- In this edition of Artistic Horizons, - An impactful melding of music and technology.

- There's science, technology, engineering, mathematics, there's physics, there's so much stuff that can be kind of derived from this program.

- Vibrant, adaptive clothing.

- It's fashion forward with functionality and accessible features on the pieces as it's easier for someone to put it on if they need a little extra help.

- Celebrating culture and tradition through - Dance.

That's part of our mission, bringing individuals together to learn about the art, music, dance, history, and folklore of Africa and throughout the diaspora.

- It's all ahead on this edition of Artistic Horizons.

Hello, I'm Mark Ro and this is Artistic Horizons.

In this segment, we head to Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio to hear about the stem guitar project since 2009.

This hands-on program has afforded students the occasion to learn STEM subject matter by building custom electric guitars.

Here's the story.

- STEM guitar is a program that started out as a National Science Foundation grant that allows us as a team to teach teachers how to use the electric guitar as a vehicle to teach STEM topics to high school and middle school and even elementary school students.

It allows us to take the knowledge that we teach the teachers during the week of this training and they could take it back to their school and use the kits that are produced here at Sinclair that are really high quality kits.

So there's science, technology, engineering, mathematics, there's physics, there's so much stuff that can be kind of derived from this program.

- We're not here to train ERs.

We're trying to get a sophomore in Bozeman, Montana to understand that Mrs. Johnson's fifth grade geometry class has merit.

There's, there's two components to the program.

There's an academic component that was funded under a National Science Foundation grant and that was the development of the curriculum.

And the curriculum can be scaled from middle school, high school community colleges as well as up to universities just depending on what it is that the students are studying.

The STEM guitar lab was formulated in order to supply guitar kits to the classes that are running those.

Sinclair has a unique place in the national stem guitar field because we are the production center for those kits.

We use the same curriculum to teach the class, but we have the additional responsibility of making the kits and shipping them out all across the country.

- Stem guitar has shipped guitar kits to 48 states.

I think the only two states that we haven't hit yet is North and South Dakota.

They've even shipped some of the guitar kits overseas.

- We sell kits to schools all over the United States, including Pago, Pago, American Samoa Canada.

Our kits have gone down to Medellin, Columbia for outreach programs.

So without the Sinclair Guitar Lab, there would be no stem guitar - Here at the wood shop.

Part of our, of our facility, it's just old fashioned woodworking to be honest.

We will get a truckload of raw lumber and we take those pieces and we'll cut them into what we call billets.

And they're different links for different parts.

So if I'm building bodies, I will cut that board down into 22 inch long pieces and we will stack 'em on the rack.

When that's complete, then we will start to assemble a body and we'll pull pieces off of the rack and then we will plane them to thickness and then we will joint those, which is, we will trim an edge so that it's at a 90 degree angle to the face that we just made so that when we glue them together, they're glued together at a 90 degree angle and you get a nice flat board.

Those pieces are glued together.

We'll come back the next day, we take those pieces out, we will claim them to thickness again.

We will then sand them to a specific thickness, and then we will put those in a stack that'll go over to the CNC lab across campus - From the builder's standpoint, and in a workshop like this, the very first thing they'll do is they will pick their bodies and their necks and their, their fretboards, which is the playing surface on the front of the neck, shaping the guitar bodies would be second.

Attaching the fretboard to the neck and shaping the neck and getting the frets installed is another major milestone.

Getting the body all smoothed out and getting a clear finish applied to it to seal it and protect it is another major task.

Soldering and joining the electronics components is another major phase of the project.

Joining the body and the neck together and then populating the body with all the hardware would be next after that.

And then finally stringing the instrument up and doing the final setup and intonation to actually get it to translate from looking like a guitar to playing and functioning as a guitar.

Should.

I like to pick that up at the end when it's all done and to kind of give it a test drive and see how it plays.

- A lot of individuals think that, and that's a common misconception in the engineering field in any field, that you must know how to use something or play something.

In this case playing guitar.

A lot of individuals think that you must know how to do that in order to build it.

A common analogy that I like to use is the individuals that build the space shuttle.

They don't know how to fly the space shuttle, but they can put the space shuttle together.

- The stem guitar project is highly accessible at all levels and in terms of requisite academic knowledge, we'll take all comers.

So wherever you are, there are ways to make connections.

And so I wouldn't say you have to have had physics 1 0 1 in order to be able to be successful at this course.

And that's the great thing about cinema guitar is it's scalable.

So whatever your audience is, you can take the materials that we provide and the process that we're showing, and then make connections that are relevant to the students by saying, here's an example in the guitar of X, Y, Z topic that we need to cover in class this week by having a little fall away.

- We're talking about math, science, social studies.

We as educators have guidelines that we need to make sure students are, you know, hitting those guidelines at the end of the year.

But students have a hard time seeing those, those goals and those aspirations that they need.

So it allowed me to build my other classes around this one model to make sure that students are understanding what they're learning.

When you see a student strum a guitar for the very first time that they built, like you couldn't wipe the smile at their face with a, you know, with a fire hydrant.

This is so amazing.

- I think we try to tell people that come through the program that play guitar is play with as many people as you can get plugged into where you can.

If you move to a new town and you can play guitar, you can find friends really quick.

If you can fix a guitar, you can find friends double quick.

- And we're about 15 to 17 years into the project.

The goal here is to continue to teach teachers, no matter whether we're grant funded or not, we want to allow people to, to keep this thing rolling and, and going down the line.

'cause it's such a great thing.

It's not just in Ohio.

So if you're watching this from California or Florida, there's trainings potentially near you that you can come and take a part of.

- I like knowing that my sphere of influence is larger than the small school that I'm at.

I like seeing the pride on people's faces when they complete at this week here at Sinclair, as well as the students in my own classroom.

And in terms of the actual guitar process itself, I, I really like all the quieter aspects of it, like the fret work and working on the necks and everything to get the guitar to go from looking like an instrument to actually working like one - Building a guitar is not, it's not an everyday thing.

It's, it's not, I don't wanna say it's not simple, but if you pay attention, if you ask questions, then you'll be okay.

Every class at the end of the day, if you walk in with 10 fingers, you walk out with 10 fingers, it's a good day.

- And now for the artist quote of the week.

Up next, we travel to Tampa, Florida to meet Lady Natasha finds the founder and creative director of Lady Finds adaptive fashion.

The brand is all about accessibility, offering women with disabilities clothing that is both stylish and functional.

Take a look.

- I had been wanting to have a brand in general my whole life.

I've always loved fashion, but I wanted to make sure it was sending a message.

Like it's like we're, we're doing this for a purpose, but I didn't know what it was.

So many years go by.

And then being that I was already working as a buyer in the fashion industry, kind of the stars aligned in a way where that light bulb moment of this is an opportunity of that brand I've always wanted to do, but this is the message we could really make happen with this brand, which was making sure everyone is showcased in the fashion industry, even if you have an illness or disability.

- When she started showing me some of her designs and I'm like, oh my God, I never thought of that, but the reaction that I had, I'm sure is everybody else's because no one thinks about a disability unless you have it.

- I was very close with my aunt, she ended up passing this February, and she is the aunt who actually inspired the brand.

She was immediately diagnosed with stage four cancer six years ago.

And so immediately you see that there is a change of emotion.

Of course there's a change of how you do things and what you can do and what you can wear.

And I noticed that when she was going to her chemo treatments, that the fun bubbly outfits that she would wear, she loved pink.

It immediately was like neutrals and then very boring type of outfits in order to be comfortable at the hospital because there was nothing available for her.

There's nothing available in the market that's fashion forward, but also functionable for someone that has an illness, someone like her shouldn't have to sacrifice who she is and what she loves because of something that has happened to her.

And the brand is also reflecting who she was.

Kindhearted, courageous, brave, but also you can still show off your fun spunky fashion personality as well.

- She's definitely the, the artist we're both very passionate.

We're Latinos, we with that is in us, but that she had a clear vision and for me it was she, I needed to help her with my experience in the corporate world.

I knew that she was into something and I had to support her.

And I, I could not be any more proud.

- I would actually put together PowerPoints and presentations for my bosses and my teams that I worked for in the industry.

And I showed them they're such a big opportunity here for beautiful women to be showcased and also represented and have a category of clothes that we don't really see right now.

And unfortunately they just said, this is not our customer.

And long story short, I could not just sit there, not do something about this.

So I ended up quitting my job in the fashion industry.

I moved back home and I was getting a lot of nos that finally I ran into one manufacturer and she believed in the vision and the brand.

And that's how we got our first collection done, which was in finally 20 January of 2023, I received our first samples.

Adaptive clothing is when you have your basic pieces that everyone else wears.

The only difference is there's a little extra love that's put into the pieces and they have accessible features and anybody can wear it.

It's universally designed to wear, even I have trouble, I don't have a physical disability, but putting on my pants sometimes I'm jumping up and down and there's no need for that.

It's fashion forward with functionality and accessible features on the pieces as it's easier for someone to put it on if they need a little extra help.

- They don't look at us, people with disabilities or wheelchair users, they look at able bodies, you know, so easy to just stand up and put pants on.

Not for me.

It takes me five minutes to put pants on.

I have to put the legs in and then I have to lean back and lean to the side and it's a whole ordeal.

So these zippers and the magnets that just open up so I can just put it on and zip it on, I mean, it makes, it makes life so much easier when it's easier for me to put something on.

It makes me feel good about myself.

Granted, these clothes are amazing anyway.

They look amazing.

But if it takes me 10 minutes to put something on, I'm not gonna feel as good about wearing it as I am because I'm, I'm not a, I'm not a breath now, I just did a workout to put these clothes on.

I already go through struggles on a daily day being in my chair.

So if it's just something simple as zipping something up versus trying to like do the worm crawl to put them on it, it's amazing - Because of some of my conditions that I have, I utilize a porta cap, which is a central line, so it's a needle in my chest first.

I do like to say that I'm currently like in her jacket and I love her jacket because even if I have it zipped here, if I need to do medication, which I'll have to do after we finish our interview, I don't have to necessarily expose my whole chest to the world.

I can just pull this part down, pull my port out, I mean, pull my line out, do my medication and put it back.

So when I did actually see her brand and I saw that, I was like, immediately I was like, I need to buy this.

- I get to bring in that fun dopamine boosting type of colors and excitement to the clothes you're expressing who you are and, and how you want the world to kind of see you.

That's usually the first impression someone gets, is off of your outfit.

And so I, I always think it's so important that you're able to be fully you even if something has happened.

- I absolutely love to, to see her thrive when she finish it off is, it is like it's art.

- I hope that our models are able to be role models to girls that are looking up to them like we just did in New York Fashion Week and there was little girls in the audience.

So I, I just, I genuinely hope that with our brand we're opening doors that there's more designers like myself, bigger brands will see that this is important and this is needed.

- I'm a person with disabilities, but I'm also really big into disability representation, disability advocacy.

So not only does Natasha have lady finds adaptive, she does have rebels with the cause where she's also doing advocacy.

So really not only am I able to model for this brand, but I'm also able to make a voice and be a sound and really just be myself.

- Now here's a look at this month's fun fact.

Founded in 2009, japu Cultural Arts Institute in Cleveland, Ohio is a nonprofit organization that preserves African diasporic works in dance, music, history and folklore.

In this segment, we find out more about a new work created by the institute's artistic director.

- We are here at the Pivot Center for art, music, dance and expression.

Tonight we are starting a premier piece called Sanja of the Blood Company.

Members know nothing about this piece.

Some of them may know a little bit if they've done some of our international travel voyages to West Africa, but tonight our dancers are gonna get the opportunity to experience the music and the history and the folklore of Sanjay.

Before we start diving into some of the dance techniques, our musical director, Wheatie Brima, has gone to Molly numerous times and he's like an encyclopedia when it comes to music, when it comes to folklore.

So he's gonna be diving into the music.

The dancers have to learn the rhythms, the musicians have to learn the rhythms.

Everybody learns the songs.

- 1, 2, 3.

My main job is to focus on how this music elevates them as artists and also how the way that it elevates the audience.

We're preparing for a new piece.

It's a traditional folklore piece that comes from Mali by way of the ethnic group of the Mandan called Sandia.

The word Sandia means new year, but it's done in honor of grills, which are the aura historians.

The word for grill in the Manding language is jelly.

That's spelled D-J-E-L-O-I.

They're the ones to maintain the history, to maintain the knowledge, maintain the culture, maintain the preservation of narratives that's created within certain villages in certain areas.

- Sometimes once a week or once a month, specifically in Mali, in West Africa.

And people will go and the Rios will show up and they will sing the praises of your family.

It's a communal event.

So it's very lively.

- My main goal for them to at least understand the timing of the music and how it goes, the way the songs fits into the music, and how they're understanding the groove of the music.

One - More time, 1, 2, 3.

- They're gonna get the history, they're gonna get the folklore, they're gonna get the musical foundations of Sanja.

They're gonna learn the rhythms because that enhances their ability to dance it with happiness.

With Jubilee.

You see the, the, the difference, the word joo itself means together.

And that's part of our mission, bringing individuals together to learn about the art, music, dance history and folklore of Africa and throughout the diaspora.

If you want to learn about a people, if you want to learn about a culture, dive into the art.

It almost there.

I, oh my goodness, we've made so much progress.

Our musical director has actually completed the orchestration of the music.

So I have actually created the Village.

You know, as we talked about before, Sanja is, is an event with families and, and people who live, you know, in a compound or within the same area.

So what I'm doing now is creating that celebratory village.

I'm recreating that space.

We're still kind of working through it in placement.

I haven't really placed individuals yet.

I'm just still in that place where I'm seeing where people, how they feel with the movements that's been given to them so that we, we have all the choreography that's set.

So now it's just kind of like moving through space to see where those final moments will be.

My philosophy is no paper and pencil.

I want you to feel the music.

I want you to feel the song, understand the context and the foundational elements of the song and capture that.

And through practice it just happens and we get it.

I have to perform this for Dance Africa in Chicago.

I don't feel under the gun at all.

It's looking good.

It's just being able to bring the energy and to be able to show that for audiences, because that's my goal is to make audiences feel something.

We are complete.

It is a finished piece.

I'm so excited.

Like it's really finished.

- The music has its voice.

The dancers understand and has implemented what they've learned into their body.

And the song is now understood.

And the intent of what the song and the dance represents, the music represents, is now connected.

What I want people to take away from this and the audience to take away from this is the beauty of longevity, tradition, and speech.

Because the job of Rio is to be able to speak and maintain.

- I want them to take away a piece of history, a piece of Africa we've lost so much.

So if you can get a piece of happiness, a piece of history, a piece of folklore, and we've done our jobs - And now here's, and that wraps it up for this edition of Artistic Horizons.

For more arts and culture, visit wpbstv.org.

Until next time, I'm Mark Ro.

Thanks for watching.