>> What I've created was a moment to say something loud.

>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio: Boston's man of murals unveils his latest.

Then artist Oliver Jeffers with the mural of his story.

And Lesley Dill, investigating the visionary spirits of America's past.

It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ First up, Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway offers one of the region's largest canvases: a giant wall given over to one artist each year.

And this year, it's a Boston native.

He is Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs and the mural is called Breathe Life Together.

It builds on a series he's been developing-- epic works that are now city landmarks.

Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs, welcome back to the show.

>> Hey.

Glad to be back.

>> BOWEN: And congratulations on the mural.

So take me through what you've created here.

>> Whew, what I've created was a moment to say something loud.

And given the chance and the opportunity, I just wanted to showcase to the city that we've been here for a long time and holds the same type of weight and caliber, the artwork that currently or previously existed in the space.

You know, showing that we got taste, and the ability to hang.

(both laugh) >> BOWEN: Where does the boombox come into play?

Something if you're of a particular generation, and I think we're very close in age, then you really identify with.

>> Right.

It's just like there's a lot of people that ask like, "Where does the CD go?

What is that thing?"

(Jared laughs) In a very unique way, it's like a family heirloom.

The boombox was in our grandmother's house for years, and that was like the stereo for the house.

And my cousin and I used to take it out and try to like, you know, live our hip hop dream through having this boombox outside of the house.

It's kind of cool because now that I'm painting the boombox, I'm understanding the significance of how important that, that machine is to amplify.

>> BOWEN: What does it represent?

Because it's...

I mean, there are some images from the 1980s that are just so...

I mean, that's it, it takes you there immediately.

So what is it about the boombox and what does it represent?

>> I would say the boombox was the way to get your news.

It was the... it was the total way to escape.

You know, people would dial in to the radio station, or they would just kind of have you listening to what's going on.

It was, it was the word of mouth before the internet.

And I feel like as a machine it had so much importance because it's like anywhere you're playing music you just disappearing into what the song does.

I feel like it's an important machine that just evolved into what's now on your phone, you know?

>> BOWEN: Well, and speaking of music, when I last saw you at Madison Park, you were playing music as you were working.

(music playing) What's the role that music has when you're working?

>> Music just takes you to a place that you can get lost in time.

And there's a lot of artists out there that I listen to who like help kind of get my thoughts together as I'm creating.

So it's energy.

It's a flow.

>> BOWEN: What would happen if you didn't have music?

>> I'd probably be singing a song in my head.

That's, that's what would happen.

Like, you know, if the battery died or I didn't have electricity at that time, I'll find some way to make it happen.

>> BOWEN: So what is it like for you?

You have, is it four now major murals around this city?

I mean, this... you're, you're authoring this city.

>> Oh, man.

(stammering): That's a huge... (both laughing) That's, that's a huge role.

You know, it's four big ones.

But there's a whole lot of work that I've been putting in over the years where, like, on a smaller scale or in the neighborhoods we've been changing certain blocks or like, you know, corner stores, and so public art affairs, we're normalizing having fine art at your fingertips through our voices, through our reflections, and things of that nature.

So to go on a larger scale is the natural evolution of it.

But to have the four that like a lot of people are talking about it, it's, it's new to me to have everybody kind of connect and relate.

But I also know that when you have a gift, you also earn a responsibility to make sure that, like, you are pushing your limits and boundaries to think on a, on a bigger platform.

>> BOWEN: Is there a different significance to have this one on the Greenway?

>> There is.

The difference is location and just the challenge to, like, show that wall that demands a certain composition what you got, you know, there's always a challenge in texture or like surface, and you want to know that what you do works.

So the Greenway is just visibly different.

The actual surface is a challenge because it goes from one type of surface to another.

The ins and outs of the building, you want to create an image that just seems seamless.

It doesn't matter what angle you're looking at it from.

And then it's carefully framed by the architecture and other buildings that are around it.

So what you see from the ground up, or if you're in a lift looking at it at eye level, you also get to see these towering skyscrapers next to it that frame it real nice, you know.

>> BOWEN: I know I've asked you this before, but it's because I can't even grasp how you do this to have the perception up close as you're working as the same that you might have if you're however many thousands of feet you need to be away to also conceive of what you're doing on a large scale.

>> Mm-hmm.

That's a, um... Again, it comes from just years of doing it.

But the larger you go, the larger you have to think.

So you do get caught up in, like, the little minute details.

Then when you get down and back up, it was like you did nothing at all.

It was a little speck.

So when you think larger, you get to maximize the ability of what the can is able to do.

And a lot of people bug out because it's a spray can that's actually producing this work.

So I think to showcase the dexterity of the medium and just to let people know it's a lot more complicated than painting a cabinet or a bike.

(laughs) >> BOWEN: And they're getting to meet your daughter, who's now four.

(laughs) Yeah, they're meeting, they're meeting Bobby in a larger capacity.

My daughter is known as, you know, Daddy's little helper.

The message I want to relate to the younger generation, she's helping Daddy tell the younger ones and everybody around the world that, you know, this city is yours and we can do this together.

>> BOWEN: Where does that optimism come from?

You remain so optimistic, so hopeful.

>> It's that challenge to try to equalize the playing field.

You know, we can sit back in from the mural series that you highlighted.

To breathe life into a situation, how do you do that?

And I'm not just going to keep repeating it.

I'mma show you better than I can tell you.

And if there's a way to always do it visually, people are always like taken in a certain way.

And the goal half of the time is just to help people feel what they can feel when they are looking at something because you never forget how you feel.

To know that in our culture through hip hop that we have stories to tell, we have babies that we're raising, we're highly educated, and educating people through the medium.

So why not have them feel great on top of that?

You know what I mean?

Help them escape from what you can just see on the news all the time.

It's why when we approach a wall, and we put that first coat of paint on there, we're opening up a whole portal to what's possible.

You know, depending on how and what composition comes out of it, it's a real... it's a real expression from the inside that I haven't developed the word for it yet, and I know it exists out there, but I know how it feels.

So I would just love to share that feeling.

>> BOWEN (chuckling): Here's to that.

It is always such a pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

(laughs) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Across town at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, another mural is on view, spanning part of the museum's façade.

It's by artist Oliver Jeffers and is a companion piece to a new exhibition looking at Maurice Sendak's work in opera and ballet.

I began our interview by asking about the impact Sendak and his books like Where the Wild Things Are had on Jeffers' own career.

Let me start with Sendak.

How do you describe what he did through his art?

The, the world, the aura that he created?

>> Well, I think Sendak really it was, you know, looking at his books as a child, the art was like a little bit dangerous in some ways, and it was sophisticated but beautiful and accessible.

It really, it felt like actual art, you know, that you were entering into this whole other realm, this whole other world.

And something that I learned later on after I'd started making books was that he never really thought that he made children's books.

He always just made books and somebody else said they're for children.

And that was a huge moment in my career because I felt the same way and had never realized that he had said that.

>> BOWEN: What's the distinction between children's book versus picture book?

>> Well, a picture book is a book that I would say the lion's share of the narrative is told using images, using visual literacy.

And I guess a children's book is, is one that's specifically designed for children.

>> BOWEN: And how do you find his work... of course he's known for, for the response and resonance that he's had in children, but how does... how is the work so much more universal?

>> I think the work is so much more universal because he isn't trying to pander to anyone at all.

He's just simply being an artist in the truest sense, which is he's following his own path down a, down a rabbit hole and seeing where that goes.

And just the act of, I think, exposure and vulnerability to his thoughts, and whims, and processes there's, there's an incredible honesty in that, that other people can attribute themselves to, can let themselves in, see... notice the, the rhythms of their own life.

And I think whenever you set out to make art that's for somebody else, or for a particular audience, you start to lose that.

>> BOWEN: How long has he been part of your DNA?

>> Well, you know, there's books that I remember from childhood, and Where the Wild Things Are is one that definitely stands out, as is In the Night Kitchen.

I think there is a sense of color, and layout, and I suppose that, that scale and composition is... there's a, there's... it suggests a much bigger world than is possibly there whenever you close the book.

And so I think that's been present in my work.

And only when I really, as an adult look back and was like, "Oh, maybe that's where that came from."

>> BOWEN: So as you look at your work and is there a fiber of his, his sensibility that you see and how does it exist within your work, would you say?

>> Without having realized that, the motivation is, is quite similar.

I, I suppose I'm willing to go to some of the places that feel a bit riskier than... than maybe I would be had I not known of the existence of his work.

But, you know, I think the... our worlds are quite different in that sense.

And I think my work (chuckling): is a little more hopeful perhaps than his and a little less poetically abstract.

>> BOWEN: Hopeful, but I was reading, you grew up observing The Troubles and its impact in your community, in your country.

So how... where does the optimism come from?

>> Well, really, you know, in Northern Ireland, where there's a shared sense of understanding about the uniqueness of our sense of humor.

And I think that comes from because we just find humor in everything.

And if you don't laugh, you cry, and nobody really wants to cry.

So there is just that the humor that comes from it, a bleak humor.

But I think the hope comes from just having witnessed all this atrocity, all this violence, just the...

I suppose the, the poignant, tragic self-repeating cycle of it.

Even in spite of all that, I've never met anybody who actually wants to be a bad person.

And when I realized when I lived in New York, and looking back, and that the riots had started again, or there was, there was trouble, and you see this news footage, and they're all kids, you know, like ten, 12, 14, 16 years old.

And it was like what do they know about this, 800 years of this, this what was deemed a religious struggle, became a class struggle, and now has become an identity struggle.

What do they know about it?

They're just being told a story.

And one of the most important, I suppose, eureka moments of my life was that you can change the story that you tell.

And so that's why I'm filled with hope, because I think fundamentally all people are good people, and we just need to get behind single, simpler, better stories.

>> BOWEN: And is that something you actively hope and want to do with your work?

>> Yes, it is something that I actively hope, and that I... a lot of my work goes towards.

Having talked to people all across this country, regardless of their their backgrounds or their beliefs, and the... having witnessed the ebbs and flows and trends of Northern Irish politics, it's you start to see some of the same patterns, which is that oftentimes people don't necessarily know who they are, they just know who they're not.

So it's the idea of of an existence of an enemy becomes one of the single greatest, I suppose, identity factors for people.

And what I've come to realize is that all people just seem to want to same four things, which is safety, dignity, purpose, and community.

And those shouldn't be that hard to accomplish.

>> BOWEN: I mean, safety, community, they're so, so prevalent in your work.

>> Yeah.

And I think I've always thought that, like Maurice Sendak, that if you can say something simply enough, you can't really disagree with it.

>> BOWEN: Where does color come into that?

>> You know, I failed colorblindness test in school.

(laughing): So...

I've just always had an eye for what I think works together.

And half the time that comes accidentally, like you know, like the pile of papers in your desk, and you set something atop something like, "Ooh, that works."

And just through trial and error.

But the... with...

I try to stay away from obvious color combinations, especially when dealing with outer space, and planet Earth, and things like that.

Because I think we intuitively read color in a, in a way that is sort of that's pre-language.

>> BOWEN: And remembering correctly, sort of this yellowish glow for the facade for the Gardner that engenders just this calmness.

>> Warmth, yeah, just warmth and that's the only little spot of light in the very bottom of the facade.

And the piece is called Universes, and as we know, there's only one universe.

But in this piece, there's two because there's the, the night sky that's behind the house that sort of extends up and out of frame.

And, and then there's the universe inside her head as she's reading that book.

>> BOWEN: Finally, what about scale here?

People are so used to the intimacy of your work, being able to hold it, and experience it and live with it.

And, at the Gardner, we find this epic mural.

>> Yeah, the work that I've made for the books, because I've always had one foot in the fine art world, I made these large paintings.

And and over the last few years I've been making large sculptures that are kind of poetic observations about the scale of Earth in its... the context of our, of our near cosmos.

So just even the distance to the moon and then spelling out, you know, so here's an accurate size of the moon to the Earth.

Here's how far away it really is.

And, and just writing things like people live here on all of the countries as opposed to their actual names.

But so I have been working large for a while, but for the books, I always work in actual size because I want it to feel like it's, you know, you're really there and part of that process.

So the brushstrokes look like they're real.

They look like they're, you know, haven't been enlarged or shrunk in any way.

But yeah, I think this, this is probably the biggest piece of work that's ever existed of mine.

>> BOWEN: And does the encounter change, do you think, when it's that large?

>> Uh...

I personally wanted to get, like, really up close to it and have a look, but it's, you know, it's high up and, and you can't quite.

I don't think it does, and that's the funny thing.

I think it's like this still feels like it's, it's all-encompassing in the way that I hope the smaller work does.

So, you know, maybe I'm the wrong person to ask, or ask somebody who's enjoyed the books, and then what they think of seeing it on that scale.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Some of the most famous sculptures ever created are spending the summer in the Berkshires.

Where to see Rodin tops our calendar in Arts This Week.

Monday, make your way to Runway of Love at the Peabody Essex Museum, a show celebrating the joyous designs of 1980s fashion superstar Patrick Kelly.

Some of the most iconic French sculpture has arrived at the Clark Art Institute: see the works of Rodin Confronting the Modern Tuesday.

Wednesday, visit the piercingly timely show Designing Motherhood at the MassArt Art Museum.

It explores society's designs, for better and worse, on pregnancy and birth.

The real-life inspiration behind novelist Edith Wharton's fiction plays out in Mr. Fullerton, Between the Sheets at Gloucester Stage Company Thursday.

It's inspired by newly discovered diaries.

Friday, check out the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic Cinderella at North Shore Music Theatre.

RuPaul's Drag Race star JuJuBee rounds out the cast.

Artist Lesley Dill investigates the power of language in her work, probing how people use words to reveal, to obscure, and to express.

In her latest body of work, now on view at New Hampshire's Canterbury Shaker Village, she explores the visionary spirit, the sentiments, and the enduring words of some of history's most consequential figures.

Lesley Dill, thank you so much for being with us.

>> It's such a pleasure.

I'm very happy to be here.

>> BOWEN: Well, to talk about what you're doing, let's start with your title: Wilderness: Light Sizzles Around Me.

I love that title.

I can say it over and over again.

It's so evocative.

And how does it take us to the heart of this body of work?

>> I chose the word wilderness in terms of the parentheses of these 15 figures.

Because I was thinking about the emotional contradictions and complications of our American history, that this country was a wilderness to the early white European settlers that came here.

But this country was not a wilderness to our Native American tribes who began here.

So the word wilderness seemed to just fit with emotional confusion and, and growth.

I mean we... in these works, they do move into the Civil War and out of it.

Although, in a way, I don't think we can ever move out of the Civil War.

>> BOWEN: As we're realizing so deeply right now.

As you considered who you would depict in these figures, it is such a staggering array.

How did you begin to decide?

>> My body of work as an artist comes through the doorway of the poetry of Emily Dickinson.

I have worked with her words, her extraordinary, intense words like, "The soul has bandaged moments "when too appalled to stir.

"How ruthless are the gentle.

Electrical the embryo, but we demand the flame."

So these words caused a flame to rise up in me, and inspirations for artwork were literally born from her words.

So for years I did not investigate when did she write her poems?

And I felt embarrassed that I did not know that she wrote most of her poems during the American Civil War.

And so that so explains so much of the darkness and lightness in her work.

So it turned me to history.

And then, I thought, when did my own family on my mother's side come here?

So they came to Agawam, Massachusetts, in 1636.

So I thought, "Well, who was here then?

What was it like?"

And so I started reading biographies in history.

And all these white European people, most of them were fleeing from religious persecution, and this search for a rightness in the world is what has attracted me to the people I made.

And then I thought, "Oh, I should do an image of a Native American person."

>> BOWEN: Well, and I'm very interested in this, because you did do an image of Black Hawk.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> BOWEN: And we have seen over the last few years what has happened when white artists tell the stories of people of color or Indigenous artists.

But you were aware of that.

And it was okay in your case because of the discussions you've had?

>> I felt respectful and courteous of working with an image of a Native American person.

And I didn't know how to go about it.

So I called my friend Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, who is Native American, and a wonderful painter.

And I said, "Jaune, should I do this?"

She said, "Leslie, you have to do this.

"You have to do this project of Black Hawk, who lived a lot in Iowa," where this exhibition started, and she said, "We need people like you.

And you, you need to learn how to walk in the shoes of others."

I said, "Well... so I've read about him.

"Is there anything else that I should...?"

She said, "Of course.

"You need to go in-person to the tribe to ask permission to do it."

So I did.

I found the Sac and Fox Nation is in Oklahoma.

I ended up meeting on the phone and virtually this incredible man, Juaquin Hamilton-Young Bird.

And we talked a lot about Black Hawk.

And in the process of making the image, I would do a little image, and I would email it to him or send it to him in person.

And we did a big banner.

And every single line that I chose, I ran by Juaquin.

>> BOWEN: Well, as I think about the words that you use, I don't know if it's possible for you to explain how you arrive at the words that you use with your figures.

>> Hm...

I read with my underneath mind.

I try not to read with my sharp, overeducated mind.

I read with my softer, intuitive mind, and the words rise up that seem true.

>> BOWEN: The Canterbury Shaker Village, what has really captivated you about the Shaker Society?

>> I was so lucky.

In 2019, I was invited to join a Henry Luce Foundation colloquium of scholars from around the country, to talk about the Shakers and to learn about them.

So I was introduced to Mother Ann Lee.

What resonated in the Shakers for me personally was Mother Ann Lee's deep, visionary nature.

In fact, I am attracted to all the visionary aspects of the people in this group.

One can say it is a thread that winds through all of these people.

So I must say, for me, visionary and revelatory experience is a private magnet for me as well.

>> BOWEN: Let me close by asking about a vision you had, I understand, at age 14.

>> I did.

>> BOWEN: That informs your, your life and your work still?

>> Yes.

It is always vulnerable for me to talk about this small experience that turned into being a deeply saturating experience.

Because it was so innocently come upon one morning as a 14-year-old getting ready for school.

My screen, my visual screen went black, and threads of dark and light wound through it.

And I was given to see images of war, and murder, and a feeling of evil.

But throughout it was actually saturated with a kind of goodness.

And...

I felt bliss.

I felt rapture, which I had never felt in my life.

And then it was over.

>> BOWEN: Well, Leslie Dill, it's been such a pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

♪ ♪ And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Remember you can always catch my latest art news and reviews on the radio-- Tuesdays with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio and Thursdays on Morning Edition with Paris Alston and Jeremy Siegel.

That's all on 89.7, Boston's local NPR.

And, as always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter-- @OpenStudioGBH.

I'm @TheJaredBowen.

Earlier in the show we spoke with Oliver Jeffers about what artist Maurice Sendak has meant to him.

We leave you now with Sendak's work-- images from Drawing the Curtain: Maurice Sendak's Designs for Opera and Ballet"-- they're on view now at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

I'm Jared Bowen.

Thanks for joining us.

♪ ♪