- Financial support for this program provided by Sacramento County's Transit Occupancy tax grant program.

- Coming up on KVIE Arts Showcase, we celebrate arts from around the world and right here at home.

Meet a dynamic art visionary.

- And so I knew I had to build something that became home for the kids that we serve, - Adapting a film for the Broadway stage, - Co-write a play with George, and for us to get it on on Broadway.

This is like, this is literally a dream come true, - An artist inspired by the world around him.

- A lot of times I'm just painting.

I'm not really giving any thought to what I'm doing.

I just start throwing things around and see what happens.

I try not to overthink when I'm creating a a piece - And the growth of a creative, - The most rewarding thing is that every day is so different for me.

I think the most exciting part is when I'm learning something new, but like, wow, I did that.

That's always the fun part.

- It's all up next on KVIE Arts Showcase.

[ Jazz plays ] Meet visionary artists, Tamaira Sandifer, affectionately known as Miss Tee Her passion for the arts is creating a legacy of impact, building community and fostering creativity that transforms lives and empowers generations.

[ Hip hop beat plays ] - I think the, the word I would use is it's critical.

Art is critical.

My name is Tamaira Sandifer.

Most people call me Miss Tee I spend a lot of time working with little kids and Miss Tamaira was a mouthful, and so they started calling me [ lisps ] Mith-Tee.

And it kinda just stuck.

- For Tamaira Sandifer, Miss T early experiences growing up in Richmond, California shaped not only her art, but her purpose.

Becoming Miss T was a means of surviving a difficult childhood that strengthened and empowered her to create a thriving organization that's been changing lives for generations.

- As a kid I always danced.

I was a very shy kid, but I, I had a love, a passion for it, and not only dancing myself, but also teaching it.

I had a little brother and a lot of little sisters, and so one of the ways that, you know, we maintained a childlikeness growing up in, in some of the, the traumatic challenges that we experienced was we danced and we sang, and then the eighties happened and everybody who's anybody wanted to break dance.

They wanted to lock, they wanted the pop, they want, you know, soul train with the dance thats coming down the line.

Michael Jackson and Thriller and his music, MTV happened.

People loved watching it, but they didn't know how to do it.

For whatever reason, I had the grace and ability to pick up those moves and then teach people how to do it.

And so I became the girl that if you wanted to know the steps, well Tamaira can do it.

It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I, that someone said, “Hey, can we hire you to do choreography for us?” I learned that there was a whole world where people got paid to do what they love.

And so I spent the great majority of, you know, in the developmental phase of Studio T just listening to our kids and our families.

And then I targeted communities where we were losing young people.

And so, you know, I started to, you know, try to do the traditional dance studio route, but I learned that everybody couldn't get to me.

I closed my studio doors, and I just concentrated efforts in the streets.

I'm going to you rather than wait for you to come to me.

I would just try to solve the problem.

And so a lot of the programs we have are just me attempting to be a problem solver when I recognize the pattern in the community of disruption of pain or deficit - After years of successful classes here, workshops there, creating the national get up and move events and more, Miss T realized it was time to establish a home base.

Studio T, now Studio T Arts and Entertainment Innovation Factory, is 44,000 square feet of real estate in Sacramento on Del Paso Boulevard.

It's become a critical creative hub extending the reach through movement, healing, self-expression, knowledge, and most important access.

- And so I knew I had to build something that became home for the kids that we serve.

Most people would have me build what I'm building in a Los Angeles or New York.

And they did ask and I said, no, no.

There's such great fear in our young people around making mistakes when they don't understand that it's the mistakes you make that train and develop you to do things in excellence.

I feel so honored that I got to be on their path with them.

I think it's, I think that, you know, everybody comes into this world with a peace to the world puzzle.

And when you, you watch somebody that all the odds just seems so stacked against them, but then they show up in life and they do the thing that they were sent to do.

I mean, that's always been one of the remarkable parts for me of this entire experience.

And when I built the company, you know, I did this while I was raising three kids, a single parent, the three remarkable humans, and, you know, building a company, you know, while you're raising kids, that's not an easy thing.

- Miss T has become a living testament to the transformative power of art, believing when artists set in motion, it can reshape the world.

- And so I discovered me in the process, but I also discovered how to help other people discover them.

And then, you know, then you start to see some of the outcomes in people's lives where statistics say that they should be dead or they should be addicted or they should be incarcerated, but they're not.

My hope for the future is I, I could say a couple things.

One is that, you know, I'll live to see generations being served through what's been built.

I would say the other thing is that the world will know that I was here and I did my part.

- George Clooney is one of the biggest names in Hollywood, and in 2025 he made his Broadway debut in the stage adaptation of the critically acclaimed film, Good Night and Good Luck.

We traveled to New York City to find out more.

- There are a certain kind of people wired a certain kind of way.

This was literally about something that unfortunately is a constant, which is that it has to be raged.

This idea of telling the truth doesn't just happen.

We get to do a play about a subject matter that's very close to our hearts, which is about everything that you guys all do, which is holding truth to power.

You know, there's a story behind the story.

If you're bold enough to search for it, if you're passionate enough to speak out, if you're brave enough to stand up to the forces determined to keep you silent, no matter the consequences.

I've already done this as a film, so I didn't really have anywhere else to do it.

No, listen, I'm terrified.

When we did a play reading, I read Murrow just because I was the only actor that could do it at the time, and they said, yeah, you, you should play the part.

And I was like, no, no, no, no.

I hadn't done a play in 40 years, 40 years - Stories that I heard from my grandparents about, you know, Edward R. Murrow and that period of McCarthy and I always think that it's fun to go back and re-explore these old stories and see how they resonate today.

To write a play, to co-write a play with George and for us to get it on on Broadway.

This is like, this is literally a dream come true.

- My father was an anchor for 40 years and I'm very proud of the, the person that my father has been his whole life and career.

He taught me all the things that I believe in.

I'm proud to represent his craft.

Unfortunately, this is a story that has been relevant for a hundred years and continues to be relevant.

And so I think it's a good time to always remind ourselves of us at our best.

And he was pretty much us at our best.

The line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.

I thought it was a good time to tell this story and now I have to do it, which is scary.

I mean, honestly, it's really terrifying.

It's fun to be off your game a little bit and to be nervous and things like that.

So it's fun.

There are certain kind of people who are the lifeblood, a democracy, never wavering, never faltering, never straying in their pursuit of what matters and what matters?

- In five, - honesty, - four, three - facts, integrity, - two, one.

- accuracy, truth.

- In Tampa Bay, Florida, we meet artist, Noland Anderson moved by the simplicities and subtleties of the world around him.

He renders work in an organic fashion and captures the beauty of living.

- I started painting probably around four or five years old.

It started with comic books, you know, superheroes.

The human figure was always my first interest when it came to drawing and painting.

I, after finishing high school, I took up advertising at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

After graduating from there, most of my work was always as a freelance illustrator.

During those years I would design Judaic greeting cards.

They used a lot of gold and a lot of silver film that I began to use in my personal art, and that's how it's been for me as an artist doing so much work for different people.

I sort of like picked a little from this and that and it has influenced the work that I do now.

For about 10 years, I worked as a restoration artist in the yacht industry down in South Florida.

We did a lot of faux painting in the interior part of the yachts and sailboats.

I applied the techniques from that in the work that I do now.

You know, it's the certain look of wood I know from doing the restoration work.

I eventually moved to Tampa, Florida and began to focus on my personal art and painting the things that I enjoyed doing.

Working as a freelance illustrator, it wasn't that often that I got a chance to paint people of color.

As I started doing my own personal work, I wanted to paint images that look like me, that reflect who I am.

I wanted to show that, you know, we are everywhere and with a lot of pieces that I paint, I, I put them in different settings and I try to do things in a way that you couldn't quite pick up what era it is.

And I sort of give a story to this in my head.

There's one called the "The Pimp of Charlemagne Duvier, but it's really, it is two old men playing chess and an old mingy little dog beside him.

The main character is wearing this purple fedora.

And I used to term the pimp of Charlemagne.

Not pimp is in someone who's taking advantage of women or anything like that, but someone who's like taking advantage of life, they're pimping life, so to speak.

That character I painted several times in different paintings.

I think the subtle things are more true, genuine.

I would use nature, I would involve flowers or birds or butterflies that's moving around because I want that to be a part of that subtle moment that's just caught.

A lot of times I'm just painting.

I'm not really giving any thought to what I'm doing, I just start throwing things around and see what happens.

I try not to overthink when I'm creating a a piece, I guess it's like musicians when they, when they playing music, they have a jam session.

You just playing and, and I think that's some of the best stuff that comes out when you, you're not overthinking, you're not trying to think about it, you're just jamming away.

- I had the opportunity to connect with Noland Anderson while I was the operations leader for the Renaissance International Plaza Hotel.

We were partnering and working with another local artist by the main name of Meclina Priestley.

She said, you know what, I have the perfect brother that you gotta meet.

Not only is he the foundation of what Tampa is as an artist, his art is second to none.

I said, I gotta meet this guy Noland and see what Noland's all about.

So we set up a meeting.

Noland came in and, and honestly he had us at “Hello - I was invited to hang some work at the Renaissance Hotel.

Talib transitioned over here as the general manager of the AC hotel and we wanted to do something a little different with the artwork.

- Antonio Catalan was the founder of the AC brand in Spain.

Our objective was really to, you know, pay homage to Antonio Catalan and everything that he built - At the same time.

While yet telling that story, also show a little bit about my background as an artist who liked to play black art.

After doing a little research, I found a woman by the name of Yinka Esi Graves from out of Spain who does flamenco dancing.

- She was the blender of, you know, this flamenco dance, infusing the African dance.

So we said, all right, we're in.

It's beautiful.

They wear these wonderful dresses, they have so much that you can do in that piece, and then the texture that would come out of that would be, would be outstanding.

The only ask was that it takes up a whole wall.

- If you look closely at the, the artwork there, there's that mixed, there's the, the concrete and there's some sculpture going on.

There's the gold leafing in there.

The gold leafing was the influence from years of doing the Judaic artwork.

I knew a rough idea of what I wanted to look like and as it began to take shape, then I knew the direction to go in.

- Every first Saturday of every month we host an event called Elegant Saturdays.

- That event for me as an artist, I'm there to do live paintings, to connect with the community, to let them see the process.

- They're getting a chance to meet the actual artist that is our resident artist in the space.

He's given an opportunity as well.

So when we do curate our next art show, now the people that have been coming every month to elegant Saturday, now they feel part of what Noland's doing, right?

So now they're gonna show up and they're gonna support Noland as well.

- A lot of times when I'm creating in the studio, not so much that I'm creating for someone else, I'm creating for me, but I don't get that feedback until after the piece is done.

But when I'm doing live painting, you know, I get the interaction with people.

I get to hear what people are thinking about.

- When you meet an artist like Noland, he gives off this aura of patience, of sophistication, of luxury.

Where I see the future for, for Noland, I see him across the United States in multiple different brands and really showcasing his work, but not just showcasing his work, giving the hotel an opportunity to display something worth displaying and inviting the community into their hotel to make it vibrant.

- What I would say to other artists, just keep painting.

Even if you don't feel like it paint, even if you don't know what you want to do, just paint.

You know, don't try to overthink anything, just keep doing it.

Try to do something every day and don't worry about what the final piece is going to look like.

Just go with it.

Don't overthink anything [ Jazz music plays ] - For Alexis Rivera Luna.

Bob Ross is a big source of inspiration.

Having watched his show and painted alongside him, she developed the confidence to pursue art and now she's a working artist.

- I've always had a love of nature and I think I put a lot of that passion into my arts.

I went to University of Wisconsin-Madison for zoology, conservation, biology and environmental studies.

So really love the animals and I became a wildlife rehabilitator.

So I did that for five years at the Wisconsin Humane Society.

I started painting during the pandemic watching the Bob Ross show, and I found out later that Bob Ross is actually a wildlife rehabilitator too.

So he also took care of sick, injured and orphaned animals.

One day I was watching Bob Ross and I thought maybe I could do this.

And I just started painting along with him.

It gave me a lot of confidence and courage that I could do anything I set my mind to.

The ideas come from nature a lot of the time, so I, I spend a lot of time outside.

So whenever I'm out in nature, if I see like a beautiful sunset, I'll take a picture of it and then I'll try to incorporate those colors into my painting.

I am constantly looking up at the sky, so sometimes I'll be like surrounded by trees and take a picture and the perspective kind of gives me an idea of how I wanna do the tree line, but it also gives me an appreciation of nature when I'm trying to capture a scene.

You know, I feel like I'm really being observant out there as well.

I'm trying to be present when I'm in nature, trying to get different ideas and let them come to me.

So it definitely feels like it gave me appreciation and a peacefulness to my life.

I started just doing kind of the landscape stuff, but eventually I wanted to put a little bit more of myself into it.

I don't see myself represented in a lot of fine arts spaces or fine art shows, so I started doing like silhouettes of women.

It felt really empowering for me as a woman and I really liked the idea of diversifying it, having different types of people so that people can really see themselves in my work.

At first it was more so just I wanted to see myself, I wanted to see women and I felt empowered by the art that I was doing, but I really wanted to have other people see themselves in my work.

I've meet so many people and they're always saying, you know, I can never do what you do.

I'm not an artist.

And I always tell them like, everyone's an artist in their own way just because you don't feel like you can paint, which Bob Ross always says everyone can paint.

But I do believe that everyone is an artist in their own way.

Whether it's, you know, us playing a sport or cooking or watercolor, there's ways of expression everywhere and as long as you keep it up and it makes you happy and you're passionate about it, you can be an artist.

We all have greatness inside of us and we're as tall, as big as mountains and we're so full of color and life.

The abstract part of it, like, there are mountains within you almost like, I guess everyone sees things differently when they look at their art or my art, but for what -- For me, when I see it, it's like there are mountains within me and I think that's really cool.

So I feel like I'm the most excited about my work when I'm trying something new.

I saw wood-burning online once, so I just bought a new tool and started to try it out.

I just thought it would be really cool and a different thing to try.

I'm always looking for new fun art projects.

But yeah, it was a bit of a process and a learning curve for me.

This is obviously a very different medium and at first I was like burning way too much and it looked horrible.

So I think like less pressure and just a lot of patience is needed for this one.

And it's cool With this tool, I feel like I could use it different ways to make different textures and different styles of trees.

I tend to use this one the most 'cause it's got a fine point to it, so it's really good for detail.

There's thicker ones that are flat, which is really good for shading.

I'll use that on the mountains to kind of cover a lot of space.

So this one is really good for shading, it's 'cause it's flat and it covers a big area, so I'll use that for the mountain scenes here.

All the shading is nice, covers more area.

I don't have to do all these tiny, tiny lines.

And then this is a textured one where it's just got the lines on there and I started doing the trees with it.

But I think it just, it's too uniform and I don't like how it looked.

So I ended up using it for like the water here just to kind of give it some movement.

The most rewarding thing is that every day is so different for me.

I think the most exciting part is when I'm learning something new, but like, wow, I did that.

That's always the fun part [ Cheery guitar and drums play ] - With doing art, it really doesn't feel like work to me.

A lot of people say, you know, don't you get tired of it?

Does it take the joy out of painting?

But it doesn't feel like work.

I love going to art shows.

I think it's a great space to show off my art and meet new people who like my art and make me feel like I'm doing the right thing.

I'm in the right spot.

So I get to see a lot of the familiar faces come to a lot of the same art shows and they get excited when they see me and they're like, oh, you've got new stuff and look at what you're doing now.

But all the other artists, I feel like we learn from each other, we boost each other up.

It's a really good space for artists and a way to express ourselves and show people what we can do.

- Fabulous [ Jazz music plays ] [ Jazz music plays ] - Episodes of KVIE Arts Showcase along with other KVIE programs are available to watch online at kvie.org/video.

Financial support for this program provided by Sacramento Counties Transit Occupancy tax Grant program.