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>>> Coming up on "Artbeat
Nation" --
A mini-series honoring mothers.
>> What I love about this show
is that it celebrates
motherhood.
>> An artist taps into the
experiences of love, life, and
death.
>> The things I try to deal with
in my work are those very
essential things.
>> A famous ship serves a new
purpose.
>> The "Queen Mary" is one of
the largest art deco collections
of artwork in the world.
>> And a pair of artists find
inspiration in the Florida
Everglades.
>> By exposing ourselves to
different landscape, we're
trying to extend the language of
our work.
>> It's all ahead on this
edition of "Artbeat Nation."
>> Funding for "Artbeat Nation"
was made possible by
contributions to eight from
viewers like you.
Thank you.
>>> The PBS mini-series "Call
the Midwife" follows a handful
of midwives and nuns in a London
nursing convent in the 1950s.
The cast members reveal what
it's like portraying these
fascinating female characters.
>> I guess when attracted me to
"Call the Midwife" when I first
picked up the scripts were the
incredible stories and the women
involved in those incredible
stories.
And not just the ones giving
birth, this very defined group
of female characters that make
up the community of NONNATUS
house.
They're funny, they're --
They've all got a history to
them.
It was a no-brainer, really.
>> When you first read the first
two episodes, I was just reading
them on the tube, the metro
system, is in little spurts.
And I was so moved, and I even
cried at one point, and I
laughed at others.
And I just thought that the
scripts are so darling, they're
so British and beautiful but so
courageous as well.
And I just couldn't believe it
when they said they'd have me,
when they cast me.
It was wonderful.
>> I read the memoirs by
Jennifer worth, and I was just
in floods of tears the whole way
through.
They're amazing.
Really heartfelt stories.
And true stories, which makes
them even more sad and tragic,
and wonderful in some cases.
And there was a real sense of
womanhood and support amongst
the women characters, the female
characters.
>> We're, like, maybe a year
away from the pill getting
introduced.
Women are starting to have
careers.
This is why I find it
fascinating these young girls
have chosen to be midwives, and
they could have done anything.
And it's a hard job to go out
and try to cycle to people's
house and do home deliveries.
It's just --
I feel like I've been let into
the secrets of childbirth and
motherhood a bit more, and it's
a lovely club to be a part of.
>> Filming in the era of the
'50s, I find really useful in
terms of getting into character,
because there's a mode that you
kind of get into once you put
that costume on and your hair is
all curled, and --
I don't know, you just feel it.
>> I find it not that hard to
shift into the '50s mode
because of the writing, because
Heidi Thomas, the lead writer,
writes for the '50s so well.
She writes in these wonderful
clipped tones, and one of my
lines was "mimsy whimsy
cocktail."
And it took me about 10 takes to
get my tongue around that as
well.
So it definitely the language
gets you into the '50s
character.
>> What I love about this show
is that it celebrates
motherhood.
I feel --
Lots of people have come up to
me and said, thank you, we feel
like we're forgotten.
Of course women having a
profession is wonderful and to
have that option is great, but
some people choose to stay at
home and that is as valid as
anything else.
And that we're championing those
very brave women who bring up
eight children with no money at
all, I think it's a lovely show
for that, to say "well done" and
that we respect you.
>> I think people are constantly
surprised by how much they are
moved by it.
And I'm surprised by how moved I
am by it.
I often find myself crying, and
I'm in it.
I'm not crying at my own acting,
I want to put that out there as
well.
But I just think there's
something about --
It's really human, and people
get it.
I can't put my finger on what it
is, but it just moves --
It gets people in a really core
place.
I'm really proud that it does
that.
Because it doesn't manipulate
you, it's just the simple
telling of a beautiful story.
>>> Up next, artist Michael Bise
creates intricate, highly
personal drawings that trace the
narrative of his life and touch
on the universal themes of
family, love, loss, and hope.
Take a look.
>> My work is influenced by the
impulses behind literature and
film.
Which is to say, telling a
story.
I suppose that's just a product
of the fact that those were my
influences when I was a child.
I was obsessed with Disney, and
I wanted to be an animator.
I was raised in a very
fundamentally religious family.
The iconography of that --
Jesus, these images from the
bible --
All of those things were really,
really powerful for me.
But I never felt an inclination
to believe in it.
When I was 23 and in undergrad,
my dad died really suddenly of
heart disease.
I started making images over and
over of my dad, and it was just
a way to deal with it.
I think I went back to the place
that was always important to me.
Telling stories, and
specifically telling stories
about my life.
For me it's been a lot about
death, because that has been
something that has just been
present in my life.
From my dad dying, to my
constant attempts to forestall
my own death.
I was born with a cardiac
condition called hypertrophic
obstructive cardiomyopathy.
It's a gradual and progressive
stiffening of your heart muscle
so that eventually it just
becomes larger, and larger, and
less contractiLE, and it just
sort of ends up stopping.
My senior year in high school I
had my first open heart surgery,
so I had a pacemaker for seven
years.
And then eventually my heart
failure progressed, and the
pacemaker was no longer
effectively treating that
condition.
I came in for a regular
appointment and the doctor told
me, "don't leave yet, we may
have a heart for you."
And so my then-girlfriend, my
now-wife, Adrian, we were there
together, and so they put us in
a room, and the next day I had a
heart transplant.
>> So the first drawing I made
was based very directly off of a
photograph that my wife took.
And it was an image of me in the
bed, still unconscious, with the
breathing tube in my throat, and
everything connected to me.
That first drawing reminded me a
lot of the films of David
Cronenberg.
There's this fusion of
technology and organic matter.
So that one drawing sort of set
the tone for how I would
approach the rest of the work.
First of all, I sort of see the
image in my head, what I would
like it to be.
It's something I would envision
in a movie, or something I would
come up within my own mind while
reading a novel.
I start gathering and collecting
photographic sources that I
think I can build an image from.
And then sometimes I will draw
it from looking at an object.
So there's a combination of
approaches and source materials
that go into building each
drawing.
But even though I plan the
drawing out in a lot of detail,
it never quite ends up becoming
the thing you imagine.
What I try to do in the drawings
is use really basic drawing
techniques.
Crosshatching, stippling,
shading.
I like to imagine that anybody
could make the drawing if they
had enough patience and time.
One of the images that I took
when I was in the hospital was
of a collage that I found in the
hallway of the transplant unit.
Basically they look like
children's collages from the
kindergarten class or something.
And they'll say encouraging
things, like, this one says "go,
team, go."
And it had pictures of all the
transplant doctors.
So I thought that that thing was
a real condensation of the whole
experience.
The futility of trying to be
encouraging when in fact you
have no control over what's
happening with your body.
The waiting room in Methodist
has this large cabinet, and
inside this cab note are these
ceramic reproductions of
wildlife --
Eagles, geese, tigers --
And they all look really
predatory.
You know?
There's this feeling of
something terrible impending.
It's a really, really
uncomfortable environment for
someone waiting to hear if their
loved one is going to live or
die.
So that's another place where I
thought that genre and real
experience could come together
and create something for the
audience that they could enjoy,
but also understand the emotion.
There's always that moment when
you go into surgery, when you're
in the bed and they're about to
wheel you off, and you say
goodbye to whoever is there, and
you don't know if you're going
to come back.
As I was making the drawing, I
was trying to find a way to sort
of cobble together all my family
members into an image.
I took an image of my family
gathered together that was taken
when I was married.
It actually includes myself in
the image, and it has my wife in
her wedding dress, and the rest
of my family sort of in wedding
clothes.
That drawing is about the
possibility at that moment of
not surviving it, or the
possibility of a future in which
you get married.
There are really some universal
emotions or themes that
transcend sex, race, culture.
When you really burrow down and
start talking about things like
death, sickness, love,
relationships, the things that I
try to deal with in my work are
those very essential things.
>> You can find out more about
Michael at michaelbise.com.
>>> Over the course of three
decades, the "Queen Mary" ocean
liner made more than 1,000 trips
across the Atlantic.
Since the ship's final cruise in
1967, it has reincarnated as a
floating hotel and event venue
in southern California.
Come aboard and take a look at
one of its current exhibitions,
featuring gowns, photographs,
and memorabilia from Princess
Diana and the royal family.
>> Back in the 1930s, the
"Queen Mary" was designed to
fulfill the quest for speed for
travel across the wild Atlantic.
>> The "Queen Mary" is twice the
size of "Titanic," and about 12
knots faster.
So she could speed along and
have an ocean crossing in just
five days.
So every Wednesday one queen
would leave New York, the other
England, and they would many
times cross within --
Pass within sight of one another
as they sped away.
And after World War II they
became the most Porter Goss pus
ships in the history of man in
the sea, earning the Cunard line
$25 million apiece each year for
$50 million income.
And that was incredible for the
'50s.
>> Her legacy during World
War II as the gray ghost is
significant.
She's the largest true carrier
in the world, the largest --
The record for the largest
carrier which was over 18,000
troops at one time.
These are men obviously in the
perils of World War II, and the
ship stood tall during that era
too, and according to Churchill,
one of the biggest endeavors for
winning World War II, because
she was able to move the troops.
So her history is so regal.
>> In 1957 an experimental
aircraft flew up in Seattle.
It was nicknamed the dash 80.
It would later become the Boeing
707, and as soon as it Roe v.
Wade its certificate of
airworthiness, the age of jet
travel was upon us.
And from that moment on, the
numbers and great point-to-point
traveling greyhounds like "Queen
Mary" and "queen Elizabeth"
started to diminish.
By 1967 the era of the great
ship was over.
>> After 1,001 crossings and six
years of war service the "Queen
Mary" found a permanent home in
Long Beach, California, arriving
December 9, 1967.
>> The "Queen Mary" is now 76
years old.
She has become a great prize.
She is the last of the great
machine age oceanliners, never
again will you see
point-to-point ocean travel like
it was with ocean greyhounds in
the 1930s.
It cost far too much to design
and build a ship like this.
The "Queen Mary" is one of the
largest art deco collections of
artwork in the world.
Also the "Queen Mary" is known
as the ship of beautiful woods.
There are 56 rare and exotic
woods from all over the British
empire, from as basic asthma hog
any to as exotic as the wood in
the observation bar called cedar
mall.
It occurs naturally every 150 to
175 years.
Global weather conditions have
to be just right for cedar and
mahogany to cross pollinate.
The "Queen Mary" is special in
all of its appointments.
There are beautiful paintings
around and about the ship, there
is a lot of marquetry work, a
very popular style of art,
inlaid veneers causing an
overall picture, a very lovely
one in the hotel lobby of some
birds.
It was originally over the bed
where Queen Elizabeth Elizabeth
slept when she traveled the ship
in November 1954.
We've put it out there so more
people can enjoy it.
>> Over the years, the interest
and challenges of maintaining
the "Queen Mary"'s grace ebb and
flow.
But a regal undertaking melds
her legacy with another family
of royal lineage.
>> We constructed a
13,000-square-foot gallery
especially for this exhibition.
We put a lot of heart and soul
into creating this space.
>> Here in the Diana Exhibit
we're able to place original
furnishings throughout the
exhibit with interpretive cards
in each photography showing that
piece of furniture where it came
from, to make sure folks are
walking around with the legacy
of Diana, the legacy of the
royals, and now the legacy of
Kate, but also appreciate the
legacy of the ship as an
instrument of etiquette, and
affluency, and regal style that
we know the royal family and
Diana certainly have.
>> And the exhibits itself goes
back to queen Mary herself and
the christening of the "Queen
Mary" ship, but it tells the
story of these royal family
members all the way through to
Prince William and now the
duchess of Cambridge.
And the primary gallery that
we're standing in now features
some of Princess Diana's gowns
that she wore during her
lifetime.
She auctioned these gowns off a
month before she died to raise
money for breast cancer
charities and a couple other
nonprofit organizations as well.
But breast cancer was one of the
important charities to Princess
Diana during the last years of
her life.
>> With the exhibit, Diana's
generosity continues.
A portion of the proceeds from
ticket sales continue to support
breast cancer organizations.
>> So we have some lingerie that
was owned and worn by the
duchess of Windsor, as long as
a --
As well as a whole section
dedicated to the duke and
duchess of Windsor, and their
love story, which was romantic
and scandalous at the same time.
The majority of the content in
this exhibit is owned by seven
different private collectors,
who generously donate their
items to be displayed in an
effort to raise money for breast
cancer and to make a difference.
>> To learn more about the
"Queen Mary" and its exhibition
"Diana: Legacy of a Princess"
visit queenmary.com.
>>> New York-based installation
artists Stephen Nguyen and Wade
Kavanaugh have worked together
since 2005 to create indoor
forests of surreal tree trunks
and dangling roots.
All made of paper.
Recently the pair recreated the
dense mangroves and plant life
they discovered on a trip to the
Florida Everglades.
>> My collaborate terror Stephen
and I are doing a project called
"Drawn from the Everglades."
And so it's a site-specific work
to this space, and to the glades
national park.
We spent two weeks there through
the ARIES residency program,
where you actually live in the
national park, like in the park
ranger complex.
We spent a lot of time
cataloging textures, trying to
draw impressions.
"ARIES" is artists in residence
in Everglades.
It was great.
It was really mellow.
We were coming from the north,
so to be here and to be in
80-degree weather was pretty
incredible.
We're doing a number of these
projects like this.
Where we'll go specifically to
one place, especially somewhere
new.
Artists tend to fall into their
conventions where they do the
same thing over and over again,
and so by exposing ourselves to
a different landscape, we're
trying to extend the language of
our work.
So a lot of times we're in a
more northern landscape where
it's somewhat mountainous or
there's a rich geologic past.
In the Everglades, it's flat as
a pancake and all of the action
as far as biology is really
below the surface of the water.
So our work, we try to make it
happen right at the intersection
of real space and imaginary
space.
And so to have that
investigation where you're
constantly imagining what's
beneath the water and how this
little moment of something above
the surface translates to --
Asking yourself what it
translates below the surface,
really led a lot of our
inquiries for this project.
So a lot of artists have a model
of working where they work in
the studio for a number of
months in preparation, they make
something that they have to
define the parameters of, and
then they recreate the
parameters in the gallery to
exhibit the work.
Steve and I have a much
different practice where we go
to a site and try to make a work
specific to the space.
But that means that there's
always that element of potential
failure and risk involved.
So this is the --
The process, you can see,
Stephen's back there ripping the
piece apart, so it's much more
similar to the process of
drawing than sculpture.
It was 20 rolls of paper, and
all this paper has been textured
by putting it in the end of a
drill, spinning it, and it gets
that nice crumpled texture.
And then it's a lot of
manipulation by hand, figuring
out what we like.
So we've gotten everything
blocked in.
We feel really good about how
the object is sitting in the
gallery.
We've got a lot of material in
place, and now we're --
But it's relatively static right
now.
So now we're trying to go back
in to the surface and make it
more of a dynamic abstraction of
what we saw.
Ultimately we're not wed to the
idea of the Everglades, we're
wed to the idea of making
successful artwork.
But one of the things we were
struck by the Everglades is theS
almost the complete
inaccessibility of the place.
A lot of the access is by
Boardwalk, or if you're lucky
like we were, you get taken on a
boat ride through the mangroves.
But still very dense.
It's not like you can go step
off the side of the road and
walk through the Everglades.
Ultimately it's about creating
an abstract artwork and some of
those --
The references to the Everglades
and the references to the
landscape are important in the
research phase, and now we're
really just doing what we do.
Maybe I'll pull it towards me a
little bit.
Just so it's staggered some
more.
>> To find out more, visit their
website at stripedcanary.com.
>>> Mayor more arts and culture,
visit azpbs.org/artbeat, where
you'll find featured videos and
information on the Arizona arts
scene.
>>> Funding for "Artbeat Nation"
was made possible by
contributions to eight from
viewers like you.
Thank you.
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