In this edition of Art rocks.

We'll see Louisiana folk art expressed through textiles.

I can go somewhere and see something, and I'll get an idea.

And I assume that's going to be a quilt.

And then that's the next thing I'm ready to work on.

A teen who plays the blues like the greats.

He just got better and better to what he is today at 17 years old, and they can hold his own with anybody.

An artist recreates nature in hyperreal renderings.

You really have to look to see that wonderful relationship that I believe we can all have with the natural world, and an ancient art is resurrected 40 years later.

And now I'm an artist and I create my own objects that hold my history until my stories.

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, and welcome to Art rocks.

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

In our first segment today, we'll meet Louisiana folk artist Judith Bragg.

Her love of sewing has gone from creating her own garments as a teenager to making quilts and now one of a kind, three dimensional folk art quilts.

Her designs are drawn from fond memories of her childhood growing up in a small community near New Roads, Louisiana.

I'm from a family of nine kids, and my parents had seven girls and two boys.

So somewhere along the line, my dad bought a sewing machine, from a, you know, one of the roadside salesmen that come by your house and, sell stuff.

So he bought a sewing machine.

suppose because he had seven girls, he wanted to try and save some money by having us learn to sew.

I used to make skirts for me and my friends when we were young.

I guess I just kind of kept it up as I got older and got in high school.

I was tall and skinny, so I learned to make most of my clothes because, you know, clothes you buy didn't fit.

Then I started making baby quilts for shower presents for friends.

So that's how I got started.

First, making quilts from garments and quilts, Braggs began to experiment with folk imagery expressed through textiles.

Well, I was trying to find stuff to put on my own walls and I couldn't find anything.

And when I looked on the internet trying to find, you know, like black art, I couldn't I didn't see anything that I liked.

The first one I made was called The Lady, and I took it to a friend to see if she liked it.

And you know what?

She thought about it, and she said she liked it and she liked it.

And she said, I'm from the bad.

And I say, you buy it.

If you say, yeah.

I say, you think people would buy this?

And she said, yeah, that would back.

So that's how I got started in from then I just been making quilts, mostly from stuff that I remember when I was a kid.

Little girls jumping rope, little boys playing marbles.

I like to make quilts where, like I did one of my uncle pieces, like the wear it suits out.

I always have a coat and pants on, like he was kind of dressed up, but it didn't necessarily have to be all fancy, like he was going to church.

We want to have always have a jacket on because he always, like, keeps the both, you know, and like the one that I have of my grandmother called a big mama, the one that's in the kitchen on the door.

She represented my grandmother on my dad's side, and she always was, you know, cooking in the kitchen.

I have a couple of where, guys who are working, you know, like chopping wood, in the cane field, picking blackberries and picking pecans.

Braggs takes full advantage of the three dimensional nature of the medium to keep stuff from just being out flat.

I like something that's got a lot of texture, and I like a lot of color.

So when I make the little girl stay hair, it's going to be braided or standing out like mine is now.

I don't like it all flat, and I like to put buttons on their shoes and little socks with maybe a little ruffle, a little skirt that's gathered in, sticking out.

Regarding our flat.

Give it like they move and are going somewhere and not just stand in there.

I never had any art training so I really don't know how to draw faces.

And the first time I made the quilt that represent my father, I did do a face on it and I showed it to one of my sisters.

She started laughing.

She said, leave it blank.

So I just I took her advice because, you know, it didn't really look like me.

And then like, people look at a quilt and picture somebody that they know in that scene rather than the person that I actually made it to represent.

So when you look at it, it makes it reminds me of when I was a little girl doing this or when this type A dress or whatever.

So I think leaving the face blank gives a person a chance to make the piece personable to them.

A book of her art quilts includes this piece with handicapped children playing and traditional figures going to market.

Braggs finds inspiration everywhere, and her enjoyment in crafting her creations is only eclipsed by sharing them with the public.

I can go somewhere and see something and I'll get an idea, and I know that's going to be a quilt, and then that's the next thing I'm ready to work on.

When you start working on it and if you see it come to life, it's where I'm seeing it come to life.

But as you come to an end, it's it's like here.

Like it's like a child or something because you've worked on it for so long.

And then when you get it finished and you see it, it's just like, you know, it's like, wow.

And when you go take it to a show or whatever, and then other people get enjoyment from it.

People always say, I love your work.

It makes me smile.

You know, it makes me remember back when I was a child, I remember picking cotton or I remember chopping wood.

I remember, you know, having a little house look, you know, like this.

And I paid people to buy a piece because they it remind them of a house that they live in back in the day, or it remind them of a thing that they, were playing in back in the day.

So I think it brings a lot of enjoyment to people.

I really do.

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 at lpb.org/art rocks and to find more arts activities, check out Country Roads.

McComb.

Some teenagers may be a bit moody, but how many of them can actually sing and play the blues?

In our next segment, we meet a 17 year old who has been strumming the blues before large crowds since he was a little boy.

We even have band rehearsal at the house and I was playing bands.

We were playing a song, and there was Daniel, in his diapers over there, dancing and so he had the feeling he met her early age, I think, you know, just enjoying music and feeling the vibe.

There was always guitars around the house, and it just kind of came naturally, you know?

It just he never, you know, my parents never tried to force me or anything.

It just kind of I just always saw it around.

And it was something that I kind of picked up on.

I was about nine when I really started playing guitar, when I really actually got into it and said, wow, I really want to do this.

I was always playing acoustic guitar around the house, and I wanted somebody to, to kind of, to jam with me.

And he started taking an interest.

So, I immediately, just, jumped on that and try to teach some chords.

And he took to it right away and was, very efficient in an early age.

It became I just wanted to play every day.

It wasn't that I was forcing myself to.

It was just like, it's like a bug.

It's like anything, you know, you you really enjoy doing it.

So it just happens all the time.

And you want to do it all the time.

You don't want to do anything else.

This was a great time.

Around ten, ten and a half, he wanted to start going and playing out the jams because he had seen us go to jams and and doing that and blues jams around town and, and I said, no, you're not ready.

I wouldn't let him, and he begged me and begged me.

And I said, you know, you got to learn the three Kings, Freddie, B.B., and Albert King.

before I take you to out to a jam.

So, he took it upon himself and started studying the Three Kings.

And it was about, I would say, ten and a half, 11, maybe.

he was playing all the classic blues stuff.

And then I said, you know what?

Let's go.

So we went to Doc Williams's jams.

that one of the first jams with him.

And I always hold my breath when a kid comes up because, sometimes it's mom, dad wanting to push him or get cute photos of him for the grandparents.

But Daniel wasn't a disappointment.

He knew was caught on way to waiting.

For.

So he got up there and he blew everybody away.

Just tore it up.

And the crowd went wild.

So it was.

It was really just one of those magical events in the alley, if you will.

Here's this kid, you know, he's he's like 11 years old.

You know how kids are at that time.

And he's up there just wailing on the blues and and people were just amazed and still are of the level of his talent.

He was good from the start.

He just grew as a player.

He was timid and didn't sing.

At first.

He was conscious of his voice changing and as his voice changed and as he grew more confident on stage, he just got better and better to what he is today.

At 17 years old, he can hold his own with anybody.

He's come from being a jammer to where he is the frontman for the Daniel Heights Band, and they're here approximately once a month.

At this point in their.

Have you read a one played in blues clubs for, you know, someone his age is probably not the best, environment I'm there to chaperoning.

believe me, I keep a close eye on him.

And, when we're not playing, we're usually off in a corner or we go outside.

I've never had an issue with know playing for his clubs.

his father has always been with him, and we know where he is and what he's doing, and he's surrounded by good people, and.

And, it's never been a problem for my.

My soul, said I, I'm burnin on the inside.

Yeah, we're like that.

My dad definitely has been the driving force behind this whole thing because, I mean, without him, I'd probably be playing baseball or, you know, anything else.

So without that musical background that he had, I wouldn't be anywhere.

You know, he taught me my first chords.

He's been there through my first gig.

I got to tell you, as a father, I couldn't be prouder.

I'm having the time of my life.

It's it's it's really awesome to be playing with him as a musician and share the stage with him is just a real honor.

And to see how he grows, and we're just having a great time, and I couldn't be prouder as a father and as a musician as well, we.

Play when I'm up there.

It's like nothing else, you know?

It's it's like it's just me and the guitar and and that's that's why I do.

It's because it just it really is something that I love to do, to be able to sing and.

What have you done?

Now it's time to meet a charcoal artist.

His drawings of nature are so realistic.

You might mistake them for photographs and budding artists.

Take note.

She's also offering a few pointers.

I work in charcoal because I really like the black and white contrast and drama and power of black and white, and I work in nature subjects because I want to communicate my feelings about nature and the subjects that I select the beings in my drawings to communicate the wonder and miraculous ness that I feel about them.

Most people, their instant reaction to charcoal is because it's so messy, and I've managed to figure out that by working vertically, I'm able to keep my paper pretty clean.

And fortunately, all the dust falls off rather than stays on the page when you're working flat.

But I've really developed a lot of techniques that have allowed me to achieve the effects that I want.

Now, I use erasers a lot to draw.

I wear, rubber gloves when I work, and I discovered that I can use them to blend and get those nice soft grays.

I'm trying to express the uniqueness and wonderfulness of these creatures, and to initiate a revision of them for us.

And I hope that through my drawings, I'm able to have you come and look at them in a fresh and new way to consider more than just them and their uniqueness, but also in a way that makes us think about our relationship to them.

So in my drawings, you'll often see them looking back at us in the form of portraiture, where they're also drawn on very large scale human scale.

So they're looking back at us and considering, as we consider them, they seem to be considering us.

And then there are other marks of tattoos on horses necks, halters, collars, tags in a sheep's ear.

All signs of our ownership and control of them.

Most of the images are photographs that I have taken, and so I've had direct experience with them.

For example, the Ram, which was an SPCA rescue.

And so the photograph is of him, a portrait of him straight on.

And he's just kind of looking at us, these old eyes, and you can see his teeth and his teeth almost look like human teeth, which is something I really appeal to me about the image.

I didn't want to really anthropomorphize him, but at the same time, I felt that the teeth were a nice identification because he's like us, and yet he has this tag in his ear.

Us, you know, USDA tag.

But that tag, there is also the title of the piece, us or us.

You can think of it that way.

When I'm drawing, I'm always saying to myself, look, it's kind of the message in my work too, is that you really have to look to see that wonderful relationship that I believe we can all have with the natural world.

Acquired by the state of Louisiana in 1947, this state historic site is a former plantation dating back to 1806.

But now it's best known for the famous artist who spent time here as a tutor.

The Audubon State Historic Site, also known as Oakley Plantation, is another Louisiana treasure.

Five miles south of the town of Saint Francis, filled 100 acres of the original Oakley Plantation are open to the public as part of the Louisiana Office of State Parks.

The three story big house at Oakley is nestled among old oak trees and crape myrtles.

Its simple lines are a perfect example of colonial architecture in the South, the Joseph Galleries are a touch of West Indies influence, allowing cooling breezes to circulate through the 17 rooms while protecting the home and its inhabitants from rain and sun exposure.

The famed naturalist and artist John James Audubon spent time here in 1821, where he served as a tutor to Eliza Peery, the teenage daughter of the plantation's owners.

Audubon's duties were to spend half his time teaching drawing to Eliza.

Beyond that, he was allowed to roam the woods and work on his own drawings and paintings.

Audubon developed a love for the area, and while here completed 32 paintings which became part of his famous Birds of America portfolio.

The interior renovations at Oakley are in the federal period style, reflecting the time when Audubon was here, and in addition to the main house structures include a detached kitchen reconstructed on the original foundations, a barn with an assortment of metalwork and antique farm equipment, and two slave cabins are on the grounds.

Oakley House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Visitors to the Audubon State Historic Site may also enjoy picnic areas and a nature trail.

In our final segment, we meet an artist who pours her passion for archeology into the clay sculptures she dreams up.

Take a look at how she balances her ideas with an ancient human tradition.

Well, as a child, it's kind of funny.

I wanted to be Indiana Jones, totally not an artist.

And so from a very early age, I became fascinated with the idea of objects that held their own histories and told their own stories.

40 years later, and now I'm an artist, and I create my own objects that hold my history until my stories.

As I got through school and realized that the anthropology, the earth science, the sociology classes that were necessary to become an archeologist, I was like, not so much.

So I thought, if I can't be the person that digs up the art, maybe I can be the person that makes the art.

And that's when I really decided that I was going to become an artist.

Clay was created through the process of erosion, the breaking down of the Earth's crust.

And I just think the history, you know, some of the things that we know about ancient civilizations, we know because we found their pots, we found a fingerprint.

And the fact that thousands of years later, I am doing the same basic thing that some prehistoric person did by creating some kind of container to hold something that's sacred to me.

Maybe for some people it's that cup of morning coffee, maybe for the ancient people it was grain that links through time and history that ceramics holds.

For me, that is just I mean, I actually have goosebumps just talking about it because it just it's awesome.

So I'll start with the ceramic vessel that I've made, and I'll paint it with underglaze.

Every layer that's painted on the surface is translucent like watercolor.

So it's kind of a see through color.

So to build up the solid quality of color on all of my pieces in the background alone, there can be nine layers of color painted on the surface.

So what I do is this multi layering process of color.

Because I do that, I usually will work on 5 or 6 pieces at one time.

So while the underglaze is drying on one piece, I move to the next.

Once I get the background painted on, I let it dry.

And then I have a bunch of designs, different drawings of birds and ladders and trees and things like that.

And I work out a lot of my design work on tissue paper.

Once all the colors on, I have a fine line detail brush and I use black underglaze, and I outline everything and put in all the little lines.

And for me, that's when the magic happens.

Because as I'm painting the contours and putting in the little lines, I'm thinking about what is this piece is about?

What am I trying to express?

Is it something funny or something sad, or something emotional?

And somehow that magic of mine, heart and and body goes into the piece at that time so that when you as the viewer look at it, you feel something.

My work is very narrative.

It's very symbolic.

I'm very inspired by nature.

So nature is something that's always going to be showing up in my work.

Another thing is birds.

When I think of birds, I started to think about the women in my family and think of how powerful they were.

I'm afraid of heights, so whenever I am feeling anxiety or I'm concerned about something, I start to paint ladders in my work, representing that height.

It also represents the idea of conquering your fears, because once you start on that journey, whatever it is, you get a little higher.

Oh, this feels this feels bad, and then you get used to it.

Well, okay, it's not as bad as I thought.

Okay.

Then you go up another rung and it's like, oh my God.

And then you get used to it.

Looks represent the idea of history, my history, the history that I haven't yet written for myself.

I got married when I was 36 and my husband was 40.

He's got a book of his history and I have a book of my history.

But when we get married, we start writing a new book together.

So it's our job as partners to read each other's pages, trees representing compromise because they can move and bend with the wind and the forces of nature, but they don't usually break.

Leaves represent the idea of change.

I love the idea of leaves falling down and kind of decaying and providing nourishment for the roots.

Whenever I need to remind myself to be fierce, I paint dragons.

So what you see through my work is that whatever I'm experiencing, I find a way to put it in my work using this narrative symbolism.

And I think that somehow the ideas I had in my head kind of filtered down through my heart and came out through my hands.

So when I created something, people would look at it.

Not only would they like the way it look, but they would feel something when they looked at it.

And that's something that is mysterious to me still to this day.

And that's it for this edition of Art rocks!

Don't forget to visit the website at lpb.org/art rock, where you'll find feature videos and information on upcoming arts events.

Until next time, I'm James Fox Smith and thanks for watching.