you do any extra study?

Why did you craft your talent?

- So I started my studies in political science.

I actually got most of my degree in political science, and then a really great friend of mine said you just need to quit school and pursue art full-time.

And I think that was the best decision I ever made.

I'm going back to school in the fall, but really my art is now my full pursuit, my full career.

And it's the thing that I do and that I love.

- So what are we doing?

Where are we sitting?

- We're sitting in my first ever art installation that Kalamazoo Fire, this wonderful arts and historical organization and cooperative of youth has allowed me to just kind of dream up.

I saw this space and it was a storage space and there was just like a lot of cardboard boxes and materials.

So I dusted and I cleaned it and I threw a bunch of cardboard boxes down the stairs and I made this.

- What is this?

How do you describe this?

And then let's get into how you want your visitors to be exposed to it.

- Yeah, so my installation is called "Five Year Plan" and as you can see, some of the numbered little boxes have goals for the next five years.

So the premise was, and I guess the question was from my mentor, you've accomplished everything you wanted in your first five year plan coming to Kalamazoo.

And I've been in Kalamazoo exactly five years, so what's next?

And I didn't know what to say.

So I let this be an expression of that and I kind of came to my own conclusions through creating this work.

- So we're at number six, number seven, does it expand this whole attic area?

- So another part of my five year plan is I have seven books that I've created that are hidden through the space.

These are little art books that I've created.

So they have collages and they have little affirmations that I've created and just like stickers.

And this is really how I process my thoughts.

I can't be a linear journaling type of person, but I wanted to add this and just the process of everything as well.

- What's this up here on the wall, Maya, right to your left?

- This is a self portrait I made when I first came to Kalamazoo and I covered it in a veil because I really do love, well this is actually my prom dress material.

So this is a piece of a prom dress that I had and I used the rest to make a different painting.

But I thought that this was very apt.

And I think this is kind of the centerpiece because this is where it all began.

Like each painting is from every single year that I've been in Kalamazoo.

- The process from maybe writing it on a white napkin to my goodness, this, is there a favorite part?

Do you like that idea part?

Or do you like this part where we've talked about a finished project?

- I would say that really my favorite part is the ideation process.

I've been trying to do a lot more of creating concepts because every single piece of my work and every single piece that I've ever created has been based in a concept.

I'm very much conceptual.

And so I love just writing down 10 ideas and then watching them kind of become realities in the next like five or so years.

- Number five, publish more books and graphic novels.

Tell me how you'll be doing that.

- So my first graphic novel, "Lukumi," it was actually featured at the Brooklyn Book Fair this past year and it's just been all over.

And I'm like hearing from a lot of people like, oh I read "Lukumi" and I really loved it.

So I wanna do even more.

And I have a superhero series that's gonna be coming up pretty soon that I'm excited about.

- As your audience comes to check it out, how do you want us to meander, and of course what do you want us to take away from this?

- Yes, so I have little arrows that guide you through this space, and at the end there's a interactive little piece with boxes and little sticky notes and some markers.

And I ask if anyone feels so inclined to leave affirmations or advice after they're done experiencing this that I can have them.

And I think during the finale, like in our final presentation that we definitely are going to post all of those on the walls as well.

- Couple of deep questions.

What is it for you to have this much passion?

Someone's watching us now and saying "I want Maya's passion."

How does one find that?

- I read a book called "Eloquent Rage."

It basically delineates how we can use our rage as Black women to push us forward and create sustainable change.

And all of my art is a byproduct of pent up emotions and I think ancestral emotions and ancestral traumas and very much current traumas that I want to transform into something powerful and into something positive.

- You feel good about what you're doing?

- Yeah.

- Why support the arts in Kalamazoo?

- So many reasons.

There is something in the air in Kalamazoo really.

I think everybody who lives here is passionate about what they're doing, and for every negative thing that happens in Kalamazoo, there's something transformative and something creative that's happening at the same time.

So I think that this is the beginning of a renaissance that might lead us to be a national force.

- Well let's meet back here in five more years to see if everything's been accomplished.

And then I wanna know your next five year plan.

How's that, president.

- [Maya] Beautiful.

- That's what it is.

Maya James, thank you.

Continued success to you.

- Thank you so much.

(upbeat music) - The Merze Tate Explorers focus on setting up young girls for success using tools such as storytelling skills, communication, and critical thinking.

We follow the group as they create art and continue to explore.

Well I'm here with Sonya Bernard-Hollins who really founded the Merze Tate Explorers.

And once I saw on social media that she had climbed Kilimanjaro, I had to talk to her again.

Thanks so much for talking with me here today.

- Well thanks for having me back again.

- So tell me a little bit about Merze Tate.

Who was she?

- Oh my gosh, where do I begin?

She's such an amazing woman.

She's a Michigan native.

Grew up in Blanchard, Michigan.

And the connection that came across for myself was I was a reporter at the Kalamazoo Gazette when I did a story on the first African-Americans of Western Michigan University.

And Merze Tate's name was on the list as the first African-American female to receive a distinguished alumni award.

And I was like, well who is this woman, and what did she do to deserve this?

And boy did I learn a lot.

So I went to the archives at Western and learned that not only did she leave $1 million to Western when she died, but she was the first African-American graduate of Oxford University, the first African-American female to get a PhD in political science from Harvard.

She was a Fulbright scholar at India, traveled the world twice, spoke five languages.

I mean, I was like, who is this woman, and why do I not know about her?

And I said I wanna write a book about her.

So I started scanning all these photos that she left when she passed away, all her photo albums.

And one of the photos had a picture of her with a bunch of kids and a sign that said Travel club.

And so I started unraveling the story and learned that when she graduated from Western Michigan University with the highest academic record in the school's history, she couldn't get a job teaching in Michigan because she was Black.

And so Dr. Waldo, who was the president of Western at that time, got her interviews at places like Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana.

And that year, 1927, was the year the school was really being founded.

And the interesting thing is that it was founded by the Ku Klux Klan because they didn't want Black students going to school with white students, they made a special school called Crispus Attucks High School just for Black students.

And Merze Tate was the first history teacher there and started a travel club.

And that in turn got me intrigued about doing my own travel club.

And today we've traveled all over the world.

When I first started in 2008, I just put in an ad in a paper if girls wanna travel and learn about media.

So 12 girls showed up and we didn't have any money or anything.

So we started off locally, Ladies Library Association, we had tea with women there and took a tour.

We did things like Lawson Ice Arena where we did ice skating, and eventually we started branching out a little bit more.

So we took the girls to Motown Museum in Detroit then eventually went to Canada, then we went to Hawaii and Europe.

So we've been to Italy, Japan, just had amazing experiences.

- And I think I read that the girls recently were introduced and had a chance to talk to the first Black woman in space.

What was that like?

- I mean we've talked to a lot of amazing Black women first and Mae Jemison was amazing.

So she came to Kalamazoo to speak and our girls got a chance to be a part of the media crew who had an exclusive interview with her.

We've also met women like Ruth Carter who was the first African-American woman to receive an Oscar for costume design for "Black Panther."

So we've interviewed some amazing women throughout history because our focus is not only taking girls to cool places, but meeting women who've gone to amazing places.

And who better than a woman who traveled to space.

- What was your hope in forming the Merze Tate Explorers, what was your hope for these girls that are part of the group like when you look into the future?

- So we've been able to do some amazing things.

Just the goal is get these girls out of the community and into some places that they never maybe thought they could have gone.

And you know, a lot of students don't have the money or the resources to travel the world.

And world travel opens your mind up to so many things, not only about the world but about yourself because you're learning how to get on the plane, how do you act when you're in different countries, learn different languages, respect other people's cultures.

So each year we ask for applications.

Students apply, they write why they wanna be a part of the group and we talk to them and bring them on in.

And we usually start in like September with the new group and they stay together for the whole year.

- We catch up with the girls as they create positive self-image art with professional photographs taken of each explorer.

On each piece, they decorate and describe themselves.

So we got Jasmine and Julia on here and purple's my favorite color.

And you got your cover and you are?

- I just describe myself as nice, pretty, kind, funny.

I could go on forever.

- And what about you, Julia?

- I describe myself as a nice, helpful, caring person who will look out for my friends.

Pretty athletic, funny.

- Creative for sure.

How about you, Ziggy?

- I would just describe myself pretty active, funny, social, like very social, and fashionable.

- And fashionable.

What are some of the words that describe you?

- Strong, fast, smart, brave, courageous and all that.

- So Adiya is the mother of a Merze Tate Explorer.

Being part of this, have you seen changes?

Tell me about that.

- So my daughter, she loves to do any and everything.

So this has just given her an awesome opportunity to explore some different areas, and I just see her being excited about trying new things, participating.

I think she's doing a fantastic job.

- My favorite adventure was when we went skiing and it was very fun.

My mom was pretty scared because she didn't really like it because she really is like a business person and she's a home working mom.

But I love doing, I liked it because I like doing activities because I get bored easily.

- I had a family member, a cousin that was in Merze Tate, and because of Merze Tate, she graduated a year early because of the community service and the things that she did with Merze Tate.

- We were doing something with planes and I got to drive one in the cockpit.

- Sonya's daughter Sasha joined us here on the set.

And I wanted to talk to you, having this mom, you've been part of the program probably since the very beginning, right?

So what have you done?

What do you do part of the program?

- I have had a lot of exposure to talking to people, just getting ready for any situation.

I've been to Canada, Hawaii where we learned like about the animals that are there about Pearl Harbor.

And then I recently went to Mount Kilimanjaro with my mom and we just hiked that.

- A few years ago, because of the Merze Tate Explorers and exposure we've given to Merze Tate, Western decide to name Merze Tate College.

So there's a college name for her and she's one of the only I think three African-American women in the country who have a college named for them on a predominantly white campus.

So it was great to keep her legacy alive.

When we first started off and learned about her, it was like she sounds like an amazing woman we need to know about as young women.

But now not only does Western know about it and the students who go there, but now more of the nation knows about the amazing legacy that Merze Tate left behind.

(upbeat music) (bright music) - [Shelley] And now we head for a concert under the stars.

We chat with an eclectic group of musicians led by Kalamazoo artist Jordan Hamilton.

Their performance is accompanied by original video art projected onto the dome of the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium in Grand Rapids.

- My name's Jordan Hamilton and I grew up in Maryland.

I've been playing cello in elementary school, middle school, high school, through graduate school.

And that brought me to Michigan where I started trying to explore sounds outside of classical music.

And then that introduced me to musicians around the community.

And that's kind of how I met Lasso here.

How I met Jared Sellner, AKA Saxsquatch, and Grayson Nye, the piano guy.

And we make music just kind of all over.

My sound is a little bit like classical, hip hop, experimental, folk.

And then I've participated in a bunch of different projects that make different sounds.

- I'm the Saxsquatch, I'm from Kalamazoo, Michigan.

There's a guy with a costume, that's not me, it's a different guy.

- This is the Saxsquatch.

- The Saxsquatch.

I'm not a Saxsquatch.

I from Kalamazoo, Michigan, grew up here.

I play, I hope obviously, saxophone.

I also play drums, bass, and guitar, and a number of different projects including my own and other people's.

But I started really working with this group sort of, what, seven years ago or six years ago now?

I got sucked into the LassoVerse and it's been fun ever since.

Musically, I sort of, my guiding light and North Star is actually sort of in the avant garde and free jazz world.

A lot of noise stuff, drone, that kind of weird stuff.

But I also really love like prog and like prog and fusion jazz, that kind of thing, acid jazz.

- Yeah.

My name is The Lasso.

I'm a producer.

I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Currently live in Detroit.

I'd say my specialty is kind of bringing other musicians together and kind of setting the space for them to compose or kind of show themselves who they are, whether they're singers or instrumentalists.

So I play a lot of instruments myself, but mostly kind of write on a computer using electronic instruments, but also acoustic stuff, sampling, all different styles and kind of bring that together.

And these guys are a big part of a lot of my sounds.

I'd say my sound is a mix of like hip hop music, electronic music, film scores, jazz, classical.

So it makes sense, as you hear us go down the line and say what we're into, there's probably gonna be a lot of overlaps.

- But everyone has like a sound that they've been exploring consistently in their own way.

I've kind of bumped into the LassoVerse, the Lasso universe a little bit in the recent years, but I've been a part of other universes like Earthworks Harvest Gathering or Last Gas Collective.

And they all have different sounds, but everyone has a different sound.

- My name is Grayson, I'm a keyboard piano player from Chicago, I guess, I live there and I'm from there.

I met these guys actually in Michigan because I went to school here and I guess I'm the most recent addition to the LassoVerse, it's only been a couple years kind of since the pandemic.

Is that when we met?

I'm a new member of the family I guess.

But my style is, it's kind of like all of them, it's just a mix of a bunch of things.

I studied classical growing up and like doing pop music and then I got into jazz and that's sort of the main thing that I do now.

But I also play hip hop, I sometimes play in a Celtic band.

So I'm all over the map.

(gentle upbeat music) ♪ Sit down, love, sit down, love, yeah hey ♪ - Collaboration's definitely the center of my whole crafting process.

I have a lot of ideas and they're kind of these like, they're not very concrete, they're kind of just things in my head or things I want to hear.

And so it takes like other musicians to actually realize a lot of the ideas I have.

Or also maybe I see something in a musician whether it's Jordan, Saxsquatch, or Grayson, like I hear them play and then I kind of think, I'd like to hear them in this context.

So for me, I'd say my collaboration's kind of what drives my process.

It's a way to grow and a way to kind of morph who you are.

- This performance has to be a little more regimented and scripted because we've got these wonderful visuals that we're accompanying.

So that's, you know, now it's like, well we gotta stay on the train track a little tighter.

But other times we stretch a little more.

And even within the context of something where we're regimented in our timeframe, we still hold space to stretch in different ways and in different places.

- Also like the spontaneity of improvisation, like we generally play the same songs, but I don't think we've ever really played them the same twice.

And that's kind of another fun thing for us, keeps us all on our toes I guess.

- And it's not the goal to play it the same way twice.

- In fact, even today Jordan was telling The Lasso, "I like when you surprised me on this part."

- I think one of the key parts of our sound is like the combination of like electronic DJ aspects with live musicianship.

And that's something a lot of people I think have thought about.

And it's really takes like a certain kind of musician and a certain kind of practice to make it where it's like there's these electronic elements that are being on a grid, but then we're also free to like change it every time.

So this is probably the most progressive group I've ever been a part of in terms of combining those two things.

- I love riding that energy that's in the moment, whether it be in rehearsal or whether it be in a performance, obviously you feel it tenfold in the performance, but riding that energy, changing that energy, and then figuring out how that compares to other performances, I think I find a lot about myself in each performance.

And then sharing that experience with other people that are your friends and stuff, you all have created bonding experiences, and going through life with those experiences and those bonds is all that you really want in life.

So that's what I love about it.

(upbeat music) ♪ Falling down, running round, inner sound yeah ♪ ♪ Falling down, running round, inner sound ♪ ♪ Call around, sacred ground, lost and found yeah ♪ ♪ Call around, call around, call around yeah ♪ (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Falling down, running round, inner sound yeah ♪ ♪ Falling down, running round, inner sound ♪ ♪ Call around, sacred ground, lost and found yeah ♪ ♪ Call around, call around, call around yeah ♪ (upbeat music continues) (applause) - [Announcer] Support for "Kalamazoo Lively Arts" is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of Greater Kalamazoo.

(upbeat music)