>> Our idea was to create a kind of journey through the site with surprises around every corner.

>> BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen.

Coming up on Open Studio-- the sculptures lighting up the night sky in Gloucester.

Then, actor Alan Cumming and NPR's Ari Shapiro with a cabaret collaboration.

>> There are surprises of seeing each of us slightly out of our element.

And you get the kinds of conversations that you might hope to hear from a deep, thoughtful public radio program and the kinds of song and dance numbers that you might expect from an Alan Cumming show.

>> BOWEN: Plus, a close look at Jackson Pollock's "Autumn Rhythm."

>> One wonderful thing about Pollock's technique is this embrace of accident and embrace of the effects of chance.

>> BOWEN: And the fabric artist who's a cut above.

>> Portraits, landscapes, anything-- sports pieces.

I, I do it all.

If I feel it, I'm gonna do it.

>> BOWEN: It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ First up, there's a glow in Gloucester right now thanks to a nocturnal exhibition of light sculptures.

It's all inspired by one of the great 20th century artists and his love of fireflies.

This fall, as the days grow shorter and night becomes heavier, a Gloucester estate is lighting the way.

>> I just love being here at this moment when it is all about to change.

>> BOWEN: Belinda Rathbone is a guest curator of this nocturnal exhibition, featuring 16 members of the Boston Sculptors Gallery crafting work that floats, flickers, and tantalizes.

>> Our idea was to create a kind of journey, shall we say, through the site with surprises around every corner.

>> BOWEN: Rathbone is also the author of a new first-ever biography on kinetic sculptor George Rickey and says these artists have risen to similar challenges.

>> He was very challenged about working with outdoor installations, which is what he's best known for.

And these sculptures here today are also making work that is alive in the landscape, as light turns to dark.

>> BOWEN: The exhibition populates the onetime estate of Paul Manship-- perhaps best known for his 1934 sculpture of Prometheus in New York City's Rockefeller Center.

Today, his home, studio, and grounds comprise the Manship Artists Residency, a place for artists to gather, find inspiration, and break out of their routines.

Rebecca Reynolds is the executive director.

>> People who come here, they refer to it as a magical place.

And to me, that's just what we'd love to hear, because to me that suggests, you know, otherworldly or transformation, taking you out of your everyday.

(crickets chirping) >> BOWEN: The sculptures here are inspired by Manship's unyielding fondness for fireflies.

So profound that he named his home Starfield for the twinkling, mesmerizing insects that dance around the property still.

>> Paul Manship didn't mow his meadow until the end of July because he knew if he did it any sooner, he wouldn't give the fireflies a chance to go through their life cycle.

>> BOWEN: Now that life cycle has evolved-- both in actual, literal fireflies and in their essence.

Here, light captivates because it places the Big Dipper beneath the sky as in Jessica Straus's Drinking Gourd.

Christopher Abrams' piece, Developing Weather, assumes the form of a portable storm while Marilu Swett's sculpture GLOW floats.

Now I know this is meant to be seen in the dark, which we will see in about an hour, but what are we seeing here?

>> You're seeing a, a collection of multiple figures that connect with the ocean.

They're in the spiral formation because that's one of the flight patterns for fireflies.

>> BOWEN: This has been a show years in the making-- giving artists time craft work both site-specific and leveraging light at its best.

>> People started working and doing their research on light, how to incorporate light into their work.

Really only a few of our members had worked with light in their pieces before, so it took some digging.

>> BOWEN: But this had already been an area of exploration for Swett, whose work glows with phosphorescent pigment.

>> I've come to be interested in, through, through the research of deep sea creatures being more and more interested in bioluminescence and finding that it's not just in the ocean, it's many, many even fireflies, of course, and other insects, but mammals as well fluoresce.

>> BOWEN: Other artists have taken their cues from the property-- from sun-dappled leaves, a lamp that brightens the home's staircase, and glass fishing floats tucked into a living room basket.

>> Many of these artists have studios, and they're working every day in their studios.

But it's different if you can get out of your everyday and go into a place where there are no expectations.

>> BOWEN: Not to mention, where you can see the light.

(insects chirping) Next, there have been the great musical match-ups: Gilbert and Sullivan, Fred and Ginger, Sonny and Cher.

And now, coming to town this weekend for their own cabaret is a rather unlikely duo.

Tony-winning actor Alan Cumming is teaming with NPR's All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro.

>> BOWEN: Alan Cumming, Ari Shapiro, thank you so much for being with us.

>> It's a pleasure to be here.

Thanks for having us.

>> Yeah, nice to see you.

>> BOWEN: Nice to see you, too.

Although, is it because I-- how many times have I interviewed you and you've never asked me to perform with you?

Not that I have any artistic talent whatsoever, but I understand that's how this started.

>> Yes, that's exactly why I've not asked you.

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> And that's exactly why I asked Ari Shapiro.

(laughter) >> Because he sings like... a canary.

>> BOWEN: Oh.

>> Aw, I thought you were going to say sings like a butterfly or something.

(laughter) I've actually never interviewed Alan for NPR.

I've interviewed you a number of times, but it was always live events on stage.

I interviewed you for your book, and I interviewed you for... >> Yeah.

>> ...the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.

>> Yeah.

>> You have yet to be on All Things Considered with me.

>> I know, what's wrong with that, what's happened to that?

But also that's why, I mean, that's doing those live things.

There were sort of like almost, you know, evening events that are, sort of, you know, kind of cabaret-ish because it's two people chatting and, and I liked-- what I really loved about doing those things with Ari, we were friends before that, but I loved the fact that he didn't, you know, it wasn't, there weren't sort of fluff pieces.

You sort of challenge me on things, and... and I felt that I could disagree with him, or we had a laugh, like a real laugh.

so, it was... >> It was fun, because you never knew what was going to happen.

>> Yes.

>> And I think our show has that quality too.

>> Yeah, we should stop talking and let Jared ask a question.

>> BOWEN: Well, no, now I'm understanding how this all came to fruition.

The chemistry is clear.

So let's ask, how did it come together, and what's the show that you're presenting as you realize that you have this chemistry?

>> Well, it was after the... this thing at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., that we did together, and I said to Ari, "You know, we should do a show.

We've got a really good chemistry and a good banter."

And I'd sung with Ari already at Joe's Pub, when he did a show at Joe's Pub in New York City.

And I said that to him and he was like, "Oh, you know, don't, don't, um..." What did you say?

"Don't tease me."

>> I said "Don't joke about that because I will absolutely take you up on it."

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> And you said, "I don't joke about those sorts of things.

I'm serious."

And then we went out bar-hopping and started brainstorming songs that we might do in our show.

It was show tunes night at a D.C. gay bar called JR's... >> That's right.

>> And Alan stood on the interior balcony and flung napkins down on the crowd during "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina, my extraordinary Evita."

>> It was such fun.

(Cumming laughs) And then the next day I sort of called Ari up, like sort of, "I still respect you in the morning, like I still mean it."

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> And then we started planning it.

>> But I think part of the fun of it is that we are such an odd couple and that we're a pair that you wouldn't expect to see together.

And yet, as the evening unfolds, it starts to make sense.

And there are surprises of seeing each of us slightly out of our element.

And you get the kinds of conversations that you might hope to hear from a deep, thoughtful public radio program and the kinds of song and dance numbers that you might expect from an Alan Cumming show.

And somehow, in spite of the differences, it all comes together in a new and surprising way.

>> Yes.

>> BOWEN: For people who are surprised, what is the role that, that song has had in your life, that this is what you go to do when you're not doing the day job?

>> Well, for many years, I have performed with a band called Pink Martini.

and that has sort of organically evolved into doing these cabaret-style shows, which are a lot more loose, a little more theatrical.

And now with Alan, this incredibly collaborative experience that just exercises a very different set of muscles from the daily news agenda.

>> BOWEN: What's kept you from, from leaping out of your journalism role and NPR and just doing this full-time?

>> Well, if I can do both, why wouldn't I?

I mean, it's kind of wonderful to be able to have one kind of connection through the stories that I tell on the radio and the connections that I make with listeners through this very intimate medium where I'm, by the way, right now speaking to you from the room where I've been hosting All Things Considered for the last 18 months.

>> BOWEN: Well, how is it to perform now in the pandemic and this strange world where you obviously know that people are desperate to be in the theater space?

What kind of energy are you finding?

>> People are very eager and excited to... to see people perform.

I think it's-- it's lovely.

I mean, we've done a few shows and now this, we're going back out on the road again and I'm really looking forward to that.

It is a renewed vigor and I think also people are, this is sort of a...

I don't know, I think people are more kind, just in general.

>> Yeah, I think those of us who love the performing arts appreciate how special and rare it is to be in a room with people experiencing something that will only ever happen in quite that way once.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> BOWEN: In that vein, I wonder where cabaret comes into this, because we've all had the, the existential exploration, right?

And I think there are a lot of our formal lives that we've kind of let go.

We're working from home, we realize the things that are important, which are... are more connections and relationships.

Have you thought about this show in that regard, too?

That this is just... there is that connection.

There's a more-- there's the intimacy.

>> Yeah, I think it's too-- I think the form of cabaret itself has always, to me, seemed really vital.

And really, you know, one of those things, you can do it relatively easily.

And it also serves a really great purpose in being able-- you can, you can talk about anything.

You can do anything.

That's what's so-- I love about it.

You can, you know, like in this show, we're laughing like drains one minute, then we're being very tender and emotional the next, and talking about really important personal things.

And I think that sort of, you know, vulnerability and intimacy that cabaret has.

And then this show has, I think people are much more ready for it.

>> Did you say laughing like drains?

Is that an expression?

>> Do you... Don't you say laughing like a drain?

>> No, I've never heard that.

Is that Scottish?

>> Oh, there's another... there's another American thing that I just learned.

(laughter) >> This is what Alan means about my being unafraid to call him out.

>> BOWEN: Yeah, well, what does that mean?

Let's continue to call you out.

>> Laugh like a drain, I always imagine, 'cause a drain goes "rah-rah-rah-rah."

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> That's a first for me.

>> I think it's a great saying.

>> BOWEN: Well, and Alan, let me ask you-- to depart for just a moment, you have a book coming out called Baggage, and to go back to perceptions that people might have.

They think, "Well, he's talked about issues.

"He is very successful.

"He's won all the trophies.

He's got it down."

But your book is called Baggage.

What are you addressing here this time?

>> In one way, it's a reaction to the reaction of my last memoir, Not My Father's Son, which is very much, I felt that people were saying, "Oh, isn't it great?

"Alan has overcome his past, past trauma and childhood abuse and he's, you know, he's triumphed and conquered."

And I really wanted to say in this book, "No, nobody"... well, first of all, everyone has trauma, everyone has baggage, you know?

So... in various degrees.

But you never triumph over it.

You never win, you never, you just manage it and you learn to live with it, and you, and you-- denying its existence is the way to madness, I think.

So, in a way, I wanted to address that and also show in this memoir that goes from between-- it's been between two marriages, my first marriage ending and my second marriage beginning.

But, you know, I have, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.

I have tumbled through, but I, you know, I've learned a lot of lessons.

And so it's about me trying to say it's okay to make mistakes.

>> BOWEN: Well, finally, let me just ask Ari, as you continue on this path with this show, how much how much has your friendship expanded in terms of how much you might learn about one another?

>> Oh, Alan and I had a road trip in July from Maine to Chicago to North Carolina, and that was a bonding experience I will never forget, which ended with all of us getting breakthrough COVID cases, even though we were fully vaccinated.

>> Yes, it was an incredible trip.

And it was also incredible to be in North Carolina, and to be told all four of us in the van had COVID and we were in a mansion.

They put us in a mansion with all this booze and all this food with COVID, laughing, laughing like drains-- like drains.

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> Laughing like drains.

It was one of the best nights of the pandemic.

>> BOWEN: Well, Alan Cumming, Ari Shapiro, thank you so much.

Can't wait to see the show.

>> Thank you.

>> Bye.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: The devil is in the details when it comes to Arts This Week.

♪ ♪ The M.I.T.

List Visual Arts Center reopens Sunday with three all-new exhibitions from artists working in film, installation, and plant life.

Tuesday, the Huntington Theatre Company presents Witch, a dark comedy following an unmarried woman who's an outcast in a small 17th century village.

But when the devil arrives, he meets his match in her.

Head to the Institute of Contemporary Art Wednesday to experience the work of photographer Deana Lawson.

Her first-ever museum survey features her work interrogating family photo albums, studio portraiture, and staged tableaux.

>> A weekend of deep sea fishing!

>> Well, now we know what our husbands were fishing for!

>> BOWEN: Friday marks 80 years since the premiere of the Cole Porter musical Let's Face It, about wives getting even with their husbands.

A later work in Porter's career, the show first played in Boston's Colonial Theatre before a successful Broadway run.

Visit the Boch Center Saturday for Million Dollar Quartet, the Tony-award winning musical that tells the story of rock-n-roll greats Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins and the legendary 1956 recording session that united all four musicians.

Jackson Pollock's drip painting Autumn Rhythm is one of the artist's most well-known works, and is a key example of abstract expressionism.

Here we head to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for a deep dive into the painting which was featured in the exhibition Epic Abstraction.

♪ ♪ >> We're looking at Jackson Pollock's Autumn Rhythm from 1950.

The painting came into the collection in 1957, and it's one of the treasures of the Met's modern collection.

Pollock is most remembered as a key figure in American art of the 20th century for these large-scale, so-called drip paintings, which he started to do in the late 1940s and into the early 1950s.

These works have a great sense of immediacy for a range of reasons.

One is that they're large, which relative to your own scale makes you feel a little bit small by comparison.

One of the ways in which Pollock played a key role in changing the very concept of painting is that he moved the canvas from the easel to the floor, and he also began working with common household enamel paint.

He liked this paint because it was very viscous.

And so it's the kind of paint that you can throw, and it creates these dynamic drips and dribbles, and these whips of paint that seem to be captured in space on the picture plane.

In the case of Autumn Rhythm, some of the paint is thin and elegant, and quite graceful, whereas other passages are dense and more aggressive and thicker.

There are passages also of the impasto where he's used parts of the enamel paint that have dried and created a kind of skin, a three-dimensionality on the surface of the picture even as the paint registers as flat.

When people first encounter Pollock's work, they perceive it as fully intuitive, improvisational, without any kind of plan or guiding principle.

But, in fact, as you look at multiple works by Pollock, you can see that each canvas is distinct and different from another.

If you look closely at Autumn Rhythm, to the right of center, and toward the bottom, as we see it on the wall, there's a little flick of red paint.

It's a little drop of red paint, once you see it, you can't unsee it because it seems so anomalous.

One wonderful thing about Pollock's technique is this embrace of accident, and embrace of the effects of chance.

The title Autumn Rhythm, the word "rhythm" really wonderfully ties to the sense of rhythm and cadence that's part and parcel of his gestural painting style.

And what I love about this work is that this great sense of growth and evolution, in a way, ties to the change of seasons and the ebbs and flows of nature in the course of a year.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: We move to Ohio now for a visit with fabric artist DonCee Coulter.

With his X-ACTO knife, he works with leathers, suedes, and denims to render one-of-a-kind, textured artworks.

- I grew up in Columbus, Ohio.

I went to Columbus South High School.

After I graduated high school, I went to CCAD, took up ad design and illustration.

Somehow I ended up doing fabric artwork.

So that's a totally different story.

It started with just growing up in the hip-hop era.

We used to love to just create and I would... we would go to Schottenstein's and we would buy these partly torn jean jackets, and then we would even tear 'em up even some more.

And then what I would do, would paint on either, like, denim, sometimes even just canvas.

And we'd get a seamstress and she would sew in some of the scenes into the jacket.

So that kind of really got me into studying fabric.

After a while, I would start going to the fabric stores and just start buying fabric, and just creating clothes just freehand.

Didn't know anything about patterns, I was just basically just, just being, basically, my creative self.

Well, the technique, I guess, it's a collage style.

So it's a process of where I'm taking something and I'm just putting layers on top of layers.

♪ ♪ Obviously, I'll start from the background and move it up to the foreground.

When I initially started working, they were more or less, like, two-tone pieces.

And I would go into art galleries and I would look at my work, compare it to other paintings, and I said, "Okay, I've...

I've got to do better, I've got to step up what I'm doing."

I was like, "I want to take this to a level of where it looks like a painting."

So there was a lot of trial and errors and a lot of experimenting.

In the beginning, my pieces were really bulky, 'cause I would use the more heavier fabrics.

When I learned a technique for cutting the thinner fabrics, that was, it was, like, almost like game over for me.

Because at that point, I was able to put shadows and highlights, and bring more different elements into my artwork without it looking bulky-- that was the key.

And that's why today people look at it and they could say this looks like a painting, until you walk up on it and it's like, "Oh, this is all fabric."

♪ ♪ Oh, number one, leather and suede.

Number two would be denim.

And everything else after that.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ I think that when I work with leather and suede, it just really translates really well with my pieces.

And I just love the texture of it.

And I think that it really comes out.

Denim is another totally different look.

I really like that as well.

I love blending the different types of denim together, as the same way with the leather and suedes.

My only tool is the X-ACTO knife.

And the technique is just learning how to cut those thin fabrics with accuracy.

There are a lot of little different techniques that I use, I don't want to just, kind of, like, disclose 'em all.

I'll go on and I'll say one technique I'll use.

If you've got a real thin fabric, there's a certain glue that you can use, you can apply to the back of the fabric, which at that point kind of gives it more of a solid feel, and it's easier to cut.

Typically, I would say about 95% of what I do, it basically comes from out of my head.

Typically, I really don't use references a lot.

It's just things that I just think about.

I just love to create.

♪ ♪ So when I'm creating a piece, I really get into it.

So if I'm creating, let's say, a city scene, and I'm creating buildings, I'm not just an artist, I'm an architect.

If I'm doing a portrait and I'm creating a person, I am also, I'm designing their outfit, designing their look, so yeah.

That's the thing, when I do a piece, I am all in.

I think the funnest part is when you're right in the middle, and when you can see that vision come together, 'cause initially when you're creating a piece, you're like, "Oh, is this gonna work?"

And then as you're working, you're like, "Oh, I'm starting to see it now, it's coming together."

On the flip side, the worst part, I think, is coming towards the end, trying to finish that piece, 'cause at that point, you're ready to move on to the next piece, and that's when you really have to be careful, 'cause you're like, no, stop, take your time.

Make sure you complete this correctly.

♪ ♪ One of the reasons why I use the bird, it represents freedom.

And when I first started doing artwork, I kind of felt like that actor that gets typecast.

People were expecting me to do a certain type of artwork.

And one of the reasons why I adapted that bird, 'cause that bird allows me to do anything I want to do.

You know, if I want to do an abstract piece, it's gonna be, I'll do that tomorrow.

Portraits, landscapes, anything-- sports pieces, I do it all.

If I feel it, I'm gonna do it.

♪ ♪ Art is my therapy.

I really hope that, for the viewer, that it affects them the way that it affects me.

So a lot of times, if I'm dealing with something, I go into my studio.

The art is... that's my release.

And I'm able to just basically deal with stress in that way.

So I want that to be conveyed with my artwork, also with the viewer.

So that's one of the things I wanted to also accomplish with some of these, my new pieces as well.

So I really hope that resonates with the viewer.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Before we leave you now, we have a look at Eva LeWitt's massive handmade sculpture hanging inside the I.C.A.

's entryway.

Titled Untitled (Mesh Circles), it features bands of mesh fabric that, from a distance, create circular forms.

And with a bit of air and light in the room, they shimmer.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week, we head to one of the only streets in America where you'll find two Frank Lloyd Wright homes, and open to the public.

>> We were convinced that having two Frank Lloyd Wright houses that people could compare and contrast was an ideal educational opportunity.

We maintain them for the public for the future.

(ensemble singing) >> BOWEN: Plus theater artist Whitney White explores what it means to be an ambitious Black woman, by way of Macbeth.

>> My question is, if this narrative surrounding this woman is so prominent in our society, what is it doing to us, you know?

And that's the kickoff for the show.

>> BOWEN: Until then, I'm Jared Bowen.

Thanks for joining us.

As always, you can visit us online at GBH.org/OpenStudio.

And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @OpenStudioGBH.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪