(upbeat music) - In this edition of WLIW Arts Beat, weaving intricate baskets.

- I've pushed the boundaries and challenged myself to try many things.

I have so much creativity and craziness in my head that I have to get it out in this art form.

- Writing music for a world renowned orchestra.

- It's a huge opportunity for me as a composer, just being able to write for this group and to add to my own catalog.

- A story that is personal and heartfelt.

- There's always a sense of like, this is my home.

It's nice to feel like I belong at a place where I wasn't even born.

- 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.

- Carrie Hill is a basket maker from Akwesasne Mohawk territory in New York.

Having learned the craft from her aunt, she's continued the meaningful tradition of weaving baskets by transforming black ash splints and sweet grass into works of art.

Here's her story.

- My name is Carrie Hill and I am a sweet grass and black ash basket weaver.

I grew up in Akwesasne, born and raised my whole life.

I never really lived anywhere different.

I mean, occasionally I would go and visit places, but I lived here my whole life.

Growing up, my aunts always made baskets and I would watch them and it was just kind of always in my family.

And then when I was fortunate enough to be a stay at home mother, I asked my aunt, I was like, "Auntie, could I, would you teach me how to do baskets?"

And she was like, "Sure."

And so I started doing the things and doing the weaving and putting the pieces together.

And it was just something I fell in love with.

It felt like something I was supposed to do.

My weaves were tight, my curls were uniform.

It was just really, really cool.

And I just, I loved it because I finally had a way to express creativity.

I never really had that before.

And so after the baby was sleeping, I would go to my aunt's house and she would show me how to do these things and I would pick it up rather quickly.

And I just have been making baskets ever since.

Well, to make a basket, first you have to get a black ash tree and pound it off.

You have to pound the layers.

And then I get the layers from a splint pounder.

And then I bring it back and I soak it and I peel it apart carefully.

And depending on how thick that growth ring is, 'cause that's essentially what's being taken off of the tree is the growth ring.

I peel it apart as many times as I can.

And then that determines what kind of basket I'm gonna make.

And so after I peel apart my splint, then I use my gauges and I cut it into the pieces that I wanna work with.

And then I carefully lay out my pattern and then I start weaving it with sweetgrass.

This is my splitter.

This is what I use to peel apart the growth rings of the black ash tree.

It would get fed up through here, put here, you apply pressure and you peel it apart evenly.

It does take many hours for the black ash to soak.

So unfortunately I'm not prepared for that at the moment.

But when I purchased my black ash from local splint pounders, this is a bundle I would receive from them.

And these are each growth ring from the black ash tree.

And this is what I'm peeling apart to make the splint finer.

After you peel it apart, you have shiny on the outside, which then becomes the inside and then the rough on the outside.

And this is what we're trying to get from this.

Once I get it to this point and it's still wet and I can soak it, I then take a gauge that my uncle made.

He made my tools, my splitter.

He used to pound splint.

He has passed away just recently, but he did my hand tools.

And this is what I would use to pull the splint through to cut even strips.

And from there, if I wanna dye the splint, then I have to take it in the house and boil it on the stove with a dye 'cause I do use the commercial dyes.

So you can see this basket is completely natural, but what I did try to do was use really dark brown splint and some really bright white splint so that the curls would just pop on the background.

On the bottom of the basket, you can see that this lovely green, I know you can't smell it through the camera.

See, it smells fantastic, right?

This lovely green here.

Oh, excuse me.

And then, so the sweetgrass is what holds the black ash together.

So the wood, this hard part here and these little curls are all black ash.

So these were all peeled apart from the growth ring and the sweetgrass is on there also as an element that holds it together and it's a decorative element as well.

So while this one has the curls and the pops on there, like the points, I guess, then another way to do it is this.

Now, this weave is called the cornwashing weave.

I use it as a decorative weave, but in our culture and our basket weaving with the utility baskets, which is a completely different creature than what I do, the cornwashing weave actually serves a purpose in the cornwashing basket, but here it's a decorative element where it just has a pattern that it follows.

And for this one, I use commercial dyes.

I love Rit.

Rit berries from Walmart are the best.

And yeah, so it has still the same elements, the sweetgrass and the splint and the black ash, the black ash splint.

I do, I make fancy baskets out of black ash and sweetgrass.

So black ash and sweetgrass are the materials that we have as Northeastern Woodland people.

And that's what we use to make our baskets, the materials that are available to us.

It's becoming a challenge with the black ash because the quality of the black ash is starting to falter here and there.

And it's becoming harder and harder to get.

The emerald ash borer is my boogeyman.

It's a very tiny little beetle.

It's beautiful.

It's iridescent green.

And I love the color, but he's awful.

He's decimated my trees and it's becoming an endangered species, black ashes.

I think that my enthusiasm for a basket weave and has grown over the years.

As my skillset has grown, I've pushed the boundaries and challenged myself to try many things.

I have so much creativity and craziness in my head that I have to get it out in this art form.

And so like, I'm a real fan of curls on my basket.

And I think it's just because I have curly hair.

Just kidding.

But my enthusiasm has grown because my skillset has grown.

So I just really pushed the boundaries on what I'm doing.

Like I started making simple flat weave over under baskets with the black ash and the sweet grass.

And then eventually I started to ask my auntie and I was like, "Auntie, could I try this?"

And her answer was always, "Hmm, try it."

So the, "Hmm, try it," was like an encouragement to be as creative as I wanted with it, which was fantastic because I went from making simple, plain, flat weave baskets to works of art that, I mean, I've gotten some ribbons and some accolades from it.

It's not why I do it, but it's really nice to have.

Well, I don't know that I have like a set goal in mind for the future as far as basket weaving.

I just only hope to do it as long as I can.

And as long as I have access to the materials that are usable.

I just plan to make baskets until I can't.

(upbeat music) - See more of the artist's work at facebook.com/chillbaskets And now the artist quote of the week.

(upbeat music) Chicago born composer and flutist, Allison Loggins-Hull was thrilled to be tasked with writing new music for the Cleveland Orchestra.

In this segment, we find out more about her time in Ohio and the ways she's made an impact in the community.

- The Cleveland Orchestra reached out to my team and initially asked for some scores.

So I thought, oh, maybe their artistic team is considering like programming something of mine in some concert.

And then several, several weeks later, the invitation to the fellowship came and I was just like, is this really happening?

It's a huge opportunity for me as a composer, just being able to write for this group and to add to my own catalog.

I am very artistically very much a departure from other composers who have held this position.

Truth be told, there hasn't been that many Americans.

There hasn't been that many women and people from my perspective in life experience.

So the original "Can You See" was a nonet that was commissioned by the New Jersey Symphony.

And I was asked if I could write a piece that was in response to the "Star Spangled Banner."

This was during COVID, this was during George Floyd.

So I decided to do like a very long stretched out quotation of thematic material from the "Star Spangled Banner."

And I tried to do a play on the lyrics, "Can You See?"

Because I'm thinking about the prompt for the piece, you know, and the lyrics of the "Star Spangled Banner," like, can you see in the home of the brave and the land of the free?

And in thinking about, you know, the validity of that, or if we're really living up to these words, Franz asked me to do an arrangement of that for the orchestra, larger, fuller version.

So the piece was shifting into a more optimistic tone and I decided to add some more material, a new section.

And it's very flute centric, very flute heavy, which truthfully is a little bit of nepotism.

I'm a flutist and I love the flute section here.

So that was my way of just being like, here you go guys.

And then I ended it on this really nice, happy chord.

It just kind of landed there.

And I love how it ends.

It just, it ended up taking a very different turn from the original, which I thought was kind of cool.

(orchestra music) I was very, very excited, a little anxious, but I was so relieved when I got there and it all like worked.

I just felt very like seen, I guess you could say, as a composer.

And I also really felt genuinely like they were enjoying it too, which is awesome.

(audience cheering) (upbeat music) I didn't know much about Cleveland itself, but I did know it was home to this enormous, fantastic orchestra.

I was really curious to learn about this place.

After a lot of discussion about how this fellowship could look, I had proposed really centering it in working with the community here and the people here and learning about the history of Cleveland.

I will say that over time, I've really, really learned and come to value the importance of that willingness to be so open and so able to listen and to hear people's stories and to go where they are, like going into their communities.

Last season, I went to the Cleveland School of the Arts.

I worked with a number of high school students, instrumentalists and singers, and we divvied up into several different smaller groups.

And I worked with each group on creating their own compositions.

So I gave them the prompt to work together and think of either a story or a theme or something that was significant to them as it relates to Cleveland, as it relates to this place.

And I think we had maybe four or five different groups and each one did something very, very different, but all inspired by something that had to do with Cleveland.

And they all gave me permission to use this music to reference in the larger work that I'm creating for the orchestra, which will premiere next May.

That's how I'm compositionally integrating their voices into this larger piece.

(upbeat music) Our partners this season, which we worked together on developing a chamber music series, a collaborative chamber music series.

We called it In Community, and it was an opportunity to have some of their community musicians play alongside TCO players.

And our partners this year was the H-K Bandura School, Fatima Family Center and Karamu House.

All very different organizations, very different histories, very different places in Cleveland.

With the Bandura School, that was the first time I ever heard the bandura, which is a Ukrainian folk instrument, string instrument.

It sounds very much like a combination of a guitar and a harp.

It's very delicate sounding and it's very angelic sounding.

And it's a beautiful instrument.

Living in that sound world and thinking about other pieces that would compliment that instrument.

So from a musicological standpoint, that was great.

My favorite memory from being with the community at Fatima Family Center, I had an afternoon that I spent with members of their senior choir, who we collaborated with in our concert with them, and they sang.

And it reminded me so much of my own grandmother.

They shared a lot of their stories, either growing up or raising their family in Huff.

I just felt so grateful for how generous they were in their sharing and just how sweet they were.

So it just felt like very like warm and, you know, just homey.

(gentle music) And then lastly, with Karamu, that was a great way to do some more interdisciplinary work.

We did a program where we worked with some of their actors and dancers.

You know, that was a great opportunity to also work with artists who weren't musicians necessarily, but who worked in other mediums as well and how to make that work with the orchestra members.

It's been a mixed bag, but I'll say overall, what's been like the thread in all of them, everybody has been like so welcoming and hospitable and flexible, and the orchestra too, everybody.

We've had packed houses.

We've brought in people from all over the city.

It's been really, really great.

This whole experience has really shown me like the power in that and that a symphony orchestra, an institution like this can do something like that.

And it can be incredibly impactful.

And I'd like to believe that at the end of this fellowship, we can look at the work that we've done here and it'll be a continued practice, you know, hopefully here, but also hopefully in other orchestras or other similar arts institutions.

That's my hope.

That's what this has grown to mean for me, really.

Learn more about the orchestra at clevelandorchestra.com and the composer at allisonloggins.com.

Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

Up next, we traveled to New Mexico to meet author and illustrator, Zahra Marwan, who published the book "Where Butterflies Fill the Sky."

In this picture book, Marwan shares the true story of her immigration from Kuwaiti to the United States.

Take a look.

What inspired you to write "Where Butterflies Fill the Sky?"

When we left Kuwait when I was a child, I wasn't really sure what we were doing or where we were going or what was happening.

When we came to New Mexico, I didn't really understand why no one spoke Arabic anymore or why we weren't going to my grandpa's house in a few days.

So I was trying to create that feeling of what it felt like as a child.

Why did you title the book "Where Butterflies Fill the Sky?"

I don't have the right to live in Kuwait, but my mom's a Kuwaiti citizen.

In 2018, she became sick and was hospitalized.

I had to make an emergency trip home, and I'm allowed to stay there only for three months on a tourist visa.

And there had been a lot of rain, and every time I'd look up that spring, there were hundreds of butterflies in the sky.

And that's when I started putting the book together.

"Where Butterflies Fill the Sky, a story of immigration, family, and finding home.

To my parents, who should have never had to leave, who gave us everything they could."

"From the desert to the sea, this is my home where 100 butterflies are always in the sky.

Pigeons are kept and loved.

Boats sail the calm sea.

Mama's on the shore.

My aunties drink their tea.

Baba swims in the open water.

His sister takes the boat out to sea.

Me and my brothers are in our own world.

This is where I sleep, where my ancestors live and are always watching."

- So there's a lot of different motifs that are reoccurring in the book.

Can you tell me a little bit about them?

- Sure.

Culturally, Kuwaitis keep birds at home, whether parakeets or parrots.

I like to talk about my oldest aunt who fights with her parrot every Friday at the family lunch.

And I have my mom's three sisters that keep appearing as my grounding pillars of safety and protection and a sense of home.

- And there was also two ancestral bulls watching over you, right?

Can you talk a little bit about those?

- Sure.

It's definitely a cultural faux pas, religiously, being from a very conservative, orthodox family myself.

There are ancient artifacts from the Dilmun civilization or Mesopotamian sculptures that were found 10 miles off of Kuwait shore.

And one of them was a bull.

So I had these Mesopotamian bulls be the connection to ancestors and place that keep following the main character throughout the book.

So this is my favorite illustration in the book.

It's me and my dad.

People often sit on the ground in Kuwaiti culture on Persian rugs.

Here we have a Dilmun bull and he's packing watermelon.

We would often eat watermelon after lunch.

There are flamingos flying.

They naturally migrate to the Kuwaiti shores in the winter.

There's a picture of my uncle who was killed during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

He was killed with a grenade.

And this is also a point that I always keep in mind is how he can always be listed officially as Kuwaiti when he had died stateless fighting for our little home.

- What does it mean to be stateless?

And why is it important to talk about this subject?

- Citizenship is very complicated and it shouldn't be at all, right?

Three of my grandparents are Kuwaiti citizens and only one wasn't.

And that was my father's father.

And all of them are historically and culturally rooted in Kuwait.

My grandfather didn't apply before oil and the window to apply was very small.

So although we're from there generationally, culturally and historically, we have no legal rights to live in our country.

- And what does that mean?

- It means you don't really have the right to an education.

You're not allowed to get married.

You're not allowed to leave.

You're not allowed to access healthcare.

You essentially don't exist yet you're illegal.

And yet you're there.

"Baba tells me there is magic in the place we'll go.

I don't want to leave.

Mama says it'll be better for us.

I say my goodbyes without knowing why and travel far, far away to a new place where each day feels like a year where no one speaks like me.

Are my ancestors still watching?

- What is it like to leave your home behind in Kuwait and come to New Mexico?

- The last time I was in Kuwait was this January.

And when the plane lands, it makes me cry.

And when the plane leaves, it makes me cry.

And I've become almost totally foreign there other than family.

And every trip back, I would notice I was becoming further and further removed from my home, whether linguistically or culturally.

I think nobody really wants to leave their home, yeah.

- How did it feel adapting to New Mexico?

- I think it's a forever ongoing process of how this is the only place where I feel like I belong, that I can live legally.

And at the same time, I realize I'm not totally from here historically.

But there's always a sense of like, this is my home.

It's nice to feel like I belong at a place where I wasn't even born.

I mean, I still remember my friend Adam Romero playing tag with me in the third grade or the second grade when I couldn't speak.

So it's nice to know that there are people like that.

I'm so different from everyone here, but these new people show me I belong.

My family sends reminders that they're thinking of me.

And I tell them that I'm thinking of them too, that I miss them and hope we can be together again.

That in this new place of high desert, I have found a home.

- Why do you have the bulls resting?

- Maybe that they feel a sense of comfort or also feel a sense of home.

- It can take a break from watching over.

Like, what's the feeling that you felt when you were creating this illustration?

- I don't know.

Maybe this one that I really do feel comfortable here, that there are things I understand and feel really lucky that I'm like, to have come to a place where people do treat you like you belong.

I feel like I've learned from people here to like be proud of my language and culture and heritage, even if there's like a system that tells you, you shouldn't be.

(laughs) (gentle music) - For more information about Marwan, head to Zahramarwan.com.

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

(upbeat music) That wraps it up for this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

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.

(upbeat music) Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music)