- [Jim Voiceover] Coming up, the characters in Michelle Cuevas's children's books leap off the page.

They are as dynamic and vibrant as their creator.

- [Michelle Voiceover] I think I am kind of a visual storyteller, in my own head.

And a lotta times, if I'm working on a scene, and I'm trying to figure out where it should go, I will close my eyes, and kind of play it like a movie.

- [Jim Voiceover] Mason Bates has successfully brought music and instruments into the concert hall, that would've been unthinkable a decade ago.

- [Mason Voiceover] You can have your intellect, kind of engaging with a piece on one level, while your body's getting hit on another.

And I do think of a piece of music really needs to have a kind of visceral invasion of the listener.

- [Jim Voiceover] Antonio Martorell is a national treasure in Puerto Rico.

This painter and sculptor has been at the forefront of the island's artistic conversations for more than half a century.

- [Antonio Voiceover] I feel as if I'm just beginning.

Because, the more I do, the more I know I can do.

- [Jim Voiceover] And we explore the anthropological perspectives of singer/songwriter, Joan Shelley.

- [Joan Voiceover] It's so easy to judge, and to tell a story, like, oh, this is how I see it, that's how it was.

Saying, I got it, and I'm gonna write a song.

- [Jim Voiceover] It's all ahead, on Ariculate.

(gentle music) Children's author, Michelle Cuevas, is unapologetically philosophical, poetic, and playful.

Her breakout book was, Confessions of an Imaginary Friend.

- [Michelle Voiceover] "'I realized "'I was imaginary last year,' continued the Everything.

"'It was when I was being blamed "'for shaving the family cat.

"'My best friend blamed me, which was okay by me, "'since I couldn't get grounded like he could.

"'But then, his parents got real mad, and said, "'that it wasn't my fault Mr.

Tickles was nude, "'because I was imaginary, "'and imaginary things can't shave cats.'

"'And how did that make you feel?'

asked Stinky Sock.

"'Bad,' said the Everything, 'and sad, "'like I'm not in control of my own fate.

"'It's not like I wanted to shave cats, "'but I'd like the option, you know?'"

- [Jim Voiceover] Growing up in the tiny town of Lee, Massachusetts, Cuevas had plenty of space to indulge her own imagination.

- [Michelle Voiceover] Our neighborhood had, mostly, young boys, so I played alone a lot.

I have three brothers.

And so, I ended up making up a lot of games, and I would, I'd know how to fill my newspaper, I would make plays, and make my brothers perform them, so I was, you know, alone a lot, and writing a lot.

I think that was kind of two things, and kind of do a lot of make believe.

- [Jim Voiceover] A penchant for whimsy would follow Cuevas throughout her life, but it wasn't until she was studying for her MFA, that she found her niche.

Her thesis became her first novel.

- [Michelle Voiceover] It felt like such a good fit.

When I was working on it, I was happy when I was writing it.

It was a work of magical realism, which I loved bringing into it, and I didn't know if it would ever get published, but I liked doing it, and I remember that feeling, for the first time as a writer, of feeling I had chosen the exact right type of writing for me, which was, which I don't think everyone finds.

I don't know that that's always the case.

And then, when you hear people saying how much it feels like work, I sometimes wonder if they might want to try a different genre.

- [Jim Voiceover] In her genre, Cuevas has now published half a dozen children's books, two of which have been optioned by 20th Century Fox.

But, as it turns out, they were already movies in her mind.

- [Michelle Voiceover] I think I am kind of a visual storyteller, in my own head.

A lotta times, if I'm working on a scene, and I'm trying out where it should go, I will close my eyes and kind of play it like a movie.

I'll picture characters, and what they're doing, and where they are, and kind of where it might go next.

So it's, sometimes, it'll just play on its own, like a movie, (chuckles) and okay, I'll just write it down.

- [Jim Voiceover] Not only write it down, but also draw it.

(creature snorting) Just recently, two Cuevas works were published on the same day.

One, a picture book, called Smoot, A Rebellious Shadow, the other, a novel that follows a young girl, as she learns The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole.

- And she realizes she can feed it things.

She can feed it her problems, basically.

And in the story, she starts lightly, she starts feeding it, like, I don't wanna do this homework, I don't wanna take the garbage out, I don't wanna eat my brussel sprouts.

But, in the story, her father has passed away recently.

So, she's dealing with, or not dealing with her grief.

And I had lost my stepfather the year I wrote the book.

So, I feel like it was really coming from a very true place.

And so, she starts storing away her memories, the things that remind her of him, and the black hole's getting bigger and bigger.

Eventually, (chuckles) her dog gets eaten by the black hole, so she has to go in and save him.

And her little brother follows her in, Cosmo is his name, and it becomes a space adventure.

One of the lessons is, you don't deal with your problems, they grow, they morphed.

So, there are space monsters and galactic showers, and it's this kind of big Star Wars-esque space adventure, and obviously, at the other level, it's her confronting these memories, and confronting her grief.

- [Jim Voiceover] Though her books are, at their core, entertainment.

Like all great children's literature, Cuevas is also committed to imparting wisdom, and though she never names it thus, she believes it's best to hide philosophy in plain sight, so that the reader and the story can mature together, overtime.

- So, maybe they're in first grade, (chuckles) and they, they haven't learned a lot of these lessons, or experienced a lot of these things.

So, they're learning some empathy.

They're kind of imagining they're the character.

If you're reading as an older student, or as an adult, the conversation becomes, I remember that feeling, you know, I've experienced that, and I think all of that's really valuable.

So, it can almost be a different book, for different people, or even a different book for the same person, at different stages in their life.

- [Jim Voiceover] But ultimately, Michelle Cuevas doesn't write, to tickle our thinking brains.

She writes, to touch our hearts.

- When you get it right, when you get that moment, that you know that the reader is going to cry, and I mean that in a good way, (chuckles) I think you know, and I often, more often, the feeling I know, is when I haven't done it, (chuckles) and I really just don't need to.

Then, I won't hand the book in, until I feel that.

(gentle music) (fantastic orchestral music) - [Jim Voiceover] Mason Bates has been changing classical music, by infusing orchestras with unexpected sounds.

He's brought very modern music making techniques into a very traditional space.

- [Mason Voiceover] I think that you have to be able to engage with your listener, if you're gonna scare the hell of them at some point.

- [Jim Voiceover] And Bates would know.

His music, which draws heavily from his college days as a DJ, has ruffled a few traditionalists' feathers.

But though, he's faced plenty of pushback about his bold choices, Bates is encouraged by the fact that he's not the first composer to push against the edges.

- [Mason Voiceover] You know, music history is full of pollination.

You know... Like, whether it'd be people, like Gershwin, or somebody like Mozart, who in some of some of the string quartets, is using these kind of Gavotte melodies, it's always been happening, and it just, it's sort of a matter of degree, and how much you flirt with the walking of the line.

(light orchestral music) One of the things that I love about this medium, is that we have time, and we have power, you know, like, acoustic power.

You can have your intellect kind of engaging with a piece on one level, while your body's getting hit on another.

I think it's important to take full advantage of both of those elements.

I do think a piece of music really needs to have a kind of visceral invasion of the listener.

- [Jim Voiceover] Though he's barely 40 years old, Bates is already a veteran composer.

He received his first symphony commission at the age of 17, and has since been working steadily to perfect his grasp on that most sophisticated of organic instruments, the symphony orchestra, which Bates likens to a giant synthesizer, but one with a lot more keys.

- And every one of those keys is a person, and you gotta really know how to work with them, because it has so much power, when you can get it revved up.

But, you do have to be able to fit into the acoustics, you have to fit into the logistics.

- You also have to have credibility among the musicians that you're mingling with.

- Yeah.

Well, you know, what I've found, time and again, is that... People, in orchestras, are pretty skeptical before the first rehearsal.

Once they hear what the music is, they loosen up real fast, and I do think it's one of the interesting, and I would say, special things about our medium is that you have both an internal, and an external audience, and then we have, obviously, the crowd that shows up.

But, there's a lot that goes in one, psychologically, as you're mentioning, on the stage, with the musicians.

And usually people, pretty quickly, are like going from, why are the speakers here, to, hey, look, we can learn new tricks, too.

(dramatic orchestral music) - [Jim Voiceover] And orchestras, who've had to learn new tricks for Bates, include the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra, and it's not just the big boys who can play Bates.

He's just as pleased, when community, amateur, and volunteer orchestras take on his work.

(tense orchestral music) - [Mason Voiceover] It's only going to get into the ether of the classical music canon, if it happens on a regional level.

You know, you have to be able to... Have a kind of grassroots of orchestras that play your music.

And so, one important thing for me, is that the electronic component has to be able to work, in three rehearsals... Without me there.

- [Jim Voiceover] And he can't always be there.

He's based in San Francisco, while also serving his artist in resident at the Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC.

This past summer, he spent quite a bit of time in Santa Fe, where his opera, based on the life of Steve Jobs had its world premiere.

The late Apple founder, and CEO's biography had previously had two outings on film.

- [Mason Voiceover] It's a topic that can withstand a couple of different angles, and I think, in many ways, opera is the best medium to handle this, this figure.

And the reason I think that, is that... It can be both a naturalistic and a kinda poetic medium.

For somebody who changed communication, to me, communication is kind of the big picture of what he is, has done for us.

Opera can really deal with that, because people can have not only different light motifs, but like different sound ones.

It was really inspiring, I can tell you, to be writing a piece that so much had to do with a fundamental issue of the 21st century, how do you shrink all of our communication into these little devices, when we're so complicated.

That's what he dealt with.

Things spinning out of control, you know, like... He's got a child from a different woman, he's got cancer.

These things are not one button problems.

- [Jim Voiceover] And it was fitting, that Mason Bates should be the one to tell the Steve Jobs story, for they have a lot in common.

They're both innovators in their respective fields, who have helped define the new millennium.

♪ The corporate goliaths ♪ Take down the Wall Street behemoths ♪ Is a decent slingshot ♪ Decent slingshot (audience cheering and clapping) (gentle music) - [Antonio Voiceover] What can you get out of an umbrella?

To everybody, it's just an umbrella.

You open it, to protect yourself from the sun, or the rain, or the snow.

But no, umbrella is, you tear it apart, and you explore it.

You learn what it is, to be an umbrella.

- [Jim Voiceover] A consummate artist, Antonio Martorell, is one of the Puerto Rico's greatest living cultural treasures.

(audience cheering and clapping) His life has been one of continuous experimentation, and new artistic materials, and techniques.

Painting, printmaking, writing, and more.

- [Antonio Voiceover] I feel as if I'm just beginning, because the more I do, the more I know I can do.

What I learn in one medium, I apply it to the other.

And when I'm doing one, I never miss the other.

I wish I could be forever on stage, and when I'm working in my studio, I say, why, why bother doing a performance, when I'm having so much fun here?

And when I write, the same thing.

- [Jim Voiceover] And when Martorell started out, his creativity was expressed solely through a paintbrush.

Then, one day, it occurred to him, that a two dimensional object, on a gallery wall, could offer viewers only a small window into his mindset.

Martorell wanted more.

- [Antonio Voiceover] I don't want the people just to come into the window.

I want to come out of the window, and embrace them.

So, I began doing installations.

And I found that it really involved people in much, a cozier way.

Then, I would visit my installations, and see people relating to the objects, and enjoying them, and having dialogue with the objects.

But, I was out of it.

I was the author.

So, I say, no, I want to be a direct part of that conversation.

So, I went into performance art.

(audience cheering and clapping) - [Jim Voiceover] Performance art led to a more direct involvement in theater, as an actor, and a director.

And from there, onto radio and television.

- It's all geared to the same thing, communication.

- [Jim Voiceover] And Martorell is keenly aware, that communication requires as much listening as talking.

In 2010, his outlook on age shifted dramatically after a brief conversation with a patron, at an exhibition of his woodcuts in Connecticut.

- [Antonio Voiceover] This Asian lady, about the same age as I was then, which was my early 70s, told me, I love these prints!

They're magnificent.

But, why aren't there people like us, our age?

All these bodies are young, and their gestures, and everything.

I say, lady, thank you so much.

Day after tomorrow, I'm flying back to Puerto Rico, and I'm going to do 15 more prints of people like us.

So, there came Gestuario number two, which is all about super adults, like ourselves, and the gestures, and the body language, that comes with age.

- [Jim Voiceover] You've also described super adults, and children, as the most underrepresented sectors of our society.

But surely, older adults, they vote.

They have agency in that way.

- Not all of us.

The super adults, in extreme distress... When they're in bed, and they lose the capacity to talk, or to move.

They have no economic clout.

They have no political agency.

They're just like babies.

And they treat us like that.

The ones that I can't stand, you go up to the doctor, and they say... (speaks in Spanish) Give me your little arm.

(speaks in Spanish) Pull out your little tongue.

And I feel like going... I behave, because I know they do it out of... Well... They say it's caring, although it's really condescending... But it's both.

- [Jim Voiceover] But in Puerto Rico, says Martorell, it's not only the elders who are feeling patronized.

Beyond, is an unincorporated US territory.

And with neither statehood, nor independence, Puerto Rico's growth has been stunted.

- [Antonio Voiceover] I want my country to come of age.

We've been children and teenagers for too long.

- [Jim Voiceover] One of Martorell's most important contributions to this coming of age, was a 1966 children's book.

- [Antonio Voiceover] It was a joy, from beginning to end, to really get published.

And it was accepted, as a textbook in the schools, primary schools, and then the government change.

The new party was a new progressive party, which has decided that it was some basic book, that it had to be taken out of the schools.

So, they took out the books, stored them, threw them away.

You know, things happen, but you overcome them.

- [Jim Voiceover] And though, it's now out of print, and extremely rare, at least one copy of ABC to Puerto Rico survives, safely housed in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City.

These days, Antonio Martorell focuses less on the starky political, but still finds that he can never completely turn it off.

- You tend to think of politics as party politics.

That's not it.

I mean, politics is about people becoming what they want to be, and that's art.

- [Jim Voiceover] Now 85, the keenly observant Antonio Martorell is living everything, that life has shown him.

- [Antonio Voiceover] You have to be very, very stupid, to grow old and remain stupid.

You learn something on the way, and an artist learns all the time.

(gentle music) - [Jim Voiceover] As a child growing up in Kentucky, Joan Shelley decided that music would be her destiny.

♪ Once, we had ♪ All we wanted ♪ Nothing more ♪ Than to take good care I remember being about, like, six years old, and I'm sitting outside, under this big ash tree, and it was a beautiful spring day, and I got so sad, sitting out there by myself, and I thought, by the time I grow up, all the songs will be written.

And I had this urgence, like a panic, and I remember, I was like talking to the butterflies, I promise, if I grow up, I'm gonna write really great songs, if you keep some out there for me.

And I thought, I remember that one day, and I wonder if that were.

- [Jim Voiceover] It certainly didn't hurt.

For the past five years, Shelley has been touring, steadily, at home and abroad, charming audiences with her straightforward approach to songwriting and performance.

And of all her tunes, there's one song of love and loss that is a standard crowd favorite.

- [Joan Voiceover] Not Over by Half is one... That, if we don't play it, someone will come up and say, why didn't you play that song?

♪ 'Cause it's not over by half ♪ There's a gold in your eyes ♪ Bloomin' out through the black ♪ And you're still standing, your hand on the map ♪ No, it's not over, not over by half ♪ I've had interactions with people, after the show, where they say, hey, I lost my father, and this song really helped me through it alright.

You know, something major had happened in their life, and that song really helped them through it.

And, I mean, that's, it's heavy, to hear that, and to know, that some people are coming for that song, and you don't wanna mess it up, or trying to play, trying to still find something in there that's... That... Keep it alive.

- [Jim Voiceover] 2017 brought Joan Shelley's eponymous fifth album, produced by Wilco frontman, Jeff Tweedy.

- [Joan Voiceover] It was like being at a friend's house.

Building the studio, experience that.

I mean, it just felt so relaxed, and I was shocked, 'cause I went in, thinking, what have I done?

This is the producer experience.

I'm gonna get squashed under that weight.

- And the opposite happened?

- And the opposite happened.

In a lotta ways, he was just, he's a great listener.

And he has a great... He just has a great instinct.

And all of us that were in the room, were all, I picked them, because they were all people I trusted, to have good instinct, and you don't have to dial somebody back, or, you know, ask more than someone can do.

It just, it was a perfect mix.

So, Jeff kinda led the intuitive flow.

- [Jim Voiceover] The result is an intimate and thoughtful record, that embraces Shelley's bluegrass grassroots.

(gentle guitar music) The profound influence of here college years, studying anthropology, on her outlook on life, can also be heard in every Joan Shelley song.

- [Joan Voiceover] I am a people watcher.

And what anthropology taught me, was your being a people watcher is also not a pure thing.

And so, I became, watching the watcher.

It's so easy to judge, and to tell a story, and like, oh, this is how I see it, and that's how it was, saying I got it, and I'm gonna write a song about how Mary hurt Johnny, and duh-duh-duh.

My feeling is that another place, to watch the love story, is within.

(gentle guitar music) ♪ Pull me up one more time ♪ Pull me up, be there beside me ♪ 'Cause there I know ♪ I've held the fingers ♪ To pull me up one more time ♪ When I have fallen - [Jim Voiceover] And though Joan Shelley may never fully grasp every possible interpretation of a situation, she'll continue to question her own world view, and express it in some thoughtful songs.

For more Articulate, find us on social media, or at our website, articulateshow.org.

On the next Articulate, on a recent tour, the Havana Lyceum Orchestra showed America that Cuba has a classical music culture to rival that of any wealthy western country.

An alumnus of the Italian avant garde movement, Peter Shire is today, thriving in LA.

These days, flowers mostly say, I love you, or I'm sorry.

In the Victorian era, their language was boundless.

And, in the marble sculptures of Elizabeth Turk, there's a constant tension between the permanence of their medium, and her desire to test the limits of its fragility.

Join us, for the next Articulate.

- [Annonucer] Articulate, with Jim Cotter, is made possible with generous funding from the Neubauer Family Foundation.