Season 13, Episode 4

[Announcer] Funding for The Art Show is made possible by The L&L Nippert Charitable Foundation, Montgomery County, The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation, The Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, The Sutphin Family Foundation.

Additional funding provided by.

And viewers like you.

Thank You.

In this edition of "The Art Show", take a guided art walk in nature, (lighthearted music) a series of pop masterpieces goes on display, an art experience engages all the senses, and portraits that tell a story.

It's all ahead on this edition of "The Art Show".

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) Hi, I'm Rodney Veal and welcome to "The Art Show", where each week we provide access to local, regional and national artists and arts organizations.

We've all looked at something in nature and seen the beauty it holds.

Maybe you've even noticed the never-ending, repeating patterns called fractals that are found in the structure of snowflakes and the way branches grow on trees.

Now let's join Columbus artist Jonah Jacobs on a guided nature walk with the Dublin Arts Council to observe fractal patterns, and how they can inspire found object artmaking.

Take a look.

(lighthearted music) Dublin Arts Council teamed up with a group of local artists to create a new program called Patterns in Nature Initiative.

This is a nature discovery series designed at getting people outside, connecting to nature, into their parks and exploring the natural environment for patterns.

Today will be guided by our artist who will lead us on a walk where we'll be exploring fractal patterns and fractal geometry.

And then later on as a group, we'll be engaging in an art activity together.

I pretty much work mostly in cardboard.

It's my upcycle material of choice, because you can mold it, you can bend it, you can burn it, you can layer it, you can do all kinds of fun things with it.

I just get really excited about teaching people about how household materials and things you would normally throw out can be turned into these beautiful sculptural pieces.

I'm a firm believer in upcycling and I think it's a wonderful thing when you can take trash and turn it into something more beautiful.

(gentle music) My main emphasis with nature is just how things are made, the structural aspect of nature.

Almost like nature's architect.

So today we're going to just be walking through the woods and we're gonna try to look at fractal patterns, like patterns in nature, the way things are repeated.

I'll be talking a little bit more about textures and structure of tree limbs to broken things to meandering things, veins in leaves, all that good stuff.

Does anybody have any idea?

Why do you think nature chose these like tubes for everything?

Because technically, our arms are tubes, our bones are tubes, our arteries are tubes.

So nature has got this really super-efficient way, that tree has to soak up all that water all the way up to the top.

So you need a way to get it from there all the way up.

Just like our bodies, right?"

(lighthearted music) We're actually going to do a land art project where we'll be collecting natural materials and then as a group, creating an art piece together collaboratively.

The art pieces that are created out of those natural materials they will last as long as nature allows them to last.

And hopefully the people who walk in this park can enjoy them for as long as they're here.

It's a way to just get hands on and get people thinking about, you know, what are the textural qualities inherent in nature, what are the shapes inherent, what are the repeating forms in nature.

Stuff like that.

And then after you start noticing these things, what kind of materials can you get out of nature to make possibly earth sculptures out of.

Whatever you want to do.

If you got materials you want to add to it, you can add to it.

I'm gonna just start putting it out over here and just kind of ad lib.

Or if you want to do your own.

Like we were saying earlier, try to pay attention to, you know, texture and the fractals in there.

Like how things are on the big scale down to the little scale.

Color, shapes, all that good stuff.

So this kind of stuff, this chunky stuff, I love this.

So for me, this is like a sculpture.

And this is something I've been trying to mimic for years using cardboard and it's actually extremely hard to do.

Nature makes it look easy.

But getting all of these like different sizes and stuff would be really hard as a sculpture.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) I really like that we've got these cool shapes and colors and then we've got some contrasting stuff.

That's almost like a little flower, like you made up your own little flower.

That's really cool.

Yeah you did an amazing job.

I like the flow, too.

I mean, we walk by a tree every day and we kind of group them together: Oh, there's another tree.

In reality, all the shapes are different, all the textures are different, and there are so many of these repeating patterns.

It's fun to just take a moment, relax, and then just point these things out to people and get people to take a little time to be more aware of their surroundings.

'Cause, let's face it, most of the times we're in a park, we're not really in that park, we're in our heads thinking about our job or the next email or, you know, who knows what else.

So it's nice to just take a pause and be able to explain things to people and hear their comments and enjoy the company of people who are interested in similar things.

If you'd like to learn more about this, or any other story on today's show, visit us online at cetconnect.org or thinktv.org.

Our next story takes us to Cleveland, where some colorful pop masterpieces have gone on display.

The Temple-Tifereth Israel is now home to Andy Warhol's print series "Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th century."

Let's watch to find out how two lifelong friends made this exhibit possible.

(upbeat music) [Narrator] Artist Andy Warhol is known for his portraits of famous people like Marilyn Monroe.

Now, a collection of Warhol portraits can be seen and studied in Beachwood thanks to a generous donation.

(upbeat music) Joel Saltzman and Leslie Wolf grew up attending Park Synagogue Religious School in Cleveland Heights as boys.

Their lifelong friendship included an appreciation of music and art.

We had very big interests, each of us, in rock and roll music and in various art, and Warhol was one of them.

The writers and the painters who Leslie liked were ones who took risks with their work.

And to me, that just seems to apply to Andy Warhol so much.

And I think that is one of the reasons that my brother really cared about Warhol's work.

Well, he was in the avant-garde.

He was controversial.

I enjoyed his colors.

He was not accepted.

[Narrator] Little did the two friends know that they'd someday gain their own set of Warhol portraits.

It was a series that came at the suggestion of one of Warhol's good friends.

He had a wonderful gallerist in New York City, Ronald Feldman.

Warhol kept asking him for ideas: What should I do?

What should I do?

(gentle music) And then he suggested, what about Ten Jews of the 20th Century?

And Warhol was very excited about that, and they both worked together to produce this beautiful portfolio.

[Narrator] Warhol created the series in 1980.

Not long after, Saltzman, then working in Washington, DC, received a call from his old friend Leslie, who became a college professor in California.

He called me and said, I saw in a gallery they have a complete suite of Warhol's Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century.

And they're beautiful.

And what do you think?

I can't afford all of them, he said.

But you want to go in on that and we'll figure it out.

And I said, that sounds interesting.

(bright music) [Narrator] Saltzman had a connection in New York City that led him to Warhol's famous art studio, The Factory.

By combining resources, the two purchased printer's proofs of the series Ten Portraits of Jews of the 20th Century.

Actress Sarah Bernhardt.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Philosopher Martin Buber.

Writer Gertrude Stein.

Physicist Albert Einstein.

Neurologist Sigmund Freud.

Composer George Gershwin.

Author Franz Kafka, and comedians The Marx Brothers.

The art handlers shipped it down to me in D.C., the whole suite in a in a box.

I said to Leslie, what am I going to do in a one bedroom apartment with this?

And he said, just keep mine contained in the box.

I said, I'll frame my five.

And I framed them and I put them up in my apartment.

Leslie then flew to Washington and saw the portraits up and we went over.

I opened the thing up, it was under my bed for, really, for years, his five.

And so from time to time, whenever he'd come to Washington, he would look at them.

Then ultimately he fell ill, and ultimately came back to Cleveland and got an apartment.

And I drove his five out of Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpike to Cleveland, and we hung them in his apartment here.

And he enjoyed them very much for he couldn't travel after that, so he enjoyed them very much for I think maybe 10, 12 years until he passed away.

We didn't really know what to do with them, and we didn't want them to be damaged in any way by being out and having exposure and stuff, you know, with lighting and things.

So they were in storage till we could find the right home for them and we just kept waiting and time just kept passing by.

[Narrator] Fast forward to 2021 and Saltzman was downsizing from his home outside of Washington, D.C., to an apartment in Beachwood.

I wasn't going to have a big enough space to have my five anymore.

And I said, you know, it's much better that I think that the public gets to see these.

They haven't seen them for all these years.

I give Joel credit that he contacted us about putting it together with his five and making the donation here.

And we thought that was a phenomenal idea.

[Narrator] For the Temple-Tifereth Israel and its museum, the donation is transformative.

(jazzy music) This gift is really the piece that is telling of Jewish culture of the 20th century.

The moment we're looking at that is represented in these portraits is a moment wherein Jew's struggle for citizenship, for equality, for acceptance, for dignity.

For participation and contribution in a whole range of aspects of life.

This is the time wherein we find Jews, on the one hand, being integrated into a number of societies and eventually into America, while at the same time we witness the destruction of Jewish life in Europe during the time of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

(dramatic music) A lot of discussion comes up from these.

Well, who would be the Ten Famous Jews of the 21st Century?

I think he'd be thrilled.

He really would.

And he would be very grateful to Joel for pulling it off.

It's marvelous to see it, you know, well-lit and on one wall.

It's stunning.

(dramatic music) (upbeat music) Did you miss an episode of "The Art Show"?

No problem!

You can watch it on demand at cetconnect.org and thinktv.org.

You'll find all the previous episodes, as well as current episodes, and links to the artists we feature.

Now, let's travel to the Orlando Museum of Art to check out the work of multidisciplinary artist Sri Prabha.

His installations engage all the senses and offer visitors an ever-changing immersive experience.

You can kind of imagine how somebody might be walking through these spaces and you'll see the video on both sides of these panels.

My name is Sri Prabha and I'm a multidisciplinary artist and I make work that explores our connection to the natural world with ideas from Eastern philosophy and Western science co-mingled together.

In my studio I like to set up possible installations and experiments to see what my next installation will look like.

I kind of think about everybody that would come to an installation of mine and multiple ways that they can learn from the experience.

So some people like to see just the visuals.

I spend a lot of time continually in the process of creating the videos, and they're a mixture between filming the physical environment, the physical world with some specialized cameras.

And then those are taken into some different software.

(computer rumbling) I'm not even thinking about it as video, it's just one more tool within this multidisciplinary stuff that I'm using.

Some people like to hear the sound component of it.

Just kind of the feeling that you get when you hear certain frequencies.

So all those things come together and they tell a more, richer story.

A new way of looking at the world and our relationship to it.

I'm kind of like absorbing what's happening in space and eventually you know, some of these lines and shapes come out of just the videos that are playing and I will end up making that as a painting in itself.

Do you have a clear path of where this piece will go?

Sure.

So when I look at specific installations and the things I have in mind, the one I just recently did at the Orlando Museum of Art, it's called "Space Research Center."

So I was thinking about that particular installation idea for about a year and I knew exactly how it was going to turn out.

What I don't know is the interactions that will happen in place once it's up.

When people come and view it and experience it, that finishes the cycle.

I went up there and looked at the space and by and large, it's like a biggest space that I've ever done up to now.

That particular one is based on the five elements, Eastern elements.

And so each one has a corollary to contemporary environment issues.

There's also the beauty, the strangeness.

People can view it at a lot of different levels and it encourages repeated viewing because you can't go there at any one time and experience the same thing.

I think that's the great thing about it because for me art is never still, it's just constantly in flux, just kind of like life is.

If you need more art goodness in your life, the podcast Rodney Veal's Inspired By is available now.

You can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Learn more and find show notes at thinktv.org or cetconnect.org/inspiredby.

Our next artist enjoys crafting portraits that tell a story, as well as drawing caricatures of famous personalities.

But Greg Rumph also holds down an important and demanding job, assistant principal in charge of the Visual and Performing Arts department of his high school.

Up next, we learn more about how he balances work and art making, and how he shares what he knows with the next generation of artists.

Here's his story.

I am working on a picture of Nina Simone.

Obviously she is a very famous jazz singer.

What caught my eye with Nina is she has a very interesting face and a story.

In researching her, come to find out that she was bipolar.

So, that fascinated me and then I started really studying the lyrics of her work.

(upbeat music) I am Greg Rumph.

I am an Assistant Principal at Booker High School over the Visual and Performing Arts department.

And I'm also a artist.

(upbeat music) Its things or people or events that resonates with me.

When I was in college, I loved hip hop.

So then that informed my work.

As I got older, I went through my social kind of justice period.

Now I would say I'm firmly into doing caricatures, 'cause some of my favorite artists are caricature artists.

So, that's fascinating to me.

So, right now I'm working on a series.

I started with jazz musicians and now I'm doing movie villains.

So, it varies.

It all depends on how much I'm into something.

(lighthearted music) (pencil sharpener whirs) For the Nina Simone piece, it's a mixed media piece.

It's mainly colored pencils, acrylic, and it's a medium that's called ultra gel medium ultra.

Basically I take the gel medium and I water it down, mix it with paint and I apply it with a brayer, and that gives the paper a sort of texture.

And then I will use that texture with the colored pencils to pick up, which will make skin look like skin.

You walk in our house and it's kind of like a gallery.

It's interesting though, when someone new comes in the house and they look at his work.

People are amazed that he created it.

Listening to him talk about his work, I get a sense of pride just listening to him and how he expresses himself in his work.

(lighthearted music) When I was a kid, my dad was a natural tie artist.

Yeah, he used to draw and he was actually really, really, really good.

Of course, you look up to your father as a little kid so I would start to copy whatever he drew.

And I kept copying his things to the point where it became a hobby and a passion.

I just kept doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and nurtured it into a career.

I graduated from Ringling College of Art & Design and focused on editorial illustration.

I divvied and dabbled in graphic design, taught myself graphic design and I ended up doing more graphic design than illustration.

I was at home doing freelance just kind of, you know, being a 20, I believe I was 22, 23 years old.

Got a phone call.

And some folks knew that I did some art and asked me to come substitute.

So, I substituted, the kids grew on me, then those things called, you know, paychecks and benefits.

But I think more so than anything, it's the kids.

After about two or three weeks, you know, you bond off the kids, they're calling you Mr. G or whatever.

And you know, you're cracking jokes and it just became a passion.

(upbeat music) I get up at a quarter to five in the morning.

I'm at work by 6:30.

I'm home, on a good day, 4 o'clock.

On a bad day, it could be 10:30, 11 o'clock at night.

So those days I obviously don't draw.

It's hard, especially with I also have a five-year-old, but if I don't have anything going on I try to draw or paint every other day.

Oh, he'll stay up to 2, 3 in the morning working on a piece.

It's ridiculous.

It's hard to balance his art and being an assistant principal.

And I think he has learned finally how to manage that, where he's still able to express himself in his work through art and still be able to function the next day.

(lighthearted music) Sometimes they collect dust.

My wife doesn't like that.

They're around the house, you know, or I'll put 'em up someplace and now folks are starting to buy 'em.

And now in my older age, you know, checks and things, you know, they're nice.

Our five-year old, he likes lots of toys.

So, you know, I can trade some dollars for some paintings.

(gentle music) What I love about Greg is that he shares his work with others and he teaches them.

He takes the time to develop the skill of art.

He researches his pieces, he researches different techniques.

And also that educated piece of him, where he shares what he has learned through his formal training and from just work, he willingly shares and teaches that with students.

So, it's kind of nice to just see the full circle of him as an artist and him as an educator.

Even to this day, like I'll go and do walkthroughs in classrooms and I'll end up dropping my clipboard or wherever I'm writing my notes on, and then I'll start teaching kids.

"Oh, hey, no, do it this this way."

"Move this, this way over here."

"Try doing it this way," or whatever.

So the teaching aspect has never left.

And there's a sense of home when I'm in front of a kid teaching them the art.

(lighthearted music) Its purpose.

I think everybody has a purpose.

And I think once folks find that purpose it's your duty to kind of walk in that purpose, and then to bless others and to evoke emotions, or to have others see something in the work that they can relate to.

Then if they take the work home, they can permanently relate to the work, which is cool, but it's satisfying.

And it's a way that I can express myself and tell stories and give back.

(lighthearted music) If you want to see more from "The Art Show", connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

You'll find us at @thinktv and @cetconnect.

And don't forget The Art Show channel on YouTube.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "The Art Show".

Until next time, I'm Rodney Veal.

Thanks for watching.

(lighthearted music) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues) (lighthearted music continues) [Announcer] Funding for "The Art Show" is made possible by The L&L Nippert Charitable Foundation, Montgomery County, The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. Foundation, The Virginia W. Kettering Foundation, The Sutphin Family Foundation, Additional funding provided by.

And viewers like you.

Closed captioning in part has been made possible through a grant from The Bahmann Foundation.

Thank You.