- In this edition of Arteffects, a Gardnerville-based artist, whose pottery sends a beautiful message.

- Troy has found something that he really loves to do, that's hard for anybody, not just a person with down syndrome to find their passion in life.

(upbeat music) - [Rebecca] Photographing a city.

- [Asia] And a lot of the portraiture and stuff that I shoot is a documentary of history, it is like a way of just remembering a time.

- [Rebecca] Japanese animation.

- [Carla] You can see that development process, how they go from the raw images and ideas, into the more technical details and drawings, and then the final product.

- [Rebecca] The art of the race car.

- [Jennifer] When you go around and look at the cars, you can see whatever the contemporary design aesthetic of the day is, making its way into the car themselves.

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

(piano music) - [Narrator 1] Funding for Arteffects is made possible by, Sandy Rafffealli, The June S Wisham Estate, Carol Franc Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, HeidiMarie Rochlin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members, and by.

- Hello, I'm Rebecca Cronon, filling in for Beth Macmillan.

In our featured segment we introduce you to Troy Drake, a potter who lives in Gardnerville.

His gentle disposition is buoyed with a steady eye for detail and care, and each piece of pottery he creates, makes a positive impact for others.

- Do you like this color?

- Mm-hmm - It's perfect with the bird, the hummingbird.

- Do not break it.

- I won't break it.

This one doesn't have a bird.

You're afraid I'm gonna drop it, aren't you?

They are pretty that is.

Troy you did a really good job on these.

Troy Made It was started for our son Troy who makes pottery.

And we came up with the name because he would make pottery and people would say, "Who made that?"

And we would say, "Troy made it."

And so we were trying to think of a name for his company, and we just kept thinking Troy Made It, and that's kind of how we ended up with his name.

Troy I was born with down syndrome, and he's always loved to draw, and he just has a sense of space.

He can see something and he can just draw it, I can't do that, he'll draw for hours in a day, so he's always loved art, and then from there it just kind of progressed into pottery.

(serene music) My husband and I we just sold our company, and so we were newly retired, and we'd always wanted to do ceramics.

So, there was a new pottery studio in Carson City called Ogre-Holm Pottery, so we've called them, and signed up for a wheel throwing class, and then asked if we could bring Troy with us, and they said absolutely, so we brought him.

And they said, "Well, why doesn't he do hand building while you're throwing, he can take the class as well?"

So Troy took a class, he really liked it.

And then that Christmas, we decided to make some ornaments Troy and I for family and friends, and we had extra, so I thought I'll just put these on Facebook and see if anybody wants to buy them and we'll donate the money.

And so they sold out in 20 minutes, and then everybody was asking for more ornaments, so we made more, and then they all started asking to buy his pottery.

(guitar music) Holly, my daughter's girlfriend, said, "I wanna start an Instagram account for Troy," and I was like, "No, don't wanna do that, I don't want them out there, I don't want anyone saying mean things about him, I don't wanna do it."

And so she convinced me that by putting him out there you're showing other families the capabilities of people with down syndrome, that they can do a lot of different things in this world, so then I was like, "Okay," but I really didn't expect it to do much, and then it just snowballed from there.

(piano music) - I'm making plates, making bowls, I am making hearts, making Christmas ornaments, making trinket trays.

(serene music) - First he gets a bag of clay, then he cuts the bag of clay, and then we have a slab roller, and he rolls the chunk of clay out in a slab.

And then he has forms or he has real leaves that he gets out in our yard, he has slump molds, it all depends on what he's gonna make.

And then he cuts out whatever he's gonna make, and then he puts it on the form, he has a dry, and then we put it in the kiln to bisque fire, then we take it out, he glazes it and then it goes back in the kiln, and then it's ready to go.

- One coat, and two coats and three coats, and we put in a kiln, comes in minutes, comes to dry, then comes to be very nice.

- And he just can't keep up with the demand of (laughs) people wanting his pottery, we wish we could but he's only one guy (laughs).

(serene music) 100% of choice pottery, the profits from choice pottery are donated, and this year we donated $18,000, in total he's donated almost $30,000 to different nonprofits.

(guitar music) - I like to help people making money for charities, that makes me proud.

- When Troy posts a new video and we get comments from people on how much they appreciate his videos, they just say the nicest things about how good he is, and how proud they are, and how awesome his work is, and how inspirational he is, and so we read all of these comments to him.

Wow, look so great.

I hope by people seeing him doing what he's doing, that they're seeing that people with down syndrome have value, that they can contribute to society, and that his life has meaning.

- I say to mom, and say thank you about helping me with pottery.

(serene music) - You can see Troy's latest creations and learn more about his mission by heading to troymadeitpottery.com, or check out his Instagram @troymadeit.

Asia Hamilton photographs the people and places that surround her, based in Detroit, Michigan, this artist observes and records the textures that make up her city.

(upbeat music) - Every human being they have a uniqueness about them that you can grasp with a photograph.

Photography saved my life, it was exactly what I needed to do and what I was born to do.

I grew up on the Northwest side of Detroit, photography has been a way of being my therapy.

One of the things that I wanna talk about specifically is how mindful photography is, and how it requires for you to take your thoughts and focus on something else.

And it was a time where my mother, she had gotten ill, she had a stroke, and I was in extreme panic, and I needed to take a walk.

And I was just walking around, and I saw the way that the light was hitting the building and the textures on the building, and I was like, "Oh my God, it's so beautiful," and I had to take out my camera and started just taking pictures, and it literally took me out of that element and had me focused on something else.

The meaning for the textures is just the history behind it, you know, how did those textures come about, what did those places look like beforehand?

And a lot of the portraiture and stuff that I shoot it's a documentary of history, it is like a way of just remembering a time, and so those textures are bits and pieces of a time that has passed.

I love to take posed candid photos, there's always those instances of a glimpse of a person.

And a lot of times when I start to shoot, I'm looking for that in between, just so that I can capture the real essence of a person.

There's a photo called West side, I literally pulled up on these people, they was a father and a son standing outside, and it was the golden hour in photography the sun was shining, and it just looked beautiful.

I took a picture of them in the midst of asking them can I take a photo, and I continued to photograph them a little bit more, but it was that first shot that got it.

For a long time I photographed a lot of nude women, black women specifically.

And it was because there really wasn't enough black women being shown in a way that was artistic, and I wanted to present them as beautiful in their body.

And that was a learning process for me too because I had to become comfortable with myself.

The series of mixed media photographs that I did with merging the textures and the portraiture together, was really embracing our history, our lineage, how we go through life from beginning to end, you know, those textures, all of that information in there in our being and how we interact with each other.

So there is a photo of a man and a woman, they're like my grandparents, starting there at that unit was pretty much the head of the family, we look to them for our wisdom, and then I have another exact photo of a younger generation of a young boy and a young girl, because that's our beginning, that's where our start is.

There's this one picture, it's just a bunch of kids on the playground, and I was like, "Hey y'all, come together, get together let me get a photo of you," and the pause that they gave me was so fierce, that's one of my favorite pictures.

We wanna be able to educate people with your work, that doesn't always have to be in the form of a protest, it can be in the form of just healing the people as is, that's what I do, I use it as a way to heal myself and whomever else that comes in contact with it.

I love to give back because I had some amazing mentors.

I've taught middle and high school students photography.

I started a business called photo Sensei, which is photography tours and workshops around the Detroit area.

Another thing that I've done is open up the Norwest Gallery of Art.

Norwest Gallery is in North Rosedale Park on Grand River Evergreen and Outer Drive.

Norwest comes from the Norwest Theater that used to be on Grand River just on the other side of Southfield freeway.

This is an opportunity for me to create a platform for artists who are emerging, all the way up into strong professional artists that's been doing it for years.

It was really a matter of wanting to create a platform and space for people to exhibit and show their work, express themselves in a way that it's a safe space to just be yourself.

I love curating shows, I like to get people to feel, so it's a big part of my art, I come up with a concept or an idea and just push it to the limit.

I select the artists that I think would be able to convey that message in their medium, and it's super exciting to me.

The gallery has definitely taken on its own life, and it is a necessary place for this neighborhood.

I show Detroit how Detroit performs by just being myself, I'm always gonna be Asian in my work and how I greet people, how I run my space, it's all very calm.

When people come in here they're smiling and they're like, "Oh my God, the energy here is so good," and that's because I want you to know that I'm sharing a part of my love with you, this is my passion, this is my home, so it's like me opening up my home to you - To learn more about Asia Hamilton, visit norwestgallery.com, and asiahamilton.photography.

Now it's time for this week art's quiz.

Which of these theaters is the oldest in America?

Is the answer A, Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia?

B, Shubert Theater in New York city?

C, Thalian Hall in Wilmington?

Or D, Saenger Theater in New Orleans?

And the answer is, A, Walnut Street Theater.

The exhibition Anime Architecture, presents Japanese animation before the digital era, located at the Morikami Museum and Japanese gardens in Delray beach, Florida, the show features drawings and paintings used to create remarkable animated films.

(serene music) - I'm Carla Stansifer, I'm the curator of Japanese art at The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, this is Anime Architecture.

Exhibit features four films that came out between 1988 and 2004, these films are all anime, which is the Japanese animation process, and they are all sci-fi, and they all also encapsulate a realistic style, so that's what each of the films have in common.

And anime is a multi-billion dollar business today.

The original curator of the exhibition Stefan Riekeles from Berlin, he started this project back in 2008, and he was fortunate enough to go into studios meet with the animators, and look at some of their work, and he was really interested in the process of anime making.

It's amazing how hundreds of artists working together to create one film, and he talks about how a lot of the artists were hesitant to put their art in frames and on the wall, they didn't see it as art, they saw it as just a small part of this whole production.

(upbeat music) The curator went with the backgrounds and not just the characters.

For example, in the Japanese anime process, the voiceovers come last, in a Disney production they come first, but in Japan it's the opposite, they have much greater emphasis on the environment and movement.

"Ghost in the shell" came out in 1995, and it's based on a very popular manga series.

We really can't underestimate the importance of this film, the people who created "The Matrix" say flat out that this film inspired them.

And the entire film is about artificial intelligence in the future, But how this artificial intelligence interacts with the technology, with the machinery, and really they're talking about what it means to be human.

For this film we featured some of the hand drawings by Takeuchi Atsushi, and then we have the paintings of Ogura Hiromasa , which actually appear in the film.

So you can see that development process, how they go from the raw images and ideas, into the more technical details and drawings, and then the final product in the field and the emotion that comes out, it's almost as if the background and the environment is its own character in the film, they really wanna emphasize that.

We do have some photography as well, and location photography was very important, remember these artists were going for realism.

And the director Oshii Mamoru not only worked on anime, but he also worked on live actions, and he thought, "Well, why don't we do that for anime?"

And I love to point out this piece right here, he snapped this picture in a shop after he had gone in his lens sort of clouded over, and then this is what his art team did with it.

And I love it because we're not just seeing a copy, they're not copying what they saw, they were inspired by this.

And you could see they added some signage, they added a building over here.

I also like to point out in this piece, again, it's a watercolor on paper by Ogura Hiromasa, and this one would've been captured on film for the final product.

You see these dark colors here, it has this nice broody tone to it, but when that transfers to film a lot of that gets washed out, but Ogura was a master at finding just the right mix to create these darker tones and still keep them vibrant.

This piece here is from the film "Patlabor" which came out in 1989, if you look very closely at this piece, you'll see a few little bits of tape across the top, and that's because there are actually three layers here.

Why would they do that, why would they go to all that trouble?

Well, in this particular scene, we have a flock of birds that flies through the frame, and so we had to have space in between those buildings, and they were moving at different cameras speeds, and how complicated it gets just for a flock of birds to fly across screen.

Around 1997, the anime industry moved to entirely digital productions, from concept design through to the final piece was all digital, and it was this great way, this great change that took over the studios especially throughout Tokyo, and today there are only five studios left who can do hand drawn backgrounds.

- Discover more at morikami.org.

Up next we visit the Heritage Museums and Gardens in Massachusetts, to see an array of race cars from throughout history, each car has a story that's rich with style and artistry.

[Announcer] Drivers, start your engines.

(engine roaring) - [Narrator 2] This is a showcase of speed, a history of horsepower and engineering from the largest single day sporting event in the world, The Indianapolis 500.

- I think that most people think, "Oh I don't care about auto racing, it doesn't impact me at all," but actually anyone who owns a passenger car is impacted by car racing every day.

- [Narrator 2] The cars in this racing retrospective at the Heritage Museums and Gardens are fueled by design, each one a testament to the pursuit of automotive and genuity.

From the narrow chassis of early roadsters, to the thick tires, wild wings, and sweeping ground effects of today's Indy cars, each represents a landmark in engineering, even the ones that weren't built for speed.

- This is the pace car used for the original 1911 race, 40 cars qualified for the race that year which was more than the founders were really expecting, and they felt it was too many for a standing start.

- [Narrator 2] Jennifer Madden is the museum's director of collections and exhibitions, every car here represents a moment in the history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track which evolved from a dirt oval, into the largest speedway in the United States.

It all began with Carl Fischer, an enterprising businessmen and motor sport enthusiast in the US capitol of Indianapolis.

- He visited Europe, he saw European auto racing, their roads were in much better shape than ours, and he realized that American manufacturers were not gonna be able to compete unless they had a purpose built Speedway for them to test their cars.

- [Narrator 2] What began as a showcase of everyday cars, quickly evolved into a spectacle of speed, fans came from near and far to witness the world's best drivers race 500 miles in the most advanced automobiles of the day.

- In the early years of the race you will see streamlined bodies on the cars, and trying to eliminate any sources of drag.

Most of the early cars have space for two people, because there was a riding mechanic that was required to be with the driver in the car.

- [Narrator 2] At the heart of this exhibition is the evolution of automotive design, from this 1913 Duesenberg, to Mario Andretti's experimental 1972 Parnelli, to the jet-like 2005 Honda of racing superstar Danica Patrick.

- I think of race cars being very utilitarian, their point is to go fast, they don't have to look pretty, but actually when you go around and look at the cars you can see whatever the contemporary design aesthetic of the day is, making its way into the cars themselves.

- Now I know that this is your favorite, I suspect this would be the favorite of a lot of people, tell me about this car.

- This is a great example of a race car, 1935 Miller Ford.

First of all, the design of it is so art deco, you can get that evidence so well from the shape of the car itself, how it ends in the boat tail up there.

They were working on aerodynamic features for the cars as well, so you see these cast aluminum covered suspension pieces that was unusual, and the paint of course screams art deco.

- In the beginning they were very rugged and the tires were very small.

- [Narrator 2] Lyn St. James is an Indy matriarch, she spent decades immersed motor sport as a driver then later as a mentor, something she never thought possible growing up in the 1960s.

- I have to say that I'll never forget that experience of going to the Indy 500, but at the same time I never said, "Oh well, I'm gonna do that," I mean, women weren't even allowed in Gasoline Alley, it was a different time in society.

- [Narrator 2] She persisted, Lynn was 26 when she began her racing career in 1973, but it was almost another 20 years before her first Indy 500 race, when she became the first ever woman to win Rookie of the Year.

- I just figured that's not even in the cards, but boy when I got up at that victory banquet and all of a sudden I had a standing ovation and it was like, "Yes I did this (laughs)."

- [Narrator 2] Inspired by gender defying athletes like Billie Jean King, Lyn became an advocate for women in motor sport, advising young female drivers like Sarah Fisher and Danica Patrick.

- So I got so much fun mails from young girls and women wanting advice, and I was like, "I have to do something."

- [Narrator 2] As a fan and competitor, she's seen the impact of the Indy 500 worldwide.

- I don't think of any other community that's had that kind of a history for one event once a year, that has put it on the map around the entire world.

If you travel around the world and you say you're from Indiana, people go, "It's at the Indianapolis 500?"

Even if they've never been to a race and they aren't a race fan.

- [Narrator 2] A legacy of racing memorialized in the cars that made their mark 500 miles at a time.

- For more information visit heritagemuseumsandgardens.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.

Until next week we are PBS Reno, thanks for watching.

- [Narrator 1] Funding for artifacts is made possible by, Sandy Raffelli, The June S. Wisham Estate, Carol Frank Buck, Merrill and Lebo Newman, HeideMarie Rocklin, Meg and Dillard Myers, the annual contributions of PBS Reno Members, and by.

(serene music) (piano music)