- In this edition of Artistic Horizons, reimagining ancient Motifs, - I expect a lot from myself to be a better artist, to be more truthful with my art.

- Celebrating - Black identity through hair is not just something that grows out of our heads.

It has a function in our community.

It has a function in the culture.

And a lot of people who do hair today, they are true culture bearers.

- A poet who finds meaning in the every day - Poetry really does allow me to think expansively.

Just in the manner of the mundane things that happen every day in life.

You can see the universe in them.

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

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

Born in Iran and now based in California artist Marie Yazdani.

Creatively revisits ancient motifs, admiring the art of ancient Persia, Egypt and Greece.

Her semi-abstract paintings compel viewers with their veracity and texture.

Take a look.

- I start with an idea, but the idea during while I'm making the forms go together and they'll color relate to each other.

The idea is not there anymore.

And then it gets to a point that I'm just having a conversation with paint forms colors.

- Artist Marie Ani had never initially considered art as a profession.

It was simply a part of her life shaped by growing up in a family of talented artists.

- It was part of my life like breathing, like eating because of my artistic background with my family.

But when I was studying my studies at UCLA, I had the professor who understood that I could do art.

- It would be her literature professor that encouraged her to take art more seriously.

- She expressed that she also does art.

She encouraged me to do it because I was working hard on my exams.

She said, you should do some, some art to relax.

And I thought, who could relax at this time?

- Marie began painting on weekends and taking night classes with an art professor while working to complete her master's degree in literature.

After graduating from UCLA, Marie struggled to find an advisor to pursue her doctorate in literature.

That delay became an opportunity to apply to the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Pennsylvania, one of the nation's oldest art institutions where she was accepted, - They accepted me and I went there in my mind, I said, okay.

I go there for one year and then I continue my education, my academic education.

But in that year, the professors at the academy locked my work so much.

They exhibited all those works.

The paintings that I had painted prior to going to the academy, that encouraged me and they, they gave me a studio and they said, you can work here and if you want to draw, you can go to the studios and draw from live models and do anything you want.

So then that was the time I decided this is a better life for me in terms of the experiences I had expression, I had the expression of my soul that people were sharing with me and they could communicate with that.

So that encouraged me to become a professional artist.

And so from then on, I have been painting for last 36 years or longer.

I don't know maybe usually when, when I see a, a scene or a piece of art or whatever visually I see when I'm affected by it, I take it in, it becomes an obsession that how do I translate that?

How do I interpret that?

- Honoring her Persian heritage from childhood.

Marie Ani often visited many of Iran's historical sites and studied others in Greece and Egypt.

There she could see many ancient works their surfaces worn and peeled with age.

She began blending these influences into her own work, creating art that not only honored the past but also reflected how history the worn and faded continues to shape the present.

- So I was influenced by that and I started creating these images.

But one thing that brought me to that choosing that part of history was that the texture that was very important for me as a child, I would see these paintings in Iran that they were old, like 16th century, 13th century, and then they had this texture on on them.

Texture shows the, the effect of time on things that time doesn't really destroy whatever is destroyed.

It gives a new life.

It's similar to painting, like when you start the paintings, a new life - From her extensive collections.

Marie's art has gained a claim from collectors around the world with exhibitions in Greece, Germany, and across the us.

She continues to uncover new depths to her expression and life experiences while finding new conversations to have on canvas.

- There's a need I think is more than that.

I expect a lot from myself to be a better artist, to have to be more truthful with my art and to find truth in my art.

And hopefully other people would find it too.

- And now for the artist quote of the week, hair tells a story.

Each strand carries with it history, culture, and meaning.

In this segment, we head to Ohio to meet a group of talented artists who understand and embrace its importance - In black and African pop culture and media because that's like a a hundred years worth of history that you're, that's so what does hair represent in black, black culture and popular media?

I think what's really important to keep in mind is that hair has an incredibly rich and complicated presence in the black experience in America.

It's rooted in a history of pain.

This possession and necessary change.

It.

I think it's, this is why I'm saying that hair is incredibly complicated in black communities.

It's not just something that grows on our head, right?

- So to some of my clients, I'm their therapist.

To some of my clients, I'm their bestie To some of my clients, I'm their herbalist 'cause I'm a natural girly and to some of my clients, I'm everything.

They love me.

This is deeper than just the brand.

My brand is known throughout the city, the tri-state, but the behavior that my brand brings, that's what influenced people to come to me.

I started doing hair as a little girl.

I taught myself how to braid, how to do a lot of things.

At the young age of nine years old, I would be doing my doll hair and my mother would be like, well, where's my gel?

Where's my grease?

And then she'll turn around and then Barbies all done up.

I'm a visual learner, so I'm visual.

If I can see something, I can remake it.

I feel like the artistry of doing hair comes from being able to look at something or see a style and recreating it and making it your own.

That's the true artistry right now.

I feel like my niche is extensions.

I love the art of extensions.

I love creating the illusion of natural hair.

A lace is a thin piece of, some people would call it mesh, but the right terminology for it is Donny air lace.

And it has small little knots in there and when you apply it to the hair, it gives a natural illusion of scalp.

- I specialize in natural hair, which would be dreadlocks and braids.

People assume that if you have dreadlocks, you're an EPT person, a not so clean person, that you don't put in enough time with your hair.

And that's totally incorrect.

- Black hairdressers, like barbers, they had this level of economic and social independence and freedom because they're depending not on white society.

So right, they're not dependent upon that.

They're dependent upon black communities.

And so what happens is that like barbershops and hair salons, they become the locust of political conversation of people hanging out, catching up on good gossip, on trading ideas.

- Mostly everybody can get a haircut.

That's where the common bond between, I don't care if you white, black Spanish with all racism, everybody's welcome.

I got into cutting hair when I was like in second grade.

The teacher asked me something, what would you like to do when you grow up?

I said, A basketball player before.

That's my first answer.

My mom also said, it was like, you should always pick something more realistic.

And my first answer was, A barber taper is like the cousin of a fade.

If you could say that.

Taper has everything a fade does.

It's just like a fade is more all around the head.

So like taper is more of a section of the head.

So like, it's like the temple, a temp taper, a high taper, a low taper to where a say a fade, a high fade, low fade.

It's like all around your head.

See, a lot of people will go with the lineup, but lineup is probably the most artistic part that's like that that gives you the pop.

But I think it's the fade because the fade is like everything that someone else can't do because it's, it what your, I sees somebody be like, how can you fade like that?

I can't teach it.

It is like I, your eyes can't see what my eyes do.

You can learn from somebody without even knowing you, learning from somebody.

Just the words, just the conversations y'all have each day.

Like you wouldn't even know that you taking from 'em.

I like kids too sometimes because like I wouldn't even know that I'm feeding the youth just by just doing my everyday thing.

Favorite part about being a barber in general is like running my own shop.

They say like, if you do something you love, you never work a day in your life.

Like I live by that because it's like, I don't see it as work, but like I still, like you said, this is business to me, but I like to still stay with the business mind aspect of it.

If I ever do get tired of cutting, I want to see about school so I can put the next generation on.

That's what I like to do.

- Even if you don't have the linguistic skills, you can sit down and like point and look and they'll be like, yeah, I got you.

I got you.

Right.

I, I mean I've had plenty of those moments in South Africa when, when I wanted something or needed something and if I didn't have the word in Zulu or Cosa, you know, I could just point and say or point to a picture and I felt assured, even if that person had never done my hair, I knew I was a lot safer than walking into some salon that was perhaps owned by Europeans.

- In certain tribes, like the Masai, the women shave their hair, the men grow their hair and style each other's hair.

And so that completely flips people's brains inside out.

In a society such as ours where we are just so conditioned, one of the reasons why I created the Heritage series was to get black people to love themselves again.

'cause I feel like how can we expect other people to love and respect us if we don't really fully grasp that concept for ourselves in the way that we appreciate our hair the way it is.

I was inspired by my Aunt Dera and Columbus, who, you know, spent much of her life with flowing long hair and now has accepted alopecia as a way of life.

And so I thought, I wonder if she'll see herself the way I see herself, if she allows me to paint her.

So I painted her, but before I painted her, I painted my mother.

The personal relationship with the subject matter definitely adds more to the life of the painting.

Well, especially if you are actually drawing them from life.

Because no matter how awesome a camera is, it's never gonna capture the way the human eye is.

- The idea that black hair has not had some artistic space, it probably hasn't been at the Met or at the gala, right?

Like, you know, MoMA hasn't done an exhibit on black hair.

It's not history, right?

It's, it's everything, right?

It's about economic dependence, it's about survival.

It's about, I mean, it is the good old American dream.

You know, in a certain extent, the, that the harder that you work, we've got a lot of foundational myths as Americans, right?

The harder that you work, the, the more that you can achieve.

If you pull yourself up by your bootstrap, like by all these little myths, all you pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

And meanwhile, while most of black America is saying, I don't have any bootstraps, right?

In this particular niche, right?

With, with hair, hair is one of those places where, you know, individuals can have that American dream, they can have that ability to be independent from, you know, mainstream, IE white economic forces.

They can be in service to the black community.

They can live a life of purpose, right?

And so it's, it's it's freedom, right?

On so many different levels.

It is not something that should, that, that should be seen as constricts individuals when it has a function, right?

It's not just something that grows out of our heads.

It has a function in our community.

It has a function in the culture.

And a lot of people who do hair today, they are true culture bearers.

Whether, you know, they know it or not, or whether you recognize it or not.

Passing those skills down generation by generation, no matter how long you have to wait at the hair salon, no matter how long you're sitting there at the barbershop, again, as I said earlier, it is a coming of age and it's incredibly important.

It's an incredibly important cultural institution in black America.

So what is hair?

Well, hair is the fibrous stuff that grows on the tops of our heads and a few other places.

Our hair is like that of other animals, except that the hair on the tops of our heads can grow and grow and grow.

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

Up next we take a trip to Wisconsin to meet author, poet, and musician Brian Cherry, born and raised in Milwaukee.

He finds inspiration in his city and sees the beauty in the mundane.

Here's his story - For inspiration.

I tend to be pulled to the lake.

We have some beautiful lakefront areas in the city where you can sit and ride and be lost for hours and let the waves come back over you let your riding go back over them.

It's, it's kind of a symbiotic relationship in a way.

I write poetry mainly because it's an outlet for me to speak.

My philosophies in life, one big one overarching, one being that we're in this together.

This is all a collective thing that's happening and we have to find ways to work with each other and struggle with the good and the bad things that happen to, you know, make the best of it and keep walking forward.

And ev you know, just as everybody's a unique individual, anybody that sits down to write a poem is gonna be different than me, which is a really cool aspect about it.

I write every day.

It just kind of helps me center myself.

My main forms of art are music and poetry.

They both kind of have pieces of storytelling in them.

In a way is direct to people you're trying to reach and direct within yourself as well.

We are at Woodland Pattern.

It is the epicenter of poetry in Milwaukee, maybe even the state.

They do so much for the poet in the city and around the country.

It's had a huge impact on me as far as them supporting my art and just helping me along and teaching me so many things.

You can take different programs here to learn about writing poetry and stuff like that.

So I've been able to do that a bunch.

So yeah, it's a great place.

Just a couple of influences that have had a big impact on my life.

Firstly, Frank O'Hara, his book Lunch Poems kind of changed the way that I thought about poetry because I found it right about the time that I found Woodland Patterns and it just made me see that you could just walk into the world and have wonder in your life and write about that.

And he does that very beautifully.

Also, Roberto Harrison, who's a poet from Milwaukee actually, he's been kind of a mentor to me in a lot of ways just by like showing me different authors that I would've never heard of and stuff that he thought I might be into.

And by, you know, reading his poems and seeing his beautiful artwork has influenced me tremendously.

Lastly, today I brought a book by Bob Kaufman, who's a poet from San Francisco back in the sixties, generally termed a beat poet.

Bob Kaufman's ideas do leap across the page and it's, it's kind of like in music when you have a singer, they say they leap across the speakers to you.

He meets you where you're at, but it's in such a weird tangle of phrases and ideas that you're just left with the feeling of, wow, I don't really know what that was, but that was really exciting.

Let's do that again.

You know, you can feel everything and, and there just vibrant pieces of art and they make me aspire to be able to someday write something like that.

What drove me to write Death Moan was some of the associated traumas with what happened in Minneapolis.

The first poem in the book came today after that started, Chu Stories Store is burning.

I'm flexing out front this convenient circus crawls.

It lets them keep cozy, gentrification, tme perch, Minnesota, nice upside your head.

And that is one that just came absolutely fast and I knew that there was something happening.

Sometimes you can just feel like a manuscript is being formed in some way.

I am the reverent friction of the ghost, the one who convinced me to burn the one chained to my clammy comfort.

And so like I tried to keep myself in that mind frame for a while and force myself kind of to look at it, not turn away from it.

Death moan is what came out of that.

Some of the motifs in my poetry rely on juxtaposition, existence, relying the false natures, her holding on always like double knots banded across the expanse until it is time to let go.

Some of it now is going towards, I had this idea of this thought that words are just hunks of sound and we just kind of put 'em together.

And sometimes they sound different ways with other sounds that you're putting there, you'll foresee the moon in burst blood, then you'll see the moon in full blood bloom.

You'll understand the gloom, yet you will still have no way to adjust crimson sadness.

Poetry really does allow me to think expansively just in the manner of the mundane things that happen every day in life.

You can see the universe in them.

What I'm trying to do is say what happened to me in a poetic way.

Dig a shallow grave, swallow and baptize there.

The press of God, shrapnel from the sky, harvesting the earth.

Its inhabitants, device operating as you kneel.

Oftentimes I don't understand a lot of poetry that I read, so what I do is I let it wash over me and as it washes over me, flex the things go by and I'm like, oh, what is that?

And then something else is popping by the poem can mean different things today than it can mean tomorrow even.

You know, I think the meaning of the art is to inspire, to show other people that I may not get this art, this piece of art, but this person had this feeling in his soul that he could put something, make something, and put it out.

Maybe I could do something like that.

Art is an inspiration machine to me.

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

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.