[upbeat intro music] - In this edition of WLIW Arts Beat, inspired floral designs.

- [Nannette] It is a wonderful weekend celebration in which floral artists, another form of art, are inspired by works in the museum collection.

- [Diane] The Post-Graffiti Movement.

- [Liz] Abstracting it, coding it, crossing it out.

They really in the vein of Hip-Hop music are incorporating, really, whatever they can get their hands on.

- [Diane] A wildlife artist and activist.

- [Ali] Scarce is an art series that I do that is my way of raising awareness for animals at risk and sharing their story.

- [Diane] Doodling with paint.

- I've been doodling my whole entire life.

These paintings now, this art now, is really what I've been doing since I was a little kid.

- [Diane] It's all ahead on this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Welcome to WLIW Arts Beat.

I'm Diane Masciale.

At the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio, the bi-annual exhibition "Art in Bloom" showcases an assortment of floral designs by artists inspired by the museum's collection.

Through this special combination of flowers, painting, and sculpture, the gallery spaces flourish.

Here's the story.

[upbeat music] - [Nannette] "Art in Bloom" happens every other year at the museum, and it's been going on in different iterations since 1996.

It is a wonderful weekend celebration in which floral artists, another form of art, are inspired by works in the museum collection so that the floral design installation is in conversation, either with the building or with the work of art, so it celebrates two forms of art together.

There are 40 designers this year.

The artists, well, they're mostly local, which is exciting, because then you could enjoy their floral designs other times of year.

- I have the Paper Daisy Flower Boutique that is a full service flower shop in the Short North.

I think that's good.

- [Assistant] Like this?

- Yeah, maybe come out out like me putting one here and one here.

- Okay.

- And then kind of coming down.

It's inspired by the amazing Liechtenstein that's right there that I've seen every time I've come into the museum.

I feel like it's the first thing I see when I come in here, and kind of sets the mood for this whole modern wing of it.

So I've always loved that.

To me, It was almost like this sun kind of radiating down.

I felt like we're coming out of what's been a pretty dark period.

[bright guitar music] They don't have a water source, so I had to go with some hardier varieties for this part of it.

So I have some carnations, I have some mums, I have some bleached greens, I have some statice, some Billy balls and a lot of this equisetum.

So it was stuff that would be a little bit more forgiving without a water source.

And then we have some gerbera daisy and some roses that will have the water down here.

But it was really more the colors, like the Pop Art, the harsh views, that is kind of driving the piece.

[bright music] - [Nannette] It's really a big race.

There are really big installations, and then there are really intimate things.

I think there's a living wall this year.

We need creativity in our world, more than ever.

The pandemic has shown us that, we really need creativity to solve the problems of the 21st Century.

- We got two more, three more.

- [Allison] Well that we got 12.

- Can I go all the way up to here?

- No, go all the way up, yeah.

- Oh, okay.

- [Allison] Yeah.

- Oh, so you're gonna put more on yours.

- [Allison] Yeah, I got four more to go.

We're a landscape company, so we're doing a container garden, so we wanted to use live plants and then also something that would be relevant for the weather right now.

But we had snow yesterday, we have freezing temperatures today, and then 60 degrees maybe this weekend.

So we're just trying to find something that will thrive in what weather we're gonna have this weekend for Ohio, and use like real plant material you could use in your home garden.

So we have pansies, we have some red cabbage, we've got some sod so it looks like it's growing, because our piece is based on sound.

And so our piece of art is the "study of strings".

So it's a piece that was played at a concentration camp.

[somber violin music] All of the people except for the conductor passed away and they recreate the piece.

And then the artist then just extrapolated those two parts to show like how everyone else was gone.

We're trying to do the idea of, you're coming from something very flowy and organic to something that's very jarring and stark.

So this is kind of the antithesis of the piece.

We enjoy container gardens because they're a finite size.

You can swap them out and you can also experiment with plants.

If it doesn't work, you just pull that one plant out and put a different one in.

[upbeat music] - [Nannette] We now know a lot about what beauty does to the human spirit and to wellness, resilience, all of that is connected to that aesthetic sense in us.

But also the art museum challenges you.

So coming to see art that challenges, that makes you see the world differently, that makes you question and think, all of that is is just as important and people have missed it.

People are hungry for art and they're hungry for each other, and to be together with art is the best of all.

- [Diane] Find out more at columbusmuseum.org.

And now the Artist's Quote of the week.

[upbeat music] Up next, we visit the exhibit "Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation."

Located at the Museum of Fine Arts in Massachusetts, the show shines a light on the Post-Graffiti Movement and the pivotal role Jean-Michel Basquiat played in its development.

- [Narrator] Blazing off the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts, the massive paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

He was a New York street artist of the 1970s and 80s who became a darling of the art world.

Three years ago, one of his paintings sold for more than $100 million at auction.

Legend, icon, maverick, he wore all the crowns so frequently depicted in his work before his young, untimely death.

- He often gets described as the kind of sole black genius artistically of the time, and what we're trying to show is that he absolutely was an incredibly genius artist, but he was surrounded by his peers who were on a similar journey with him.

- [Narrator] This new exhibition at the MFA is the first to examine Basquiat and his fellow artists in the Hip-Hop Generation who changed the chemistry and sound of New York.

[hip-hop music] - [Narrator] Romelzy, Fab Five Freddy, Basquiat.

They were among a crop of fresh-faced art world outsiders from marginalized communities, but they made New York theirs says co-curator Liz Munsell.

- They came from many different boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and then they began to converge downtown.

They were getting a little bit older and they saw this incredible scene of 1980s creatives, people like Madonna around, and they became part of this club scene.

- [Narrator] But before that they were labeled graffiti artists, pursued by police for tagging buildings and the most prized canvas, the New York City subway.

Painting subway cars guaranteed their work would be seen by thousands of people as trains raced throughout the city.

- There's a lot of chaos for the eye to see every day.

- [Narrator] Writer and musician, Greg Tate, is the show's co-curator.

He knew most of the artists featured here when they all began to mix with performers, filmmakers, and musicians in New York's downtown scene.

- This is a youth movement and in America, youth is everything, so whoever's leading that charge is gonna win.

- [Narrator] What the outsiders called graffiti, the artists simply called writing, a form Basquiat noted had dated to ancient times, and what artist Lady Pink said was like calligraphy, but it was all a language the artists shared.

- [Liz] Abstracting it, coding it, crossing it out.

They really, in the vein of Hip-Hop music, are incorporating really, whatever they can get their hands on and very freely in an unfiltered way, getting all of that into their canvases.

- [Narrator] But these artists wanted off the streets and into the galleries.

They demanded they be heard and seen.

The art world took notice.

And in the US, two of them, Keith Haring and Basquiat rocketed into the stratosphere.

- I could see the handwriting on the wall.

It was mine.

I've made my mark in the world and it's made its mark on me.

- [Narrator] Basquiat's work was fueled by his interest in history, not to mention the years of museum visits he'd made with his mother while growing up.

He charted his thoughts in notebooks.

- [Greg] Went to a party, went to one party at his house once and walked past his, bedroom on the way to the loo, I saw there was like a video of Superfly that was on.

And then all these art books stacked up.

So, when he wasn't painting, he was in there just studying the artists he liked.

- [narrator] Basquiat's work is also often populated by random bits of anatomy.

When he was seven, he was hospitalized after a car accident and developed a fascination with the book, Grey's Anatomy.

But it's this crown that is most ubiquitous in his work.

- [Greg] Said "My work is about three things: royalty, heroism and the streets, right?"

So he was also, as someone who had gone to, all the major galleries and museums and didn't see any Black people represented there.

He's letting you know that his royalty is a street royalty.

- [narrator] That reign would extend into the art world where Basquiat achieved super stardom.

But in 1988, he died of a drug overdose.

He was only 27, but he'd managed to see his community of artists get their due.

And beyond that says Liz Munsell, they began to influence the A-list artists they worked to be alongside.

- [Liz] Frank Stella, you can see his referencing.

And he also notes that he was looking at graffiti and trying to find a different surface for his painting in his late 80s works.

- [Narrator] It was a hard fought acceptance.

And for it, this singular group of artists hang together, still.

- [Diane] Discover more at mfa.org.

[upbeat music ] Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

Ali Armstrong is a wildlife artist and activist.

In 2014, she started Scarce, an art series that raises awareness for endangered species.

We travel to the Reno-Tahoe area to learn more.

- My name is Ali Armstrong and I'm a wildlife artist and activist.

Scarce is an art series that I do that is my way of raising awareness for animals at risk and sharing their story.

The way I add color in Scarce is in a very specific way.

So, I paint extinct animals in black and white, and I add a little bit of color to endangered animals.

The amount of color that I add is proportional to the remaining species population to represent hope for the animals that we still have and we want to protect.

And so it's kind of a visual story.

So when somebody looks at it, they say, "Well, what is the color?

Why does that represent what it represents and how can we help?

I like to partner with different wildlife organizations and conservancies.

We will decide an animal and donate 10% of all sales to conservation programs and finding illegal wildlife trade.

For instance, I partnered with Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand, and they gave me a photo to paint of Wassana, which is an elephant in the sanctuary.

And I did an Asian elephant portrait of her, and the person who buys the original painting actually adopts the elephant for the year.

So we're not only getting the word out, but we're also providing.

[hopeful music] For Sumatran rhinos, there are fewer than 90 rhinos left in the wild and my husband and I took a cross country motorcycle trip and we visited zoos across middle America.

And that's where I met Harapan, the Sumatran rhino.

And he was the last Sumatran rhino in North America until recently where he moved back to the island of Sumatra.

But I painted a picture of him to donate, to raise money for the Cincinnati Zoo's conservation programs.

And in his painting specifically, I only added a very small amount of color to represent the remaining species.

A fun new element that I like to do is put 24 carat gold leaf on my paintings instead of the color.

I do add it the same way, proportional to the remaining species population, but it is 24 carat gold, which I feel like deepens the message.

When I paint, I try to paint an animal portrait that's the animal is living its life.

It's not aggressive, but yet, it's doing its thing, and I want to portray the animal correctly.

I figure out where I want the subject and where I put the negative space and then I'll color block the values that I see.

And then from there, once I have it relatively laid out, it doesn't have to be perfect, I will start going in and adding details.

And I always start with the eyes, no matter what.

I began my career as a portrait artist, doing families and babies, and I always felt like the eyes are the most important part.

They give you insight to their personality, what they've lived, and so I carry that over to my wildlife portraits.

I'm currently showing at Riverside Studios in downtown Truckee, and there are five owners at Riverside.

They all do art in different ways.

So they show everything that they do with their gallery, and then they also invite other local artists in to have the chance to show as well.

Another thing that I love to do, is be a part of Truckee Thursdays.

It's where local artisans set up shop in downtown Truckee and I do live painting events.

And one of them was at Sotheby's, and we had some music there and it was a good time connecting with our local people and had a good time sharing about what was going on in the wildlife world.

[bright guitar music] A lot of people aren't aware of the illegal wildlife trade and the severity of it.

And a lot of people aren't aware that the rhinos are in such imminent danger.

The northern white rhino, there are only two left right now.

The last male died in March, so I love sharing these facts with people and it makes them aware and then they start realizing, and then they start questioning like, "Gosh, what else is going on?

What other animals aren't doing so well right now?

And then it also brings about the idea of donation and giving back.

And I love that aspect.

And so we get to talk about that as well.

And that's really fun.

I believe that God created these beautiful creatures and He's given them to us in our care.

And in that, we've proven to be poor stewards by losing these animals to extinction.

And I wanna change that, and I think we can change that.

I have three kids.

I have a three year old, a two year old and a nine month old.

And it's important to me that they have the opportunity to see these animals in real life, in the wild and not miss out on that.

So I hope to raise awareness and give a call to action, donate and share their story through art.

[dramatic music] - [Diane] For more information, go to aliarmstrong.com.

And here's a look at this week's Art History.

[upbeat music] Scott Jeffries calls himself a soul doodler.

At a young age, he started to doodle and he continues to do so today.

With his abstract paintings, this Florida artist provides a window into his soul and mind.

Take a look.

- I find favorite faces, and so I know for a fact I won't touch this guy here because I love him.

My name is Scott Jeffries, and I'm a painter.

I call myself a soul doodler.

I've been doodling my whole entire life.

These paintings now, this art now, is really what I've been doing since I was a little kid.

And I started doodling when I was probably five or six.

And, I doodled all through through elementary school and high school and law school.

Because of COVID I was able to, I got laid off my job at a law firm and was kind of, like pushed into a dream of being a full-time artist.

And I've been doing that for the past six or seven months.

And it's been an amazing thing, because I've been able to focus on what I've been wanting to do my whole entire life.

I don't create any colors.

I just grab, I go to the paint store and I will just grab paints.

People give me paints for Christmas.

I have old paints that someone gave me, and and if I happen to, it will just be whatever's close, right?

And that will be the paint that's available.

My grandmother was a painter, so I painted for a long time.

And you know, when I was 13, we were at my grandmother's funeral.

And my mother was, we were standing in her studio, in her basement, in the Bronx, and I remember my mother saying to basically to out loud, what am I gonna do with all this stuff?

All her paint brushes and all her paints and all her, the materials that she had in and the studio.

And I was like, "I'll take them home with me."

And I took them home and I started to paint then.

And, from that point on, I was always painting just to paint.

But the main thing always is try not to have two colors that are the same next to each other.

That's my only real rule.

It doesn't matter really, if it's perfect, you know, everything, there are no mistakes in my art.

It's not for somebody else's approval.

It's just for enjoyment.

If you like it, you like it.

If you don't like it, you don't like it.

And I think a lot of artists struggle with, which I don't struggle with, is perfectionism.

I never went to art school.

I went to law school years ago.

And when people talk about my art, sometimes they're like, "you are such a great colorist."

I never thought that, that this color and this color is, could go together.

And for me, I never thought about that.

Thank God, I didn't know what a color wheel meant.

[soft jazz music] And the fun thing will be is that, when I step back and look at it, I was like, hmm, that's interesting.

And I'll scratch sometimes and give it some light.

My art's meant to be fun, and enjoyed and accessible.

And more than anything, I would love people, people ask me a lot, "what does that art mean?

You know, what does that mean?"

And I'm like, "What do you see?"

That's the key.

I draw the black lines first and ultimately just fill in the carpet but, sketching out, no rhyme or reason, just, painting to paint and have fun.

I've been painting these faces my whole entire life, and the great thing about what I see, and what you see, it's really a mirror of ourselves.

If I'm gonna do a face painting, I'm just gonna paint faces.

I'm gonna paint smiles, I'm gonna paint a frown.

I'm gonna paint grins.

I'm gonna paint, whatever, whichever way the brush goes.

These paintings lately means something different that they meant years ago.

Someone had asked me,ú when George Floyd was killed and all these all these protests were going on, they wanted me to give them a diversity painting for their kids.

Right, so something that, what it meant to me and these paintings all of a sudden started to become like diversity paintings.

'Cause they showed that the difference in humanity, different colors that are in the rainbow, the reds, the yellows, the blues, the browns.

At the end of the day, these are protests of, I call them protests of smiles more than anything.

It just was an amazing process for me to start to think about these things at a deeper level over time.

And sometimes they're just, meant to make you smile.

There's no, like, deeper meaning, I paint these these fish, and they're just fish.

I spend some time with younger people, working with them.

And I hear all the time.

They say, "I can't do that.

I can't paint.

I can't do that, I can't."

And it's, like, I encourage anyone that's an artist just to stop with that negative thinking, because you're never going to be satisfied.

I love my art.

My art's not for everybody, but I know one thing, it's for me.

[soft jazz music] - [Diane] See more at scottyjart.com That wraps it up for this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

We'd like to hear what you think.

So like us on Facebook, join the conversation on Twitter and visit our webpage for features and to watch episodes of the show.

We hope to see you next time.

I'm Diane Masciale.

Thank you for watching WLIW Arts Beat.

Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

[jazz outro music]