(driving music)

- [Narrator] This
special presentation

was produced in high
definition by WEDU,

Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Gabe] 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 fiery local blues
musician makes waves.

- [Selwyn] This is our passion,

this is our love,
this is our joy,

and whenever we
get on the stage,

that's what we wanna
share with everybody.

- [Gabe] A bronze sculptor
takes command of her work.

- [Heidi] With my method,
when you open a mold,

it's always a curiosity.

- [Gabe] A watercolor
exhibit turns 50.

- [Lena] You have rather
traditional subjects,

landscapes, water, and
seascapes, floral still lives,

but then you also have
things that are abstracted

based on pattern.

- [Gabe] And the
perfection of confection.

- [Michelle] Part of the
research that I've done

in food is really
trying to make sure

that my team really
understand why you make

the ingredient
choice that you make,

and how that interacts
with the human body.

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

(bluesy music)

Hello, I'm Gabe Ortiz and
this is WEDU Arts Plus.

Selwyn Birchwood has
been drawn to the blues

since childhood,
learning to play guitar

by listening to the greats.

The music he writes now shows
his reverence for the genre,

but has its own
distinctive sound.

His first album, Don't
Call No Ambulance,

earned him a Blues Award
for Best Debut Album.

We recently sat
down with Selwyn,

who is touring with his new
album, Pick Your Poison.

(blues guitar riff)

- I get a feeling
off of blues music

that I really don't feel
that I get from any other

style of music.

People tell their story,
sometimes say their prayer

in their song.

Such an emotional
music and so relatable

that I think that's what
really has drawn me to it,

and I think that's why
people enjoy it so much.

(blues guitar)

♪ You took up all
my money, babe ♪

♪ And you do my woman, too ♪

- I started playing music
when I was about 12 years old.

I learned just listening
to records and stuff,

so I had a lot of
teachers, I guess.

Muddy Waters and BB
King, John Lee Hooker,

and all those people that I
just fell in love with music

and wanted to keep
it going ever since.

Wanna hear what this
lap steel sounds like?

- [Audience] Yeah!

- Too bad.

(audience laughter)

This is the one.

(sliding guitar music)

I actually got into
playing lap steel guitar

through a mentor of
mine named Sunny Rhodes.

When I was 19 years old, he
picked me up in his band.

I went over to meet
him and I played

about a half a song for him.

You know, he just looked
at his bass player

and smiled and said, "Son,
do you have a passport?"

And I said, "Yeah."

♪ He might trot over
and to my surprise ♪

♪ He grinned from ear to ear
with that alligator smile ♪

♪ And said I'll spare
your life, boy ♪

♪ Let's see what you got ♪

♪ There's only one thing there ♪

♪ Go get me one of that pot ♪

- Well, I always wanted to
kind of find my own voice

and my own sound and, no
matter what I was learning,

I always tried to figure
out a way to make it my own.

And it came that
way with writing.

In high school, actually,
I would do a lot of poetry

and what would
eventually become songs.

And I used to do it just
sort of as a relaxation,

meditation, and sometimes
even get frustrations out

sort of thing and it was
just good outlet for me.

So eventually it turned
into more song writing.

I don't have a specific
process every time.

It's always different.

Sometimes I'll find a sound
when I'm playing guitar

or a chord that I think
might make a good song

or I'll hear someone
telling a story

and I'll think that
a word sounds cool

and I'll try to work around that

or a saying that someone has
and it's always different.

So I just try to always
keep my ears open.

You know what?

(audience cheers)

You know what?

- [Audience] What?

♪ I don't like no whisky,
I just like the taste ♪

♪ I don't like no reefer,
rolls them every day ♪

♪ I don't like a game,
I just like to play ♪

♪ I don't care for strangers,
but I dig the strange ♪

♪ And I don't know
what else to tell ya ♪

♪ They're just
guilty pleasures ♪

♪ They're just
guilty pleasures ♪

Touring is pretty much life.

We spend the winter
time, for the most part,

around Florida, just
kinda dodging snow.

♪ All by myself ♪

♪ Talkin' to myself ♪

♪ They're the only ones that
know the shape of bein' ♪

I did two tours in
the snow and I said

that I would never do it again.

♪ It's ringin' in
my head again ♪

♪ Are we crazy, ya know ♪

My touring band is the same
band that's on my record.

- We're like brothers, you know.

We joke with each other.

We all got thick skin.

So we, we're rough but we're
gentle at the same time.

We love to have
fun, love to laugh.

Saxophonist Reggie
Oliver, he's a graduate

of Berkeley College of Music,
so he brings a jazz influence.

Our bass player,
Donald Huff Wright,

has been touring in
the blues scene for

I think over 20 years.

And myself, I come from an
R&B and church background,

so I've toured with
a lot of funk bands.

- My first record with Alligator

that we released in 2014 was
called Don't Call No Ambulance,

and we actually ended up
winning the Blues Music Award

for Best New Artist
Album that year.

It was amazing, you know, it
feels like you're 10 feet tall.

You get up on the stage and
they're playing your song

while you're walking
up to the stage,

and it was really just
sort of a surreal moment.

When I'm on stage,
that's the happiest

you'll see me, pretty much.

I don't do this
because I'm trying

to make a million dollars
and get a hit somewhere.

We get out and travel and
go through all the hardships

associated with this sometimes

because this is
what we want to do,

this is our passion, this is
our love, this is our joy,

and whenever we
get on the stage,

that's what we wanna
share with everybody.

Well, you always hope
for a positive reaction.

It's sort of give
and take, you know,

we put the energy
off of the stage

and they give it right
back and it's sort of

a cool thing when it can be a
shared experience like that.

My mom and my sister
used to always get on

and yell at me all the time

'cause I'd always be barefoot.

People ask me if I can
feel the vibrations

of the music and be more
attached to the energy

of the music and
that type of stuff,

and I wish that was the answer.

I kind of wanna go with
that instead of just

I don't like shoes. (laughs)

But that's the truth.

I'm just trying to write
the best music that I can,

perform it the best way I can,

and get it out as far and
wide to everybody as I can.

And I feel like if I do that

that everything else
will fall into place.

- To hear more, go to
selwynbirchwood.com.

Heidi Hoy's expressive
bronze sculptures

render women with incredible
strength and femininity.

Hoy's work in a
male-dominated field

distinguishes itself not
just in her final product,

but in her command of
the process itself.

- We are at the Minnetonka
Center for the Arts

and we're gonna do
a bronze pour today.

We're the only community
arts center facility

that has a bronze-pouring
facility in a five-state area.

When we start up that furnace,

we're gonna heat the
metal to 2100 degrees.

(folksy music)

Flame on.

(whirring sound)

(folksy music)

I don't think I'd be an
artist if I had not landed

at the Minnetonka
Center for the Arts.

I became a student
there in 1988,

and I started teaching there
about three years later.

So I've been there a long time.

The artist community
there is so supportive

and when I was first
getting started,

I was able to
start selling work,

start getting encouragement
right out of the gate

from accomplished people
that collected art

and I had the resources
accessible to me

through the art center.

- [Roxanne] Heidi Hoy
is one of the mainstays

in our program.

She works in a discipline where
there aren't a lot of women.

Because it's largely a
male-dominated field,

and she brings this wonderful
feminine perspective to it,

her work is just so unique.

She has a way of
portraying women

with such incredible
strength and determination

and yet, her sculptures
have a very soft

and lovely feminine side.

(bright, cheery music)

- To become a bronze caster,
it's just putting in the time.

There's so many phases to it,

and each phase is difficult
and time consuming

and needs to be mastered.

I feel very lucky that I've
had the time to explore it.

We're gonna bring the
crucible out and seat it

in the pouring shank
and pour the bronze.

- [Man] Good to go.

(cranking sound)

- [Heidi] I don't know why
I went into this profession.

It's hot and it's sweaty and
it's dangerous and heavy.

- [Woman] You're out.

- [Heidi] But there's something
about the physical-ness

of it that really appeals to me.

I like to work hard and I
like to lift heavy things

and I like to
create beauty, too.

So it's all there
for me in sculpture.

- [Man] I got it.

- Okay.

It's gotten hard enough
within one minute

to hold its form, but we
wanna wait about five minutes

to break it open, 'cause
right now the metal's brittle.

You can see it's starting
to cool and darken.

Once that gets darker,
then we'll pull it out

of the pit and open it up.

I love bronze, because it
is malleable and soft enough

to manipulate and hard
enough and strong enough

to last forever and
still feel momentary.

All right, so we'll
crack it outside.

We use a really old-fashioned
method of pouring bronze.

The commercial foundries
have a much different method

that's more predictable.

You know you're
gonna get the piece.

Now I get out my ax.

With my method, when
you open a mold,

it's always a curiosity
to see what you have.

You don't even know.

I feel very nervous,
always nervous,

because you don't know what
has happened in the pour.

Oh, it still weighs a ton.

Okay, so here's his head,
his neck, his shoulders.

He's holding his guitar here
and his legs are kinda crossed.

The bronze went in
through the cup,

and it went down
the large spews.

This is called
spewing and gating.

I call 'em veins and arteries,
so this would be the artery,

these are the veins.

Bronze only flows
about a palm spread,

so I have to feed fresh bronze
to every part of the piece.

I'm very happy with this pour,

but right here,
where it didn't pour,

you can see those
edges are rounded?

That's called cold shot.

It means the metal got a
little cool in that spot

and just didn't flow.

That's an easy
area for me to fix

and I'll just go in
there and weld that.

I'm gonna cut off all
these spews and gates

and chase the metal down

and then I'll patina the piece

and kind of
tortoiseshell the surface

to give it more dimension.

So when I'm finished
working the bronze,

it's raw bronze, so it's shiny

and I can't keep them that way.

Because they would
tarnish over time anyway.

Your fingerprints, the acids
from your hands would etch it.

To finish a piece
and present it,

I have to patina it and
then wax it or lacquer it

to give it color and
warmth and depth and body.

Patina is an art form in itself

and I wish I knew
more about them.

I've experimented with
patinas, with ammonia vapors

and salts, and they
can get very exotic,

but they're very
hard to control.

So the patinas that I
use are classic patinas.

I make them out of nitric
acid and through nails.

In nitric acid, you see
this big cloud of red stuff

fuming out and it
boils and heats up.

Then you douse it with
water and 24 hours later,

you have a patina.

(gentle music)

As I evolved as an artist,
I realized that what

I wanted to do was sculpt
what moved me emotionally.

So I started sculpting
women, really,

about the emotions
that women experience.

And I wanted them to be
uplifting and somewhat noble.

Bronze is called
the noble metal,

and I think there's
a reason for that.

There's just something,
to me, that's very sensual

and beautiful about bronze.

I don't know, there's
just something about it.

- Find out more by
visiting heidihoyart.com.

The Charles A. Wustum
Museum of Fine Arts

in Racine, Wisconsin,
celebrates the 50th anniversary

of its longest-running
exhibition,
Watercolor Wisconsin.

Here's a look at this
diverse collection.

- There was a great
deal of respect for

what people could produce with
their minds and their hands.

We're currently in the
exhibition galleries

at the Charles A. Wustum
Museum of Fine Arts

in Racine, Wisconsin,

which is celebrating its
75th anniversary this year.

The Wustum's were a
very interesting family.

They were involved in
a variety of businesses

in the Dakotas, where they met,

moved back to the Racine
community to run this property

as a functioning dairy farm.

Now, Charles was also involved
in a meat-packing business

in Chicago, and he
would frequently travel

from Racine to
Chicago on business,

and when he was traveling,
Mrs. Wustum, Jenny,

would run the farm
in his absence.

And she was really quite
a take-charge woman.

This couple who was not
known to be art collectors

ends up leaving their
estate to the community

to be turned into an art museum.

Well, that museum
opened up in 1941

and was one of the
few places to view art

and to study art between
the Art Institute of Chicago

and the Layton
Galleries in Milwaukee.

And it became an outpost
for creative people

throughout northern Illinois
and southeastern Wisconsin.

We now operate two campuses
that are two miles apart,

and we try to offer different
experiences at both campuses.

At RAM, in Racine's downtown,
we offer exhibitions

for artists with national and
international reputations.

At the Wustum campus,
we operate that

as our visual education center.

The fact that it was a
home sort of projects

a homey nature, a sense
of comfort to people,

that I think made it very
easy for blue collar workers

in this community to
embrace visual art

and feel at home looking at it.

One of the things that's a big
part of the museum's history

is the Watercolor
Wisconsin competition.

The people at the
museum at the time

believed that there was a
great deal of wonderful work

being done in the
watercolor medium,

and that was something
that was very specific

to Wisconsin as a place, which
I think is still true today.

That show opened up in 1966,

and we have run that as
an annual competition

every year since.

So in the same year that
Wustum is turning 75,

the Watercolor Wisconsin
exhibition is turning 50.

It can be anything that employs
water to move the paint.

So it can be watercolor,
acrylic, wash, or ink.

It can be wet and dry
together, but it has to be

some kind of involvement
of a water-based medium.

- There are 98
works by 71 artists,

and they are from across
the state of Wisconsin.

The jurors who pick the work
do not know who the artists are

or where they are
from in the state.

So this is really based
on the quality of the work

and on the jurors
seeing something that
they connect with.

You have rather
traditional subjects,

some things that
people would think of

when they think of watercolor:

landscapes, water and seascapes,

floral still lives.

But then you also have
things that are abstracted

based on pattern,

things that are
figurative or narrative

so that they'll tell a story.

And then they have
things where the emphasis

is more on the composition.

- I use just the simplest
of all aqueous mediums.

I use pen and ink and
watered down acrylic paint.

The work has a tendency to
be more like a sketch book.

It has a sketch book quality.

And this series of
paintings is called

Memorial Drive Journal.

This painting has to do
with white plastic bags

that, in the mile and a
half or two mile journey

that I take down
Memorial Drive every day,

there are a lot of people
carrying white plastic bags.

I've done a lot of
paintings on canvas,

but I really do like
painting on paper.

There's a certain brightness
and transparency to it

that I really like.

- [Lena] There is an immediacy
in using water-based media

that doesn't happen with
using oil and canvas.

- [Bruce] We do
purchase a few paintings

from each year's Watercolor
Wisconsin competition

so we have a very
substantial record

that we're growing at
RAM of Wisconsin artists

working in watercolor and
aqueous media on paper.

- [Lena] The works
that are represented

in this exhibition are
really wonderful examples

of the dynamic nature
of Watercolor Wisconsin

and a wonderful reflection
of this state's willingness

to pursue a media.

- Learn more about the Wustum
Art Museum at ramart.org.

You can satisfy your sweet
tooth with a visit to Mmelo

in the art district of
downtown Columbus, Ohio.

In this segment, owner
Michelle Allen shows off

her tasty confections, including
her signature marshmallows.

(lilting music)

- We are in my new cafe,
my confectionary cafe

Mmelo Boutique
Confections, M-M-E-L-O,

which funnily enough
came out of a sound

that my husband would hear,

because I started kind
of doing this in Spain.

And my husband, people
would try my food

and people would go "mmmmmm"

and it just kind of
grew out of that sound.

So that's where
Mmelo comes from.

You know, marshmallows have
really fallen from grace.

They were a confection for kings

and the reason for that is
you can do so many things

with the flavor and the
texture and the, you know,

you raise it a few degrees
and you get like this

Swedish marshmallow,
which is a bit rubbery,

and that's how they like it.

Or you add a bit
of egg white to it

and it's like, it's
almost like a foam,

the French call it a guimauve.

So that's one of the reasons
why I'm kind of pushing

the virtues of marshmallows.

Okay, we are on the clock now.

I grew up just off
of Livingston Avenue,

and the southeast side,
and went to Ohio State,

and was just chomping at
the bit to get out of town.

I travel all over the world
and a lot of that travel

actually ended up informing
the recipes I design now.

In September of 2015,

I quickly came back
to the United States,

incorporated Mmelo,
contacted a contact

that I had over at
Easton Autoship.

They gave me this creme de
la creme spot on the Strand.

I had Louis Vuitton
across the street

and Apple on one side or
Michael Kors on the other.

It was mad, that would
never in a million years

happen in Europe.

I was there for eight weeks.

Based on the strength of
that, I got corporate clients,

I got, I found the
funding for my business.

I would never have gotten
this far in Spain, ever.

Part of the research
that I've done in food

is really trying to
make sure I and my team

really understand why you
make the ingredient choice

that you make and
how that basically

interacts with the human body.

That in addition to the
commitment to using, designing

all the recipes around real
food, whole food ingredients.

Not using uber-refined flours,

not using uber-refined sugars,

not using artificial
flavors or sweeteners,

or all the sort of
stuff that we now know

we shouldn't really consume.

You know, people
ask me all the time,

can you do a sugar-free treat?

And my response to that
is, I would love to,

but there isn't a
natural way to do that.

We can do low glycemic,
but we can't do sugar-free.

I'm not trying to say
that Mmelo is health food,

but it is food, it is not junk.

It is not made with
junky ingredients.

There's thought behind the way

that it was built
and constructed.

And a lot of people
here in Columbus

have done some amazing
work in terms of

creating the food
landscape here in Columbus.

It's so impressive and I'm
so proud of my hometown.

And I really hope that
Mmelo can contribute to that

in a really positive way.

- For more delectable
confections, visit mmelo.co.

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 Gabe Ortiz.

Thanks for watching.

(rhythmic 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.