tle tones) - This was the opportunity of a lifetime.

All these artists had to do was paint four paintings in five hours, and they would be $20,000 richer.

The catch?

They were competing one on one against another artist in a field of 64, and the spectators were the judges.

This live performance painting tournament was called ART 64, and it happened earlier this summer in the streets of Wauwatosa.

You'll see full coverage from ART 64 in this episode of The Arts Page.

You'll meet Mister Christmas, an artist specializing in making the most of the little things in life.

And see how one family is making movement fun by encouraging others to use their bodies to create artful acrobatics.

The Arts Page starts right now.

(spirited music) Welcome to The Arts Page.

I'm Sandy Maxx.

One of the most unique ideas in our area to support and challenge artists is a live plein air painting competition called ART 64.

This two day tournament was held in June in the village of Wauwatosa, presented by the City of Wauwatosa and NEWaukee, the organization that puts on the night markets in downtown Milwaukee.

Similar to the big college basketball championship tournament, 64 artists from around the country competed in head-to-head matchups to advance to another round.

Artists got a set amount of time to complete a painting with a particular theme.

To determine the winner of each matchup, spectators would vote online whose painting they liked more.

Whoever received the most votes in their respective matchup would move on to the next round.

The grand prize for the champion winner?

$20,000.

Let's take a look at this creative competition.

(upbeat music) On a breezy summer night, people gathered in the village of Wauwatosa to enjoy the fresh air, have a bite to eat and spend quality time with family and friends.

But while some were having a casual night out on the town, others were mixing paints, setting up easels and getting loose for a high stakes paint-off.

Here where Harwood and Underwood Avenues meet State Street was the site of ART 64.

It's an art extravaganza in the heart of the Tosa village, a painting tournament of 64 artists put on to spotlight the diversity of talent in the state and beyond.

- I'm from Florida.

- [Sandy] And to support local businesses hit hard by the pandemic.

It was a collaboration that was beneficial to many and inspiring to all.

- I want to welcome everybody to tonight's very first ever ART 64 event.

- [Sandy] Day one, round one.

Contestants were given 60 minutes to complete an environmentally themed painting.

Landscapes are often inspired by a scene, and since time was tight, the painters were allowed visual aids to help guide them.

There was no seeding.

Matchups were determined by sequential order, one versus two, three versus four, five versus six and so on.

Conditions were favorable, although the breeze was stiff.

- Woo!

Here we go.

- [Sandy] ART 64 2022 was underway.

(upbeat music) - I'm trying to channel Bob Ross, my most Bob Ross-ness.

- Come on, Carole.

- [Sandy] That's Carole Milos, hailing from West Allis.

She chose a beautiful sunset with lots of gorgeous color for her first round painting.

(upbeat music) This is Dave Watkins of Milwaukee finishing up an abstract painting of the Milwaukee lakefront.

(upbeat music) Stephon Kiba Freeman, with a surrealistic take on a landscape.

Kiba is from the Stevens Point area, and a specialist with spray paints.

- Proud parent talking.

- Oh, is it your son?

- [Sandy] That's Ben Otten from Oconomowoc with his proud father.

A nice moment between those two and a nice watercolor painting from Ben.

(exciting music) With only a few minutes left in round one, the artists rush to put the final touches on their paintings.

Brushes must be down at round's end.

10 seconds left.

- [Crowd] Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

(crowd cheering) - All right.

- [Sandy] And that's the end of round one.

(upbeat music) Attendees had half an hour to view the art and vote for their favorite.

(upbeat music) Contestants had to wait to learn their fate.

(upbeat music) And with voting closed for round one, the tallying began.

(upbeat music) 32 artists are finished and 32 are moving on.

- Oh, hi!

- 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

Artists start.

- Hi.

- [Sandy] Round two is on.

Contestants now had to paint a community or culture-themed painting.

The sun is fading and the breeze will not let up, and the artists have to stay focused to make it to round three.

- The subject is community and culture, and I am painting horticulture.

Okay.

- [Sandy] Another Milwaukeean, that's Susan Rowbottom.

Susan is an experienced oil painter with an extensive catalog of landscapes.

Ben Otten made it to round two.

Same with Kiba Freeman and Carole Milos.

With competition getting fierce, can they use their momentum from their round one victories to go all the way?

It's going to be tough for voters this round.

There's some exceptional art being made, like this still life of a cup of yogurt by artist David Zimmerman of Milwaukee, and check out this painting from Green Bay native Andrew Linskens.

Residing on the northern shores of Lake Michigan has definitely influenced his art.

With 30 seconds left in round two, Jennika Bastian from Madison adds a little more shading to this tiger's nose.

- [Crowd] Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

(crowd cheering) - After another 60 minutes, round two is in the books.

Artists turn in their paintings and attendees begin to vote once more.

(upbeat music) The final tallies of day one are in, and the field is cut in half again.

16 artists are advancing to round three.

Although many of the artists are going home without that big check, no doubt it was a fun and unique experience.

However, those that are moving on have their sights set on day two and the dream of being the 2022 ART 64 champion.

So who was the champion of ART 64?

We'll return for day two of the competition and the winner of the grand prize in our last segment.

But first, we meet Mister Christmas.

Scott Hildebrandt is a miniature artist, creating inviting whimsical scenes inside repurposed appliances like clocks and cameras.

He got his nickname of Mister Christmas because he started out making Christmas decorations, and he embraces it.

When he's not making beautiful little worlds, he can be found at estate sales, thrift stores and vintage markets around Denver, Colorado, finding tiny trinkets to trigger his imagination.

(exciting music) - The way people react to my art is different and fun and priceless all at the same time.

When they see that the pieces light up and then it's fun to see their faces light up and I see their imagination light up, and it's really kind of a fun thing to sit back and watch.

It's really such a humbling experience to hear people tell me about how it moves them and the feelings that it invokes in them.

There's nothing in the world like it.

It feels wonderful.

My name is Scott Hildebrandt, and I'm a miniature artist.

I work with repurposing old clocks, cameras, radios and TVs.

I would say over the last 10 years I've probably built close to about maybe 3,000 pieces, all different shapes and sizes.

Nothing is really off limits.

This is actually airplane salvage.

This is an old wheel cover from an old landing gear, an old Cessna 182.

The love of miniatures probably started when I was close to six or seven.

My grandfather used to put up his old train set from when he was a boy, and I just remember being in awe of how beautiful it was and how it ran and all the little miniatures that went with it.

I was just fascinated with it, and as I got older, I would build models, and I loved the scale of trying to recreate these scenes in miniature format.

This is an old hardback case and there's a little switch on the bottom.

It makes them portable, so you can put them somewhere, but you can open it up and have a nice little display.

Mister Christmas is a term or a name that was given to me probably about 10 years ago when I first started doing this.

- It's very creative, what you've done.

- Thank you, I appreciate that.

- Beautiful work.

- I focused on vintage Christmas pieces.

My first piece that I ever made actually was a little Christmas village that was under glass.

People took interest in that style of art, and so I just sort of absorbed the name Mister Christmas.

I would describe the personality of my work as more whimsical.

I think miniatures in general reminds adults of that same imagination that sometimes you repress and put away, and it brings you back to a really good place in your life that you remember when you were younger, and it's almost like a safe place and it creates these warm memories that people love.

- Where do you source your antiques?

- I go to a lot of estate sales and flea markets, garage sales.

A real interesting weekend for me is thrifting.

A fun weekend like that will turn into fun weeks of finding these pieces and then getting a chance to build into them.

This poor clock stopped working and the motor burned out, so I'm going to repurpose the face.

I never put people inside of my artwork.

I feel like the scene itself creates a wonder or mystery, and I want the focus to be on the quaintness of the scene itself and that you can imagine yourself maybe there.

The thing that really inspires me to continue with my art is the ability to create something that connects people together, and that's also a very endearing challenge to me to be able to create something that I could imagine.

There's nothing more satisfying than to be able to complete something that you've thought about.

It's just such a form of accomplishment and it's so satisfying that it kind of makes me feel complete as an artist.

- [Interviewer] Do you title all your pieces?

- I try to.

- [Interviewer] What would you call it?

- A clear sunset.

I can't imagine not doing it.

It's part of my life and it's really part of who I am.

- See more of Hildebrandt's fascinating art at his website, clevermisterchristmas.com.

Precision is important when you're working with tiny objects.

Precision is also important when you're hurling your body around doing acrobatics in a group.

Acro Enso in Reno, Nevada is a large scale movement studio.

This family-owned space focuses on fun while they flip, tumble and teach others to express their own playful, physical creativity through impressively difficult and beautiful acrobatic ways.

(bright music) - We like to think about creative discovery in ways that we can allow people to explore movement, explore themselves and create, and also have fun.

(bright music) Acro Enso is perhaps the only place in Reno and one of the few places in the United States where we have a very particular focus and program based around cyr wheel and partner acrobatics, and where we incorporate a variety of other circus arts.

(bright music) - The name Acro Enso came to us after a long journey of asking many friends and family about what we should call this place.

- We knew that we really wanted to focus on partner acrobatics and cyr wheel, and so we wanted acrobatics to be a part of the name.

We also wanted something referencing a cyr wheel, so in this case a circle.

- Enso is actually Japanese for a calligraphy practice that they do, it's circle, and when they draw the circle, it's always incomplete, and it's supposed to symbolize that whoever draws the circle, they are perfect and imperfect in that moment, and it's wonderful as is.

They're completely present, and this moment's never gonna last forever.

It's gonna always be changing, and that's kind of how I feel about acrobatics.

When I'm flying in the air or when I'm holding somebody up, it's present, it's in the moment.

There's nothing else in the world that matters.

It's perfect, it's imperfect, and it's me.

To us, Acro means meaningful play, and Enso means authentic movement, in whatever form that is.

So all put together, Acro Enso is meaningful play through authentic movement.

(upbeat music) Cyr wheel is a giant metal wheel covered in PVC.

What you do with it is you get inside of it, you spin around in it, you play with it.

- A lot of what we do in the cyr wheel is learning how to stand and how to root ourselves into our feet, and so there are actually a lot of similarities between learning cyr wheel and learning ballet.

In cyr wheel, it's all about rotation and understanding where your center is and being able to create a really nice spinning axis with our body.

A lot of what we do in the cyr wheel is we initiate rotation and then we stand into it, and from there, it's this really cool process of, I like to talk about kind of developing a spider sense.

You can't really use your eyes because you're spinning.

You really have to develop this intuitive sense of where your center of gravity is, where it's going and how to interact with that, and it's a really fun process.

(upbeat music) - Sports acro is where you have partnerships, either groups of two, groups of three or more, and you come together and you lift each other up, you balance each other, you throw each other in the air, flip around and catch each other, and it's a whole competitive sport on its own.

We do compete with our sports team, but we also have an adults team where we focus on performance.

For the kids as well, we like to have that performance opportunity so that we can have them go to places like GSR and perform in Siamsa and do fun acrobatics.

Our acrobatics teams will train for about two hours per training, and in that two hours, they go through a variety of conditioning drills, handstand drills, partner skills, and at the end of practice, we focus primarily on choreography and linking all of those skills together.

(upbeat music) Our son's name is Huckleberry and our daughter's name is Coco.

Family is everything to us.

We wanted to create a place that our children could come to and be able to grow inside of, and someday even take over if that's something that they're interested in.

So our kids are here all the time.

They are taken care of by the village of this community.

- When Huckleberry is wandering around, he's got all sorts of people interacting with him, playing with him, teaching him, and same thing with Coco.

Just watching how they've blossomed and how they've come up in it, obviously as parents, we don't want to project onto them, but we do want to provide opportunities.

Having the ability to provide those opportunities and to watch them take them up enthusiastically has just been amazing.

- [Keisha] When we started this place and we had only one or two people coming in and our acro team only had five kids on it, it felt like a lot.

It felt like we had a long journey ahead of us.

- Especially with what we've had to go through.

We were just about to celebrate our first year anniversary when COVID happened.

The number of times that we thought we would have to close this place were more than we can count.

- Now when I come into this space and I can see the floor filled with people and our team of 18 kids, everybody playing with each other and having fun with each other, it is an overwhelming feeling that just puts a big smile on my face.

- A really big feeling of wonder almost that it could happen.

- It creates a kind of life that I don't think I would want to live without.

(bright music) - If you're interested in finding something similar to Acro Enso here in Milwaukee, go online and search the phrase "acrobatics Milwaukee" for a list of places.

Now, back to ART 64.

We are down to 16 artists.

All of the artists receive some compensation upon being chosen to participate, which is helpful for the arts economy.

70% of proceeds from sales of the artworks created during ART 64 went to the artists, and 30% went to the Wauwatosa Parks Improvement Fund.

The artists that made it this far will be given 90 minutes to complete their paintings.

That's a third more than they had on day one.

However, rain is in the forecast.

Can the artists maintain their composure and work through the elements?

Who will be the grand prize winner of $20,000?

Here is the dramatic conclusion of ART 64 2022.

(exciting music) - Hello artists.

Welcome to day two.

One minute 'til round three begins.

Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, paint.

- [Sandy] Day two, round three.

16 artists are left.

The theme was dream interpretation, a theme that allows for a lot of creative freedom.

Two more paintings is all that it would take to go home a champion.

Milwaukee artist John Kowalczyk very freely adds a few brush strokes to his painting.

Pete Zielinski from Menomonee Falls with good brush work as well, although more controlled.

- [Speaker] I like all the colors.

- Thank you.

- [Sandy] Julie Jilek getting some well-deserved love from a young fan.

Kiba Freeman is back for round three.

He shows off his skills with the spray paint to a crowd of onlookers.

Ben Otten also advanced to day two.

Ben has chosen the streets of Venice to paint for this round.

Jennika Bastian returned for another round, and wore a very creative outfit for her matchup with Taylia Smith.

And here we see Milwaukeean Jaclyn Close adding some fine detail with a paint marker.

- 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

- [Sandy] And with round three done, the artists make their way, paintings in hand, to the check-in tent.

(upbeat music) The remaining 16 artists have all painted amazing art, but now it's up to the voters to decide who moves on.

- Artists advancing to the next round are.

- [Sandy] The announcements have been made, and just eight artists remain out of the field of 64.

It all comes down to this last round, this last painting.

Round four, artists got to choose their last painting.

The theme was freestyle.

The remaining eight artists were Taylia Smith, John Kowalczyk, Ali Kay, Jaclyn Close, Robin Wallenfang, Nova Czarnecki, Ben Otten, and Kiba Freeman.

Who will be the first ever ART 64 champion?

(upbeat music) - Three, two, one.

- [Sandy] These were the final eight paintings.

(upbeat music) - We thank you all for being here and sticking it out, especially through our last couple of rounds in the rain here.

- [Sandy] The artists were gathered to one spot to await the announcement of the winner.

The tension was palpable.

Nerves were high.

- This is the worst part.

- This is the worst part.

- [Sandy] The moment had come to learn the winner of ART 64 and $20,000.

- This is the moment we are all waiting for, our inaugural winner of our $20,000 cash prize is artist number 60, Ben Otten.

(crowd cheering) Congratulations, Ben.

(cork popping) (crowd cheering) - A big welcome to Oconomowoc artist, Ben Otten.

Thank you for joining us here on The Arts Page.

I am Sandy Maxx, and congratulations on being the ARTS 64 2022 champion, taking home the grand prize of $20,000.

How did it feel in the moment to win ART 64?

- Oh, man.

Well first of all, thank you so much for having me, guys.

Really appreciate it.

Hard to put into words, to be honest with you.

There were just tons and tons of awesome artists there, great talent.

To be able to go through all four rounds and ultimately come on top was a bit shocking.

Still trying to let it sink in, to be honest with you, but obviously just overwhelming to be able to be there and come out on top.

- Well Ben, thank you very much for chatting with us today.

Congratulations from everyone here at The Arts Page for being the very first ART 64 grand champion.

Congratulations.

- Thank you so much guys.

Again, I seriously appreciate you reaching out and having me on today.

- That was Ben Otten from Oconomowoc, winning $20,000 as the ART 64 champion.

You can enjoy a longer chat I had with Ben Otten about his artwork in a feature on Milwaukee PBS' YouTube channel.

Thank you for watching The Arts Page.

I'm Sandy Maxx.

Please join us the first Thursday of every month for a half hour full of art on The Arts Page.

(spirited music)