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

- [Dalia] Funding for WEDU Arts Plus is provided by the Community Foundation Tampa bay.

In this edition of WEDU Arts Plus, a young artist draws anime influenced digital and traditional art.

- [Victoria] My interest in Japanese culture first sparked when I watched my very first anime, it was Sailor Moon.

- [Dalia] Training the next generation of museum guides.

- [Jennifer] It's really building their skills and confidence to be able to go into the museum and relate to works of art, explain works of art.

- [Dalia] An illustrator inspired by historic houses.

- [David] I'm fascinated with buildings from a certain era, at least in this country.

Late 1800s to the turn of the century, to say the 1930s.

- [Dalia] And the barber's craft.

- Creating shapes on somebody's, you know, face to enhance the way that they look is definitely an art form.

It makes 'em feel really good, 'cuz it's their persona, it's how they look.

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

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

For 13 year old Victoria Reyes, growing up with two active duty military parents meant a lot of time away from them.

At a very young age, Victoria began to use art as an escape, drawing anime-influenced digital pieces on her tablet.

Today the young artist is learning how to apply her skills in digital art to painting traditional works of fine art.

(chimes ringing) (soaring ambient music) - My name is Victoria Reyes, and I am a digital artist.

I started art in preschool with crayons and drawing on paper.

- Like most kids, Victoria's interest in art was immediate, through the scribbles of young people.

Victoria was about four years old when I noticed that her art started advancing at a accelerated rate.

- [Victoria] My dad got me an iPad and that's when it started to kick off, and I started to practice by going on YouTube.

Around the age of seven and eight.

I started to get really serious about my art.

- One of her drawings in her room was actually taking shape a lot better than I would draw at the age of 30, (laughs) whatever it was.

(soft synth music) - [Victoria] My interest in Japanese culture first sparked when I watched my very first anime in 2016, it was Sailor Moon.

And then I just got very into anime.

And then at some point I started to do research on Japanese culture.

Then I got into the food and its history, and that's how it all started.

- Myself and my wife are a dual military couple.

Due to the needs of the military and the timeframe that we served, there was always a war going on, there was always training going on for the next deployment to support the ongoing war.

And there was also missions that Maxine had to deal with.

So all throughout that phase, there was always someone gone for the first, maybe like 10 years of her life.

- There's definitely a lot of moving involved and going into different schools, making new friends, and also having to leave a lot of friends.

- [Kenneth] Being away from both of your parents at such a young age, you can imagine the stress.

- I would play music that would match how I was feeling, and draw whatever I was feeling in the moment.

And it would help me escape from what was happening.

- That span frame is when her art really took root, when she starts comforting herself as a self-soothing tool.

She would express herself through her art.

- Other stuff that have influenced my art style is watching other people make their art, seeing other people post about their art.

I always like to experiment and try out their art style.

I think that all kind of mixes up together, and that's how I draw now.

(playful jazz music) - [Kenneth] Something that I think is unique about Victoria's art in particular, a lot of her female characters are always strong women, and they're definitely not drawn as a woman in distress.

There's always a woman in a powerful position.

My wife really pushes Victoria out of her comfort zone of just being quiet and reserved, and placing her in situations where she has to talk about her art.

She's also encouraged Victoria to move in different types of mediums of art, like paint, oils.

- Like you see the shadows that's going on right here?

You can block it out and actually, you can take like a pencil, just sorta real, just block it out.

You don't have to do the sketchy thing or anything like that, but.

Well, the way I came about mentoring Victoria was through an event that took place at the Epicurean Hotel.

It was a art show and she was actually the youngest artist that was there.

- Meeting Mr. Anderson at the art show was really cool, because his art was very impressive.

And I think it was awesome that I got to collaborate with him.

- I'm always looking to collab with other artists, and most of the artists that I work with tend to be around the same age, and I never collabed with a younger artist.

And I really wasn't looking at her necessarily as a mentor, I was looking at her as just a fellow artist, and how great that would be to combine her anime style along with the type of art that I do.

I work with traditional oils and paint.

So the challenge was, how can we combine that?

So stepping outside of her comfort zone, she decided to do some work with acrylics and a paint brush.

- Doing traditional art is very, it's a bit uncomfortable and very foreign to me because I'm always with digital, and I'm free to make mistakes and I can undo and erase everything, and there won't be any evidence of it.

But once I do traditional art, I have to be very careful.

- [Noland] A part of growth is stepping outside of your zone trying different techniques, different things, different mediums.

We're creating this piece right here.

It's anime themed, but doing it with traditional paint.

- I've noticed Victoria's growth as an artist to be very exponential.

- I started a merchandising company and it's called Blossom.

I am excited about seeing children, teens, hopefully, wearing my merchandise in the future.

- What I'm looking forward to most with Victoria's work is seeing her trying different art styles and seeing what comes of that.

I mean, it may be a combination of digital art along with traditional art, you know, cut and paste.

- For my future.

I love doing art, but I am very interested in becoming an animator or doing something for movies.

(soft pop music) ♪ Oh, yeah ♪ (soft piano music) - For more information, visit victoriareyes.com.

At the Milwaukee Art Museum, young visitors can get a special kind of art education.

Through the Junior Docent School Program, students get the opportunity to gain new skills and develop meaningful connections with the visual arts.

(light ambient music) - [Sarah] Art belongs to everyone, and everyone should experience it.

And there is some bit of joy that can happen between you personally, and an experience at the art museum.

- [Dalia] The Milwaukee Art Museum is Wisconsin's largest art museum.

There are more than 30,000 artworks in the museum's collection, ranging from classic pieces from ancient times to modern contemporary art.

- Our mission is to display and conserve works of art, but also to interpret and educate.

That's as much a part of our mission as anything else.

The Junior Docent Program is our signature school program, which is a three year program, third to fifth grade.

And it's an opportunity for kids to really get to know the museum, to have a sense of ownership in the museum, to begin with a very positive experience, to begin to learn how to talk about works of art and be comfortable doing that.

- It started with just four schools, and currently we have 53 schools represented.

And it's a three year commitment for schools and teachers.

Each year from third grade, fourth grade and fifth grade, the students come on three field trips per year, and in their final year they complete a research project based on a favorite piece of artwork from the collection.

- On a typical tour, the students arrive at the student entrance, and are greeted by the docent that will be taking them on their tour.

- [Dalia] A docent is a trained volunteer who leads visitors of all ages on group tours through a museum's galleries.

- This is the Milwaukee Art Museum, and it's just a beautiful place, isn't it?

- [Grace] Then we talk about what tour they're going to be taking.

- Well, today we're going to do a big overview, where it's called antiquities to contemporary.

- [Grace] Then we jump into the galleries, and usually the children would see eight to 10 pieces.

- In the Junior Docent Program in the third grade, we begin by having kids explore works of art and learn about them through their senses.

- [Sarah] In the fourth grade years, students learn a little bit about portraiture and how that ties into history.

And it ends with community traditions where all students, no matter where they come from or what their background is, can find a personal connection in the collection.

- [Dalia] In their final year, fifth graders experience four tours at the museum to extend their learning.

- Especially with the Junior Docent, we also want to take time at each art piece to talk about the artist and the title, and when the piece was acquired, and different things that they're going to need to learn for down the road.

- We have these wonderful people that are willing to give their time and teach off these objects, make them come alive.

- [Sarah] The idea of the tour is to help students remember all of the pieces of artwork that they've seen over the last three years in their visits here, and really choose one that resonates with them personally.

- [Dalia] Once a student selects an art piece to focus on, he or she will spend more quality time with that chosen artwork during study and sketch.

(light ambient music) - Every like picture has a different story to it.

And that's why like the artists made it look like that.

And I just like learning, it's really fun.

- We have kids of all different languages, all different backgrounds.

It's wonderful when a child that does not really speak the language sits down with that pencil and paper and starts drawing, and you see that connection between that child and that piece of work, and words don't matter at all.

- I really think it's important for everybody to feel welcome in this space.

I know a lot of people think of art museums as a very elitist kind of environment.

I'll tell you when you see the kids laying on the floor, copying an artwork, you realize how important it is to have that community integration.

- The students really enjoy being part of the Junior Docent Program.

It's really building their skills and confidence to be able to go into the museum and relate to works of art, explain works of art, really transfer the things that they're learning inside the classroom, to be able to go in and understand how other people communicate through artwork.

- So fifth graders get to do a capstone project where they get to pick their very favorite piece that they want to, first of all recreate, and then also that they want to research enough to be able to be a docent explaining that piece of artwork.

- I like flowers and I wanted to know why the artist choose kind of sad colors.

- [Dalia] After spending three years investigating, connecting with and recreating art, the final tour is the graduation ceremony, where the students earn the title of Junior Docent.

- They bring their work of art and they present it and the real work of art to their friends and family.

- They come just really fired up to talk about what they've done and what they've learned.

- My artist's name is Kees van Dongen.

One of his favorite paintings that he made was Woman with Cat, which is the painting that I copied.

I like this painting because when I look at it, I feel confident and relaxed.

When I look at the colors, they tell me to be brave and be confident.

I think that art is a challenging subject for me, but art can be interpreted differently by other people.

- [Brigid] Parents get to pin the docent pin on their student at the graduation ceremony.

Many of the parents are very grateful and impressed by how well their students deliver a presentation, how the program develops their public speaking skills, and how well they are able to connect with the piece of artwork.

- Everything about the whole art program was fabulous and absolute greatness, I liked it.

Seemed a little nervous.

A lot of the kids didn't know much.

That's a good thing, it was a beautiful thing.

So, proud of all the kids.

- These students get so excited and learn so much and are able to share that with other people that, yeah, it's why I get up and do my job.

- I think they learned about not only the works of art, they learned about what museums do, how they do it, why they do it.

and they can perform for their parents.

That was the most exciting for me.

That was my treat.

Then I knew we had done something good.

- [Brigid] This program, it gives the students that freedom to walk in these rooms and feel at home.

And I would want that for every person in Milwaukee.

Congratulations, 43rd Junior Docent class for the Milwaukee Art Museum.

(audience applauding) - To learn more about this program, head to mam.org.

For artist David Hinchen, historic houses ignite his creativity.

Rendering architectural marvels from New York's Hudson Valley to Boston, Massachusetts, he sees the value in their design.

(airy ambient music) - I'm fascinated with buildings from a certain era, at least in this country, late 1800s to the turn of the century to, say the 1930s, pre-war buildings.

Just the craftsmanship and the role that they played in beautifying and making communities unique and special.

People took great pride in building them, and creating downtowns, creating cities.

They were a source of community pride that doesn't exist in the same way today.

(soft guitar music) I've always drawn since I was a kid, and I came from a family of artists.

My grandmother and mother were both artists, and we had a close family friend, Elden Rowland, who spent summers with us at Cape Cod.

And every summer he had a different technique that he'd be trying out, and we'd all join in.

He encouraged the kids, me especially, to be involved.

So it was just kind of a natural part of my family's life.

I never thought I'd do it for a career, but things happen.

Being an artist, you either win the lottery or you struggle.

There's very few artists in between that are working middle-class artists that make a living.

So it was kind of instilled in me at a young age that it wasn't something that I would do for career.

So I went to school, I studied political science and philosophy, and then I went to graduate school and was working on my PhD, probably to become a college professor.

But I was living in New York City and going to Columbia at the time.

And I started doing artwork as a part-time job.

I was sick of being a waiter, and I thought, well, I have this ability.

And I marketed it.

And I did a lot of work for local realtors, and developers, and things like that, mainly pen and ink.

For years I did nothing but pen and ink drawings.

And then I started thinking, well, kind of the next step is to start painting.

Selling and the business side of it has always interest me.

And I think that that's been a key to being able to make a living as an artist.

The majority of my business is commissioned artwork.

I do a lot of paintings of historic houses, throughout the Hudson valley, Westchester County, the New York Metro area.

Also the Boston area, I do a lot of work there.

Painting the scenes of Albany and local scenes is more of the side business.

I never planned on moving to Albany.

But when I did, I was really taken by, for such a small city, a state capital, how monumental it was, architecturally, and from a pretty wide period of time.

There was some really great examples from various different periods.

Living in Albany, I drive and walk around the city on a daily basis.

So I can appreciate things from different angles, different lights, different seasons, and different just I get different takes on a certain subject.

And a lot of times it's not just a particular building, it is a streetscape, it is the proximity of one building to another and how they relate to each other.

Occasionally, I'll do a period piece.

I recently did a painting of the Albany waterfront before 787, and it showed the lagoon with the Albany Yacht Club, and just the New York Central Railroad Bridge.

And that was a whole different setting, and I used old photographs from the 1930s.

As I said earlier, it was more happenstance that I ended up in Albany, but something kind of unexpected happened once I was here.

And living in a community of this size and being involved in local organizations gave me an opportunity to really become part of a community in a way that I never had before and connect with other artists, and connect with customers too.

(light pop rock music) People often look at my artwork and they're impressed by how I make all Albany look, or the Capital region look.

They say, you make it look so beautiful, as if I've enhanced it.

Well, maybe I've enhanced the setting, but that's the reality that I see, and people respond.

And some people that aren't particularly familiar with the Capital steps or downtown Albany views, and they might not right off the bat, recognize the scene and ask me, you know, where in Europe that is, and something like that.

And then I tell them where it is and they pause, And I think for a moment they may realize that we have some really great beauty and some wonderful architectural legacy right here that a lot of people don't fully appreciate.

- To see more of his work, check out davidhinchen.com.

When cutting hair and styling facial hair, barbers often become artists.

In this segment, we visit a Reno, Nevada barbershop to find out more about this art form.

(upbeat electronic music) - People like to express themselves in many different ways, maybe that's like the way they dress, but I think hair and facial hair is extremely important in the way that somebody can artistically express themselves.

for a lot of guys.

I think it's a sense of pride.

Being able to grow a beard and being able to express your masculinity the way you want, I think is really a great thing.

I think barbers are really great visual artists, you know, we create things that people see.

And creating shapes on somebody's, you know, face to enhance the way that they look is definitely an art form.

It makes them feel really good, 'cuz it's their persona, it's how they look.

My name is Vincent Gravallese, I'm the owner, Master Barber of Derby Supply Company barbershop.

(upbeat jazz music) So we are a barbershop, as well as a kind of a social club.

So we have a full liquor license, we do serve few different cocktails, beers and spirits, as well as we are a full service barbershop, old school shaves, haircuts, beard trims, et cetera.

Just having a professional to be able to accurately look at your face shape and determine the shape that's going to work, you know, the beard, the mustache, goatee.

And I think it's really important to have a professional consult on what look is best for you.

I mean, everybody has a different face shape, and you wanna make them look the best they possibly can.

And so going in and using some of the techniques that we are trained in school, as well as post-education, I think is super important.

So usually when somebody comes in, I have them sit down, I'll start talking to them.

The consultation is like super important, kinda going through and figuring out, you know, what they're comfortable with, what they're not.

And then as far as the trim goes, I mean, the first thing I like to do is lay in a basic outline and shape.

So coming in, you know, like through the sides and making sure that the profile's right.

I'm a very visual artist in general.

And so when I'm working, I like to see things come to life.

That's why I start with the outline first so that the client and I can both see it.

I mean, most barbers generally work away from the mirror, it's kind of a tradition.

When I'm doing beard trims I like to work in the mirror because somebody's looking at the way they look, that's gonna mean a whole lot more than just my professional opinion.

So we work together where it's, you know, my professional opinion, skill and art, and then obviously what they see.

(gentle guitar music) There is nothing that feels better than like, having a client look in the mirror and seeing them smile, and like, you can tell that they really like the service that you provided for them.

I mean, I see 10 to 20 people a day and, you know, to make somebody's day, you know, to feel that emotion 10 to 20 times a day, I mean, it's a special thing, it's really great.

I really enjoy being a barber and styling hair.

I mean, I think that being part of an age-old tradition and doing something that my family did, I'm very proud of that.

And I think that it's a great career, and you know, it's a great way to be an artist.

I mean, there's multiple ways to be an artist, and I think it's a great way to do it.

- Discover more by heading to derbysupplyco.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.

(dramatic orchestral music) Funding for WEDU Arts Plus is provided by the Community Foundation Tampa bay.

(pleasant string music)