- [Woman] Support provided by The Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation For Public Giving, the state of Connecticut Office of Film, Television, and Digital Media and Connecticut Humanities.

(soft music playing) (door shuts) (car engine roaring) (upbeat music playing) (upbeat music continues playing) - [Ray] Hi, I'm Ray Hardman and welcome to Where Art Thou?.

Today we're in the Waterbury region of the state.

You know, like many new England cities, manufacturing was once the lifeblood of this community.

Most notably, brass, clocks and watches.

Those industries dried up in the 1970s but you can still see vestiges of their proud manufacturing history when you pass the Waterbury skyline on I-84.

Unlike every place we visit on this program, the Waterbury region is rife with artistic talent.

And we want to learn more about it.

Now to help me do that, I have a Waterbury curator, David Macharelli on the line.

David is a marketing associate at Waterbury Mattatuck Museum, and an artist in his own right.

David, are you there?

- I am.

Good to talk to you Ray.

- Yeah, you too.

So tell me a little bit about what's going on here artistically in Waterbury.

- We have a lot going on artistically in Waterbury.

We have the Palace Theater, we have the Waterbury Symphony, we have my own home here, the Mattatuck Museum, we serve as the hub for all of the small town and those art communities as well, we have outdoor mural projects.

Last year, they did a street walk crossing project, and then we have lots of other little opportunities, theaters and arts projects that are going on downtown.

- All right.

That sounds really cool, David.

So out of all of that, where are you going to take me today?

- Well, first we're going to go out to Meriden to see an iconographer known as Marek Czarnecki.

Icons are a form of art that you would see in Orthodox churches mostly.

Images of saints and other religious figures that are rendered with an egg tempera.

And Marek actually takes the process pretty far.

He grinds his own pigment into the egg tempera and uses a lot of gold leaf.

And he has works in churches and private collections all over the country.

- Well, David, that sounds so super cool.

I can't wait to see that.

We're going to head off now.

Thank you so much for your guidance today.

- Thank you, Ray.

It was a pleasure to be on.

(upbeat music playing) - [Ray] Your space is amazing.

It's like part artist studio, part exhibition space, and then your living quarters as well.

You have some amazing stuff on the wall that you've collected.

When did you start collecting this?

- 30 Years ago.

But you know, I have stuff that's my grandparents, stuff that's my great grandparents.

So it's always been in the air for me.

But I think when I lived in New York City, I started collecting seriously.

- Did they have icons in the house?

- You know, we grew up with icons, but they were pictures that my father cut out of church calendars.

They were just paper prints that we framed and had over our beds.

And the great Polish icon is Our Lady of Czestochowa, and that's what we say our prayers in front of every day.

I always knew I wanted to be an artist, but it's like my love of art started in church because it's really the only place where you have art in a small working class town like Bristol.

- Right.

And time to look at the art.

- Yes, exactly.

There's lots of time to look at it.

- [Ray] Yeah.

- And those 11 statues in our church is like the source of my artistic impulses.

- Do you remember the first icon?

Let me make sure I'm saying the terminology right.

It's writing icons.

Is that correct?

- Yeah.

Writing icons.

Yeah.

- When was the first, do you know the first icon you wrote?

- The first icon I wrote.

Yeah, I wrote, it was, my father was at a parish council meeting and the pastor wanted an icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa for the church.

And he said, don't bother to buy it, my son's an artist and he'll make it for you.

You know, I was so angry at him because, you know, I wanted to be Francis Bacon.

I didn't want to be an icon painter.

And I also knew I was the wrong person.

I knew enough about the work to know I was not the right person to do it.

- Why would you say that?

- I was at the height of my religious cynicism.

Like, it's nothing I wanted to touch at the time.

And also, it's hard to understand that image.

And it's like it's inside every Polish person.

It's hard to understand that, you know, unless you're Polish and it's...

I think it's in people's cells.

It's so deep.

- Yeah.

- And it's intimidating, you know.

It's like making a copy of the Mona Lisa, but even more intimidating.

It took me a lot of time to be the person that should be doing the work.

But I saw that what I did was useful.

I saw that what I did fit into life and it touched something very deep in me.

- So it kind of quashed down that cynicism.

- Absolutely.

I also watched people pray in front of it and I was so moved by people's vulnerability and their sincerity.

- At what point did you decide that this is going to be my life's work?

- I knew when I was working, what I didn't know, and that I needed somebody to show me and to teach me.

And I got a grant from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts and then another one from the Connecticut Heritage Arts Program, and I apprenticed with the woman I studied with.

And I worked with her for 15 years.

And she taught me anything that good that I know about icons.

- I tried to teach myself, and when I started working with her, I asked her, how many years is it going to take me to learn this?

And she said 10.

Then I said, well, I've already been working for six.

And she goes, no, from today.

And then I said, but I'm an artist.

Then she said, I forgot, that means 15 for you.

But she was right.

- What about the technique of iconography?

I mean, was that something that you knew a little bit about before you started studying?

- No.

I knew nothing about, I had no feeling for materials.

And I learned more about art painting icons than I did at art school.

But no, I learned all of that from my teacher.

She immigrated from Russia.

She taught me how to work with egg tempera.

The best, I don't believe in making a fetish out of materials, but the best reason to work with it is because you understand how to make historical icons.

And a lot of the work is about copying.

It's the only way you can learn how to make an icon is by copying old prototypes.

You absorb the language, the aesthetics of it.

I always compare it to like classical music.

It's not necessarily you always write a new piece of music, but you have to find yourself inside all of that.

- That's right.

- If it might lead to something else.

- Well, I mean, explain it to me.

Where is you?

Where are you in these icons that you create?

- You know, it's not, it's interesting how you have to make yourself invisible in the work because it's not about you, it's about something else bigger.

And I'm in there.

It's inevitable that you're in there.

It's not a mechanical process by any means.

But what I've learned painting icons is how naturally and spontaneously your artistic style emerges without you trying to.

It's hard to explain, but I'm there, but I'm like a tool.

I'm a tool, I'm a part of the process, but I'm not the focus of it.

And one of the best metaphors for icons is that they're windows.

And if you put your name on it or sign it or it's too personal, you can't look through it, you know.

And it becomes more of a mirror than a window.

So, but it takes a long time to become invisible like that.

(soft music playing) - [Ray] Marek, this wall is just absolutely amazing.

I could ask questions about any number of these, but I'm particularly interested in this one.

- Yeah.

Nobody ever thinks about protecting or collecting the artwork of working class or poor people.

Usually that stuff is made out of ephemeral materials and it's thrown away.

So it's not folk art, but it's more something more sophisticated.

And this is a shadow box I bought on eBay.

When I got it, it was in pieces and it's made out of old typewriter parts and a music box.

And it's a doll inside of St. Anthony.

But I've, you know, I had to clean and fix it.

The bottom of him is made out of a child's wooden block.

This is part of an oil can that he stretched out.

These are paper bags that are painted to look like rocks.

- Yeah.

- Then it's St. Anthony seeing the Christ child.

And I could imagine some grandfather making it for his children or grandchildren.

And when you wind it up, the Christ child flies into St. Anthony's hands and they embrace.

- Oh, let's see that.

(bells chiming) Look at that.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

My iconography teacher was, always would play with this when she would visit.

And she said, we'll work our whole lives and never be able to make anything this innocent.

- Yeah.

- And this is the kind of art that I love, you know.

Not the stuff you're going to find in museums, you know.

- [Ray] Yeah.

Marek, tell me about, tell me about these.

- This is other people's work that I've bought.

You know, from, I've been to Russia several times, and the one behind the candle is the work of my teacher, Ksenia Pokrovsky.

- That's beautiful.

- It's my treasure.

- Yeah.

I want to go back to over here to some of your work.

And the rich color that you're getting on the icon, how do you do that?

- I use natural pigments and egg yolk.

I work in egg tempera.

- Can you show me some of that?

- Sure.

(soft music playing) I need to just get the yolk out.

And what makes egg tempera so durable, eggs are, egg yolks are made out of protein, fat and water.

And it's the protein that we want from the egg yolk that's going to bind the pigment to the panel.

And it's one of the most durable paint binders ever.

And I'm just going to, I separated the yolk from the white then now I'm going to break the sac and pour it into my container.

Okay.

And just add, I'm going to add an equal amount of water.

And I'm ready to start painting.

(soft music continues playing) Okay, here's our medium.

You know, you can tell the different schools of iconography by their pallets because they could only use the pigments that were in their own backyard, locally available.

This is Connecticut brownstone.

And I pound it and I grind it.

- [Ray] So Marek, you're making a conscious decision to use Connecticut materials, raw material?

- [Marek] Yeah.

(stones grinding) I'm going to grind it with water first.

(stones grinding) Okay.

And then I'll gather it all up together and add the egg emulsion to it.

And I'm going to grind it into the paint.

(stones grinding) Yeah.

And I'm just adding more of the egg emulsion to it.

- [Ray] How close to your methods are the methods of the masters from centuries ago?

- It's exactly the same.

- Really?

- [Marek] Yeah.

- [Ray] Same materials?

- [Marek] Same materials.

- [Ray] Same technique?

- [Marek] Absolutely.

- [Ray] Same rules?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

- Well Marek, this is just tremendous.

Thank you for letting us into your studio slash exhibition space and showing us this amazing art that hearkens back to a long, long time ago.

Thank you.

- [Marek] Yeah, you're welcome.

Thanks for coming.

(upbeat music playing) - [Ray] So up next is our what's in your attic segment.

This time we're headed to Southington's Barnes Museum to see what secrets they have in their storage.

(upbeat music playing) - [Christina] The Barnes Museum was built in 1836 as a historic homestead for Amon Bradley, a merchant in Southington.

He had married his wife Sylvia on October 9th and shortly thereafter moved in here.

(soft music continues playing) Over the course of many generations, three generations of the family lived here from 1836 up until 1973.

In 1974, we became a museum.

- Tell me about some of the highlights of this house.

What are some of the things that really stand out for you as a historian?

- One of the best things is all the Southington history and Connecticut history that we have.

We have an extensive newspaper collection of the Southington Phoenix, Southington's first newspaper, as well as over 1500 early American pressed glass goblets.

It really is a great glimpse into the past.

- That's amazing.

And I can tell just by some of the artifacts here in this room, that this was a family of means - [Christina] It really truly was.

Amon Bradley built a lot of generational wealth for his family.

By the time his grandson Bradley Barnes lived in the home in 1910, they had their hand in every industry in Southington, from the Southington Cutlery Company to Atwater Manufacturing, Peck, Stow, everything in town was attributed to the family at some point.

- Yeah, it really is amazing.

Now we're here to kind of see some of the secrets that are up in the Barnes attic.

- Yeah.

- But I do want to see this goblet room.

(soft music playing) Christina, this just incredible it's two walls.

- [Christina] Yeah.

- [Ray] Two goblets deep.

Tell me about this collection.

- [Christina] So this is a very formidable early American pressed glass collection.

Bradley Barnes began collecting in the late 1930s when a book came out by Ruth Webb Lee, encouraging people to identify the patterned glass in their home.

Pressed glass in America started in the 1840s and America revolutionized the molding process to create it.

So industrialization in America, again, produced these rapid fire patterns that became easily accessible because it is considered the poor man's crystal.

Patterned glass was an early way in America that we commemorated moments in history.

- [Ray] That is really cool.

So let's go up to the attic.

- [Christina] Let's go to the attic.

- [Ray] All right.

(upbeat music playing) - [Ray] Wow.

Look at this.

- [Christina] Welcome to the attic!

- [Ray] Christina, there is so much, so much incredible stuff in this attic.

I have questions about so many different items.

So I just had to pick and choose, tell me about these trunks.

- So like many historic house museums, we have the objects that the family carried their belongings in, whether it be for train travel locally or for their wedding.

For example, this traveling trunk was Alice Bradley Barnes' one of her wedding trunks.

Their wedding was a short trip to Poughkeepsie and back, but it was still enough to carry a couple of evening gowns and their belongings.

So as you can see, a lady's trunk at the time really was a unique piece of art.

There are lithographs and effigies of women inside of the trunk.

- Oh yeah, look at that.

- From every kind of different standpoint, but also it helps us age the trunk as well because we can tell that some of these are, you know, late 18 hundreds and that would've been from when they purchased it.

Different portions of the trunk serve different purposes.

For example, this is a hat box.

- Yeah.

- It has everything you need to even put your hat right there.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yep.

And then this entire piece will lift up and out and that's where all the garments would really be stored in here.

- [Ray] Do you ever just come up here and just poke around?

- [Christina] Constantly.

So a lot of the trunks that I've showed you today, they're empty now, but I have found garments in almost every single one of them.

This one had some pieces from the early 18 hundreds, this one had a couple of dresses from the late 18 hundreds, and this trunk over here actually had flapper dresses in them.

Incredible flapper dresses that we have since taken them out and saved them and did a little bit of restoration work on them because they were up here for a pretty long time.

- [Ray] Yeah.

- So it's very fun.

We are finding new things all the time.

- You've got diaries or something up here?

- We have a lot of interesting things up here.

We do have a bunch of civil war letters and diaries from relations to the family and donations to the museum over a period of time.

So we're very fortunate that the matriarch of this home for many years, Leila Holcomb Upson, granddaughter to Governor Holcomb of the state.

This was her grandfather, captain Andrew Upson.

And he fought in the American civil war.

He was ambushed by a rebel troop and shot three times and passed away a few days later.

But leading up to his death in Tennessee, we have every single letter that he sent home during that time.

So we have this incredible overview of a firsthand experience of the American civil war.

- This has been so eyeopening.

I'm so glad we got to visit you.

Thank you for letting us come up in your attic and poke around.

- It's really been my pleasure.

I'm so glad that you got to see the Barnes Museum and everything that we have here.

- Thank you for coming.

- Of course.

(soft music playing) Just some unbelievable things in that attic at the Barnes Museum.

That was great.

So we've got one more stop on this great day here in the Waterbury region.

And to find out where we're headed next, I'm going to bring up our Waterbury curator, David Macharelli.

David, are you there?

- I am Ray.

Good to hear from you.

- Yeah.

So great calls so far on everything.

We've got one last stop, where are we headed.

- We're going to be going to the Children's Community School to take a look at the Bravo program.

And that's something that's done by the Waterbury Symphony as an afterschool arts program for up and coming musicians who really want to do a deep dive and really advance their musical talents.

- Oh, that sounds really cool.

David, great job today.

Thank you so much for your guidance.

- Thank you for having me on Ray.

It's been a pleasure.

- All right.

Let's check it out.

(soft upbeat music playing) - [Ray] Being here in the afternoons is like part of your growing up.

I mean, since you've been going to school, you've been coming here.

For you, what is the best part about Bravo Waterbury?

- The best part about Bravo Waterbury is when you get to know, learn about new things and learn about people and sing and most likely do everything musical.

- Do you feel like you know more about music from being here all the time?

- It makes you get relaxed and calm if you're having a stressful day.

I like choir and also singing.

- Madison, how long have you been here at Bravo Waterbury?

- Ever since kindergarten.

- Ever since kindergarten.

What grade are you in now?

- Fourth.

- So a long time.

Adeline, how long have you been doing this?

- Kindergarten.

- Since kindergarten.

And you're in?

Third.

- Third grade.

So you guys have been here the whole time and I know during COVID you guys missed performing out, right?

But you did get to perform recently, right?

Yeah.

You went to the Palace Theater.

Adeline, what was that like?

- It was fun because, like, we were on stage and we got to perform in a bunch of people and some of us weren't really scared.

We were kind of happy because we saw our parents there and we got like less nervous because like somebody's cheering us on in our family.

- [Ray] Madison, what's the best part for you about doing this program?

- [Madison] Bucket band.

- [Ray] What's that?

- Where you get a drum and have sticks and just start playing them.

- [Ray] That's awesome.

- [Adeline] This makes you like happy.

And some things are not happy in your life and you just want to do something else, so instead of doing something not fun.

So mostly might want to come to Bravo to sing and play because no one lets you do that.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a really good answer.

Madison, Adeline, so great talking you today.

Thank you.

- [Madison] You're welcome.

- [Adeline] You're welcome.

- [Ray] Yeah.

(children humming) ♪ Somewhere ♪ ♪ Over the rainbow ♪ ♪ Way up high ♪ ♪ And the ♪ ♪ Dreams that you dream of ♪ - [Ray] Doug, you have symphony that are at the same size, the same type of market like the Waterbury Symphony that are all talking about community involvement, community engagement.

Waterbury Symphony put their money where their mouth is.

How did you come up with this idea?

- So the Symphony back in 2012 was approached by Ruth Ann Leever.

She came to us with this idea of bringing El Sistema, which was a program that began in Venezuela to Waterbury.

So she had a passion of bringing El Sistema to this area, and she approached the Symphony to do this.

So in 2012, we launched the program and a partnership between the Leever Foundation and Waterbury Symphony.

And now, you know, this program has been going for almost 10 years.

- Let's talk about El Sistema.

This is a program that's been very successful.

And of course, probably the poster child for El Sistema is Gustavo Dudamel, the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

- [Doug] That's right.

- [Ray] Tell me a little bit about this program.

- [Doug] Sure.

So El Sistema started over 40 years ago.

It was started by a gentleman named Jose Abreu.

And basically, you know, he was a social activist, a politician, an educator, and a musician himself.

He had a passion for teaching the local kids in the area music.

So he essentially taught them out of a garage.

He would gather the students, teach them orchestral music.

But it became, it became so much more than a music program.

It became a social development program where kids who wouldn't normally have this opportunity to gain self-confidence and appreciation for music.

And many of them have gone on to become like Gustavo Dudamel, very successful in the orchestral music field.

So our goal here at Bravo Waterbury is to not necessarily create future professional musicians, but to create very well rounded individuals who have an appreciation for music, who can use music to build their self-confidence to carry them forward in their own careers.

- El Sistema really gave impoverished children the chance to play a musical instrument.

Tell me about some of the children that are here.

- We provide them instruments to use in the program, free of charge, we give them two hours of music instruction, four days a week.

And so they're here and they're learning not only orchestral music, which is our, you know, our roots, but they're learning jazz, pop, R&B.

And they're kind of, you know, they're getting a, an introduction into the language of music and how it can serve them.

So really, you know, the program, when you see the self-confidence of the students from their first year until they graduate, it's really a site to behold.

And when they're up there performing and just smiling, you can see really music does something that just quite can't be explained.

- Tell me about some of the intangibles that are reinforced by having this program here.

- Self-confidence is a big one, learning something, getting up on stage, performing, having an audience clap for you and kind of seeing the fruits of your work is something that you could tell that it goes a long way for the students.

They see that working together in an ensemble, you can really build something great.

You know, by ourselves we can perform and it can sound wonderful.

When we take different pieces, winds, strings, voice, bring it together on stage and so you see an audience react to that, your self-confidence just grows and blossoms.

And that's what we see with the students.

- [Ray] Well Doug, this is tremendous.

Thank you so much.

- [Doug] Thank you so much, Ray.

It's great to have you here.

Thanks for coming to Bravo.

♪ All of my doubt suddenly goes away ♪ ♪ Somehow ♪ ♪ One step closer ♪ ♪ I have died everyday waiting for you ♪ ♪ Darling don't be afraid I have loved you ♪ ♪ For a thousand years ♪ ♪ I'll love you for a thousand more ♪ - [Teacher] If you know the next verse sing it.

- [Ray] Just a fantastic day in the Waterbury area.

You know, it's people like Marek and the students over at Bravo Waterbury that make this part of the state truly special.

Hey, is there somebody in your town, your neighborhood, that's doing amazing creative things?

If so, I want to hear about it.

Drop me a line at whereartthou@ctpublic.org.

Join me next week.

I'm going to get back into the beat-up old company van, and we're going to visit two Native American sisters who are keeping the tradition of arts and crafts from their ancestors alive and well.

You don't want to miss that.

Until then, I'm Ray Hardman.

Thanks for watching Where Art Thou?.

(upbeat music playing)