- Tonight on our place, our time, a visit to Norfolk's Dart Center, where Art and the public meet the great photographer Yusef Karsh in Williamsburg and Smooth Jazz from saxophonist, Philippe Fields and Quiet Fire.

And here's your host, Vianne Webb.

- Thank you for joining us again on our place, our time, the cultural magazine program for Hampton Roads.

A little over a year ago there opened in downtown Norfolk, a kind of farmer's market for original works of art at the Dart Center.

You and I can watch the products of artist imaginations grow in front of us, artists and craftsmen, rent studios at dart and the public can come and watch or buy works being made by the 36 resident, artist and craftsman.

The Dart Center opened after a great deal of thought and its opening wasn't without controversy.

We wondered how the Dart Center is doing now.

Is it meeting the expectations of the artist?

Has there developed a public appreciation of dart?

I'll talk with Susan Bernard, executive director and with artist Bob Holland.

But first, our Kim Simon visited the DART Center and has this report, - Weavers, print makers, painters, and potters.

Currently, there are 36 artists residing in this collective art environment, known as the DART Center, where visual artists create, display and sell their work.

Now, I'm not a potter.

I'm here simply taking instruction from Irma Zia, who teaches at dart.

It is one of the many services provided by the center, one of the most important being the opportunity to talk to and visit with the artists.

The Dart Center is fashioned after the Torpedo factory, a multifaceted public art center in Alexandria, Virginia, and experiment with a successful track record.

The torpedo factory contributed to the revitalization of Old Town Alexandria and provided a varied showcase of artistic talent.

The same hopes and expectations hold true for dart, located in the Knickerbocker Square project in downtown Norfolk.

It is a frontier settlement just over a year old, established by the Dockside Art Review of Tidewater, hence the named dart, the city of Norfolk and private corporations who recognized its potential as a public forum for the arts.

- I'm sure the people, the, the, the founding fathers of DART really didn't have a true idea of what DART was going to be, but just based on things like the torpedo factory and other, other operations like it, they said, all right, let's put these artists together in these buildings and see what happens.

- What has happened over the past year has been a melding of personalities and artistic talents.

The assemblage of so many studios under one roof has proven to be a challenging venture, particularly to the artists.

- The collectiveness of the Dart Center is its real strength because it draws more and more talent together and it feeds off each other and produces better and better works.

- Yeah, it's like kind of like being in Paris or in MO Mart at the turn of the century.

It's the neighborhood.

- The pros strengthen numbers, concentration of energy, access to the public, access to the media, access to the business, basically.

- Well, the cons are that, that living in close, close quarters like this and, and working in close quarters, we do step on each other's toes every once in a while.

But I'd say that's a minor, a minor con, if you will, - Being open to the public, what, how can I put it?

Scattering of your energies.

- I need a lot of privacy when I work, and it's hard to get that around here - Working in a public space and under public scrutiny.

For some artists, it is a new concept and one of the inherent challenges of working at dart, it is an equally novel concept for the visiting public accustomed as they have been to privately perusing art hung high and out of reach on gallery and museum walls.

These physical and psychological barriers between the artist and patron, it is an issue that needs addressing a question that needs to be answered.

- I'm not sure I have a good answer to that question.

My experience in, in this building is that people think we're working and they can't disturb the process.

Part of the reason for being here is so that they can see the process.

We have to get over that gap in some fashion.

Dividing the studio into a gallery, front gallery and the workspace in the rear gives them a chance to look on their own before they approach us.

Somehow that works well.

- We, we've gotta do our part to make this operation work.

And of course, you're gonna have people who are reticent about, about coming into a studio.

They feel they're intruding or they don't know too much about art, so they're afraid they're gonna look stupid or ignorant about it.

So it is, it is partially our responsibility to say, hi, come on in.

We do - The widespread popularity will take some time.

The Center is already making a name for itself in the community exhibits and art openings for regional as well as resident artists are regularly held in the tag gallery, run by the Tidewater Artists Association.

Students from the Governor's Magnet Program enjoy the opportunity to study and practice art in a professional setting.

Still, others are able to benefit from scholarship programs arranged through the center.

Above all, DART serves as a catalyst for interaction and the creative exchange of ideas in that respect, according to all the residents, DART has come a long way in a very short time.

- Susan Bernard is the executive director of Dart Center and Bob Holland is an artist in residence.

There we have the opportunity to talk with them on this week's program.

Susan, you're not only the executive director of dart, which means that you have certainly a say and an interest in its future, but you were one of the founding fathers, if I may use that expression.

I can remember a year or so ago before DART opened, when Susan had a much more concern look on her face than she does today.

Bob, what I wanted to ask you is the original intent of those of you who sat around and had the idea for DART and how you think theory and practice have aligned.

- We worked for almost three and a half years before the Dart Center became a reality.

So we had lots of visions in our head and lots of different locations and sites.

As it's turned out, I think we have been surprised on some counts and very reassured on others.

Certainly the response from the artistic community has been great.

We've had a lot of public support in the form of fundraising and certainly continual visitation there at the center.

The one surprising thing that has shown up is the feeling that has arisen among the artists.

We had did not foresee that a community would arise from these artists that shared space.

And not only do they cooperate and collaborate on art, but there seems to be a real feeling of family among them, which is very reassuring to us that the future of the project will continue not only from an artistic standpoint, but from a community project standpoint.

- What was your original intent?

Was it really something like art in public places, that marriage of the public being able to watch art, that creative energy in the making?

- Absolutely, and it's a unique project here in this community.

We've patterned it after the torpedo factory in Alexandria, which has been wildly successful up there in Northern Virginia.

And the object is to get the public in to see how art is made to bridge that gap between the art and the artist, to take away some of the mystery and to show the public that everyone has a creative force and that it is not so magical with just one or two of us, but all of us.

And it in the Dart Center arena, it's shared.

The public is invited in and brought into the actual creative process.

See how pots are potted, paintings are painted, prints are made, the public shares in the actual doing and learns.

- What sort of surprises, Bob, were there for artists, you started at Dart, did you not staying there part-time and now you keep that studio of yours open all the time, is that right?

- Right.

Well, not all the time, but I do best I can.

I I surprises there, there have been no real surprises because for me, the the art center meant a continuation of being surrounded by my peers after leaving a profession of 20 some years.

So, excuse me.

Go ahead.

- No, you hadn't finished.

I was gonna say, along the plus side, there's the energy to be gotten - From that.

Absolutely.

And, and, and being around my peers rather than working at home or somewhere in an isolated studio has meant so much in the, in the getting back into the, the painting and the vitality and the energies and, you know, it's just, it's just been a, a great motivation factor too for me.

- But what about the intrusion into that creative energy or the privacy that comes when necessarily you must interact with the public?

- That's, that's a factor there.

There's socializing there and there, there's intrusion, if you want to call it that, but it's, it's all part of the whole makeup.

If, if an artist wants to work, he has the De Art Center as a working studio 24 hours a day.

And this, this is one of the things I think is, is beneficial for me because I can go in after the initial five or six hours a day, which we're required to be there or whenever, you know, doing the working hours, but I can, I can be there three o'clock in the morning if I like.

And, and a lot of energy is there for artists to work in these after hours.

And you can play the music, you can do what you want, you know, which you would do at home too or in a studio.

- Well then artists understand coming in that there's certain hours ly when they should be there.

I must be - There.

I'm required to put in 20 hours because I, I occupy a, a single studio, and that's a piece of cake.

You know, in terms of if, if you, you're gonna be there for the public or if you're gonna be there for yourself, 20 hours is no problem.

Otherwise, you, I don't know why you'd wanna be there to begin with.

- Bob, I want you to comment further on the 20 hour commitment that artists have to give.

Do you think it's a fair trade off?

You were saying art's a business.

Yeah.

And you have to run Dart as a business.

- I, I think it is.

I I think you're, you're running a business and if you're running a store, you have to have someone there to man the store.

A lot of the artists, perhaps maybe one of the solutions to not being there would have somebody sit in, in your stead, you know, to be there in those 20 hours.

You, you can't turn an artist on and off.

You, you, you, you have a lot of different emotions that, that, that an artist works from, you know, but when you're running a business, you know, you, you still have to run that business.

But I can't say I'm going in and do my greatest abstract creation this afternoon.

You know, sometimes I'm not in the mood.

Sometimes I have to rake the leaves.

Sometimes I have to Christmas shop, you know, so one of the solutions may be to have babysitters, so studio sitters and to solve that problem.

I have seen people walking down the hall in there and when there, there wasn't anyone in the studio.

And I walked down with my briefcase going to my studio, and one particular lady said, well, there goes one now.

And I turned around, I turned around and looked at her and, and her husband said, well, you wanna go back and no, no, I'm not.

So I said, well, I'm open.

You're welcome to come in.

You know, so there are a few people dis that are disgruntled when they walk away, when there's not a big representation of artists, but we're working on that solution.

- Maybe what she really meant was how exciting it was to see an artist and what do I talk to him - About?

You think so?

Maybe - That's - What it was.

One, one of the really exciting things is about the Dart Center, that you can go on one day and see one group of artists and return the following day and see an entirely different group of artists and different work.

- Right.

It's an exciting place to visit and it's been really nice to talk to both of you.

- Well thank you.

- Every week at this time, we look ahead to important events taking place in Hampton Roads over the next few days.

Our choices this week celebrate the solemn and beautiful festivals of this holiday season.

His photographs of Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Albert Einstein of composers like Jean Sebelius and Igo Stravinsky and musicians like Pablo Casals.

They have become historical icons of our time.

Jose Kosh once remarked that photography is the voice of humanity and that voice must be heard.

The great photographer, a legend who has captured legends, was at the Muscarella Museum in Williamsburg recently for an exhibit of his photographs.

Our Tempus talked with him there.

- I've seen that great men are sometimes lonely.

This is understandable because they've set such high standards for themselves.

They set themselves apart from the rest of humanity.

Their loneliness, however, is also their ability to create character, like a photograph develops in darkness.

These are the words of Yosef Karsh whose exhibit of over 80 black and white photographs was recently mounted this fall at the Muscarella Museum at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg.

We had a chance to talk with Mr. Karsh and learn how a photographer in a session gets his sitter to reveal his soul.

- You just bring every possible effort to, to bear in the hope.

You'll get the picture.

- What sort of preparation do you do, Mr. Kar, for a session?

- Well, a session with me has always been a very important part of the work because I do all of my work about reading something about the this person, about I'm about to photograph.

If they are famous, we know already great deal about them.

If they are not famous, I do a good deal of research.

I have information from their family, from their secretary, from their associate, so that when we meet, there's always a meeting of mind immediately.

And the rest I wait for the happy accident.

- The happy accident was that what happened, let's say with Churchill for instance.

- Well, that is more than happy accident.

Yes, yes.

Because when they come under leaders of the world come on a state visit and they're under tremendous pressure, particularly the exigency of war.

That was more than good fortune.

But I had sat in the house of Common and probably about three feet away from him delivered his memorable speech, some chicken, some neck, and therefore that very same attitude.

I said, this is the attitude that portrayed this giant of history, this defying personality.

So when the time came, I suggested that attitude and the rest is history.

- Mr. Kash, what makes a successful photograph?

- A successful photograph is a result of much preparation, great deal of applied practice and experiments, and a tremendous amount of curiosity inquisitiveness about life in general and successful photography becomes having observed life, having studied different discipline before he can have the right sensitivity to record a fine photograph.

- When you talk about different disciplines, I know you have a very strong interest in the humanities.

- Yes, yes, I have.

That has been, I have been greatly influenced by almost every second person I photograph because they have lived, they have contributed to the world.

All these men and women have different culture, different ideology.

They're all readily give of the rich experience to you.

- Does the camera record the truth?

- Well, the camera an layer record the truth when it comes to the portrait I have and my wife a sweeter, for instance, but not always can tell the truth because what is the truth?

It is something that cannot be defined whatsoever.

But I think a photograph come closer to the truth when it has gradual deal of frailty as well as goodness, - Vulnerability, - Vulnerability, all of that.

But there is no no such confirmed approach to telling the truth.

And often the truth is as you speak it, as you tell it, even the inflection of your speech can put different colors and interpretation truth so happily cannot be so positive because it'll always be with us and we can always take latitude with the truth.

- Why do you still use the eight by 10 format?

- Well, because I'm able to bring as the quality here at the Masque Museum of Art shows the quality in the prints from a large eight button film, I can blow them up to faithful to what I intended, to the light and shadow and the print is recorded.

But that doesn't mean that the great masterpieces have not in the past been done by 35 millimeter.

They are being today, being made and glorious work of art will be done in the future, depends on your training.

My training in Boston with Garrow was the large camera, the available light, and be able to totally give my attention to the subject.

- What would you tell a photographer trying to follow in your shoes?

What would you tell them to learn?

- Well, to tell that photographer to work as hard as I do, at least otherwise, I will be unhappy if you succeed without working hard.

But I find that embracing the humanity is a very, a good practice.

In other word, to expose ourself to a little bit of music, travel, history, geography, literature in general.

All of this contribute to us to make us realize that photography is just a means of an expression.

But in order to give that profound expression, you have to have resources that call upon all kind of culture, all kind of rich sources to make you the writer you are, the photography you are the physician you are.

- Saxophonist Philippe Fields was born in Paris, France, which perhaps explains the smooth and sophisticated gloss he brings to Jazz Philippe and his group, quiet Fire, performing every other weekend at the airport, Hilton Hotel in Norfolk.

But we have them here now for you.

We'd like to hear from you about our program.

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So we hope you'll write to us at WHRO television care of our place, our time, 5,200 Hampton Boulevard, Norfolk, Virginia, 2 3 5 0 8.

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Next week on our place, our time, we'll celebrate a holiday season in Hampton Roads.

The Virginia Coral Society will sing songs of the season.

We'll visit a collection of Nutcrackers in Williamsburg and we'll celebrate a masterpiece of religious art in the Chrysler Museum.

Join us then on our place, our time.