(bright music) - [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.

(bright music) (logo swooshes) (bright music fades) - [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.

(bright music) I’m Zinta Aistars with art beat at WMUK, happy to be a part of Kalamazoo lively arts.

This is your life, Zinta Aistars.

How’s it feel?

It’s a part of my life, not all of it, but yeah, it’s a very interesting and enjoyable part.

Very nice you are now on the other side of the microphone as we learn a little bit about your story and what you do isn’t it really?

Yeah.

um well, good, because it’s well deserved and we wanna know about you your journey and of course, the art that you present.

In storytelling fashion over the radio, how did you get into this?

You know, I’ve sometimes asked myself that question because my background is as a writer, in English, that’s my degree, did not ever think about broadcasting.

And how I got into the WMUK studio was at that time I worked in communications at Kalamazoo College, and I was always bringing our most interesting guests to be interviewed, and I’d sit quietly in the corner and and watch and listen, and that was it, and then at some point somebody asked me would you like to sit on this side of the desk how that happened I’m not quite sure, but I thought okay and how am I going to learn all these buttons and all of that?

But, you know, it was fun.

So at some point, yeah, I went on the other side of the desk and at first, I was given about four minutes for a program called Arts and More with a partner.

She did four minutes.

I did about four minutes, and then a few years down from that, somebody asked if I would like to do an expanded show to a whole nine rich minutes, and it was called between the lines.

I would talk to authors anywhere in Michigan with a Michigan connection, and then that evolved into artbeat, where I was allowed to talk to all kinds of creative people, any kind of artists, not just authors, but then I shrank my my territory to more or less greater Kalamazoo, southwest Michigan.

Any lack of artists in your world?

Oh, goodness, no.

I actually thought it first, gosh, you know, if this is just this region here, how am I going to fill every single week?

And I find that you know, I’ve tried very hard not to repeat so everybody gets a chance.

I have had very few repeats over the years, um and only because they’ve done something really wonderful.

which all of them have.

But um I try to give everyone a chance at it.

I try to find people who maybe haven’t had much of a voice and give them one, uh but repeat no, Continuing on giving your guests a voice.

What do you look for?

What is the criteria for an artist to get on your show and to share their story?

Something unique, of course, that something interesting, something a little different than everybody else is doing, um or if they’re really gaining a lot of traction out there.

For instance, Bonnie Joe Campbell is a big name in the Kalamazoo area.

and getting to be a big name even nationwide, she’s won a lot of awards.

She’s one of the very few people that I’ve had as a repeat just because she’s had so much success.

And and her work is original, but I look for all kinds of different things.

I’ve had a 16 year old who does little pieces of jewelry.

I’ve done big national names because they’ve had a Kalamazoo connection with communine program that happens once a year with the portage public schools, where they have a national bestselling author come in and talk about usually a controversial book.

and those are always interesting.

Has there been a conversation that’s moved you?

Oh, many, many, one of the more recent ones that has been memorable to me, uh she was one of those communine authors authors for portage public schools, invited to come to Kalamazoo and speak to the community, but also with a focus on young people, and her name was R Ruta Sepetys and she was at partially Lithuanian.

My background is Latvian.

My parents came here as refugees from Latvia during World War II.

so our languages are very similar.

English was actually my second language and Lithuanian is is her language.

She’s got a lot of that ethnic background.

And when I read that book, it’s historical fiction, but it really touched me in that it also talked about Latvian refugees and I recognized experiences that my parents and grandparents had had, and it was all new to me because it talked about a ship that had gone down in the ocean bombed by the Soviets with refugees on it, and thousands of people died and I thought, why don’t I know about this?

And that was the gist of of that interview is why did so few of us know about this?

So you’ll have to listen to the interview to find out.

Well, of course, you, part of our public uh media, um um public radio family.

It’s wonderful.

Who is your audience?

Who’s out there listening to you?

You know, that’s always something that’s a wonderment for me.

It’s anybody out there hear me.

And then when I do go out in public, and it’s interesting that people don’t recognize my face, but I’ll be saying something to a friend and people will come up to me and I know your voice, and that’s always kind of fun and also a little spooky.

It’s like, okay, I have to be careful what I say in public.

um But um I think it’s it’s all ages and generations, you know, communing, like I said, is is teenagers.

um but older people as well.

So I think it’s a very broad range.

And because I cover a very broad range of creative mines out there, I think it’s a a big audience.

At least I certainly hope so.

They keep bringing me back.

Good.

Zinta, what is it about Kalamazoo that has brought art alive.

Oh my gosh, in a lot.

What’s in the water in Kalamazoo?

You know, I think a lot of people have tried to answer that.

I’m not sure with how much success.

It’s it’s a wonderful mystery in a way.

I I personally believe that it has a lot to do with the academic atmosphere that we have.

We’ve got Kalamazoo College.

We’ve got Western Michigan University.

We’ve got Kalamazoo community college.

You know, we’ve got all this and I think academia brings about a lot of curiosity, a lot of openness to be creative and and explore self-ex expression of all kinds.

But yeah, for some reason that I’m not sure I can identify.

We’ve got art galleries.

We’ve got bookstores, some some in some towns have closed their doors, but we’ve got bookstores that have been there for a long time and I’ve gone to library author readings for poetry and the place will be packed.

and who does that for poetry?

I mean, no offense to poets, but we can fill a room and I think that’s wonderful in Kalamazoo so yeah, I it’s the perfect place to do a show like this.

Act to storytelling and this art of radio.

uh no one has killed the radio star yet to put it lightly.

uh this medium, uh speaking to this microphone, talk to me about how that moves you, I trust, and and keeps you doing what you do.

Yeah, that is interesting.

Well, I certainly know that when I commuted more instead of doing a show from from home with chickens and dogs in the background, that radio was the way I got through those miles and those traffic jams.

That was a great time to listen.

I think it’s the variety.

I think it’s the local interest.

There are few sources for news these days that that have such a focus on what’s going on in our community.

um people like to learn about who’s living next door, what’s going on in town, and we can sometimes go into more depth than perhaps TV news where they do these quick sound bites.

We can get into it a little bit more.

There’s something, uh said for a driveway moment where we don’t want to leave a conversation with with uh with you.

uh Again, how important is it that you capture that attention without me seeing you?

Well, one of the things with nine minutes, it can be a while, but a lot of times I end up putting a lot of things on the editing floor.

We do post the complete interview as well so people can go online and listen to the longer version.

and I don’t know we don’t measure those hits, but I certainly hope that people bother because there’s a lot of great material that that ends up on the editing floor.

So if you really want to know about that artist, I I hope people do take the time.

Why support the arts?

Support the arts?

Are you serious?

Are you to me the arts are everything?

I grew up in a family of artists.

My my father was a Latvian painter.

Viestarts Aistars.

I miss him very much, passed away a few years ago.

um and I have rooms full of his paintings that I’m trying to get into the art world.

So for me, art is everything.

In my family, that was the thing that you pursued writers, painters, musicians.

They were all in my family.

I can’t imagine life without it.

I think of it also as therapy.

I’ve had several people on this show who also have a part of their career is in some psychological field and they will use it as therapy.

They will use it for grief.

They will use it for health issues.

I’ve had those kind of conversations with people.

I think it is a way for people to express themselves that they can’t in any other way.

Well, I’m glad we can bring you visually into our airwaves to talk about what you do behind the microphone so well.

Zinta, thank you for your time.

Thank you.

It’s been a pleasure.

People are gonna think I’m lying when I say classical.

They’re like, "eah, she’s not a classical girl.

Because the playlist I had on was, I think, called classical for 18th century villains, if that’s oh my gosh.

Dig deep there.

(Solemn classical music) I am ready to get into your life story, and certainly your art, a beautiful work you you’ve done.

were you an artist as a child?

So to speak, uh, I um would draw while I was supposed to be listening.

Well, I would be listening.

It’s easy for me to kind of hear things and draw at the same time, and to be honest, it kind of helped.

So yeah, I I actually ironically, I was a sculpture student when I was uh in school, and then when I got to college switched to two dimensional things and here we are now.

So you knew this was an art to follow academically.

Yeah, I had some stubbornness that I never let go from when I was a teenager where I knew at least the field that I wanted to go into, maybe not the specific niche one that I found.

but I knew it would be in the area of I get to make things for myself and for other people.

What was your college training?

I went to Western for a little while, started going for art education, but ended up starting to love drawing and illustrating So I transferred up to Kendall College up in Grand Rapids and went for medical illustration, which is why I’ve got a number of anatomical things in here and then graduated from there in 2016 and segueed from medical into more natural subject things.

So I’ve gotten to work with the nature center, different plant groups.

I’ve gotten to illustrate some scientific articles in journnals, publications, residencies and things like that.

Been very lucky so far.

Medical illustration to the plant and the animal.

What’s the what’s the segue there?

Accuracy?

The the middle vein of medical illustration is that it has to be vague enough to apply to everything, but uh specific enough to be accurate.

And so a lot of the natural subject things that I’ve gotten to do like this one or that one, they were for educational purposes or scientific purposes.

So accuracy was something critical to it.

and I mean, for me personally too, it is probably a cyclical thing.

I liked medical illustration because it demanded accuracy, so it just kept feeding itself.

Take us through the process of what we’re seeing right here with this uhanny?

nanny, yep, and a snowberry clear wing moth.

This piece is for a group called uh Kalamazoo wild ones, Wild ones is a national group, but they have a Kalamazoo chapter and they’re celebrating their 25th anniversary this year and they ask me to illustrate this to put on the garden signs that go into people’s gardens.

And so they picked two species.

This is a host plant for this species of moth.

so you would be able to see both of these if you waited long enough in in a yard in Michigan, and it’s g yeah, we’re handing out the signs next week.

this year is the 25th anniversary of the Kalamazoo chapter wild ones, so they’re a native plant, like resource and educator, so they provide seeds, they provide partially formed plants that you can put in your garden and they educate people on how to make more sustainable landscaping in uh domestic environments, like, you know, the most that a person can do with their own plot of land and their vice president um had attended a market that I was selling some of my prints and illustrations at, and me and her have been talking for the last year, and she really wanted me to do an illustration of a nannyberry bush and a snowberry clear wing moth, which to me looks like a little Pokémon.

I I teach colored pencil classes at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, just a few blocks from here.

and it’s, uh, like I said, it is one of the more like accessible materials.

like they’re they’re very easy to find.

They’re very easy to carry.

and uh, they’re somewhat easy to explain.

They kind of, you know, they are what they are.

It’s a pencil.

I have found that I favor certain grays, and I can show you when I do this leaf on this piece here, that to get all of the shadows in here, to make it look like a green leaf, I have to layer a bunch of colors underneath the green to make it look like a darker green or a brighter green or yellow green.

So, I have um a pretty set formula of which grays and which browns I put down to get these tones, and you can kind of see it consistently through most of these, is that there’s about, let’s see it.

there’s like nine to ten different pencils that get used in an area like this and I do that pretty consistently throughout all of them.

So I’ve found my favorite green palate.

I’m a very detailed oriented person when it comes to my illustrations, and there uh is a level of control that I can get with these very sharp pencils that, you know, cover space a square millimeter at a time that makes it so I can get in the level of detail that I want and find the kind of vibrancy that I want to in the colors with how much I can layer them.

that would be um a little more delayed with certain other materials, things that, you know, take more mixing or maintenance or patience, like, I don’t have to wait for my colored pencils to drive, so.

It’s detail oriented.

Kept my pencils very sharp for that one.

How often do you have to sharpen them?

Super often.

Yeah,look look at this.

This is these are all of the this is from this and like one other project.

full of f pencil shaving.

I have photo references for everything.

I can’t pull this out of my head necessarily.

I’ve drawn so many leaves that I probably could from scratch if I was given enough time.

But I work from multiple images and make a composite of them.

So this one is made of probably one, two, three, four, five, six, nine different photos, and it’s my job to, you know, make it look like one image, same with that one, that one’s made from tons of different photos.

Is it okay to, like, have a coloring book I see you have in your hand?

What’s going on here?

Yes, so here, you can look through this, if you would like.

Yes.

so me and the vice president of Kalamazoo Wild ones, you know, she’s plant enthusiast, insect enthusiast, art enthusiasts, and I met her at a show where I was showing my things and she asked me to do this, but we’ve gotten to collaborate on a couple of other things so far.

In August, I got to participate in Pleasant Peninsula up in Grand Rapids, which is art meets activism organized by Maddie Chaffer.

They’re fantastic.

And for that event, I designed this coloring book that features Michigan native plants.

So here are the original drawings for it.

Scanned them, turned them into a coloring book, handed out coloring pages to kids.

and uh the part that I was really excited about, which is where the collaboration with wild ones came in, is that each coloring book comes with packets of seeds to grow the plants that are in the coloring book, so you get something for yourself and then you get something that keeps producing as well.

So that was a really fun project to do.

And I think we’re gonna keep building on it.

I’ll keep doing more, I’ll keep making larger and larger books until it’s this thick, because you probably to get there, you probably should start by just coloring, right?

It’s good practice.

How does your art work?

Are we in a small studio with music in the background?

Yes, we are.. Or, uh the same movies that I’ve been watching over and over again or, um music playing.

I have a lot of other artist friends in the neighborhood as well, so we’ll do little coworking things too.

I’ve got two desks in here, so sometimes someone will be here and I’ll be here or someone will be on the floor.

The music, you know, in your background, rock and roll, calming music, uh what what moves Olivia?

It varies.

um while I was working on this one, I had a lot of the details to focus on.

I listened to a lot of classical music, which um was maybe because I was raised on Looney tunes and then, you know, and Mel Blanc was obsessed with classical music, so I loved it as a kid, I love it now.

and if I’m not listening to kind of calming music, um, I have a lot of movies that I watch over and over again.

I’ve watched the extended editions of Lord of the Rings probably 500 times because it’s 12 hours long, so it can accommodate how long I’m working on a piece for it.

It’s what we like to get right into the real you.

And how important is is it in camaraderie with artists?

Obviously, you know, it’s very encouraging.

Is it encouraging you more competitive?

I would say that I have not had a lot of competitive situations.

I think that there’s also such a variety of artists in Kalamazoo that we don’t really find ourselves, you know, like fighting for the same thing ever.

I’ve never I mean not in my experience.

I’ve never fought with anybody.

There have been multiple times where someone has asked me or someone has asked a friend if they could do something that felt a little out outside of their realm, but they knew another artist that it would be fitting for.

So it’s all very uplifting.

Like, if there’s something that someone tells me they need an artist for, but it’s not something I do.

I know a couple other artists that they could ask, and so we all kind of just trade these opportunities and gigs and things like that.

Reach behind you and bring out the dog.

Tell me about This is Frankie Partially finished.

I do a lot of pet portraits close to the holidays.

I’ve been teaching a pet portrait and animal illustration class at the Art Institute a couple times this year, so he’s been serving very well as an example of how to do certain things with fur or with the very odd shape of what a dog knows is.

It is an odd shape, I guess I’s like a mushroom kind of cross section.

What about uh the work you do outside of your studio?

I understand a wonderful mural in.

so there is a shop that just opened downtown Kalamazoo on the mall.

charters guitars.

I think it’s described as a Luthier.

He does a lot of woodworking, he refurbishes guitars, he makes them from scratch.

He’s a musician himself, and his space downtown, one wall is completely lined with guitars that he’s made, and the other wall across from that is a mural that is very close to being done, and the intercession that I found between what I typically do and what he does, the mural features trees that produce the wood that he makes the guitars out of.

So one part of it is mahogany, one part of it’s wild cherry, sugar maple, and black walnut.

And talk about the KIA and the mural and Kalamazoo and lots of opportunities for an artist.

More and more, I’m finding, and I don’t think it’s just because I’m, you know, trying harder and harder each year.

I think that the general attitude of artists in Kalamazoo has become we’ll make our own opportunities or will find more ways to give the rest of the community opportunities.

the arts Council in Kalamazoo is fantastic and they’re getting more and more accessible as time goes on.

The KIA constantly has programs and they offer scholarships too, so I’m I appreciate the accessibility there as well.

There’s a number of other, you know, groups, collectives in Kalamazoo that keep popping up over the years.

Starlight collective, uh recreation collective cloudhouse.

Those are all in the park trade center, which is a nice little hub for a bunch of creatives to all be under one roof.

Kalamazoo is a very dense place, and by that, I mean, it’s very close knit.

You can get from one side of town to the other pretty quickly, so it’s easy to find each other in that way.

Everybody knows each other, most of the people that I know I met just through proximity, either, you know, being at a show, being at and being in school, being in an artist event, and those friendships and um acquaint ships they really last a long time because we’re all so close together, which is nice.

Where’s the picture of the cat?

Oh, my cat?

your cat.

Not yet, not so far, but it would be a good idea, wouldn’t it?

now that we’ve redone the living room.

I should get one big one to have right next to the front door, so everybody knows whose house it is when they want.

You gotta have that buddy.

congratulations on what you’re doing.

Thank you.

(bright music) Thank you so much for watching.

There’s also more to explore with Kalamazoo lively arts on YouTube, Instagram and wgvu.org.

We’ll see you next time.

Support for Kalamazoo lively arts is provided by the Irvine S. Gilmore foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

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