>> Life is filled with dichotomies.

So it's difficult, but there's also such immense joy to be found in it.

>> JARED BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio, the wondrous worlds of painter Alexander Gassel.

Then, more than hocus pocus, we meet the magicians of The Conjurors' Club.

>> Watch the ace.

>> BOWEN: Plus, when it comes to the arts, FDR's New Deal gets a new look.

>> I'm going to go out in nature, sit on a tree stump, have some insects crawl over me, and this is my life.

>> BOWEN: It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ Our first stop in the show is the Museum of Russian Icons, which has two captivating exhibitions at the moment.

One looks at the Miniature Masterpieces of lacquer boxes.

The other brings us into the world as imagined by painter Alexander Gassel.

Or, as its curator calls it, Painted Poetry.

>> There's a very strong element of storytelling throughout the exhibit and throughout all of his works.

>> BOWEN: Call it a wandering lyricism.

In this exhibition at the Museum of Russian Icons, Russian painter Alexander Gassel escorts us into teeming villages.

He plunges into a stylized sea of Art Deco.

And every so often, he retreats to the Renaissance.

>> He was trained in Russia, in St. Petersburg predominantly.

And so he has lived here for many years, but he brings a very Russian sensibility in terms of technique, style, and theme to his art.

>> BOWEN: Lana Sloutsky is curator of the collection at the Museum of Russian Icons, where Gassel is a colleague.

Not only an artist, he is the museum's long-time conservator.

Does he count icon painting among his influences?

>> Yes, absolutely.

And, in fact, he paints icons.

>> BOWEN: Gassel was born in Moscow, under Soviet rule.

With most art outlawed, he had to sneak looks at banned work, which was relegated to storage.

There he fell under the spell of Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles and abstract artists like Kandinsky.

>> If you imagine going to a museum and seeing forbidden art and then really having that influence the way that you paint and the types of, the types of art that, that you create throughout your life, it's really... must have been a very emotional and certainly a formative experience.

>> BOWEN: Emotion runs deep in Gassel's work.

A recurring figure in his paintings is a blonde woman, seen here ascending a staircase to heaven.

She is his only daughter, lost to cancer at age 30.

>> The religious art at the mythological or historical scenes, she's everywhere.

And before she died, she had given birth to a little girl.

And so he does have one granddaughter.

So, throughout the exhibit, again, you see the daughter, but also the granddaughter.

>> BOWEN: There is also autobiography in his village scenes-- remembrances of where he spent summers with his family.

>> They depict a lot of hardship.

A lot of what life in Russian villages was about was the difficulty of, for instance, raising a family or, you know, tending to the animals, or farming crops.

But at the same time, there's a joy and there's a sense of music and dance.

>> BOWEN: In frames the artist often constructs himself, the work can suggest a tangle of memories, dreams, or visions, all which ultimately land, as he did, in America.

>> Initially, there's a sense of being overwhelmed.

But eventually you realize that whether you're in Manhattan or in a Russian village, life is filled with dichotomies.

So it's difficult, but there's also such immense joy to be found in it.

>> BOWEN: The museum is also boxed in at the moment with an array of lacquer boxes.

These small pieces are actually intricately painted papier-mâché coated in at least 30 layers of lacquer.

They, as the museum bills them, are miniature masterpieces.

>> Their main purpose is to be beautiful and decorative.

>> BOWEN: An artistic tradition that dates back centuries to the reign of Peter the Great, the boxes had a resurgence in the 20th century after the Communist regime banned icon painting.

So artists turned to boxes-- painting bouquets, buildings, and birds, not to mention the occasional car, says Kent Russell, the museum's executive director.

>> Right through to the present time, there's a strong tradition of painting popular motifs, famous paintings, love scenes.

So, these are fine artists who do these.

>> BOWEN: The boxes are typically distinct by region, with most coming from just four Russian villages, and often from the same families.

>> We have examples in the Museum of Russian Icons collection of grandfather, son, and grandson versions of an atelier, a painter's studio, with a specific family style.

And the studio system exists in lacquer boxes, as indeed it does in icons and other art forms.

>> BOWEN: They've come to the museum by way of a Massachusetts couple who collected passionately, not unlike the museum's own founder, Gordon Lankton, an industrialist who made this institution his legacy.

Lankton passed away earlier this month at age 89.

♪ ♪ Do you believe in magic?

You might after you gain admission to The Conjurors' Club, a new virtual show presented by the American Repertory Theater.

There, the audience is welcomed into a magic society for all manner of "how-did they-do-that-ness" from some of the country's most creative mentalists and illusionists.

I recently spoke with two of them-- co-creators Geoff Kanick and Vinny DePonto.

Gentlemen, thank you both for being here with us.

I saw the show just a few days ago.

I can't wait to talk about it-- not give anything away-- but talk about it with you both.

But Vinny, let me start with you.

What is The Conjurors' Club?

Not necessarily the show, but what is The Conjurors' Club?

>> The Conjurors' Club is essentially a network of magicians in a sort of centuries-old club where you can experience magic from many different histories of, of magic.

And it's a virtual show at the moment.

>> A single playing card like this, for instance, the six of hearts, is not unlike an audience.

Say maybe you came from there and maybe Sean, you came from there.

And our goal here is to take all of you together, add a little magic... And hopefully, by the end of the evening, all of us will come right back.

>> BOWEN: So this is a real club that has existed with this exchange of ideas and magic?

>> It started as a fictional club, but what... as we built the show, it essentially has become a network of magicians and a real club.

So we've manifested this thing into existence.

Some of the history might be fictional, but we are a current-day club with many magicians.

>> BOWEN: Well, so, Vinny, now I'll ask what the show is, and tell me what your, what your emphasis in magic is.

I focus on mentalism, which is sort of a subset of magic, which is essentially just the psychological tricks of magic, using the audience as a way to move the show forward.

>> BOWEN: Geoff, tell me what your emphasis in magic is and how you find this transition has been to live performance where there is so much engagement.

>> I love all different disciplines of magic, whether it's big stage illusions or it's, you know, something just between two people.

And I also really try to focus on theater and storytelling and infusing that into the magic that I perform.

>> BOWEN: There are, there are no camera tricks, there... this isn't cinema that we're watching.

You're actually doing the tricks, conjuring the magic before us.

>> Yeah, it would be as if you were seated across the table from these magicians.

>> The ace of diamonds.

This time I'm going to leave the cards nice and spread so you can see the moment the magic happens.

Watch the ace.

>> BOWEN: If you sign up early enough, I guess, you get a package in the mail that you're not allowed to open until the show begins.

I know you don't want to give too much away, I don't want to give too much away, but what comes in the mail to people?

>> You will get a collection of artifacts and tools of the conjuror, things that you might actually use in the show with different magicians.

>> One of the objects that we'll be sending in the secret packet is an object called a thaumatrope.

And it's one of the best symbols that we have found here at the club to represent the audience-magician relationship.

The two come together, so we thank you for being here.

>> BOWEN: Vinny, I'm struck that a couple of my colleagues here at GBH are very into magic, they are magicians.

And I know for both of them, it's rooted in childhood.

Is that the same with you?

Is that the same for all magicians?

>> Geoff and I actually found out in this process that we both kind of were introduced to magic at a very young age, about six or seven.

My dad's dad handed down a box of, you know, ephemera, novelties, tricks from the 1930s and '40s.

And my dad eventually unearthed it and gave it to me.

And that's kind of my... that was my first introduction to the world of magic.

>> BOWEN: What was in the box?

>> And there were a bunch of different... this is a mentalism effect.

There was an old deck of cards that he had actually received from Lake George, which is where he was a kid and interested in magic as well.

And then a bunch of old props that have different tricks with them.

This is a-a really old illusion that I have.

and I just, I absolutely love these things.

>> BOWEN: How much interaction do you have with the audience?

I ask that as a throwaway question because I was called upon during the show, to my horror.

But that's an important element of the show, isn't it?

>> The place that you were thinking of was what?

>> Cuba.

>> Correct, Cuba.

>> We are always looking to build up the audience and-and make them... the participation a plus and not something to feel stressed about.

>> The month and the day?

>> August 23.

>> I was close.

Actually, I was damn close-- August 23 right there.

(laughter) >> It's a wonderful thing to be able to feel the liveness, to feel the mini-sense of community that builds throughout each show.

But we always just aim, how can we set the audience up for success?

>> BOWEN: So let me ask, I think we have this conception that the magic is, is this American notion, it's so big in this country.

We have the TV specials, we have people like David Copperfield and all of the Vegas shows.

But how, how universal is magic across the world?

>> I think we typically have this Westernized, stereotypical version of a magician, you know, top hat and tails and, you know, the histories of magic go back to shamanism.

They go back to all of these different sort of nooks and crannies in the world.

And I think that's something we-we're trying to bring out in this.

We're trying to get in front of people that, that magic has many, many histories and many origins.

>> And a big goal as well for us is to expand the definition of what a magician is.

I think a lot of us have a very simple definition and we're just trying to add complexity to that.

>> BOWEN: What's kept you in magic all of these years?

What about it has you in its grip?

>> It's kind of the perfect seasoning.

Like, if we were, like... it's like salt for a chef.

For me, that's magic.

And I'm always looking for wonder in the world.

>> BOWEN: And Vinny?

>> I think why I've stayed in magic is because audiences keep changing and I keep changing.

And magic is just the constant that allows me to express what it is that I'm going through, changing myself.

>> BOWEN: Well, it is great to be with both of you.

Thank you so much for joining us, and it was great to be part of The Conjurors' Club for a little bit of a Sunday afternoon, I appreciated it.

Thank you.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Poetry and psychoanalysis-- you'll find both in Arts This Week.

♪ ♪ >> Perhaps each of you imagines himself ♪ To be an emperor for getting a kingdom longing to get lost ♪ ♪ In a woman's hair.

♪ >> BOWEN: National Poetry Slam champion Regie Gibson tells us about American identity through song and poetry.

Tune into BroadBand Collaborative's virtual performance Letter and Spirit: Here Among the Americans Sunday.

76 years ago Wednesday, The Glass Menagerie premiered on Broadway, making a star out of its playwright.

Tennessee Williams' play is largely autobiographical.

Featuring characters based on him, his sister, and his mother.

Dive into Sigmund Freud's mind Thursday with a virtual visit to The Interpretation of Drawings: Freud and the Visual Origins of Psychoanalysis.

Catch it on the Harvard Museum's Science and Culture website.

See the Danforth Art Museum's exhibition Wonderscape on Friday.

Artists use circles and other organic shapes to launch into imagination and escapism during this time of uncertainty.

On Saturday, stroll to Boston's Public Garden while listening to Lyric Stage Company's walking play On Paying Attention.

>> And you're sure you don't need a permit for the Public Garden?

>> BOWEN: It explores how relationships have changed with unfolding social justice protests.

Next, the pandemic has just obliterated the arts community, costing countless artists their jobs.

Which is why last summer a New York organization launched a pilot program in the Berkshires to give artists work, just like the United States did during the Great Depression.

The program has just been extended so we decided to take another look at how it all began.

There's a stillness to this land, where the rawness of the woods meets manicured beauty.

Except for a fountain... (water splashing) there is quiet.

Just the way novelist Edith Wharton wanted it.

>> When a cold frost would kill her favorite trees, it was like losing a child.

I mean, she was deeply, deeply, and instinctively, I would say, connected to nature.

>> BOWEN: Susan Wissler is executive director of the Mount, the home and gardens Edith Wharton designed herself after purchasing this property in 1901.

It's tucked into the rolling hills of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, and Wharton wrote some of her most celebrated works here, including Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth.

>> There's a scene in The House of Mirth.

Lily Bart is at a house party on the Hudson, and the view that she describes out of her window when she wakes up is very much Wharton's view from her bedroom window.

>> There's so much space for thoughts with, with all this inspiration.

>> BOWEN: Today, it's writer Lia Russell-Self, who uses the pronoun they, who is guided by this space.

It's also now their job as part of a privately funded national pilot program called Artists at Work.

It was set up during the pandemic to give six artists employment in cultural institutions across the Berkshires.

Others include a choreographer working with the dance festival Jacob's Pillow, a filmmaker joining an independent movie theater, and a visual artist teaming with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, all in rural western Massachusetts.

Each artist has the freedom to develop any project they want for a six-month residency.

>> Artists are being paid to just make the beautiful work they make as artists that helps us all make meaning of the world.

And they're also paid to bring their thinking to social initiatives.

>> BOWEN: Rachel Chanoff is director of the Office, a for-profit New York- and London-based performing arts and film production company that conceived the artists-for-hire pilot, and pays each of the artists a living wage and provides them healthcare while in the program.

>> The reason we didn't want to make it a grant, we wanted to make it a wage, is so that they would, at post-program, they would be eligible for unemployment.

>> BOWEN: Chanoff proudly acknowledges that paying artists who've found themselves jobless or struggling financially during the pandemic is entirely unoriginal.

Its roots are in the WPA, the Works Progress Administration established during the Great Depression.

It employed thousands of artists teaching art classes, creating theater, painting murals, and documenting the country through photography.

It fueled the careers of figures like actor, writer, and director Orson Welles, painter Jacob Lawrence, and sculptor Louise Nevelson.

What did you recognize that worked during the WPA in putting artists to work in this country?

>> It was a time where artists were recognized as workers.

You know, artists are so often thought of as kind of the garnish on the plate and the luxury item.

When artists are unemployed, you have unemployed people who are on their way to becoming poor people.

>> To have, like, six months of, "This is your salary, "this is what you've got, and if something happens to you, you can, you can go see a doctor!"

Which is not a luxury I've had for quite a while.

>> BOWEN: In non-pandemic times, people flock to the Berkshires in the summertime for world-class concerts, art exhibitions, and theater.

It's a feast for those craving culture.

But here, Russell-Self feels most at home because of the landscape, and their project for the pilot program is to work with young people of color to explore and strengthen their ties to this land.

They regularly walk Edith Wharton's one-time estate with groups like the Rusty Anvil, which connects marginalized communities to nature.

>> That's a honeybee.

>> Oh!

>> It looks like it could be a, a younger one, too.

>> BOWEN: Ultimately, Russell-Self wants to make this a destination for other people of color who might not always feel welcome in predominantly white spaces like the Mount.

And the artist will write a collection of poetry inspired by the experience.

>> I don't know how the independent artists are going to sustain and endure through this period.

>> BOWEN: Throughout the pandemic, the Mount has had to suspend programs that would normally give artists a platform.

And that's the situation nationwide, with countless artists among the unemployed and without a sense of when, or if, their jobs will return.

>> I'm used to working a few different gigs, a few different projects, to try and, like, piece everything together.

Um, that's totally not possible now.

>> BOWEN: Which is why the pilot's organizers are hoping it can be replicated around the country, where Rachel Chanoff says she knows artists can shape our economic recovery-- if they're just given the means.

>> We're hoping that this is... really changes the conversation.

Changes the conversation about the impact and the utility of arts.

It's that art impacts mental health and, you know, food systems, and economies.

Art is a crucial part of our endeavor, as a, as a commonwealth.

And that's where the conversation needs to look.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: And we end in California now where designer Melissa Michelsen uses the ancient technique of marbling in her mask-making.

♪ ♪ >> My name is Melissa Michelson.

My brand is Love Mert.

It's a sustainable accessory brand that I started 20 years ago.

♪ ♪ I source my materials mostly from secondhand shops, and then I also source recycled bits of leather from a couple suppliers that get giant amounts of offcuts from other productions and then I buy 30, 40, 50 pounds at a time.

My stuff really does well in small, independent boutiques because everything's just handmade versus mass produced.

♪ ♪ I was always passionate about fashion and wanted to be a designer of some sort.

And I've always been an artist and grew up in a family of artists.

So I guess it just... it was hard to escape.

(laughing) So I kept making things and over the years, things have evolved aesthetically.

And I started messing around with screen printing fabrics for a while, and then I fell into marbling and I thought marbling's, you know, an ancient technique they've done, you know, for thousands of years.

And I thought it would translate really well on fabric.

And I started making some really cool pieces of fabric that I was turning into other products like canvas pouches and some really nice home textiles, pillows, and whatnot.

And then I started making some eye masks and those were doing really well for me, just like relaxation eye masks in a heart shape.

♪ ♪ And then the pandemic happened.

And so I thought this fabric would be really beautiful to make a mask out of because, you know, if you're gonna wear a mask, a lot of people want to have something unique or that speaks to their... their individuality, I guess.

I mean, we all have to wear them right now, right?

So you might as well wear one that's kind of fun and colorful.

♪ ♪ The process of me making a mask starts with marbling the fabric.

It's a little bit of a wet process.

It's a messy process.

It's got many steps.

I kind of use the water as my canvas.

You have a tray of water.

The water has a little cellulose in it.

So it makes it a little bit gelatinous.

Then I... when you place the paints on top of the water, the paints float, and you're able to kind of move them around, and they-they disperse with each other, they push each other around, you layer it and layer it.

And then once you get what you think is what you want, you get your fabric, and you lay it down, and you pull it back up.

And the result on the piece of fabric is amazing.

And you never get the same thing twice.

Although I can kind of control color combinations and a little bit of technique to do a production run of sorts, but everything's always gonna be a little different.

♪ ♪ I wonder to myself when I'm sewing them like how much longer will this be going?

And I think this whole pandemic thing has taken a lot of us by kind of surprise and we're all a little bit confused and just trying to make our way through every day.

I was worried that my business was going to get hurt by it.

And I thought, "What can I do in this state of where we're at to prosper and make sure my family's taken care of?"

Because the mask thing took a while to actually happen during this pandemic.

And it wasn't necessarily right then and there like, "I'll make masks."

It's actually been really interesting because it's bringing way more people to my website than I ever used to have travel to my website.

And people are going there because they found out about my masks, however they did, and then see all my other work.

And so I'm actually trying to design a mask so that when all this is over-- because it will be-- it can serve another purpose.

So maybe it ends up being like a headband or something.

The sustainability has been there with Love Mert since day one.

And yes, I'm making products, but I'm trying to do it as consciously as possible and artfully as possible.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: That is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week Grammy-winning violinist Gil Shaham takes us away.

>> And I was looking at this young woman's expression on her face and I just thought, you know, she looked like, "This is the most beautiful melody I've ever heard in my life."

>> BOWEN: Plus, we meet some of the musicians just awarded special grants to keep the music playing.

Until then, I'm Jared Bowen.

Thanks for joining us.

As always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @OpenStudioGBH.

♪ ♪