(lively music) (keyboard typing) (bright music) - So Clara J is short for Clara Jaessing and she was the aunt of the founder of Clara J's Tea Room, Rebecca Jaessing.

She was a very different woman for her time, she went to college at Baldwin Wallace for culinary arts in a time when most women didn't go to college.

(bright music) I have now been the owner of Clara J's for five years, and I've been teaching at Owens Community College full-time for 12 years, and I got to know Rebecca.

She would reach out to me when she needed staff for the kitchen, or for the dining room, or for the front desk.

And I would come here.

So then the building went up for sale and I didn't have any classes to teach that summer, and she needed staff.

And I offered to come and work the shifts for the summer while I wasn't teaching, and just fell in love with Clara J's, and I just decided by the end of that summer that we were going to buy the building and buy the business.

(instrumental music) So the building was actually a home, it was built in 1837.

It was owned by a prominent banker in Maumee at that time.

And then it was a doctor's office for 50 years.

Then it was several other businesses, well about 2005 when it was became a tea room.

So there's different nooks all throughout the building and different rooms.

So, we have named the rooms, but we have the parlor which is a little more intimate setting, we have the fireplace room and that's would've been the living room for the family years ago.

We have our garden room, and that one's probably the most requested table.

And then we have the west wing which is where we're sitting right now.

When my husband and I bought the building the upstairs wasn't being used for anything but storage, and we were trying to figure out something to do with it.

Airbnb was just starting to pick up.

And so we thought we'd give that a shot, and before we even got it fully operational we started getting requests.

We mostly get families that are visiting.

We've had fishermen for the Walleye run which the Maumee river is just two blocks away.

Because it's over a tea room, I couldn't just have an Airbnb.

So they get delivered scones and fruit in the morning.

And that has been a big draw as well.

(bright music) - When you think of tea room you might think of like finger sandwiches, and small bites, and little appetizers.

We do serve that for our proper tea for the finger foods and little sweets.

But for the lunch menu we do large sandwiches, give you more of a filling meal, try to see what we have to offer here with our different flavor combinations.

- [Gretchen] We start with scones and they get the three toppings that are very common, the strawberry jam, lemon curd, and Devon Shire Cream, and a pot of tea.

And then we bring out the three tiered tray.

We actually do the savories on the top, and savories are like the little mini bites, three little appetizers for each guest, lots of flavor, lots of wow in each bite.

And then the middle are three finger sandwiches.

We keep the classic cucumber sandwich, and then we have our signature ribbon sandwich, which is a, it's not a finger sandwich by any means, it's a giant sandwich.

And then on the bottom are the sweets.

So again, always three sweets.

Our signature lemon drop cookie that's a sandwich cookie with buttercream.

And then we always have a chocolate sweet, and usually something fruity or seasonal for the third sweet.

- [Alicia] Our ribbon sandwich is like a savory cake.

It's got the layers of wheat and white bread made in house, and we make a cream cheese bread for the outside.

And on the inside we have a chicken salad, and a red pepper cream cheese, and a spinach green onion cream cheese.

With our desserts, we do a different dessert weekly but we also have our strict menu.

So you can find those proper tea sweets on that menu, and then you can also have an array of sweets that we just come up with that week.

- We do have some signature teas, one of them is a Neapolitan tea and that is a blend of black tea, and then it's got raspberry, vanilla and chocolate.

So it's kind of like the Neapolitan ice cream.

And we have others that we can barely keep in stack, vanilla, hazelnut, chai, and it's so smooth it doesn't even need milk most of the time.

Some guests will still ask for milk.

We have a milky oolong that's just so smooth and delightful.

Here the staff, we all have our favorites and oftentimes then they become our guest favorites 'cause we brew 'em all the time.

There's a lemon meringue tea too that is very popular right now.

- I love tea, it's healthy, it's flavorful, and there's so many different combinations.

You can add sugar, you can add lemon, anything to help make it palatable to you.

Tea can be very versatile.

So we use it in our baking, we use it in our savory, in our sweet, and then the guests can choose their teas as well.

And then we also make two teas of the day that you can choose from.

- I think it's a fun and unique place to come to.

You're not going to find anything like this anywhere else.

And I just think the place is always charming, the food is always good, the teas are always plentiful.

The people that come and wait on you are always polite, they make you feel special.

And this is a, I think a place you come to feel special, and to celebrate, and to be with friends.

(bright music) - We started out with apricot scones today, and with the apricot scones comes, I think it's a whipped butter or a cream tea, and there was jam and a lemon curd to go with the apricot scone and that first pot of tea.

And I think the first pot of tea was an Irish tea.

(bright music) - It's just a, it's a different kind of vibe that we have here that's a kind and friendly vibe with a lot of love going through the whole place.

- The comment that I hear most when people are visiting Mazza for the first time is that it's a hidden gem.

And they often ask, why haven't we heard about this sooner?

(bright music) (keyboard typing) (bright music) The comment that I hear most when people are visiting Mazza for the first time is that it's a hidden gem.

And they often ask, why haven't we heard about this sooner?

(bright music) - The Mazza Museum began in 1982 at a time when Findlay College was celebrating its hundredth anniversary.

And the president at that time asked each college to do something new or unique that might be around for 10 years to celebrate that anniversary.

A professor in the College of Education, Dr. Jerry Mallett, also was a writer of some picture books, as well as many teacher resource materials.

And it was his idea to create a place that would give recognition to the art of picture books.

He felt like their art for many years was not given the credit that it deserved.

And so he came back and met with the president and said, "Here's my idea."

And the president said, "Let's plan for this."

So Dr. Mallett met with Dr. August and Aleta Mazza.

They were Findlay college grads in 1941, and they gave the seed money to start the collection in 1982.

Dr. Mallett's dream was if somehow Mazza could acquire at least one new work of art a year, his goal or dream would be met.

And today we have over 15,000 original works of art from artists from all over the world.

(bright music) - So the very first time that I heard the name Mazza museum I was in Italy, and I had been coming back and forth from Italy learning to become a marble carver.

And there was a rotary tour going through from Northwest Ohio, and I got invited to be a part of that.

One of the presenters was a faculty member from the University of Findlay, and as she's giving her presentation she's showing images of what she's describing as the world's largest and first collection of original art from picture books located in Findlay, Ohio.

I was watching the presentation thinking I'm losing something in translation here because I swear she just said Findlay, Ohio, and I'm pretty active in the arts scene, born and raised in Fremont, Ohio, and I had never heard of this place.

So I approached her afterwards and I said, In English can you tell me about that place again?

And she said, "Yeah, it's in Findlay."

And she had pictures on her phone.

And I said, all right the next time I'm back in Ohio, that will be my first stop.

I came to the Mazza Museum with a friend and I asked that they not tell anybody we run into that I did some illustration and that I was an artist.

I just wanted to experience the museum as anybody would.

And we walked in, I think we were the, we probably came right when it opened, so we were the only people in the museum at the time.

And a man approached and he said, "Let me know if I can show you anything."

And I said, I'm just looking around.

That man was Ben Sapp.

And then he found out from my friend that I was an illustrator and an artist.

So that changed the conversation.

- The artists that we have represented here, some of them have never been here and so they really truly don't have an idea of what we do.

So by bringing them in to speak at a conference they get that idea very quickly when they walk around and they see their friends art on display throughout the museum, they see how it's cared for, how it's used in educational ways.

That is, I guess the first step.

And then we start the discussion of how we might be able to have their work acquired, and be a part of our collection.

But I think it's about building friendships, it's about building trust with these illustrators.

And when I'm talking with them, they'll say, "Well, how do you go about acquiring my work?"

And I'll say, it's totally up to you.

We want this to work for you and we appreciate the work that you create and want to share it.

We had an artist one time that sent a donation and in the box it said, I am totally relieved and entrusted to the Mazza Museum to know that my children, his artwork, would be safe and would be used in educational ways.

So that is always my hope is that, these relationships are friendships that will go on for many, many years.

There are very few places like us across the country, with us being the first and the largest, other places have formed.

We're all different in one, a little certain way or another, but we all have the common theme of the love of art and literature found in picture books, and then finding unique ways to share that with people around the world.

(bright music) - [Scott] The nice thing about curling in my opinion is it's more than just a game.

So when people come here there's a big social element to the game.

And it's that social piece that really draws people in almost as much as the game does.

(bright music) (keyboard typing) - So the Bowling Green Curling Club it's a public curling club with about 275 members.

We're here to play and promote the sport of curling.

The key objective is to take these 42 pound stones of granite and get them into the house that's away from you.

The whole objective is after everyone has thrown is to have more of your stones, your team throws eight, more of your stones closer to the center of that house than the other team's closest stone.

So only one team can score on an end.

There are eight ends, kind of like innings in baseball.

(bright music) So our club started in 1967 with about 29 charter members at the Bowling Green State University.

For many years, the university had dedicated curling, and what I mean by that is they had four sheets of ice.

If you are looking at a curling rink a sheet is essentially a playing area.

It's got the two houses on either end.

We decided to make the effort to build our own facility and be able to host what we wanted to host, and and be able to grow to our potential.

So our ice is much different from like hockey ice.

You'll see people walking up and down the ice when they're prepping with a backpack full of water, and they'll spray these droplets of water, and that's called pebble.

What the pebble does is it actually provides a texture on the ice so that the stones are not in full contact with the ice any given time which is what allows them to travel the way that they do.

- I've been a member with Bowling Green Curling Club since 2006, so 12 years, 13, 16, some number of years.

My work did a outing, and one of my work counterparts at the time said he found this curling place and so let's go try it.

So we came out and we tried it.

We had about 20 of us, rented the ice, and had quite a bit of fun and said, you know what, I think I want to do this again.

The nice thing about curling in my opinion is it's more than just a game.

So when people come here there's a big social element to the game, and it's that social piece that really draws people in almost as much as the game does.

- Curling's a unique sports, it's one that pretty much any walk of life is able to participate in.

We have people here as young as age six or seven all the way to in their 90s.

- The normal process for people to become members here is they come out to learn-to-curl, which is about a two hour session where we teach 'em the game and they learn the basics.

They play a short game.

They typically move from there into what we call a starter league, which is a six week league that we give a little instruction, and you're also playing games in league play.

And then at the end of that starter league they typically move right into our regular leads, and join teams from there.

(bright music) - I was watching curling on the Olympics and I initially thought that curling, it's not even a sport, like why is it in the Olympics, and where the heck is my gold medal?

But after coming out and trying it like 30 seconds into sweeping, my heart was beating faster than the previous 10 years of my life.

I was struggling to breathe.

I was sitting on the, the ice is about 40 degrees, the whole room in there, and I was sitting in my T-shirt, wondering what the heck did I do to get here at that moment?

And I had a blast.

And the competitive person in me decided, you know what, I want to do this, I want to get good at it.

- When you become a member, when you first come out to a learn-to-curl, we provide all the equipment you need.

So we're going to give you a broom, we're going to give you a a slider you step on so that you can slide on your delivery.

We have stabilizers, it'll help you be a little more secure on your deliveries, and you can use that equipment even after you become a member for as long as you want to.

- Most curling clubs across the country, I think all of them that I know of, that I've ever been to, they ask that you just wear comfortable clothes that stretch or flex because if you're able-bodied, and you're going to get into a curling position, essentially you're going to get into a lunge position and you're going to put all of your body weight on a Teflon slider.

If it's too far left or right you're falling over, too far forward you're doing the splits, too far backwards you're kissing the ice.

When you're in that lunge position, if you have jeans on, you could rip them.

And one of our curlers he won an award for curling his pants off.

- [Scott] So we run quite a few tournaments every year, and the curling tournament is called a bond spiel, and we run six of 'em through our normal season.

And teams come to this from all around the country.

So teams will sign up and come and compete over the weekend and then we crown a champion, and there's trophies and such.

- We have some individuals that have been curling for 40 years, curling against someone that just started last year, and that's okay.

It's actually what helps grow the game.

Chances are they're going to exchange tips, we're going to talk to each other, and we're going to try and just help grow each other.

- Curling is more than a sport.

I've learned that it's a tool to develop young people.

I mean, I just had a recent conversation with my daughter and she said that curling has taught her that if you do the work, you see the rewards.

Going from curling against other kids and winning to curling against the best in the world, and holding their own, all it was was throwing a bunch of rocks, focusing on the body mechanics, focusing on consistently doing the things that are going to improve you and make you a better curler.

So she said, "If I transition, or if I use the things that I learn from curling, and apply 'em to anything else in life, I can do anything."

Another thing that the kids learn in curling, if they throw too heavy or throw too hard, they adjust.

If they choose the wrong line, and it's too far left or too far right, they adjust.

The whole game is about adjusting.

Do the thing and adjust, they get to apply that towards life.

Like, hey, if this happens and you don't want to do that, adjust.

Like, it's not wrong.

You didn't fail, you are not a failure.

- For anyone that does want to get involved, again, I encourage you to come out and try it.

We do have learn-to-curls that we be post on our website periodically, usually about a month in advance.

And you can sign up with family members or friends, individuals even.

Main thing I encourage is if you have an interest in it, come on and try it, come check it out, come talk to us.

We're always willing to share the sport and want to share it with anyone we can.

- Folks can come into the Poignon Project and I'm always in here.

And we've developed the studio so it's really welcoming to just walk in, talk to me while I'm on the torch, ask any questions.

If you want to know I'm going to tell you.

(keyboard typing) Folks can come into the Poignon Project, and I'm always in here working on some type of project.

And we've developed the studio, so it's really welcoming to just walk in, talk to me while I'm on the torch, ask any questions.

It's really open source when you walk in, there's no secrets on, pulling a rabbit out of a hat here.

It's, if you want to know, I'm going to tell you.

- He is someone who just sees the beauty in everything.

Just everyday ordinary items you know, and he sees the beauty in everybody, and he has a way of just inspiring people, and working with people, and making them feel good about themselves.

So that's a big part of why I enjoy working with him.

(bright music) - My grandma had a glass collection and when she found out I was working with glass she wrote down all these glass ornaments she wanted.

It's not the right, like the direction I was thinking of.

Like I would be an artist and glass and make ornaments, that's not what I thought.

But after I made that first order there was a demand for ornaments.

And I would've never thought something would be such high demand for something that I'm personally making.

So when I'm working with glass, I take it from a solid form to a liquid form back to the solid state.

We use a specialized torch, it creates a flame around 6,000 degrees.

Tiffin originally was a glass community, over the past 30, 40 years as that business has closed, the interest of the new generation getting into glass slipped.

It wasn't the same thing as when my grandma had her whole showcase of Tiffin glass.

As part of the Poignon Project, bringing back that tradition of glass made in Tiffin is a huge thing.

The ornaments are absolutely the biggest thing I can create.

They've gone all over the world.

Thousands of people come in throughout the year to get 'em.

We do all the colors in the rainbow.

It's really a beautiful thing.

And they may be purchased the most during November and December, but we have found that people make 'em as window ornaments or sun catchers.

They don't have to be just for a Christmas tree.

This is what I heard from customers.

They're too beautiful to put back in the box.

Beyond ornaments, I do jewelry, which I do a lot of different jewelry, shot glasses, marbles, sculptures, stem wear.

But I would say the biggest thing are the ornaments.

And I do 'em in all different shapes, styles and colors.

- So the community art shed is a space where anybody can come in, grab art supplies that they need for their next project, or just to get some inspiration, and grab some things that they want to try.

You can be an experienced artist, or you can be someone who just wants to experiment and that can be expensive.

So with the art shed, everything's free.

I know it's something that I really pushed for that I really wanted to do, kind of like his backstory too, growing up I didn't have access to all those art supplies.

- Kids, adults can go in there without having a burden of a budget on 'em.

We all have budgets, and by having the opportunities available for people to have access to, that's what gets 'em excited.

- The community is a big part of the Poignon Project.

A lot of the things we couldn't do without our community supporting us.

- [Ryan] So having that freedom to make independent, creative decisions in the art shed is what's creating that creative community that we wanted.

- I try to work closely with the customers kind of see what they want to do.

I'll make different designs, send it to them, and then I etch everything.

So it's more like he's got his job that he's doing, making the ornament, and then I'm decorating them and etching them.

- We shine through each other.

She may not be here all the time but she's making my decisions above me, she is the one.

If I didn't have somebody like that supporting and accepting new ideas, I wouldn't be able to do what I got to do, and what I'm going to continue to do.

(bright music)