Coming up next on Our Rocks!

Art critic Jon Kemp has been writing about southern art and artists for decades.

He joins us today to talk about his latest book, Expression of Place The Contemporary Louisiana Landscape.

Then we visit a local theater company that only performs completely new works.

The stories that we put on stage fulfill the mission of the company, which has been to really show the human condition.

There's a sculptor who crafts metal into wearable art.

I think music and art, whatever we kind of absorb as we're young.

It does influence us as we get older and hear from the man behind the beautiful stone sculptures that adorn the State Archives building in Baton Rouge.

That's all next on Art rocks.

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

Hello, and thank you for joining us for Art rocks.

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

Now, we're delighted to have with us today a man who has spent decades observing the artistic traditions of Louisiana.

John Kemp has just completed a book about Louisiana landscapes called Expressions of Place The Contemporary Louisiana Landscape.

John, tell us a little bit about the 37 artists whose work appeared in this book.

How did you choose them?

How did you select these artists for inclusion?

Well, I thought it was really important to if I'm going to represent the state of Louisiana, I thought we needed to have artists from all over Louisiana.

because, you know, the landscape is so different throughout the state.

The North, we had the piney woods and the prairies and the central Louisiana, southwest Louisiana, and the New Orleans area and the coastline.

So it was extremely important to represent the entire area to see how they interpret their immediate environment.

Of course, of course, because when you have a state that is visually diverse as this, it's there's there's there's no one broad brush, so to speak, by which you can depict it.

That's certainly not even a pointed brush now and then.

No.

No, indeed.

Right now, depictions of nature in American art history had a long tradition, don't they?

And, And when an artist turns eyes to the natural world, what is it that he or she is shooting to depict?

Well, you know, there are several motivations, especially going back into into American history, into the American art world.

In many cases, the Hudson Valley School and other landscape painters of the 19th century were sort of depicting, a natural, beautiful, bucolic America, as they imagined it stood before the Industrial Revolution and expansion of industry.

And you saw that also in Louisiana, too, in the early, late 19th and early 20th century, as artists in the Northeast and Europe came to Louisiana just painting what they saw, what was their painting, what they saw.

But often and most often in an idyllic way, you know, because the light in Louisiana is so warm and moist and beautiful sunrise and sunsets and just a close, beautifully on the landscape itself.

they were just attracted that especially those who want from here.

The local artists, of course, learn from that by seeing the work of outsider artists.

But that tradition has continued Louisiana up to the present time.

And you still see it today.

You see that traditional 19th century landscape paint painting by people who just love the beauty of nature, even those people who live within a metropolitan area.

It's a great escape.

There's no escaping nature in Louisiana, certainly.

Now you make the point that ultimately creating images of a landscape is primarily an expression of self, the artist's self, and also the self of the viewer that looks at the work.

So what does a landscape by a traditional realist painter like, say, Charles Smith, have to tell us about the artist's relationship with the landscape that, as distinct from an artist like, say, Alison Stewart?

Well, Charles's work is an excellent example because, you know, we all, we all have our lives that found about that.

But we all have our prejudices, our interests in life, experiences in life.

So the artist, this particular person is Charles Smith, who lives in a suburban area surrounded by residential areas, shopping centers, light industry.

He's a Baton Rouge and it's a Baton Rouge.

And.

Right.

So he can just step, oh, a few hundred yards away to a pasture near his house.

And he's completely lost in the not only the beauty, but the harmony of nature.

So you see, rolls of hay, you see cows lowing in the meadow.

you see this, the beautiful light that streaks across the lamp.

Yet this is within an urban and suburban environment.

Then you have someone like Alison Stewart, who also sees a natural landscape, but not necessarily the broader landscape as, say, Charles Smith.

She looks to more, a microcosm, the parts, the elements that build the landscape.

So it look it's like looking through a microscope at the landscape itself, the waters and the rivers and the marshes.

It looks very abstract.

Yes, it does, when in fact it's not absolutely very representation of water of what we we see, but we really don't see.

Okay.

Now how does that relate to the the statement about the artist self and the self of the viewer?

Well, as I mentioned, the versus the case of Charles Smith and other landscape, Simon Gunning and all the other people, Roland Gold and all the others, when they're painting something, they have a sort of a predisposition of, of what they want to say in their work.

Okay.

Could be nature, could be intrusion of industry, of mankind into nature.

So they're bringing all of that to the painting.

Now, of course, the viewer, the viewer comes to the painting with a whole different set of, of experiences.

So how they interpret that may be totally different with the artist.

it was intended to say, but so there is a communication, but not necessarily the same thing that the artist is trying to say.

The viewer takes away certain things that, that appeal so that that interest into that psyche.

Understood.

But place and landscape aren't all about nature either, are some of the oddest expressions of place.

Focus on their urban surroundings as much as their natural ones.

Can you talk a little about some of these?

Well, we have a couple of artists and several artists in the book, actually.

One is Allen Chapman, who describes his work as a sort of a romantic realism.

And he does wonderful.

urban scapes, cityscapes, of New Orleans, the French Quarter, which he loves to continue.

He travels the world painting, but always returns to the French Quarter because he loves the, the architecture, the history and the feel, the light that comes through the the ancient buildings and his light is always very warm and and, very nostalgic.

And then, on the other hand, you have somebody like Willie Birch, who lives in New Orleans and lives in the Faubourg Tremayne, who sees the the grittier side of the city.

You can see the streets, the decay, how people live and the the, the, the juxtaposition of form and shape, people and lives.

But it's a bit grittier.

It's not that warm nostalgia that you see in the landscape.

That's very much part of the landscape.

John Kemp, the book is Expressions of Place The Contemporary Louisiana Landscape, out now published by the University Press of Mississippi.

Thanks so much for talking to us.

Thank you James, thank you.

Opportunities to connect with the arts in Louisiana are everywhere.

If only you know where to look.

So here's a list of some cultural treasures coming up in a place near you.

For more about these and many more events in the arts, subscribe to Arts Monthly, the new free e-newsletter from the editors at LPB and Country Roads Magazine.

What's more, the Art rocks website features every episode of this program, so to see or share any episode again, log on to LPB dawg and navigate to Art rocks.

Looking to other parts of the country for inspiration now.

The Human Race Theater Company in Dayton, Ohio is one of the few companies dedicated to bringing nothing but new musicals to the stage.

Let's see how they do it.

I've been writing this musical for a long time, and now it's finally happening because some theater cared enough to get the music together with the choreography, together with the book and the story and the characters and the casting and the design look and the orchestrations.

It's a beast to complex undertaking, and very few theaters understand that.

And if they do understand it, very few theaters actually are willing to make the sacrifices to do it.

And Kevin and this theater have educated this entire community.

They've actually made people part of the process and made them excited to see something come back in a couple of years and see where it's developed because of their support.

I mean, that's a rare thing.

The Human Race Theater Company, Dayton's only professional theater company, has been working with composer and lyricist David Spangler and others to bring a new country musical play it by heart to the stage.

There's pressure artistically.

It's the best feeling you could possibly have when you find a theater that's willing, that puts the resources and feels it's your product, is important enough to pay to bring you all together and really work.

It's it's like heaven for a writer.

All right.

It's fairly unique.

Not all theaters develop new works.

There are theaters that simply produce existing works.

And even among those that produce works, we are a little unique because we do provide full two week experience where the writers can come in and try out their work.

We provide them with everything they need a place to do it on equipment and most of all, very talented actors so they can see it come alive and experience.

And something that Dayton has and is that we have a very sophisticated, theater community.

And so when these works are being developed and there's an opportunity presented to an audience, they get very valuable feedback.

so they my experience is that they love coming here, you know, and it's a sought after opportunity.

The type of theater that we do is very different from what the Victoria Theater brings in as the road tours.

I don't want to compete with a Victory theater.

What they bring in is wonderful, and that's great, and that serves a specific audience.

We do try to complement that.

We try to give the other side.

Plus our space is much more intimate as 212 seats is a three quarter thrust, which means that the audience is only six rows away from what's going on on the stage, which means they can't help but be more involved in the story that's going on.

Creating a professional theater company was both a chance to develop Dayton talent and keep them here, and then also use them as teaching agents in area colleges, schools and private studios.

Founding member Kevin Moore has transitioned into many roles over his career with the company, most recently the artistic Director.

The basic job of the Artistic director is to make sure that the stories that we put on stage fulfill the mission of the company, which has been to really show the human condition.

What is it about us that makes us human, both the good and the bad?

Part of my job is to make sure that that our audience sees theater while it's still new.

I want to make sure that we do it first.

I want to make sure that we work with the playwrights and the composers, and we create the show's brand new and fresh here so that some of them originate here, and then move on and go other places.

The live theater inside the Metropolitan Arts Center is the home of the Human Race Theater Company.

The show's, like play it by heart are what Kevin calls home grown.

We hand select the properties and we build them here on site.

We shop for the materials here, whether that be fabric or whether it be lumber or steel.

So it's all sort of built right here.

And then we cast it, we put the teams together and then we rehearse it here.

And I think talented people pop up everywhere.

In this case this is a very unique thing.

They have to act.

They have to sing.

They have to kind of dance.

They have to be able to authentically deliver a country song, but also do it in a way that is acceptable within the Broadway musical theater style and have somewhere to come.

Oddly enough, the rehearsal process typically is 3 to 4 weeks.

It's not a long period of time to put a show together with a new work, which we're which we're in the middle of right now.

there's a little bit more time involved in that, but a lot of it is sort of pre rehearsals.

Many times the writers are hearing the work for the first time on a group of people because they, you know, they sit in a room together.

They they hear it, they say to themselves, but until they put it in the mouth of an actor and start hearing it come out, they don't really know how it's going to play and how it's going to sound.

Play It by Heart is a rags to riches story of a family that struggles to get out of poverty with the help of their charismatic, big time country star daughter.

We found a consensus among the creative staff is that it is about forgiveness, and it's about a family having to forgive each other for what they had to go through to get where they were.

And, you know, everybody has a dark side.

And so the people's dark sides come out in this as well as, you know, the happy, the happy stuff on stage.

And then there's just a bunch of secrets that if I tell you anything, it'll spoil it.

People who come and attend regularly know that they are always going to see a quality performance, and I like the fact that I'm part of the action because this theater is so intimate.

You can feel the energy, you can interact basically with the actors on stage simply by responding.

I think it's like a cross between a church and the classroom is kind of what I think the theater is.

You enter that atmosphere and you know, that's something important going on.

It's going to bring you either joy or a higher level of understanding.

So I think that's why Dayton supports the theater.

And I think that even though they can't always talk about it, they sense the importance of an institution like this in their community, and they consider it a treasure.

You know, it's not the easiest thing in the world to be a professional theater company, but I love my job.

I've been here since the beginning as 28 years founding member.

so I must I must enjoy it, or I'm just a masochist.

I don't know which.

Award winning sculptor and art jeweler Rebecca Rose casts favorite childhood memories into precious metal rings.

We join Rose in her Davenport, Florida studio now as she demonstrates her craft.

The idea of, like, sculpting.

even though on that grand of a scale and that huge of a scale was just something that I'd always been interested in.

ever since, you know, growing up, going to Disneyland all the time and just being so enamored by, all the, the craftsmanship that goes into, the design and the sculpting of the environment there really did influence my process and my intentions and my, esthetic.

The sculpture rings is to be able to say the same amount, and to convey a big message into the smallest space possible.

Instead of having giant installation size sculptures.

It's a long process.

It usually takes like at least 40 hours, sometimes over 100.

Some a couple pieces have taken a 140 hours.

It's just a really long process, but I want to make sure that I do it correctly.

because there's large room for error.

I take wax and I carve it with these, like, dental tools, and then I take a mold of it and I pump the wax into the negative space of the mold, and then I'll heat up the metal to, about 1786 degrees.

And then I take the entire thing with tongs, and I quench it in a bucket of water.

And that with the quench does, is that it breaks away the investment, leaving the metal piece with the screws attached.

And then I have to store off the sprues, grind it down so that, the sprues are completely gone and that it's comfortable to wear.

the metal actually comes out black because it's been oxidized, so I'll brush away.

the oxidation, and then I'll polish it for 2 to 3 days until it gets really shiny.

This piece that I've, that I'm wearing is inspired by a song that I remember, playing growing up.

I think especially with music, I think music and art, whatever we kind of absorb as we're young, it does influence us as we get older.

I use a lot of found objects, a lot of toys that I remember using and playing with as a child, and I incorporate that into my work.

I think by holding onto the childhood aspect of my work, it not only brings back, like a nostalgic point of view, but it also becomes kind of kitsch, kind of sentimental, but also the way that I'm able to sculpt it and create the final piece.

It has like more of an adult message.

Because the nature of the work is eye catching and it's meant to be worn out, in public, there is always a high likelihood of complete strangers asking, you know, whoever's wearing it about the piece, like, what is that?

What does it mean?

Can you tell me about it?

That sort of thing.

And it's really incredible how the byproduct of wearing wearable art, how that goes beyond the piece itself and then becomes like an extended experience.

Coming home now for our Louisiana Treasures segment, it's easy to overlook the dramatic relief sculptures that gaze out from the Louisiana State Archives building on S and Lane in Baton Rouge.

But if you don't take the time to look more closely at Al Laverne's magnificent creations, you are missing out on something special.

Here's more about them.

Al Laverne was a sculptor that taught at Southern University and now teaches in Michigan.

He was commissioned to do the relief on the front of the building, and he did it in five panels.

Each panel is about ten by 20ft and weighs over 12 tons a piece.

He cast it in clay, and then the stone was cast from his clay models.

There are five basic panels that sort of tell the story of Louisiana history.

the first one has to do with the French colonization.

You see some of the early explorers Bienville, Abbeville, DeSoto.

the next panel is the, representative of the Spanish period of colonization.

And you see governor O'Reilly holding a proclamation, of amnesty for the France, the next panel over, deals with the Louisiana Purchase on the early statehood period.

Some of the figures you see there are, Robert Livingston and Thomas Jefferson.

Napoleon, the key figures, in the Louisiana Purchase.

and past that, is a panel that depicts the, the Civil War and the crisis of the Union.

And I thought al was particularly creative.

He's got the pelican, the Louisiana state bird and the eagle.

The national symbol, are pulling the flag apart to to represent the crisis of the Union.

And then he's, the individual.

There's PBS's Pinchbeck.

the the only African governor of the state has ever had.

And during reconstruction.

And then the final panel, depicts a contemporary Louisiana.

You can find, Governor Long's in there.

You can also find depiction of the the petroleum industry on the river.

And kind of faint in the background is, an image of the Superdome.

So he tries to cut, cover the all of the bases that, depict the modern economy and culture of Louisiana.

In ancient folklore, crows and ravens were often depicted as foretells of death and destruction.

But after spending time in Alaska, artist Larry Vienna developed a deep appreciation for the birds, which are in fact highly intelligent.

He's now creating visual narratives about these underappreciated creatures.

When I was in Alaska, I started doing Ravens as illustrations for, a friend of mine who was a native writer.

And when I left Alaska, I never felt like a finished the series.

I had many, many more ideas as I was doing his illustrations sort of inspired other images for me.

And so when I got to Florida, I was so at a loss as what to do, and I started to reinvestigate The Raven again.

So a lot of times I come up with the story first, the first the title, then the story, and then after I get my story, I write my narrative and then make my print and sometimes I try to base it on my own experience.

And a lot of times I pull it from what I've read about The Raven.

But that's half the fun.

Is is watching people look at the image and then read the narrative.

And also, oh, I get it now, you know why I'm I'm really drawn to the stories too.

I think the, the art can be it can tell the story visually.

This is titled A Raven Doesn't Want Man to Fly, and it, it's about Icarus as he was flying towards the sun, Raven comes along and bumps him and forces his wings to to fall apart.

And so his he caused man wouldn't learn how to fly for another 2000 years because of the raven.

Well, the Edgar Allan Poe image is something everyone thinks about, you know, and I did the Edgar Allan Poe image almost tongue in cheek.

Edgar Allan Poe didn't have an idea for his for his poem Raven until Raven came down and sort of knocked the story into his head.

There is a tremendous, diversity of mythology related to them.

And and I find that every single culture has stories about the raven or the crow and not all of them are sinister.

A lot of them are.

They're very helpful spirits and creatures.

They're just endless stories that I can pull from the image of Raven and crow is kind of they've gotten a bad rap, and so I'm trying to give a new reputation here.

And that's going to do it for this edition of Art rocks.

But don't despair.

You can always find episodes of the show at lpb.org/art rocks.

And if you want more, Country Roads magazine makes another great place for finding out more about what's going on in the arts all across the state.

So until next week, I'm James Fox Smith and thanks for watching.