-I'm Nancy Guppy, host of "Art Zone,"
and we are dedicating this show
to the memory of our wonderful friend
and colleague Jená Cane, who died October 5, 2023.
♪♪
Jená was a force to be reckoned with.
In her 58 years of life,
Jená wore many hats and she wore them well,
including actor, teaching artist,
and co-founder of Citizen University
with her beloved husband, Eric Liu.
But Jená's superpower was her singular ability
to connect with everyone.
She was curious, tenacious,
honest, charming, open-minded, and always hilarious.
Her raspy laugh was sunshine breaking through the clouds.
In her final years of life,
Jená laser-focused her time and energy on relationships,
on loving those around her,
especially her family, husband Eric,
daughter Zoey, and stepdaughter Olivia.
Jená was a light.
She made our world a brighter place,
and we will miss her always.
♪♪
Hi, there, and welcome to the show,
coming to you this week from the "Art+Flight" exhibit
at The Museum of Flight.
This unique show is designed to connect
the region's vibrant art scene with its rich aerospace history.
Although the more than 30 participating artists
aren't known for creating work
that is directly associated with aviation or space,
these art pieces were inspired by the concept of flight,
both real and imagined.
Museum president and C.E.O. Matt Hayes
put it this way, "Visitors to the museum
might have profound connections to what's here,
but don't necessarily have the means to express those feelings.
And that's where artists can help to elevate our experience,
realize our feelings, enhance our perceptions,
and remind us of the awe and joy of flight
through the language of art."
"Art+Flight" runs now through January 7, 2024.
For hours, location, and information
about special events,
go to museumofflight.org.
We've got a great line-up for you, including...
♪♪
...the annual homage to the Fab Four.
"Little Women" at Seattle Rep.
-There is a vast community of people
that have to come together to bring a big show to life,
especially a period show like "Little Women,"
in which there's a lot of detail in historical context.
-The exquisite eye of Chris Maynard.
-I might get an inspiration from the feather
just by the shape of it
and the theme I'm trying to portray.
♪♪
[ Punk rock music playing ]
-And music from Wimps.
♪♪
-♪ Find $20 on the street ♪
-♪ Take it as it comes, take it as it comes ♪
-And we'll begin with Cappy Thompson,
a self-described narrative painter whose work,
from the intimate to the monumental,
is always driven by content.
♪♪
-I don't know if a million people
go out to the end of Concourse A,
but it's probably hundreds of thousands of people every year.
The piece at the airport was really important in my career
because so many people go to the airport.
That was when I started to see that people, they would go,
"Oh. You did that thing at the airport."
That was probably the biggest thing I have ever done
or ever will do.
♪♪
I got started as an artist because my mom was a painter,
and she didn't have the opportunity
to be a professional artist, but she valued it.
So I grew up around it.
I really always liked drawing and painting and clay
and whatever was around, I did it.
♪♪
I got a B.A. degree at Evergreen,
and I had a summer job in a stained-glass studio,
and they suggested that I research glass painting.
I thought that sounded fun, and I did,
and that changed my life.
♪♪
I found it to be an incredibly wonderful material,
and a lot of it was happening in the northwest,
so it kind of gave me an entrance
into a very supportive community
of people working with glass.
Gave me the opportunity to innovate in it,
because I-I-I taught myself.
Grisaille is a black drawing on colored glass.
"Grisaille" -- it's a French word,
and it means "gray tonal painting".
♪♪
The first layer is linework,
and it gets painted on with a tracing brush.
It has a particular character of line,
and you'll see it in medieval stained glass.
The enamels are glass powder with metal oxides.
Mix it into a paint, paint the lines,
and then it's fired in a kiln so that that enamel melts.
A wash of black is applied
and then that's worked subtractively with dry brushes.
It pokes holes in the -- in the paint
and light comes through,
establishing tonality and pattern.
♪♪
I've been painting on glass for not quite 50 years.
I did stained glass for the first 10 or 12 years.
That is one of my early pieces,
and it is called "Baram Gur Kills a Dragon".
That's really how I taught myself to work with glass paint.
I had a visit one day from a couple of artists,
and shortly after that, Dale Chihuly visited my studio.
And because I was working with enamels,
which was unusual with glass, I kind of got welcomed in.
I started working on vessel forms,
so that I bumped into the glassblowers at Pilchuck.
So there have been this kind of 10-year periods
where a shift occurs and there's a little wind in your sails
'cause you're -- you're exploring something new.
And after about 10 years of working with vessels,
I had an opportunity to do a big commission at Sea-Tac.
This was kind of a period when I was doing public art.
Glass is a good material for working in public art.
It doesn't take up a lot of space.
You have to have it anyway,
and it has a big impact because it's light-bearing.
♪♪
There's a-a big window at The Evergreen State College,
and that one's titled "I Imagine Us as a Holy Family
Engaging in the Great Work of Increasing the Light."
World cultures and religions in the image.
And it's a garden.
I want to pull people in with these ideas.
I've always been drawn to early work from many cultures --
Medieval painting or Mexican folk art
or a Persian miniature or a Russian folk print.
And I feel incredibly lucky to be here,
because glass also ended up
being an incredibly, you know, rich vein
here in the Seattle area.
And so I kind of lucked out. [ Chuckles ]
One of my favorite pieces, actually, turns out,
is the -- the big window at the airport.
It's called "I Was Dreaming of Spirit Animals".
The scale of it is monumental and, actually, to have had
the opportunity to work at that scale was so exciting.
There wasn't a lot of glass being done architecturally
in public art in -- in this area.
So I kind of was one of the early ones.
And I went to Germany and I fabricated.
Wilhelm Derix, whose company it was,
I was asking him how we were gonna do it.
He said, "Three painters, three months,"
something like that.
We made it and it was so much fun.
♪♪
Thematically, it's the northern constellations,
the animals of the northern constellations.
And then there's a tower house where there's a couple dreaming,
and it's me and my husband, Charlie.
It's based on some dreams that I'd had
when I had my first studio, about animals at that time.
The Pisces constellation is a pair of dolphins,
which I dreamt of.
It makes me feel good when I see it
and I see people enjoying it.
-As a maker, I'm impressed by it.
As a curator, I'm impressed by it.
And I'm sure, like, if I had none of those skills,
as just somebody who's interested
in the storytelling ability that she kind of has with this
and the whimsical nature of the work,
it's just hard not to be pulled into it.
-There was a little girl there.
So there's a tower house with a red door and -- and stairs.
And I saw her go up to it and try to step into the house.
So it was like, "Oh, my God."
It was like, "Yes," because that's really what I wanted.
It was a big enough scale
that you could actually be inside the picture.
It worked for her. [ Chuckles ]
I think art is something that can actually make a difference.
I want to make a difference in how people feel.
-See more of Cappy's work on her website
and at Traver Gallery,
located at 1st and Union in downtown Seattle.
"Little Women", the beloved classic novel
by Louisa May Alcott,
is on the Seattle Rep main stage,
and the theater gave us a behind-the-scenes look
at the costumes for this fresh and lively adaptation.
♪♪
-The designer comes in with their beautiful renderings,
and then it's my job to take their designs and figure out
how to actually create them on time and within budget.
This is the most crucial time of the whole build,
in my opinion, because I do manage the money.
So this is telling me who's in what scene
and what they're wearing.
And if somebody has quite a lot of looks,
like our main character, Jo,
has lots and lots of looks --
All of these are a different dollar amount
that my eyeballs go "cha-ching cha-ching."
And that's how I don't go over my budget.
Magically, through this paperwork.
Since we don't have the time or the resources
to build everything,
we find pieces that other theaters already have
that we can borrow for the show
that fits within the world of the design.
-We have big pieces that we just simply
don't have the time to make in this show,
but we can use our local resources.
This all came from Milwaukee.
We had another person go down and pull all of these items,
and this is what happens to the stuff that we make.
It goes into stock and then we can share it
with other theaters as well.
-Once we have the designs and we know
what we're going to actually build,
swatching is the next key piece of that.
We have a freelance assistant who lives in L.A.,
and we send her the designs
because Seattle really doesn't have a fabric stock
that L.A. and New York do.
So, she physically cut these swatches in the store,
put it on these pieces of paper, and sent those to us.
It's old-school.
Yeah, it's an old-school, hands-on-the-ground,
feet-on-the-ground kind of -- kind of thing.
You can't really do this online.
Once we have those individual pieces
approved of what we're going to build,
then the actual shop staff begins their work.
We have usually just four very short weeks before tech begins.
There is a vast community of people
that have to come together to bring a big show to life,
especially a period show like "Little Women,"
in which there's a lot of detail in historical context.
The drapers mock up the pattern on paper
and translate the designer's drawings
into something that's actually gonna go on the body,
drawn out in 2D to become 3D.
The first hands cut out these mock-ups
in the early building stages
of how we might want to start putting things together.
It's just this kind of nice, thin muslin material
to sort of start looking at shape and design.
Then we have our first fits with those muslin mock-up garments
on the actors' bodies.
We get big overview notes from the designer about shapes,
style lines.
Then we have a week to do all of those notes.
That's when we start getting into the actual real fabric
the garments are going to be.
Then there's more notes that come out of second fittings.
We have to make sure the final pieces are ready
to hit the stage within one more week before tech begins.
It takes so many people to put a big show like this together.
Not just the hands in the room that are sewing clothes,
but the folks building wigs, mustaches, beards, you name it.
And the craftsmaster who does hats and shoes, dyeing fabrics.
There's many hands that touch every single piece of any look,
complete head to toe.
When we're done building the show,
we hand everything over to the wardrobe and wig teams,
and they care for the clothes and the hair
throughout the entire run.
It's a really big job to keep track of all the moving parts
and pieces of a show like this.
In just a few short weeks,
we put together a huge, huge show.
Period pieces are so much fun because they're challenging
and it's not your everyday build.
And I think the shop has accomplished a lot
in a short amount of time.
♪♪
-"Little Women" runs now through December 17th.
Ticket information is at seattlerep.org.
♪♪
The power punk trio Wimps has an all-ages show
coming up later this month,
and in anticipation of that performance,
here is Rachel Ratner,
Matt Nyce, and Dave Ramm
performing "Old Guy (at the party)".
♪♪
-♪ The old guy ♪
♪ At the party tonight ♪
♪♪
♪ Yes, I'm the old guy ♪
♪ At the party, all right ♪
♪♪
♪ All the stuff you have done ♪
♪ I've seen 1,000 times before ♪
-♪ Dean Whitmore played this place in 1984 ♪
♪ The old guy ♪
♪ At the party tonight ♪
-♪ All right ♪ -♪ All right ♪
♪♪
-♪ No ♪ -♪ I'm not your dad ♪
-♪ No ♪ -♪ I'm not the landlord ♪
♪ Shutting you down ♪ -♪ No ♪
-♪ I'm just a man with no plans ♪
♪ Trying to spend some time at night ♪
♪ Getting out of the house ♪
♪ Hey, kid ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪
-♪ Could I borrow a beer? ♪ -♪ No ♪
-♪ I already drank the one that I brought with me ♪
♪ On the way over here ♪
-♪ The old guy ♪
♪ At the party tonight ♪
-♪ All right ♪ -♪ All right ♪
♪♪
-♪ No ♪ -♪ I'm not your dad ♪
-♪ No ♪ -♪ I'm not the landlord ♪
♪ Shutting you down ♪ -♪ No ♪
-♪ I'm just a man with no plans ♪
♪ Trying to spend some time at night ♪
♪ Getting out of the house ♪
-♪ No ♪ -♪ I'm not your dad ♪
-♪ No ♪ -♪ I'm not the landlord ♪
♪ Shutting you down ♪ -♪ No ♪
-♪ I'm just a man with no plans ♪
♪ Trying to spend some time at night ♪
♪ Getting out of the house ♪
♪ The old guy ♪
♪ At the party tonight ♪
-♪ All right ♪ -♪ All right ♪
-♪ All right, all right, all right ♪
♪ All right ♪ -♪ All right ♪
-♪ All right ♪
-♪ All right now ♪ -♪ All right ♪
-♪ All right now, all right now ♪
♪ All right, all right, all right ♪
♪ All right ♪ -♪ All right ♪
-♪ All right ♪
-♪ All right, all right ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Pick up Wimps' latest record, "City Lights,"
in record stores and online.
And catch Wimps live at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center
on Saturday, November 18th, between 4:30 and 7:00.
In addition to great local bands, this all-ages,
all-day event will feature vendors
and a winter clothing drive for the community.
-♪ The mountain's out ♪
♪♪
-Feathers are -- they're complicated,
which is why I like them.
♪♪
They evolved to make a bird be able to fly
and there's all these little nuances
to the structure of the feather
that I'm still finding out after all these years.
When I look at a feather, I see different things.
Sometimes it's more just a feeling of lightness
and a connection to the bird.
They're magical. They're symbols of flight.
They're symbols for our aspirations.
So when a bird sheds a feather,
like they do every year, more or less,
it's kind of like a gift.
Each feather that is shed
has -- has a story.
♪♪
I like having a feather, holding it,
and just looking at it and dropping it maybe,
and watching it flutter around just to give me ideas.
And I might get an inspiration from the feather
just by the shape of it
and the theme I'm trying to portray.
Each -- Each piece is determined by the size of the feather.
I only shape and size and color --
are the feathers themselves.
I don't color the feathers. They're natural.
It starts out as a drawing.
I'll draw it out first,
and then I'll have to pick the right feather,
refine it, and size a template to the feather.
Then...I will cut.
And I usually don't make a mistake because it's so --
I mean, there's so much process to get up to that point.
And the feathers are precious.
The cuts are final. I can't undo it.
I can't, like, erase it or paint over it.
It's the final.
♪♪
I use eye surgery tools
because I want the intimacy of creating the art
rather than doing it with like a laser,
which would be just a machine doing it.
It's a different connection to the material
when I do it by hand because I'm touching it.
I'm touching it, and I'm able to pay really close attention
to every little part of the feather.
Well, the white ones were their cheek feathers.
In all of my pieces, I'm telling a story.
And whether that's the story that you make up
when you see it, it might be different.
I hope that people will see my work in ways that I haven't.
Like, they'll see things in it that I haven't seen
or see a different story.
I'm hoping that they'll stop and wonder.
Like seeing a feather
as if it was the first time they've ever seen one.
They show a sense of wonder.
It really floats my boat.
It makes it worthwhile being an artist.
♪♪
-Learn more about Chris at featherfolio.com
and see his work in the ArtX Contemporary exhibit,
"Blind Birds, Winged Dreams",
running now through November 25th.
♪♪
Before wrapping up,
we have one more art outing for your consideration.
The brilliant "BeatleConcert" is returning
to Strawberry Theatre Workshop
November 16th through the 18th.
This highly anticipated annual event
features cream-of-the-crop Seattle musicians
performing Beatles songs from "Rubber Soul",
"Sgt Pepper", "The White Album", and "Abbey Road"
as The Beatles themselves originally performed them.
"BeatleConcert" is a phenomenal show
and is truly not to be missed.
Get your ticket at strawshop.org.
♪♪
And that is a wrap.
Big thanks to Museum of Flight for hosting us,
and a reminder that "Art+Flight"
runs now through January 7, 2024.
And thanks to you for tuning in.
Have a great week, and we'll see you soon.
♪♪
-♪ Hate you job, don't even try ♪
-♪ Take it as it comes, take it as it comes ♪
-♪ Everybody knows you're the worst at life ♪
-♪ Take it as it comes, take it as it comes ♪
-♪ Stare at your phone most every night ♪
-♪ Take it as it comes, take it as it comes ♪
-♪ But all it ever does is shine a light ♪
♪ A light, a light, a light, a light ♪
♪♪
-♪ I know this ♪
♪ Sucks ♪
♪ I know this ♪
♪ Sucks ♪
♪ Sucks, sucks ♪
♪ Sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks ♪
♪ Sucks ♪
♪♪
[ Song ends ]
♪♪