(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, a recap of our 20-24 Emmy-winning stories.

(Narrator) I'm not wondering why it's so moving to witness someone with color blindness using these glasses.

I think because it's so sad to think of the world any less vibrant.

(Tom) Whether it's seeing in color for the first time, or looking deep into space for asteroids.

(Melissa) So our goal is to reduce the uncertainty in our knowledge of where the near-Earth asteroids are as an act of planetary defense.

(Tom) Or a profile on an important local artist.

(Eric) Andy has made the drawing studio in Tucson as a community space where printmakers, artists can come together, learn, and share their time together.

(Tom) Our team brought home the goal this year.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

Every year, regional chapters of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognize and reward excellence in their broadcast community with Emmy Awards.

And this year, AZPM received nominations for 15 different projects.

And our show won awards in five different categories and our talented team brought home 11 statues.

First up, producer Cáit NíSíomón videographers Robert Lindberg, Diana Cadena, and Eryka Dellenbach and graphic editor John DeSoto were all recognized with a Rocky Mountain Emmy in the instructional category for their work on John is Colorblind.

(Angela) Most of the time I just tease him about the color choices of his apparel.

(John) My fashion sense.

(Cait off-camera) So what colors are you wearing now, John?

So I'm wearing my favorite brown shirt.

(wrong buzzer noise) (Narrator) So the idea for this story came about when my colleague, John DeSoto, here's John, came to work wearing a almon-y, pinkish shirt this shirt.

And I commented that it was an interesting color in him.

And he said, "Oh really?

I wouldn't know.

I'm color blind."

Surprised by this, I asked him if he ever tried those corrective glasses ever.

And he said, "No,they're just kind of expensive."

So naturally, I decided to do a story about this and set out a mission to get John these glasses.

And just when I was researching how to go about this, we learned of a partnership between Arizona State Museum and Enchroma.

The company, whose co-founder, Don McPherson, was the one who actually invented the lenses designed to address the symptoms of color blindness.

So it was all just kind of meant to be.

This partnership is part of Enchroma's Color Accessibility Program, where they donate glasses to organizations like schools, libraries, and parks so that people with color blindness can experience those spaces in more vivid color.

(John T.) In my life, I've not run across that many people that really seem to be interested at all.

(David) When it came to colors, I do, just back off and not say anything.

(Garret) I'm a student here, and I'm studying archaeology.

And that's a lot of where I hope that these glasses will help things be easier for me.

These glasses, I think, are going to open my eyes to what I've been missing in these many years.

(Narrator) On this day, four color blind individuals Were invited to the museum, were a press confrence was held to witness their first experiences with their glasses (John) The biggest thing is it's embarrassing because I can't match clothes up well.

My wife really gets on me about that.

(Narrator) Like John, one thing they all have in common is having trouble getting dressed.

My wife always had to dress me because of the wrong color tie, wrong color shirt, wrong color pants.

(Ray) Apparently I'm a moderate dresser, I've never had [Laughs] with the exception of some purple socks that my kids made me buy.

Or it hasn't ever prevented me from actually doing something.

Just in my profession the only thing that it's hindered is when it comes to color grading footage I'm probably not the best person for that job.

(Narrator) And it hasn't ever really hindered their lives or professions in any significant way.

(Ray) I was an audio recording engineer so being covered by it was not a big deal.

(David) I was a pharmacist because then you just went by identification, the markings on them and the size and all that.

(John) I was a university professor for about half of my career and a working engineer.

I've never struggled over it.

(Narrator) And their color blindness seems more interesting to those with normal color vision, perhaps because they don't know what they've actually been missing.

And we can't imagine a world without the full spectrum.

it's not a big deal to me any longer it's not a big deal to me anylonger (Narrator) So what is color blindness?

First of all, the biggest misconception is that colorblind people see the world in only shades of gray, black and white.

This is called a chromatopsia and it's extremely rare, affecting only one in approximately 30,000 people.

Whereas the most common types, which is red-green color blindness, affects approximately 300 million people worldwide And maybe you're wondering why all the colorblind people in this story are male.

That's because it's a sex-linked genetic mutation that is passed on the X chromosome.

Females have two X chromosomes, so if a female inherits one normal X chromosome and one with the mutation, she won't display the mutation since it's a recessive gene.

Males are more likely to be colorblind since they don't have a second X chromosome to override the chromosome that carries the mutation.

And this is why 95% of colorblind people are male.

Physiologically, color blindness happens when a type of nerve in the retina called a cone isn't working correctly.

These cones are what processes light as it enters our eyes and sends signals to the brain that allow us to perceive color.

And there are three types of cone cells and each has a different sensitivity to blues, greens and reds.

Typical color vision involves the slight overlapping of these three cones and this enables us to detect up to one million different shades of color.

Color blindness happens when these cones overlap more than normal and this causes confusion between specific colors.

The more overlapping of these cones, the more color confusion it creates.

And there are different types and intensities of color blindness.

One way to find out what type of color blindness you have is to take an online test as John is seen doing here.

And this allows Enchroma to determine what type of color blindness you have and what lenses will be most effective.

(John) No, nothing.

Nope.

Three.

Nothing.

(Narrator) So how do the glasses work?

By using advanced spectral notch filters, Enchroma glasses selectively filters out wavelengths of light at the point where confusion or excessive overlap of color sensitivity occurs.

Upwards of 80% of people affected by these types see an improvement, allowing them to perceive more colors in price and vivid detail.

(Ray) Oh dear, well, that's way different.

These two, without the glasses and these two, they're pretty much equal in brightness, intensity, and color and saturation kind of thing.

But now, they're way different.

(Laughs) (Garret) Well what I can see better is each individual piece I can pick apart.

(Musem guide) Our wall of baskets.

(John T.) Wow.

Those are something.

Wow, look at that.

(Narator) Enchroma makes glasses for both indoor and outdoor settings, and when the four participants went outside, they experienced a much more dramatic difference.

(Garret) Wait, are these trials red?

(David) Yes.

[Garret Laughs] (Garret) Oh.

[David laughs] (Garret) Oh yeah.

[Garret laughs] (David off-camera) Wow.

[Off Camera] How about that building (Garret) Oh Yeah, that's red alright.

[Garret laughs] (Garret) Here, you want next?

(John T.) Yeah, let me, yeah let me try.

(Narrator) And for John's big moments, I brought him to the most coloful place I could think of The Tucson Botanical Gardens, where we were joined by his wife and daughter.

This is exciting.

(Nevaeh) My palms are sweaty.

(John) Oooo (Angela) Seriously?

(John) Oh my gosh.

That's weird.

[Laughter] That's purple.

(Angela) That's purple, you said.

(John) It's... (Angela) Can you see these?

(John) Uh... Those are definitely red.

That's definitely red.

Oh, like the contrast in the red and green is like super significant.

(Nevaeh) Wow.

(John) Wow.

(Angela) Look at your shirt.

(John) It's green.

Oh, damn.

(Nevaeh) What am I wearing?

(John) That's green.

(Angela) What did you think it was before?

(John) Brown.

[Laughter] (John) That is weird.

(Angela) does that look green.

(John) Those are very green.

(Narrator) I'm left wondering why it's so moving to witness someone with color blindness using these glasses.

I think because it's so sad to think of the world any less vibrant.

But this is subjective.

There are in fact many, many more colors that people with normal color vision can see, like infrared and ultraviolet.

And it's impossible to even imagine what they look like because we lack the visual literacy to articulate them.

But perhaps one day the technology will exist that will allow us to see how much richer and faster the world and cosmos actually is.

(John) That's red.

(Tom) Hollywood is fond of making apocalyptic films about asteroids impacting Earth.

At the University of Arizona Space Watch program, several real-life scientists are on the front lines of monitoring the night sky for these hazardous asteroids.

Fortunately, they haven't discovered any imminent threats yet.

Producer Brian Nelson and Photographer Danny Sax were recognized with a Rocky Mountain Emmy in the Environment and Science category for their work on this story.

(soft music) When we're observing, we drive up to the mountain in the mid afternoon.

Then we will start up and do a walk around both telescopes, make sure everything looks good.

The 1.8 meter and 0.9 meter telescopes that we use are on KITT Peak and the point nine meter telescope is actually the original Steward Observatory telescope that started off on campus in 1922.

One thing we need to do is choose our first target and then start up all the software that we need to operate the telescopes.

Then we also do a pointing to make sure that we're pointing exactly where we want to be pointing in the sky.

And then we're ready to start taking images of asteroids.

I'm Melissa Brucker.

I work for the University of Arizona in the Lunar and Planetary Lab, and I'm the principal investigator of Space Watch.

And we use telescopes on KITT Peak to measure the positions of asteroids to make sure they don't get lost.

(Melissa) Why don't we check out this one up here?

(Mike) Okay.

Can I zoom in?

(Melissa) Sure.

Let's go ahead and stack the blink, right?

(Melissa) It may possibly be rotating.

It looks a lot brighter in the in the last image.

(Mike) And the stars appear in uniform.

(Melissa) So at Space Watch, there are seven of us who operate the telescopes, including me.

And we can have anywhere between 24 to 38 nights per month on the telescope.

(Mike) I always click this button: ping all and dismount.

And these both should be normal.

So as the lead engineer, I go up to the mountain once a month to start the run.

Starting to run is an all day activity.

Where I go up there, turn on all the power, test all the telescope motions, rotate the domes, open the shutter, basically make sure it's going to work that night for the Observer, whoever that may be.

There are, I think, 88 steps total from starting up the telescope, observing all night and shutting it down that the observer has to do every night to use and then save the telescope at the end.

Everything looks good.

For me personally, it offers a way to introduce a cycle.

Life is full of cycles and this allows me to kind of get away from the daily grind, if you will, and just kind of observe.

And when the sun sets, the domes can open.

I do get that sense of awe looking at the night sky and it is amazing how dark it is on KITT Peak.

You can actually see the Milky Way in all its glory.

It's really great operating the telescopes and seeing the images come in.

Often the asteroids that we're looking at are not bright enough to be seen in one image.

So we take a series of images and then stack them together at the point where we think the asteroid should be in each image.

So we get end up with a dot for the asteroid and a line for each of the stars.

SpaceWatch was started by Professor Tom Gerhels and Bob McMillan in 1980, and we have gradually moved towards doing follow up of newly discovered high priority asteroids rather than doing survey.

(Bob) I retired on paper in 2019.

But I'm still around.

I'm kind of proud of the fact that I have helped to steer SpaceWatch into evolving priorities.

When we started out in the early eighties, it was a real struggle and we did have a surprising amount of hostile peer review and I think Space Watch helped to make the search for hazardous asteroids respectable.

Another milestone that occurred for Space Watch was that in 1997 98, NASA created a funding program specifically to search for hazardous asteroids.

So we have a NASA grant that funds our observations, and it is part of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

So our goal is to reduce the uncertainty in our knowledge of where the near-Earth asteroids are as an act of planetary defense.

And some of the more famous asteroids we have looked at are Didymos, the target of the NASA's DART mission, the double asteroid redirect test.

The goal was to nudge the asteroid by impacting it with the spacecraft.

So they wanted to deflect the asteroid so that if it was one that could hit Earth, it would be moved.

So we're not super heroes, but by being funded by NASA, we do fall under the under the auspices of the planetary defense officer.

What makes this job fun to me is being able to be part of the entire cycle of operations, from designing the equipment to building it, to testing it, to using it, to submitting the data.

I really believe in what I do, that there are rocks flying around in space and one day a big one will hit us.

It's inevitable and I don't lose sleep over it.

But I am glad there are people looking and I hope that we can build a system that gets better and more efficient every year and one day might help save civilization.

It's great to be a part of that.

It's pretty exciting to observe an object that is a potential asteroid.

And when you actually see it on the screen, blinking across the images, you're like: “I did the job and and I'm saving the world.” (laughs) (Tom) Andy Rush is a former associate professor of art at the University of Arizona.

He is a printmaker, sculptor, and drawer, and he considers the study and practice of drawing from observation to be the foundation of visual intelligence.

In 1992, he founded the Drawing Studio with a core group of Tucson artists.

Producer, videographer, Özlem Özgür was awarded a Rocky Mountain Emmy in the Arts and Entertainment category for this story.

[ Pensive piano music ] (Andrew) First of all, drawing is a language.

It's more than what you see with your eyes because to draw goes through your kinesthesia, so there's a whole language that is developing as I actually draw you with my body.

And so for me, drawing brings us into in a much deeper and more personal way.

Stieglitz used to say, the great photographer, a portrait is as much a self-portrait as it is one of you.

So I draw because it's a way of getting to know the world that you never know by just looking at it.

It's an enterprise that is not just about picture making.

It's about a whole zone of being that you set up and then live in it for as long as it holds my interest.

[ Pensive piano music ] (Andrew) In the beginning, it was because I had the first charismatic teacher of my life at the University of Illinois named Lee Chesney.

And he was a printmaker himself.

And I walked into the graduate studio one day after he had first arrived and watched him engraving on a large copper plate and I was hooked.

[ Pensive piano music ] I was in the Marine Corps.

When I was in Korea, I was on the demilitarized zone.

And that meant by day, there was nothing to do.

So I would be with my watercolors out wandering the hills looking at one of the most beautiful countries I've ever seen in my life.

I also was in Japan every week and visit Japanese museums and learned so much about composition from Japanese woodcuts.

When I finished my time in the Marine Corps, I went up to Iowa and I asked where I could meet Lasansky and I went into the print room and there he was and I introduced myself and said that I had come to work with him.

He said, "Well, the semester, you have to wait till next semester starts to enroll."

He said, "Do you have any work with you?"

And I said, "Yes, I have a trunk full in my car."

And he looked at my work for maybe 15 or 20 minutes.

He arranged to enroll me that very day.

I am in Tucson because I had come back from a Fulbright grant in Italy in 1959 without a job with a new baby and a recent wife.

And I was prepared to go into design work in Chicago when somebody called me from Arizona and said they had too many students and were looking for a drawing teacher.

And could I please consider it?

I said, "Would I consider it?

I'll take the job site unseen."

And started work in two days at the University of Arizona.

(Eric) Andrew Rush was my printmaking teacher in 1969 and 70 at the University of Arizona.

Andy's work is humanistic.

It reflects the problems of the world that we're living in.

That is part of the history of printmaking.

(Curt) When I first came out here, the art community was a fairly small, tight group, and the name Andy Rush always came up.

He was just so well known that I guess I was expecting to feel very small in his presence, and he's such a welcoming person that it was very easy just to sit and chat with him.

(Eric) Lasansky studied with a man named Hader, and what Hader brought into the United States was the print shop as a community space where printmakers come together to help each other make their prints.

(Eric) And now Andy has made The Drawing Studio in Tucson as a community space where printmakers, artists can come together, learn, and share their time together.

[ Soft piano notes ] (Andrew) My fascination and experience with community is how come The Drawing Studio happened.

I consider The Drawing Studio as a direct evolution from my experience both with Lasansky and with modern printmaking community studios.

(Tom) I came to the drawing studio specifically to be mentored by Andy.

We have since developed, I think, a very close relationship, not of competition by any means, but learning from each other, and that's the beautiful part of printmaking.

(Andrew) I keep hundreds of sketchbooks, and as I do this, very often something starts occurring to me.

I use four separate figures and then combine them with different colors and in different ways so they speak a little differently in different contexts.

[ Soft piano music ] (Andrew) What's the future gonna be about?

It's gonna be about anybody who can think of things from more than one point of view, and the only place I know that teaches that is the arts, especially the visual arts, and that the drawing studio is an effort to design an organization that addresses the learning of art in a way that can reach anybody who wants to start.

(Curt) I was teaching drawing classes in my studio, and there were very limited places to learn drawing, and whenever a student showed up that came from Andy's school, it was apparent, they had skills and knowledge and an ability to work with the materials.

[ Pensive music ] (Andrew) The professor artist Charles Littler, every Sunday morning we sat to talk about community and what it would take to find a way for artists to live together in a more compatible way with our children and our lives and continue to make art.

Charles' wife, Cora, found an ad in the paper advertising an old dude ranch up for sale 80 acres and 23 houses for $68,000.

Can you believe it?

[Laughs] (Fox) We got a group together from the U of A to buy this property in 1968.

And the following year, Andy moved out here and we've been here ever since.

We've done many projects together, mostly murals and tile murals.

We've had shows together here in the gallery.

He switched to clay for a while.

He worked on clay for probably 15 years or so.

(Andrew) In the middle of the 80s someplace, I noticed that the market for what I make, black and white etchings, was fading.

Suddenly I had four kids in school at the time.

I needed to find something.

And at the time, my friend Fox McGrew here on my ranch, who was a ceramic sculptor, was teaching me how to make tile, how to make art tile.

So I began to work in terracotta sculpture.

[ Soft music ] (Andrew) Art is a language, and you learn it like you learn any language.

You know, it has a grammar, it has a vocabulary, it has a context, it has a history.

So it every bit of it needs to be learned like you learn to speak or you learn to write.

[Soft music fades up slowly and slowly out ] (Tom) Our producer, John DeSoto, also won an Emmy in the Education and Schools category for his Spanish language profile on Pueblo High Mariachi Teacher Señor Contreras.

You can see that in a growing collection of Spanish language stories on our website, azpm.org/espanol These Emmys are a reflection of everyone who works here at AZPM, not just those listed on the awards.

So a sincere thank you to our entire team who helps keep us on the air.

And thank you for watching Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara, we'll see you again next week.