ZoomVlog

(upbeat music)

- [David] 78th Street Studios is home

to dozens of Northeast Ohio artists and art galleries.

On the next applause, we warm up

inside this old Cleveland factory space

now an art Mecca, plus you'll see the beauty and strength

of the black hair exhibit on view in Kent

and an applause performance by Mourning [A] BLKstar

with the song, "If I can, if I may".

Al that and more on the next round of "Applause"

♪ Chasing pleasure ♪

♪ Is the perfect measure ♪

(jazzy music)

- [Announcer] Production of "Applause"

an Ideastream Public Media is made possible by

the John P. Murphy Foundation, the coolest foundation.

The Stroud Family Trust, and by Cuyahoga County residents

through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

(jazzy music)

- [David] Hello, welcome to Ideastream Public Media's

award-winning arts and culture show "Applause".

I'm your host, David C. Barnett.

Once a month on the third Friday,

an old factory building on the near West Side of Cleveland

comes to life.

Thanks to the artistic tenants of 78th Street Studios.

Let's go inside and wander around.

(upbeat music)

- Hi, I'm Dan Bush

and I'm the owner and developer of 78th Street Studios.

This enormous arts complex here

in the heart of the near West Side of Cleveland.

The building is actually a complex

of five buildings interconnected.

There was actually the Baker-Rawling car carriage factory

dating back to 1905.

American Greetings actually used the building

for some production as I understand back in the '40s

and then took it over leased the building in 1959

and remodeled it

as their first consolidated world headquarters.

- Hi, I'm Hilary Gent.

I operate Hedge Art Gallery at 78th Street Studios.

78th Street Studios is located

in the Gordon Square Arts district,

so that we are the near West Side of Cleveland

and I've operated Hedge Art Gallery here in the building

for almost 13 years.

- Hi everybody.

My name is Margaret Dale,

I'm co-owner of Googie Style Gallery.

Welcome.

People walk in and often will say,

"What the hell is going on."

We buy and sell what we love and have a passion for.

So it's unusual decorative arts.

We are actually in the photo developing department

for American Greetings

and it's a huge complex of over 70 different studios

and galleries and businesses

where there's something for literally everybody

at every price range.

- Hi, my name is Valerie Mayen

and I am the owner and founder

of Yellowcake Shop Clothing Company.

So I moved here in 2019.

What attracted me most was that it was a well known gem

among creatives and artists

and it was difficult to get into

because most artists when they're in the building,

they stay here for a very long time.

- Hi, my name's Dave Crider.

I'm an artist here at 78th Street Studios

particularly in the Googie Style Gallery.

I'm a furniture design artist,

as well as an artist that works with a lot of mixed media.

We have been in 78th Street Studios

for about, I think, four years now.

It's a great networking possibility

with a lot of the different artists here in this building.

Some of the best artists at Cleveland showcases

are right here in this facility.

(upbeat music)

- The real game changer was the genesis of Third Friday.

About 15 years ago, we threw a big party

and we decided to make it quarterly.

The first third Friday was a spring event.

I catered it bought beer and wine.

We had about 250 people here and it's grown since then.

I stopped catering it at that point.

We were seeing traffic of roughly 2000 to 3000 people

through the course of a four hour event every month

on third Friday.

So the pandemics taught us to to certainly be patient,

be caring, good neighbors.

You know, being what I would have to characterize

as a public event it was very nerve wracking to reopen.

- Third Friday is our free public open house,

art walk night, the entire building is open to the public

and you can cruise through almost 60 plus

creative businesses anywhere from fine art galleries,

like Hedge to other studios.

So actually like Maker Spaces.

We have the museum for Northeast Ohio Art,

interior design, graphic design studios, you name it.

There's a lot of that going on.

The pandemic taught us a lot of things.

Honestly, we had to adapt to some new business models

and ways that we invited the public in.

It gave us an opportunity too,

'cause we were closed from March to June in 2020

to step back and look at our business model

and ask ourselves a couple,

you know, important marketing questions

and address those,

address some things that needed to be taken care of.

- It's kind of what is the the term?

You are the company you keep, you know

so other creative businesses,

edging on other creative businesses

and we have a good comradery.

There's a support system, there's, you know,

some unknown rules between business owners and creatives

and we just we have a lot in common

in terms of the way we run our businesses

and the challenges we encounter.

And it's kind of just nice to be in the same boat,

so to speak.

- I was looking for warehouse space, you know

something with that kind of industrial chic feel,

something that I could also, kind of carve out

and make my own space out of.

I initially was looking for artist studio space

because I'm an artist, I'm a painter.

And so when I was searching back in 2008

that's what I was looking for.

So, and I was also looking

for a building that almost had the sense of a community

built into it, so that if I were to, you know

be an artist working in a space

or an art gallery, operate in an art gallery

that I would have other people to bounce ideas off of.

- I'm just grateful to be here,

grateful to still be operating smoothly through, you know

the last couple of years, everything we've been through

and we're still have a lot of great opportunities

ahead of us in the arts community.

And we're just happy to be here.

(upbeat music)

- You can visit Third Friday next Friday

at 78th Street Studios on Cleveland's near West Side.

Let's warm things up with a trip to Florida

to take in the inspiring art of Tampa Bay's Junior Polo,

who makes music with his paintbrush.

- My name is Junior Polo.

I'm a professional artist.

I do teaching and also get the local communities

involved in art activities.

And I do a lot of public art also in the Tampa Bay area.

Yeah, that painting, you see it right here.

It's about like a young lady

like when I was kid and I got a crush on her

those flower represent me and her.

And then that dead branch it's like people

keep us away from each other, like to really like

to be able to see her to say things and stuff like that.

That branch represents that.

- [Interviewer] But this is your first painting?

- Yeah.

This is my first painting.

My world changed in the time.

You know, when I was younger, like when I was a kid

I loved cartoon and grow up and I love landscape.

And after that, what changed everything

it's when I start working with kids

and I see the way they work

and then my work changed totally.

It's like the kids teach me how to be an artist.

Lately I fell in love with jazz.

And now we can see, most of my artwork is based on music.

And sometime I have friends come over like who play jazz,

like they play live.

And then I listen to the music

and then get some inspiration some time.

For example, this piece, it's like the same thing,

it's a jazz player.

And he explained to me something

and then play music, he created music

and I'm trying to create a piece for him

like based on his piece.

Sometime just people say something

and I heard what they say.

And I said, oh, that's it, let's try something.

And I can hear just word from somebody

and we can just have a conversation.

And then you say something

and I pick up something and I say, that's idea.

Let me try to create something with that.

My kids, sometimes they're funny.

They say something and they say,

"Daddy, what about you do this, you do that."

I said, "That's a good idea."

And I use it too.

My inspiration is from all over.

I've been working with kids since I was 16 years old.

And then since I moved here in 2010,

and then I decide to create a business, working with kids.

I don't think COVID have any impact negative on me

like for creating, but economically, yes,

because we have our business Veropolo,

where we teach people.

We have to be one-on-one with people,

and stuff like that, we work with kids,

but now since COVID everything go down.

It's why I try to pick up a couple of classes online

and then try to do it online.

But most of the time it's more interesting, you know

to be face to face with people, talk to them, you know,

it's difficult.

Like economically, yes, it's changed things,

but that did not affect my ability to make art,

to make something amazing.

(gentle music)

If I'm doing a sculpture it depends on my environment.

What I find in my environment,

I use everything I find around me.

For example, if I'm here, try to make something,

create something, I will use everything in that room

to create a piece of art.

Usually I put everything together,

sometime I don't know what will happen

because it's difficult for me sometimes

to do commission work because I prefer to be free.

You know, when I'm working

sometimes when people ask me,

"Oh I want you to do something for me.

I want you to do this, I want you to do that.

That's will probably be difficult

because when I'm working, I want to be free and happy.

If you like my work, let me be free.

You know, if you have a wall, something like that,

let me be free.

I did a big giant mural in Clearwater inside a building.

What I used, I just used,

because it's a building they were renovating.

And then they were throwing everything out

and all those, like trash things, like pipe,

piece of wood and everything.

And I put them back together

and I created a big giant piece with that.

And then people were so happy.

It's because of that, people in Clearwater saw that mural.

And then the Clearwater Jazz Festivals,

said man, we need to keep that.

And then they choose me to be the poster artist

for the Clearwater Jazz Festival in 2015.

I was born artist.

They already asked me when I was a kid.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

I would say, "Okay, I wanna be an artist."

But most of the time in my country,

when you say you wanna be an artist, people say,

"What?

No way."

I'll always be passionate about it since I was a kid,

and then now I live through art.

- [David] MOCA, Cleveland is home for contemporary art

in Northeast Ohio.

On the next round of "Applause"

why MOCA is making diversity its mission.

Plus we meet the newest members of the PBS kids, lineup,

Jelly, Ben, and Pogo, and a music therapist

whose voice brings healing to any audience.

All this and more on the next round of "Applause".

♪ I've had my dream since I was 13 ♪

♪ I became a nurse and I know ♪

♪ What it means to respect life ♪

- [David] Hair has played a significant role

in the lives of African Americans

ever since arriving in this country four centuries ago.

On view now at the Kent State University Museum

is an exhibit examining the art, history,

and textures of black hair.

In early African culture,

a person's hair was a symbol of power

and their place in society.

Kings, soldiers, expected mothers, peasants

were identified by their hairstyle.

The trans-Atlantic slave trade

that brought thousands of Africans to this country

changed that.

(upbeat music)

- Black hair has been discriminated against

since the time of slavery.

One of the things that was critical

in how our hair was treated

is what we were taught about our hair.

Slave masters at that time

would actually refer to black people's hair as wool

instead of hair.

And it was a way for them to be able to rationalize

why they treated black people

the way in which they treated us.

So they dehumanized, you know, who we were as black people

along with not only our bodies, but also our hair.

- Ooh!

- Just hold on and suck it in!

- [David] Ridiculed and demeaned

for having coarse thick hair,

enslaved Africans hid their hair behind wigs and head rags.

- If you had a head wrap on it was,

quote, unquote automatically you were also a slave

and the head wrap also served as a way for black people

to have a quick solution for their hair.

Because you know, back in those times

they didn't have the amount of time that we have

for grooming.

You know, they didn't have the correct utensils

for grooming and so the head wrap became a way

for them to be able to spend a little bit of time

on themselves.

- [David] Some states enacted laws

requiring African Americans to wear head wraps.

- The tignon law basically said that

any freed black woman

still were required to wear a head wrap

even if you were free.

If you left the house

you had to have a head wrap on your head.

And what they were trying to do

was trying to discourage the white men

to be attracted to the black women.

- [David] As a way to assimilate in a world

where straight Caucasian hair

was valued over course, black hair

African Americans began to treat their hair.

- Black people started straightening their hair

during slavery.

The first type of hair straightening that they would do

is they would use clothing irons,

you know, like the old clothing iron

that you would put on a stove to heat it up.

And so the woman would place her head down on a table

and straighten her hair out with the clothing iron.

That was something that was required

of many of people that worked in the house.

- [David] As the need for black hair products grew

entrepreneurs like Madam CJ Walker

introduced products that promoted hair growth

and the straightening of black hair

with the use of a hot comb,

the device was heated and ran through your hair

to untangle it,

making Walker the first black woman million in the U.S.

In 1909 inventor Garrett Morgan

created the first hair relaxer

to chemically straighten black hair.

- Black people were given tools to now maintain their hair.

So no longer were they using a clothing iron.

But by this time the French had invented

a straightening comb that can then be put on a stove.

And then you could use the straightening comb

to straighten your hair.

So Madam CJ Walker and others, they sold these Combs.

They would sell a set,

so it would be the comb along with hair pomade

and cleanser and other things.

And so they began to really, you know, start giving tools

to black people so that they can take care of their hair.

- [David] Some praise these products

while others criticize them

insisting that they further the stereotype

that good meant having straight hair.

♪ When I fall in love ♪

- The idea of straightening hair was even debated back then.

So while Madam CJ Walker and others

were building these amazing businesses for black economy,

there were people such as like Marcus Garvey

was an activist who was totally against the idea

of straightening the hair.

And he was even said to have said something

such as, "Take the kinks out of your mind

and not out of your hair."

- [David] In the 19th sixties, the debate over black hair

came to a head as African Americans

confronted issues of social injustice and discrimination

and a hairstyle known as the Afro appeared.

It was a symbol of black power and challenged the notion

of Caucasian-like hair as a standard of beauty.

- We were straightening our hair,

we were doing what we were told

in order to be employable, right?

But then once the civil rights era came

and the black power movement came about,

black people had gotten to a point

where they were just like, I'm not doing this anymore.

I'm gonna just be me.

And society looked at it as a way to, you know

quote unquote rebel, but really what it was

was it was black people saying, I am proud of who I am

and I am no longer gonna assimilate

to the standard of beauty

that you said that I have to live up to.

- [David] In the 1980s and '90s, actresses and singers

like Janet Jackson, Cicely Tyson, and Whoopi Goldberg

popularized, black hairstyles like braided hair,

cornrows, and dreadlocks.

- Back then they called them big box braids

and goddess braids is what they would call them.

And that was a huge influencer from Jamaican reggae music.

There was a lot of reggae artists that were coming out,

Patra was one of the ones

that at was a very famous reggae singer.

And everybody wanted to have their hair like Patra's

and including myself.

- [David] Wearing these African American inspired hairstyles

often came at a price.

In 1981, a court ruled American airlines flight attendant,

Renee Rogers was not to wear braids to work.

Years later that ruling forced Hyatt Regency employee,

Cheryl Tatum to resign

after she refused to remove her cornrows.

More recently, high school wrestler, Andrew Johnson

was forced to cut off his dreadlocks

or forfeit his wrestling match.

- Black people unfortunately are still having

to fight against discrimination regarding their hair.

And that's the reason why we have

things such as the Crown Act.

The Crown Act was established in 2019,

came out early July of 2019.

And it was a law put in place by California.

They were the very first ones

and now around the nation you'll see

other states starting to adopt this same Crown Act.

They put that law in place because black people

were going into schools,

they were going into institutions, such as employment,

executive positions in corporate spaces

and were being told that they had to change their hair

in order to work in these spaces.

But things are starting to change, which is amazing.

And the reason why they're starting to change

is because people are saying no, no more.

(upbeat music)

- [David] Today, a number of films about black hair

like "My Nappy Roots", "Bad Hair" and "Nappily Ever After"

have given rise to the natural hair movement

causing African Americans to think about the issues

surrounding how they wear their hair.

- What's happening today is of like a smash up of things.

About 40% of women, black women

are wearing their hair in its natural state.

The other 60% of black women

are wearing their hair straightened, or

and or wearing a weave or wearing a wig.

And, you know, in many ways,

we are trying to still figure ourselves out.

I think at this particular time in our history

many times black people

are still trying to figure out our identity.

- [David] The exhibit textures,

the history and art of black hair

is on view at the Kent State University Museum

through August 7th.

Mourning [A] BLKtar's latest album, "The Cycle"

arrived at the start of the pandemic.

Yet the Cleveland band has soldiered through

gaining a claim for songs like this one.

"If I Can, If I May"

(upbeat instrumental music)

♪ Chasing pleasure ♪

♪ Is the perfect measure ♪

♪ Of how we live ♪

♪ Heart to sleeve, common greed ♪

♪ If I can if I may, yes, it's a woman ♪

♪ If I can if I may, yes, again, I'm a man ♪

♪ That's right, I'm a grown-ass man ♪

♪ My heart has melted ♪

♪ It's thawed out against the odds ♪

♪ Shoulda figured that along this life ♪

♪ I'd stand up straight for the love we made ♪

♪ If I can if I may, if I can, if I may ♪

♪ Let me love you ♪

♪ My own damn way, my own damn way ♪

♪ My own damn way ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ If I can if I may ♪

♪ If I can, if I may ♪

♪ Let me love you ♪

♪ My own damn way ♪

♪ My own damn way, ahh ♪

♪ My own damn way ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Ahh ♪

♪ You've been a dangle ♪

♪ You bat those eyes, yeah ♪

♪ Tell me, tell me, tell me ♪

♪ Tell me how they want mine, yeah ♪

♪ Let me love you, baby ♪

♪ Let me love you, baby ♪

♪ Let me love you, baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Let me love you, baby ♪

♪ Let, let, let me love you ♪

♪ Let me love you ♪

♪ Let, let, let me love you ♪

♪ My own damn way ♪

♪ My own damn way, ahh ♪

♪ My own damn way, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Let, let, let me love you, let me love you ♪

♪ Let, let, let me love you, my own damn way ♪

♪ My own damn way, ahh ♪

♪ My own damn way ♪

♪ Ahh, yeah ♪

♪ Ahh, yeah ♪

- [David] Another round of applause is in the books.

Thanks for turning the pages with us this week.

Meet me back here next time

for more tales of arts and culture from your friends here

at Ideastream public media, I'm David C. Barnett

(jazz upbeat music)

(dramatic music)

(jazzy music)

- [Announcer] Production of "Applause"

an Ideastream Public Media is made possible by

the John P. Murphy Foundation, the coolest foundation.

The Stroud Family Trust, and by Cuyahoga County residents

through Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

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