[speaker] Art Loft is brought to you by, [voiceover 1] Where there is freedom, there is expression.

The Florida Keys & Key West.

[speaker] And the Friends of South Florida PBS.

[voiceover 2] Art Loft, it's the pulse of what's happening in our own backyard as well as the taste of the arts across the United States.

[scott] It's really been an extension of a whole life of- of just really soul doodling.

[narrator] In this episode, mixing mediums, art practices that vary but a goal that aligns.

Viewing our world through the lens of the artist.

I- I find favorite, favorite faces, you know?

And I saw I know for, I know for a fact, I won't touch this guy here because I love him.

My name is Scott Jeffries, and I'm a painter.

I call myself a soul doodler.

You know, I've been doodling my whole entire life.

These paintings now, this art now is really what I've been doing since I was a little kid.

And I started doodling when I was probably five or six.

And- and I doodled all through elementary school and- and high school and law school.

And because of COVID I was able to- I got- I got laid off from my job at, at a law firm.

And then it was kind of like pushed into a dream of being a full-time artist.

And that's- I've been doing that for the past six or seven months.

And it's been an amazing thing, because I've been able to focus on what I've been wanting to do my whole entire life.

I don't create any colors.

I just grab, I go to the paint store and I will just grab paints.

People give me paints for, for Christmas.

I have old paints that someone gave me.

And I, and if I happen to, you know, I just think I can- it would just be whatever's close, right?

And that will, that will be the paint that's available.

My grandmother was a painter, so I painted for a long time.

And you know, when I was 13, we were at my grandmother's funeral and my, my mother was- we were standing in inner studio in her in her basement in the Bronx.

And I remember my mother saying to, to basically out loud, "What am I going to do with all this stuff?"

All her paint brushes and all her paints and all her you know, all the materials that she had in- in the studio and I was, And I was like, I'll take them home with me.

And I took them home and I started to paint, started to paint then.

And, you know, from that point on, I was always painting just, just to paint.

But the main thing always is, is try not to have, have... two colors that are the same next to each other.

That's my only real rule.

It doesn't matter really, if it's, if it's perfect.

You know everything is it's there, there are no mistakes in my art.

It's not for somebody else's approval.

It's for, you know, it's just for enjoyment.

If you like it, you like it.

If you don't like it, you don't like it.

You know, and I think a lot of artists struggle with, which I don't struggle with is, is perfectionism.

'Cause I never went to art school, you know?

I went to- I went to law school years ago and you know, when- when people talk about my art sometimes they're like, "You're just such a great colorist.

You know, I never could thought that, you know that this color and this colors could go together."

And for me, I never thought about that.

Thank, thank, thank God I didn't, I didn't know what what a color wheel meant.

And the fun thing will be is that, you know, when I step back and look at it, I was like, "Hmm, that's interesting."

And I'll scratch sometimes.

And... give it some life.

My art's meant to be fun, you know, and enjoyed and accessible, you know?

And, and more than anything, you know I w- I would love people to people- You know, people ask me a lot, "What does that, what does that art mean?

You know, what does that mean?"

And I'm like, "Hmm... What do you see?"

That's, that's the key.

I draw the black lines first, and ultimately just fill in the color but, but no sketching out, no rhyme or reason, just, you know, painting to paint and have fun.

I've been painting these faces my whole entire life, you know?

And- and the great thing about what, what I see, you know, and what you see, it's really a mirror of, of, of ourselves.

If I'm going to do a face painting, I'm just going to paint faces.

I'm going to paint smiles.

I'm going to paint frown.

I'm going to paint grins.

I'm going to paint whatever- whichever way the brush, brush goes.

These paintings lately mean something different than they met years ago.

You know, someone had asked me, you know, what, when, when you know, when, when George Floyd was killed and, and and it, all, these, all these protests were going on.

They wanted me to, to give them a diversity painting for their kids.

Right, so something that that's something to me- what it meant to me and these paintings all of a sudden started to become like diversity paintings because they showed that the difference in humanity the different colors that, that, that are in the rainbow.

You know, the reds, the yellows, the blues, the browns.

At the end of the day, these are protests of, you know call them protest of smiles more than anything.

It just, it just was an amazing process for me to start to think about these things at a deeper, deeper level over- over time.

And sometimes it did sometimes they're just, you know, meant to make you smile.

You know, there's no like, deeper meaning.

You know, I paint these, I paint these, these, these fish.

You know, and they're just, they're just fish.

I spend some time with, with, with younger people working with them.

And I hear all the time.

They say, "I can't do that.

I can't paint.

I can't do that.

I can't."

And it's like, and I encourage anyone that's an artist just to stop with that negative thinking because you- you're never going to be satisfied.

You know, I love my art.

You know?

Not- My art's not for everybody.

You know?

But I know one thing.

It's, it's for me.

[narrator] To see more soul doodling, head to Instagram, @ScottArt.

[kelly] Pot never forgets the hands that make it.

So I think that that's something that I'd want each person to walk away with is that, that feeling, that compassion, that creativity, and that love.

[adam] Kelly and I are actually both classically trained as painters.

And we met in painting school in Bowling Green, Ohio, actually.

Kelly is a lifelong potter.

And the correlation between painting and ceramics was not obvious to me at first.

I ended up buying some used equipment and starting a studio within our home.

Kind of doing more of the art fair circuit in Ohio.

And at that time Adam had his painting studio in the same space.

So while he was painting, I would make pottery.

And then he started sort of commandeering my pots to paint on.

And eventually 10 years later he was converted to the dark side of pottery.

I couldn't make pots.

And I had to paint on her pots to begin with.

Low and behold, people loved 'em.

We had a little bit of commercial success with those pots.

It was this kind of whole new world between painting, making impression, but also creating something into a three-dimensional reality.

Painting for me at that time was mostly about creating an illusion.

To make something three-dimensional was a whole new world for me.

Pottery to me is a meditation.

I love the process.

I love centering the clay.

I love the feeling and how it relates inside of me.

So kind of using the elements, using the earth using the water, the fire in the kiln, the air to dry it.

[adam] Differentiating between Kelly and I's work has become more difficult over time, because like any good partnership, over time it's really become hers, mine, and ours.

So a lot of the things we just simply make together.

Those things we sign, "KWP", Key West Pottery, just there or our studio maker's mark.

We get people from all over the world that have collected our work.

And we also have a really big local following as well.

I love making the functional wares, so not necessarily the one of a kinds but production items.

I love art for the everyday.

Being an artist in the Keys is wonderful.

There's absolutely no shortage of inspiration.

The wildlife... We have exotic birds of every variety that change throughout the year, you know?

That's how we can see the seasons.

[kelly] We have a full range of, of works.

We definitely gear towards more fine art being painters.

Our work, we, we really love the one of a kind.

So even my production wares we tend to incorporate imagery and color and try to take a modern approach to an ancient art form.

Our work is very unique and very colorful and color is an indication of health.

So having the full spectrum present can give you that feeling, that good feeling, that good vibe.

[adam] What I love about the Keys is that there is a certain colloquial nature to the culture down here where we're populated with plenty of intellectuals.

There's a lot of actually quite famous authors, artists.

And at the same time we have this kind of Caribbean base culture, that is very welcoming of anyone.

It doesn't seem like it is elitist, or, you know this work is for everyone, you know, and and that really kind of speaks to the core value of I think, why we make the work to begin with.

That's why I like it.

Plus the weather is not so bad, you know?

[narrator] Discover more designs from this dynamic duo on Instagram @KeyWestPottery.

Next up sculpture, light art, and music collide in an interactive space called Otherworld.

WOSU Public Media takes us inside.

Well, this is Scott Sliger over here.

He's sculptin'- What're you sculptin' right now?

A spider creature head?

We're in East Columbus.

On- this is going to be the site of Otherworld.

It's a 32 and some change thousand square foot interactive art installation that we're building.

It's kind of a combination of like a children's science center and an escape room and a haunted house and an art gallery.

So we're kind of mixing and mashing a lot of different genres of art and entertainment.

We're hoping that it can appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds.

So when you arrive here, you're actually arriving at the headquarters of Otherworld Industries.

It's a company that is- they've kinda been doing this alternate realm exploration.

They sort of stumbled across this dream realm.

That's kind of like the base reality of it.

But once you go into this, this Otherworld there's all sorts of these little mini adventures almost, so almost, almost like different choose your own adventures that are loosely intertwined.

So when a visitor walks in, our goal is for you to be completely overwhelmed.

We really want you to not be able to predict what's around every corner.

It's almost like a page turn of like a graphic novel or a book where you turn that corner and just get like the moment.

That's our goal.

This is the church.

So what you're kind of seeing is the reaction of our sodium light.

What this does is it takes the color spectrum out of the room.

So part of the room-scale activation is going to involve bringing that color spectrum back in.

So if we take a normal light, then it kind of brings back the color.

So kind of putting these scenic changes in the hands of the viewer.

[jordan] Every single piece here, we fabricated in house, designed and fabricated on our own.

So there's nothing that's been bought off the shelf from anywhere else.

It's all custom, one of a kind pieces.

So there's people with all sorts of different skillsets here to make, you know, something like this come together.

[scott schaff] So kind of entering into the focal point of the space.

Is their tree.

This is where we're kind of flexing the most muscles.

We have welding, scenic, tech, textiles.

There's also going to be some interactive elements that can change the color of it.

So pretty much everything that's making Otherworld Otherworld is rolled up right in our center.

Almost every single surface is interactive in some way.

There are a ton of LEDs.

There's a lot of interactive projection mapping.

Oh, we have some interesting new concepts I'm trying out with projection mapping.

So we have a lot of like laser laser tracking.

We're tracking people throughout rooms using LiDAR, which is the same technology used in self-driving cars.

We have these three, this 3D infinity room that has a three-dimensional array, floor to ceiling, of like LED noodles inside of a room where all the walls are mirrors.

So kind of what we're in right now is a giant three-dimensional LED pixel grid that is then mapped by our tech team.

So upon opening there's actually these large scale 3D animations that we can put in this room and put to music.

So it's not just kind of this ambient effect but you can actually have like light physically traveling in 3D space through the room.

This is also the standard selfie room.

[tech analyst] This isn't an escape room.

This is more like a children's museum.

So, you know, you have to think about how is this going to be used?

How is it going to wear over time?

How can we reduce the number of mechanical elements?

If we have to use mechanical elements what kind of materials can we use and how can we make sure that the electronic stay nice and nestled and don't get damaged?

So I'm the production director.

My role is to make sure that all the things that we design on paper get built in real life.

And then my favorite part is the creative problem solving where it's just like weird challenges come up when you're making things that no one's ever done before.

[tech analyst] It's, it's really great to work with people who specialize in like the physical world.

So that way I can focus on like electronics and code, which are the things that I'm good at.

Another thing is we have this interactive harp.

This spider web harp device that we're figuring out how to rig up into the air 12 feet up.

So you can still pluck it.

And there's not too much vibration going on the sensor that it keeps tripping, but there's enough vibration that it trips the sensor and then kind of creates the harp effect.

[scott schaff] So this is the seamstress room.

This is another one of our many narratives within the space.

Without revealing too much, there's this seamstress character who has a bunch of spider children and is creating these kind of fluffy animals to feed to the spiders or is she?

We'll find out.

So all of this webbing was hand webbed, hand glued.

All the spiders were welded together custom and then upholstered.

So when it's fully operational, when you pluck the colored threads, you get a room activation where it actually becomes a giant harp.

I think this project has been able to bring together a lot of creatives and has given them the opportunity to speak up and have their ideas to be heard, and have them communicate and challenge each other.

And I think we're showing a production model here where kind of everyone gets a play to their fullest.

And I'm just hoping that later that we can set an example for that in more creative spaces around the city.

[jordan] I mean, yeah, there's nothing else like it anywhere.

[narrator] PBS Reno transports us to a classical music festival in the forest and shows us how to keep the magic while adapting to our contemporary world.

[karen] Classical Tahoe started in 2012 as a vision of building community at Lake Tahoe.

Some of the finest musicians in the world have made Lake Tahoe their summer home.

Under the auspices of classical Tahoe, we're a three week classical music festival.

It takes place on the campus of Sierra Nevada University.

And it's in a pop-up pavilion.

Seats about 400 people.

Full orchestra of about 60 and audience of about 400 in these incredible acoustics in the forest.

And we do about a dozen concerts over three weeks.

Every night is different.

Joel Revson, who was our founding artistic director and conductor, he, through a group of people, assembled this incredible orchestra and put together the orchestra concerts.

So it's intense.

It's fabulous.

And it's a really great opportunity to have music at the highest level community building in a way that people at the end of three weeks have made lifetime friends and feel embedded in the community.

While the pandemic's unfolding in March and April and Joel got sick at the very beginning, maybe the third week in March, came down with COVID, and fought it for the better part of 60 days, maybe 70 in and out of the hospital.

But even as he was getting sicker and we knew we couldn't have the orchestra festival, I think the piece that became more and more important was that Joel loved this orchestra more than- I think more than anything, besides his wife, Cindy, in the world.

It seemed more important than ever in honor of Joel, both before he died, but then more important, after he passed was to gather this group together to make music, because that's what he would have wanted more than anything.

And that's what all of us wanted.

Organizations are canceling spring, summer.

We weren't going to be able to gather.

It didn't make sense to build a pop-up pavilion that held 400 people.

How do you space an orchestra on a stage if they all have to be six feet apart?

What do you do with an audience that can sit with their husband or wife or partner or family, but not near anybody else?

Not getting limited by what we couldn't do, we started thinking about what we could do.

And what we could do was a series of chamber music concerts.

We started imagining places in the forest and on the lake where you could gather and create a concert setting in a venue.

So we had to break down what's normally about 60 people, to groups of 10 coming each week.

That's how we began to build probably version C plus of what was possible.

We put together three weeks of 10 musicians, and we had to address a number of things.

We wanted everyone to get COVID tests before they came.

We had a medical advisor that worked with us.

We were studying the best practices about how far the winds and the vocalist should be.

We had wind tapes.

So we knew which way we were singing and sitting.

We had positioned our french horn so that the horn was away from anybody to the back.

So we actually had done a ton of research and consultations to find out the safest ways to make music possible.

The arts are transformative in that they have held people up in the hardest times.

And they're always what give you a reason to get back together when the hardest times have passed.

I think had we stepped back and waited, I don't know that that joy of what Joel created for this festival could be kindled in the same way that it absolutely became a beacon this summer and something that will never be lost.

Everybody has been asking, "Please, let's do chamber music in the forest again."

I think the one thing that comes out of something as complicated as a year of a pandemic and losing your founding artistic director is you can treat it as a tragedy and roll it up, or you can look at it as an opportunity to say, "What can we be?"

[narrator] Hattie Mae Williams and Christian Salazar are working on another dance film for the MDC Live Arts Residency.

Find out more on Instagram @TheTattooedBallerina and @DataMouth.

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[speaker] Art Loft is brought to you by [voiceover 1] Where there is freedom, there is expression.

The Florida Keys & Key West.

[speaker] And the Friends of South Florida PBS.