- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

(soft upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

(upbeat music) - [Gabe] In this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus," colorful quilts bring history to life.

- And that was very interesting to do the research and to find out about these people in the West and their actual contributions that they made.

- [Gabe] The power of performance.

- Theater gives people an opportunity to come outside of themselves and to try to take on the perspectives and attitudes of other people.

- [Gabe] A creator's artistic exploration.

- [Jennifer] Once I released this inner artist that I obviously always had but didn't know it until recently, I started viewing everything differently.

- [Gabe] And art where laws are made.

- [Stephen] Since the program's inception, LXS has displayed six solo shows of artwork by Nevada visual artists during the Biennial legislative session.

The idea was to really connect with arts and culture and heritage and creativity and the value that it brings to the state.

- It's all coming up next on "WEDU Arts Plus."

(jazzy upbeat music) Hello, I'm Gabe Ortiz, and this is "WEDU Arts Plus."

When history books tell stories of the American West, they often leave out a key population, Black Americans.

But their stories are now being brought to life through quilts, thanks to an exhibition at the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg.

(soft uplifting music) - This exhibition is Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West, and it explores the path of Black history in our country for hundreds of years through quilts.

There are 50 quilts in this exhibition, and all of them are very different because they're by almost as many artists.

Each quilter took a topic that was compiled by the curator, Carolyn Mazloomi, and she's the founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network.

And so all of these quilters are part of that organization and they rose to the occasion in an amazing way.

A lot of the quilts explore the 1800s, and that was a real boom for settlement in the west.

Former enslaved people saw an opportunity to live in the West because there was the chance of less oppression, there was more opportunity, and they really wanted to expand and grow their communities.

Each quilt highlights either an individual or a group or an event in history.

(light upbeat music) About a quarter of cowboys were Black.

This quilt features Bill Pickett, and he was known for inventing steer wrestling called bulldogging.

He just is a wonderful addition to the show because he really represents those Texas cowboys.

This quilt features Abby Fisher, and she was an accomplished business woman and she even wrote one of the very first cookbooks by a Black woman.

She started as an enslaved person in South Carolina and eventually made her way to successful business woman in California in the 1870s.

(soft music) I think this quilt is one of the most amazing in the show.

The depth that the artist was able to get where it really looks 3D is amazing.

This story tells the horrific events surrounding the Tulsa massacre.

This massacre happened in 1921.

The goal of the Tulsa attackers was to find any reason to rip out and destroy the wealth of this self-made Black community that had become extremely prosperous.

It was known as Black Wall Street.

The details here are really incredible.

All of the fabric is layered in a way that looks sculptural.

There's so many emotions that I think of when I look at this.

It's a story that is worth remembering and worth acknowledging and that is relevant today.

(upbeat music) The quilters for this exhibition come from all over the country.

There's even one from the Tampa Bay area.

Gwendolyn A. Brooks's quilt is right behind me.

- My name is Gwendolyn Aqui-Brooks, and I live in Wesley Chapel, Florida.

I didn't really grow up quilting, and there was no one in my family, as far as I know, that was a quilter.

I picked it up as an adult.

I'm self taught, and all of my quilts are hand sewn.

In addition to being a quilter, I'm also a mixed media artist.

I also write, I do author books, and I'm also a printmaker.

The quilt is about a teacher by the name of Mrs. Floyd.

She grew up in Massachusetts.

She had a son named Oliver.

They went to San Francisco, California.

She tried to enroll her son in school, and when she got there, she found out, because he was African American, that she could not enroll him in school.

She went to church, an African Methodist church, and the people there gave her money for a school.

In that school, she not only had African American students, she had Native American as well as Asian children.

It took me over a year to create this quilt.

- I love the color.

So the patchwork, the fabric selection, and all of the unconventional materials, from the laces to the pair of glasses.

I think one seeing this exhibition, visitors are going to think of quilts even more elevated than they might today.

(upbeat music) - It's amazing, each quilt telling a story about their life.

- The time involved to put it all together and their ability to put it into a quilt, it's like somebody with their paintbrush.

And being able to do it on a quilt is just amazing.

- You look back to these very difficult times and you see what they went through and how they persevered through it.

- I am here with my girlfriends for our annual girls trip.

We graduated from Atlanta University, and we have been taking a vacation together for, this is our 31st year.

We like to do something cultural in every city that we visit.

The history that's here and just the ingenuity of Black people was just amazing to me.

I grew up in a small town in Arkansas.

It was not taught, so we didn't learn anything about African Americans in the West period.

- I never learned about it in school either, and that was very interesting to do the research and to find out about these people in the West and their actual contributions that they made.

- There's such different perspectives that are important to share.

And you don't always find them in traditional art history.

And I think it just adds to the James Museum experience of really showing different perspectives of the West.

- The exhibition, Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West, is on view at the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art through January 8th.

Learn more at thejamesmuseum.org.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, Marjorie Book Continuing Education offers more than traditional classes.

For over 25 years, this organization has been providing an inclusive space for people of all backgrounds and abilities to come together and take part in theater.

- Well, in Marjorie Book, our goal is to bring more people with and without disabilities together, and we find that theater pushes people to be more tolerant of other viewpoints and other walks of life.

Theater gives people an opportunity to come outside of themselves and to try to take on the perspectives and attitudes of other people.

(upbeat music) Marjorie Book started somewhat by accident in that there was a group of high school and college students that decided to produce a play, and we happened to include someone with a disability in the cast who was a friend of mine.

We didn't give it a lot of thought at the time, but he was visually impaired.

An, naturally, in the course of that play production, we had to think about how to make things more accessible for him.

Many of the people in our group have been involved in a play before, but Marjorie Book tends to put on, you know, more difficult plays, plays that are part of the theater canon.

And so it's challenging and so I think it's a good opportunity for people with disabilities to maybe take a medium-size role or even a large role in a more challenging play.

And for people without disabilities, they also may have previous theater experience, but this gives them an opportunity to really work as a team to try to bring the whole group up to the point where everyone's working together, everyone's gotten the kind of accommodations they need so that the the play itself can be something everyone can be proud of.

- I was the lead, and I love what Joe teaches, to focus on acting and being with your friends.

My goal is to make sure that we put on a good product for the audience, because that's what it's about, doing a good performance for the audience.

- We work on actors one on one, reading through their lines and helping them to pronounce difficult words.

And also, I think what I bring to it with a theater background is I can talk to the actors about their intention in what they're saying, why they're saying what they're saying, and explain to them how that make it seem more real for the audience.

- For the many high school and college students without disabilities that have been involved in Marjorie Book, you know, they have often said to me, after they've been involved for a month or more, that they didn't realize that individuals with various, you know, cognitive disabilities or developmental disabilities could engage in a play at this level.

So it's certainly been a learning experience for them in learning what people can do.

- Why are you afraid of saying the right words?

Why are you ashamed of what you love doing?

- [Participant] I ain't ashamed of anything.

- Every year we try to produce three shows, and our third show of the year is usually a musical.

And so we are currently doing "Carousel" by Rogers and Hammerstein.

We have the challenge that we need to be working scenes with small and large groups of actors.

But in our group, we do have a number of actors who need some one-on-one work, you know, with, a coach or a tutor, if you will.

Sometimes it's just a fellow actor in the play.

And so both of those things go on in our rehearsals.

We're usually working a particular scene in the play.

And then, during the musical, we have the added complication that we have a music accompanist and we have a music director that are meeting with small or large groups of actors at the same time preparing songs for our shows.

Our audience, you know, probably arrives with the question of, "Is this group going to be able to produce a play?

You know, will it happen?

Will they be able to pull it off?"

And fortunately, the answer, you know, 95% of the time in the past has been, yes, we've been able to pull it off.

And so I think that excites the audience watching the various pieces of the play come together.

Our audience knows, typically, about the inclusive nature of our group, that we have actors with and without disabilities.

And they're excited to see, you know, the work that we've done pay off.

We hope that Marjorie Book will reach many people in greater Cincinnati and help them to see people with disabilities contributing in a different way than they thought, to see that people with disabilities can, you know give back to others, and also to see that there's yet another way or ways that people without disabilities can connect with people with disabilities, you know, through common interests, through shared loves.

And in this case, today we're talking about theater.

And and so I think some of our cast members and audience members, you know, we hope that they will come away feeling like, "Wow, I just really connected with someone that was different from me over theater.

And we both love theater, so we have that connection that, you know, might lead to an ongoing friendship in the future."

- To find out more, go to marjoriebook.org.

As an artist, Jennifer Lanzilotti does not limit herself.

From painting leaves to riding young adult fiction, She finds inspiration all around her in different forms of media.

Up next, we head to Michigan to learn more.

(soft inspirational music) - You're working on a canvas that is part of the earth.

And then if I paint on this leaf, I'm giving a piece of earth back to somebody.

So I actually don't have a background in art.

It's really funny, my background is in social work.

I gave up social work to be home with my kids, and that's when I started writing.

So I wrote some action-adventure-romance, and I kind of did it with the idea in mind that my kids would read it one day.

They're kind of the movies that I had going through my head, that I thought, "I need to get this on paper."

The series is called "Heal Me."

And the first book is "Heal Me," and the second book is "Healed."

And it's actually about a woman who has the ability to heal.

And so, at a time when terrorists have hit nuclear power plants, a government agent is sent to find her and bring her in.

And he ends up learning that this person is not who the world thinks she is.

For "Chicory Island," there's an organism in the water, and it's the fear of if something happens to our drinking water, to the Great Lakes.

And I'm obviously a big nature person.

I love nature so much, and I'm all about like protecting the water and the Great Lakes.

And I spent years writing as a stay-at-home mom.

And I'd never painted before, ever in my life.

And the opportunity to paint on leaves literally fell on my car.

(laughs) I parked my car under a maple tree, and it was in the fall.

And when I came outside, my car was blanketed with maple leaves.

So the opportunity was right there.

So I picked one up, and I remember thinking, "This is flawless."

And I thought, "I'm gonna try it.

I'm gonna just try painting."

And I honestly didn't even have any good paint.

I didn't have a good paintbrush.

And I realized for the first time that I'm really drawn to landscapes.

And it was a learning process for me.

I can collect a hundred leaves, and out of all those leaves, only 50 of them are gonna be worthy.

So I bring them home, I soak them in the sink in water, and then I dry them with a paper towel and I press the leaves.

I have a really good friend who made me this really great leaf press.

I wait the three weeks, and then when they're completely dry and I'm happy with it, I'll take it outside and I'll spray it with like a protective spray, and then it's ready to be painted.

I have always loved nature and the idea of bringing nature inside.

It's almost nostalgic, a leaf, you know, fallen from the earth.

And so you're collecting a leaf that has died and you're giving it life.

It's being reborn in the form of a painting that will be forever preserved on someone's wall.

And I love that idea.

So once I released this inner artist that I obviously always had but didn't know it until recently, I started viewing everything differently.

And I'm obsessed with trees.

I love birch trees.

The initial is to look at something and that inspires me, but by the time I'm done with it, I have gone off in a totally different direction, I've added my own twist to it and it's all just almost like beginner's luck.

Every day I'm inspired.

I wanna paint or I wanna write.

I'm writing another story that's like creativity overload.

There's so much I wanna do.

I started doing bottles.

You know, I ran out of leaves, and then I thought, "Well, let me paint on a bottle and make it one continuous scene around the bottle."

My friend gave me the idea to turn them into incense bottles.

It works.

It makes a really nice incense bottle.

It's also a bottle that you would've just thrown away.

So the same concept, you're repurposing it, recycling a bottle.

(laughs) Pallet wood is really popular right now.

And I remembered thinking, like, "I wonder if I could paint on canvas something that would look like pallet wood.

And so I took the canvas and I made a stencil and I painted it and worked on it all afternoon.

And when it was done, it actually did look like painted pallet wood.

I think, somewhere with being a mom and a parent, I dropped the idea of I can't.

I used to maybe look at something, "Oh, I could never do that."

But now I have this attitude of, "Hey, all I can do is try.

I don't know if I can do it, but I'm gonna try it."

And so I did, and it's one of the things I'm most proud of.

Out of all the things I've ever done, it took me like 30-some hours to do, and tons of paint.

I'm still in the beginning stage where, if you really like my art enough to wanna hang it in your house, I'm just thrilled to pieces.

More than anything, I think I'm really grateful that I was able to be a stay-at-home mom because that gave me the extra time.

And this was a discovery for me.

I don't ever wanna quit painting.

I wanna keep going and pursuing it.

I'm just so grateful that I have this.

I would definitely like to keep selling, and I'd like to get my books published and I would like to really get my name out there.

I'd just be happy to have more than 100 followers on Instagram, to be honest.

(laughs) - To see more of Lanzilotti's creations, head to fallenleaf.us.

During the biennial legislative session in Carson City, Nevada, The Legislative Exhibition Series presents an array of artworks for legislators to appreciate located in a special gallery space on the first floor of the Legislative Building.

This series encourages creativity and expression.

(light upbeat music) - Every two years, the Nevada Legislature convenes from February through June.

This is when the future of Nevada is really being created.

And, oftentimes, many don't think of art mixing with politics, but that's indeed happening right now at the Nevada Legislature.

Right now, we're in the Nevada Legislature Building in Carson City, here in the gallery space for the LXS exhibit.

The Legislative Exhibition Series began in 1985.

Since the program's inception, LXS has displayed six solo shows of artwork by Nevada visual artists during the Biennial legislative session.

The idea was to really connect with art and culture and heritage and creativity and the value that it brings to the state.

The LXS exhibit provides a really great opportunity for legislators, visitors, and the general public to come by and take a look at some of the really great work that's happening throughout the state, both from urban areas as well as rural areas.

- My name's Melissa Melero-Moose.

My art focuses on landscape, the Great Basin, the colors in this area.

I put organic objects in my artwork, pine nuts and willows, and sort of focus on the colors of the Great Basin.

The title, Translating Paiute," is about getting something that the Numa people, the Paiute people are just trying to share with our community.

It's a great honor to be up on the wall with all of these other great artists.

And what's so special about this particular venue is we've got the people who are making all of the art things happen in this state available to them and sort of remind them that this is a really important part of what we do here in this state, in this country, is art.

I mean, people definitely miss it when it's gone and it's something that enhances each of our departments when you think about it.

(soft upbeat music) - It's a wonderful kind of exhibition space, I think.

It's a great location.

A lot of people see this work.

It's a nice range of work, from contemporary to your more traditional work.

We get, you know, some our professionals from the north and the south and in the rural areas that try to go out into the communities and see who's doing some interesting work that might not get seen otherwise.

This is quite lovely, to be honest.

This is really articulated well.

Lolita DeVille, she's in Las Vegas.

She does a wonderful job of articulating this kind of metal surfaces, and she's really deft at I think, multiple media, so watercolor.

She can achieve that realism along with oil painting.

So she's got a really nice breadth of techniques with different media.

So it's quite wonderful.

What's interesting is this gallery location is right here at the exit when all the legislators are leaving so you hear people's reactions as they walk by it.

That's what I like about this space, that it's so interactive with folks.

Arts and culture has become a really important topic as far as the state goes, driving the economy of the state, the value that it brings for economic development.

And legislators are really attuned and key on this.

Having the LXS exhibit here really helps drive that home too as a reminder that art matters.

It's a critical component to economic vitality that is needed in the state.

- To learn more, visit nvartscouncil.org.

And that wraps it up for this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus."

For more arts and culture, visit wedu.org/artsplus.

Until next time, I'm Gabe Ortiz, Thanks for watching.

(upbeat dramatic music) - [Announcer] Funding for "WEDU Arts Plus" is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

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