In this edition of Art Rocks, Louisiana's coastal marshes inspire a photographer and a painter to take on a mission.

With her brushes and wild colors, she can make anything look any way she wants.

But I have to wait till that perfect cloud comes over.

And the perfect sunset.

Worlds collide in one artist's contemporary work.

Allegorical realism is a way for me as a storyteller to promote the ideas that I believe in.

We meet the man behind the music.

We call the style of music.

We play folk, Billy Because it's it's storytelling and often humorous, self-deprecating and visit a celebration of the three D form.

11 Sculpture Invitational is the largest outdoor sculpture show in the United States.

It's all ahead on this edition of Art Rocks.

Art Rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

Hello, I'm James Fox Smith, publisher of Country Roads magazine.

And this is Art Rocks.

To begin our program, we'll take a look at a unique partnership between a photographer and a painter, expressing through their art the concern they feel for Louisiana's wetlands loss.

Here's the story of a marsh mission.

What really got me so passionate about the wetlands is I was going down by a large and I saw off to my left miles and miles and miles of dead cypress trees.

And I thought, you know, this is our great tree.

How could this have happened?

It was Hurricane Betsy that did it.

It's a saltwater intrusion.

Having painted in the wetlands for 14 years.

I could see the changes and I could see all of the land that used to be there that was no longer there.

And I started to talk to people about it, and they just gave me blank stares as if, you know, why are you worried about this?

And it made me really kind of angry that people were so complacent about it.

Painter Ray Gary joined with photographer C.C.

Lockwood.

Together, they determined to bring public awareness on a national level to the problems of Louisiana as coastal wetlands.

For a year, the two artists documented the vanishing wetlands of Louisiana from the Pearl River and the east, all the way to the Sabine River at the Texas border.

My husband said to me when I started this project, How can you possibly paint 30 or 40 paintings of the wetlands and have them not all look alike?

But every area has its own feeling and its own special beauty.

Their artistic efforts were part of an even larger project.

Marsh Mission, a website mapped their journey across the state, while Lockwood's wife, Sue, a teacher herself, created lesson plans and materials for educators so that students could follow along on the trip.

Learning about coastal geology, animals and habitats, and the culture of its human residents.

Soon, I lived on the wetland under a houseboat for probably 80% of the year.

The important part was being right there for every sunrise, every sunset, and being able to travel 2700 miles on the houseboat and another 3000 plus on my back too, to So I really got to see the marsh.

I have a little six foot bateau that I had the center seat taken out of so that I could set up an easel and paint from there.

I did some of the small paintings from the boat, but of course the large ones would have been like a sail.

So I had to to do those in the studio.

Two artistic views capture our diminishing coastal landscape in ways that evoke its beauty and give the viewer a chance to pause and consider the richness, the priceless value of our unique coastline.

Above all, I'm a colorist.

I use color in a way as my emotional response to what I see in the landscape, and also because I want the viewer to have an emotional response.

South Louisiana is a very different, very exotic place, and I feel that the paintings have to show that.

On the wetlands paintings I often underpin and read and I leave some of that red coming through because red represents the heat.

And I want people to feel that heat of South Louisiana with her brushes and wild colors.

She could make anything look any way she wants, and that's just an amazing talent.

But I have to wait till that perfect cloud comes over and the perfect sunset and the clarity of the air.

And I don't like to use filters or any way to enhance it.

I like to find the day that's beautiful enough to take the picture of this particular spot before these landscapes all become water scapes.

Lockwood and Gary will bring their appreciation of Louisiana's wetlands to the attention of a new audience of art lovers.

Think of how Louisiana coast was made and what's happening to it.

It's sinking about a half an inch per year.

It doesn't get to sediment because the Mississippi River is loving.

Now.

That built the whole marsh originally.

The marsh mission will not be over until the funding and implementation of effective coastal restoration projects shore up our disappearing wetlands.

When we consider this moment in our state's history, there's no time like the present.

The LSU scientists, the Department, Natural Resources and associated federal agencies, they had a plan to spend $14 billion to restore the marsh over the next 2025 years.

But everybody that we ran into, a scientist or a local politician that came up to our houseboat, they'd say it might take a man 11 to talk him into restoring this coast.

And sure enough, it happened with Katrina and Rita.

For every 2.7 miles of wetlands, marsh that we have stops a storm surge by one foot.

So if you can imagine if we had the 1900 square miles that we've lost of wetlands and our storm surge was reduced by a foot in height, the picture in New Orleans would be a totally different picture.

At 14 billion is looks like a small amount compared to the the money we need to restore Louisiana.

To see more including a journal describing the travels of the wetland wanderer visit Marsh mission scum.

Now let's take a look at some of Louisiana's arts and cultural events in the coming week.

For more information on these events, visit the website now p b dot org slash art rock and to find more arts activities, check out Country Roads, Match.com.

Up next, we meet contemporary painter Kevin Sloan.

Sloan's work focuses on nature and its relationship with the modern technological era.

Take a look at how these two worlds come together.

I like painting.

I like brushes on the cloth of the canvas.

That's important to me.

It seems to be the best way for me to describe my world.

It's a little romantic, perhaps, but I like that link back to the past.

I like this idea of paint on canvas.

It's an ancient process filled with contemporary and modern elements like music and the internet.

The process is very sacred.

The work space.

It's important that it be set up a certain way.

It's been this way for many, many years.

And what happens is I turn the music on.

The lights come on, and then I stand in front of the painting for a minute and just be quiet.

And I try to shut my eyes to create kind of a barrier between what just happened outside and what is going to happen now.

And it's a way to reacquaint myself with the work.

When I'm working, I don't talk, although I do talk to myself.

I've been told sometimes my dogs are here with me.

And so they need to settle down and then we all get to work.

The animals in my work are kind of stand ins sometimes for us as humans, So they're active, they're doing things that are sometimes awkward, unpredictable, unexpected, perhaps from an animal.

Yet it's happening in the painting.

So you suspend your belief for just a moment.

I want them to be moving and doing something in the paintings because they need to have a life of their own in the painting rather than this static, statuesque quality.

What that does is to propel the narrative forward.

They act and interact with things that we all know use.

Remember?

I have dabbled.

I'll just use that word with the human figure in the past, and I got stuck.

Too much baggage.

Is it male?

Is it female?

Is it clothed, unclothed?

What are they doing?

What are they not doing?

All those things are really important with figurative painting.

With the animals, I can have much more liberty.

They can do things.

They can not do things that they should be doing.

They can be in places they shouldn't be.

And all that can help propel my narrative forward.

When we visited the studio, we saw the very beginnings of this piece.

It's really beautiful to see the end result here.

I'm curious to talk with you about process.

Did you know where you would end up or were there surprises along the way?

How does it work for you?

It's actually a little bit of both.

I had a rough idea.

I think the basic concept was there.

The painting is called The Flood and the idea was that there would be this bird above this flooded area, and it was enough just to have this sort of absurd house of cards.

The irony that he would be saved by a house of cards, an animal that is perfectly natural in the water.

But it was this little conjunction here that caused me a lot of reworking.

And that is the part of the process that I couldn't have seen coming.

I thought I had a pretty clear idea when I started.

Apparently not.

And then a surprise.

Yeah.

And that's what keeps it interesting for me, because I don't want to just execute a plan.

It's a dialog between me and the painting, and it eventually will tell me what it needs and I have to try to learn to honor that, and then it becomes a better piece of art.

Humor is almost taboo sometimes in art, contemporary art.

I don't want my work to be a cartoon where you're slapping your thigh and it's your guffawing like crazy.

It's not that kind of humor, but a subtle, maybe a chuckle.

And the reason I like to incorporate that is that it's a softer way in to the work.

We're searching for allegorical realism.

I'm having a little fun with the concept, but truly allegorical realism is something that you incorporate in your work.

Allegorical realism is a way for me as a storyteller to promote the ideas that I believe in.

I don't want to be very literal in terms of like a straight line.

It starts here, big ends here, that kind of thing.

It's a more ambiguous route, and the allegory allows that to happen.

So these are realistic objects.

This is a real power quarter.

This is a real Canada goose.

It's a real turtle.

But within the context that they exist in, it becomes allegorical.

So those two things come together for me to create a more open ended way to tell the story.

We live in a difficult world.

I don't need to hit people over the head or remind them even that there is a challenging world out there.

That's all pretty clear.

You have to be hidden away under a rock to not know these things.

I hope that letting them in on this little subtle joke is a way for them to feel less confronted by the painting.

And once that barrier is dropped, people can feel a little bit more engaged and then there's a dialog and then the painting and the viewer can have a conversation.

And that's ultimately what I want.

I have a message.

I care about what's happening to our environment, to us as humans, what we're doing and not doing to the natural world.

We all share.

But the way for me to get there most effectively is through beauty, humor.

A little bit of mystery, maybe even some poetry via the images I use.

Sloane's work can be seen in public collections all across the country.

For a list of where his work is displayed, go to Kevin Sloane Dotcom.

Next, we get an exclusive look at the life of musician Anthony McClain.

Combining folk sounds with a little bit of country and a little bit of rock and roll and sea, McClain strives to tell his life stories and entertain his audiences without beat, positive music and lyrics.

I developed this Nancy McClain character years ago to sort of create a happy go lucky, positive energy guy with a band.

And so he has this band around him of of guys from the neighborhood, from the trailer park that are enjoying life.

They they play all these different instruments.

And it's just this hodgepodge of of musical genres.

I go with my friends and they get to hang out with my friends again.

Oh, we hang with their friends.

We call the style of music.

We play folk ability because it's it's a storytelling and often humorous, self-deprecating stories about about my foibles in life.

And then we set it to music.

No one knows when midlife is coming.

For some, it's 40.

For some it's nine.

If you think about it too long, it's mind numbing.

Where's the midway point to the end of the line?

I am fortunate to play with some very good guys.

They're excellent musicians, but they're also very decent people.

And that makes a big difference.

My solo gigs, I work really hard.

I mean, I'm really.

I have to be the band, you know?

So it's like there is no nobody can tell a joke for me while I'm tuning my guitar.

You know, I have to do all of this while entertaining an audience, you know?

I don't mean to be gross or seem uncouth.

I'm just another songwriter in search of the truth.

And there's a lot of false stuff out there, a lot of myth and superstition.

Yeah, we think it's cool when we hear him yakking.

The Moon River was written on a cocktail napkin, but I'm here to tell you it was in between some bathroom stall.

They're not going to tell you, but it's a word on the streets.

There's a lot of lyrics written on toilet paper sheets, but you'll never see that hanging up on the Smithsonian's wall.

You got to go with the flow.

You got to roll with it.

It's you got to take it nice and slow, no matter how life is.

And I know you thought I was going to say a word.

Rhymes with kids, but ain't going to do it.

This is PBS.

This ain't going to air on PBS anyway.

Who am I for it?

The solo show that I've been doing is is evolving.

It's changing every time I do it.

I think that's a good thing.

I think that's what's meant to happen.

What I've been doing is I have a box.

I have a cardboard box that I've moved around the last ten moves and it always moves with us.

And I'll get I'll open it and get stuff out and look at it on occasion.

And it came to me last year.

I thought I should get a box like this and take this on the road and let those objects that I pull out and talk about, let that spark a song.

And I have so many songs that will go with the objects in this box and other boxes that I have at home are just keepsakes.

I remember driving Dad's old Chevrolet, D.J.

riding shotgun all the way to cruise in Whitehall Strip most every Friday night, the radio play and the soundtrack to my life.

The songs that I sing are positive messages that we can all use.

Life is short.

Enjoy your friends.

Enjoy your family because it's short and it's getting shorter all the time.

We follow the stars and the record chants, connecting every song we loved to a special place and time.

Now it's time to celebrate another Louisiana treasure.

This week, we're visiting Mile Branch Settlement.

Time traveling is still out of our reach, but you can come close to it With a visit to the Mile Branch settlement located on the Washington Parish Fair grounds in Franklinton, Louisiana.

Is a collection of pioneer cabins built in the mid to late 1800s and early 1900s.

The settlement takes its name from a creek that borders the property.

The predominant buildings here are authentic log cabins used by pioneer farmers that have been moved to the settlement from various sites in the parish.

Beginning in 1976, families began donating these historic buildings to Mile Branch Settlement as a tribute to their hardworking ancestors.

These sturdy structures have been gathered into what looks like a little town.

Although originally they were miles away from each other, the original settlers here were English speaking Scotch Irish Presbyterians that had moved from the hill country of the western Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia.

They brought their vernacular architecture as seen in the log cabins.

Blacksmith shop, and one of the oldest structures, the King Barn, which dates from 1835.

Group tours of Mile Branch Settlement are available through the year with an appointment.

But the little village really comes alive twice a year and is open to the public.

During the Washington Parish Fair held the third week in October and again during the Pioneer Christmas celebration held the first weekend of December.

Each cabin is managed by a committee whose members are also descendants of the structure's original family.

Volunteers in period dress take on the chores and activities of early homesteaders making sugar cane, sirup milling cornmeal, blacksmithing, quilting and weaving, caring for livestock, cooking crackers and playing music or singing hymns.

At the general store, you can purchase hoop cheese or canned preserves or sample sassafras tea and gingerbread.

These buildings are from a different time, and many of them had been abandoned and could have disintegrated and been completely forgotten.

But Mile Branch Settlement has given them a new life and made them a Louisiana treasure.

In our last segment, we take you to the Loveland Sculpture Invitational in northern Colorado.

Once hailed as the largest outdoor sculptural event in the country.

We take you inside the event, which showcases some of the top national and international artists working in this three dimensional art form.

We are very proud to say that the Loveland Sculpture Invitational is the largest outdoor sculpture show in the United States.

Loveland is known for sculpture, it's known for art and the artists that live here.

We're very lucky to have the diversity in artists and mediums that we have here.

I like big, heavy things.

For some reason.

I don't know why, but if I can't use a forklift to move it, then I don't call it art.

My pieces are absolutely one of a kind and I couldn't make the same thing twice, even if I tried because they have a mind of their own.

I have a £600 piece that turns in the wind, which could be a little dangerous.

So it has to be put in the right spot without kids to be hanging on it, because that's the first thing I'd want to do as a kid.

But yeah, most of my things that can move, move and all of different textures and colors and patterns have started to weave themselves together into a really coherent language so that I'm able to speak a really coherent sense of beauty, of esthetics and of meaning.

And a lot of my pieces really have a sense of presence today.

So it's just been a wonderful surprise and I feel like I'm just getting started.

We have over 200 artists that are originally from Iceland, that come from New York, that come from California, Texas.

We have them from everywhere.

And even artists right here in Loveland once want to take a perfectly good shovel because I needed something that size and run it.

But most of it is found pieces or salvage pricing.

Stainless steel, bronze and copper are my absolute favorite because they're so shiny, they're so reflective.

And it's exciting to see what happens because most of my metals are recycled, they're scratched and they're gnarly and I get to transform them.

All that old gets to come into new and I get to breathe new life into it.

It's shiny and a girl can never have enough sparkle.

I'm carving in Cottonwood bark right now, and when I carve cottonwood bark, it's a soft enough wood that I can use just a pocket knife and an X-Acto knife with the number 11 blade.

That's the only two tools I use when I carve cottonwood bark.

It's fun to carve.

It's easy, it's fast.

He started actually adding fabric onto his wooden sculptures.

He said, Well, what if I do the sculpture and then paint it into a painting?

It then becomes something completely unique.

It's neither one or the other, and he intends for it to disappear into the painting.

We have had a large array of people come to Loveland just to see art and just to cast their pieces.

There are multiple foundries here.

There are multiple suppliers, which makes this place so special for artists.

They can have all of their services and all of their processes right here in Loveland, and it is just produce a large community of people who really value art.

50% of the time I treat it as I go and oftentimes I'm wondering if I'm going to take it back and I have to scrap it and start all over.

But so far I've been able to make something out of everything.

Primarily, I'll be inspired by something either nature or an expression that someone said, and I'll feel it in my body.

I'll start with a general idea of what I want, and then my job is to get out of the way and allow the work to just come through.

What inform product it has.

It's magical and it's exciting because I don't know.

We'll see it when it finishes.

I'm continually surprised by what has been coming out of me.

Honestly, five years ago when I started this, I was making big vases, big tassels.

So there are functional work, you know, because I was an engineer for 15 years and that was kind of a safe zone and I really didn't experience myself as an artist, truly more as a craftsperson, you know?

And then really in the last few years, my art, the art has just been getting more and more expressed and more and more rich and vibrant.

Every person who views a piece of art comes to the art with their own experiences in life.

And a piece of art should evoke what the artist is intending.

But there's also what they bring to it.

I have a lot of friends that say, I wish that I could be artistic, and I tell you, you don't have to be artistic.

You just have to start.

I would invite anybody to see that they may have an artistic talent that's unknown.

No matter who you are, you can find some art in yourself.

And if you want to express that, then just jump to learn more.

Go to Loveland Sculpture Invitational.

And that's it for this edition of Art Rocks.

Don't forget to visit the website at LP PB dot org slash rocks, where you'll find featured videos and information on upcoming arts events.

Until next time.

I'm James Fox Smith and thanks for watching.