[jazzy upbeat music] - In this edition of WLIW Arts Beat, an orchestral conductor.

- [Lina] This is a place where I can feel more comfortable.

And it's in the place that I can share to everyone who I am.

Music is who I am.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] A full scale replica of a historic ship.

- It is a symbol.

For someone that has direct family ties to that ship, it may mean one thing.

For an indigenous person, it may have another meaning.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] Ernest Hemingway's home.

- [Alexa] When visitors come and enjoy the property they're already taking a step in time, because we've tried our best to preserve when he was here in the 1930s.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] The power of fashion design.

- I think a lot of people don't necessarily think that teaching someone sewing is a form of activism, but it can give you a skill to become something different.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] It's all ahead on this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Welcome to WLIW Arts Beat.

I'm Diane Masciale.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] Lina Gonzalez-Granados is a conductor of both national and international acclaim.

With passion and expertise, she interprets music from all over the world that spans centuries.

We head to Santa Fe, New Mexico to hear more from the artist.

[mellow piano music] - [Alicia] I'm so happy you came.

- Oh, thank you for having me here.

I feel so welcome in the city.

- [Alicia] I wanted to show you a painting by William Penhallow Henderson.

He's one of the most renowned painters here in Santa Fe, in the 20th century.

- It fascinates me the way that he uses colors, and especially the yellow.

It gives me energy.

So energetic.

- He's very vibrant.

- Yes.

Vibrant.

That's a really good word to put in.

- [Lina] I want to share with people music from all around the world.

- So why across the world?

- Well, I think that music knows no geographical boundaries.

It's a universal language that everybody can understand.

So through music, we can be ambassadors of our own cultures and build bridges of understanding.

- Have you faced challenges as a female conductor?

- I have to say that, challenges never arise when you are on the podium.

There is no time when you go up and down to think about biases.

But yes, I have to say that I have faced different challenges, and they come under as different as, stereotypes come.

Each person who poses a challenge to me, has their own part of the story.

And that's a linear path.

It doesn't define me.

So I just go and try to do my best.

And if they like it, it's okay.

And if they're not, we move on.

All the challenges arise of people's own risks, aversions, and also their own insecurities, not mine.

- What is music to you?

If, if you were to really talk about it, from within, in your bones and your person, what does it feel like to you?

- It's my safe space, basically.

It's the place where I can feel more, more comfortable and it's in the place that I can share to everyone who I am.

It's, music it's who I am.

And I am, music chose me, I chose music and I just, I am music.

- When did you feel like music said, "Lina, I choose you."

- I remember when I was 5-years-old, my grandfather showed me an album of Beethoven five and I remember feeling absolutely overwhelmed by emotion with something that I didn't know.

I was scared.

I didn't know why I was scared.

I was completely moved to tears.

And from that point on, I just knew that this was something that I needed to pursue.

I always wanted to be a doctor.

Also, my parents are doctors.

But one day I decided to be brave and say, okay, this is where I feel more comfortable.

And, that was it.

The day that I decided to be brave, that's when I said music is mine.

- What kinds of emotions are you talking about?

- All of them.

I think the, the, the biggest composers in the world have been able to portray human character into pieces, into notes.

So for example, Beethoven, being deaf and being able to be grateful for humanity and nature and composing the Sixth Symphony.

Just gratefulness into pieces that, that nurture me.

So I feel that I can be grateful.

I feel that I can be courageous.

I feel that I can be generous.

Can feel forceful, proud, scary.

So all of the spectrum of emotions, and all of them really extreme, so you can really connect into a deeper level of understanding of the music.

So I have to make a lot of explorations into myself.

- So you are there to bring that out of your orchestra, to really cull that from them.

And... - Yes, exactly.

Because notes only exist when they just happen.

I mean, so I just have to be absolutely creative.

- Do you have words of advice to encourage other women who want to be in music, maybe like you, who haven't taken that step to be brave?

Like you said.

- The fact that you're a woman in this time of age is an act of bravery, if you want to pursue your dreams.

So, in that order of ideas, I say that you are not alone.

That's the most important one.

You need to seek for help and never be afraid to say I need help to fulfill my dreams.

Someone will hear you.

I think that's the most important one.

The second one is that I think everybody has something unique to bring to the table.

So you cannot walk the same path as other people.

So either you choose to be a shadow of someone or just bring your own light and write your own path.

So just don't compare yourself to others and be patient to yourself.

- That's great advice.

[laughing] - Thank you.

I have to, I have to actually tell that every day to myself, like be patient.

You're doing what it needs to be doing.

And always the other one is be generous.

It's in the same order of ideas of, don't be, you're not alone in this.

So you have to share with people who are behind you, looking for the opportunity.

It's not, you don't have to shine for yourself to be successful as a woman.

If I can leave this world having inspired some other women conductors from Latin American, help them, helping them, I would make my mark into the world, even more than actually conducting.

- So you are here in Santa Fe representing the Pro Musica Women's Distinction Initiative.

Why is female presence in leadership in the arts so important right now?

- It is important right now because before we were never part of the conversation.

The unique perspective of conductors, and female conductors, is that leadership happens in real time.

So there's no point of discussion of how to, how to challenge the leadership.

So in that sense, that's why I think women have been pushed back at the beginning of history of music.

But, nowadays the conversation of having equality is going so fast, that we cannot, like we cannot resign, and we cannot lose the opportunity to come back to the 21st century as classical musician.

Even if we are performing sometimes works that are 400-years-old.

So in general, having that leadership happening in real time, it's really indispensable.

And we need female figures everywhere.

I mean, and I say female figures, I should, I yearn from the day that we just call it conductors.

But until that moment, female scientists, female conductors, women in distinction with women in leadership roles, are important.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] For more information, go to linagonzalezgranados.com.

And now the artist quote of the week.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] Up next, we travel to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to see Mayflower II.

A full-scale replica of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America.

For three years, a skilled team of shipwrights and artisans, worked to bring the ship back to life.

Take a look.

- [Jared] In Plymouth Harbor, Mayflower II is the embodiment of promise.

A full-scale replica of the ship that delivered pilgrims to American shores, where they expected to establish religious freedom.

- [Richard] It was a Greyhound bus of its era.

It was just a ship that a group of people had hired to get them to what they thought would be Virginia and ended up being new England.

- [Jared] Today, though, it's an indelible part of this nation's founding.

And on the 400th anniversary of that famous sailing, Mayflower II has just undergone a three year, multi-million-dollar restoration.

- [Jared] What do you see when you look at the Mayflower II?

- The American story.

That for me, Mayflower is a memory device, and it is a symbol.

For someone that has direct family ties to that ship, it may mean one thing.

For an indigenous person, it may have another meaning.

- [Jared] The ship is operated by nearby Plimoth Plantation, where Richard Pickering is deputy executive director.

The historic site recreates life during those first precarious years as the Pilgrims settled here.

Although, Plimoth Plantation's name is changing.

- [Richard] We wanted to make certain that the Wampanoag voice, the indigenous voice, was as important as the English voice.

So we have become Plimoth Patuxet Museums.

- [Jared] Back to the Mayflower II.

It gleams once again, and more importantly, it's staying afloat, says Captain Whit Perry.

- When I first took the job, before we did the restoration, the bilge pump would be coming on seven or eight times a day to pump out the water coming in.

And of course, the first rule of any boat or ship is keep the water on the outside.

- [Jared] The ship's restoration happened at Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut, where a team of shipwrights and artisans restored the ship's sails, wood, and metal parts.

Sometimes even using 17th century tools.

- [Perry] No one was just coming to work to punch a timecard.

Everybody took a vested interest.

Come on board, Jared.

- [Jared] Like a kid, still excited to show off his new toy, Perry took me around the ship, pointing out the paint colors, bright combinations chosen so sailors could identify ships from afar.

And the tween deck, where more than 100 Pilgrim passengers were relegated for their 66 day crossing.

- It's kind of like, no umbrella drinks, and a Carnival Cruise for those folks in 1620.

- So quarantined, but no social distancing.

- Exactly.

- [Jared] Perry points out where restoration has happened.

Like on this windlass, which hoist the anchor.

And where whole sections of the ship have been fully replaced.

An expedition all its own, with wood sourced from around the world.

- [Perry] We actually started coining the phrase from tree to sea.

We would start right with the log in the woods.

And one of my favorite parts was going out in the woods with the spray can, to pick the trees right out of the forest.

- [Jared] Steering the Mayflower was nearly as complicated.

- As you can see, that we can't really see much out here at all.

So how do you steer the ship?

Certainly they would've had a magnetic compass, and the helmsmen would be down here.

But if you look at this hatch grading, the officer of the deck would be giving steering commands from up on the half deck.

- [Jared] Mayflower II was gifted to the US by England in 1957.

A thank you for American support during World War II.

It crossed the Atlantic then, and set sail again on the open sea, as it returned from Connecticut.

Perry captained the ship with a crew of 27.

- [Jared] Is it peaceful?

- [Perry] Oh yeah.

Yep.

It's all of those romantic sounds that we all know and love from movies of the creaking of the rigging, the wood working against each other, as the ship moves like a living thing, and twists and moves, which it's meant to do.

- [Jared] There's one sound though, which Perry saves for the occasional visitor who also happened to have emceed the ship's launch ceremony in Connecticut.

- Jared, thank you very much for showing an interest in Mayflower.

I think you should ring our bell for us, the Mayflower bell.

- I would proudly.

Do you want to get down at all into it?

- What we're gonna do, it's about one o'clock.

So that would be two bells on the sailors watch schedule.

So if you'll give it a ding, ding, that will let the sailors know that it's one o'clock.

- Alright, here goes.

[bell dings loudly twice] - [Jared] One o'clock and all as well.

And, as it was.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] Find out more plimouth.org.

- [Diane] Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] At the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, visitors have the chance to explore the home of one of this country's most famous writers, Ernest Hemingway.

In this segment, we learn more about the history of the property and its purpose today.

[funky upbeat music] - My name is Alexa Morgan, and I am the director of public relations here at the Hemingway Home and Museum.

So when visitors come and enjoy the property, they're already taking a step in time, because we tried our best to preserve when he was here in the 1930s.

So they still get a sense of Hemingway when they're visiting with us.

Our visitors are from every end of the spectrum.

They're history buffs, love Hemingway, read many of his books, or they've heard about all our cats.

Hemingway and Pauline, which was his second wife, traveled to Key West to pick up a Ford Roadster that her uncle Gus purchased for them.

During that time, they stayed on the island and after a few weeks fell in love, and decided to purchase a home of their own.

In that time, he had finished A Farewell To Arms, and with that inspiration wanted to continue writing and being here.

So they found this property here.

It was not in the best shape.

So they had to renovate.

Pauline, being a employee of Vogue, was very into fashion and high-end details.

And when they were working on the renovation, she kind of took the lead on that, and imported many glass chandeliers, that she installed in the home.

Along with retiling the bathrooms and things like that, all those extra details.

This originally was the hay loft of the property.

And he had a catwalk from his bedroom that extended right here to this floor.

He turned this into his writing studio, and would every morning come, write, work.

And then in the afternoon, enjoy the island life.

Even in this writing studio, we have one of his typewriters.

He had multiple typewriters.

This is just one of many of his.

While here in the writing studio, he completed The Snows of Kilimanjaro, To Have and Have Not, The Green Hills of Africa, and many other of his short stories and other works.

With his writings, I know like To Have and Have Not, was more heavy of like Key West characters, more inspired of what he would see and who he would interact with while here on the island.

When he wrote Old Man and The Sea, he was no longer living here, but it was a lot of like the deep sea fishing, that he was introduced to while living here.

So I think as throughout his travels and the people he meets and where he has lived has all been an inspiration for his work.

[funky upbeat music] - [Alexa] So right now we are offering a writing experience where guests can come on property and enjoy the writing studio, the home, and the gardens privately, and maybe get sparked with some kind of inspiration to write their future novel or any kind of writing piece.

Well, it's something we've never offered before, and going to other museums and visiting, there's always some kind of behind-the-scenes, or some kind of experience you can enjoy.

And everyone is always drawn to our writing studios.

So we thought, why not open it up for other writers?

We are opening the experience throughout the weekdays.

So they just have to inquire, and make sure the day is available, and we can book that for them.

Our first booking, it is actually a husband booking it for his wife as a birthday gift.

She is a up-and-coming author, so he wanted to give her a spark of inspiration while they visit in the Keys.

[upbeat music] - [Diane] Learn more at hemingwayhome.com.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] And here's a look at this week's art history.

- [Diane] In her lifetime, Amanda Wicker was many things.

She was a fashion designer, teacher, business owner and mentor.

In the face of hardship, she became an integral part of the African American fashion community, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Here's her story.

[jazzy horn music] - [Woman] When Amanda Wicker moved to Cleveland nearly a century ago, she put her education to work.

Having studied teaching and sewing, she started her own business out of her home, training others in dressmaking.

- She's launching this business, in basically what is the era of the Great Depression.

That's when her business is taking off.

And she's a widow.

A childless widow, at the end of the 1920s, and through the 1930s, but she doesn't give up.

- [Woman] Wicker's determination paid off.

Not only did she create unique designs for herself and her clients, she helped others do the same.

- [Patty] She started out with a business in her home with, you know, a single client, teaching them how to sew.

And turned it into this huge school that taught teenagers, adults.

She taught, you know, high fashion design couture techniques, but also if you wanted to be trained in garment industry factory work, she could train you on machines that way too.

[jazzy horn music] - [Woman] Wicker moved her business out of her home, and established the school at East 89th Street and Cedar Avenue, in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood.

In tribute to her own fashion instructor in Washington, DC, Addie Clarke, Wicker named her business the Clarke School of Dressmaking and Fashion Design.

- [Regennia] I really like the fact that she's an alumna, of Tuskegee Institute.

And of course the founding principal of that school in Alabama, was Booker Taliaferro Washington.

And he was someone who preached self-help for black people.

So it was an industrial and a normal school, certainly lots of jobs available in manufacturing, sewing, textiles, you know, creating the fabric, working with the thread, and then creating the garments once the fabric has been manufactured.

And so I like to think, that Booker T. Washington would have been proud of that Tuskegee alumna who eventually studied in Washington DC, and then made her way to Cleveland and became the focal point of a burgeoning, black fashion community here on America's north coast.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Woman] For decades, Wicker celebrated Cleveland's black fashion scene with annual shows.

The large scale events featured models wearing the latest designs, live entertainment, and scholarship awards for students.

- [Patty] She called her fashion shows the Book of Gold, and you get a program with a gold cover.

And it was sort of part graduation ceremony for students.

And then part, just a way for locals to display their work.

Because the fashion shows were kind of a mix of student work, Amanda Wicker work, but also they would bring in local milliners to showcase their hats on the models.

- [Woman] Wicker designed clothes throughout her life; from wedding dresses to suits and evening wear.

More than a dozen of those creations, as well as her photograph collection, were donated by her niece to the Western Reserve Historical Society.

Those photos and designs live on in a display, now on view at the Cleveland History Center.

- I think like playful is a good word for her style.

So, fun, a little bit of sparkle sometimes, a fun silhouette.

I have a personal favorite.

It's a sort of chartreuse green dress that's covered in a gray lace.

And then on the back, it has a detail that's almost like, sort of half of a cape.

It's like, on the one hand, somewhat conservative, but then has these little twists.

[mellow jazzy music] - [Woman] Wicker also had a talent for helping the community look its best.

She was an active member of Antioch Baptist Church and the Cleveland NAACP.

She taught her trade for more than 50 years, until selling her school and retiring in the late 1970s.

- I think a lot of people don't necessarily think that teaching someone sewing is a form of activism, but it can give you a skill to become something different.

It can help support a community.

- [Regennia] So freedom of expression, I would have to say, associated with fashion, design, and dressmaking.

I think that's something that black women, in particular, came to appreciate in the years following the end of the Civil War, and certainly something that Amanda Wicker was the expert on.

And she taught other people to express themselves in excellent ways.

[mellow jazzy music] - [Woman] Her legacy lives on through the exhibit, Amanda Wicker: Black Fashion Design in Cleveland.

- [Diane] Discover more at wrhs.org.

[jazzy upbeat music] - That wraps it up for this edition of WLIW Arts Beat.

We'd like to hear what you think.

So like us on Facebook, join the conversation on Twitter, and visit our webpage for features, and to watch episodes of the show.

We hope to see you next time.

I'm Diane Masciale, thank you for watching WLIW Arts Beat.

[jazzy upbeat music] - [Diane] Funding for WLIW Arts Beat was made possible by viewers like you.

Thank you.