- [Announcer] Support provided by the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the state of Connecticut Office of Film, Television, and Digital Media, and Connecticut Humanities.

(gentle music) (car door slamming) (car revving) - [Ray] For all my life, I've loved art.

From my time as a musician and artist, I believe the stories of artists themselves can inform, excite, and elevate.

- Cake wise is like an edible canvas.

I want to convey and show my customers that whenever they receive a cake of mine or from Le Banh, it is like an edible art.

- Artists can inform us of history of a moment in time, and reflect on modern society.

And I find this fascinating.

That's why I'm on the search for Connecticut's most vibrant artists, and to shed light on their stories from designers and painters to muralists and poets.

Join me as I find the people that make up Connecticut's art scene On "Where Art Thou?"

(upbeat music) (gentle music) Hello and welcome to "Where Art Thou?"

Today we're in the Farmington Valley, a beautiful part of the state.

You have the Litchfield Hills to the West, you have Talcott Mountain to the east, and there's also a bunch of artists thriving here in the valley.

And I wanna learn more about them.

Right now I'm on my way to the Farmington Valley Art Center to meet our curator for this episode.

Carol Kaplan.

Carol is a mixed media artist and the executive director of the FVAC.

Let's see what she has for us today.

(gentle music) Carol.

- Hello.

- So nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too, Ray.

- And what a beautiful space to create art.

- [Carol] Pretty amazing, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- It's inspirational.

(upbeat music) - In general, what is the art scene like in this part of the state?

- It's robust.

- Is it?

- I mean there, yes.

There are a lot of musicians, artists, makers, crafters, sort of scattered throughout the Farmington Valley and heading towards Litchfield Hills.

And a lot of folks who have a history of making art and having studios at their home.

In, maybe, like a barn or, I mean here we have the art center, but so many different, sort of a different vibe than an urban setting.

(gentle music) - [Ray] Yeah, lots of different artists?

- [Carol] Yes.

Like, for example, at the art center, we're pretty representative of the kind of art that is in this area.

We have painters, photographers, furniture makers.

- [Ray] So Carol, tell me where we're going today.

- Okay, so upstairs we have a couple of great potters who came here in 2018.

Erika Novak and Drew Darley.

They both make work here, and they also teach.

Their styles couldn't be more different.

- Oh really?

- I mean, Erica is like colorful, carved pieces.

And Drew is the scientist.

I mean, he has elegant forms that he throws and then he does crystalline glazes.

- Oh wow.

- That is a whole scientific process of I'm gonna mix, you know, the mad scientist, I'm gonna mix all this stuff together.

- Yeah.

- Put it in the kiln and see what it comes out like.

- Oh, that's gonna be so neat to visit.

Oh, I can't wait.

- So it's a wonderful complimentary relationship, which is, you're gonna love it.

They're fun.

- Yeah, yeah.

Where else?

- So you're gonna be heading down the road to Simsbury.

You're gonna be going to le Bánh Patisserie And that is owned by Kim Hoang Wood.

And she moved here from Vietnam when she was three and ended up following her passion of culinary art.

But I mean, emphasis on the art.

I mean these are just really just like delectable, delicious, and kind of showstopping.

(water splashing) - Thought that was game.

- Yeah.

He won at chess last time.

- [Drew] You haven't won in a couple weeks.

- (laughs) Not true.

(gentle music) - Round Trip Clayworks is an amazing pottery studio in the Farmington Valley made up of the husband and wife team, Erika Novak and Drew Darley.

Erika and Drew, thank you.

So nice to meet you, and what a beautiful facility you have here.

- Thank you for coming.

We're happy to have you here.

- Yeah, yeah.

I think when we talk about Round Trip Clayworks, we have to start at the very beginning.

And that's Central Connecticut State University.

- Yeah.

- Tell me.

- So we met in the basement of the art building, which is the ceramics program down there.

Cool place.

Bunch of kilns, all clay, dusty, dirty, very creative, full of people all the time.

We were learning to throw, learning to work with clay, hand building.

And the way that clay works is right, it's a very demanding medium.

When it dries out, you need to be there to do the next step.

So the way that the environment down there works is people are always there all the time.

Like the students we have access to the studio, and we always wanna be in there.

So you get to know each other very quickly, and you become really close, really fast.

And we made our best friends down there, and that's where we met, where we met each other.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah.

So it was a meet cute, but it also led to all of this.

Now obviously you have gained in your knowledge and skill at doing this.

How did you acquire that part?

- So I think it's just like the time spent down there, right?

You fall in love with clay, and you wanna spend all your time doing it.

You wanna get better, you wanna make new things all the time.

And I think, yeah, it's just loving the material so much, 'cause it's endless, right?

You can do anything with it.

You can make clay look like wood, you can make clay look like metal.

You can make clay look like glass if you tried.

Right?

There's just so much that we can do with clay.

- Yeah.

- And I think that part of it is just what sucks people in.

(upbeat music) - And Drew, how did you go from that basic class to to doing these amazing glazes?

- I was talked into it by this one.

(Erika laughing) Yeah, so we ended up both taking it, and then we graduated and she was like, let's just take a road trip.

And I was like, okay, cool.

Let's take a road trip.

And then by the end of the road trip, it turned into let's open a studio full time.

- [Erika] Open a pottery studio.

- What kind of road trip did you go on?

- Just like, got into a car and drove all around the country kind of thing.

- Yeah, for like three months.

- Yeah, we graduated.

We graduated at the same time, right?

And I was like, I wanna go travel.

So we like loaded up into a little car and just took our road trip.

And during that time, it's fun.

We visited a bunch of pottery studios all over the country, too.

And I think that's probably when the gears started turning, I was like, I want to open a pottery studio.

Like I don't want to go and get an office job.

I want to be an artist.

- Right.

- And then I think I was like, yeah, do you wanna come along for the ride?

- Yeah.

- Drew said, yeah.

- Yeah, I don't say no very often.

Yeah.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah.

- That's amazing.

I mean, Drew, I was curious.

First off, I mean, is this like the moment of truth for you?

- Yeah.

- Does this excite you?

- This is my favorite part of the entire process.

- Really?

- For sure, yeah.

- And it's the raw clay?

- Yeah, I think it's like the most physical part too, right?

Like the mixing the glazes can be very tedious, but like this one I have to be very, very present for while I'm doing the entire process.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Ray] Is this the typical clay that you normally work with?

- Yeah, I personally like to work in like this scale or a little bit larger.

And it's between like the 3 and 15 pound range.

But yeah, I don't tend to love making really, really small things, and I can only make things so big to fit in my kiln.

- Oh, I gotcha.

- Yeah.

- I gotcha.

- So essentially I just seal it down to the wheel head first.

So I'm just gonna kind of put a little bit of pressure and then next what I have to do is get that piece nice and centered, so we can see all that movement.

So we're gonna do some coning up and down.

So it's gonna be a push and a pull grabbing that clay, moving it up.

And then we're just gonna very slowly cone that back down.

And we can kind of see how it's already much more manageable.

- Yeah.

- And then we're just gonna continue doing that step maybe like two or three times.

It looks very peaceful for the most part, but you have to be very steady, and it's always mesmerizing to like, like I still love even watching my students throw, 'cause you have to move very like smoothly and with intention.

- Right.

Very deliberately, yeah.

- But it is very challenging.

It is not a easy thing to try to throw on the wheel.

(gentle music) - Can you get into like a flow?

- Yes.

- Doing this, or are you too busy concentrating right now?

- So I think teaching has helped me a lot with that aspect of it.

It's a very physical task.

- Drew finishes off his pottery with a beautiful crystallization glaze and it has an incredibly detailed process.

Drew, I'm fascinated with your glazes.

It's something I haven't seen before.

How did you come up with this formula or formulas?

- So what ends up happening is on that original ceramic form, I'm mixing and formulating the glazes to grow crystal structures.

So in the most basic term, it's a thin layer of melted glass over the ceramic form.

And in that thin layer, those crystal structures can grow.

And then you pair that with a really specific firing schedule, and you can kind of get all the different results, - But there's no way to predict what it's going to look like.

- No.

You can kind of understand like, the size and the color due to like how long you hold for certain temperatures or the metals that you use to color the glaze.

- So like if we add cobalt to a glaze, we get blue.

Hopefully.

If we add copper, maybe we would get green.

But there's no way to know like where they're gonna end up, the size or the shape of the crystal structures, ever.

(gentle music) - Your ceramic styles are completely different.

- Yeah.

- Drew, you do the larger forms with the glaze, and then Erica, you have this kind of really earthy arts and crafts type of style that I really enjoy.

♪ Oh oh oh oh ♪ ♪ My distant eyes ♪ - So this is actually a piece that Drew threw, right?

So we're talking about collaborative pieces.

- Right?

I do recognize the shape.

- So Drew threw, it's a jar too, it'll have a lid.

And I took it and I carved it up this morning.

And what I'm doing now is I'm painting in all of the carving.

So you can see like the nice big thick lines that I've carved.

- Oh yeah.

- I'm painting in with my little paints, they're called under glazes.

They're just a nice bright color glazes.

I have test tiles here.

So like my orange will be this when they're done.

- Oh yeah?

- And the speckles, the speckle clay will actually kind of show right through, which is really sweet.

So I'm painting it all up, and once I've painted in all of the color, then I'll go back in with my carving tool again, and I'll carve even more detail through all of the big blocks of color.

- I gotcha.

So this hasn't been through the kiln yet?

- Not yet, no.

This is what we call leather hard clay.

So if you touch it right here, you feel how it's kind of cold a little bit?

It's almost like the consistency of refrigerated butter, is what I say.

Like it's cold.

Maybe I can leave like a little nail mark in it, if I'm touching, but it's holding its shape.

It's not collapsing.

Most of the moisture has left it, but it's still soft enough for me to carve through and paint on.

Yeah.

- When you get to painting.

- Yes?

- And you get to carving, do you have a plan?

Most of the time, no.

(laughs) So for me personally, I let the shapes that I'm starting with kind of inform the rest of the carving.

So like, if you can imagine, I started with this big orange shape.

Like I kind of carved this shape on.

And then I was like, oh, well, what if we put another shape down there?

What if we put one here?

What if we put a circle here?

So it's kind of almost like a puzzle for me.

I like keep going in with different shapes on top of the other shapes to build up my pattern.

So it's not a fast process, but that's almost what I love about it, right?

I get to sit here, be a little meditative and just paint and space out.

- Oh, sure.

I can totally see that.

- Yeah.

- I can totally see that.

One of the things I noticed about your work too is that you continue the form underneath.

- Absolutely.

It's funny.

You watch, especially with a mug, the first thing someone does when they see a mug is they take it and they're like, oh wow, what a nice mug.

And then they go like this.

And they look at the bottom - Always.

- Why?

Why are you looking at the bottom?

- I don't know.

- So I put something on the bottom, right?

I want that to be just as beautiful.

I want the whole pattern to keep continuing on.

- Yeah, I love that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

Well, great, thank you.

This is great.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- When you come to the Farmington Valley, the people that make up this great part of Connecticut are so full of life and enthusiasm.

And as much as modern artists can give us a peek into the time we live in, nothing is quite like exploring the art of the past and learning about what came before us.

That's why I caught up with Kathy Taylor at the historic Collinsville Axe Factory.

(upbeat music) Oh wow.

Ha, look at this.

So Kathy, we're down here.

Tell me about this impressive piece of machinery here.

- Okay, so this is a turbine, and it's the only one that we can see so clearly that's left in the factory.

There were many of them, but originally they had a water wheel in the original building.

And my guess is they probably brought this turbine in and built the building around it in 1906.

- Oh, is that right?

- My guess.

Because that would be very difficult to get in here.

- Yeah, I'd say so.

Axe making, which involved the four step process of forging, grinding, tempering, and polishing the finished work, dominated this area of Connecticut's economy during the mid 1800s.

And it was no small operation.

In its heyday, the Collins Axe Factory was 52 buildings strong, cranking out 1100 different types of axes, machetes, and other edge tools.

Before electricity, the factory relied on the rushing Farmington River to power its machinery.

(turbines whirring) - [Kathy] I can only imagine what it was like.

- [Ray] Oh yeah, I know, right?

- [Kathy] Yeah.

- [Ray] The flood of 1955 marked the beginning of the end for Collins Axe Company.

The flood destroyed a third of the buildings in the factory and the railroad line.

By 1966, the Collins Axe Company had closed for good.

If you had your druthers here, what would you like to see done with this property?

- I'd love to see the buildings restored.

You know, it would take a lot, but, and continue having at least mixed use.

Maybe some apartments in the back, you know, which would be nice, but just keep the character of Collinsville, which would be great.

(upbeat music) - Just up the road from Collinsville is a small French bakery called le Bánh Patisserie in Simsbury.

And while it may be petite, it certainly reminds me that even food can make for great works of art.

(upbeat music) So Chef Kim, on the show, we've had lots of artists that kind of broadened the definition of art, and I think food art is definitely one of those as well.

So I want to explore that with you.

But first I want to ask you why pastry chef?

Why that particular route of culinary endeavor?

- Honestly, I don't remember when I love baking, or when I started.

I just remember knowing that whenever my mom is in the kitchen, I'm always there.

Or I will be the one who baked for my family to eat like brownies from a box when I was young or, you know.

So it just kind of started from there, and I just love French pastries in particular.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

So tell me about this journey.

You came here to the States from Vietnam when you were three.

- Yes.

Little background.

My family immigrated over here when I was three years old.

My father was fighting in the Vietnam War in '75.

And then he was in prison for seven years.

So with the sacrifice for after seven years later, you know, we were very, very fortunate to be able to come over here, immigrate over here and kind of like follow the American dream to be over here.

And yeah.

And that's where we immigrated here to America, in Texas, in particular.

And I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, and with eight family members, yeah.

- So what was it about pastries that intrigued you?

- French pastries in particular intrigues me is that the fact of like European desserts are all about textures and different flavors.

(pans thudding) (gentle music) To compare where American desserts are just sweet and one flavor note, which is cake and buttercream, for example.

Right?

- Right, right.

- Whereas in French is all about using the freshest ingredients.

There is a layer of fluffiness, which from the cake, there's a crunch into it, which could come from like nuts or, you know, and then there's a tartness from like puree, compote, fruits and all that stuff.

And then there's like the mousse where like the creaminess from like, like the mousse for example.

(gentle music) So like French pastries is all about textures and different flavors that I just, you know, once I took a bite of it, I don't remember when I was introduced to French pastries, but when I did, and just a bite of it, all of it, it is just like, you know.

It's just like, oh, that's it.

That's what I love.

And funny enough, like I was telling my son that when I was young I loved sweets, and I'm like, in my mind I'm like, hey, if I were going into the baking world, I can eat sweets whenever I want.

And then now I still do, 'cause I taste and everything, but.

- Right.

- I love people's baking goods.

(gentle music) I want to convey and show my customers that whenever they receive a cake of mine or from le Bánh, it is like a edible art.

(gentle music) - Chef Kim, this is amazing.

- Thank you.

- I was watching you create the decorations.

- Yes.

- And you seem to kind of be in your own zone.

- Definitely.

- Is that what happens when you're decorating?

- It definitely is it.

Especially if it's just a kitchen by myself.

I am in my zone, I'm in my element and it's just very stressless for me to just like put doing the things that once I have it envisioned in my head, I can do it.

And then I am just in my zone.

Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

Do you do wedding cakes?

- I do, I do wedding cakes.

I do like all occasions cakes.

I do catering.

Small French pastries for our caterings.

I do cake decorating class, too.

So if you wanna learn how to make this, Ray, let me know.

I will be able to teach you.

- I would love to learn how to make something like this.

(gentle music) Let's talk a little bit about the shop again.

- Yes.

- Because it's le Bánh Patisserie.

- Yeah.

- The combination of Vietnam and French pastry.

- Yes.

- For you, what's the Vietnam part for you, and what's the French pastry part for you?

- Yes.

So the Vietnam part in it is the Bánh.

Bánh means cake, and then patisserie is what my passion about, is French pastry.

So when I started becoming a pastry chef, I do know that I just want to specialize in French pastries.

And I also offer Vietnamese coffee, which is a very much me, who I am.

And Vietnamese tea, that's where the combination of Vietnamese and French is combined.

(plates clanking) (gentle music) - [Ray] Kim traveled back to Vietnam for the first time in more than a decade, not only to rediscover her heritage, but also to search for authentic Vietnamese coffee beans and bring them back to Connecticut to offer in her shop.

And much like her cakes, it not only tastes amazing, but it's presented beautifully as well.

- Vietnam is one of the biggest producer and exporter of coffee.

Not many people know that, but I want to bring coffee back from Vietnam.

I just didn't want to buy any coffee around here.

I mean, there are very good local roasterie here, however, if I were to make Vietnamese coffee, I wanna stay true to Vietnamese coffee.

(people chattering) (pan thudding) - [Ray] Is this a fulfillment of your dream, or is there more to come?

- [Kim] There's definitely more to come.

- [Ray] Okay.

- I think this is definitely a dream come true.

I've always want, I always dream big.

My parents have taught my siblings and I to dream big and to go for what you want.

And in order to go for what you want, you gotta work hard for it.

So I've always want bigger things in life.

It's still like, that's what excites me going through the door is the fact of like, not only, you know, seeing my customers coming in and like so happy to eat my pastries, but also coming in through the door knowing that every day is different.

Even though like the recipes exactly the same, but anything can affect it.

(upbeat music) You know, maybe probably down the road, maybe another couple different location, I don't know.

But for the most part right now, I just love offering the things that I am so passionate about.

And down the road there's a lot of things that I wanna offer and yeah, we'll see.

- All right.

- Yeah.

- All right.

The Farmington Valley is certainly a beautiful part of the state, and steeped in history.

The art scene here is vibrant and plentiful and I'm so glad I had the chance to experience a little bit of that today.

Until next time, I'm Ray Hardman, and thanks for watching "Where Art Thou?"

(upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Announcer] Support provided by the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

The state of Connecticut Office of Film, Television and Digital Media, and Connecticut Humanities.