>> JARED BOWEN: How do you use it today, religion?
>> Oh, it's just, it's my anchor.
I mean, it's kind of, you know, it's the thing that keeps me grounded, keeps me focused.
>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen-- coming up on Open Studio, Mark Wahlberg has an epiphany in his new film, Father Stu.
>> I'm a Catholic.
I can't date someone who isn't baptized.
>> I thought you was gonna say Hispanic.
Where's the water?
I'll do it now.
>> BOWEN: Plus, how artist Napoleon Jones-Henderson literally weaves history into his tapestries.
>> We have created a body of work to project the beauty and the majesty of African people.
>> BOWEN: Then the nearly forgotten 1980s moment when artists took action against U.S. intervention in Central America.
And how Iranian artist Shahpour Pouyan revisits his war-torn homeland by using the techniques of his cultural heritage.
It's all now on Open Studio.
♪ ♪ First up, actor Mark Wahlberg is finding his religion on film.
The Boston native plays a real-life California dreamer in the new movie Father Stu.
He stars as a washed-up boxer whose attempts to woo a woman ultimately lead him to the priesthood.
♪ ♪ >> I figured it out.
>> Yeah, seventh time's the charm.
♪ ♪ >> I'mma be an actor.
>> Oh, God!
>> BOWEN: Mark Wahlberg, thank you for joining us.
>> Thanks for having me, appreciate it.
>> BOWEN: So I'll ask just a general question to start, what drew you to the story?
>> Oh, God, Father Stu was such a remarkable character.
Such a colorful life.
I mean, it really is hard to believe that it's a true story, if you think about kind of the beginning of his journey to where he ended up, but I just felt very inspired by it.
>> BOWEN: When you look at your own life and career, did it track what you saw he went through?
You know, coming from sort of this rough and tumble life to finding religion and making it a core of who he is?
>> Yeah, absolutely.
And then, of course, even his, you know, attempt to make it in Hollywood.
>> What brings you here?
>> I figured no better place to be discovered than the supermarket.
>> Then finding his purpose and seeing, when he really found his purpose, how powerful he became.
Here's a guy who, everything early on was predicated on his physicality.
And then when that started to deteriorate, his spirituality soared.
>> There's no easy way to deliver this news.
You have a progressive muscle disorder.
The muscles weaken until they cease to function.
>> Because really, you know, he was now being utilized for the greater good of God.
>> Your son is about to make a huge mistake.
>> I'm gonna be a priest.
>> For Halloween?
>> BOWEN: When you look at how religion came into the picture for him and for you, I mean, that's one of the things I found interesting about this, is that there is this nuance to it-- the person you wouldn't expect, the person who uses the language that you wouldn't expect for religion, finds it.
>> Yeah, well, God looks for the most unlikely of people.
And it's, it's not...
I don't think it was my choosing, or I don't think it was Stu's choosing; I think Stu was chosen.
And, and that's why he had such an impact in a short amount of time.
Because, you know, people knew he had real-life experience and he was very credible when talking about facing adversity and all these different challenges that people are facing, and helping them cope in those, in those situations.
>> What you guys get, one phone call a week in here?
Who you gonna call, huh?
When no one else gives a (muted) what you got to say, God does.
>> BOWEN: How do you use it today, religion?
>> Oh, it's just, it's my anchor.
I mean, it's kind of, you know, it's the thing that keeps me grounded, keeps me focused.
I start my day every day getting on my hands and my knees, expressing my gratitude, and I ask for the strength and courage and confidence to do what I'm supposed to be doing and recognize where I should be doing more.
And then, of course, with all of my reading in scripture and stuff like that, and then I work out.
And I'm usually pretty tired by that point, but I also feel like, okay, I can kind of make it through the day, especially with three teenagers and all the other stuff that's going on in my life.
>> BOWEN: Is it... How do you feel about being able to talk about it and express it?
I mean, religion, you know, people have so many perceptions about religion today.
>> Well, again, for me, it's really not so much about the church as a whole, and the church and the "rules" and the establishment.
It's about the guy who died to build it, you know, and the sacrifices that he made for us, and the promises that come with living a devout life and, and, you know, really doing the right thing.
And so that, that gives me peace and comfort, because this, I've dealt with a lot of loss and I've seen a lot of pain.
And so, you know, how we cope with those things, and certainly how Stu did, I found very inspiring.
>> BOWEN: What about the time in which this film comes out, where obviously the world is terribly beset right now?
>> Mm-hmm.
>> BOWEN: And this is a time where a lot of people turn to things they might not have otherwise done before, like religion.
>> Yeah, I think, you know, it's nice to see audiences from all walks of life come in and really have the same reaction.
They're all touched by this movie in a personal way.
They can all relate to, identify with Stu to in some way.
They're all dealing with very difficult things and things that we've never dealt with before.
So it's nice to have people leaving the theater feeling really optimistic about the future and on an emotional high.
And then also leaving with that challenge that Stu poses throughout the film, is that, you know, we can all just do a little bit more, whatever our part is, to kind of identify that and just contribute a little bit more.
You know, see the good in people, really seeing the good in people.
>> BOWEN: I was struck by the director's comments that humility, that surrender is core to who he was.
I mean, how do you see that and what does that mean in this age of hypermasculinity?
>> Well, that would be... You would, you would... You certainly should ask her that question.
But I think, you know, for me, it just goes back to the Serenity Prayer.
You know, you definitely control the things that you can and you let go of the things that you can't, and God, God wouldn't give you something that you can't handle.
But, yeah, I think Stu, the way he dealt with everything with such dignity and grace was amazing.
>> BOWEN: We talk a lot about process on Open Studio.
You gained 30 pounds for this-- this is an age of CGI.
You could have done that, or prosthetics.
How does it help you as an actor to go through that?
>> Well, we always try to do things practically.
I mean, we did use some enhancing makeup and stuff like that.
But, you know, it was just such a part of Stu's journey.
And, again, and I mentioned it earlier, how everything was predicated on his physicality, but he was just a guy who...
He was a boxer, he was a football player.
He was always kind of beating back the world and trying to, you know, fight everything that, that, that he was confronted with, and then when, when he realized that none of that mattered, you know, what mattered, what was at the core and who he was as a person in his heart, he became really, like, such a powerful tool for God.
It was amazing.
I was just up in Helena, Montana, to hear all the stories and see all the people that he touched.
You know, it was, it was remarkable.
>> BOWEN: Well, thank you so much for being with us.
>> Thank you for having me, I appreciate it, pleasure.
♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: You'd be hard-pressed to encounter a man with more unflagging spirit or artistic prowess than Napoleon Jones-Henderson.
You'll find more than 50 years of his work on view right now at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
We'll go there in a moment, but first I met Jones-Henderson at his Roxbury residence.
Because for him, home is where the art is.
>> I've got surely 6,000 or 7,000 books throughout my library here.
>> BOWEN: If ever there was a home built on passion and fueled by art, this is it.
Napoleon Jones-Henderson has lived here for 47 years.
It's a living sculpture housing a lifetime of his, not to mention all other manner of artwork.
Do you have different working spaces?
>> No... Well, yes.
Each room is a different working space.
And I would call it an aesthetic and intellectual resource; that's what this house is for me.
>> BOWEN: And the spirits run deep here.
Jones-Henderson's Greek Revival home is known as the Edward Everett Hale House.
Hale was an abolitionist who advocated for the education of freed enslaved people.
>> I'm sure, as an abolitionist and all of the activity that he was engaged in, people such as Tubman and Douglass, they've all tiptoed through this house.
So in a way of speaking, I see it as responsibility of mine to continue that, uh, that kind of energy.
>> BOWEN: It looks like you are not somebody who separates your work from life.
>> Oh, no, it's all one thing.
My work is my life.
>> BOWEN: And has been for half a century.
In 1968, Jones-Henderson was one of the founders of the Chicago artists' collective AfriCOBRA, or the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists.
And now at Boston's I.C.A., the decades of work in textiles he produced according to AfriCOBRA's aesthetic principles fills this retrospective.
>> And that manifesto which drove our work is the elevation of the humanity of African people and to project, if you will, always positive images and works that reflect the beauty and the majesty of African people.
>> They asked themselves a question, "What is the role of the visual artist as part of the civil rights movement?"
>> BOWEN: Jeffrey DeBlois is the show's curator, and says Jones-Henderson's work has always been in dialogue with the community, reflecting the culture in language and music.
>> AfriCOBRA outlined that they would use language in a particular way.
As you see in Napoleon's work, often things that come from the community, sayings, you know, to be free, or lyrics drawn from Black music, like from a Stevie Wonder song.
>> ♪ You haven't done nothin' ♪ >> At other times, an individual work that's dedicated to a body of work by a musician, like Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts.
(playing jazz tune) So it has various iterations in his work, but there is a sense of rhythm and musicality throughout.
>> BOWEN: And it's woven in.
Jones-Henderson studied textile weaving at the Art Institute of Chicago.
But well before that, it was family practice.
>> It really starts out with my grandparents and my aunts and all the women in my family, because quilting and patching the holes in your pants after they wore out, and tucking up a coat sleeve because it was a little bit too big for you when they got passed down.
>> BOWEN: Over decades, he scooped up roll after roll of fabric from New England's once-thriving textile mills.
And in 1974, he came across a room full of reflective yarn once used for flapper dresses, which he still uses.
>> The element of the AfriCOBRA aesthetic and philosophy of Shine became fully available to me.
The aspects that one can find in medieval tapestries and so forth, where they have the gold and silver threads in there, it's the very same thing.
>> BOWEN: And the Shine accents a palette of what Jones deliciously calls Kool-Aid colors.
>> In the late '60s and early '70s, I know in Chicago in particular, you saw brothers walking around the neighborhood in the street with these wonderful Kool-Aid color outfits on-- lime green, the purple, the strawberry, you know, the red.
And so that style is what we saw as an important element to depict in our visual work.
And be perfectly honest, Kool-Aid is very close to watercolor.
>> BOWEN: The artist's most recent pieces, and a project he's been working on for the last 20 years, is a series of sculptures titled Requiem for Our Ancestors.
They are shrines to house spirits, and began with his desire to honor the four girls killed when white supremacists bombed Alabama's 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963.
>> Looking at those four little girls and many other Africans who have died or were killed, murdered, and otherwise terrorized, whose passing, their spirits were not able to be honored and held sacred by the people who they were a part of.
>> BOWEN: And the bottom of each shrine, he says, is meant to catch the wind, as derived from a Nigerian tradition.
>> So the stirring of the air is the stirring of the spirits.
And so these structures are spaces for those spirits that have been still uneasy out here since 1619.
Coming forward, they have a place to be.
>> BOWEN: From a museum to a home where the spirits always move Napoleon Jones-Henderson.
♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: The comedy of Straight White Men.
It's must-see drama in Arts This Week.
Tuesday, reflect on the Renaissance.
A screening of Raphael: The Young Prodigy presents the life and legacy of the artist at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport.
Theater artist Travis Alabanza tells a story of trans survival and compliance in a performance presented by ArtsEmerson.
See Burgerz Wednesday.
Thursday, the Museum of African American History presents Jazz Scene in Boston: Telling the Local Story.
Visit to learn more about how the city has been a hub for jazz since the 1940s.
The music of the Go-Go's and the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney power the latest production at the Umbrella Arts Center in Concord.
Head Over Heels opens on Friday.
Saturday in Watertown, see a new corner of the world.
The Armenian Museum of America offers art, textiles, metalwork, and more from across Armenia's history.
♪ ♪ Next, in the 1980s, as Americans became increasingly aware of the role the U.S. government had in the conflicts in Central America, a vast network of artists sprang into action.
They used art to protest.
But then the movement became a moment, largely forgotten until now.
Here's another look at a story we first brought you in February.
By the mid-1980s, Central America was awash in war.
With the U.S. government sending money and weapons to militant forces, tens of thousands of people were slaughtered.
In Guatemala, Indian villages were leveled.
Soldiers waged guerilla warfare in Nicaragua.
Death squads patrolled El Salvador.
Artist Beatriz Cortez was a child at the time.
>> It was the most terrible experience because there were massacres, and there was complete destruction of entire villages, et cetera, but I was in the middle class in San Salvador, and my parents were really great at protecting me.
>> You know, I found all these Che-type revolutionaries.
You see these banners?
>> BOWEN: The violence was so horrific, protests rose up across North America.
One of the most forceful, and fleeting, was a movement called Artists Call Against U.S.
Intervention in Central America, a grassroots effort that quickly coalesced among artists, galleries, and museums from January to March of 1984.
>> Part of the message of Artists Call was, we can't be indifferent, we can't create culture if we participate in the destruction of others' cultures.
>> BOWEN: Cortez is one of the contemporary artists featured in the show Art for the Future at Tufts University.
It's as much excavation as it is exhibition.
Five years in the making, it's the first time the Artists Call efforts have been comprehensively reexamined.
>> This exhibition is really focusing on the activities that happened in New York, but in fact there was 27 cities that participated as part of Artists Call.
>> BOWEN: Erina Duganne is the show's co-curator.
It launched when she discovered that 12 tucked-away boxes at the Museum of Modern Art's library in New York held a trove of Artists Call history.
>> It was, like, a kind of awakening, you know, it was, like, oh, wow, this is, like, way bigger than anyone has made it out to be.
>> BOWEN: The Artists Call effort spread rapidly across the U.S. and Canada, with some 31 exhibitions.
In New York alone, 1,100 artists pitched in to raise awareness and aid.
They marched and sold work.
They performed, recited poetry, and produced films.
>> They wanted to just kind of ignite, you know, ignite actions.
There's a procession for peace, where everyone walked with the names of the disappeared.
And then they read the name, and they tied it to a balloon, and let the balloon fly into the sky, as this kind of recognition of those who had been disappeared.
>> BOWEN: With the searing images of photographer Susan Meiselas as an early prompt, the Artists Call was trumpeted by teams of organizers and committees making phone calls, sending letters, and distributing fliers.
>> I think there was a lot of direct pointing to violence and the expression of U.S. power.
>> BOWEN: Abigail Satinsky is the show's co-curator, and says the call and response was so thunderous, it took the organizers by surprise.
>> They were overwhelmed with the response.
And so that was why it spread to all these different cities, is basically, they just said, "Okay, all you have to do is take our letterhead, add your own listings, and do your own thing."
And this is not about a unified expression.
This is about artists together.
>> BOWEN: Claes Oldenburg was among the high-profile artists who galvanized the effort, designing a widely-distributed poster.
He and his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, also conceived a monument.
Though never built, it was a symbol of hope: a pencil that, while broken, still writes.
Leon Golub offered up a piece he made to protest the Vietnam War, echoing a 1980s refrain that El Salvador was Spanish for Vietnam.
And Alfredo Jaar appropriated a Fortune magazine ad, with a halting twist.
>> We see here this sort of layered understanding of how artists are pushing against institutions to do better, and pushing against media representations to do better, and really building that conversation.
>> BOWEN: The curators have continued the conversation into the present.
They've invited artists to plumb the movement's archives for their own contemporary response to Artists Call.
Beatriz Cortez designed a geodesic dome home for the archives.
>> It also speaks of the shelter and the homelessness of immigrants in the middle of the pandemic.
And so it's a shelter for this archive that preserves a moment when the war in El Salvador connected with migration and with the art world.
>> BOWEN: For the several months the movement took hold, the artists' call was heard.
Art was made.
Funds were dispatched to Central America.
Its impact was big, broad, and brief, all by design.
>> Part of the organizing committee really argued that it needed to be ephemeral.
That it needed to just dissipate and that people would go on to take those experiences and do other things with them.
>> BOWEN: And they did.
Because virtually at the same time, there was another looming tragedy that warranted artists' attention.
That was the emerging AIDS crisis.
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Iranian artist Shahpour Pouyan uses mixed media to create a mix of metaphors about war, power, and military destruction.
In echoing the techniques of his Persian heritage, his work is a commentary on the persistence of culture.
>> I make ceramics, and at the same time, I do painting, drawing, photography-- everything.
♪ ♪ The fun part is doing everything with my own hands.
♪ ♪ I grew up in Tehran and live in Brooklyn now.
♪ ♪ Iran is a modern name.
I mean it in political terms.
Persia, of course, it has a thousand years of history.
♪ ♪ I don't think it's about Iran.
It's not about the specific geography; it's more about the culture and interactions that happen.
♪ ♪ Projectiles are based on this old practice of producing armor in Iran, which, you know, it's been around for 2,000 years, 3,000 years.
The physical process is about bringing this very old medieval technique, and just bring it back to life as a very contemporary form of practicing art.
Armor is layers of history, layers of aggression.
And at some point, it turned to be a very poetic product, which is covered by decoration, poetry, and layers and layers of rich culture.
People always ask me, "What are you trying to say?"
But telling anything about these works is just make it more complicated.
Because these works have very strong roots in the misunderstanding between different cultures.
So I would say, it's layers and layers of misunderstanding, which is the truth.
I collected, selected this very specific miniature of, from medieval and 15th, 16th centuries.
♪ ♪ We're talking about the very vast geography of, today is many countries.
♪ ♪ With very important historical moments.
And then I removed all the figures, heroes, anti-heroes.
I freed the miniature from that weight of figures.
♪ ♪ So what you see is this empty landscape or architectural scene.
There is a story there; however you can read it or not.
So it's just, I would say, updated.
I do many sketches.
I keep doing sketches and just doing again, again, and changing and changing and changing.
But they're all coming from an idea.
So I have something in my mind, and I have, like, a concept and something that has to get a three-dimensional form.
And then I go to studio and sitting and start building the ceramic piece.
And it keep changing, changing, and the final result is something else.
♪ ♪ Working with clay is, is amazing, because it deceive me.
Every day, you go and you waiting that somehow it's gonna surprise you with something, with a new crack, with a change, with deformation, with many other things.
But it's a fight between medium and me.
It's like a discussion.
It's, like, I want to take you to the perfect step, and he's just resisting.
And then getting the shape, getting the form, and then you fire it two times and then what is coming out is a monster.
It's two totally different, and it's like the moment, like, "Mmm."
So the negotiation worked.
My ideas and the sketches are not from specific places, not really.
So what I do is get that essential alphabet in form of architecture and bring it to my sculptures.
♪ ♪ When I was working on this cityscape, I was thinking the best way to celebrate a nation is architecture.
♪ ♪ I didn't glaze this new works because it's like an unfinished project, is a sketch of a future.
It's like, like a dream or a nightmare.
Ceramic is very fragile.
It's about fragile condition of all of us, as people, as a nation, as a city, as a state.
♪ ♪ So everything happen is the truth that you try to find, but how much is correct, you never know.
♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.
Next week, a Ukrainian artist and her symbols of renewal.
>> The egg has taken on the role of talisman.
>> BOWEN: And NFTs.
We make sense of the digital art trend so you don't have to.
>> The whole problem with things that exist digitally is that they can be reproduced infinitely.
An NFT says, "All right, well, "you can reproduce things infinitely, "but we're not going to get any of them mistaken for this one original, authentic piece."
>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, thanks for watching.
As always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.
And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @OpenStudioGBH.
I'm @TheJaredBowen.
♪ ♪