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Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.

Coming up, find out why this colorful work of art is going up in smoke.

Meet an aspiring artist inspired by the happy little trees of an American icon.

And listen to the groovy Akron ites heating up the local music scene.

Rent for Cheryl.

Hello and welcome to the machine we call applause.

I'm your host, Ideastream Public Media's Kabir Bhatia.

A renowned family of artisans from Mexico City recently took up residence in Cleveland's Brooklyn Center neighborhood to share the traditional Mexican craft of cartoon area.

The residency was a collaboration with a local husband and wife duo who invite artists to create within the walls of their historic home as a way to blend culture with community.

I think of art as a tool.

I think it's a tool to examine possibilities, and it's a tool to just get things done.

It's a tool to explore curiosities that you have with the world, and it's a tool to connect with other people.

And I think that can be really, really powerful.

Primarily, we're interested in the home as a place where culture and art originate and are nurtured and cultivated.

And also making a home for artists.

This house has had a lot of history.

It was a family home.

Then it was a boarding home, and then it was a podiatrist office for 50 years and upon doing more research, we realized that this is actually the intersection of my my background.

It's close to Clark Fulton, the largest Hispanic and Latino neighborhood in Cleveland, as well as where my father immigrated.

So this was kind of the perfect direct intersection for us to live and raise our family.

I think there's an intimacy to it that's really nice that you may not often encounter with art.

And I think in terms of that, it creates a certain level of accessibility to it.

Because because while this is our home and we live upstairs, this space is very much about communal gestures and a communal sense of place and a communal sense of like, let's experiment in and have conversations and honor conversations around ideas.

And that's really kind of like the core of communities and the core of culture when you're standing there.

So I wanted to create a space where you could come in, you could see and experience art in a different way, and we want to be able to engage with the community on a deeper level.

So this program with Simone Santa is a really good example of bringing homes together and kind of looking at art and culture that takes place in the home.

Santa is the term in Spanish for Holy Week.

It is the week leading up to Easter.

It was a title that we kind of just chose for this program to encompass everything that was going along with it.

At the center of it is a man who is an artist in Mexico City with his family who makes these crochet effigies for your son with an encouragement for some local ministries.

Paola That for a lot of people in Go Community Italy, we even Mozarteum was a demonstration.

The Del Trabajo Los Altos is a castle.

Many countries we look at from Area Réellement as we extend the season much as we would as they did for ten days, three months, but also with some of my fellow in-laws, classical scholars, who would ask, Oh, but a man in Santa Fe in a few other Mexico is who now goes I mean, not as much as I used.

They look at some of the visuals as well as if we were who has carried the conventional forces the most figurative symbols.

Remnants is a symbol, yet another mythical, although not out of the barrel.

And of course, we start to see subtle nonmusical.

Manuel my romantic visuals itself.

There's a lot of money in this separatist resentment.

The power, but I don't love that.

But the mala bear openness and musicality to my feel, my esto es el big interview with some that I said last week showed last year implemented.

I didn't know the trigger Yesterday, Nica said of moving Kasi de la Raza Punto.

But I guess they know if they meet that it's based meeting de Haider It's not a for the money factor.

Mm hmm.

E Look, civil society is capable of définitivement parody to a wider issue.

Better yet, with total points of adorno's respect, there was no way so he could never fly.

So he was a total, you know, little kid when I said no, There.

Up here, only one is spectacular.

Juanito was said.

Now I come with a lot of energy.

More and more that William Familia, who like for me than the music to algunas entrevista hasta la convention las cosas give this island the control look on Waikiki Mother Masaya, the North Korea the humans know.

And then as a person.

Cat as a person.

Which of course also is key for marketers.

They only income of millions that they do is community liberation commune tradition.

We wanted to kind of honing in, as I say necessarily is one of the things which you know it's doesn't this rap principle first of it being the La familia LA principle.

we are so much more connected than we realize, there it just different cultures and the ties that we have to each other.

And sometimes the language might not be the same, but the experiences there can be.

And so Semana Santa is a way to honor that, is a way to honor collective celebration.

It's a way to honor collective grief and a way to talk about history and sometimes uncomfortable topics.

But through joy and through celebration and seeing what comes through all of that, we can Then also, it's a way to show how artists are really essential to community and how they're kind of the pillar of all of we celebrations and how that's all built around the paper machine making.

I also think that it's really important for people in Clark Fulton and in Brooklyn Center to see themselves reflected back in the art that is being shown here in Cleveland.

Catalano, rere pieces created for the Semana Santa celebration, are on view through May 24th in Cleveland's Brooklyn Center neighborhood.

Who can forget Bob Ross?

It's a happy accident that if you watch APPLAUSE, then you probably know all about his PBS show, The Joy of Painting.

He painted those happy little trees, and he inspired generations of aspiring artists.

Let's meet one of them, Alexis Rivera, Luna.

I've always had a love of nature, and I think I put a lot of that passion into my arts.

I went to University of Wisconsin-Madison for zoology, conservation, biology and environmental studies.

So really love the animals.

And I became a wildlife rehabilitator.

So I did that for five years at the Wisconsin Humane Society.

I started painting during the pandemic, watching the Bob Ross show, and I found out later that Bob Ross is actually a wildlife rehabilitation too.

So he also took care of sick, injured and orphaned animals.

One day I was watching Bob Ross and I thought maybe I could do this, and I just started painting along with him.

It gave me a lot of confidence and courage that I could do anything.

I set my mind to.

The ideas come from nature a lot of the time, so I spend a lot of time outside.

So whenever I'm out in nature, if I see like, a beautiful sunset, I'll take a picture of it and then I'll try to incorporate those colors into my painting.

I'm constantly looking up at the sky, so sometimes I'll be surrounded by trees and take a picture.

And the perspective kind of gives me an idea of how I want to do the tree line, but it also gives me an appreciation of nature.

What I'm trying to capture a scene.

I feel like I'm really being observant out there as well.

I'm trying to be present when I'm in nature, trying to get different ideas and let them come to me.

So it definitely feels like it gave me an appreciation and a peacefulness to my life.

I started just doing kind of the landscape stuff, but eventually I wanted to put a little bit more of myself into it.

I don't see myself represented in a lot of fine arts spaces or fine art shows, so I started doing like silhouettes of women.

It felt really empowering for me as a woman, and I really liked the idea of diversifying it, having different types of people so people can really see themselves in my work.

At first I was more so just I wanted to see myself.

I wanted to see women, and I felt empowered by the art that I was doing.

But I really wanted to have other people see themselves in my work.

I've meet so many people and they're always saying, You know, I can never do what you do.

I'm not an artist.

And I always tell them, like, everyone's an artist in their own way.

Just because you don't feel like you can paint, which Bob Ross always says everyone can paint.

But I do believe that everyone is an artist in their own way, whether it's, you know, us playing a sport or cooking or watercolor.

There's ways of expression and everywhere.

And as long as you keep it up and it makes you happy and you're passionate about it, you can be an artist.

And we all have greatness inside of us.

And we're as tall, as big as mountains, and we're so full of color and life.

The abstract part of it, like there are mountains with you within you, almost like, I guess everyone sees things differently when they look at their art or my art.

But for what?

For me, when I see it, it's like there are mountains within me and I think that's really cool.

So I feel like I'm the most excited about my work when I'm trying something new.

I saw wood burning online once, so I just bought a new tool and started to try it out.

I just thought it would be really cool and a different thing to try.

Always looking for new fun art projects, but yeah, it was a bit of a process and a learning curve for me.

This is obviously a very different medium and at first I was like burning way too much and it looks horrible.

So I think like less pressure and just a lot of patience is needed for this one and it's cool with this tool.

I feel like I can use it different ways to make different textures and different styles of trees.

I tend to use this one the most because it's got a fine point to it, so it's really good for detail.

There's thicker ones that are flat, which is really good for shading.

I'll use that on the mountains to kind of cover a lot of space.

So this one is really good for shading because it's flat and it covers a big area.

So I'll use that for the mountain scenes here.

All the shading is nice covers more area.

I have to do all these tiny, tiny lines.

And then this is a textured one where it's just got the lines on there and I started doing the trees with it.

But I think it just it's too uniform and I don't like how it looks.

So I ended up using it for like the water here just to kind of give it some movement.

The most rewarding thing is every day is so different.

For me.

I think the most exciting part is when I'm learning something new, but like, Wow, I did that.

That's always the fun part with doing art.

It really doesn't feel like work to me.

A lot of people say, you know, don't you get tired of it?

Does it take the joy out of painting?

But it doesn't feel like work.

I love going to art shows.

I think it's a great space to show off my art and meet new people who like my art and make me feel like I'm doing the right thing.

I'm in the right spot.

So I get to see a lot of the familiar faces come to a lot of the same art shows, and they get excited when they see me and they're like, Oh, you've got new stuff and look at what you're doing now.

And but all the other artists, I feel like we learn from each other.

We lose each other up.

It's a really good space for artists and a way to express ourselves and show people what we can do.

Fabulous.

Can you imagine traveling 15,000 miles across Asia on a bike with me?

That's what Dayton photographer Eleanor Bozeman did.

Not with me, obviously.

And she was determined to capture the images of the people she met along the way.

It was quite the odyssey.

Physically, personally and spiritually That's why I'm Eleanor Mossman, a human rights activist and visual storyteller.

I went to Virginia Commonwealth University for my undergrad degree.

A guy I was dating at the time moved to Shanghai to help his brother, who had an architecture firm in Shanghai and asked if I wanted to go.

And I said yes.

So in 2008, I moved to China.

It was a big change.

I had a hard time adjusting.

I was applying to photo studios for a sustained work, and I had one studio tell me blatantly, we will not hire women because our clients will not respect you.

I started planning a bicycle tour around China.

It kind of had to do with this just really big depression I fell into and I knew that I had to change my life in one way or another.

It ended up lasting about two years and a bit over 15,000 miles.

I ended up wandering all over the country, spent about four or five months in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

I got really sick and so I just decided, okay, no more bike tours, I'll just say in Xinjiang and spend a couple of months documenting Wiggers and their life on the countryside.

The Weavers are a group of people persecuted by the Chinese government.

They speak a language that's closely related to Turkish and Uzbek.

It's its own language.

The original intention was not to spend two years on a bicycle, but the further I got, the more I became comfortable with it.

Sleeping in culverts under the road, sleeping almost on the side of the road.

Exposed.

Riding through the mountains during the winter time, I just became used to it.

It just became second nature and was almost like uncomfortable became comfortable.

I think it was the second month of my bike tour that a man decided that he was going to lock me in a room with him and he was going to have his way with me.

And that was not the last time, but it was one of the more intense times I was able to get away.

I would just get so pissed off because when I'm out there on these these adventures and expert expeditions, I don't see myself as an American.

I don't see myself as white.

I don't see myself as a woman.

I don't see these labels.

I'm just existing.

And it's like every time I'd be harassed, it was like, thanks for.

Thanks for making me remember all that stuff.

Like, things for making me remember all these labels that I don't want to adhere to.

But eventually I get to this point where I'm riding down this gravel road and there's a bunch of Tibetan prayer flags, and I see this monk coming towards me and he invites me into his house.

I'm tired.

I'm hungry.

Yes.

Okay.

And so in the morning, his sisters were getting dressed to go to the market and they were putting on these beautiful gowns of this like deep, rich reds and this Tibetan brocade.

And I started photographing them.

And I remember that exact moment, like photographing these women in their home.

Like, I didn't even I wasn't even existing there.

I finally was able to say, yeah, you know, I'm a photographer, like I am a photographer.

If I had to sum it up in one sentence.

When people ask me about it, I'm just like, Yeah, I learned to love myself.

I was in my early thirties.

I was figuring myself out, and most importantly, I figured out what I wanted to do.

I started photographing Tibetans and Wiggers, and it was it just seemed to be my calling her photography, giving them a voice and a presence because their culture will disappear, their history.

And so her photography is capturing the essence of who they are and what is going on.

I'm in all of her passion, in her perseverance, and how much she loves these people.

I asked her once, I wish I had the passion she has for something like she has for representing these people, for the persecuted.

People talk about, Oh, well, as a woman, you have to take different precautions.

You have to be more careful.

But I also believe if you haven't found the benefits or the perks or the strengths of being a woman, you haven't found your power of being a woman yet.

The fact that I let into households, that mothers give me their children to hold and leave to work in the field while I'm in their house with their children, like I don't think a man would have those options.

And I know they don't.

I've talked to plenty and they're like, you get access that we don't get.

So there's a few women that stand out in my mind most vividly, and one would be John Meehan somehow, and her mother, Gayla Gayla, is the matriarch of the household, and she has a daughter, Jamie, on Samoa, which is which was probably about five or six years younger than me.

But I was not just a guest.

I learned how to herd yaks.

They thought it was very humorous when I could not milk a yak.

I helped with food.

I just became part of the family.

And these women get up before the man before sunrise and get to work immediately and they are the last to go to bed.

It is constant work.

They live in one of the most difficult environments and they're facing, you know, these issues against the government.

And it's just it's like every day is is going to be a struggle.

But they face it with just such compassion for one another.

So during summer of 2022, I competed in an ultra endurance bicycle race, the Silk Road Mountain Race, which takes place in Kyrgyzstan.

It's noted as the most difficult race in the world.

I was the only woman from North America to complete the race.

A total of three women finished the race.

So I arrived in Kyrgyzstan a couple of months before the race because I wanted to acclimate.

And unfortunately, I was one of the cyclists.

I got very sick.

And during those four or five days of being sick, I was just crying nonstop because I was convinced I wasn't going to be able to race.

And I was just like, it's all gone.

It's, you know, it's over.

I tried to recover as much as I could.

I showed up at the start line and I ended up at the finish line 15 minutes before it cut off.

So even with all of that happening, I still finish that race.

I've learned what being brave and resilient is all about.

And most importantly, I learned those.

I learned what that is by watching and living with the women I did out there.

They are the ones that are brave and resilient and compassionate.

These people showed me who I am.

And I also hope that when people see these photographs or hear these stories, the viewer isn't overcome with a sense of hopelessness.

I hope it affects them in a way that they can look at their own lives a little differently or look at their own community and, you know, be inspired by these people that are facing some of the worst injustices that anyone could ever imagine.

But they still persevere.

We've got another round of applause.

Just around the corner where you'll see a Cleveland Heights artist create intricate collages inspired by her life experiences and learn how she's developed a process that helps with her autism.

If I am not in the studio, there is something off with me.

There is a disconnect that's happening.

I will feel really, really dry if I spend too much time outside of the studio.

Plus, jazz master and Warren native Sean Jones performs at the Tri-C Jazz Fest.

All that and more on the next round of applause.

It's that time we're due to close up this edition of APPLAUSE.

I'm Ideastream Public Media's Kabeer Bhatia.

And speaking of do the rent is due for Cheryl.

Are you confused yet?

I am.

Well, it turns out rent for Cheryl is the name of a young group out of Akron that blends indie rock with some jazz and blues.

Here they are performing for our friends at the Akron Recording Company.

This is Rent for Cheryl with the song Lazy Susan.

You see, baby, you must sing in the speaker duties.

But it can't be which way we can do something.

By the way.

Really good.

Didn't you really give me on one day when you said they just tell me when it doesn't meet your moment at the end Production of applause and ideastream.

Public media is made possible by funding by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture.