- [Narrator] 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.

(uprising musical tag) (car door shuts, motor starts) (upbeat music) - [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.

- I just fell in love with the feel of clay, which started off just as a simple feeling and love of form, and the creation of form, but then it moved into making public monuments.

- 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 jazz music) (music continues) (lively upbeat music) Welcome to "Where ART Thou?"

I'm your host, Ray Hardman.

Today, I'm out and about in the Lower Connecticut River Valley.

There is an artistic spirit that just permeates this area.

You know, when I think of conceptual artist, Sol LeWitt, who lived in Chester, or Katharine Hepburn who lived in Old Saybrook, the actress.

And then the actor, William Gillette, and his wonderfully eccentric, Gillette Castle, which he designed himself as a retirement home.

So, I wanna capture some of that artistic spirit today.

I'm on my way to the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, Connecticut, to meet up with Eric Dillner.

He's the CEO of the Shoreline Arts Alliance, and he's gonna be our guide today.

Let's see what he has for us.

(lively upbeat music) Eric.

- Hi, Ray.

- [Ray] So good to see you again after all these years.

- It's great to see you as well.

- Yeah, thanks so much for being our guide today.

Tell me a little bit about the Shoreline Arts Alliance.

- Well, the Shoreline Arts Alliance is the Arts Council for a 24 town region right here on the Connecticut River Valley.

And I say, down the Shoreline, if you will.

And we are the designated regional service organization for the State of Connecticut.

So we help arts organizations with any of their challenges.

Basically, on the business side, mostly.

And then we also support young artists as they're growing, and finding their own.

- There's so much art in this part of the state.

What's the art scene like?

- What I love about this part of Connecticut is that there's little gems all out through the woods.

So we think of the water, and all of the things that are up and down the water, but if you just drive out in the woods, you'll come upon a potter, just some really interesting artists out there, so.

What I love is that we have choral events that are happening right down the street here, to Ivoryton Playhouse, to Goodspeed Opera, and then, of course, a great institution, like we're here at Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts.

- Yeah, yeah.

I'm excited.

Let's see where we're going today.

Where are you taking us?

- [Eric] Today, we're gonna meet Sosse Baker in Chester.

Sosse is this amazing basket maker, weaver, if you will.

She's really incredible.

She's got this heart of gold.

And she's been one of these folks that she takes the art that she creates, and not only sells it, and presents it, but also gives it as gifts to non-profits, so that they can find ways of putting it on their auction, or something like that, and selling it, and raising some money through her gifts.

She really developed the community of art in Chester.

So if you go to downtown Chester now, and you feel like everywhere you look there's an artist, there's an arts organization, and I'll bet Sosse touched it at some point.

- [Eric] Well, that sounds great.

We haven't had a basket maker on the show before, so I'm excited about that.

Where else are we going?

- So we're also gonna go to Lyme Academy, and we're gonna meet Chad.

- [Ray] Right here.

- Right here.

- Okay.

- And we're gonna meet Chad Fisher.

- [Ray] All right.

- And Chad Fisher is an extraordinary sculptor.

What's interesting about Chad is that he uses metals and flame with major heat to bring these works to life.

When you look at them you actually feel something emotional because they're usually about heroes.

He takes people who've been a hero in some way, and puts them into sculpture.

He's just remarkable.

- Oh, that all sounds great.

Eric, thanks so much for your help.

We're gonna go check it out.

(soft music) Chad, first, thanks for taking the time today.

I really appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- You have so many accolades at a young age.

You've got your foundry, your bronze foundry in Pennsylvania.

You have these amazing commissions with the Philadelphia 76ers, and Chicago Bears.

You've done so much.

How did it all start for you?

- I was fortunate.

My dad actually pursued a career in the arts.

My brother and I grew up drawing with our dad.

Both my mom and my dad, grandparents, stepdad, everyone was very supportive, so.

I started drawing about the age of six, seven years old, and then pursued more sincere training in college.

- First, what was so intriguing about sculpture for you?

- It's wild 'cause my dad actually is a trained illustrator for painting.

At the Pennsylvania Academy I took a sculpture course, and I just fell in love with the feel of clay.

And then which started off just as a simple feeling and love of form and the creation of form, but then it moved into making public monuments.

- [Ray] Chad's work is truly remarkable.

From war heroes to sports heroes, his sculptures capture a moment in time that provokes a deep emotional response.

- The initial training days it was just an obsession of creating figure to form, but then the more the why, or purpose of became public monuments and what does that do.

And this ends up becoming, like, a dharma for me, which is actually having a service for society with these monuments, particularly whether they're civil servants or veterans, or let's say an athlete who inspired or meant something.

It really was a calling to, like, a higher purpose then just doing something that I felt was more of an internal moment than an external.

- Tell me about what you're doing now what's this process?

- This is the actual clay modeling.

- Mm-hmm.

- So this is a quick study that was done over the course of a few hours, and so just refining this, completing the study, and then I'll make a casting of it.

- Mm-hmm.

What you do is so heavy on technique and on skill.

For you, where does the creativity come in?

Where does your own emotions come in?

- Yeah, so that is a common question of even to take it a little bit further and saying how is this conceptual because with the non-representational, and with the representational world will say is that, well, the non-representational world is more conceptual because you're just making people, like, where's the concept?

And the concept is in every movement of the arm.

Every moment of a leg.

For instance, if she was like, yoo, then that's more of a sad internal moment.

If she looks up and out it's more inspiring, and she's having an external moment.

So there's lots of concepts, you know.

Within our brain we have a part of our brain that just considers facial expressions, you know, how our eyebrows move just so we don't even need to speak to one another to have an understanding of whether you're pretty angry, or pretty happy to see me.

So all of that is the concept.

(cheerful ambient music) And so the abstractions allow you to move through the figure rhythmically.

For instance, the back of the ribcage here will flow into the adductors and the hamstrings, that's on purpose.

The flow of the ribs here to the abdomen, to the upper leg, and then swoop onto the foot here that's on purpose.

So all these things of this thigh rolls into that thigh, and just goes back and forth, and then we call these enclosures.

I fell in love personally with the Lincoln Memorial.

I remember going on a field trip 7th or 8th grade we go to D.C.

I was just in awe of the Lincoln Memorial.

Didn't know that was even a possibility in regards of making a public monument, but just thought that was awesome.

- What do you think people get wrong about the tradition that you're coming from, the sculpture that you're making, what do you think people get wrong about that?

- Talent is overrated.

- [Ray] And it's a skill.

- A skill, right.

So if you wanna, I have little ones, so my wife and I we have four kids.

All of them can be taught how to play the piano.

That doesn't mean we're going to be at the Lincoln Center playing the piano, but we can be taught.

It's just gonna take time, sound practice, and a really good teacher.

- And desire.

- And desire.

- Right.

- And so the arts are the same way is that you don't have to be talent, this isn't like I don't, like, throw clay around.

It's meaningful, it's rigorous.

It takes an enormous amount of time, but you can learn to do this.

Now whether you can drip a soul into the figure you're either born with that or not, whether you actually feel the world around you, whether you see the model, or the world around you with a heightened awareness.

You can be taught that, but you still have to have a language.

(upbeat music) (flame whooshing) - [Ray] Chad then adds heat to his sculpture in a process call hot patina.

He also adds an acid-based wax pigment, which then permanently boils directly onto the surface to create an amazing work of art.

(upbeat music) (flame whooshing) Chad, it's been just a fascinating day for me to learn what you do.

Thank you so much.

- Yeah, thanks for being here.

Happy to share, thanks.

(upbeat music) - So next up, we're gonna take a little side trip.

Granted, for my own curiosity.

Now I've heard for years that there is an immense theater costume collection at Goodspeed Musicals, so we're gonna check it out, but here's the thing.

We're not headed to the Goodspeed Opera House.

No, the collection is so immense that it has its very own dedicated building, and that's where we're headed right now.

(upbeat music) Stephanie.

- [Stephanie] Hi, welcome.

- It's so nice to meet you.

- [Stephanie] It's nice to meet you.

- Thanks for showing me around today.

- [Stephanie] Absolutely, happy to have you.

- They've got you tucked away here in East Haddam, don't they?

- Yeah, we are a little bit off the beaten path.

- We're in the lobby area right now, and I'd love to see some of the really outstanding costumes you have here.

- Great, let me show you a few of them.

- Okay.

Okay, oh wow.

(laughs) - [Stephanie] Mm-hmm.

- Wow, this is unbelievable.

- [Stephanie] Yeah, we have quite a few costumes.

- [Ray] Oh, my gosh.

Well, let's go down and have a look.

- [Stephanie] All right, let's head down.

(soft music) - Stephanie, when you said you had a warehouse full of costumes, I said, okay, a warehouse full of costumes that makes sense, but really there was nothing to prepare me for how many costumes are here in this huge space.

How many costumes do you have?

And, you know, when we're talking about costumes and accessories all of that.

- So we estimate we have at least 500,000 hanging garments, and that doesn't include all of the shoes, hats, gloves, accessories, boas, things like that.

It is one mile of rail, so when you're on the highway and you see, like, exit one mile just picture costumes for that entire run.

- So this would be a whole mile if you just lined it up.

- A whole mile if you lined it all up.

- Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh.

How did Goodspeed get into this business to begin with?

- Well, Goodspeed is in the costume business 'cause we're in theater, so, you know, from the very beginning of Goodspeed we've been collecting costumes from every show we've done.

We started to get a reputation for having a good place to store costumes.

We purchased a large number of costumes, and then since then because we have the state of the art facility we get a lot of costumes donated to us from shows that are closing.

A lot of costume designers want their clothes stored with us because they know that they're gonna be kept in really good condition.

- [Ray] Mm-hmm.

(upbeat music) One of the things I've learned from "Antiques Roadshow" is that fabrics don't last.

What are you doing to ensure the longevity of these costumes?

- Well, we do keep the ambient temperature, or the ambient humidity in our facility very, very low.

We have three industrial sized dehumidifiers that keep the moisture content at a barely tolerable level for humans.

We also have big garage doors that we can open up and air out the collection.

And we're constantly monitoring to make sure that we don't have any pest infestations, or anything else that would cause the costumes to degrade.

- Yeah, yeah.

(upbeat music) Let's talk about some of the dress designers in this collection.

I would imagine the who's who of dress designers on Broadway are represented here.

Is that right?

- Absolutely, we have some of the most famous Broadway Tony Award winning costume designers.

This dress is designed by Gregg Barnes.

He won a Tony.

He is the designer for "Aladdin" that's currently on Broadway celebrating 10 years.

We have Paul Tazewell who designed "Hamilton."

We don't have "Hamilton" but we have some of his costumes.

We also have some of those same designers coming in to rent costumes for other productions.

- [Ray] The costume designers that work on these, this is really truly an art form for them.

- It absolutely is.

Most of the designs that you see will start out with what we call rendering, which is a beautiful piece of artwork that illustrates exactly what the costume is going to look like.

And then that's used as a tool by the people who build the costumes, by the director to kind of show exactly what the costumes are going to end up looking like.

- Beautiful, but they also have to be functional.

- Absolutely.

We actually say instead of sewing a costume, we say you build a costume because it has a lot to do with the construction methods of it.

The costumes are made from scratch.

Every costume is built for a specific actor, for a specific scene, for a specific show.

They will often make what we call a muslin, which is the entire costume made out of an inexpensive material.

They fit that.

They take that apart, make a pattern out of it.

Then use that pattern to make the actual garment.

- That's amazing.

(soft music) Oh, this is "Oliver."

- [Stephanie] This is some tuxedos that Gregg Barnes donated to us, and then this is "Oliver."

- [Ray] Oh, this is "Oliver," okay.

- [Stephanie] Yeah, from our 2018 production.

- [Ray] Okay.

What's your favorite part about this job?

- I think that it's wonderful because I get to work on so many different shows at a time.

At most theaters you're working at one show from start to finish.

I get to have my fingers in shows all over the country, all over the world all at the same time.

And you never know what the next day is gonna bring.

(soft music) - We've explored lots of different art forms on "Where ART Thou?"

but today's episode is a new one.

I'm on my way to the Chester Gallery in downtown Chester to meet up with Sosse Baker.

She's an award-winning basket maker.

(upbeat music) Now, Sosse owns the gallery, lives there, actually.

And she makes her baskets in her kitchen.

Let's see what Sosse has for us.

(upbeat music) Let's talk about basket weaving.

What got you interested?

What sparked the fire to begin with?

- I took a simple adult education course, and I woke up the next morning obsessed with ideas.

I started weaving stuff that was growing.

I went everywhere I could to learn that craft.

Here in New England everybody wanted to do Shaker baskets, and Nantucket baskets which are beautiful, and that's sort of what I was doing, but that course in West Virginia there was an exhibition of Cherokee baskets, and it changed my whole idea because they used color and patterns.

- [Ray] The Native American tribes of Southern New England such as the Nipmuc, Mohegans, and Pequot have always been known for their beautifully decorated baskets.

Long before European contact they made baskets from materials like birch bark, sweet grass, and cedar bark.

Much like Sosse's influence from the Midwestern Cherokee and their beautiful use of color, this opened her eyes to a whole new hybrid style of basket making.

- It was just no one, none of us had thought of using color.

- Right.

- Shakers didn't do that.

- Right, right.

So the Cherokee style really opened you up.

- It took off.

For one thing, I had a small antique shop, and I would make baskets to put in there.

And those basket sales would pay my rent, so people love baskets myself included.

It just took off.

- [Ray] This is where you create your baskets.

- [Sosse] It is.

- [Ray] Why your kitchen?

- Well, first of all, this chopping block is exactly the height I work at.

I can't sit at a table and make a basket.

I have to stand up.

And I can walk around it.

And I've got water right here, so it just works.

- [Ray] What do we have here?

What do you got the startings of here?

- This is it's the startings of what's called a Shaker cheese basket.

It's a hexagonal weave and I chose this 'cause I could do it fast.

- Mm-hmm.

- I learned at my time in Africa I learned something.

Behind all the market places the Africans made gorgeous coiled baskets.

Behind the marketplace was this patterned basket only that high, and that's what they brought all the vegetables in.

And then I realized this is an ancient pattern.

The Japanese were using it a thousand years ago, so it wasn't a Shaker thing.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- So it's been interesting.

It's simple.

You're just kinda locking in X's.

- [Ray] Oh certainly.

- [Sosse] And you create another row.

(soft music) - This is the rattan that you usually use.

- Yes.

- What was the name of that again?

- It's reed.

- [Ray] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

How did you get the color?

- I dyed it.

You know, at first it seems confusing.

- It seems very confusing to me watching you, but you seem to know what you're doing.

- [Sosse] Each X is gonna be locked.

- [Ray] Oh I see that, yeah.

- And then on the top again.

And then over to the next X.

(soft music) It's a lot of work and they're all handmade, all of them.

There's no machine that can make a basket.

It's a craft that's here to stay, I'm convinced.

It may be the oldest craft.

They say that they have found pieces of pottery that had basket impressions on the bottom of it, and Moses came in a basket that's a pretty long time ago.

- So presumably the clay was used as a lining for the basket?

- Well, that's what maybe some basket makers think.

Potters may say, oh, no, we were there first 'cause we had the mud, you know.

- Right, right.

Sosse, your baskets are beautiful.

I'm so blown away by this space.

Thank you so much for everything today.

- You're welcome.

Thank you for coming.

(upbeat music) - Well, I gotta tell you it was an absolute pleasure to meet Sosse and Chad, and learn all the wonderful things that they do.

We're exploring so many great artists, and so many great places.

I'm Ray Hardman.

Thanks for watching "Where ART Thou?"

(upbeat music) (music continues) (music continues) (music continues) (music continues) - [Narrator] 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.