(upbeat music) (upbeat continues) (upbeat music fades) - In this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

(theremin playing) Playing the theremin.

- [Caroline] It's just endlessly experimental.

Like, you can do so much with it and it's so versatile in ways that people don't realize.

- [Diane] Tintype photography.

- There's gonna be flaws in the chemistry, sometimes there's gonna be flaws in how it flows on the plate.

You're looking at yourself through the 1800s and it's really, really beautiful.

(gentle music) - [Diane] The mutability of clay.

- One of the things that's so special about clay is the fact that you can use it in so many different forms.

- It's all ahead in this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

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

Thank you.

Welcome to WLIW Arts Beat.

I'm Diane Masciale.

Invented in the early 20th century, the theremin is an electronic musical instrument that produces a fascinating, one of a kind sound, and it is one of the many instruments that musician CCaroline Scruggs plays.

We head to Virginia for the story.

- I have the video of this actually of me playing a theremin for the first time.

I was terrible, but it was like one of those light bulb moments in life.

This is it.

This is my instrument.

And here it's, and it's the weirdest instrument in the land.

(theremin playing) I started doing virtual music lessons.

- This is my second time doing ukulele camp.

I'm super excited.

♪ The red thing parades ♪ - You're just greasing the old machine, the gears.

The biggest one for everyone is fear, like, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough when we're about to put ourselves out there and do something really vulnerable, which is what art is, because you're literally making something out of nothing, and that's very scary.

Instead of using that fear as a sign to like run as far as you can in the other direction, if you can instead use it as a sign, hey, pay attention, because what's on the other side of this is going to be like crazier and more interesting than you could ever imagine.

(upbeat jazz music) - Trying to make my own jazz band, I had no idea what I was doing.

Matt, my fiance, I started singing with his band and he has taught me a lot - Down below.

- and he's amazing.

You won't meet a better band leader.

It's all New Orleans inspired.

So, Louis Prima and Louis Armstrong, of course, it's like a very high energy, super fun, like swinging band, just fantastic musician.

One of the many projects in my head that I have planned is to do a jazz album with the theremin being the main instrument.

It is the first electronic instrument that was ever invented.

It was invented in 1920, so 101 years ago.

This is actually the last theremin that Bob Moog had a hand in designing before he passed away.

This is called the Etherwave Pro.

So this is how it works.

You have two antennae on either side.

This is the pitch antenna, this is the volume antenna.

And how you are maneuvering your hands is basically like your fretboard, as it were, your line of pitch is from your collarbone, just about, to the pitch antenna.

And then with the volume antenna, you're moving this hand up and down to create sound.

So it's a very like pat your stomach, rub your head kind of deal.

It was such a frustrating process learning the theremin, like I can't stress that enough, that it is so difficult to play for many reasons.

One of the only instruments in the world played without touch.

And I had heard of this in music school, but it just like went over my head, didn't care until I had one in front of me, but this is my most (music drowns out speaker).

(theremin playing) I like to say that I was put into an arranged marriage with music because I've had it all my life and we've gone through all of these phases together.

When I was five, my mom got me this teeny tiny little violin and said, "Caroline, you're gonna play violin."

That was the beginning of my musical career.

My mom wouldn't let me quit, so I just had to kind of go with it.

My youngest memories running through Colonial Williamsburg are with my mom.

My family's been in this area for a very long time and my great-grandfather built this building right here.

His name was Webster Hitchens.

This is the Hitchens building, and my parents, both being entrepreneurs, it runs in the family, they opened this hotdog stand, hotdog hamburger joint called Retros back when I was in middle school.

And so this was my real job, I guess, as it were, other than being a Colonial Williamsburg performer.

The most recent gig that I had at Colonial Williamsburg was I was the vocalist for their Candlelight Concerts at the Governor's Palace.

So it's like in the ballroom and I'm completely dressed to the nines and like the gown and the corset and the hoops and I'm singing this baroque music, like Handel and Scarlatti.

(baroque music playing) Just playing this gorgeous music with a group of musicians playing really authentic baroque instruments was one of the coolest musical experiences of my life.

I think the reason why I connected with it that first time, it felt like a second voice, which like I said, I've always just identified as a singer first and foremost, and so that's really what clicked.

There are very few like people play this like technically, you know, like as an instrument.

I think I'm up there, I think I'm on par.

I can hang, you know?

That's not my main concern either, obviously, like my concern is how can I use it to enhance my music and to experiment and to keep me inspired with sound?

There are not a lot of people out there writing songs with the theremin, so I think automatically that just established a part of my style, because this is such a rare thing.

It's just endlessly experimental, like you can do so much with it and it's so versatile in ways that people don't realize because they just see it kind of as a novelty, like woo, weird kind of instrument, which it is, but it can be so much more than that.

I've definitely dreamed about making a theremin opera or something like that.

So I know that I'll spend my whole life just pushing those limits and seeing all that it can do, all the possibilities.

Yeah, it's just so magical and weird and spacey.

(theremin playing) (theremin playing continues) (theremin playing continues) (theremin playing continues) (birds chirping) - To find out more, go to carolinescruggs.com.

And now the artist quote of the week.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) In Gardnerville, Nevada, artist Rielynn Lunde pursues her love of tintype photography.

Developed in the 19th century, this technique involves pure chemistry and captures a sitter's character in a unique way.

Take a look.

(upbeat music) - A tintype is an archival piece of photography that is handcrafted and handmade.

Every single one is a one-off and will live hundreds of years.

My name's Rielynn Lunde and I specialize big time in 1800s tintypes.

I'm starting from a blank metal plate and I'm mixing my own chemicals that are all reacting together, creating a light-sensitive piece of metal, and then when I use it on my large format camera, that light is hitting that plate and exposing it.

I develop it, I fix it, so I'm doing a big process by hand.

I'm using the same methods, the same recipes that they did back in the turn of the century as well.

I was born in South Lake Tahoe.

I grew up in the Carson Valley.

I was creative, drawing on the pave with chalk or using markers, and I loved sketching and exploring and always thinking outside of the box was something that did come natural, even though I had no idea in a million years I would be stepping into the world of tintypes.

My studio is located in downtown Gardnerville and the building I'm in is actually the historic diamond cutting school.

There's a lot of cinder block, a lot of vaulted ceilings, a lot of windows.

They really catered this building back in the day for diamond cutting education.

It's a privilege to be in a historic building doing a historic process.

The camera I do work with most is my large format, It's a Chamonix camera.

It's a beautiful piece of artwork in itself.

It's a 10 by 10, so it can handle up to a 10 by 10 plate.

I can go down to a five by seven, even a four by five, and the lenses that I acquire, a lot of them are time period, so those are different in terms of the camera itself.

(upbeat music) The very, very first step is connecting with my subject as they come in.

Before I even put my hand on a tintype yet, I like to have some conversation, get to know somebody that's coming in, which is such a different experience for somebody in this day and age that we're just not conversational anymore.

So people that come in, I want to connect with them and I want to build that trust.

As I'm placing my subject, I'm doing a lot of lighting work, I'm doing a lot of setup, light by light by light, turning 'em off and on.

I have to just test the power that's coming out of them.

I get my subject all set up and I'm like, okay, now you get to hang out for a little bit, and this is where I get to prep the plate.

Back in the late 1800s, they would use iron, like thin sheets of iron.

I am using more or less aluminum.

I will take some collodion.

I describe collodion as liquid film.

The ingredients in that vary, but the recipes are from the late 1800s.

All of it's components that are gonna react to the light and all of the chemistry are in that bottle.

I pour that collodion on the plate and I go corner to corner to corner and drain it off to where I almost have a skin on that plate of collodion, just a sheer sheen to get that nice, even, beautiful pore on that plate is what the base of that photograph is gonna be landing on.

So I get that plate ready and I take it to my dark room and I've got a tank full of silver nitrate.

I put it in that silver nitrate for a few minutes, about three and a half minutes, and that silver nitrate is reacting to the collodion and it's creating halides and it's having a chemical reaction to make it light-sensitive.

(gentle music) Once I hear my timer go off, I know it's done soaking.

I'll head into the dark room with the door closed 'cause I have to be careful now not to let that plate see light.

I have a plate holder for my large format camera and I will put that plate in the plate holder in the dark room.

So when I close that up, it's light tight.

(gentle music continues) I'll find focus my subject's eyes, I'll make sure everything at that point is kind of lined up and I'll swap out my viewfinder on the back of the camera for my plate holder.

So you do just a swap.

And here we go.

I fire that flash, and that's what hits that plate in the moment and exposes it.

(upbeat music) I take that plate holder outta the back of the camera and take it back into the dark room and pull the plate out.

So now I have an exposed plate and I hand develop it.

You need to be pretty steady and sweep it well on that plate, keep it on that plate and really oscillate it.

So there's a technique to putting developer on a plate, 'cause you'll see every wave, every line, every hesitation mark, depending on how it's applied, which can also yield some really beautiful, interpretive things.

If things kind of go wrong, so to speak, sometimes they end up being really right in the end of the day, you know, just looking through the lens of 1800s.

I submerge it in water to stop that development so it doesn't push the developer too far.

Basically, it looks like a negative at that point.

Second to the last step is basically fixing it, which is a highly diluted form of potassium cyanide, and it yields just beautiful, punchy blacks.

Kind of a golden tone in some of these.

It has that little antiquey tone that I really love.

(upbeat music continues) That's the point that I call the person over to watch, because it's magical.

It goes from a negative to a positive right in front of your eyes and you get to see yourself emerge on the plate.

The final process is varnishing.

My varnish is glorious to smell.

It's tree sap, lavender oil, and 190 proof alcohol.

The tree sap is the sheen that basically bakes on the plate.

I wave it over a flame and I heat that plate up, and the alcohol evaporates off the plate.

So it leaves this beautiful lavender tree sap smell in the room too, and that lavender oil just helps it not to crack.

(upbeat music continues) I think there's something about this that has longevity and tangibility and history that it feels an honor to be a part of in this valley that no one else is doing here.

It makes me slow down as well.

I have to slow down, I have to be methodical.

I have to really think things through, and it's not something that you can just on a whim do.

And so I think I really enjoy that aspect, is when someone's really moved by it and they see almost their soul in a different way in this, 'cause it does bring out each human in such a different way.

I think that is something that's very alluring and kind of addictive in this process too, is pushing into that, and I absolutely love it.

(gentle music) (gentle music fades) - Discover more about tintypes at iofrie.com.

(upbeat music) Now, here's a look at this month's fun fact.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Osa Atoe is a ceramic artist.

When making pottery, She connects with her Nigerian ancestors and the indigenous people of Florida.

We traveled to Sarasota to learn more.

(upbeat music continues) (energetic music) - My name is Osa Atoe and I'm a studio potter.

I was living in New Orleans, Louisiana back in 2013, and I was working at a coffee shop.

My main thing back then was being a musician.

I was a punk musician.

I played in bands since I was probably my early 20s.

So to make ends meet, I made coffee during the day, and one of my coworkers mentioned that there was a new pottery studio in town and he just thought that I might be into it.

So I ended up taking one class and just falling in love with it.

- If you have a bunch of manufactured cups or plates or bowls and they're all in a matching set, you just grab one and you throw some food on it.

But with handmade pottery, you know that someone's time is invested in it, you know that that time is now a physical object and you are using something that has literally come from somebody's mind and it makes the meal more significant, or the beverage, or anything like that.

- One of the things that's so special about clay is the fact that you can use it in so many different forms.

I think that it gives people a grounding sense.

I mean, you're literally working with the earth, but the fact that you can use it as a dry powder, a liquid, in its plastic form, you can't do that with wood, right?

So I think there's just something about it being a mutable material and the fact that you're literally working with the ground under your feet.

It's an interesting experience - Here locally, I feel she's definitely going to be one of those artists that opens up the doors for other artists.

So she's doing something with her work, her art, her collection of pottery that no one else is doing.

- I collected wild clay samples for many years before I even used it.

I just thought it was interesting.

We're at Sarasota Bay and we're just a couple blocks from my house.

Before settlers came, this was an indigenous meeting place for millennia.

You can find fossils here.

You can also find clay.

Here's some of the clay that we found.

It fires to kind of a pale yellowish color, but this is native Florida clay from Sarasota.

Well, when it's wet, it's a little bit on the sandy side.

It's very plastic though, and easy to mold.

I've might make little pinch pots with it and fire them.

People who use wild clay in their practice need to be able to collect large amounts of it to build their entire body of work on.

And up until recently, I didn't have access to large quantities of clay, which is partly why I didn't use it.

- Being in my industry, I'm kind of in the construction industry in general, and so I kinda have my ear to the ground on where projects are happening, where the earth is being disturbed or moved, and so those are actually really good opportunities to access the clay, which could be buried under six, eight, 10, 12 feet of soil.

We probably have clay beneath our feet here, but we have no way to access it.

- Commercial clay and wild clay are just, it's night and day.

The way that they feel in your hands is completely different, the way that they behave, and then also just the amount of labor.

So commercial clay is wonderful because it's already processed, it's ready to go.

With wild clay, there's a lot of labor that goes into that.

I would say it's almost a difference between going to the grocery store and buying a bag of spinach and eating spinach outta your garden.

- It is work.

It's not a hobby.

It's not like, it's more than an interest.

It runs through like every vein in her body.

- I think because of who she is and because she doesn't typically fit into a box of an artist, specifically a ceramic artist, you don't think that someone like Osa that's Nigerian American would even be interested in that type of work, but she is, and it's just really cool to see someone who doesn't typically fit that particular art medium doing that work.

- Kaabo Clay Collective was founded in 2021.

Kaabo means welcome in Yoruba.

That's the language my parents speak to each other.

It's a social and mutual aid network for Black ceramicists.

I did start pottery in New Orleans, which is a majority Black city, but I was always the only Black person in any of my classes.

It's not just the absence of Black people in those spaces, it's the absence of Black culture.

We have so much to add to clay culture.

We have a long history of making pottery and sculpture.

So Kaabo Clay, it's just been invaluable to me personally.

It's kind of like building what I needed and then understanding that if I need it, other people need it too.

- There's a lot of art in Sarasota, plenty of it.

The landscape I feel like it needs a little bit more diversity and feel like there's a lot more of hidden talent in Sarasota and Manatee that people don't know about, and that's kind of where Osa kind of falls into that.

She's one of those up and coming artists that people may know outside of the region.

A lot of people do know Osa outside of the region, but here in Sarasota, I feel like she is not as celebrated as I feel like she should be.

- The lesson that I get from working with clay in general is having to collaborate with the material.

Especially when I work with wild Clay, it doesn't behave like commercial clay and I have to change the way that I respond to it.

If I just try to force my will on it, it just won't work.

Also, there's so much about clay that's about waiting for the right time to do a specific thing, and if you're impatient, it just won't work.

It just will not work.

So Clay has taught me to be more patient.

It's taught me to be more gentle, but there's infinite lessons that clay is always teaching.

(gentle music) - See more of her work at potterybyosa.com.

(gentle music continues) And here's a look at this week's art history.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) 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 X, and visit our webpage to watch more 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.

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