[Upbeat Music] [Upbeat Music] [Upbeat Music] [Upbeat Music] [Upbeat Music] - In this edition of WLIW ARTS BEAT, colorful, textile creationS.

- What's always in my work is the the attitude of hope and, and, and joy and unlimited possibilities of being able to be free and to be yourself.

- Handmade wooden bowls.

- I went from making boat paddles and ax handles to grades in making furniture and small items like that.

And then I just decided I can do wood turning.

- A cartoonists craft.

- I think that's what a comic strip is.

It's taking tiny, tiny moments out of people's lives and finding the humor in them.

- Scrap metal furniture; furniture can be art.

It's not, the functionality eh People think, oh, well, it's, if it's functional it's not art.

But I really think it is because it changes people.

- 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.

- In her quilts, artist Cynthia Lockhart tells a story.

Through layering paintings, silkscreen, embellishment, and more.

She creates images full of power and hope.

We head to the Taft museum of art in Cincinnati Ohio to view an exhibition of Lockhart's work.

[Upbeat Music] - [Cynthia] Ellen and Anne from the Taft they call me up one day and said we'd be interested in coming over to look at your artwork.

The Taft is interested in you.

So I prepared the visit for them, they came by, they looked at looked at my artwork in the house, visited my studio.

And then probably about a month later I get a call, and with an invitation to do a show.

Obviously the title of the show and the design and depicting of the show was up to me to come up with.

And so that journey to to be associated with the Taft started.

Journey to freedom is a quilt that I did years ago, but it's really at the heart of a story that I believe in.

I believe in a story of, of people who were slaves of people who were brought to this country unbeknownst to what would happen to them.

Left their history came here and over a series of 400 years became a vibrant and exciting part of this America.

It's in my work, I build a story.

I research the project I, I read up on, I will look up a history of it and read several adaptations, books.

And what have you maybe even look at a movie.

And then I start putting that together in terms of sketching.

And so I come up with the images that resonate in me that are strong, that are powerful and I get a nudge and it's like, okay, this is what you do.

This is what you put together.

And I begin to put the colors together for the mood that I'm creating within the artwork.

And I will either make the fabric.

I've done something called fabrication where I'm literally putting tiny little pieces, bits and pieces like a collage to create a very dynamic look or I will dye the fabric or I'll do symbols and I'll silk screen as well.

I am so impressed with the story that the Taft has with Robert Duncanson I'm very proud of the history of the Taft.

Being able to embrace an African-American artists and also being involved in abolitionist movement.

And the integrity of the Taft, to still continue to have a program in place that will support the African-American community with their dumping sin.

Again, I had to research the Duncanson murals and you have to select a piece of art in the tab.

And I looked vigorously for many things, and I was attracted to many things, but you had to narrow it down.

So looking at Duncanson's work, he does a phenomenal depiction of this environment.

That just looks like a place that you want to be that you could just walk into this place.

And so that's critical for, for an artist for that, the viewer actually can feel that.

And then he did something very web sickle was to put a Trump lawyer frame around the artwork.

And I thought that resonated with me.

That's sort of playing tricks with things I can be a trickster with with the artwork.

So I said, with that whimsy.

And with that, those were beautiful color muted tones that he used.

I can work with that.

So what I decided when I started sketching was is that I in his, in Duncan's murals.

I found an area where I, I felt a slave could have passed through one of his murals.

Therefore I decided to have a runaway slave passing through the image of the inspiration of the Duncanson.

- [Singer] Swing Low sweet chariot.

- [Cynthia] The title of this runaway; swing low, sweet chariot which is an African-American hymn.

Which depicts and guides the travelers to freedom.

So it was a song that was invented to give them instructions of where they would go to seek freedom.

So with that, then I said, okay, now I have to come up with some type of whimsy and some type of flight.

And I did that by using a figure that almost was like a came, camouflage figure that is escaping through the through the fields.

And again, above him, there are the three faces that are singing swing, low sweet chariot.

I also created some orbs.

So the orbs structures are just the round circles that you see in work are representative of travelers representative of people who were no longer with us.

But it's a way to remember them for circles.

So inside the circle is always a prayer, is always an aspiration.

And so the orbs surround the slave as the slave, runs towards freedom.

What's always in my work is the, the attitude of hope and joy and unlimited possibilities of being able to be free.

and to be yourself, freedom is a very precious thing.

And as a part of the show, um, I said, whoa I took on a big task.

This is my perspective about freedom, journey to freedom depicted through my ancestors.

What, what, what does everybody else feel about freedom?

And um lots of writing talking about freedom, lots of writing.

And then it dawned on me that, what what do people think about freedom?

It's a huge subject.

It's one of the most important subjects that we have.

Our individual rights as human beings to be to be free, to be treated free and equally.

- [Swing Low, Sweet Chariot Hymn] - See more@taftmuseum.org.

And now the artist's quote of the week.

woodworker Audie Maxey takes an ordinary log of wood and makes it into an extraordinary work of art.

Based in Louisiana Maxey recognizes the beauty in nature.

With his tools he renders special bowls of all shapes and sizes take a look.

[Upbeat Music] [Upbeat Music] - [Audie] My grandfather was a wood worker of sorts, he did all kinds of ax handles and boat paddles and worked with wood all of his life.

He would have loved to head a cabinet shop and made things of that nature, but he had just very crude drawing knife and axe he could do as much with an axe.

A lot of people can do nowadays with modern tools, they just kind of developed a taste in me.

And I just followed that up.

I went from making boat paddles and ax handles to grades and making furniture and small items like that.

And then I just decided I could do wood turning.

It looked interesting.

I bought a small blade started making a little Christmas presents, dope calls and things.

Realized I kind of liked making the bowls.

I didn't like making parts fit together.

Like the metal shop, and wood would swelled in high humidity and it dry out.

So it would fit one day and it wouldn't fit the next but the bowls just kind of flexed and moved as I wanted to.

It went a problem.

And I just gravitated making bowls and had a small lays and made small bowls and said, well I can make bigger bowls that I need a bigger lade and bought one and wore it out and bought a bigger lades.

And I've been making stuff ever since.

Making the big one is really not any more challenging.

It's just takes longer because you've got more wood to remove.

It's not uncommon to take a hundred pound block of wood and turn it six pound bowls, seven pound bowl out of it.

The lay it actually holds the wood and turns it.

And then I had different knives that I can use to just shave away what I don't want.

it's kind of different from like a table sword, the blade, turns.

And the wood is basically stationary.

And layed the wood turns and the blade, it's stationary it's a little different, but it works for me.

This is the sunset piece, just looking at it to me, it looks like beach rolling waves and the sun going down over the horizon, just looking into green pattern.

This one is made from spalted Hackberry.

I don't get much of it, but I really enjoyed working with these pieces.

This is one of my favorite pieces just because of the grain out of the maple tree.

It's just different.

And just looking at different areas.

You can see the fiddle back wavy pattern.

The, some of the Spalding down in this area just a beautiful piece, a little bit of bird's eye one side but it was very challenging because of the depth.

And this is basically a 19 inch cube when I started.

And I was just able to just flatten off the bottom like a little foot and just start turning away a little bit just that all I had to do really is brown it up.

So it's still 19, almost 19 inches across but the depth further you cut the more dangerous it becomes and the harder it becomes because the tool a lot more of it sticking inside.

And I just ran out of tool rest and just had to just keep gently easily taken off a little bit more out of the bottom.

So that was one of the more challenging pieces, just because of the depth.

I really liked working with Walnut.

It just finishes very well.

The dust is very nuisance but I really like Walnut of maple, any kind of spalted wood pecan spouts, really pretty mixed dark lines throughout it.

It really, it really pops when you see it.

It's really one of those that you don't know what you've got until you start cutting into it really amazes most of the time.

Even in the same short piece of wood I've got a big piece of maple one time and it was just, every piece was different.

You wouldn't have thought any of it came out of the same tree.

I'd cut a bowl and it had this beautiful fiddle back pattern just really amazing.

And the next piece might have some spouting with these dark black lines through it.

It was a couple of pieces of it had birds eye, of these little eyes that just shined.

It was an amazing piece of Maple wood you know.

And I wish I'd get another one real soon, but yes I'm always surprised though, of what you find.

And then I use Tung oil finish and some of the Chinese have used thousand years.

Oh, it's supposed to be food safe; it is classified as food safe.

I make a rolling pins and little faces.

Big flower basis sometimes just depending on what kind of wood I can get, those are the main things I'd make.

I make little cups sometime.

I've had a special order for some wine glasses that I've made.

They become wedding gifts, Christmas presents things of that nature.

Then what I can, I take to a few art shows throughout the year.

[Upbeat Music] - [Audie] I sign and date them.

And put what kinds of wood it's made from.

Sometimes I put recovered load from.

I started buying a few pieces just because we can't get big leaf maple, and some other things here locally but I'm just flooded with wood from other places.

People know that I do this and they call me all the time.

I want to take this tree down would you come get some of it, make me something out of it.

Or what, had this storm came through, this limb fell down.

Come make me something out of it.

So I have that all the time.

Part of it just, is just good therapy.

And you come home from work, eat super.

I come outside and turn.

I think a lot of it is the is, the thrill of revealing what's there.

You cut into a block of wood and seeing what the grain looks like what the pattern is.

I've salvaged many piece of somebody else's firewood, go to somebody's home and say, you're not going to burn this.

[Upbeat Music] [Upbeat Music] - Visit carve Wooden Bowl Works on Facebook to find out more.

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

[Upbeat Music] For 30 years, the comics strip pickles, has been delighting viewers across the country and around the globe.

Up next, we head to sparks Nevada to meet the artists behind the comic, Brian Crane.

[Upbeat Music] - [Brian Crane] Pickles is a comic strip about Earl and Opal pickles.

It also involves their grandson, Nelson a daughter named Sylvia and a dog and a cat that's about family.

And looking at the funny side of family relationships.

I kind of grew up in what I think of there is a golden age of comic strips.

When everyone took a newspaper and everybody read the comic strips.

One of my favorite cartoon characters is Popeye.

I used to watch his cartoons when I was a kid and I started collecting a lot of Popeye memorabilia over the years.

It just brings back good childhood memories.

I never took any art classes in high school or anything, but I always drew that's where it all started.

Was just scribbling on my school papers.

When I went to college, I majored in art with the idea of going into commercial illustration.

And it was like that because I didn't think I had a chance in becoming a cartoonist.

When I was in my late thirties.

I started thinking of my childhood dream of doing a comic strip.

So I decided to think of an idea for a strip and I spent a lot of time drawing different characters in a sketchbook until I finally came up with this elderly couple that gave me all kinds of ideas.

And the word pickles kind of reminded me the term getting into a pickle, which is kind of like the situations they get into.

Pickles is indicated in about close to a thousand papers around the world and doing it for about 28 years now.

In the morning when I sit down to the drawing board, I go through a file of things that I've written down over the past few weeks.

I just look for situations that happen in real life, that that I can place my characters into.

Once I get the idea, then I draw the panel.

I usually work with four boxes.

I just rough out the first panel with pencil and I'll go over it with a pen.

I still use the old fashioned pan, a dip and a bottle of ink.

I just enjoy the process of holding a pen in my hand dipping it in ink and scratching it on the paper.

There's a very tactile sense of that, that I enjoy .

In my mind I broken down the idea into four sequences, a little story with a beginning, a middle, and then a punchline at the end.

And hopefully that's the payoff where someone will chuckle and, and see themselves in it or something like that.

[Upbeat Music] I scan them on a scanner and email them to my daughter, Emily, who colors them on Photoshop.

From that point, when I have done a week's worth of those I send them into my editor at the Washington post and she checks them over for any grammatical errors.

Occasionally a retired school teacher, somewhere in America will find a misspelled word or something and will let me know about it.

My wife was always my best editor.

She can tell if something's funny or not.

I really do agonize over each strip.

You know, trying to come up with an idea.

Most of the ideas I get I don't use because I don't think they're good enough.

So I'm my own harshest critic I think, I'm very seldom when I see my strip in the paper do I think I really nailed it?

I, I usually just think, oh, I could have done this better.

I could have worded that better or I could have drawn that better.

So I'm always critical of my reference but I think that's a good character for a, for an artist to be critical of their work and not just think anything they do is wonderful.

[Upbeat Music] I love making people laugh.

The big payout for me is when I hear people who say that my cartoon makes their morning, or it reminds them of someone they love or something like that.

That makes me feel like I'm contributing something into people's happiness and it's so much easier now to write my strip.

Because when I began I was a 39 year old writing about old people and now I am.

Now I'm an old person writing about myself.

- Discover more at picklescomic.com.

And here's a look at this week's arts history.

[Upbeat Music] From chairs to tables, to lamps.

Welders Cindy Wynn creates furniture out of scrap metal fascinated by 18th century design and science fiction.

Wynn goes to the scrapyard, gathers pieces and welds together, a distinct finished product.

We traveled to Florida for the story.

[Upbeat Music] - [Cindy] I'm Cindy Wynn, I've been making furniture for the last 30 years.

I build furniture out of scrap metal.

I have probably about 200 to 250,000 pounds of scrap metal.

My welding studio.

Then I, I have an idea or the scrap metal gives me an idea and I go out and I start collecting parts and I keep at it until I have the whole design.

Usually I design about 10 to 12 pieces at once.

So there's pieces of pieces and parts everywhere that I have a future as furniture, either lamps tables or chairs its usually what I make.

Furniture can be art.

It's not, you know the functionality people would think, oh, well, if it's functional, it's not art.

But I really think it is because it changes people.

You know, when people just because you can touch it and sit on it, it doesn't mean it's not art.

I first got started in college.

I took all the basic classes, drawing, painting.

And then I glommed on to ceramics for about three years which is six semesters at the end of the sixth semester.

Our ceramics teacher said you guys get all your stuff out of here.

And I thought, well, I'll just take a break.

And I'll take sculpture two, which was welding.

I learned how to weld really easily.

And I was frustrated because that made anything creative.

So I just made my partner a chair as a joke.

And it's like, my brain lit on fire.

And ideas can compliment materials or it can come from my head.

And then I squeezed the materials into my idea or vice versa, but I study all kinds of furniture's, especially 18th century.

18th century furniture has really a lot of amazing details.

I use some glass, some wood but mostly it's all scrap metal.

I go out into either, if I'm up north I go out into a real scrapyard, or if I'm down south here I go out into my own scrapyard.

And I look for parts.

I do a lot of welding, a lot of cutting with a grinding disc and a lot of cuttings of torch.

And then welding is the most fun step.

And then the final step is to put a final coat of lacquer on it and take it down to the gallery.

The grinding is still rough, but the cutting I love cutting I love welding.

I love putting stuff together.

I love the hot metal, even when it burns me.

I don't mind, you know I feel happy.

I'm working on a number of projects.

So what I'm going to show you today is the end of a series called Lynch chair.

And I've learned a new thing about spring steel.

You can't really weld it.

So I'm, I catch it in a little cage.

So that's the final step on this wrench chair.

So it'll still have movement with the spring but it won't be in danger of breaking.

My most recent commission, I did the headboard on commission.

I have four panels to carv, the headboards all complete except putting it together and carving the last three out of the four wood panels.

And for speculative, I usually do pedestals, console tables, end tables, a lot of chairs, chairs are my favorite.

Those chairs are really where I think the art is in my, my work because I make them so that people are very trepidations when they see them.

And then when they sit down, I can see for an instant everything kind of a graph rates and they're back into a childlike state and they start laughing because it moves and it's comfortable.

And it's usually down here and taught at chair school.

I just liked that moment when they, they changes their perception of what furniture is about, you know, it's it makes them feel differently about furniture and the way people interact with furniture changes.

When they see my stuff, check out more of Wynn's creations at iamfurniture.com.

- [Diane] 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.

[Upbeat Music] - Funding for WLIW ARTS BEAT was made possible by viewers like you, Thank you.

[Upbeat Music]