- In this edition of Artistic Horizons, - A performing arts organization for women.

And we just wanna give women opportunities to follow the arts that maybe they didn't have once upon a time.

So it's really exciting.

How do I look now?

- A senator turned author, the book is full of my shortcomings and the victories.

It was a labor of love, but it took a lot of time.

- The power of art therapy, - I think I just want people to feel joy, to feel like they deserve to make art - A unique fusion of jazz, Americana, and country.

It is all ahead on this edition of Artistic Horizons.

Hello, I'm Mark Ro, and this is Artistic Horizons Lesbian Thespians is a performing arts organization founded by and for women based in South Florida.

The group creates community by giving diverse voices a platform and providing a safe space for artistic discovery.

Here's their story.

- I'm Carol Wartenberg.

I'm the founder and artistic director of the Lesbian Thespians.

When I retired, I had an opportunity to start up a theater troop and I thought, well, why not?

Can't be that hard.

Let's do, it.

Reminds me of the old days of Mickey Rooney when he used to say to all the kids in his Mickey Rooney Bunch, let's do a play.

And they all would just make a play.

So that's how we started out.

And over time we've grown and grown and grown with lots of talent, lots of people that are, are really excellent directors, actors, dancers, singers, and all of that kind of thing.

We, we've just been very, very fortunate and I've learned so much.

And now I have people that are so much more talented than me.

What, what did I say?

I have no ego in this, except for to put on the very best production for lesbian Thespians and for our audiences.

We're so excited to have you here today.

This is a world premiere of the boxes we keep.

It was written by Ann Valentino.

She won our play contest last year and we're producing her play this year.

We're just so thrilled to be part of, of helping our community grow and get better and better.

Welcome.

Thank you.

We're really about providing women with opportunities to perform.

We also are looking at having a spoken word group and we just wanna give women opportunities to follow the arts that maybe they didn't have once upon a time.

So it's really exciting.

We have emerging playwrights, we have emerging directors, we have emerging actors, and we're so excited to be providing women with these opportunities to be able to get on stage and perform in front of their peers.

In fact, one of the actors said it's the first time that she's been able to be in a lesbian play in front of lesbians and, and how much that meant to her as far as her gender identity and her sexual identity and, and that kind of thing that she was so excited about that opportunity.

We've had transgender women perform with us.

We have cisgendered women, we of course have lesbian and bisexual women and we've actually had men in some of our performances.

So, you know, we really try to be as diverse as we can and to be as inclusive as we can.

- This and these, how do I look now?

- Lesbian thespians is about bringing the lesbian community together or those who identify with being a lesbian or those who are allies to the lesbian community to be able to perform in the arts, tell our stories, engage the community, and highlight how brilliant we are from day to day with just everyday life issues.

- You bite your serpent like tongue serpent like tongue.

- It allows for anyone to come and sit and hear stories, hear funny stories.

Yes, it starts out with us inviting our friends, our families, but then we share with our neighbors.

We share with strangers and say, guess what?

There's a lesbian se company.

'cause there's always been a, a play on those words anyway.

And people find it engaging and it's like, I wanna come check that out.

- The inmates have control of their asylum.

Listen, lesbian Thespians is, it means new to me.

'cause this is the first show I'm actually working with Lesbian Thespians before and really when I came in and when we started talking and I got to talk with Carol, the founder, who is just amazing, she loves everything she gets to do and she's wonderful.

It's, it's inclusivity.

She goes out of her way, her and her board, they go out of their way to include as many new people as possible.

People who maybe don't do theater as much, people who do theater all the time, they love, love, love everything.

So I think lesbian thespians is kind of trying to include everything, everyone get everyone to have new experiences, different experiences and different people and ideas and it's just, it's a creative web, it's, it's very creative.

- Oh, you know, I'm cool like that.

Oh, I see.

I have met so many amazing people and heard so many incredible stories and I'm really excited to be supporting a brand new production.

This is the result of the winner of a playwriting contest.

So it's very cool to be among the first people to ever see this play.

And it's been really exciting and really fun being part of it.

A motivational speaker.

- The fact is, there's a lot of people here tonight that I have never seen before in the community.

Never.

And it's nice that people are coming out to support it.

It's great because it brings in new people all the time and because it's so supportive of women in the community and that's incredibly important to me.

- You know, there was a period where the L didn't mean much in the, in the gay community.

There was a period where it started with the gay and lesbian community and over time, just through activism that L became first, it became the number one thing.

It did not put men second, but it created a space for us to be included and inclusive of other identities as well.

- Coming to Florida with lesbian Thess has opened up my whole world of being more free.

Before we just had to look up to Ellen and Rosie, but now we are looking up to organizations such as ours, you know, that help us to blend with each other and just have fun and communicate and just party with each other really and truly.

- And now for the artist quote of the week.

Up next, we take a trip to Nevada to meet retired US Senator and former governor of the state, Richard h Brian, who is now a published author.

His memoir shines a light on his decades of experience and achievements while in office - 1942 Fifth Street Grammar School, I'm going to kindergarten.

And Ms. Hancock was a legendary kindergarten teacher.

The assignment was coloring within the lines of a map and I was not always within the lines.

So the note that was sent to my mother was, Richard needs to learn to stay within the lions.

How prophetic?

Years later when I was involved in politics, I ran into a meeting and I said, you are so right.

My life in Nevada politics is about my experience growing up in Las Vegas and then moving to the political ranks after I graduated from Las Vegas High School and University of Nevada.

- My life in Nevada politics is the story of one of the most important figures in Nevada political history.

Richard Bryant's career in politics starts as a boy.

He's seven years old or so, and he tells his classmates in elementary school, when I grow up, I'm going to be the governor of Nevada.

He goes to the Nevada Assembly, to the Nevada State Senate.

He runs for Attorney General.

He doesn't win the first time, but the second time he does, he parlays that into the Governor's office of Nevada.

- Ladies and gentlemen, Nevada's Governor.

From 1983 to 1989, Richard Brian, although you're Senator Brian, you're Governor Brian to me.

But what about your first day in office?

Well, I had wanted to be governor from the time I was a kid, and it was difficult to comprehend that I'd arrived that morning.

We drove on down and in the back there was a sign where the governor's parking space in it said, governor Brian, I must say in the entire six years that I served as governor, every time pulling into that space was always kind of an exciting moment for me.

- After one term and a remarkably sweeping reelection, he's called to serve in the United States Senate and he serves with some distinction there for two terms.

His whole life is devoted to public - Service.

I've had some success, you know, a legislator and attorney General and governor and us senator.

It wasn't always smooth sailing.

In each phase of my life there was a learning experience and that was important for me to communicate.

The book is full of my shortcomings and the victories.

It was a labor of love, but it took a lot of time.

- This was a process that took years to complete.

However, along the way, there was some hilarious moments and they all come from his own experiences.

Now think about it, this young candidate for office for the state assembly, he finds himself at a bowling alley going from lane to lane to lane in between roles.

During league play, he's passing out his little cards saying, Hey, I'm running for the assembly.

- John L. Smith was an absolutely godsend.

I knew of him.

His mother had been the secretary in the District Attorney's office when I was there, and John l had a column in the Las Vegas Review journal.

And I think you need to have someone who you have a comfortable relationship who can say to you, that doesn't sound very good.

Let's try this.

Really the most challenging part were probably my gubernatorial years in my years in the Senate because there were a lot of bills that I was voting on, so I needed to have some research done.

And John did a lot of research.

- There's a lot of fun going from the small town to the big city, if you will, in the book.

As Nevada grows, he grew along with it in politics, but he also takes time to think about the people who helped him along the way.

- John and I would meet together and go over a draft that I had written and made some suggestions.

He would then send me the revised copy by email.

I'd make whatever corrections or changes and send it back.

- The result was something that's certainly in his voice, and I think people who take time to read it will see the person that he is.

- There was a book signing for the book.

Tell me how you'd like me to have his name.

Governor Sandoval, as I call him now, the president of the university, I asked him to join us and John L. Smith was the moderator.

My father's influence was profound and the statement that he made to me so many times growing up, every citizen has an obligation to give back something to his or her community.

I would hope the people who read my book recognized that life presents some hardships, some difficulties and setback for all of us.

The lesson is move forward.

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

Amber Thomas is an art therapist who founded Brush Box, a service that boosts self-esteem and makes creativity accessible by providing curated art kits to artists and creators throughout the Milwaukee area of Wisconsin.

Let's take a look.

- My main art practice is watercolor.

I really enjoy the release of like water and pigment hitting a page.

I do a lot of wet on wet watercolor work, which is the practice of wetting your page down first and then dropping colors.

So you can't really control the movement of the water.

I think most of my main focus is how does this painting make me feel after not is this an exact replica of your reference?

So you tie it back to emotion?

Yeah, always.

Art is just a process for whatever you need it to be.

I feel like it can be like a tool or a vehicle even for communication.

Sometimes it's just easier to talk when you're doing things with your hands.

People will even see it's easier to listen when they're regulating their mind in different ways.

I feel like I've had so many experiences where people look lighter after making art, and this isn't something they're gonna put up in a museum.

It was a 45 minute activity that we did together.

Typical day in the studio beads, everywhere.

There are therapeutic tenets in repetitive motion and how that actually calms your body, releasing positive endorphins, reducing cortisol levels.

So it's literally stress reduction, but it could even just be like tearing paper and gluing it down, making a collage based on like the pieces around you.

I think it's sometimes just hard to say how we feel, but that doesn't mean that we can't release that emotion.

And Art does a beautiful job at that.

I grew up in a family full of artists.

I took a lot of art classes.

I took AP drawing, AP design.

From those courses.

I learned that art is so many things.

And then once I got to college, it was like, okay, I think I actually wanna pursue a career in art.

And when I was sitting in an informational session at Alberto, they mentioned art therapy, which I had never heard of before.

And that really felt right.

A brush box started in my final year of grad school.

That was also the beginning of the pandemic and people were seeking forms of connection.

And I was like, oh, what could we do?

And I thought, how I always do this?

Build your own superhero program with different communities that they really enjoy.

And I was like, oh, we can make like a superhero box with different clothing and people can decorate it.

And those are all about knowing your super strengths, knowing it's okay to have a weakness.

And from there we've like, we worked with the JCC, we worked with the ACL U, we worked with Children's, we worked with Make-A-Wish, and now we're working with St. Joan Antia.

And they are running an Empower hour, which is about bringing community partners into their school space and learning the skill.

So we are in there running a expressive art therapies group, and that is really just focused on giving the girls one time in their week to regulate, decompress, and build community with each other.

So each week we bring in a different art material, we teach 'em how to use it, and then give them the rest of the class time to create and then share.

We do check-ins at the start and at the end of each group just to see where they are in the space to not only let me know, but let each other know like, this is how this person is feeling today.

So just be aware of that.

But I would say consistently by the end of group, they're more elevated in their mood.

They feel like they have this space to express themselves.

And it's just, I think also a good way to end the day.

Like let's go home on a positive note and let's finish our week off strong.

So beautiful.

I like the how you use the bottle tap as the shoes.

I love that.

I would say my mind does not have a lack of ideas.

So a lot of the times it just, it's like I tell people like brush box almost feels like a fever dream, like that.

It is just kind of like, okay, we're doing this, we're rocking with it.

But a lot of times too, the community will be like, oh, you should make this, or it'd be cool if you did this.

So we're like, okay, let's try that out.

This is our whimsical garden kit.

And the purpose behind this goes back to the tenants of like creating a safe space.

So a safe space is just a place that you feel comfortable, grounded, regulated, and this is kind of a fun metaphorical way to create it.

The manifestation kit is all about making your dreams come true.

It's very important to carry affirmative thought with you through the day.

That's just instilling positivity in yourself.

So these are a way to carry your positive thoughts with you.

I think I just want people to feel joy, to feel like they deserve to make art.

People just lack that idea of like, they could even be an artist.

And it's just showing like, yes, you deserve to create just like everybody else.

You can do it.

We want people to make art.

And if we can make that easier, then we'll do that.

- And now here's a look at a few notable dates in art history.

In this segment, we travel to Ohio to hear a performance from the Ozark Jones Trio.

Blending styles like modern jazz, Americana, and country.

The group creates music that keeps audiences coming back for more.

Have a listen.

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.