- In this edition of ARTEFFECTS, vibrant window designs created by Reno-based artist.

- [Trey] I've noticed that when I'm painting windows, if I have the opportunity to kind of do what I want and have fun with it, then usually the customers that are coming to the business will have fun with it too and put a smile on their face for the rest of the time they're here.

(upbeat rock music) - [Rebecca] Pandemic-inspired sketches.

- So when I got laid off from my job, I started sketching.

And I didn't know it but it was going to be the beginning of sketching every day and posting it online.

(upbeat quirky music) - [Rebecca] A medical battle made stronger by music.

- Caleb had made an announcement that he was going back to the docks and we dropped everything and we were like, this is something we are absolutely not gonna miss.

- [Rebecca] And a dynamic contemporary dance company.

- Our heart and soul really goes into our productions, our classes, our workshops.

- It's all ahead on this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

(bright jazzy music) - [Narrator] Funding for ARTEFFECTS is made possible by, Sandy Raffeali, The June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Marrill and Lebo Newman, Heidemarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno members, and by... - Hello, I'm Rebecca Cronon, your guest host of ARTEFFECTS.

No doubt you've seen many windows of businesses around Northern Nevada decorated with bright colors, quirky characters, and eye-catching phrases.

Local artist Trey Valentine is behind many of those designs.

We spent some time with Valentine to learn about his process.

- I was always getting into something as a kid, trying to finger paint on the refrigerator.

This is the fun part of my job is I get to just kind of be a kid and make a mess on the back of my truck.

(upbeat music) My name is Trey Valentine and I'm from Reno, Nevada.

I am a window cartoonist, I paint signs on windows.

I paint windows for any and all occasions, lots of restaurants, tire places, car dealerships.

I've done flower shops, you name it, I've done it.

My best signs usually turn out when they go, "Just do whatever."

Those usually turn out really well because I have no boundaries and I can get real creative.

I take a crayon and just kind of get like an idea of what I want to put on there.

If it was warmer, I would do it with a paint brush, but it'll take too long to dry.

So I'll just do it in crayon.

And then I'll come back with my paint and I'll start painting it, and then with my fingernail I'll etch out where my reference lines are and you'll get kind of a weird silhouette-looking thing on the window, and then I can go from there.

(upbeat music) This is a gymnasium that I'm painting today.

And the client wanted all the characters to be in shape.

So I put a weight in this guy's hand and gave him a little bit of muscle tone.

She said she wanted a really fit Santa, so I want to make him all buff.

I always do the white because the paint, if you just put colors on here, you kind of see right through it and it wouldn't look really good.

This kind of attaches the color to the window.

Gives it that nice opaque awesomeness.

So most of my characters get a white outline around them to really make them jump off the window, so you see how I've kind of like left a little bit of white.

I'll do a black outline inside the white, so there'll be a definite edge to him, and then like a little aura around him which will make him really pop off the window.

When I first started doing this, everything was just one color.

Like I didn't do any highlights or shadows or anything.

And within the last couple of years, I really started to dig the whole highlights and shadows and different colors.

Very subtle difference, but there's definitely a difference.

I like signs like these 'cause they're just quick, they're fun, they're easy.

You don't have to really measure anything, just kind of go for it.

My favorite part about painting signs on windows is the fact that it's an instant gratification.

I get an idea in my head, it goes on the window pretty quickly and I get to see it come to fruition, or I see it come to life within the afternoon.

I've been doing this my whole life.

I was a musician back in the day, back in the '80s, and I'd go out and play clubs all night.

No one made money back in the '80s being a musician.

So I'd go out, I learned how to paint window signs.

And then after a while, I learned how to do it right.

(upbeat rock music) I did the office thing.

I was in radio for a little while, and that's all indoors.

And right now, it's a little tough because it's 22 degrees outside and I can't feel my fingers all the time, and I get home and I'm pretty worn out just from the weather.

But the other side of that coin is in the summertime, I'm running around in a tank top and shorts working on my tan, and having a blast, listening to music, and painting time.

- To learn more about Trey Valentine and his window art, you can find him on Instagram and Facebook.

Just search Signs By Trey on both social media platforms.

When Lisa DiFranza lost her job due to COVID-19, she broke open a set of gouache paints she had sitting in her home.

Now more than 200 sketches later, the Bradenton, Florida resident is using her daily art practice to help heal her community.

(upbeat quirky music) - My name is Lisa DiFranza, and I'm here today to talk with you about the Sketch-a-Day project that kind of emerged organically out of this COVID-19 world health crisis.

So when I got laid off from my job, I started sketching and I didn't know it, but it was going to be the beginning of sketching every day and posting it online.

I come from a family of visual artists, even though my sort of career and work life has always been in the performing arts as a director or as an educator.

But I think sketching came organically because it's a way to process and share with the community, the online community, the experience of living on earth now.

I started posting on Facebook and Instagram, I added Twitter.

The response has been really interesting and people were writing saying, "This is part of the way I'm processing through COVID," or, "Could I get a copy of this?"

So I began to work with ArtSource Studio in Sarasota to make fine art limited edition prints of the sketches.

So when that started to happen, I launched a website where you can see the sketches and the odyssey of COVID through my eyes anyway.

- So at this point I have purchased two of Lisa sketches, Splashy Sunset Over Route 41 Motel and Hopeful Moon Over Bradenton.

And what I found with her sketches, I was watching her posts these everyday on social media, and they were so timely.

We are all experiencing this array of emotions every single day and Lisa was capturing those emotions every single day.

And so there were some of those that she captured an emotion that I really related to.

And so those were the two I selected.

One of them, is a moon and it's beautiful, but it's hopeful.

And she has that piece of it and, it's over the water.

And the other one though is an old motel on Route 41 and there was something really poetic about that as well.

And that, that wasn't that stereotypical beautiful scenery, but she made it feel really beautiful.

And so I truly appreciate her ability to capture all of these emotions that we've been feeling during this time.

And I think even though she was doing it daily in the end, when you look back on it and as a collective, it truly encapsulates all of the things that we've been feeling.

- As far as processing COVID goes, I think tempest-tost is an image of the Statue of Liberty that really to me, sort of emerged from my confusion about the American experiment.

I've done a couple of theater images.

I miss theater.

I recently did a remembering curtain call image that just came out of missing that feeling of being in a live theater for a live performance and the energy and excitement of that.

And of course, I worked in theater so much that it's so close to me and I feel for all the workers in theater who really have no work.

Also there's some of the sunrises and sunsets that are close to me because they're right from our neighborhood, our doors and our dock and the river and the river has just been so much a part of this time for me.

And I have never had the time to see and think in this way.

I think sketching marks the day, whereas everything else is blurry, but sketching every day I wake up and I do this and it marks a new day.

The other thing I think that's therapeutic is being able through social media, which is weird because I'm not a big social media person, but being able to share with other people and get a response.

So I feel like that helps to process communally even when we can't.

- Well, I think what Lisa has been able to remind us all of is that art has the ability to speak when our words don't.

And so whether it is relating to something that she created or creating something on your own, it really is therapeutic in so many ways.

And when we're alone, as we have been so much recently, that connection through art is even more vital than it ever was before.

(bright music) - I think there is nothing more gratifying than making something from nothing.

And my advice would be just do it, don't judge what comes out.

One thing that I've really gotten out of the Sketch-a-Day thing is sometimes I don't love the sketch and it's really been very, very wonderful to not get too hung up about it because I know next day's a new day.

I know I can start again.

Another blank piece of paper, just produce it, share it, produce it, share it.

- To see more, visit lisadifranza.com.

And now it's time for this week's art quiz.

Vaseline Glass glows a fluorescent green when placed near an ultraviolet light thanks to which element added to the glass?

Is the answer A, Radon; B, Fluorine; C, Uranium; or D, Neon?

And the answer is C, Uranium.

Violinist Cal Morris is a familiar performer along the famed sponge docks in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

When he was diagnosed with cancer at 31 years old, Cal turned to his family and music in his battle to survive.

- Am I gonna make it or not?

When you're looking at death in its face and you're so scared and... - And the way that hours become so precious.

I was like, I don't care if they're horrible hours, I just want hours.

- Cancer it changes you in a way that I think a lot of people don't get or can't even understand.

(soft violin music) The world to me just, is music.

At 13, I got interested in the violin, it came naturally and I feel like I just so quickly fell in love with it and I'm not great with words and just communication, but music is just how I express myself.

It was literally about a month of that, on and off nauseousness and after more testing.

We started coming back with, it looks like it could be blood cancer, that was huge blow.

It was something we never expected.

- Cancer is absolute war.

Yeah.

- I can't even go there, I won't let that happen, I gotta be there for them.

When I immediately started doing chemotherapy, I responded really, really well, but they were still like, to fix the real problem we really think you need to do a transplant.

- And someone who has a potentially terminal diagnosis, it's that one shot.

- It made me feel honestly so grateful to be able to have the opportunity to give him a prosperous life with his family and his kids.

- The transplant, that was way, way harder than I could ever imagine.

Somebody so strong and just rolled up into this bald, hairless, gray human being, it was so sad to watch him disintegrate like that.

- Subsequently he had additional complications associated with the transplant that were not run of the mill complications.

- The pain was so bad, I didn't know how I was gonna get through the next 10 minutes and much less an hour or day so... - Is he dying right now?

If he is, what would I regret not doing?

And I was like, we need the kids here, we need to get to be together.

- I didn't pick my violin up for like two months I was like, I couldn't, but I would hear this song, just so much music in my head.

I just sat down at my keyboard for the first time and just wrote this whole song, I feel like there's so much that's gonna come out and already has, from this journey.

Really one of the best days of my life, being able to hug their little... Feel their little arms just wrapped around me and wrap my arms around them and be back together.

- Caleb had made an announcement that he was going back to the docks and we dropped everything and we were like, this is something we're absolutely not gonna miss.

- But just to go back after that, coming that close to not making it and there was hundreds of people there and so to get to that day and just see so much love and so much support put out and it was...

It's hard to describe with words.

- That's like everything, I mean that's the reason that people undergo this horrible experience of transplant and the complications that occur post-transplant, it's to live their lives again.

- I really got that miracle that so many people hope for and pray for and long for.

- To learn more, visit calmorrismusic.com.

Since 1980, DDC Dances has been presenting remarkable works of contemporary dance in Michigan.

As a dance company, they choreograph original, expressive performances for audiences to enjoy.

(light upbeat music) - [Amy] The traditional forms of modern dance continue to speak to an ever-changing world.

- The essence of dance, for me, is about humanity.

And there's so much in this world today to express.

- DDC is a group of performing artists that bring modern dance throughout Detroit and the greater Detroit area, and also we provide outreach education programs throughout Michigan.

- DDC Dances began in 1980.

We were founded at Wayne State University, actually.

The founding members were Paula Kramer, Anita Surma, and Sue Ellen Darr and myself.

We focused on a technique that was developed and designed by Doris Humphrey and Jose Limon, pioneers of modern dance.

And really, the genre today still really works, because it's based on how human beings like to move in space and time.

So that's what we liked about working in that way, and so obviously after 40 years it's developed into something a little bit different, because those two, Humphrey and Limon, wanted future generations to develop their technique.

- I started out in ballet growing up and in college I first discovered modern dance and really fell in love with it, just because of the expressivity, the freedom, yet its connectedness and roots to ballet and to a strict technique.

It just really allows for expression and a lot of creativity in terms of music choices, choreographic choices, choreographic sites.

- [Barbara] I really like to look not just for technique, but for performance skills, who they are as people and what they communicate through their body.

We work a lot through improvisation.

So when I'm making choreography, it's the idea of a breath and gravity.

It's all natural elements that surround us.

So we work on improv that's based on ideas that interest me as a choreographer.

There are dances in our upcoming concert that deal with climate change, that deal with mental health, that deal with extinction.

So all of these things are important to society today and we're expressing how we feel about these issues through movement.

- So there's a lot that goes back and forth.

As a dancer, you're not just simply a dancer.

You're a choreographer, you're innovating with the artistic director, which is a really beautiful part of this company.

- She comes in, puts a bench down in black, and she'll sit down and be forward, and lights and music go together.

Today we are doing a tech for each of the pieces, so you'll be watching us create the lighting.

And then once the lighting's created, then we will run the piece, like a dress rehearsal.

Getting the right lighting design to enhance the dance and to really be a partner with the dance.

So stage lighting is really very important.

It becomes a marriage between the dance, dancers, and the space.

Well, the first piece on the program were excerpts from a whole evening work that we did at Jam Handy last fall, and it's called "Rock On."

And I've always wanted to create a concert based on rock music.

So there's some small excerpts from that.

So you'll see dancers performing to some of the classic rock music that we all know and love.

One of my young dancers, an emerging artist, Liz LeClaire, she choreographed a new solo.

I really like to give young emerging artists an opportunity to show their work.

So her work is actually based on mental health.

It's really interesting, the way she communicates those ideas.

There's a piece that I choreographed 30 years ago.

It's called "Journey's End," and that's based on environmental change.

And 30 years ago we were talking about environmental change, and this piece is still pertinent today.

It happens to be performed to the music of The Beatles.

The last work is called "Absence."

It's a brand-new premiere for me, and it deals with the idea of loss, what has been lost or gone, may never exist again.

And the dancers all wrote their own stories.

So that was like a jumping off point for the work.

They all created movement based on the idea that they had written on their story, and then we improvised with it and then I take it and I mold it and I change it and I structure it to express the full piece and what we want to say in terms of that particular idea.

Each of the individual dancers in the company bring their own voice to the movement.

So whatever that means to them, they create gestures, perhaps, or entire movement phrases that deal with their story.

- The wonderful thing about it is that often times there are many interpretations to it.

So it doesn't have to have a certain, like, one specific meaning, as is the case in many different forms of modern art.

It's really inspiring to dance with my colleagues.

They all have their strengths, and we're all unique in our ways, but we come together and, you know, are stronger as a group, I think.

- I'm really proud of the company because I think we have a variety of ways to communicate the art form.

Our heart and soul really goes into our productions, our classes, our workshops, everything we do with the community has meant so much to us, and we are hoping it has meant a lot to the people that we serve.

- Discover more at DDCdances.org.

And that wraps it up for this edition of ARTEFFECTS.

For more arts and culture, and to watch past episodes, visit pbsreno.org/arteffects.

we will see you next week.

Thanks for watching!

- [Narrator] Funding for ARTEFFECTS is made possible by, Sandy Raffealli, The June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, Heidemarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno members and by... (bright jazzy music)