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

- [Kim] On this episode of Kalamazoo Lively Arts, we take a stroll at Art on the Mall and learn to have the confidence of a rock star, awareness of endangered Michigan livestock, and sustainability practices.

Ethan McDonald with the Kalamazoo Valley Scottish Society focuses on education and fostering a sense of kinship for anyone who is interested in Scottish culture and history.

But first, Reverend Millard Southern with the Allen Chapel AME Church celebrates cultural diversity with a community jazz program featuring the Baylor Project.

Well, today I'm talking with Reverend Millard Southern who's the senior pastor of one of the oldest churches in Kalamazoo, the oldest black church in Kalamazoo.

It's Alan Chapel AME.

It's a church on Kalamazoo's north side.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Thank you for having me.

- Well, you know, I wanted to talk to you about the importance of partnerships and also introducing jazz to young people, because recently you did just that.

Tell me a little bit about how you came to kind of collaborate with United Methodist Church, which is a white church.

Your church is a predominantly black church.

These partnerships are so important, especially now.

- As pastor of Allen Chapel AME Church, I believe that collaboration and working with other churches and community leaders and organizations is vitally important.

It helps our community to grow.

It sustains and builds relationships, and we need that.

We need to stay in dialogue.

We need to stay in communication about the issues that affect us and our world today.

And so, as pastor, my mission is to continue to build relationships across racial, cultural, and ethnic lines so that we can grow to together as a community much stronger than what we've been.

So I had an idea to collaborate with First United Methodist Church located in downtown Kalamazoo, to come together and to have a community jazz program.

And the interesting thing about jazz music is that it brings the community together.

And if there's anything that we need in this day and time is to bring the community together.

And so on March 19th, it was a celebration of community.

It was a celebration of cultural diversity through music, through an art form known as jazz music.

And one of the things I like about jazz music is that it embodies a lot of things about our culture.

Jazz music is about improvisation.

It's about finding your voice.

It's about giving people the creative space to express who they are.

And so on March 19th, we had a wonderful opportunity to hear the Baylor Project, and the Baylor Project combines jazz and gospel and soul.

But at the end of the day, after leaving the concert, you are inspired to go back to your own communities to be stronger.

(jazz ensemble playing) - The Baylor Project, I mean, they were nominated, what, for Grammys I think.

Six times they received the NAACP Image Award.

How did you come to know them?

I mean, do you play an instrument as well?

- Sure, I play the trumpet, I love jazz music.

I'm also a writer, and I'm finishing my book on jazz music and American democracy.

But I lived in New York City, and one of the things about New York City is they have this community of jazz musicians where you get to know each other.

So I befriended the Baylors, and throughout our relationship, you know, we would strengthen each other through the music.

And so when I became pastor here, I thought of an idea of bringing them to Kalamazoo so they could help us celebrate who we are through an art form known as jazz music.

- And what do you believe, when you think about art and music together, what do you think art and music bring to the community of Kalamazoo?

I mean, especially in the state of the world that we're in now.

- I'm glad you asked that question.

Most importantly, our young people need more opportunities for art and music.

We need more creative spaces where we can think outside the box, and art and music allows us to do that.

We need art and music because it teaches us about the history of our country, about how we have come through great struggles but we've been resilient in the process of doing that.

And so it invites young people to come into creative spaces so that they can learn and grow and be inspired.

And I think that's what the city of Kalamazoo needs, more opportunities for our young people to engage in art and music.

- And Reverend, in the past, I mean, this was kind of a role that the church played.

It's like you're bringing it back.

- Oh yes, especially in a black church, music is very important, it uplifts the spirit.

You know, the power and the beauty of music in the black church is what has allowed us to survive.

From the early slave spirituals, through the gospel songs of civil rights, even gospel, hip hop nowadays.

Music is vitally important and essential.

- You know, you've been here for almost three years.

What's next?

I mean, where are you trying to take your ministry?

- Well, I wanna continue to engage the community of the north side of Kalamazoo.

There are a lot of issues that we're facing, social, cultural, political, and spiritual.

And my desires to continue to work with city officials and state legislators so that we can address systemic problems of evil in our community.

Our young people need leaders to step up.

Our young people need voices to rise up and to condemn injustices and evil in our community.

And so I want to continue to work with organizations and foster a sense of commitment to addressing those issues in our community.

(jazz ensemble playing) - Well, I make a mean peach cobbler.

I know you were looking for one of those.

I saw it on social media.

I may have to figure out a way to get one to you.

- Oh, that's my favorite, that's my favorite.

- But Reverend Miller, I wanted to just thank you so much for talking with me here today and for spreading all the good that you're spreading in Kalamazoo.

It's so appreciated and needed.

- Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you.

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - Hi everyone, I'm Kylie Ambu, and we're here at Art on the Mall in Kalamazoo where they have everything from macrame to music to jewelry, you name it, these talented artists have brought it.

and we're talking with a few of them about what makes their craft so unique, let's go.

(gentle music) I'm here with Veronica with Rockstar Earrings, and these are some rockstar earrings right here.

Can you talk with me a bit about your craft?

- Yes, absolutely.

So I started my business in 2020 during quarantine, and I started my business to help me through college.

I was about to transfer over to Grand Valley.

And so I started off doing basic jewelry here and there, and then I found a passion for beading.

So I do a lot of work with bead embroidery, brick stitch, and polymer clay.

Wonderful, and that's quite the hobby to pick up while you're in school.

And we do love that you're a GVSU grad, go Lakers.

- Go Lakers.

- So you really haven't been in the industry that long.

How does it feel to be out with all these artists today?

- It feels amazing.

There are some people who have been at this for decades, and then there are people like me who have only been doing this for a couple years.

So it's a great variety of artists and different experiences here.

- Absolutely, talking with some of the artists, it's been great to find out how they express themself through their medium.

What do you hope people take away from your booth?

I hope people see my jewelry and are able to see themselves wearing it and able to feel confident while wearing my jewelry.

I named my business Rockstar Earrings because I want every wearer of my jewelry to have the confidence of a rockstar and to feel beautiful.

- Well, I love the setup of your booth.

It's very colorful, and we've got the pride flags out.

I know you're an LGBTQ artist, so can you talk with me about how you really express yourself and really any advice you would give to people who see you as representation in the arts?

- Yeah, I love expressing myself through different styles of my artwork, and I would just tell people to not be afraid to express who you are, to always have the confidence of a rockstar, and just be proud.

- Perfect, you heard it first.

Be a rockstar here at Rockstar Earrings.

Thanks so much, Veronica.

- Thank you.

(gentle music) - Well, we're here in a tent with the art of Anna Barnhart.

So talk with me a bit, I love that it rhymes, but about this amazing painting that you have going on.

Sure, and thanks for coming in today, it's toasty.

I love painting and goop.

I actually have a two year degree in animation, but I found out that I need texture on my hands.

I need to do something with my hands, and so traditional artwork is you can make all sorts of adventures, whether you go out in the country and paint or take pictures and invent different paths for yourself.

So I need texture, and as you can see, I like really strong texture, which the fancy art word is in pasto or in pasto.

Think about pasta and the texture, and I paint mostly in acrylics, so I have a lot of versatility when it comes to that and layering and even embedding things, which I don't do too much of yet.

- Wonderful, well, even looking at the artwork that you have, it's clear that some, you know, tell really powerful stories.

Look at behind you here.

What was going through your mind when you painted this piece, for instance?

- This one, so I did not take this picture myself.

This is from the Michigan Livestock Conservancy, their Facebook page, and I got their permission to paint this one.

They highlight either endangered or dying out breeds of livestock.

And I loved the composition the photographer had, but also highlighting a winter farm chore that we normally do not think about as being pretty.

And I've done other ones with a tractor in the really bright blue winter, but that one, just the distance of it, yellow skies that aren't blue, and then farm chores in the winter with this little boy with these Devon milking cows.

So I got the permission to paint that one, and I hope that brings awareness both to their cause as well, but also just farms.

And it's science, honestly, the science behind the stories of particular Michigan nature, although that one might've been Kentucky, I'm not sure.

- That's all right, for right now we'll say Michigan.

- It's a Michigan farm.

There's plenty of other farms and cows, and lots of livestock in Michigan needs just same amount of awareness.

- Absolutely, and when you talk about, you know raising awareness, art can do so much, it can, you know talk about really difficult issues, it can bring out emotions.

What do you hope people experience when they come into this booth?

- Ooh, I love it when people have a gut reaction to like one painting, like something catches their eye, whether it's the color combination or usually the texture draws them first, but something they'll fall in love with they just have to go home with, which of course helps me out.

- [Katie] Absolutely.

- [Anna] So that particularly, this art right here is so abstract.

Some of it may not have a story to tell but they connect with it in a heart way or there's a subject that sticks out to them as a gift for somebody else that they usually have a story in mind themselves at that point.

- Absolutely, well it definitely connected with me today.

Thank you so much for chatting with me, Anna.

- Nice to meet you.

(gentle music) - We are here with Cameron from Kalamazoo Candle Company, and we have a sea of colors.

What is going on here?

- So this is pre-granulated, pre-scented soy wax.

It's a soy paraffin blend because soy doesn't actually get this small by itself, but it's scented so that way, these are like different scents in our store.

Some of them have been discontinued, like salted grapefruit, but people will fill up a jar, one of these, with the desired fragrances that they want, and then they can use the little stick to make designs with it.

Like this is one of our example drawers.

- Oh, that's beautiful.

- Yeah, it's really fun.

I've honestly spent so much time making these candles.

But yeah, so they're all different scents.

We'll try and like pull other scents sometimes.

It's really good community for little kids especially 'cause they have liquid candle weight making, so it's really fun.

- Wonderful, oh, if I was a kid I would love to just play with all the colors, take the scoops out, and fill my cup to the brim.

- It's kind of, like it's kind of funny, for kids under two, the cup of a shape, you know, shape of a cup, I mean, they wanna drink it.

So you have to remind them to pour it and not drink.

- [Katie] Yeah, not food, folks, not food.

- [Cameron] It's really fun because, you know, it's pretty much like, I'm 20 years old, but people who are, you know, like 26 and plus who love doing it and then people who are younger than me love doing it.

So it's for everybody, which is really fun.

- Wonderful, and it smells amazing.

But the big thing, 'cause you are not an independent artist, you're with Kalamazoo Candle Company, and the name of the game is sustainability over there, right?

Can you talk with me a bit about that?

- So it's really, really awesome.

That's why I love working there.

Big reason I started working there is 'cause their sustainability message.

So we reuse pretty much any cardboard that touches our store, we reuse as much as possible.

If we can't reuse it, it goes into shipping.

Like we shred it up for shipping, but as much as we can reuse our cardboard, we use all of our leftover wax for a leftover candle.

We layer them in a jar so we don't waste leftover wax.

This here, when we scent our candles, we don't use like essential oils only.

So we use a blend of natural, synthetic, and essential oils.

So we like get our candle scents made for us so that way we don't take away from food or medication production.

And then, you know, we're not producing product just to make candle scents.

So it's really cool.

- [Katie] Absolutely, and do you feel like, you know, being environmentally conscious and also sustainability, do you feel like that goes hand in hand with, you know, modern day artwork?

- Yeah, I think in order to be an artist today, you have to understand the political and social like environment of like what the earth and what's going on in the earth today, and you have to like try and find ways to sustainably, you know, maintain your art, you know, make your art.

So it's like clay workers can try and reuse all their extra clay, or you know, artists try and make natural paint and stuff like that.

Like that's such a big thing.

And Adam, the owner, he's such, like anything in his life, he's like, how can I reuse this or like make this work for me long term.

And that creates such a sustainable message for our entire brand.

Like I started picking that up in my everyday life, you know, so that's cool.

- Wonderful, well thanks so much for sharing that with us, Cameron, and thanks for chatting today, absolutely.

(upbeat music) - Well, today I'm talking with Ethan L McDonald from the Kalamazoo Valley Scottish Society.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Thank you for having me.

- You know, it was so much fun researching you, and you have initials after your name.

What is it, FSA Scot.

So tell me first what that means.

- That is Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

It's an academic fellowship for Scottish historians.

- And you have a motto, the society has a motto.

What is that?

- We carry on the Scottish pioneer spirit by fostering education and kinship.

- And how does that look, how does that look in reality?

- So it's a mix.

So traditional Scottish societies, a lot of them have always been social things and they've done educational programming, and we're kind of flipped on that.

We like to foster social events, but we also like education.

I mean, public education is what we're about because if we don't educate about our culture, especially to younger generations, the culture dies out.

And I know that's weird coming from a younger person, but that's kind of my point is, you know, we have a good mix of people from the ages of like 80 down to 15 in our group right now.

And by doing certain educational events and making educational events fun, we are able to promote kinship, be it among all peoples of different backgrounds, but especially our Scottish Americans that are in our group.

And we welcome anybody who's interested in the culture too, but for us that means monthly outings that are just casual social affairs, just going out to dinner, and then things like supporting our Kalamazoo Scottish country dancers which meet weekly, and we have a lot of fun dancing.

I've been dancing since I was a kid, and I mean, anybody can do it, but it's things like that where it's like you're learning something but you're having fun doing it.

And then we also do do workshops and educational talks like that, so.

- When did your love for your heritage and your history happen, when did it begin?

- Pretty much my whole life.

I've been a history nerd since I can remember, and I've continued onto it.

And I guess the good thing is I've kept it both my, I've been able to make it both my occupation and my passion at the same time.

So you know what they say, if you don't love what you're doing, why do it, you know?

- Yeah, yeah, right, right.

And you've kind of become an expert in a way.

You might be able to tell me this, when did the Scots settle in Kalamazoo River Valley?

- So in the valley itself, most of them came in the 1820s and 30s.

However, we've had Scots in Michigan since the early 1700s.

The first Scot we have was recorded on the rolls at Fort Pontchartrain which would become Fort Detroit.

- And the thing about the Kalamazoo Valley Scottish Society is that you do, you support a lot of these other groups like the Kalamazoo Scottish country dancers.

Tell me a little bit about them.

- Yeah, so Scottish Country dancing is basically the, it is refined in a way, but it's also a lot of fun.

Scottish country dancing came to the United States, and that's what square dancing came out of.

It's very similar.

If you looked at it, you'd think people were square dancing.

And it's a lot of fun.

We have some people whose kids come and we have people who are in their 80s that are dancing still.

And I mean, people credit to a long life.

You know, it's a good workout, but it's a lot of fun too.

And it's social, and it's a social and it's a ballroom thing.

And we go out to balls and things like that in different parts of the state and outta state and do these big dances with, you know, hundreds of people and it's a lot of fun.

Everything we do is open to the public.

Our dinner groups, we post everything on our Facebook page which is at Kalamazoo Valley Scots.

- Why is it so important for you to be able to share this with other people?

- In many ways it's a sense of belonging.

Not trying to get too deep or philosophical there, but it's a good community to have.

I mean, a lot of, back in Scotland, people have their clans, and here they're to a lesser extent, the clans are very present.

I mean, the clan societies are huge.

You go to any Scottish festival or Highland games, you will see dozens of tents from every, you know, from all these different Scottish clan societies and other organizations and things like that.

People have that, but you know, this is not about that.

This is about, we're all Scots or we're all interested in the culture, and so we can all get together and we can all promote it, which means it's not just there for any one group.

It's there for all of the various groups and facets.

- Now in reading about this and researching it, what is, if you had to describe like Highlands culture to me, what does that look like?

- It's very familial based.

Everybody is treated like family.

We don't care what you are.

Once you're with us, you're a Scot now, you know, so that's why it's like, that's why we love, you know, people coming because we are totally okay with people adopting the culture and learning it.

There's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

- You know, you send along a picture of the KVSS shield, I think that's what it's called, right?

- Yeah, it's a coat of arms, yeah.

- Tell me a little bit about how that was created.

It's beautiful, it's so beautiful.

- A shield is a personal emblem, but it can also represent an organization.

And basically what it is is it represents the water for the Kalamazoo River Valley in base.

And then there's what's called a garb.

A garb is usually a bundle of wheat that is tied together.

It can also be corn.

I think we have a large agricultural base in southwest Michigan, nobody can deny that.

So we have the sheaths of wheat are interlaced with thistles.

So it's just a symbolic, you know, gathering together of multiple people, multiple backgrounds brought together in our valley.

- I mean, there's so many things to talk about when you talk about Scottish culture, and we probably couldn't talk about it without talking about dancing.

How did dancing weave itself into Scottish culture?

- There's two different kinds of dancing.

There's the Scottish country dancing, and sometimes people call it Kaylee dancing.

Then you have what's called highland dancing.

Highland dancing is usually an individual dance, or there's, you know, a few people doing it together but they're each doing the same dance.

They're not really interacting as much, but each dance tells a story.

For example, there's one dance that a lot of people know.

People call it the sword dance.

It's really called Gilly Callum, and it is done over a pair of crossed swords or a sword crossed with a scabbard.

Gilly Callum, you know, before he went into battle, put his sword down on the ground with his scabbard and decided to dance over it.

And if he touched the blades with his foot, you know, he knew he was gonna die, and you know, he was gonna fall in battle.

The other version of that is he won his fight, he won his dual, and he crossed his and his enemy's sword together and danced over it in celebration.

And so you have things like that that have these really rich stories and lore to them.

- [Kim] I'll tell you what, researching, interviewing you, and talking to you, it makes me put Scotland on my bucket list.

- [Ethan] It's beautiful, it's worth it.

- Well, it's a beautiful country.

Ethan, thank you so much for talking with me today and sharing a little bit about your culture.

It's been fascinating learning.

- Thank you for having us.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] 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)