She grew up near the star so dance school did she would never make it on.

Fire fear and doubt almost every day she broke through the smoke and clouds and found her you could say she's like a prairie fire Friday the day five Welcome to Prairie Fire.

I'm Sarah Edwards.

You know here in the Midwest, we tend to think that we have to go to Chicago or New York to see the best in painting and sculpture.

But it turns out Central Illinois is home to one of the country's most celebrated artists, meet Preston Jackson.

If you look closely at my work, you can't see a haul of it.

But if you really think about it, you will see something musical.

I grew up in Decatur, Illinois, a wonderful city, a thriving city at that time.

My father was a minister and my mom, mother of 10 children didn't realize that we were what we would think of as poor because we never felt that way.

My family.

They were providers just like all the families on Sunset Avenue.

Anyway, very large family, very close knit family.

I owe that.

To my becoming an artist.

Finding my niche.

I want it to be seen, especially under the eyes of my older brother.

I think I became an artist at the age of seven.

In middle school, I began to get a little mischievious about drawing.

Later, I applied to Southern Illinois and Carbondale.

And you know, like when doors explode open, that's what it was like culturally because I had never seen that many people who looked like me spoke like me and played music.

I mean, it was a total awakening I raised alligators when I was small, but I could never keep a roommate when I was in college because they'd all split and be the smell of alligators and and late at night get here I'm jumping in the bathtub.

But anyway, I did a lot of things because I was curious things like foundry casting and bronze covered it.

jewelry making covered it painting, I covered it.

So that was just an itch that need to be scratch kind of overdid it, ya know?

But heck, it was the 60s and I felt free.

I felt very good about life, you know, and we moved on to Chicago, believe it or not, I left Macomb and accepted a job in Chicago as a sculpture teacher and I stayed there 32 years My heavens everything we know culturally and connected to entertainment and sports and all that and his stuff came from Chicago.

Harlem renaissance in Chicago was larger than the Harlem Renaissance in New York, the impact of that period, cause so much cultural richness.

And that's why built Brownsville to Harlow.

My brother called me within Brownsville to her love, there are a lot of personal things.

That's what makes it alive.

Because these people are real.

There is a small figure of my father holding two twins in his arm coming from St. Mary's Hospital where my twin sister and I was born.

Scale is important when they are becomes larger than your body.

There's a certain kind of respect that happens between you and the work large monumental sculptures that we see the city's larger cities that was done on purpose.

For small scale sculpture that I did you know, on Brownsville to Harlem, I can reach in there and grab it and pick it up.

Their proportions are a little strange.

Not so correct.

But you don't care.

I do what you call fine art.

social conscious art, because you can bend the rules.

Yeah, no.

And haven't I been doing that all my life?

Music is a part of me, that evolved.

Along with the art.

I put a band together called the rhythm basis indicator, we made records, we recorded Nashville.

Some of the most famous musicians on the planet was on that Chitlin Circuit.

We would drive a little Volkswagen bus.

We couldn't go downtown and stay in hotels, because most places even though we're in the north, were still segregated.

Fortunately, we didn't feel the segregation.

We were having too much fun.

Unfortunately, we should have known that was an opportunity to fight against segregation.

I've been known to be an activist, I've been known to be somewhat militant also.

But like I say things evolve.

And I learned that bad feelings can hurt you.

But bad feelings can also change things to create good feelings.

You see, I pride myself from not being afraid of nothing that's in my work, and I can't hide it all of this stuff speaks another language and not a language that's aggressive.

But a language that put you at the front and say don't back up.

So I want my art to always remind people that there's positive consciousness out there I hope that my life has touched many young kids out there and I'm a teaching this length of time you know, 50 something years.

I better be good.

Because that's a lot of people that you've impressed you know, that's a lot of people that remember your personality, and I just hope they become good people.

I can draw and paint anything I like.

And I marvel at the power that that creates.

I marvel at the fact that it does make a difference.

And it changes.

And if you believe in yourself, enough, you'll keep you'll stay on that if you go to our website, you can find a Google Earth map showing where all of Preston Jackson sculptures are located throughout the United States.

If you ever find yourself on the University of Illinois campus, you must go visit the cherry blossom trees at the Japan house.

The blossoms don't always bloom every year, but the history of the trees and the man who brought them here are both pretty fascinating.

Enjoy Japanese culture, the philosophy of the cherry blossom, or Sakura is as deeply rooted as these beautiful trees.

Each spring, people flocked to the mountains of Japan to watch them bloom.

Stateside, you can see these trees putting on quite a show in Washington DC.

But you may not know you can find the blooming cherry blossom right here in central Illinois.

For almost 60 years that Japan house has been preserving and teaching Japanese culture at the University of Illinois.

Its current building was completed in 1998 and is situated inside an arboretum kimiko gunji Professor Emeritus of Japanese arts and culture and the former director of the Japan House says the trees represent our lives fleeting, much like the cherry blossom.

It's just like with this concept of impermanence of all things, saints neighbors days, so everything goes away comes and goes.

So when it's here, you should enjoy things the most.

That's very much rod you need your fragile yet beautiful.

So people think in your life might be shorter, so then why not enjoy it?

On the 10th anniversary of the New Japan house, Dr. Genshitsu Sen. A 15th generation tea master gave the Japan house a very special gift.

He received honorary doctorate degree.

And when he came, he walks through the pathway, nothing there.

So he kind of said when I realized this about cherryblossom around this pathway, I said yes, but I thought that maybe you just talk right and then he went home and soon international affairs office called saying that Dr. Sam lightest send a hefty Yoshino tree, which is one of the beautiful Japanese traversal today, Dr. Sen set master landscape gardener Katsuo Kubo to design the project and oversee the installation of what would be called Sen. Cherry Tree allee Each tree was thoughtfully selected by Mr. Kubo and then carefully positioned in keeping with the Japanese cultural belief that, like each human, each tree has a personality uniquely its own.

Dr. Sen served in the Japanese Navy in World War Two.

Post War he devoted his life to the philosophy of tea.

The UN ambassador has been honored all over the world and just celebrated his 100th birthday in April.

He came to the United States when he was a young man right after the World War Two and then from there on his mission is peace through a boring you cannot believe it under your own.

We all say well maybe because he drinks tea every morning.

That's why he went all over the world.

And also, he donated many Tea House tea room.

So that's what we have here two tea rooms donation by by him based on that this whole house was built.

So it's quite amazing.

Dr. Sen's gifts are a big part of the reason Japan house is still a popular place to visit in central Illinois.

The cherry blossom trees he donated 15 years ago are still a main attraction in the gardens of Japan house.

Professor Gunji says during cherry blossom season in Japan, the news people tune in for isn't about stocks or the weather.

It's all about soccer, the TV on anything they say well so such and such a mountain it just about 3% Start booming such as a mountain maybe you know 50% So when they hear like hip 60% They drop everything and go go to see that beautiful cherry blossom because cherry blossom is such a type of gorgeous flowers bologna in Flubaroo tend to be stuck falling down very quickly.

Then fragile, so people think well, that walk can wait.

But terrible awesome cannot wait.

In spring of 2023, Central Illinois experienced some roller coaster weather that included some very high and very low temperatures that affected the blooms and the delicate flowers that usually blanket the trees are small and scarce.

So whatever outside this secondary thing, and some of the things like this, we cannot control.

So instead of saying, Oh, we don't have cherry blossom, we cannot do anything No, you initially do.

You can think about what you can do with what you have blooms or no blooms.

There's a lesson to be learned about the simple beauties in life.

Once we often overlook, and there's a word for that.

We have a Japanese word called wabi sabi.

Beauty in brilliant beauty contrast to that is very quiet, rustic beauty.

wabi sabi beauty you find in old man who ate very wisely, so then he's surface of skiing might be wrinkly.

But when you start talking, he has a wealth of knowledge.

Right.

So that's the beauty of the wabi sabi.

You know, every city and small town is full of places where you might pass by and think, oh, that's an interesting looking place on the outside.

I wonder what goes on inside?

Well, we found one of those kinds of places.

It's on a country road right outside Urbana, Illinois.

It's called high cross sound.

My name is Anthony Gravino.

I'm 46 years old and we're here at my studio High cross sound in Urbana, Illinois.

was born in Galesburg, Illinois, and I grew up in Monmouth, about 30 miles west of the Mississippi River.

And it was very small town, Midwestern, you know, 80s and 90s.

Just you know, I played sports that was a big thing in the town was like the local sports, there's a college there called Monmouth College.

But there wasn't a whole lot to do there.

So me and my friends just kind of made music, I think, I got a guitar and two of my friends.

One of them had drums, and the other one was a bass player.

And we started playing in my friend's basement right away.

And I played my first gig and less than a year after I started playing guitar, that was when I first started, like listening to the production of music, too.

And I started to hear the different eras and the different sounds.

And I was always fascinated by that.

I was always reading the liner notes.

I was obsessed, I wanted to do that, you know, I wanted to play music.

And then when I got into college, I got into a band that was playing quite a bit.

But the band I was in at the time, I knew they weren't going to leave that town.

And I knew I couldn't get anywhere other than where we were at that point.

I was 23.

And I thought it's time to go do something else.

It's time to go pursue my dream Do you feel lost them knew a couple people up in Chicago and they let me crash on their couch for a while while I got my feet embedded and, and then I just started playing in bands there.

It was in about 2005 or 2006, I started I got a little home recording setup.

And I just started it was just to demo songs and things like that.

And I was still playing in bands.

And I really loved it.

I started I spent a lot of time on it.

And I went on tour with this band in 2008 this band called oh my god, it was a great band.

I loved it.

And then you know, the tour was great and it was an amazing experience and fun but it was also exhausting.

And I was just like on the road a lot and and I started getting business recording and I just thought I'm gonna focus more on this now and I'm going to try to make this my thing as opposed to being a hired gun guitar player playing in all these different bands.

I basically had like a, it was a three flat building and the second floor was my recording studio.

But it was cool.

It had it worked, you know and people liked it.

It was laid back and I had a thing go in there for quite a while.

And I just I kind of tired at the city eventually.

The thing about moving down here for me was that this place was a big part of it.

I had thought in the back of my head.

I want to move out of Chicago.

at all, but I wasn't totally sure where, and I saw this place on advertisement on the internet.

And I was just like, Wow, what a cool place that could be a really cool recording studio and, and I came here and when I saw the place, it was just, it kind of flipped in my head.

At that point, I just thought, you know, this would work.

This kind of checks some boxes, I wasn't actively looking at the time when I decided to move, it was just like the switch flipped.

And I saw the opportunity and I knew I had to take it.

So it's an old horse barn that was built in 1940, and then converted into a house in 1980.

It had a lot of things that scared a lot of buyers away from it at first, I think because it had the cool factor.

But then when you kind of look below the surface, it was like, oh, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be done.

So I came in and did a lot of stuff.

It just It was rough.

It just needed a little hadn't been locked in a while.

So the walls are basically big soft surfaces that are reflected.

And I love it.

It sounds great in here.

I mean, from the minute it was finished, I came in and I was like, Oh, this is really good.

The ceiling is curved, which is great acoustic property.

And it's got this old timey barn, lacquered wood on the ceiling, which is just amazing.

It just has this grandiose kind of feel, it was one of the things that when I first walked in, I was just like, yeah, because you know, you want a studio to be inspiring.

You need it to be need people to come and feel like I'm somewhere special, I'm going to do something special, you know, the visual element of this place has that.

I feel like when you walk in, you're kind of walking into a different dimension almost in a weird way.

And I that was another thing that I was really drawn to when I first saw the place because when I first walked in, I imagined, okay, this is how it's going to feel for musicians when they first walk in.

And that's a really big deal.

Now the studio is very much an extension, I love the fact that I can shape things the way I want them to that I can have this idea in my head, it's very clear how I want it to sound.

And that I can use the tools of the studio to make that come off the speakers.

I just love that feeling.

I couldn't be happier that I moved here.

It was a great decision.

I haven't regretted it for one second that I've been here I felt very well received by the local music community.

And I feel like that, in this day and age doing what I do, it's much less important where you're located.

My uncle has this theory that like people end up going back to like, wherever they start at some point in their life.

And I when I first moved here, I definitely felt that this like, Yeah, I'm out in the country.

I'm much more relaxed, I didn't realize how much stress I was holding, because of the city just puts the stress on you all the time.

And when I got out here, I really experience the change of seasons, much more profoundly.

Living in Chicago, I was there for 20 years, I didn't realize how much of I had lost that connection.

And there's really no substitute for that, that this, the scenery around you, profoundly affects your life.

And when you're an artist, it profoundly affects your art.

And I realized more and more since I've been here how important that element is.

Mostly I just want to make good records with people and have fun doing it and help people make great sounding recordings, you know, because it's, it's not a lost art, but it's a dying art, you know, and I feel like, you know, I really care about the sound of records.

And so for people who want to make a really great sounding record, I want this to be a place that they feel like that's where you go to get the really good sound.

You know, over the years, a lot of historical figures and authors have really admired the Midwest and its people.

For example, in his book travels with Charlie in search of America, John Steinbeck writes, almost on Crossing The Ohio line.

It seemed to me that people were more open and more outgoing.

Strangers talk freely to one another without caution.

I had forgotten how rich and beautiful is the countryside, the deep topsoil, the wealth of great trees, the lake country.

It seemed to me that the earth was generous and outgoing here in the heartland, and perhaps the people took a cue from it.

And in The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald writes, that's my middle west, not the wheat or the prairies or the last sweet towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly Reed's thrown by lighted windows on the snow.

And then there's Charles Dickens.

The American notes for general circulation by Charles Dickens, Chapter 13, a jaunt to the Looking Glass prairie and back.

It will be difficult to say why, or how, though it was possibly from having heard and read so much about the prairie, but the effect on me was disappointment.

Looking towards the setting sun, there lay stretched out before my view, a vast expanse of liberal ground, unbroken, saved by one thin line of trees, which scarcely amounted to a scratch upon the great blank.

There were bare black patches on the ground, and the few wild flowers that the eye could see were poor and scanty.

greeters a picture was, it's very flatness and extent, which left nothing to the imagination, tamed it down and cramped its interest.

I felt little of that sense of freedom and exhilaration which a Scottish Heath inspires, or even our English downs awaken.

He was lonely and wild, but oppressive in his barren monotony.

It is not a scene to be forgotten, but it is scarcely one I think at all events as I saw it, to remember with much pleasure or to covet the looking on again in afterlife you know, I don't think it's all that ugly here on the prairie.

Don't you think you're being a little harsh?

I don't think so.

disturbing my peace.

While I mean look around you.

It's pretty beautiful around here.

Do I think you're being a humbug?

Humbug.

I'm not a humbug.

But what a word?

Humbug.

Excellent.

I should remember that.

You do that?

Yeah, I guess I've had some thoughts on the Mississippi.

Two miles wide Mud, mud and glorious mud.

Followed by a coach ride to Belleville.

You know, how about we save your thoughts about the Mississippi for another episode?

Yes, I think I could just fill up an episode in my thoughts and point self and the bloody Midwest.

scuze me?

Humbug humbug hum.

If you want to hear Mr. Dickens thoughts about the Midwest you can check it out on our website, just go to will.illinois.edu/prairie Fire humbug?

That's perfect remedies