>> I saw the parallel between the hubris of Ahab and the peril of America and the globe, as we're tempting the gods with continued fossil fuel extraction.

>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio, as painter Christopher Volpe shows us, Moby-Dick is very much a tale for our time.

>> My eyes, I want them blue.

>> BOWEN: Plus Toni Morrison's debut novel The Bluest Eye comes to life courtesy of playwright Lydia Diamond.

>> She's internalized all that society has told us we're rewarded for.

>> BOWEN: It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ First up, we are a nation that just can't quit Moby-Dick.

In a new series of paintings at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, painter Christopher Volpe shows us why.

He explores how Herman Melville's dark whale tale charted a course to today.

The cobblestone streets still invite clatter.

Lamps continue to light the way, and clapboard buildings beckon as they always have.

This is the New Bedford from whence Herman Melville launched Moby-Dick.

>> It's a New England tale.

He talks about the damp, drizzly November of his soul.

There's always been a darker side to American art and literature, particularly in New England.

>> BOWEN: People still gather here every year in person or virtually for a marathon reading of the novel.

This year actor Sam Waterston was Ishmael.

>> Why, upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you feel yourself such a mystical vibration when first told that you, and your ship, are now out of sight of land?

>> I think you can see Moby-Dick as a portrait of America, and our worst impulses, and where they will take us if we don't rein them in.

>> BOWEN: Artist Christopher Volpe has painted a series of works that seemingly tear out of the novel's pages.

They're now on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, in an exhibition named after Moby-Dick's first chapter.

>> The title is "Loomings," and it seemed an appropriate one for a... what's looming on the horizon.

You know, just the sense of, a sense of foreboding, hints that we're getting, hints of apocalypse.

>> BOWEN: Apocalyptic darkness swirls in these paintings as Volpe charts Melville's course from the 19th century to the 21st, when the world's reliance on whale oil eventually gave way to petroleum.

>> I saw the parallel between the hubris of Ahab and the peril of America and the globe, as we're tempting the gods with continued fossil fuel extraction.

>> BOWEN: So what we find here-- these dark, ghostly images of ship, storm, and belching smoke, are rendered not in black paint, but tar.

>> Both of these paintings started as fields of tar.

There's a couple of different ways that I can approach a painting.

One way is to just grab a big brush, and just begin making lines, making shapes, gestures.

The other is a subtractive method, sort of the opposite, where I'll coat a whole canvas with tar, and then go in and remove tar with rags, and look for the shapes within there.

>> BOWEN: And all while wearing a gas mask.

>> I have to wear a respirator, because it's pretty toxic.

>> BOWEN: Pretty great symbolism in the fact that you have to wear a mask as you're painting.

>> Yeah, yeah, and it's... there's a great quote: art recycles the culture's toxins.

And literally I'm doing that, I'm taking this poisonous gunk, which wants to pull us down into dissolution and death, and I'm trying to invest it with beauty.

>> BOWEN: In college, Volpe was a poetry major who arrived at painting by way of his love for 19th century landscapes, for all their beauty.

>> But that became problematic when I realized that, you know, nature is on the run.

I fell into what the poet Shelley said, that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

>> These paintings are like poetry, right, they have a meter.

They have a moment that you kind of, you can move through and interpret.

>> BOWEN: Naomi Slipp is the museum's chief curator.

She says by design, we find Volpe's paintings in a gallery that looks out beyond the city's historic streets, to a waterfront that once floated a whaling industry, and now a thriving fishing one.

>> And you see the docks and the ships and the kind of activity of the waterfront as it continues.

And then you can come into the exhibition spaces and hopefully find exhibits like Christopher's that speak to the larger challenges of addressing global warming, ocean warming, and marine mammal health.

>> BOWEN: It's a conversation that Herman Melville launched in 1851.

And says, Christopher Volpe, in his work, he's realized it's time we shape up, or ship out.

>> Maybe it's time for a new kind of beauty, a beauty that doesn't sugar coat the darker side of reality.

But redeems it somehow, by making it visible, and yet not repugnant, and allows us to see things we wouldn't ordinarily see, and to be able to deal with them in ways that maybe we haven't yet.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Next, another novel that continues to captivate readers is The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

Published in 1970, it's about a young Black girl who believes if she only had blue eyes, the world would be a vastly different place.

An adaptation is now on stage at the Huntington Theatre Company.

I'll speak with playwright Lydia Diamond in a moment, but first, here's a look.

>> ♪ Run, Mary, run!

♪ >> ♪ Hold on!

♪ >> ♪ Run, Mary, run!

♪ >> ♪ Hold on!

♪ ♪ You've gotta write to the tree of life ♪ >> ♪ You've gotta write to the tree of life ♪ >> ♪ You've gotta write to the tree of life ♪ >> BOWEN: Lydia Diamond, playwright of The Bluest Eye, thank you so much for being with us.

>> It's lovely to be here, thank you for having me.

>> BOWEN: Well, to start, tell us what The Bluest Eye is, the concept that we find, what this young woman is striving for.

>> It's Toni Morrison's first novel.

It's a beautiful novel, and it's the story of Pecola Breedlove, who wishes to have blue eyes.

Really, she's internalized all that society has told us we're rewarded for, and aspires to be something other than herself.

>> My eyes, I want them blue.

I want them blue, so people won't turn away from me when I walk down the street.

So I can go to school, so my stomach stop growing, and my baby be strong.

I want them blue, so my mama loves me, and I have friends and they think I'm pretty.

I want them blue, so people won't do ugly things in front of me, and I stop being invisible.

>> BOWEN: It's heartbreaking.

You hear the variations of the word ugly throughout this work.

And as you were writing this piece, what does ugliness represent?

>> Well, you know, there's the ugliness of the world that assaults her in so many ways, a world that is dysfunctional.

And, again, I think at the heart of it, because of racism, and particularly in 1940s Lorain, Ohio, which is also where Toni Morrison grew up.

But there is a way that she... that this poor girl is considered ugly for the color of her skin and for her poverty.

And, and so you do hear ugly over and over again, and there is a lot of ugly in this very lyrical and beautiful play.

>> BOWEN: As you were writing this, how... is it distinct to get into the voices, to get into the heads of children?

>> It's liberating.

I was asked, I initially was tasked by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago to write a play that would be 90 minutes based on The Bluest Eye, for young people, who would then be brought in, theater for young audiences.

And the task of needing to distill a story that would land with a young audience in a way that wasn't about-- this is a story about the dysfunction of Black people.

That this is a story about hope, and joy and the tragedy of a young girl.

Distilling the voice of children, you know, Toni Morrison did that for me, and what I had to do was figure out how to channel Toni Morrison to honor the novel.

And the fact that it did have to be sort of a tight storytelling made me have to have an economy of language that suits, I think, the rhythm and the cadence of young people.

>> BOWEN: Well, it's interesting to look at it, too, because they certainly don't come off as young people.

I guess, given the experiences they've had in the world, they've aged beyond, I think, so many people.

>> It's true these, these young Black girls who've grown up in a world that tells them that they can't even walk through a park or drink in the same fountain, do have a certain wisdom, I suppose, that you have to have to navigate a hostile environment.

But I also think that they're sort of full of delight, love and, you know, they say things like, "What are we going to play today?

"I don't want to go, you know, thread needles for the old blind lady, I don't want to go..." So, I think that we also get to see them still be girls.

>> Pecola, look at this!

>> Polly, come here!

>> I think this is about the prettiest pie I've ever seen.

>> Me too!

Mrs. Breedlove don't make things like this for us.

>> I think it's still hot.

>> Polly!

(pie pan clanging) >> BOWEN: Let's talk about the writing.

I mean, here you have Toni Morrison's debut novel.

She wasn't, as I understand, very free with adaptations.

But here you were given the liberty, the privilege of the adaptation.

How was that responsibility?

>> It was hefty and, and it was actually only intended for this, this one production.

It was supposed to just be in this one venue.

And I got a call on Christmas morning.

You know, it did well, it sold out.

People loved it, we went to New York.

We took it to the New Vic in New York, and I got a call on Christmas that Toni Morrison had given it her blessing to be in the world.

That was amazing, I, you know, just amazing, and yes, the weight of needing to get it right... (dog barking in background) I think, ultimately, helped me, and I think it took a second to sort of settle into it and say, "Okay, I've read this book a thousand times now.

"I know this language, and this world, release and tell the story."

I think that's what will honor Toni most.

And that's what I tried to do.

>> BOWEN: So how do you as the playwright, where does Lydia Diamond exist in the play versus Toni Morrison in the play?

>> It's so funny about adaptations, right?

This is the only adaptation I've done that is truly an adaptation and not a work inspired by another work.

And so I'm going to be very humble, and say I got out of the way.

Pecola didn't have a voice as much in the book, so I did write some monologues that I think are quite beautiful for her.

But where I start-- no, I'll say where Toni starts, and I inject myself, I think, if I've done my work, it's very fluid.

>> BOWEN: Made me wonder how you capture someone else's when you have a very distinct voice yourself.

What's the process of capturing somebody else's rhythm, and language, and prose?

>> That's a really good question.

Um, you know, I've heard August Wilson in interviews talk about that the... that, you know, the voices kind of talk to you, and it's true.

But I do think that there's a surrendering to a voice and a rhythm that you sort of give over to, and it does the work itself.

But also, I used lots of Toni's words.

Her language is a centerpiece.

>> BOWEN: Well, I wonder what it's like, that you wrote this piece about 16 years ago, and to give it the full consideration, you're giving it again as you're asked questions like these, with the Huntington Theater Company production because obviously you've changed in 16 years, the world has changed, so how do you look at the... do you look at the piece differently?

>> I am always shocked and a little bit sad that my work that often lives around the intersections of race and class... every production I've ever had for 20 years, the interview begins with, or the review begins with, "This could not be a more timely time, a more timely moment for this play."

And that saddens me, you know.

It saddens me that we'll see it and there's relevance.

I got a letter yesterday from a woman whose town is, is not letting The Bluest Eye be taught in schools.

I got that letter just last night, and so, I have an interesting relationship to what it means to be this far out, and I can only imagine for Toni Morrison, that she wrote it so much longer ago and it stayed relevant and is something that people love and find and see themselves in is both beautiful and heartbreaking.

I'm a little proud of it, but I...

I lose myself in it, and I cry every time and I laugh at things that are funny and I'm moved.

It's a powerful, powerful story.

>> BOWEN: Well, Lydia Diamond, it is always great to be with you.

We heard your little puppy there for a little while.

Very envious.

I'm dog-deprived.

>> I got a COVID puppy.

(both laugh) I love her and she's a lot.

>> BOWEN (laughing): Well, thank you again for being here.

>> Thank you.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Chocolate is on the menu in Arts This Week.

As always, our calendar has the cultural events you won't want to miss.

Sunday, Chinatown celebrates the Lunar New Year with a host of events, including calligraphy lessons, dance, and the annual parade.

See how Frida Kahlo saw herself Tuesday.

Three self-portraits visit the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.

View them alongside photographs by her father and lover.

Thursday, get a taste of the Somerville Museum's exhibition "Bittersweet."

Curated by artists José Falconi and Santiago Montoya, it reimagines El Dorado as the lost city of chocolate.

The Boston Modern Orchestra Project performs "Pulling Out All the Stops" for free on Friday at Symphony Hall-- the organization's first live performance in two years.

Saturday, Arts Worcester presents artist Tracy Spadafora's exhibition "Left Behind."

She explores corrosion and decay in today's society.

When the pandemic brought the world to a standstill, choreographer Susan Van Pelt Petry lunged into action, literally.

She explored how the pandemic changed our relationship with the physical world.

From connecting on Zoom to having to distance ourselves from each other, she turned out 19 dances about living through COVID.

>> Well, we were doing our last travel that I can remember in March, spring break down to Wilmington, North Carolina.

And all this was starting to implode.

And on the way back, kind of the news came out that all the students had to stay home, go home.

That we were gonna teach from school-- from home, et cetera.

So, that all was overwhelming, and I think disorienting for everybody.

And part of my practice as an artist, I think my instinct at that point was to make lemonade, right?

To do something out of this time that felt so confusing, and unprecedented, the most used word of 2020.

So I, I sat down, and the word "COVID-19" was everywhere.

So, I decided to make 19 videos, 19 pieces.

And just tried to make something of this time.

♪ ♪ Well, right away, in my 19 ChOreoVIDs notebook, which this is, I wrote-- I brainstormed a list of 19 possible topics or themes.

You know, and it was pretty easy to quickly say, okay, definitely there's a theme of isolation.

There's a theme of, um... being on Zoom.

There's a theme of not being able to touch.

There's a theme of the social distancing.

So, I came up with a number of different-- actually, I brainstormed, 18 was my initial list.

But, I don't know what the 19th will be, but I'll get there.

And I gradually worked through them, not in that sequence.

I did what sort of popped up first.

The very first one was dealing with Zoom.

This was 12 boxes that we created for Zoom.

And, for example, this is the combination of improv and structure that you have to do.

I improvised a lot of them, but I had to have a structure.

So, I wanted a variety dynamics.

And my husband Rick helped a tremendous amount with this one.

So, I've simply recorded myself on Zoom in a little tiny corner of my upstairs studio office.

And so I'm in this little tiny box and you see this figure trying to get out.

I did 12 versions of that.

And then we create-- he created a grid to look like a Zoom meeting.

Find your corners... find your corners, find your edges.

And above all... find your diagonal.

The diagonal.

Has the X, the Y, and the Z axis.

It's the most dynamic line.

(voiceover): And then I moved on through a number of other ones.

Some are funny, amusing, humorous.

People, people.

Enough with the bad angles, enough with the chins.

Some are much more serious.

I just finished one that I filmed actually downtown in front of and with National Guard and state patrol behind me.

I was petrified that they would kick me out.

And it's called "Pledge," and it's very much my Martin Luther King Day offering, inauguration week offering.

It's more personal reaction to politics and struggles that we are feeling.

(shuffling) ♪ ♪ (voiceover): They've all been recorded in one take.

That has become a rule.

So, there's no internal edits in any of them.

I'm not a filmmaker.

I don't pretend to be making high-art film.

But they are, because of COVID, they are performances that you can only see on the video.

By keeping them in one take, it felt like keeping each one focused on a single idea and not get carried away with filmography.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (voiceover): I decided early on to do something with social distancing and a little play on the word "social distancing."

If you write out "distancing," you write D-I-S-T, et cetera.

If you take away the I-S-T, it becomes dancing.

So, social d... ancing.

So, that's the little play there.

And then I thought, what if I could get a skirt that's a 12-foot diameter.

Anybody around me is six feet.

And then I just imagined I would be dancing somehow, reaching out to people, but never able to touch them, because we're keeping six feet, and how sad that is.

♪ ♪ I got a trampoline hoop that is designed to hold up a screen around a trampoline.

So, it's exactly 12 feet diameter.

And I-- constructing the material came from... we used to do Blue Apron, and Blue Apron food always came in these, um, thermos cases.

And I just thought the, the material was cool, and I saved it, thinking I would do something with it someday.

>> Hi.

>> You're not allowed to dress like that on public property.

>> You know, this is more wind than yesterday.

>> Yeah.

>> When it comes up the hill, it catches that end.

>> It's a metaphor for the year of plague.

>> (breathless): Yes.

When we do this for real, your hands will just be just down by your sides, comfortable.

And then, when I go like this, you'll reach.

(voiceover): I was thinking I would just have one fellow to partner or not partner.

But now I've decided to have a whole bunch of people and I will dance between them.

We'll see, we'll see.

♪ ♪ (voiceover): I think you could look at every single ChOreoVID and you would get something about this long, long wait that we're all in.

Kind of like this big "hold your breath" moment that's a year and a half, two years long.

I think it shows up in every single little piece.

Just can't get away from it.

♪ ♪ I am very empathetic, and I have felt very alarmed at the-- and sad for the people who are less fortunate than I. I mean, I have a job, I have a house.

I mean, we're, we're fine, you know?

Everything has gone as good as it gets.

But the numbers of people in this world and country who are out of work, unable to connect at all, maybe they're completely alone, the sadness of that really weighs on me.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ 19 is a lot of pieces to make, and so you have to careful what you wish for.

It was just, you know, the number because of COVID-19.

That's the name of it, from 2019.

So, I'm... got the bit between my teeth to make sure it actually happens.

We are creating an incredible archive of this time in history.

I think historians will look back and look at artists' work as a way to understand what was going on, beyond the facts and figures.

But what were people feeling?

What was the experience?

What were we trying to figure out about human nature?

And what silver linings were we finding?

Oh, that's a slight pun on the skirt.

We've been joking about all the silver linings, that there are some.

I think everyone could name a few that this time has given us, silver linings.

So, the skirt kind of has a little nod in that direction, too.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week at the Peabody Essex Museum, two Indigenous artists come together for "Each/Other."

>> It's not about the objects, it's about the process, and the process is held not in museums, but in the minds and in the muscles of the people who make the work.

(women vocalizing) >> BOWEN: Plus, the pre-wedding rituals of women as they unfold in the new operatic film, Svadba.

>> It's a very intimate story of a family of love and connection and togetherness.

>> BOWEN: As always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @OpenStudioGBH.

I'm @TheJaredBowen.

We leave you now with images of a winter light exhibition in Boston's Emerald Necklace.

This year marks 200 years since the birth of the park's designer, Frederick Law Olmsted.

And through March, you'll find trees and bridges throughout the Necklace aglow in green.

I'm Jared Bowen.

Thanks for joining us.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪