- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS.

Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Female Announcer] Funding for WEDU Arts Plus is provided by the Community Foundation, Tampa Bay.

- [Dalia] In this edition of WEDU Arts Plus, a local school administrator embraces his own extracurricular activity.

- 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, but it's satisfying.

It's a work that I can express myself and tell stories and give back.

- [Dalia] An all female musical trio.

- [Kimberly] When you sing with people that you connect with on such on a level like this, it's like you're giving a part of your soul to your audience.

- [Dalia] An artistic transformation.

- [Mark] You get such great satisfaction when you're in a deteriorating alley and you spend the morning making it into a beautiful art gallery.

- [Dalia] And an impressionistic landscape painter.

- [Jane] We all Choose different ways to express our creativity.

And this just happens to be mine.

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

(bright piano music) Hello, I'm Dalia Colon and this is WEDU Arts Plus.

Booker High School in Sarasota is home to a visual and performing arts magnet program that attracts talented teens from throughout the region.

But the students aren't the only ones looking to express themselves.

Meet Booker assistant principal, Greg Rumph.

- [Greg] 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.

(mellow bass music) I am Greg Rumph.

I am an assistant principal at Booker High School over the visual and performer arts department.

And I'm also a artist.

It's 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 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.

For the Nina Simone piece, it's a mixed media piece.

It's mainly color 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 color pencils to pick up which will make skin look like skin.

- [Tenia] 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.

- [Greg] 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 into a career.

I graduated from Ringling College of Art and 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 twenty two, twenty three 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 buy 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 piano 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, four 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 I also have a five-year-old, but if I don't have anything going on I try to draw a paint every other day.

- [Tenia] Oh, he'll stay up to two, three 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.

(upbeat piano music) - [Greg] 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.

(slow jazz 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.

- [Greg] 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.

"Hey, no, do 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.

(slow jazz music) It's 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.

(soft piano music) - [Dalia] You can see more of Greg Rumph's artwork on Instagram at Rumphg.

He's also on Facebook at GrumphII.

Meet the WhiskeyBelles, a musical trio from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

These talented women blend country, bluegrass, Americana, and folk to create their own memorable sound.

- [Kimberly] How's everybody doing today?

- We are the WhiskeyBelles.

(audience cheers) We're from Milwaukee.

This is called "Borrowed Trouble" (country music begins) ♪ I've been diggin' this hole all day long ♪ ♪ Knee deep in love but I'm movin' on ♪ - [Chrissy] So it all started about 10 years ago.

And then this arrangement has been around for eight years.

- [Kimberly] WhiskeyBelles just kind of had this ring to it and it kind of stuck.

(fiddle music plays) My name is Kimberly Unger.

I play fiddle in the WhiskeyBelles.

My role is I'm basically the only soloist in the band.

So I would take what normally would be a guitar solo and play it on fiddle.

(upbeat fiddle music) ♪ Sweet as pie ♪ - [Sara] My name is Sara Moilanen and I play bass in the WhiskeyBelles.

I kind of play it in more of a bluegrass style and it sort of lays down the bass rhythm, 'cause we don't have a drummer.

So, Chrissy and I have to make the rhythm happen.

♪ The sweetest pie ♪ ♪ Her smile sincere, but through her eyes ♪ ♪ You see the fear of finding love ♪ ♪ That in the end will only leads to tragedy ♪ - [Chrissy] My name is Chrissy.

I play guitar in the WhiskeyBelles.

♪ The cheating kind ♪ It acts as rhythm instrument.

I think I play it a little more percussively than most acoustic guitar players.

And so, like Sara said, it replaces the drummer.

Well, we got our sound from Trio, which is Dolly Parton, Linda Rondstadt, Emmylou Harris.

So we started off learning that album and kind of figured out where our sound was.

But again, that was 10 years ago.

So we've definitely evolved from there.

♪ She's looking real good ♪ ♪ In those cowboy boots ♪ - [Sara] I guess you would categorize us as like Americana slash bluegrass slash traditional country.

- We really, I mean, we do everything from Dolly Parton to Beyonce.

- Yeah!

(laughs) - You know, and it's just, it really kind of depends on what speaks to us and you know, "I think this would be a really fun thing to try."

♪ California ♪ ♪ Your city blew of wind and ice ♪ - We kind of take our own personal take on the songs that we play.

Like we don't play them like a traditional... - [Chrissy] Cover band.

- ...cover band does.

We kind of Whiskeybelle-ify it, you know?

We make it our own.

- And country's such a dirty word too.

- I know!

- It is!

- Like, I don't even like to say I like country.

I like good music.

- [Sara] I like good music, yeah.

♪ Knock knock knocking us down ♪ ♪ Turn it around ♪ - Okay, so where do you wanna start?

- Let's do the whole song.

- Okay.

- One, two, three, four.

(bluegrass music starts) - [Chrissy] Usually we come with an idea or a song already written, and then we play it and then it develops from there.

So, then we create the arrangement around that to really fit the three of us.

- And I think that holds true for every song that we do.

Whether it's an original song or a cover song.

- [Sara] Right, and most of the time we're adapting songs that don't have three part harmony, into three part harmony.

So it's fun to try and, you know, make all three of our voices work together on stuff that you wouldn't normally hear it on.

- And that's the best part.

Arranging and being creative with whether it's our songs or something that you hear on the radio.

♪ I'll take you out and we'll have a ball ♪ ♪ I'll take your woman in a barroom brawl ♪ ♪ And drink the bottom out of this old world ♪ - It wasn't until that I played with the WhiskeyBelles where people just stop and they're like, "Three women all playing their instruments and all singing, and all just being these powerhouses?"

So, it's a lot more fun than solo shows.

- [Kimberly] My favorite thing about playing out with these ladies is that we can just do a song acapella with it's just our voices.

And I don't think people realize that it's really us singing at times.

And we just work that hard on our harmonies where, you know, it's tight.

And so when we stop and just play acapella and sing, yeah.

It's just, it's neat ♪ A friend ♪ ♪ Of mine ♪ (Country music begins) When you see us smiling on stage, it's genuine.

Like, there's no other place we'd rather be.

We love to perform.

And that is, I think it transcends onto our audience and they really can feel that joy and that energy.

A lot of people, "Oh, I don't really like country but I really like what you guys do."

That to me says that we're doing a really great job at what we do.

♪ Dust is gonna fly, up a head or behind ♪ When you sing with people that you connect with on such a level like this, it's like you're giving a part of your soul to your audience and it's a very vulnerable place to be.

But it's so rewarding on so many levels.

And to call these ladies my friends on top of that, it really is amazing.

We've just spent so much time together.

It brings us a lot of joy.

And again, I think that people see that when they come and see us play.

- [Chrissy] We were friends first.

So, friends first, and then we became a band.

(country music ends) (audience cheers) - [Dalia] To hear more of their music, visit whiskeybelles.com.

For art group, The Big Picture Denver, the street is their canvas.

Using the age old technique of wheat pasting, they enliven the streets of Denver, Colorado with powerful photographs.

(bright electronic music) - [Mark] To me, there's an important story here that is stepping outside of the white box gallery museum.

And it's bringing art into the public domain, to where people who wouldn't necessarily go to bourgeois art openings here, they're just free to come across it and look at it.

And it's a whole different concept being out in an open space and architecturally than being enclosed in the white institution.

That has been a great joy.

This good action shot here.

Wheat paste flying by the master himself.

My name is Mark Sink, the director of The Big Picture Denver.

We're here today at the Temple Artist Haven that has asked us to do this wall with our big picture project.

I'm marking so you know where your wheat paste goes.

The Big Picture Project is a international street art exchange of artists from over 50 cities around the world.

We bring in work from those cities and we send our work to be wheat pasted in the streets of those cities.

That's part of the whole philosophy of bringing the world closer together through photography.

If you make it too thick, it does not absorb into the paper.

If you make it too thin, it just slides and drips off the walls.

Wheat pasting is a form of glue that is flour, water, sugar.

They've been using it since the Roman times.

(drill whirs) - [Dale] Well, it's like when I was a kid way back in the year one, and you slap it on the wall with rollers and brushes and stuff, and then paste the picture.

- [Mark] Today, we're gonna keep adding to this collaging.

We'll start rolling out and making a selection to see what pieces talk to each other.

- [Amaury] What catches my eyes the most is the portraits.

Whenever I'm wheat pasting, I just love big portraits that are really close up.

- [Dale] You try to hang something that's really eye-catching on the end.

Because people would come down there and then suddenly they see this picture and they do stop and come on in and look at the rest of them.

- Oh my goodness.

These are great.

- [Mark] The more an image tells you a story or talks to you, I find the more I'm interested in including it.

There's a lot of different families in street art, and wall art, and graffiti, the wheat paste street art.

It's a very separate family.

It's a very ephemeral.

It doesn't destroy anything.

You can take it off just with a pressure washer.

It's always changing.

Some of the beauty is when the older starts to crack and curl and there's age and color innovation in it.

- I feel a big sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when we see just a finished wall.

Or even just coming back to an old wall and touching it up, It's like, "Oh, this looks great."

- [Mark] And it's what the whole wall art and street art phenomenon is.

You get such great satisfaction when you're in a deteriorating alley and you spend the morning making it into a beautiful art gallery.

I like flying that Colorado flag high that we have a incredible creative community here.

My keyword is community, community, community.

And that's what we're doing.

We're outreaching with the community.

- [Dalia] Check out more of their work at instagram.com/the-_big-_picture-_colo with underscores.

Meet painter Jane Lovekin, Based in Truckee, California, the artist renders colorful, impressionistic, landscape oil paintings that evoke her surroundings.

(bright keyboard music) - [Jane] We all choose different ways to express our creativity.

And this just happens to be mine.

(bright ambient music) Through my life, whenever I got involved with any type of creative work, I was just on fire with it.

As the years went on, and I went from being a landscape architect to then transitioning into an artist, there was always that creative thread that came through everything.

When I look at a painting and when I look at a landscape architectural project, I'm composing it.

I think about a person's experience when they enter a place, what they are going to see, the colors that are going to greet them, let's say.

And in a painting, I can direct a person's eye so that there's enough going on that catches their attention at a distance.

But then it's fun for them then to step closer to become engaged with the details, become engaged with the brush strokes and the movement of the painting.

I have these feelings about painting and it is the greatest challenge I have ever come up against.

I went to college, I became a landscape architect.

I did my apprenticeship.

I worked for people.

I did that for 20, 25 years.

And yeah, there were moments that were tough, but there is nothing as personally challenging as standing in front of a blank canvas with a brush in your hand and piles of paint that you then have to express what's deep down inside.

I'm drawn to the artists that I see that have really clean, intense colors, that vibrate, that are uplifting, that make you happy when you look at the painting.

A lot of light, a lot of levity.

The inspiration I get from living here in Truckee, you know, has to do with the texture of the forest, the blue, the incredible turquoise blue of Lake Tahoe, the mountains, the summits, the snow.

I mean, there's a lot of color in the natural landscape and the beauty is overwhelming.

I just walk out my door and I get hit in the head with beauty.

Every day I'm out seeing what's out in the landscape and I always have a camera with me.

That's number one.

And I usually always have a sketchbook with me.

That's number two.

I'll go to a scene, I'll shoot it, and then I might sketch certain things that I'm drawn to.

There's usually got to be something that's triggering you, that's calling to you, and I could not help myself but paint it.

It's all about composition.

If everything were symmetrical, and straightforward, and perfectly balanced, there would be no place for the person to go.

Whereas if we have a weaving path, and we have a larger mass slightly to one side than the other, but then maybe some brightness or a focal point back on the horizon.

That gives a person a journey in the painting.

I'd like it to fill them with what they need, whether that's hope, whether that's happiness, joy, or it sparks a feeling, it sparks a memory, an experience that maybe they've had.

And so then there's a connection that's made and that's a beautiful thing.

- [Dalia] Discover more at luftkinart.com.

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 Dalia Colon.

Thanks for watching.

(intense drum music) - [Female Announcer] Funding for WEDU Arts Plus is provided by the Community Foundation Tampa bay.

(bright choral music)