Today when, Rox, there's the Ruston artist who's touching personal paintings of life's simplest things tug at her viewers heartstrings.

I've never painted anybody that I didn't know.

I've been asked few times to do commissioned work of people, and I would always sit and spend some time with them.

First.

We find our way to a museum of signs that guides us to a richer understanding of history.

That's one of the reasons they can last for decades.

If it's well made.

Our site has been going since 1991.

There's a theater company that arms young thespians with confidence and creativity.

It's fun to not be myself for a couple of hours every day, to be able to go into a different, different world, to just jump into a journey with someone else's.

And the story behind Shreveport's Mega millennium mural.

That's all coming up on 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 I'm glad you've joined us for Art rocks.

We begin up in Ruston, Louisiana, where one artist paints touching personal portraits of the people and objects that populate her everyday life.

Julie Cruse explains that when it comes to subject matter, she finds everything she needs hidden in the busy landscape of daily life.

As a wife and a mother to five young children.

Who.

I'm an artist.

I'm a wife, and I'm a mother.

When I'm in the studio, I don't really put one of those in front of the other.

It's all encompassing.

What do you experience in your day?

Checking the mail, doing dishes.

You know, it's all the very mundane things.

Shopping for clothes.

So some of the things I've been considering my relationship with thrift store shopping versus going to the mall and shopping.

Any street scene that you would see that I've done is me going someplace, getting groceries or picking somebody up or having dropped somebody off or, you know, just all the running around that all of us do.

Many of Julie's paintings depict the people with whom she shares her life.

Her interpretations capture the easy intimacy that binds families and friends together.

To do that, Julie explains, she needs to know her subject well.

I've never painted anybody that I didn't know, and maybe that influences it.

I've been asked few times to do commission work of people, and I would always sit and spend some time with them first.

The photo references that I would use aren't secondary, but are, and as important as trying to get an idea of the personality.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that they that I do know them intimately.

And as I'm painting and working, there comes a time when you feel like you're approaching being finished.

And maybe that's when it snaps is when when I feel that acquaintance looking back at me.

Maybe that I know that I'm finished.

Capturing the vignettes of domestic life that steal her away from her studio.

Julie's paintings celebrate the unexpected beauty of the mundane and the familiar, whether that be an unmade bed, a stack of dirty dishes by the sink, or an undulating country road.

There's a, a road and it's it's going down and banging off into the distance.

And as I'm painting it, it almost becomes, sort of abstracted and very flat to me.

So even though there's depth there and it goes back into the horizon, there's flatness to it, which I really love.

It's almost like a magic trick you're painting on something flat.

You're trying to make it look like there's a depth of field.

And yet I'm treating different sections of the painting in a very flat way.

So it's almost like a it's like playing dodge ball, sort of, I don't know.

When I paint landscapes, it's always based in emotion.

You know, when you see something beautiful and you're afraid it will, it's going to disappear.

So you sort of hold your breath a little.

That's that's the best I can come.

That's the closest I can come.

I don't know.

Sometimes roads to the most mundane destinations reveal surprising new subjects for Julie to paint.

There's a series that I did of the Dumdum suckers.

I just couldn't keep my kids out of the doctor's office.

So every time you leave the doctor, you know, you get a little sucker, and it's kind of get paint notes.

We had a series of broken bones and all sorts of calamity.

They've been very well received, and I get a lot of positive feedback over those little sucker paintings.

Yeah.

You know, they're just they're cheerful.

They're kind of happy.

I was painting them when all these doctor's visits were happening.

Was also during the presidential auction.

And I think that it was it was helpful just for people to see something that was light and fun and beautiful, you know, and something that wasn't so heavy and serious.

Oil painting for me.

I like how slowly it dries.

I paint, very directly.

So I paint wet into where I don't do a lot of layering.

Sometimes I enjoy letting it dry, and I'll actually sand down the painting, kind of build it up a little bit.

Not all the time.

I think you could probably do that with, an acrylic medium as well.

But I enjoy the fact that it stays wet longer.

And it's buttery.

There's just a consistency to it that I love.

My favorite thing about being an artist is, you know, a painter is the freedom to do whatever I want to do in the studio.

And.

It's hard work.

You know, and I love that.

I love that it's challenging and it's so fun.

It's so fun.

If you're into arts and culture, Louisiana is fertile ground in the springtime.

You just need to know where to look.

So here's a list of some cool goings on coming up this week around the state.

To learn more about these and other events in Louisiana, visit the website at LPB.

Dormant Art rocks.

For more about these and other events, snag a copy of Country Roads magazine.

There are wrecks all around town, and also the Art rocks website has an archive of previous episodes, so to see any segment again, just log on to lpb.org.

Think for a second about how many signs you see every day.

Signs show us the way one does of hazards and invite us in or tell us to stay out.

But signs also reveal much about the history, technology, commerce, culture of the communities that make them.

Curators at the American Science Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, have collected hundreds of rare, sometimes startling signs, and the collection gives visitors an opportunity to consider the deeper meanings of the messages all around us.

One of our taglines for the museum is this is a walk down memory lane.

When people come here, they go, oh, I remember, and then fill in the blank.

And the positive thing about the is it's always conjures up good memories.

We're really the only public sign museum in the country that covers the full range of American signage.

We get a lot of support from the sign industry.

We're a sign company.

We'll take down a local sign.

They'll send me a quick email before they haul it off to the scrapyard.

They say you have an interest in this sign.

Increasingly, and perhaps unfortunately, we've acquired signs from small businesses that are closing down.

One way to keep alive the memory of the family business is to have the sign come here.

We actually have about 4400 items in the collection, of which about 600 are signs.

About half of those 600 signs are on display.

We also have a photo archive of 1200 images of signs, about 700 books and catalogs, artwork, blueprints.

Signs, sketches.

We have tools and equipment, so it runs the whole gamut of any type of object related to sign making and design.

Upon entry at the museum, we start with our letter walls to show how the materials and technologies used to make three dimensional letters has changed through time.

Laying over top of that is kind of a history of electric signs.

We've started about the late 1800s, I'd say 1880, 1890 up through about the late 1960s.

You're going to see hand-painted signs, gold leaf on glass, hand-lettered show cards, the whole gamut of American signage.

You toured the beginning of the museum.

You see the signs out of context.

They're mounted to the floor.

A man into the wall hanging from the ceiling.

You don't have any context of scale or how they would have fit on the building.

So when you walk out on signs on Main Street, each storefront is actually designed around a sign we have.

So it provides us the opportunity to put a 50 sign on a 50s building in 1920.

Sign a 1920s building.

A turn of the century sign at the turn of the century building.

You can walk through the museum and take it from a standpoint of the history of technology.

The advent of electricity and light, both the advent a light bulb science.

You had been a plastic after the war.

The advent of plastic signs.

You can also walk to the museum as a history of design trends.

I can cite various design trends in the US through signage, and then it's also the history of advertising.

Signs are everywhere, but people don't really think about them in the context of somebody had to design that.

Somebody had to make that take a picture in their head and make it real.

I am a neon tube bender.

That's what they call us in the trade.

We ban glass for neon signs.

We also process the neon to, to create a vacuum tube.

And we have to put the filler gas in, which is either neon gas or argon gas.

A neon tube is basically a hollow tube that has an electrode on each end.

The fluorescent powder determines the color inside the tube in conjunction with the filler gas.

Either that red neon gas or the blue argon gas.

The filler gas inside acts like a wire in between these two electrodes, and so there's no little wire filament to burn out.

That's one of the reasons they can last for decades.

If it's well made.

Our site has been going since 1991, so that's that's pretty good for a light bulb.

I have a blow hose when I, when I bend in the fire, it's going to have a tendency to get misshapen.

So what I want to do is I want to blow just a little puff there and there, just to keep them nice and round through the vent.

We're adjacent to the American Science Museum.

We have this great bank of windows here where people can watch us bend glass.

We've met people from all over the world, and everybody seems to be very excited about seeing neon made.

It is becoming somewhat of a lost art.

There used to be a lot of training programs around back in the 40s and 50s, or there were trained people for the sign business, and traditionally a lot of people have learned through a family business.

So that's traditionally the way something like this would be handed down.

We have people all the time asking about it.

We're going to have to pass this on to somebody.

I love what I do, and, I really enjoy being part of the museum experience to look out this window that we have right next to our shop.

It is pretty inspirational because the engineering that goes into some of those sciences quite amazing.

There's a lot of things that they've done through history with the neon that we don't do anymore.

As far as the movement and flashing.

You get a lot of fun signs out there that you forget from the past.

Like the Howard Johnson with Simple Simon met a pieman on his way to the fair.

That's all depicted on top of that sign.

And that's something that I had forgotten about until they put that sign in the museum.

The thing I like most about the sign museum is the way it connects so successfully to people.

Anybody of any age that goes there has a hook.

They see something that's part of their life.

It resonates with them and they love to tell you about it or experience it.

Signs are the most transient part of our built environment.

They change at a pace much faster than buildings, than streets, than landscapes.

Because when a building goes, the sign that advertises that building might be not only irrelevant, but confusing.

So they go away.

It's a very important part of our culture in our lives.

And when people go into the sign museum, they have this almost reverberation with their own history, their own identity, because they're seeing so many parts of it in this condensed, hyper amped up environment.

What's unique about the Sign Museum is they are a national institution, which is collecting these really important artifacts from our built environment and interpreting them in a way that is really fun and educational.

The first job of the sign designer or maker is to be visible, to stand out, to have a visual presence in the environment.

And so they've always used the technology that's available to them to do that.

From streamers with reflections to whirligigs blowing in the wind and capturing reflected light, as soon as something's existed, they've incorporated into signs.

Gold leaf gas illuminated signs punching holes in metal with light bulbs behind them.

And then, of course, you get to the point where it's neon.

And neon was extremely effective at standing out, particularly at night.

Signs of evolved with us as a culture, from being very simple things that would be hand-lettered on a building to stamped out mass produced items that can be shipped out by the thousands.

We're losing a lot of individual character and a lot of spontaneity in our visual environment.

It's one of the reasons Sign Museum is so important because it captures that.

When it was a free for all and everyone is out there creating their own message and having a record of that is an extremely important cultural archive that people can go to.

Not to mention, it's a lot of fun.

If you want to see the Circle Christian School in action, you have to travel to Central Florida.

This private Christian school has a unique approach to giving parents a say in their kids education.

Let's listen to students tell us how the school's theater company is helping them grow, both personally and as actors, to compare the size of the bodies of a small circle.

Theater company started in 2001.

And then after the third year, that theater teacher was leaving, and our kids were all upset that there wasn't going to be a Circle theater anymore.

And that's when we we teamed up, and we have been involved ever since.

What's in all this for you a living, Mr.

Camper?

Some people pay to some, so I meddle.

It's been a really humbling experience for me, playing something so wonderful.

I have a lot of respect for Dolly and everything that she's about.

But I think it's a love hate relationship between the two of us, because I'm always wanting to do her justice, and I'm always afraid that I wouldn't be.

I really enjoy the way theater touches not only my life, but everybody else's life.

It's the it's a way to communicate with people, and it's a way to tell a story.

My first year with Circle Theater Company has been absolutely amazing.

It's been a real learning experience.

I've always loved performing since I was little, and I just think characters are something that we hold really dear in our hearts.

And it's because.

Why?

Why just have one life when you can have like a thousand?

When you become a different character?

So I think it's really interesting because you get to kind of step in someone's shoes, but without the commitment.

I believe arts education is extremely important.

And, I feel sorry that they keep taking those out of the school systems and that's why I think both of us are so dedicated to continue it here with circle, is to continue that opportunity for students to be involved in the arts, because it doesn't matter if they go off to be a doctor or a lawyer.

It really has advantages.

Way beyond being on stage.

My head is about your pop.

You know, my my my heart kind of leans towards the ones that come in who they can't even look you in the eye.

And you know how important theater is for it.

You know, it's great for everybody.

But for those that have the the problem with just, you know, speaking to you and the self esteem it gives, it's just amazing to watch the growth and the transformation.

I've watched both my boys, but particularly Sam, grow in the process of being involved with Circle Theater.

He's very energetic, very committed, to just about everything he's doing.

And it gives it it all his all.

And so I think circle has helped him kind of refine that a little bit and put up some, some limits and tolerances on it.

We won't cover all of you if you step down.

I really enjoy the aspect of being able to to share art with other people, as well as to, it's fun to to not be myself for a couple of hours every day to be able to go into, a different, different world, to just jump into an on a journey with someone else's circle theater company has helped me grow so much.

Before Circle Theater Company, I couldn't even talk to people.

It was really crazy.

But now I've grown so much out of my shell.

Well, well, look who's here.

Admittedly.

But I definitely think Circle Theater Company has made me more confident in myself.

And I also think that they've done a great job at bringing people out of their shows, but also keeping it in a very nurturing environment.

So you're not afraid to be yourself, and you're not afraid to try a few things, even if you make a few mistakes.

They're very, very supported with, Circle Theater Company.

We really appreciate the fact that they do teach excellence.

They, they're not expecting mediocrity.

And when a student is showing mediocrity, they ask the student to step up.

And I appreciate that they do that with my students.

With Bailey, I think I think there's an element of they give responsibility and they and they expect you to fulfill the role, whatever it is, from running spotlights to acting on the stage to sweeping the floors.

Yet because it's Circle Christian School, they also do it with grace.

So there's an amount of, love that happens that is communicated to the students with such a positive atmosphere that they can be rich.

And to see our kids do what we've been teaching them do, to do and see it come back is just it's just wow.

And you're like, they got it.

And you know that great things are going to come from them.

Take some of it.

I take it you are the Circle Theater Company is an incredible place to be.

And, I can't imagine what I would do with all my time if I did Half Circle Theater to bring you the we love.

Ready for another Louisiana treasure?

It's hard to miss Shreveport's once in a millennium moon mural that covers two sides of the eight story, eight building along I-20.

Betty Black tells us some of the history behind this iconic Shreveport landmark, and this mural was done, to celebrate the millennium year.

And it represents Shreveport and what Shreveport represents.

The flow of water represents a logjam in Shreveport that Captain Shreve was able to clear.

And in doing so, it helped the industry of Shreveport and to help make Shreveport what it is today.

When the waterways were open, then that allowed the time to be shipped down into the New Orleans area, which helped us with our commerce and our we are name Shreveport.

That's how we got our name.

But this mural represents the four phases of life from birth, puberty, marriage, and death.

The baby symbolizes, of course, the the birth of Shreveport and the flow of life.

Over 80 people were chosen at random to be, involved in the mural, to have the symbolism of them.

And it incorporates several families, from the Shreveport area, heirlooms from the Kahlenberg family who are instrumental in the formation of art space, the glorious Soviet family, a wedding veil, a three generation, actually four generations in the produce business in Shreveport.

The glory also family actually started when the great grandfather came over from Italy and sold produce on the streets.

And now the family is, over the years and is still very involved with family members working within the, the, the company.

And it's a very viable company today.

And they're an intrinsic part of, of Shreveport.

And they also, started out on the river.

So the river is a was a really central focus of so much going on in Shreveport back in the early days.

More than 2500 people helped create this mural, a project led by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council artist Sybil Zagar.

Redford is behind a performance called way of the rain.

It's a multimedia art exhibit that pays homage to planet Earth and her elements with a joyous celebration in music, dance and film.

I was invited by Collier of Young Arts to, bring the way of the rain, Miami to Miami.

And this project is, a multimedia, performance piece in collaboration, with music, dance, film.

And it is an homage to our planet Earth and its universal elements.

I have been working with watercolor for quite some time, and, my studio, in New Mexico, is located on a high plateau on a high desert plateau outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

And so during the summer months, we have the monsoon rains, which are extremely attractive.

And the idea came up to maybe incorporate this rain showers with my watercolors.

So I reversed the techniques, and on July paper I applied the watercolor.

And then I take these pieces of, watercolor paper out into the rain showers.

And Duane creates the art, actually.

So so I have to be out there.

So I'm spending a lot of time in the monsoon rains with my art pieces, because I have to pull them out.

It's my time to make sure they're not rained out.

I decided I wanted to create a statement, to pinpoint on this issue, and I figured that if I really want to create a strong voice, I should invite some other artists with diverse to be poured out of this.

Since dance music is my passion, my other passion, I decided to include music and and dance and film to create just a bigger voice, to just be more thoughtful of where we are and what is happening to our.

For the audience, I'm hoping that they experience something they have never seen before because of all these different elements of different artforms.

Bringing that together, but also the projections, the lighting done by Steve Cohen, he created some really powerful messages on top of the silks that I'm showing.

So it's going to be remarkable.

And I think I'm hoping that people leave and become more open, conscious that the consciousness will open up.

And hopefully they they won't forget so fast.

And hopefully when the next grandchild comes down, they might think, oh, I remember the way of doing.

He has a way of doing.

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

But remember, you can always watch episodes of the show at LPB.

Dot org slash rocks.

And while you're in a creative frame of mind, Country Roads Magazine is a great place to find out about festivals, concerts, exhibits, theater, cuisine, and artful getaways happening all around the state in print and online at Country Roads mag.

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