(uplifting music)
- [Announcer] This
special presentation
was produced in high
definition by WEDU,
Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.
- [Dalia] Major funding
for WEDU Arts Plus
is provided through The
Greater Cincinnati Foundation
by an arts-loving donor
who encourages others
to support your
PBS station, WEDU.
In this edition
of WEDU Arts Plus,
a Tampa musician
builds custom guitars.
- [Woody] But they're
made of different woods
and so the tones that come
from them are very different.
- [Dalia] A work of art.
- [James] Dr. Grohmann's
intention in giving
the collection
to the School of Engineering was
he thought that
students of engineering
and these very
technical students
should be confronted with
art on a daily basis.
- [Dalia] Welding
against the odds.
- I can either just
lay down and give up
or I can just keep moving,
and I've decided that
I wanna keep moving.
- [Dalia] And
designing the runway.
- [Voszi] I do hats,
jewelry, jackets.
One of my favorite
things to do are jackets.
- It's all coming up
next on WEDU Arts Plus.
(upbeat music)
Hello, I'm Dalia Colon,
and this is WEDU Arts Plus.
Every musician is unique.
So why shouldn't every
instrument be unique?
In this first segment,
let's meet a Tampa man
who goes by the nickname
Wood Woodcasters.
With the help of some
craftsmen and skills
he still remembers from his
high school wood shop class,
his custom guitars
are striking a chord
with musicians in search
of something different.
(blues music)
- I'm Woody
Woodcasters and I build
custom exotic wood guitars
and basses for fun and profit
and probably for some people
that have a whole lot more
money than they ought to have.
They are electric guitars.
We can build acoustic
guitars as well.
We've built a couple of
solid body acoustics,
but they're made
of different woods
and so the tones that come
from them are very different
because the woods resonate
at different frequencies.
Alright, so you have things
like this guitar right here,
number 13.
You have bloodwood, bleached
beech, flamed maple,
and wenge going on.
The pickups are made
of bloodwood and
California olive wood.
Ambrosia maple for
the fret board.
The neck is purple, oh wait,
the whole back of this guitar
is completely different.
Purple heart and mahogany
where we had bloodwood
and bleached beech.
How do you do that?
Stack the wood.
I started taking piano lessons
back in the early 1960s.
My parents thought I
needed to be well-rounded,
but no, I play about 14
different instruments now.
I decided to start
building guitars in 2005.
Well, I had a room full
of them to begin with,
and so, I'm sitting up in
the guitar room, I'm like,
"There's all this
plastic on these guitars.
"What if all the plastic parts
"were exotic hardwoods instead."
So we built a couple and
the tones were very rich,
and we just didn't
look back after that.
One, two, three, four.
(blues music)
We actually formed a band
called Woody and the Woodtones
as a blatant marketing tool
to go out and play blues cover
songs and play the guitars,
so people could see them
and hear them being played
in a live setting.
And didn't take very
long, members of the band
started actually
writing originals
and so they were really good,
so we put together a CD
and we recorded it live.
People started coming up
and asking who was Woody.
Since I was the one that
was sort of the spokesman
and the one building
the instruments,
I wound up becoming
Woody Woodcasters.
(upbeat music)
Well, a couple of
friends of mine
were involved in the
beginning, Craig and Randy.
They had other jobs and
I was pretty much retired
from the insurance
company at that point.
So I kept going.
I started going online
and I started finding
some fine American craftsmen
that actually did
some of this stuff.
I like to design it.
I'll get an
instrument in my head
and I can actually visualize
what it's gonna look like
when it's finished, before
even the first piece of wood
is ordered.
So I'll call up, for example,
someone building a body
like the one over there,
"I'd like a checker
board body, Strat style,
"ash and walnut."
And they'll build the
rectangular piece.
They'll cut the body out
of that, they'll form it,
and send me that
body part, raw wood.
We then have to do
the final sanding,
put the nitrocellulose
finish on it,
decide on what wood the pickups
are gonna be wound out of,
what wire it's gonna
be wound out of.
Pickups are the
electronic things
that pickup the string vibration
that make the electric signal
that goes to your amplifier.
If it's gonna have cavity covers
or pick guards or
anything like that,
I have to then go get the
wood and build those parts.
Our finish guy is
up in Wesley Chapel.
He's a blueberry farmer.
(laughs)
But the rest of the year,
he does finish work for us.
(blues music)
You can walk into any Sam Ash,
you can walk into any Guitar
Center, any place like that,
all these places have
the same exact guitars
from the same manufacturers.
A guitar that you can buy for
$200 that was built in China
is built out of
basswood and pot metal,
and it's fine for your
child starting out.
It's a good
beginning instrument.
But then, when you get better,
you decide that
you want something
that is going to
be your signature.
You want a guitar that nobody
else has, down to the cases.
Our cases are custom built.
If you can dream
it, we can build it.
I forgot how nice
this guitar plays.
- To see more, follow
realwoodywoodcasters
on Instagram.
On the Milwaukee School
of Engineering campus,
there's the Grohmann Museum.
Its entire theme is inspired
by the idea of man at work.
Let's take a look
at an exhibition
where artists collaborated
to depict human productivity.
(uplifting music)
- We like to say science
without art is nothing.
Not so much to provide culture,
but just to provide a
broader view of art.
The Grohmann Museum, it
was the product of a gift
to the Milwaukee
School of Engineering
of an art collection by
Dr. Eckhart Grohmann.
The collection all dealt
with the art of industry.
Dr. Grohmann was an
aluminum founder.
He ran a foundry on the
south side of Milwaukee.
That's why he had an
affinity to collecting art
and depictions of labor
and depictions of industry.
That's where the
collection began.
We're absolutely unique
in that the collection
all deals with human industry.
It's the art of industry,
the art of labor,
the art of human achievement.
The way the collection's
organized in the museum
is it's broken out thematically.
On the first floor, we have
iron and steel production
and all things related
to heavy industry.
On the second floor, we have
construction and agriculture,
so the more rural motifs
and those sorts of themes.
And on the third
floor, it's craftsmen
and intellectual trades,
so that's a little more
of a catch-all and includes
some of the oldest pieces
in the collection.
There's a number of
site specific art works
included in the building design.
They include the mosaic
floor on which you enter.
You look directly up and
you see our ceiling mural.
The rooftop sculpture garden,
it's a green roof that
includes 18 sculptures
that were all reproduced.
They're site specific pieces
based on pieces in the
permanent collection,
so they were
reproduced in life size
and larger than life size
for our rooftop garden.
Dr. Grohmann's intention
in giving the collection
to the School of Engineering
was he thought that
students of engineering
and these very
technical students
should be confronted with
art on a daily basis.
We host a number of feature
exhibitions every year.
The current exhibition,
Artists at Work,
is a wonderful collaboration
that we put together
with The Cedarburg Artists Guild
and a great opportunity
to showcase local talent.
This exhibition came about
as a result of a conversation
I had with Susan Steinhafel.
Susan is the director of
the Cedarburg Artists Guild.
So we discussed our theme,
that is the theme of industry,
the theme of work, and kind
of presented it as a challenge
to the guild to
create new pieces
surrounding this
theme of industry,
this theme of
human productivity.
And they readily
accepted that challenge.
There are 42 works by
14 featured artists.
The collection is laid
out by artists, actually.
We have them
arranged on the wall
with their pieces as companion
pieces to one another.
But we also laid it
out thematically,
so we looked for
natural connections
between the artists' work.
We have paintings, of course.
We have works on
paper, including
prints and photographs,
and a wide variety
in interpreting the
theme of industry.
Some of the artists
go at it straight
and just document
industry in a snapshot,
in more of a
straightforward approach.
Others go at it a
little differently,
think about the philosophy,
the psychology behind work,
what work means to us,
what work means to culture.
A little bit about
Paul Yank's work,
Paul is very revered by The
Cedarburg Artists Guild.
They all very much
look up to him
because he is a
master printmaker,
and so, a lot of the printmakers
that are included
in the exhibition
have taken their learning
and their tutelage from Paul.
- And you've got it on here.
We work with transparent inks.
We leave the textures that
are behind come through.
We don't wanna lose
all the things in it.
It's monoprint slash
pochoir, means stenciled,
and that way we can
lay color over color,
and with the transparencies,
you can get some
really beautiful tones
that you couldn't get otherwise.
- [James] Paul deals
in Native American
and Pan-Indian motifs, very
much a cultural perspective
on his work.
- It's a southwest pottery maker
and a Mexican basket
weaver and a silversmith,
and the other one
is all the workers,
the real workers,
which is the women.
It's all Indian pieces,
all tied together
as Indian pieces.
And I fell in love with
cultural anthropology,
why man does things, you know.
What the Native American
was doing as a manufacturer,
I mean, they were doing
these things themselves
and identified their way of
living, a way of working.
- [James] Michael
Santini styles himself
a modern medievalist
and also paints
in more of a surrealist vein.
And Michael's work is
very, very detailed,
very nuanced a lot,
iconography, a lot of symbolism.
- I love repetition
and I love symmetry.
So there's a lot
of recurring things
that happen in one
painting that'll transfer
and move over into
another painting.
Because I want my pieces
to be somewhat cerebral,
I want them to make a statement,
to challenge people to think,
and maybe even to
make decisions.
I would pick the
different symbols
that I wanted to represent
the different elements
in that painting.
And then try and
bring all the elements
out to the people that
are looking at the piece,
so they could kind of interact.
And then, when I would
design the border,
I would lay out the border,
then I would take these
individual drawings
of these elements, and I
would start manipulating them
around the paper to try and
get the strongest design.
As time moves on and paint
gets a little more transparent,
then the undertones come through
and give a lot more form.
- [James] The iconography,
the subject matter,
often quite wild and
it's inspired by his
own spirituality.
And so we see a lot
of Biblical motifs
and messages in his work,
as well as a great deal
of symbolism.
- [Michael] Through
working in industry
and working alongside
somebody else
and getting to know them,
getting to respect them,
I thought this would
be kind of apropos
what's going on today.
- [James] We included a
number of Milwaukee artists
in the exhibition.
The Suite by Shelby Keefe
of the Marquette interchange
of the new Milwaukee
Bucks Stadium project,
or arena project.
A couple great paintings by
Hal Koenig of local industry,
the swing bridge
in the third ward,
some of the other
icons that we think of
when we think of local industry.
And they just added a new
dimension and another dimension,
a new element to the exhibition
and complemented
quite well that art
that the Cedarburg
group had produced.
This particular collection
of Artists at Work
I think shows a great
variety and a great diversity
in interpreting that theme
of the art of industry,
but it also showcases
some great local talent.
- Learn more about the
Grohmann Museum's collection
at msoe.edu/museum.
You can find forks,
spoons, and knives
welded together in Gary Hovey's
unique animal sculptures.
While Hovey enjoys his craft,
maintaining his technique is
becoming a greater challenge
every day.
- I have art in my background,
but not like college
or anything like that.
When I was younger, I
was into doing clay work,
and then, when we moved
to Tulsa, Oklahoma,
I went and saw a job that
said Fine Arts Foundry.
I did that for several years
and I was in charge of the
metal shop in the Foundry,
so I learned how to weld there.
First, I saw John Kearney's work
where he took bumper ends,
and welded them together,
and made animals
that were large.
We saw his work in Wichita,
Kansas, 35 years ago.
I was a teenager at the time
and I didn't know how to weld.
I thought it was a great idea.
But then I forgot
about it and one day,
I thought of it again.
I told my wife, I said,
"I wanna buy some flatware
"and try that idea that
I had 30 years ago."
She said, "Yes."
So I went and did
it, and I made a dog.
- The first one he
did was quite good.
It's a little running dog.
We said he ran like
a freight train.
He really had a knack
right from the beginning
for capturing the
character of an animal.
(playful music)
You have a good day.
See you later.
- I have early onset
Parkinson's disease,
and I just had a
little twitchy finger.
I went in and tried to
figure out what was going on,
and they came out with,
"You have Parkinson's."
I've dealt with
this for 21 years.
It really is kind of a
problem, cuz I can't move fast.
I'm a freezer, I'm
not a shaker really.
I can't move once I freeze.
I either lay down
or just quit doing
whatever I'm trying for a while.
And then I go back to it,
so I get in like four hours
to six hours on a
good day of work.
I can either just
lay down and give up
or I can just keep moving.
And I've decided that
I wanna keep moving.
- For Gary physically, dealing
with the Parkinson's disease
is a big deal.
There have been several times
when it's just come to be like,
maybe this is it, maybe
you're gonna have to quit.
He would just be at
a really low point,
and then, we'll manage
to work through it.
- I have to say that my
wife is just the greatest.
She critiques my work,
supports my work.
She drives me
everywhere I need to go,
and she takes care
of my internet stuff.
She communicates with people.
She's my banker.
She's everything.
And so, I couldn't
do it without her.
I really couldn't.
- It's just there
are some things
that Gary doesn't find
easy to do anymore.
I encourage him a
lot, cuz there's times
when he just feels like
things aren't going as well
as he'd like and he doesn't
see the point anymore.
Whatever he needs, I try
to be in tune to that
and help him with it.
He says it's not done until
I give it my final approval.
- [Gary] Make sure they're
all stiff on there, too.
- [Tonnie] But maybe--
- The first place I'll
start is like on a heron,
for instance, he
comes off a base.
I'll make that
first leg straight
and then I'll work on
making everything centered.
I try to make the piece
from the head down.
If I make the head
a head I like,
then I'll finish the piece.
(tapping)
I put the forks
and spoons on top
of this cage I built in
there, the body shape.
I limit myself to forks,
knives, and spoons.
I could do it with other
pieces of metal, but I don't.
It adds a uniqueness to it.
And so, I do have to use
new flatware sometimes,
but there's less than
two percent of it.
And everything else
is used flatware.
I try to keep it
eco-friendly that way.
I'll see an animal on
TV or in a magazine
and I'll go, "Wow,
that's a cool animal.
"I think I'll try and
build one of those."
Or I'll see in my mind what
flatware to use for an animal.
I try to get the
animal to look like
what I think the
animal would look like.
I also try to put what I
call attitude into my pieces.
I did a family of gorillas.
I tried to make the baby
look like he's having fun,
where you look at it, and
you look at the heron,
and he looks like he's
gonna do something to you
cuz you're bothering him.
It's just a cock of
the head a little bit.
- I think people are
drawn to Gary's work
because it's not expected.
They can't really figure
out how he did it.
How did he get a face out of
forks, knives, and spoons.
And they start looking
at the individual pieces
that are in it, and maybe they
see grandma's pattern in it,
or a pattern that they have,
and they start enjoying
just looking at the textures
and the way they work together.
- I'm in kind of a condition
that I'm still able
to produce stuff.
I enjoy that respect.
Even though I've got
Parkinson's disease,
I haven't given up and
I'm not gonna give up
'til I have to.
I'll keep doing this as
long as it keeps selling,
I'll keep making 'em.
As long as people keep thinking
that I have nice artwork,
then I'll keep at it.
- Check out more of Gary Hovey's
artwork at hoveyware.com.
Fashion designer Voszi Douglas
is no stranger to rocking
the runway in Columbus, Ohio.
Whether it's casual
or evening wear,
she makes sure to spotlight
the versatility of her designs.
Here's a behind the scenes look
at her annual fashion show.
(pensive music)
- Even when I was a child,
before I went to school,
I would draw fashion.
I wanted to be a
fashion designer.
I didn't think I'd have to sew.
I thought I would just
create these outfits
and somebody would sew them
cuz I'd be so fabulous.
I didn't start sewing until I
was 25, so that's one thing.
So when I first started sewing,
the drawings that I was doing
were looking like
Vogue patterns.
So, of course, I'm
buying Vogue patterns
and they're kind of hard to do,
cuz you gotta buy the pattern,
then you gotta cut
out the pattern,
then you gotta pin
it to the fabric,
then you gotta cut that
out, then you gotta fall.
Oh, it makes my head hurt.
It evolved over years.
I didn't do great right
off, that's for sure.
What inspires me is fabric
and color and texture,
and I just get all
excited about all that.
That's exciting to me.
I do hats, jewelry, jackets.
One of my favorite
things to do are jackets.
I do jackets out of
upholstery fabric.
I think that's what
I'm best known for.
When you think about it,
it's really high quality,
it's a good textures, sometimes
you can use front and back.
I love upholstery.
(playful music)
Now, the show that I'm
doing next month is,
once a year since 1982,
I do a fashion show
where I preview
my new collection.
And so this is the 34th
year of doing that.
And I will be sewing
and making jewelry
and purses and hats up until
they take the sewing machine
and say, "Okay,
the models are here
"to try their clothes on."
I have two lines.
I have Voszi Designs, which
is maybe like what I have on,
maybe everyday where
type of things more.
Then I have the
Alvoyce Collection,
which is my higher
end collection.
This show is gonna
be a whole show
of the Alvoyce Collection.
That's something I've
never done before,
so it's exciting and scary.
But it'll be probably
100 and something pieces.
I have like 18 models.
(upbeat music)
I like colors and I like
putting things together
that are unusual.
I think a lot of people, if
they lose a little weight
or gain a little weight,
they can still fit
in my outfits.
And they're changeable
cuz you can wear them
frontwards, backwards,
sometimes upside down,
cuz they're not structured.
I like outfits that
when you walk in a room,
you might love 'em,
you might not love 'em,
but you're gonna notice 'em
cuz they're gonna be different.
I love people. I love fashion.
I like color and I just
wanna leave something,
a legacy when I leave that
people loved my clothes.
They're easy to wear.
I wanna also be a nice
and a spiritual person.
- For more of Voszi's designs,
go to
Facebook.com/voszi.douglas.
And that wraps it up for this
edition of WEDU Arts Plus.
For more arts and culture,
visit wedu.org/artsplus,
where you'll find feature
videos, local events,
and arts and culture partners.
Until next time, I'm Dalia
Colon, thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)
Major funding for WEDU Arts Plus
is provided through The
Greater Cincinnati Foundation
by an arts-loving donor
who encourages others
to support your
PBS station, WEDU.