- In this edition of "ARTEFFECTS", ancient Chinese brushstrokes with Caroline Young.

- These stories have been handed down by word of mouth through thousands of years.

- [Beth] An immersive arts destination.

- It's an entire world created by a bunch of artists, mainly local artists, 64 of them, collaborating to create an entire world that we invite you in to come explore.

- [Beth] A ceramicist's craft.

- Through that making and touch, there's something unusual or unique or more poetic about the form itself that draws people in.

- [Beth] And the provocative work of Jaime Lynn Shafer.

- [Jaime] If I'm creating a piece, I like to make it sculptural in nature, but I like that form to enhance the content.

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

(mellow upbeat jazzy music) - [Announcer] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli, 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 Beth Macmillan and welcome to "ARTEFFECTS".

In our featured segment, Caroline Young is a Reno-based artist who grew up in Hong Kong.

She draws from her heritage to paint mythical characters based on ancient Chinese mythology and folklore, and uses her artwork to inform people around the world about Chinese culture.

(gentle string music) - In ancient times in Yunan province, there lived a magical songbird called the nugelo, with the sweetest singing voice.

The people loved listening to it, but none more than a beautiful village maiden who would become lovesick if she skipped even a day of it.

Every morning, she would go into the forest and lose herself in the song of the nugelo.

She cherished its memory and she began to sing like nugelo had sung, of the joys and sorrows of her people.

(gentle string music) I grew up in Hong Kong.

My parents were expatriate American Chinese living in Hong Kong, and just like you growing up in the US, you hear about Cinderella, you hear about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Well, we heard about Chang'e, we heard about Sisha.

These are people from Chinese history and Chinese mythology.

So when I started painting as a career in Honolulu, there was no one representing the Chinese culture over there.

And so I started painting that.

It became more interesting than just a pretty picture.

It had depth, it had meaning.

And in a way, people were learning about the Chinese culture through my paintings.

(upbeat cheerful music) These stories have been handed down by word of mouth through thousands of years, as long as the Chinese civilization has been in existence.

And because they're handed down by word of mouth, you'll find different endings or different versions of the same story, which is really interesting.

(upbeat cheerful music) Guan Yin is the goddess of mercy.

She's the epitome of beauty and benevolence.

She's said to travel from heaven to Earth on the back of the mighty dragon.

She's also the patron saint of sailors.

When sailors get into a fierce storm at sea, they pray to Guan Yin to save them, and she's seen riding through the waves on the back of the mighty dragon to the rescue.

I take my inspiration from stories that I read, and I do research into the legends and the history.

And as I'm reading the story, an image will pop into my mind, and that is what I paint.

I work in watercolor, acrylic and wash.

I actually mix all the three mediums together, anything that's watercolor.

And basically I water all the paints down till it's a light wash, and I put down multiple layers of light washes to build up the intensity of the color and put in the shading.

I work on silk mostly, it's Japanese silk that's been pretreated so it doesn't bleed.

And the silks take a long time to do.

For instance, in the faces and the skin tones, that takes anywhere between 18 to 22 layers of washes.

For a large painting, if it's a woman, it generally takes me oh, anywhere between two to three months to do.

And that's working six days a week, between eight to 10 hours a day.

(light Asian music) As I'm painting it, I'm always thinking about the story, trying to get the mood of the story into the painting.

Every color I put down affects what color I'm gonna put next.

And so sometimes what I think I'm gonna end up with is not what I end up with, but it's something better.

I hope that when someone sees my work, they will enjoy the story behind it, appreciate it for much more than just a pretty picture, and understand the culture that's behind it.

(upbeat Asian music) - For more information, visit carolineyoungstudios.com.

Located in St. Petersburg, Florida, Fairgrounds St. Pete is an interactive art and technology exhibition.

Upon entry, guests are immersed in the work of over 60 artists, and have an experience that is unlike any other, take a look.

- Well first of all, you're about to leave reality.

Walking through these doors is a whole nother dimension, but it's up to you what kind of dimension that will be.

(upbeat energizing music) Hi, my name is John Michael Hines, and I'm the experience manager for Fairgrounds St. Pete.

(upbeat energizing music) - So it's an immersive art experience, which means it's an entire world created by a bunch of artists, mainly local artists, 64 of them, collaborating to create an entire world that we invite you in to come explore.

We're the anchor tenant of a larger cultural campus called The Factory, and The Factory is a six and a half acre big campus, where there's many artist studios and creative companies.

And we're sort of one of the big anchor tenants of The Factory, so our exhibition is about 15,000 square feet.

- Fairgrounds St. Pete is a time-ticketed experience.

So we're encouraging guests to reserve their time slot ahead of time.

Once you arrive, our guest experience guides will scan your ticket, and give you a brief introduction about what you're about to experience.

And from there, you will walk into the wonderful, weird, wacky world of Fairgrounds.

- What I think visitors don't realize yet is, it's gonna be so different than their normal art exhibition.

They're going to be walking in artwork everywhere.

From the ceiling to the wall to the floor, everything's gonna be art, and it's going to be a totally immersive experience and a different magical place.

- Early on, we really wanted to make a very tangible digital playground.

COVID really forced us to think differently and pivot.

And so we started taking touchless sensors and creating our interpretation of what a button would be if you didn't touch a button.

So there are many aspects where you kind of hold your hand over something and you get lighting and sound feedback, but you don't physically make contact with something.

So it was a way to make things a bit safer.

We're also using things like foot pedals, kind of little surprises, that you can kind of step on things and then something happens, or it activates sounds or lighting.

It's a lot of traditional theater and stage craft, meets art, meets storytelling.

And so the difference is, is that you don't just sit back as a passive audience member and watch things happen on the stage.

You are on the stage and you are in the story.

- So Fairgrounds is a choose your own adventure type experience, so there is a storyline underlying of why, you know, certain things are where they are.

It's up to you to experience that and try to find out the storyline, or just walk around and enjoy yourself.

So, you know, that's part of our loose narrative is we're going for the old school, retro Florida motel vibe.

So we do have a 100% Fairgrounds-branded motel room, with some cool gadgets in there that you can play with or experiment with, or just, you know, try to help find the storyline with.

And then other rooms are nothing like a motel room, 'cause they've been taken over by an artist, but they are still, have a Florida theme to them, or you know, whatever kind of theme that you might think it is.

- So Fairgrounds St. Pete is a celebration of all weird, wacky, wonderful Florida.

And when we put out the open call to artists, we knew that what we wanted was for artists to celebrate the weird, wacky, wonderful world that we live in here in Florida.

- I feel like Fairgrounds gets me, you know?

They know that I'm more than just an artist.

Like they know I love to collect seashells.

I like to just have like a vibe, you know?

So that's what it is.

- Well, what stands out most to me is the Floridarama room.

That's where we have our small, tiny worlds that artists have created based on our loose narrative that we provided for them.

So they all brought their individuality and their ideas, and they were able to put it in a little box.

- I do these customized train cars, you know, like the G-scale model train cars.

And I'll paint them and make them look like they're grungy, or like they have graffiti all over the side of them.

But this time, I knew I was going to have this opportunity, so I didn't want to just put a train in a box.

So I've made this entire, almost dream-like landscape with this train going into this water, and has a speaker and lights in it, so you can change the mood of it.

So more 3D, more interactive artwork, for sure.

- So for Fairgrounds St. Pete, I'm doing a large site-specific installation.

It's gonna be covering the whole ceiling.

It's gonna be something you can walk under and truly feel immersed in the artwork.

- I'm super excited to experience it myself, you know, as the artist, seeing it through everyone else's eyes.

I've heard the concept.

I have not seen it yet, but I know there's gonna be a mermaid room, and that's where my art will be in.

And so I'm so excited to see it.

So you guys come out and see it.

(upbeat light music) - So our tagline is, "Art for all, play for all, joy for all."

So it's really about everyone coming to enjoy the his weird, wacky, wonderful world that we've created with 64 artists.

- And what we really are is a stage to just show a lot of the wonderful art and the artists and creative things that are happening here in St. Pete.

It's really just playful and fun, and there's a lot of humor and adventure.

And I think it's a great place to just have fun with your family or on a date, or just to go explore yourself as an artist and to see great works.

- Plan your visit at fairgrounds.art.

Now, let's take a look at this week's art quiz.

What is the name of the Chinese moon goddess whose beauty is praised in both poetry and fiction?

Is the answer A, Yunu, B, the Jade Maiden, C, Chang'e, or D, Lady White?

And the answer is C, Chang'e.

In this segment, we take a trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to meet ceramicist Michaelene Walsh.

With her hands, she sculpts clay into a variety of recognizable objects that are full of meaning.

(gentle dreamlike music) - For me, the emotive quality comes through the touch, and being able to hand sculpt something.

I feel like my imagery has more to do with relatable objects, so things that people generally have some relationship to.

A bird or an ice cream or a gift bow, things that are commonplace, and that through that making and touch, there's something unusual or unique, or more poetic about the form itself that draws people in and allows them to feel something slightly different.

Maybe questioning, why would this be handmade as opposed being slip cast, or made from a prefabricated mold.

For clay, there's such a range of possibility.

Not that other mediums don't provide that, but I feel like what I've found in clay is both high touch, it's tactile, I can touch it.

I can sculpt with basically starting with a lump, which people have done throughout time, but it also provides the ability to say something new in a long cultural continuum.

For me, the containment has more to do with that spiritual or psychological or emotional realm.

So the idea of a sculpture, a form as a container for something ephemeral.

The small form, there's a relationship, and maybe it relates to toys or dolls or objects for the table, or it has some bodily or domestic association.

And I find through making a lot of small forms, what I can do is compose with them.

So the idea of moving objects around in relationship to one another is fun for me.

In the way that maybe words would do that for a poet, I feel like images are a way to do that.

So for instance, putting an ice cream cone with a bird, it starts to play as some sort of new symbolism.

And I think by working small, there's a greater ability to do that.

"American Dream" is a wall meant to resemble the ice cream cones that you might get at Disney World, which to me is the sort of iconic American experience, or a slice of Americana that's commonplace and recognizable.

I thought to myself, why are they all just white?

And so I wanted to kind of make a range of tones that might represent just what any child going to Disney World might fin, and might relate to.

So they were meant to sort of be, literally they are a blend.

I start with a very, very dark clay.

And as I cast each one, I'm re-adding amounts of either a lighter-tone clay or a white clay.

And that range begins to lighten as each one is cast.

So there is a conceptual level to that, but it's also very readable, very accessible.

And then all of them have the same kind of chocolate-dipped ice cream quality to them.

The popsicles gave me a chance, sort of a blank slate to work with color dynamically, and figure out different patterns and things that people who work 2D get to do on a flat surface, I was doing on a three-dimensional surface.

The work that I feel the most strongly about is having work that might go in a specific place.

I felt really pleased with the outcome of the Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital, in part because I felt like it was a culmination of imagery I've been working with for a long time, and yet it was placed in a new way.

And it was also working with someone, and working with a client really closely to really figure something out that would work well for children, for adults for a long time.

(gentle uplifting music) I did a couple of series of hands.

One was a series of hands that were both my hands, my daughter's hands, and then the hands of some different primates throughout the spectrum.

And I cast them in a series from the center being the largest, to the smallest actually being my daughter's hands, and that they were all done in these sort of metallic tones like you would do with a baby shoe or a copper.

They were meant to be a sort of metallic tone.

It was called "Kin and Kind".

It was in a series that I also did that was looking at animal imagery in general.

And in particular, I've always had a predilection for the primates as a conservation.

The gift bows were all handmade.

I constructed them using sort of ribbons of clay.

They're glazed, was a way to sort of generate gratitude and people could come and choose a bow to then take home with them.

And some of the bows were sold, and all the money went to benefit the Baton Rouge Gallery.

So it was sort of a way to give back, and also the gift bow image is such a universal, simple, strong image of gift and generosity.

My glaze pallet is very intentional most of the time, sometimes there are happy accidents.

But I feel like color and the use of color is a way to kind of evoke joy and a sense of celebration with some of the forms, while the subject matter might be a little bit on the more challenging side.

So I think sometimes color is a way to pull people in.

I do develop my own glazes, and then I use some commercial glazes.

It's a bit of a play between block things and things that have been made in my studio.

But I feel like color is also a way to bring out sort of the painter in me.

I really enjoy color theory and color design, and I think it's a way to just play with some of those optics within the work.

I see my work as having more of a universal appeal, so that children relate to it, teenagers, adults.

It's a tough territory (chuckling) to try to appeal on a universal level, but I feel like when I find a symbol such as an ice cream cone, it has relatability to a lot of people.

- To learn more, go to mikey-walsh.squarespace.com.

In our final segment, Jamie Lynn Shaffer is a Fallon-based artist who combines content and structure to create unique and provocative artist books.

She takes us into her studio to teach us what an artist book is, and show us how they are made.

- My name is Jaime Lynn Shafer, and I am a book artist.

What makes an artist book different from a regular book is when I work, I try to focus on the content and the form working as one together.

So if I'm creating a piece, I like to make it sculptural in nature, but I like that form to enhance the content.

(gentle ethereal music) Books are functional as a piece of art on its own, but also can be read in an intimate setting, just like you would read a novel or something else.

But it's meant to be a piece of art that functions on its own.

This one I did last year, and it's called "1 in 3", and it's about domestic abuse.

So I was interested in exploring why it is that women can't escape a situation.

I was in a emotionally abusive relationship previously.

And so part of this was me processing my own personal experiences, but I wanted to sort of examine the statistical information that causes women to not be able to escape, along with the things that women tell themselves and remain in a situation.

So I paired images of abused women with the statistics and this is a great example of how the structure is working with the content.

You know, you can really sort of read this as you would a regular book flipping through the pages, but you also have that graphic image that you have to take in and deal with as you're looking at the book.

And so my hope is that it impacts you, that you have, you know, a reaction to it.

And I want to, you know, maybe change the situation or somehow better it.

So just different images combined in there.

And then of course, this can also be viewed as a three-dimensional piece.

So it's called a flag book, it allows you to view it as a sculpture also.

And then the back is also important.

The spine of the book represents the unnamed women, or the women who never escape.

I write the content, I design the book, I print the book and then I bind it, making the edition.

I would pull open one of the drawers if I wanted to set some type.

And each sort, these are called sorts, is one letter.

There's many different phrases that we use today that come from letterpress.

When you're out of sorts, it means you don't have any sorts left in the case.

So if I just wanted to set Black Rock Press, for example, I would grab some spacing material and then the letters.

And they get set upside down, but still in the same direction as if you were writing.

And then go ahead and set it up on the press, so that I can print it.

So right now, if I were to leave this loose, of course as I roll the carriage over it, it would spill.

So now I would go and ink, mix my ink, and then I'll come and ink the press up.

(gentle calming music) So now what I'm gonna do is just go ahead and proof this to see how it's printing.

My content generally revolves around social issues or stories that are untold or forgotten.

This is called "No Refills Left", and I wanted to recycle prescription leaflets.

So the whole book is made from prescription leaflets, and I actually went through all the leaflets to try and find the texts that I wanted to share.

So it's sort of me examining prescription drug abuse from an outsider perspective.

So everything about this book is made from recycled material.

Even this little pill is made from cutouts of the leaflets, 300 circles cut out and glued together, and then sanded and painted.

I hope that when people look at my work, that they will reflect on their own values and belief system and perhaps consider that there are other ways of thinking about our society and about what's happening here.

- For more information, visit jaimelynnshafer.com.

And that wraps it up with this edition of "ARTEFFECTS".

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

Until next week, I'm Beth Macmillan, thanks for watching.

- [Announcer] Funding for "ARTEFFECTS" is made possible by Sandy Raffealli, 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.

(mellow jazzy music)