I'm Jared Bowen coming up on Open studio the Obama portraits arrive in Boston we get the inaugural Impressions oh literally when I walked in I got chills I felt very proud the first thing I said was oh my God this is so dope um seeing black people represented in this way then a Return to Oz with Wicked author Gregory McGuire plus our weekly Roundup of everything to see in arts this week and the American realism of artist Amy Cheryl's portrait of Michelle Obama it's all now on Open studio foreign this Museum of Fine Arts Boston Gallery is teaming with portraits of leadership global leaders leaders and family community and culture it's all a nod to two very famous portraits behind this wall they're making their last stop on a national tour before heading home to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington so we came here to get people's first blush reaction to seeing the Obama portraits in person to me it is historical it's groundbreaking I love the Contemporary perspective but also bringing in the history and what is important to the president I like the flowers that are represented in it the natural environment and just a different take than what we think of portraits there's this long history of photography and photographs excluding the African-American experience Frederick Douglass I think was one of the first to get his portraits done and to be staring right into the camera to see the president staring right out front and the First Lady Michelle Obama looking straight out in the front it's powerful I feel like the representation of Michelle doesn't get across her warmth and kind of her accessibility even though I know that's what the artist Amy Charlotte was looking to portray but it doesn't show her Humanity as much as I wish it did the portrait of Barack Obama is more it feels like he's really looking at you wanting to know what you're thinking I love the technique the the grace that the artist used to depict her and I really really loved him yeah the photorealism was pretty cool the the background kind of sticking over Brock's picture was really pretty neat and the colors were just so vibrant in contrast to each other it's pretty cool too to see the two different techniques two different styles just completely different they're beautiful they're absolutely beautiful they're like chilling I got goosebumps candy Wiley's a phenomenal painter obviously like his work is absolutely beautiful and Amy as well I think she captured Michelle Obama beautifully seeing these pictures of clothes was just amazing I didn't think that it was going to look the way that it did nor did I realize the size difference you know on your phone versus in person I remember the portraits coming out and I remember people liking the one of Michelle less and so the choice to kind of make her in the tradition of formal portrait show which is a little bit more like I am powerful and I'm a little bit removed is like disjoint with our Public Image of her but it's absolutely in the tradition of powerful leaders right of which Michelle has obviously won as well his face is so strong and he's so open with his collar open and leaning into the picture and I I walked around and his eye contact was with me the whole way I really felt that he drew me into really listening and communication in a strong and compassionate way and I loved it that it's such a strong person could sit in a floral arrangement representing all the places that he had lived [Music] I wanted to all right he's an incredible present [Music] for me who has a daughter who dreams big let's see president and first lady dream big and share that dream with everyone they never give up they never divide and they're always like come on for the bride and inspire oh literally when I walked in I got chills I felt very proud the first thing I said was oh my God this is so dope um seeing black people represented in this way and and such a great museum as this and like people paying money to come in and see this and like the elevation of black art that we've seen in the last few years has been something that I hope continued the trajectory happy there is a joy to them I was in tears when he won the election first time let alone the second time and um that same kind of joy definitely comes through the paintings same same feeling it's nice to see someone being different right like it's not the traditional stuffy picture so it's it's just a little bit of awe and a little bit of pride in seeing things evolve and being different when I started reading the notes on leadership and just reflecting on what I'm looking at I've got tears in my eyes because I think that as a black woman in America it's hard you know and to see these influences and these leaders you know portrayed in this way is beautiful foreign [Music] Gregory Maguire the author of the best-selling book turned hit musical Wicked returns to the world of Oz with a new Trilogy set in the wicked Universe more than 25 years after the original hit shelves inspired by the onset of the pandemic the brides of Americorps Dives deeper into Oz as a granddaughter of the wicked witch lands on the besieged island of Americorps Gregory and I kick off the Concord Festival of authors with a talk at the Concord Museum on Thursday so as a preview here again a conversation we first brought you last fall Gregory McGuire thank you so much for being with us thank you for having me I'm really glad to see you again and in person we we very much love that well let me start with your book re we thought and I think you've even said you had kind of retired from the the Land of Oz it seemed like a pretty definitive departure but and I apologize for this but is there no place like home did you have to get back there well there's no place like home when you have to go abroad during a pandemic and to be stuck at home with some teenagers and no international air tickets and not even elaborate card that was functional because the library is pretty closed where do you travel except in your imagination so it's been my experience for most of my life that when I felt mental incapacity crowding upon me I need to dig into my imagination and find something new to see and as interestingly enough was still there despite the fact that I hadn't visited it in 10 years but it surprised you that it was still there well not really I knew it was going to be there I just thought somebody else can unroll those Maps after I'm dead and and see what happens next I didn't expect to be the one to be doing it myself I'm always interested in process so I guess my first question is do you normally go away to right and so what is your process if you're at home in writing well well I don't normally go away I'd only go away in my mind as as it were and the process Jared is not much different from how I developed it when I was in third and fourth grade which is I buy a new pen and I buy a new notebook where that it hasn't been messed up with smudges or bad spelling errors and I start on the first page and I start writing by hand so you're writing this during the pandemic how much of the themes of this world the pressures we're all under the stresses how much do they work their way into your novel I'd say in this case uh quite a bit I've always used it uh this these particular creative efforts as a kind of way to consider what is happening in the Contemporary moment in which I'm living and try to find a way to survive it so the book The Brides of Americorps starts on an island that not only the seven inhabitants can't get off they don't even know anything about the world beyond the island in which they've been raised since infancy so that feels sort of pandemicy doesn't it well that's as you're talking I'm thinking the world changed so much and so quickly we've we careened from one thing to the next so is there a lot of careening in the novel too is your as you in the in in this world are adjusting and writing about this world uh yet yes there is because one of the things that happens in this book and it indeed it happens in most of my uh books that are set in in the alternate universe that includes us uh is the friction between the lives of common humble perhaps not very well educated individuals and the socio-political Dynamics that strangle their lives and their world we're going back to your worlds is it was it even though you're returning to the world of Oz as you say we're now dealing with the descendants of the characters we know from the original Wicked do you was it hard at all to leave those characters behind and start to think about the the Next Generation it is now harder to think about the Next Generation than it is to turn from the casket if you're a great grandmother and take your great nephew in your arms even at the service and say here we are together still let's let's see what life has to offer what about the fans I mean fans of your stories are so ravenous between between the theater adaptation your books of course I'm going to ask you about the film in a moment the upcoming film that is but how much Allegiance do you feel do they ever filter in do you think oh well maybe this is the misery the Stephen King Misery story right I can't do this or I can't do that that might upset them I might get my ankle slashed by a smashed by a sledgehammer I have I've had those I've had those Warriors in the past luckily my my angle my ankles are no longer attractive enough not for the sledgehammers so I I feel like I've escaped that at that particular future um my fans have been extremely respectful by following me in directions in which they didn't know I was going to turn and and they don't always agree with what I've done lots of times I I get a I get revisions of you know the last chapter should have gone like this here's 40 pages of handwritten materials so you can see how you should have done it you know pay attention next time and do it better well that suggests to me is that the world that is alive to me is also alive to my readers that makes me very happy so what was it like to experience you're in just in New York for the reopening of Broadway and what better emblem than the reopening of Broadway than to see Wicked back on stage you are one of the central figures in addition to some of the original cast who were there what was that like well it was um all I can say is 18 years ago when Wicked opened and there was a Broadway Premiere I thought nothing can be more exciting than this ever in my life but I did not anticipate a pandemic the fact is that of the 1700 people in the room all vaccinated and masked there were maybe only two who had never seen the play before so that every piece of stage business got its own Round of Applause people started laughing at jokes before they were said it was really really thrilling when at the bottom of Act One elphabet lifts up and and sings the last verse and chorus of Defying Gravity [Music] she lifted up and she's like it's me and the entire 1700 people lifted up too and started screaming well I can't let you leave without asking about the film I understand that they're beginning to assemble for for filming the long long awaited film adaptation of the musical uh which is an adaptation of your story right what can you tell us about it as far as I know the principal casting has not begun yet but the teasers are out there every two or three days you know it's like uh you know like getting fortune cookies like who who's it gonna be well so I have to ask you so who is the first more than 20 years ago who could play Elphaba and who now in my mind Glinda was played by Melanie Griffiths you know Working Girl ERA with lots and lots of curly hair she has always uh and uh alphaba was played by Katie Lang so that was 28 years ago or so uh I think there must be people who are thinking of Ariana Grande for alphabet given that I know she loves the songs and she loves the role and I don't know about galinda I'm a real fan of Anna Lee Ashford I don't know if you know her I haven't seen her many times I think she is just terrific well Gregory McGuire always such a pleasure to speak with you we'll compare notes after the film comes out absolutely I can't wait thank you so much Jared for having me foreign it's time for Arts this week your download of the latest arts and culture events in and around town as the saying goes we can't go home again but what if we have to that's the premise of a new Lyric Stage Company show called fabulation or the re-education of undean by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Lynn nottage undeen is living large riding her ivy league education running a boutique New York PR firm and corralling celebrities but after her husband absconds with all her money and the FBI comes calling she's bounced back to Brooklyn to understand what a blow this is to the image she has created for herself she once told a magazine that her family had perished in a fire to her that was a much easier Truth at confessing that she came from struggle undeen is the name of a lead character in Edith Wharton's 1913 novel The custom of the country so with that as her springboard Lynn nottage has crafted her own updated comedy of manners we watch her on Dean reconcile who she thinks she's supposed to be which is pretty bougie as she admits with the reality of her upbringing no Silver Spoon but parents who worked hard as security guards a brother grappling with PTSD from his military service and a grandmother with an unfortunate drug habit often wickedly funny this production of fabulation draws Us in with the wicked truth of what our backgrounds say about us or rather what other people say they say about us foreign for years the curatorial team behind the exhibition designing motherhood at the mass art art museum tried to get this show off the ground time and again they were told nobody would want to see a whole show Examining The Arc of human reproduction this is of course despite the fact that we all have a connection to this material and that we're all born finally wiser institutions including massark prevailed Ford and the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade makes this incredibly thoughtful and insightful show more relevant than ever it walks us through 150 years of design thought and stories around pregnancy birth contraception and more how it's been fashioned by designers and interpreted by artists it highlights the painfully slow process of developing devices and methods actually suitable for women the racial disparity in medical care and we see contemporary artists like photographer Tabitha Soren and Boston sculptor Allison crony Moses delivering intensely personal takes on the subject [Music] the Boston Public Library has one of the most extraordinary collections of books art and manuscripts in America and special collections department requires nearly seven miles of shelving to house its Treasures from early Shakespeare folios to original prints by artists like toulouse-lautrec to the Bible on which mayor Michelle Wu swore her oath the department has just completed a years-long 15.7 million dollar renovation and now reminds us the collection is available to everyone you don't have to be a scholar an author or have any other special credentials to gain access to this wealth of material to see and read for yourself an original printing of the Declaration of Independence or the Abolitionist paper The Liberator all you need to do is make an appointment and this wealth of materials is yours to experience after all the library's motto is free to all foreign [Music] Legacy is at the heart of the new Museum of Fine Arts Boston exhibition touching Roots it's an installation that celebrates Blackness and the joy of creation that comes through cultural connections how they're passed from generation to generation from continent to continent here we find artists of the Americas working throughout the 20th and 21st centuries and tapping into their layers of heritage following the threads of spiritual beliefs and practices for the artists who haven't traveled to Africa they conjure the motherland of their imagination we also Venture back to the 1960s and 70s as artists responded to the calls of pan-africanism when African countries fought for independence two artists in particular strike me here Lois Malu Jones the first black woman to graduate from the school of the Museum of Fine Arts she roamed the world from the 1930s to the 70s filling her canvases with her impressions and Stephen Hamilton a contemporary Boston artist representing a Dorchester High School student as a legendary African leader foreign next week keep an eye out for the Concord Festival of authors the 30th anniversary of this town-wide literary celebration kicks off with a host of writers talking about their work I'll be there talking to Gregory McGuire the author of Wicked This is your Arts download I'll see you back here and in Concord next week earlier in the show we saw how the portrait of Michelle Obama is resonating with visitors to the MFA now we meet the artist behind that painting Amy Cheryl became an international name after the portraits unveiling and people flocked to its permanent home at the smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery then in 2020 Cheryl painted a Serene and ethereal portrait of Brianna Taylor for Vanity Fair magazine as you'll see Cheryl describes her work as American realism I'm paying portraits because growing up it was what I considered art I mean it was what I saw in encyclopedias of what represented art so becoming an artist meant being able to render the figure I knew that I wanted to be an artist around the time that I was in the second grade I'm not sure I knew what that meant but I knew that drawing was something that I liked to do and I knew that I would rather do that than be around people [Music] it found me yeah I I did not find that style that style found me I don't really have a descriptor for my style I Loosely attached myself to the genre of American realism being that I consider myself mostly self-taught it's just how I paint is how I see it's how I paint my subjects are people of color because I choose to paint and put out in the world idolize versions of myself also realizing that if you look at the art historical Canon there's a lack of representation of people that look like me and that was enough reason for me not to want to paint anybody else but myself [Music] I don't place my figures within a context because I want the viewer to have a singular experience with the person that's in the portrait the person that's in the portrait they're aware of the viewer and they're aware that they're in this painting if you if you will so since my work is a meditation on photography a lot of the images that were taken of African-Americans at one point in time were anthropological so it's it's also a critique on that frontal position it's a soft confrontation and I also hang my paintings a little bit lower than they would normally be hung because I want them and the viewer to actually have a real interaction [Music] Michelle Obama's portrait beyond the professional and the historical aspects of it I think it changed who I was as a woman I think it gave me permission to ask for more of myself and ask more of others [Music] success has not changed me it has given me more agency to do things that I want to do in the community it's given me social leverage I don't consider myself an activist but I consider myself a humanist and somebody who is aware of what I have and what other people don't have and share what I have gained with other people I see myself evolving as a painter at this point mostly because I have a bigger budget and so it's going to be easier for me to make some of these larger paintings that I've been wanting to make for years but just didn't have the money to to make them and I'm not putting any pressure on myself to become a different person I just I'm pursuing my practice in the same way that I would but with the ability to fund some of the bigger ideas that I have and that is all for this edition of Open studio next week how an entirely new art form came to be we visit step Africa as always you can visit us online at gbh.org openstudio and you can see us first on youtube.com gbhnews remember to follow us on Instagram and Twitter at openstudio gbh I'm at the Jared Bowen every Friday Jim Browdy and Marjorie Egan offer up live performances on Boston public radio so we leave you now with the Neve Trio performing at our Boston Public Library studio in August I'm Jared Bowen thanks for watching volunteer seats put on a strap on your seat belts this is Pia Sola at his base that's played by Nev Trio here they are foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign foreign [Music]