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>>> Coming up next on this
special "ArtBeat" edition of
"Arizona Horizon," the artwork
of Dale Chihuly on display at
the Desert Botanical Garden.
We'll also check out a project
that turns textiles into ground
cover art.
And the moving portraits of
World War II veterans.
Those stories next on "Arizona
Horizon" "ArtBeat."
>> "Arizona Horizon" is made
possible by contributions from
the Friends of Eight, members of
your Arizona PBS station.
Thank you.
>>> Good evening, and welcome to
this special "ArtBeat" edition
of "Arizona Horizon," I'm Ted
Simons.
We begin with the remarkable
glass artwork of Dale Chihuly.
Producer Christina Estes and
photographer Juan Magana show us
how glass and cactus come
together at the Desert Botanical
Garden.
>> It's called glass and
sapphire stars.
>> The colors are so vibrant.
There's no artist in glass doing
what Dale Chihuly is doing.
>> What he's doing in Phoenix is
generating oohs, ahs, and
questions.
>> What's the blue guy?
>> I guess they kind of look
like whales.
>> These are fishhooks?
>> Each piece from the
chandelier to the scarlet and
yellow icicle tower is created
by a team of glass blowers with
final approval coming from Dale
Chihuly.
>> He's probably the most
successful artist to exhibit in
gardens around the world.
There is nowhere he has
exhibited where he has our plant
collection, the beautiful light
the desert has, and the
wonderful Vistas and backdrops.
It's just a different space for
him to see his work.
>> That's where she says Phoenix
is the only garden to host two
Chihuly exhibits.
The first was in 2008.
>> We had over half a million
visit the garden in six months,
a record for us.
>> This exhibit features 21
installations spread across 55
acres.
>> Chihuly's signature in every
show, whether it's a fine art
museum or a garden, is a boat.
He's a collector of boats.
He collects many, many things.
He collects these antique wooden
boats.
This boat was actually a tender
dating back to the 1800s.
They are quite fragile.
He loves the millefiore,
different shapes, colors go into
the boats.
>> He works with garden staff to
pick the best spots.
Moving the artwork from the
studio in Seattle to a canvas in
the desert takes patience.
>> It came in six
tractor-trailer trucks over the
course of three days.
They come in hundreds of boxes.
Each box contains pieces of each
of the installations.
Chihuly sends a team of 12 to
town to help us through the
installation.
They do the physical
installation itself.
And it took us about two weeks
to get it all installed.
>> The sun was the largest
installation.
It took the longest to install,
three and a half days.
It took about five Chihulian
scholars and 6,000 pieces of
glass.
>> Some colors and shapes are so
striking you can't miss them.
>> Like these yellow herons.
>> They are sitting among herbs.
You're smelling lavender and
pine.
There's chocolate flowers, so
it's just this wonderful sensory
experience.
>> Other pieces blend in so well
you might mistake them for
desert plants.
>> You could stand here for 10
minutes and watch people walk
right by it.
>> But when the sun goes down
she says every piece becomes a
star.
>> At night it's a completely
different show, all the
sculptures are lit.
We have, going up the garden
butte, we have 26 neon panels.
The garden's just glowing at
night.
>> Keeping all this glass shiny
requires the white glove
treatment.
It takes about 10 hours each
week.
>> The best thing I hear a lot
is wow, look at this.
I really love that.
But for us, we are about being
the garden, and to have visitors
come in and say, wow, look at
this.
And then look at this plant,
that is really cool.
>> Or I hear often, just walking
around, I didn't know this place
was here or I didn't know how
beautiful the desert could be.
>> The Chihuly exhibit runs
through May 18th and advance
reservations are recommended.
>>> Next we take a look at a
unique project that was recently
unveiled in Phoenix.
It's a creative effort that
involved one vacant lot and
hundreds of hands.
>> We're at first street and
McKinley on the northwest
corner.
There's really nothing here, and
that's what we wanted.
>> Where most of us see a dirt
lot, Anne Morton sees a clean
palette.
>> I'm a maker and I love the
craft of that.
At one point it made me feel
like I was in my ivory tower
making art.
Who cares?
Except for me, of course.
>> When the City of Phoenix put
out the call for a public art
project to call attention to the
empty spaces along the light
rail line, Anne came up with an
idea called ground-cover.
>> It's kind of a play on words,
you think of plant material
planted to cover the ground.
But it's also about covering
people that are on the ground.
>> I'm a knitter.
I'm a constant knitter.
>> Soon Allison can call herself
an artist.
>> Each blanket is made up of 28
squares.
>> Her blanket will join 299
others to complete the
ground-cover project.
>> Whoever is going to have the
blanket is going to be homeless,
on the streets, hopefully
getting off the streets.
It needs to be machine washed,
on the ground, it'll be on
benches and all over the place.
They want something that's not
going to unravel the day after
they get it.
>> Other volunteers are
knitting, crocheting and
quilting across Arizona, the
U.S. and Canada.
>> Most of us think of art as a
painting on the wall or a
sculpture that we experience and
that's terrific.
But there's a new way of
thinking about art that it's
making context for a community
or organizations.
So artists will go in, they
might see a particular need or
issue, or just a desire to
engage with the public and
construct an aesthetic
experience or intervention in
the public realm.
That's what socially engaged art
is.
>> All of these blankets are in
good hands.
>> They have paid for their own
materials and shipped their
creations to Anne.
>> We will put it in rows going
through way.
>> Eight months after her idea
took root --
>> All right, thank you,
everyone!
>> The ground-cover public art
project is unveiled.
>> It's 20 rows by 15.
>> It's impressive to see 300
handmade blankets covering the
ground.
>> Each has its own personality.
>> It's even more dramatic
seeing the view from above.
Each is carefully color coded to
reveal lush desert flowers.
The image stretches 117 by 50
feet.
>> I'm the orange blanket in the
top center.
>> Like most blanketeers she
shared a message.
>> Big things start small.
>> I was thinking myself of the
blankets, they started as
bundles of cloth or skeins of
yarn, but in the end they became
big warm blankets with a really
big impact.
>> The blankets are bundled and
given groups that work with
homeless people like circle the
city.
>> What a cool way to tell
people that they are important
and we care about them.
>> Reynaldo Garza got the
message.
>> My card says, it's made by
key, but it's got a happy face
here.
Basically all it really has on
there, but that happy face makes
me happy because it is the way I
feel, you know?
It is like they knew who was
going to get it.
They make my day.
I feel this blanket is going to
benefit me in so many ways.
Especially because I most of the
time live in a van, he and this
will will be my bed cover, my
everything.
I'm going take really good care
of it.
It is the best gift that I could
have ever had.
>> Just discovering what has to
be done and what can be done is
the first step in realizing this
problem exists.
>> That one and I'm pretty sure
this corner one.
>> Before this project most of
the blanketeers had never met.
>> Now they share a common
thread, this has been a
wonderful and very rewarding
experience.
I will definitely be doing more
projects like this in the
future.
>> The ground-cover project was
funded by the City of Phoenix
public art program and the
National Endowment for the Arts.
>>> Ancient people making their
way through the Arizona desert
had to find a way to communicate
with each other.
Now thousands of years later
those ancient writings have been
unearthed.
Producer Shana Fischer and
photographer Ed Kishel take us
on a adjourn to the past at the
Deer Valley Rock-Art Center.
>> It's like most museums, sure,
there are paintings and
sculptures but what makes this
museum different is its setting.
>> The Deer Valley Rock-Art
Center is an archeological site
and a desert preserve.
>> The museum is nestled near
I-17 in Deer Valley.
It's home to one of the best
examples in the world of
petroglyphs.
>> For thousands of years people
came to this place and some of
them stayed and decided to make
marks in the form of carvings in
rock.
We call these petroglyphs.
These give us an idea of perhaps
what life was like in historic
times.
We have the largest
concentration of rock art in
Phoenix and we have over 1500
marks in one hillside.
>> Museum coordinator Cassandra
Hernandez says although we might
recognize symbols, archeologists
can't say for sure what they
mean.
They do know this was the
earliest form of communication
between tribal people.
The petroglyphs were discovered
after a series of floods in the
1970s.
>> The Army Corps of Engineers
build a dam here and at the time
the dam was going to bring
development to this part of
Phoenix, and so they recommended
that a museum was about it to
preserve the petroglyphs and
throes function as an
interpretive center where people
could learn about the history of
Arizona.
>> Hernandez says the best time
to enjoy the petroglyphs is in
the morning when it sun isn't
overhead and you can see the
carvings clearly.
>> You get a chance to throw
through the acres of desert
landscape we have, I think we
can hear the quail maybe right
now.
We're a nature preserve so we
have many animals and plants
that you can learn about, and
then also look at the exhibits
and learn something about the
people's here before who left
the marks.
And also maybe come for one of
our events.
>> Tourists come from all over
the world to enjoy the scenery.
This woman is from Montreal.
>> I really enjoy smelling the
plants.
I'm used to the very piney smell
of Canada, this is a very
different feeling to get an
experience just outside of the
city is also nice, to feel like
you're a little far away from
everything else.
It's really nice.
>> For New Zealander Kristie
Williams the imagination of the
manmade drawings and the
nature-made backdrop piqued her
curiosity.
>> I'm looking at the different
plants and being told about the
different uses, looking at the
petroglyphs, you know, if it's
edible plants.
Apparently every single plant
out here can be used in one way
or another.
That was really interesting.
>> We should all be invested in
preserving places like this, not
damaging them, and you know,
being able to share them with
future generations.
But beyond that, also to use
them as points of departure for
our own understandings.
These place give us access to I
want to call them emotional
geographies, right?
The way we connect to place to,
history, to time, to landscape.
You know, also it's something
that we want to preserve for
other people to enjoy, for other
people to have that opportunity
to reflect upon their own lives
that way.
So it's really important that we
leave things untouched.
And there for centuries to come.
>> The museum was designed by
famed architect Will Bruder.
He wanted it to look like a time
machine bridging the past with
the future.
>>> We now turn to an art
exhibit that examines the impact
of popular culture on society.
The exhibit at the the Tempe
Center for the Arts takes
visittest back in time while
looking to the future.
Producer Christina Estes and
photographer Juan Magana show us
how pop icons are influencing
the future generation.
>> Is that Captain America?
Yeah.
>> They are items few would
expect to see featured in an art
gallery.
>> We've got famous batman
characters from the 1960s
television show.
Some are the famous villains
like catwoman.
>> They make perfect sense to
Michelle, she coordinated the
exhibit called American pop,
comic books to science fiction
and beyond.
>> It is an exhibition about the
love people have for comic
books, science fiction, TV and
film, the real science behind
science fiction, and the artists
living today who are inspired by
all of those things.
>> One artist's love for
superheroes led to this unique
quilt.
>> They are comic book pages,
paper, they are stitched
together.
And in here we've got batman and
spiderman and captain America,
different superheroes.
He embroiders some details on
some of these comic book pages.
>> He needed a 10-foot-tall
fantastic four costume.
>> We get some giggles and
that's okay.
Why would an artist make a
knitted superhero costume?
>> They might ask the same
question about this pro ton pack
built by a Tempe teacher and
artists to resemble the one worn
in a "ghost busters" movie.
>> He represented from scratch
all of the different parts to
make this pack.
Even this round area right here
is a frying pan.
This rainbow cord actually
doesn't exist anymore, so he had
to order that on eBay.
>> Plenty of items are hard to
find.
Batman books, a helmet, a
compass watch.
>> This is my display.
I've got guns, action figures,
Luke skywalker and princess
leiea.
I wanted to be her when I was
little.
>> These have influenced many of
today's scientists.
An ASU professor donated a
costume he made in college.
>> Some people are into pop
culture, the collecting or
researching or the making of
these things as it is about the
final product.
>> Making connects between
fantasy and reality is key to
the exhibit.
Next to the display you'll find
meteorites from ASU's earth and
science explore ration exhibits.
>> Some kids might be inspired
by some of the science behind
the science fiction.
>> There's my favorite.
>> Or the moral stories behind
some of the stories.
>> Or they will create their own
comic book heroes or get more
interested in science.
>> The exhibit runs through June
8th at the Tempe Center for
the Arts.
Admission is free and every
Friday night the gallery hosts
sci-fi lectures and discussions.
>>> We wrap up our "ArtBeat"
special with a look at what's
been described as the "Greatest
Generation," the men and women
who served in World War II.
The service and sacrifice is the
focus of a new art exhibit.
Producer Shana Fischer and
photographer Ed Kishel give you
a look.
>> Each of these photographs had
a story behind it, a story of
courage, perseverence and
fortitude.
>> I was a fighter pilot in a
P-38 Lightning.
I was in the army air Corps.
>> Bill Lancaster was a teenager
when he found himself in the
middle of World War II in a
plane he had never flown before.
This photo shows the cockpit of
the plane, hundreds of buttons
and bill says he had no idea
what many of them were for.
>> This particular airplane was,
number one, multiengine, it was
two engines.
All my flying had been done in a
single-engine airplane.
And I got into an outfit where
all they had Wa twin engine
airplanes.
I had to out and learn to fly by
myself.
It doesn't have one fitted out
for an instructor to be in there
to give me any instruction.
So you had to learn to fly the
thing and survive it.
>> That lack of training proved
to be deadly.
Of the 90 men bill served with,
67 of them never came home.
Even now it's difficult for bill
to remember his time in the war,
and those who did not return
safely to their families.
>> It's hard to see.
I don't think anybody plays up
the bad side or knows the bad
side.
I had guys that went with me to
combat, they came over there and
went down, and the first time
they got into an airplane and
tried to get up and fly they
killed themselves.
>> Dell Ryeland was a farm boy
turned fighter pilot.
He joined the ROTC and soon
found himself here in Arizona.
>> I got my wings at Williams
field, went over to the military
to Italy and flew there 30
commissions, and the war ended.
>> Bill and Dell are just two of
the veterans whose photographs
are part of an installation at
Bellemont village, an assistive
living facility in Scottsdale.
The nearly two dozen portraits
were taken by critically
acclaimed photographer Thomas
Sanders.
It has transformed into a way to
preserve the stories before they
are lost for good.
>> My senior year of college I
had a homework assignment just
to photograph a portrait of
somebody.
Living around the corner was a
big retirement community
company.
I happened to go there asking
the retirement community if
there was an interesting person
to photograph.
>> Hey, we have this World War
II hero.
>> His work caught the attention
of Patricia will.
She asked him to take pictures
of veterans in all of their
facilities.
>> The reaction far surpassed
anything that I could have
imagined.
Not just because there emerged a
storyline from each of these
extraordinary veterans, but also
because as a result of sharing
their stories, often for the
first time, they began to engage
with one another in very
different ways.
Experiences that they had often
buried in their long term
memory, emerged and created a
certain kind of camaraderie
among them.
>> For Muriel, the camaraderie
continues to this day.
At 92 she volunteers with local
veterans groups.
Stationed in Europe as a nurse,
she spent several years there
and came back stateside and
continues to work in various
hospitals.
She was one of 350,000 women who
served during the war.
>> I guess it means that I was
probably helping the women to
crack the ceiling.
We had a hard time in a lot of
opportunities to advance and do
other than routine care.
Serves glad I was able to do
that.
>> With 1500 World War II
veterans dying each day in
America, capturing these photos
and the stories is crucial.
But it's more than that.
>> What's special about this
project is that sometimes the
veterans have never had the
opportunity to share their
stories.
So with this project of
photographing he and
interviewing the veterans, the
veterans are able to be honored
for the first time.
I think that's something very
special for myself and for them.
In a way, you know, I get to
give back through art by
preserving history.
>> World War II and Korean War
veteran Karl moline agrees.
He has never really talked about
his time aboard a destroyer in
the sea of Japan.
It is a way for his family and
friends to learn more.
>> If they can read the items,
what they say, what the
different fellas thought about
their activities and about their
period of time while they were
serving.
I don't want it to be lost in
antiquity, so anything that can
be done and said, pictured and
proved is all for the benefit.
>> The veterans are all very
pleased with how their photos
turned out, if not a bit
surprised.
>> Well, there's everybody else,
you wonder who it was, whose
picture is it.
They never -- they are never as
flattering as you wish them to
be, but they are factual and
that's the way it is.
>> Well, I was sort of surprised
frankly.
I saw myself holding the
picture, and of course then I
recognized more than the others.
As you get older, your features
change, let's face it.
And I am in my nineties so I'm
up there.
>> I'm thankful that I still
have a head of hair, I guess
that's a thing of appreciation,
I've still got hair left.
>> For tom this project brings
his family history into focus.
His great-uncle died in World
War II, and his grandfather, a
semi famous photographer snapped
this photo of Ernest Hemingway.
>> Some of the veterans have
objects from World War II or
other wars they have hung on to
all their lives.
I have them hold that object up.
I try and not overly direct the
veterans too much.
I have them hold the object, I
might have them move a little
bit in terms of possessing but I
don't want too much of my own
idea to be projected onto them.
I'm just trying to capture their
essence and their soul.
>> Tom's portraits are much like
the men and women themselves,
stark, unyielding, stoic with
hints of vulnerability.
They tell an entire life story,
one that will now last forever.
>> The whole idea behind the
project is making people
appreciative of all veterans and
soldiers through hopefully
creating an interesting,
artistic portrait of the
veteran, and reading their
story, I hope that draws them in
to help put their own lives into
perspective.
>> Tom's photos have been
gathered into an award-winning
book titled "The Last Good War."
If you'd like to see the exhibit
make an appointment by
contacting Bellemont village in
Scottsdale.
That is it for now.
I'm Ted Simons.
Thank you so much for joining us
on this special edition of
"Arizona Horizon."
You have a great evening.
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