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

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

- [Gabe] In this edition of "WEDU Arts Plus," a Tarpon Springs Company turns trash into treasure.

- Everything in here tells a story.

Someone's grandmother washed their clothes using these old ringers and someone else will walk in here and pick it up and you can see it on their face when they hold it and they say, "My grandmother had one of these."

- [Gabe] A dance about identity.

- It's really, really important, mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, auntie, uncle, see the show.

Because what I would love to happen is everybody goes home that night and then they talk about it.

- [Gabe] An inventive vocal ensemble.

- [Patrick] I don't think that we've even come close to scratching the surface of all the artistic things that we can do.

One of the really unique things about Seraphic Fire is that we don't really repeat repertoire.

- [Gabe] And handmade artisanal jewelry.

- I really like taking apart things and putting 'em back together.

I want my rings to stand the test of time.

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

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

To the untrained eye, it's old building material destined for the garbage heap.

But to the creative minds at Architectural Salvage Bank it's the beginning of a new furniture piece or work of art.

Let's head to Tarpon Springs to see how salvage materials take on new life.

(bright music) - I'm Emily Baker.

I work here at Architectural Salvage Bank and we really enjoy being here.

There are really two sides to Architectural Salvage Bank.

The first, our front area here, is a lot of really awesome antique and vintage finds.

We try to find the funkiest stuff, things you've never seen before, stuff that people say, "What exactly is that?"

That's the stuff we're looking for.

(bright music) And then on the other side of the coin, we do a lot of salvage of old houses, old buildings, and reclaimed woods so that we can create new things out of that to give it life again.

(bright music) We have a project that we're currently working on that is for a gentleman who actually gave us a bunch of wood from a sponge barn in Tarpon Springs.

Well, Tarpon Springs is one of the first, on this coast, towns that popped up and that actually had a lot of credence because we had a railroad here.

We had a railroad station because of the sponge industry.

The Greek sponge drivers came over here, and they were the first ones who were able to go out to sea.

There were sponge hookers is what they called them before.

So they had their hook boats and they would go out and grab the sponges off the bottom of the ocean.

And then the divers came in.

There's still a huge Greek presence here.

So there's a lot of culture, a lot of history here because we have a lot of old houses here.

There were a lot of places that were built right around the turn of the century.

So there's a lot of really nice old wood.

And being able to get that old wood, and reclaim it and make it into something new and beautiful is just magical.

- So this table's made from a sponge barn.

So locally sourced lumber, it was tore down and would've gone to the dump.

And our goal is to reduce what ends up in the dump.

So we take this lumber back, we de-nail it, and do a whole finishing process to turn it into beautiful pieces of furniture.

- It's a heart pine table, we call it a farm style table.

The guy called us and said, "We have a giant pile of wood if you'd like to come pick through it."

And we said, "Yes, yes please."

So we went up there, got as much as we could, floor joists, ceiling beams, all sorts of just rough raw wood.

And then we are actually making a table for the gentleman who gave us the wood.

- So I mean, really it's just what you can see in it.

And I mean a lot of this lumber, it looks distraught and destroyed and termite damaged, but it's all about just finding the pretty side and figuring out what you can do with it.

A lot of this lumber can be saved.

It just takes a lot of care, and you really have to go through and fill a bunch of holes, pull out a bunch of nails, and a lot of the times it's more work than people want to put into.

But a lot of things that are beautiful take a lot of time.

I mean, you can't make some of these things without really enjoying what you do.

And that's one of the best things about working here, is that I get to do what I enjoy every day.

(bright music) So when the customers walk in, there're just lots of "Oohs and ah's," and overwhelmed just 'cause there's so much stuff here.

- Every time I come, I start at the beginning and I walk very, very slowly all the way through.

I mean, there's something new every time.

It's artsy.

The amount of interesting things here, it is just astronomical.

- This stuff comes from everywhere.

So it used to be a lot of going to estate sales, going to auctions, that sort of thing.

But now the majority of it just walks in the front door.

We're so well established that we're the people that have the crazy stuff that if you have crazy stuff, you're gonna bring it to us to see if we want it.

- So I mean, I live here in Tarpon Springs.

I came into the store just looking around, and here's this roulette wheel.

(bright music) And I mean, of course I can't pass it up.

My son and I, we like to go to the casino, we like to play roulette.

And I just looked at it, his birthday was coming up, and I thought, "Definitely I wanna have it."

- So what we have there is a 1950s french roulette wheel and it's pretty special, pretty unique.

It only has one zero, so your odds, are better than with the one that now has three, the triple zero or whatever it is, that they get you in Vegas.

But it's a beautiful piece.

- So when I first saw it, it was just the roulette wheel itself, and it was just sitting there.

It had no stand, it had no base.

- We built a base for it, and we built a custom play table to go along with it.

So the custom play table is made from the same wood from the sponge barn as well.

- When she made the table, she made it for Casino Joe, my son is Joe.

So now we have our full casino and play land in his house - 'Cause what 26 year old doesn't need a roulette wheel?

- All of us really come from creative backgrounds.

Other than this, I'm a children's book author, Hunter's mother is a custom welder.

(bright music) Anything that we can keep and reuse is helping to protect our environment and protect mother nature for the next generation.

I have a child, I want him to have a beautiful world to live in.

So all of that is important to me and special to me.

And I love the history of old items.

Everything in here tells a story.

Someone's grandmother washed their clothes using these old ringers and someone else will walk in here, and pick it up and you can see it on their face when they hold it and they say, "My grandmother had one of these."

And it's just this moment and this connection.

It's so beautiful.

It just brings back all of these positive, wonderful memories for people.

And to be able to sit here and watch that on a daily basis, it's just such a magical feeling.

And getting to be able to see that every day from all kinds of different people and just making people leave with a smile on their face is something that's really special.

And there's nothing I would rather be doing.

(gentle music) - To see more, visit salvagebank.com.

Meet Dominic Moore Dunson, a dancer and choreographer, who created "The Black Card Project."

This dance theater production explores African American identity, culture and history.

Head to Ohio to find out more.

- In sixth grade, Mueller South, I'm sitting with the seven other black boys in my grade at the time and we're all sitting at the same lunchroom table and we're talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

And one of them says, "I wanna be in the NBA, I wanna play like LeBron."

And the other ones were, "I want to be in the NFL, I wanna be like Michael Vick."

When it was my turn to say something, I said, "Well, I want to dance in Paris, or play professional soccer in England."

And it was this deafening silence that went over the table.

And one of my friends looks at me and says, "Bruh, that ain't Black."

And all the kids started laughing.

There's this overarching feeling that well, if I don't know this about the Black culture, if I don't know this music, I'm not Black enough.

If I don't like this food, I'm not Black enough.

Sometimes I feel like I was supposed to learn how to be Black somewhere, but nobody, there's no program to learn how to be Black.

And I sat for a while and I was like, "What if there was a school?

What if there's a school where you someone learned how to be Black?"

And that's where it started.

And I was like, what if there's this weird, interesting character who's like me, but a different version of me in my head?

And what if he went through all these classes and it felt like a really weird version of "The Wizard of Oz," because you have this singular character who runs into all these different characters and learns all this stuff.

So it's the structure that we used.

Kevin Parker, when I asked him to collaborate on the show, I didn't know really what the show was yet.

I was talking to him, we went out to an Applebee's and we sat down.

I was like, "So I have this idea, I wanna talk to you about what it means to be Black."

And we started just joking, and laughing about all of these things that we knew about.

So we're at Firestone High School, which is my alma mater.

I graduated from Firestone in 2008.

It's hard to talk about how important it is to me because this moment is full circle.

At 14 years old, I was learning the foundations of what it meant to be a creator.

At the same time I was dealing with all these internal struggles of, "Well, can I dance?

Should I be dancing?

Can I play soccer?

Should I be playing soccer?"

But coming into this place was a very safe space for me to explore who I really knew I was as an artist at a such young age.

And to be 16 years later, bringing my 90 minute work, a very large work, for somebody around my age and knowing that, wow, just a couple hundred feet that way, while I was on stage, I started this process.

- I would say, I've never really seen a show quite like this.

This was completely different.

The fact that it only had two people in it doing an entire story was enough that set it aside from most things I've seen.

I guess I never really thought about a Black card, ever having a Black card, and realizing that it is a thing.

Oh, there are things that I don't know about that happen within my community.

- I would say the slight stereotypical-ness of it, it was pretty funny.

The little gangster walk, and the stereotypical clothing.

It was pretty funny.

- The problem with humor is it's actually the hardest thing to do on stage.

'Cause you have to think about your own biases as what you think is funny versus what other people think is funny.

So that's one of the first barriers Inside of this conversation, we wanted to use humor, because we wanted to pull people into our world.

And making people laugh always does that.

You want to pull people into the show, before you hit 'em with the really hard topics.

We couldn't start the show with the history section, because it's too raw and it feels too close to home.

So you invite people in by making things funny, by making them fun, playing their favorite music, and all of a sudden they're willing to go on the journey with you no matter where you take them.

And we realized that's what we needed to do.

Because I've seen a lot of modern dance shows, and often when you talk about race, the piece is very heavy, and a lot of times you'll see people who are sitting forward start to lean back, and disengage because it feels like too much for them.

So we were like, okay, well what if we did the opposite?

What if over time we got 'em to lean forward, and then they would stay there?

So it was also taking that idea of, we have these characters for these stereotypes, but what if we broke the stereotype and made you learn something about them that changed you a little bit?

CT Payne, who's the thug, he doesn't think he's funny.

He's very, very serious.

But as you saw on the show today, the kids will laugh as soon as they see him.

The part that was really difficult actually, was making sure every character had integrity.

And it wasn't my emotional feelings about that character that came out, because me and Kevin talked about, we can't be hypocrites, we can't say there's no one way to be Black.

And then say, well, the way the thug's doing it is wrong.

(gentle music) And I knew I wanted to do something that had to do with Black history, but I didn't know what.

So I was just going through clips and things like that.

And one day I had this dream that I was running and I was just like, there's a slave master running me.

There was the dog happening and all this stuff.

And then I had another dream about being in the Jim Crow South and what that felt like.

And then I had another dream right after that that was the sixties, Black Panther movement.

And then another dream that was being this Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice type character.

So the section is actually, literally a dream I had.

- All you can really hear is whippings, and getting hit with batons and all of that.

And I would say, that that is really reflectful on our history.

I feel like that was probably the part that made it most impactful was just the way they drawn in the audio with the dancing.

And I would say that all just came in and made it so powerful.

(gun blasting) - I would love for this piece to tour nationally, to tour to all these large cities, especially where there's a large African American population, and to get into the schools just like we did here.

But also the show is also built for the students, also their families.

It's really, really important, mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, auntie, uncle, see the show because what I would love to happen, is everybody goes home that night and then they talk about it.

That's the point, right?

The mission of this project is to create conversation around the narrow aspects of the Black identity and then how that relates to economic development in the Black community.

- This is living proof that you could literally do whatever you want to do.

And even though you may get hit, you may get hurt, you may get brung down a little, you'll still be you and be able to go forward to wherever you're trying to achieve.

- Today was the first performance where, I mean, I could see the audience a little bit, but it felt like 80 to 90% of the audience was the exact target audience this show is for.

And it gave me a sense of this is why we did this.

- For more information, visit inletdance.org.

Florida's Seraphic Fire is a vocal ensemble with a wide ranging repertoire that attracts attention and admiration.

From medieval to modern works, the performances are full of artistry and style.

(vocalists singing in foreign language) - Hildegard is the first known composer.

She's the first person that has her name written on a piece of music that we can trace it back to a historical person.

Everyone before her was grouped under the same title of "Anonymous."

(vocalists singing in foreign language) (instrument dings) My name is Patrick Quigley.

I am the founder and artistic director of Seraphic Fire.

This is in fact, the opening of our 18th season.

We're quite a versatile ensemble.

So we perform music from the medieval era, starting somewhere in 800 AD, but also from the baroque, classical, romantic and modern periods.

(vocalist singing in foreign language) A lot of what we do is trying to make the music sound like what the composer thought it would sound like.

We do not perform with amplification.

We're an entirely acoustic ensemble.

Whenever we are performing music that is more than say 500 years old, we have to participate in some musical archeology.

This is particularly appropriate for this concert.

Hildegard of Bingen was born at the end of the 11th century.

This piece was written probably sometime between 1140 and 1150 AD.

At eight years old, her parents committed her to religious life.

It was written for a community of women that Hildegard was the leader of, and so she was a visionary.

She had received ecstatic visions, and one of her visions was that she should take her women out of the monastery where they were sharing with a group of Benedictine monks, and move it to the ruins of an older monastery.

This piece, we think was written, for the dedication of that new monastery.

(vocalists singing in foreign language) It's written in a style and in a musical language that we don't have the key to anymore.

We know the notes that she wrote, and we know the order that they come in, and we know the words that were underneath them, but everything else is something that we've had to reconstruct.

Hildegard only wrote one line of music.

At the time that Hildegard was writing, we hadn't actually gotten to the point where we had multiple lines of music being written on top of each other.

The vocal quality of women singing in unison creates this otherworldly sound particularly when all of them are singing the exact same notes at the same time, which is very difficult.

(vocalists singing in foreign language) The story is about a woman who is trying to choose between a life of the world and a life with the virtues who are in a more celestial realm.

It's remarkable because it's so high.

It's a very, very high piece of music.

And it's in a different mode.

At the time that Hildegard was composing we didn't have keys in the way that we had C Major, C minor, D major, D minor.

They only had the white keys on the piano (vocalists singing in foreign language) Sing into the interesting things about your line.

I don't think that we've even come close to scratching the surface of all the artistic things that we can do.

One of the really unique things about Seraphic Fire is that we don't really repeat repertoire.

In this performance, one of the reasons that we're doing it is not only because it's a great piece of music, but it's performed so seldomly that we hope that our performance and our recording of it will be something that will encourage other people to take this on as a project.

And it shows just how much the contribution of women to music was being made even in the 12th century.

(audience applauding) - Discover more at seraphicfire.org.

Up next, travel to Reno, Nevada, to meet jewelry artist and goldsmith, Micah Blank.

From an idea to a finished work of art, get a firsthand look at how his sustainable fine jewelry is made and learn the artistry behind his designs.

(gentle music) - My name is Micah Blank and I create jewelry.

I make all of my jewelry in the old post office in downtown Reno in the basement.

I got started in jewelry because I wanted to wear jewelry and I couldn't ever find jewelry that I liked so I decided that I had to make my own jewelry.

I really like gold jewelry, but I like it to be particular, and look a certain way.

I like signet style rings and I like bigger, heavier pieces.

I like to use a lot of diamonds and 18 karat gold.

I would consider it to be more of a fine jewelry but I also like it to be just very basic and minimalist and simplistic.

I make necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings.

I really like to make engagement rings.

I love diamonds, so when people want an engagement ring, I get excited, because it's just a statement piece and I love it.

Usually I start with the stone.

So I'm building a design around a center stone, so depending on the shape, I create the lines of it.

And so it's gonna fit with the shape of the stone.

When I sit down to create a piece of metal, I usually melt the metal in some kind of a crucible or just some a form so that I can get a basic shape of the melted metal.

And then from there I will draw it into wire or hammer it into a shape that I need.

I really like working with the metal.

It's very pleasing to see the stretch out and become something out of just this lump of gold that I melted down.

I try to keep in mind dimensions and proportions of the actual jewelry itself.

I don't want to make a ring too heavy so that the stone looks smaller and I don't wanna make it too small, too thin, so it's flimsy.

I try to keep in mind structural integrity and things like that.

(gentle music) Sometimes people will bring in an heirloom piece of jewelry that they received from a relative, whether it be their mother or their grandmother.

And the style is a bit outdated, and they just want something using those stones.

They want it to be a bit more, current or something unique to them.

And so from there we'll just discuss what they want and then we'll take all the stones out and melt the gold down and start making a really, really interesting ring using metal and stones they already have.

(gentle music) I think it's really important to repurpose jewelry and things that we have, repurposing anything.

So if we can use diamonds that have already, and we can use recycled gold I think that's very important in the process.

You wanna make sure that you are buying something that the person was paid a fair wage to find this gemstone.

And I think everyone should wanna make sure that their hands are clean so to say when they buy their jewelry.

I think the most gratifying part to me is the finished piece.

Because I know where it started.

I know that it started with just a wire or just a wire and some stones on my bench.

And then I get to see it evolve into this actual...

It starts to look like a ring and then when you polish it or clean it up then it starts to look like... And then you see the finished piece coming out.

Every time I make a piece of jewelry I'm just like, "Oh, this is nice."

(gentle music) - Check out more of Blank's designs on Facebook and Instagram at Micah Blank Jewelry.

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.

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

(bright music)