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Coming up.

Fashion makes a powerful statement at the Cleveland Museum of Art That's what and Historic Ohio City Theater is reborn as a bookstore, And you shouldn't be and an Oberlin grad gives the Gen Z treatment to good old Bing Crosby.

every time it rains, it rains.

Pennies from heaven.

Hello and welcome back, my friends.

To applause Im Ideastream Public Medias Kabir Bhatia.

If you're like me, sorry, but like me, you probably also didn't have the luxury of growing up in Italy, influenced by centuries of outstanding art, Italian designers who did have that privilege are part of a special fashion show at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

It combines Renaissance paintings, gems and furnishings with more recent Italian designs.

Now let's see how art inspires fashion and Renaissance to runway the enduring Italian houses.

I want people to come in to feel a sense of escapism, but also a sense of imagination.

There's just so much creativity that one could derive from something so simple as a painting or a plate, or even as some simple as like a small little gemstone.

Renaissance.

The runway, the enduring Italian houses.

It's an exhibition that came from, of course, a passion for Italian art in Italian early modern art, and also seeing how that has matriculated into contemporary fashion and fashion.

Italian fashion over the course of the last century.

And so I wanted to bring those two worlds together because it hadn't been done before.

Behind me is a beautiful reproduction of, Sandra Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

And so it's very much one of the major masterworks that has often been used as a source of inspiration for many designers.

Those three are emblematic of different abstract concepts that you see within or illuminated within.

Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

Like when you think about, sensuality of of femininity.

Right.

These different kind of modern forms of femininity, but then also radiance of femininity.

Right.

You see the emphasis with Gianni Versace is alignment with all the different crystal Swarovski crystals is very much emphasizing the silhouette in the curves of a woman's body.

And so that's something that Botticelli was doing with his Venus.

When you think about early modern Italian art, Catholic imagery and Christian imagery is at the center.

Of course, I couldn't ignore that fact.

And so I wanted to kind of, tease that out in a way that shows the different perspectives.

And there were some designers that were a little more religiously inclined and spiritually inclined, and others who wanted you to just use and absorb Catholic and Christian imagery and all of the different iconography and elements that are part of that mainframe, to kind of add and complicate the level of opulence within Italian, creative lexicon.

So I found this particular coat dress, from Montclair that he designed.

I found it very reminiscent of specifically mid-15th century fashion.

When you have the implementation of women's trains in their skirts, you know, to the point where many of the early modern municipalities actually had to have sumptuary loss to control how much fabric women were using because they didn't want to kind of trigger inflation.

So they were thinking about inflation long before we were thinking about it.

I was also thinking about pleating during the mid-15th and late 16th century, and men's doublets as well.

That was a very prominent style.

Certainly there are direct 1 to 1 correlations between a lot of the designers I think about.

Also, early on during the 60s, when Gucci was creating its famous floral print, the artist actually was inspired by the florist study in Botticelli's Primavera.

So there are actual 1 to 1 mirrors.

But then, of course, there's the tangent or general broad conflation of so many different elements from across the Italian early modern period that served as a source of inspiration for designers.

And that's just the point of this show.

This is like, core, a little espresso to the corner and spreads to Tura specifically is the nonchalance, its, ease about oneself that technically you do orchestrate, but you don't tell of other people, or you don't give the impression that you orchestrated your look or how you act.

So this portrait is a portrait of a man.

He's been my friend throughout the entire duration of the show.

And so this man is actually very much the symbol of threat to Twitter, which is large bravado, larger than life, shamanic coat, with his, tunic and doublet on the inside.

Certainly you can see his codpiece, because, of course, we want to cover the the private areas, and his trunk shows that ballooned.

And certainly all the efforts of menswear at the time was to make a man seem larger than life.

The conversational piece that I have paired with the painting is an ensemble by Glenn Martins.

For diesel obviously highlights the bravado of menswear, but in a very kind of surreal, campy way, but in a way that that feels also a level of elegance as well.

I just hope people want to come and escape with us a little bit and have fun.

And sure, there's an educational illumination, right?

Like behind me, like there's to my left, this armor, an inspired ensemble that was worn by us a day before the Met Gala.

I also want people to, of course, take away certainly the educational compatibility between the past and the present.

That's not so much different from then as to what we're living in now.

They cared about inflation as we do.

They cared about looking good as we do.

They cared about the way fashion made them feel, and also how we shaped their society.

And they cared about a lot of the same things.

And they just facilitated in a little bit of a different way.

Renaissance to runway.

The Enduring Italian Houses is on view now at the Cleveland Museum of Art through February 1st.

There are so many great bookstores in Northeast Ohio.

They're gathering places with pastries and coffees.

Maybe you go there and see your favorite authors when they show up to sign books and chat.

Well, Visible Voice Books is that kind of bookstore.

And it just moved from Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood to Ohio City.

And its new space has a very cool history.

I recently paid a visit for our segment, what it was No.

This building behind me, what it was, was visible voice books.

And now they're here in what used to be the Lorraine Theater.

This opened in the 20s and eventually started showing all those great universal horror flicks in the 30s and 40s.

At one point it had a Wurlitzer organ, which overheated in 1927, leading to $2,500 in damage by 1970, it was the Denmark Theater and showed what we're going to call art films.

I. Today you can still see the screening area preserved by visible voice.

But don't confuse this with the Lorraine Fulton Theater right up the street.

That one also opened in the 20s, and they had lettering on the front that was sort of Art Deco, which is American Art Deco.

There's another edition of what it was looking at.

Cool arts and cultural sites, past and present in Northeast Ohio.

If you have an idea for one, shoot us an email at Arts at Idea stream.org.

It's time to dive into the pool with a group of artists in bathing suits.

Artistic swimming is an all inclusive affair in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood.

So let's get our hair wet with the rhinestones.

This story is part of our ongoing series Behind the Scenes Art Across Ohio.

To become a rhinestone.

There is no audition process, and it's based on the idea that we can do things as we age and grow up, and we can learn and we can celebrate, and we can do crazy things just for the pure joy of it.

My name is Pam Kravitz.

I am an artist, an art educator, an art advocate in Cincinnati, and my role on the Rhinestones Synchronized Swim team is co-creator.

I created the team seven years ago with my friend Carla, and we have been swimming ever since.

We reached out to the community and said, come join us.

We want to do this.

And we got swimmers, nine swimmers from the age of probably about 25 to 75.

The philosophy behind the rhinestones is based in joy.

It's based in the idea that you come any way you can, whether you're a really strong swimmer like our coach Beth, or we're on a kid's swim team like me or our friend that had never put her head under water before.

And Beth took us from where we were, put us together in a way that celebrates and supports each one of us and our ability.

I'm Beth Kramer.

I am an engineer by trade.

I contract at Procter and Gamble, and I am the rhinestones head coach.

Beth is used all of the skills that she's learned from being a synchronized swimmer, and taught us those skills and the way of training.

I swam for the Cincinnati Synchro Gators from the time I was eight until I graduated high school, and then I went in a swim at Ohio State.

And while I was at Ohio State, I also made the second national team in 2002.

My name is Casey Miller.

I am a photographer and freelance artist around Cincinnati, Ohio.

I am a member of the Rhinestone swimming team, where I also do the social media content for them.

The baseline of being able to swim was my starting point with the right, so I had nothing prior to everything that our coach taught us.

I have a little bit of a background in partner acrobatics, doing lifts and stuff, so I think that they thought it would be a good add on to the sort of skill set of the team.

So I've been sort of bringing the lifts and a few other fun elements into the team, and we meet at Ziegler Pool over at Ziegler Park every Sunday.

I pick the music for the routine and cut it and choreograph it, and then kind of herd the team while we're there.

From the beginning of summer, we are just running drills, getting our technique back after we've been not in the pool for all of the non summer months, and slowly incorporating the choreography that we're going to be performing at the Ziegler Parks Adult Swim event at the end of summer.

For the Olympics, you train eight plus hours a day for years and rhinestones we do one hour a week.

It's primarily shallow water Olympics.

You cannot touch the bottom at all.

Not not a toe.

Okay, truth be told, a little secret.

And the rhinestones did touch the bottom of the pool.

The fact that people look at us and they're like, oh, look.

They look like they're having fun.

They look like it's easy.

They're smiling.

And it is work under there.

So it's a very different way of moving through the water.

I was always taught to swim as a way to not drown in artistic swimming.

You're swimming to be beautiful, to make these pretty lines, to create these fun shapes, to create patterns with your fellow swimmers.

So it was a unique experience to be introduced to it and have to think of swimming less as just getting from one side of the pool to the other, and more to think about what your body is doing while you're doing it.

We have to pick music that sounds good.

We have to pick music that everybody can hear the same and count the same.

Some some pieces of music are like impossible to swim to and others are like so straightforward.

There's these clear beats and you can all hear them because when you dive in the water and there's bubbles and it makes it hard to hear, you have to still count in your head.

And so there's this performance aspect to it, because you have to be present in a bowl.

You have to smile.

You have to convey the theme of the music and that in itself, right there is all like performance art.

We also don't want to be the clown car of synchronized swimming.

We want this to look professional and tight, and we take it very seriously.

We bring in the joy, we bring in the laughter.

We bring in the silly, we bring in the acceptance.

But ultimately, we really do want to look good.

I think that one of the really cool things about being on an artistic swimming team is, I don't know anyone else on an artistic swimming team.

It's something that's truly unique that who gets the chance to do that?

The rhinestones are different than your average synchronized swimming team because we invite everyone.

Unfortunately, the Olympics has had a little bit of a back and forth on allowing men on the team to have mixed gender teams, and we don't really worry about that.

We invite as many different people as possible.

I'm very masculine presenting, so that would usually deter other synchronized swimming teams.

But the rhinestones welcome it.

I just want us to come and have fun because, like so many of us have very high stress jobs outside of the pool, it's high stress lives.

Our most recent project, this year, was a sort of introduction of the team members lives outside of the pool, but introducing it into the pool.

And I mean that in a literal sense, where we had them jump into the pool fully dressed in their work attire.

So it was some people in full engineering wear, or one of our teammates is a usher at the Aronoff, and she jumped in in her full usher garb.

It was a really, really fun project.

That kind of got to highlight our team both in and out of the pool, kind of at the same time, and just have a lot of fun with it.

One thing that keeps me coming back is just that it's joyful.

I get I get there to coach and we do a new skill, and then the sounds that just come out of the pool, the joy, the clapping, the cheering, it's pretty amazing to see how happy doing this makes the people in the pool.

And I've also heard people say it's my happy place.

It's what I look forward to every week in the summer.

We love what we've created kind of very much by accident and I think the authenticity of the why is what makes it so successful.

There's more behind the scenes stories featuring art from all over Ohio.

Check them out in our Applause Collection section on the PBS app.

Cleveland Heights Lauren Mackenzie creates art as Lauren Pierce, pouring herself into vibrant mixed media figures.

Over the years, she's developed an art making process that supports her creativity as well as her mental health.

Being a young black mom.

And then being on my own and a single mom, I think it has forced me to, like, really, really get to know myself.

And a lot of the times that takes place when I'm in my studio, forcing myself to see myself just naturally progressed through my work.

This kind of series started in 2022.

I lived in Arizona for a year.

The hardest, best year of my life so far and it was honestly that time there.

Being completely alone and with myself that I was able to hear myself really for the first time.

That's also where I found out I was autistic.

I love nature.

There is something so healing about being outside.

I love it.

It is where I feel like I completely unmask, and I think in the process of being in nature and allowing myself the space to unmask.

It was like something exploded from me.

And then I thought about just myself.

As I'm healing and unmasking, I'm thinking about the younger version of myself.

I wanted to be a fashion designer.

I grew up with my grandmother, buy me paper dolls every year, and I'm like, oh, what if I make a paper doll series?

But like, incorporate my love for nature in that thing?

So I think this honors the little girl in me, especially not knowing then that I was autistic and incorporating all those different things and what I love about this series specifically is that it takes so long for me to create.

It is forcing me to slow down, to be more intentional about my practice, which I really, really love.

I avoid burnout in that way because the goal is yes, I love making money.

Who doesn't pay their bills?

But really, this series just honors the thing that I've always been trying to do, and it forces me to pay attention to each step of the process and to also enjoy the process of creating.

I think that we have this this needs, especially as black artists, and especially since George Floyd, to like, shell things out like every it's all about production.

Everything needs to be moving fast.

Instead of it being about the quality of the work and what the work is actually trying to say.

So yeah, the series very much honors the young me.

Being able to feel pride and myself and how I look is super important.

And growing up, being a young black girl, getting these paper dolls that they never looked like me and thinking about those.

And although that that was, you know, my grandmother loved me and the gesture was very kind.

It's there.

There's a lack of like, seeing me.

And I think that that's really important, that now I get to see my full self and celebrate my full self in a way that I didn't get to as a little girl.

The work that I'm working on right now with the paper series is all inspired by bugs, and it's a collaboration with my niece Eveleigh, who was 11 and very much my little mini me.

So I sent her pieces of the the bugs that I wanted to do.

Then she created her design of the thing, and then I took her design and then did my own interpretation of it, sketched it out, and then the next step is literally taking pieces of paper that I'm creating abstract textiles of, of, you know, I think it's random.

It's what I love because it's taking figurative work and my love for abstract work and fashion, the textile work and creating this overall thing.

So right now it's it's bugs, which is still from nature, but it's an emphasis on like transformation and metamorphosis of evolving as a woman.

It's very time consuming.

After I do the abstract textile portion of it, then I'll go and do the figurative portion of it.

Then once that's dry and complete, that gets cut out, that gets mounted, and then the background comes and the hair comes in.

The hair is super important to me.

I'm working on trying to create more texture because texture is very important to my community, especially when it comes to hair.

It's constantly evolving, which is what I love too.

I feel like this is also the first series that I have not done board with, which is interesting because it takes so long to make each piece.

There is reds, there is is turquoises and oranges.

There's one that's going to be oranges and creams and browns.

This one will be black and orange and cream.

I try to keep it in a similar family, so at least there was some fluidity through it.

But yes, this is the brightest that I've done in a while because most of the work has been in the more like mountain desert tone kind of range.

I have some ideas.

I want to mess with metal work and sculpture work big time, but I also want to make these pieces into like real clothing designs and have a runway show.

That has been on my bucket list for sure.

But I also want to create paper pieces that are three dimensional with this, with sculpture buff.

So I want to do more play.

I'm just trying.

I'm trying to play.

I do think that this thing saves my life every single day.

I can always tell if I am not in the studio, there's 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.

So like being in here every single day, it's a remedy for me.

Giving voice to the voiceless on the next applause.

As a pair of artists takes us to the Arizona border, helping us understand the plight of Mexican migrants.

Thinking about migrants who have perished in the desert has been a theme that became the heart of my work.

And.

And the Cleveland Orchestra pays tribute to a fallen friend with this riveting suite by Maurice Ravel.

All that and more on the next round of applause Well, the clock on the wall is telling us it's time to say goodbye to me, your shiny and relevant host of applause.

We close out with Oberlin Conservatory grad Gabriela Alemanha, singing about the good fortune of a shiny but irrelevant US currency.

Here she is with Bing Crosby's big hit from 1936, pennies From Heaven.

And you must pay before you get them back again.

That's what storms were made for.

And you shouldn't be afraid for every time it rains, it rains.

Pennies from heaven.

Don't you know each cloud contains pennies from heaven.

And you'll find your fortune falling all over them.

Make sure that your umbrella is upside down.

Trade it for a package of sunshine and flowers.

If you want the things you love, you must.

You must have showers.

And so if you hear them calling in.

I don't run under a tree.

If they're pennies from heaven for you and me, I visit for double the date that you don't need it.

Then they open their baby faith that you better buy it.

And it would be da la da la.

But super duper dooby dooby dooby doo doo doo doo doo dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee up the do buy it.

Do they do they do buy it and they do it.

Eat it, it.

So buy the b b b b d b c d d d d d d d d d d. Nobody showed Production of applause and ideastream.

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