♪ ELECTRONIC MUSIC ♪ Coming up next on State of The Arts, miniatures that capture the soul of a city, sports and art collide, and discarded leather finds new life.

These stories and more on this week's State of the Arts.

Hello, and thank you once again for joining me here in AZPM's Studio A. I'm Mary Paul, and this is State of The Arts.

We start off in Miami, where the streets have their own sense of style, and I'm not talking about fashion.

From its Art Deco preservation movement to its distinct neon and pastel palette, the Miami aesthetic is alive and well.

Let's meet a sculptor who captures that one-of-a-kind cityscape in miniature.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ (Francois) I could get to make something tangible.

It's not digital art, it's something really tangible.

And at the same time, I can tell my story.

Realistic, it doesn't matter.

All I want is to tell stories in my own way.

I see like this board, like, MDF board I use.

That's my canvas, in a way.

I picture this, and then in my head, I picture the whole city already.

So the inspiration comes from that.

My name is Francois, I'm a miniature artist, specialized in architecture and automotive arts.

There's a big miniatures.

Let's put it that way.

You can call it sculpture.

There's so many aspects of it, so I don't even know how to name it myself.

Usually I have some random vision that comes to me, and then the goal is, how do I get from now to my vision?

And of course, with some wiggle room for creativity here and there, then the engineering parts comes into it, because what I'm doing is very precise, very detailed.

Even though my stuff looks wetter and gritty and all that, it's still very precise and detailed.

And I don't leave room for any mistakes.

It has to be perfect.

And whatever perfect means in my own mind.

And my perfect is the inner perfection.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ Basically what I like to do about my work is replicating an ever-changing world.

The world keeps evolving all the time, so does my art.

So I like to add a little spot of rust here and there, just to add a little more character, a little more story for the audience, so people can do their own stories after that.

Whenever they see all those details, they can picture whatever they want.

That's the magic of my work is that it doesn't stop with just what I'm doing.

I like people to be able to picture something.

The messier the better.

It adds more character to it.

Lots of life to the work.

It doesn't just exist now.

It's living.

The whole Miami Vice aesthetic, which includes not just the art deco, it has the cars, the music, everything.

That's what I like to call the aesthetic.

If I want to narrow down even more, that will be the direction, my vision.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ I started making models when I was like 11 years old, because I've always been a car guy.

And that was the best way for me to get into the automotive world in my own way, the more accessible way to do it.

And now the model cars is not even the focus anymore.

This is just a character in the background.

These are my characters, really, when it comes to my miniature scenes.

I don't like to use figures, because I feel like you cannot replicate life in a person, but you can replicate life in an abandoned place.

And it's usually the way I do those things.

And my cars, usually my little cars, they're helping, they're helping telling the story.

♪ TECH SYNTH ♪ I kind of slowly moved into the architecture side, because I've always been interested in it.

I never really got into it, but that's my way of contributing to that world of architecture.

I'm stitching my mental pictures together to create a unique piece.

Those pieces are like fictional, they don't exist anywhere.

They're totally fictional.

And to me, that is the best part.

When I make fictional buildings, but realistic, I like to say that I get to create twice.

So the first creative aspect is in the crafting, and the second one is in the storytelling, which now I get to create my own little words.

I always start with a rough sketch, basically so it helps me with getting ideas and bullet points out of my head.

It's basically my notes right here.

Just rough proportion.

You can see here, classic Miami style over here.

That's gonna be a replica.

And then after that, I jumped into the computer, Illustrator and I started drawing everything very more precise, like very precise.

And then after that, I sent everything to my laser cutter that where I can have clean, precise cuts.

And then it's all about assembling the whole thing that I engineer for the past few days, because it usually takes some days to really get everything right.

Once I have my structure, then after it's all about dressing up, giving some life, getting some character by using different type of materials.

It can be anything.

It can be like a piece of sandpaper.

It could be like a real stucco.

It could be anything.

Anything can be anything.

It's all about problem solving with a touch of artistic touch.

There's no templates.

I usually figure it out as I go.

I like to call it freestyling, like from point A to point B, like all the way.

I just put all the pieces together.

The puzzle I built in my head, now it's finally, that's actually a very rewarding part right now, when I know that everything fits exactly how I want it.

Now the engineering part, it's halfway done.

Now it's the fun part.

Now I can really start dressing up and tell the story too much, the rough sketch that I have over here.

I'm always like a 20 step ahead whenever I build something.

I'm here in my head, I'm already at 98%.

The idea was to trick the eye.

So people can be tricked.

They don't know at first glance, they didn't know if it was a model or if it was the real word.

It starts with a sheet of wood and then I go all the way to this.

It's pretty fun.

♪ UPBEAT SYNTH ♪ Sports artist, Gary Blevins specializes in depictions of exhilarating sports scenes.

Football tackles, baseball bat swings, and other dramatic athletic moments are captured by Gary's brush.

But he also applies his incredible attention to detail to wildlife paintings, stunning landscapes, and more.

Let's step inside Gary's Springfield, Ohio studio to learn more about his creative journey and kaleidoscope of work.

My name is Gary Blevins.

I am an artist.

I cover most of the range from sports art to landscapes, to portraiture, a little bit of everything.

The world around me is my subject matter.

Patty, my girlfriend will tell you that as we travel, I'm always looking out the window telling her to get a picture of that, get a picture of that.

My art is an attempt to be realistic.

I capture what I'm trying to capture.

I have this vision of what I wanna do and most of the time I can do that with my style.

I went to the Dayton Art Institute for two years as a full-time student.

After that period, I went to Ohio State.

I came out of school, started my own art supply store right here in Springfield, and I only lasted about a year and a half because I didn't realize you had to have customers to have an art supply store.

I always told myself that I would do one painting a year, no matter what it was, I did people's cats and dogs and houses.

And I did that for a number of years because I started a family.

Can't eat paint and canvas, so I got jobs.

But the whole thing turned around in 2002 when I got affiliated with Ohio State.

I was working for a printing company and a gentleman came in from a marketing group out of Cincinnati, and he was having cards printed that were of Ohio State players.

He said they were looking for someone that could do a painting of the stadium since they added 19 rows to the top.

And I told him that I could, and he looked at me and, "yeah, yeah, right, buddy."

I went home and I did a watercolor of the stadium, and when he came back to pick up his order, I presented him with that watercolor.

And he said, we can use that.

And at that point, I decided maybe you can do something with this art stuff.

Well, as far as detail in my paintings, to me, it's one of the most important things.

Creating that detail, using a small brush, even though it's gonna take a lot of time, taking the time to do it and make that painting something that people wanna dive into and really look at it in close.

(gentle music) Wildlife is always a challenge for me because first of all, the environment has to be right.

There's a lot of questions that you have to ask yourself to put them in the right location.

And then trying to figure out how do you do fur.

I have a tiger jumping out of water, and I'm thinking, how in the world do you paint water?

So you have to figure those things out.

♪ GENTLE PIANO ♪ I enjoy doing the portrait work, doing famous people, people that are right here from Springfield and local people, and doing a lot of historical type paintings.

I recently did one of the Wright Brothers with Harry Toleman, who was the attorney that did all the patents for him.

The subject matter of art that I really enjoy, I really enjoy sports.

That's probably number one.

When we talk about sports art, it is totally different.

I think artists have to know the sport and understand the sport.

There's a lot of detail to sports art.

When you talk about logos and uniforms and all the things that go with it, all those things help tell the story, and I think it's necessary to put all those things on there.

♪ GENTLE PIANO ♪ A lot of people probably don't recognize.

Color is important to those teams, and you have to have those colors right, and they'll let you know if you don't.

So I was named the United States Sports Artist of the Year for 2025.

The award that I received comes out of Daphne, Alabama at the United States Sports University, and they have an art museum and the art archives at that museum.

I currently have 14 paintings hanging in the museum now.

I've had my work in several places, really across the country.

I've had painting shown at the Brandywine Museum in Chatsford, a painting of the Wyeths.

I've had paintings displayed at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

I've had paintings displayed at Arlington, Vermont at the Norman Rockwell Studio where he did his most famous work, which is, I'm most proud of that one, and I've also been displayed, and I have permanent paintings hanging at the Terry Redland Museum in Watertown, South Dakota.

Springfield's special to me.

I was born and raised here.

My artistic space is Gary Blevins Art Gallery at 145 West High Street in Springfield, Ohio.

We've been here for three years now.

I just wanted a place where people would come and look and enjoy the artwork, maybe learn a little bit, read some of the stories that are next to the paintings, and just enjoy the art.

We have games that they can do, like Where's Waldo and one of my paintings.

I have a hat, blankets.

I got a canoe and different items that they have to find in that painting, because what I was finding was when kids come in to look at paintings, they have a tendency just to kind of glance and walk by.

Well, this makes them stop, really look at the detail, and look at the paint, look at all the elements that's going into that painting, and I find that exciting.

I never would have dreamed that I would have had an art gallery with just my art.

When I was in school, I felt like other students appreciated my art, but they were art students.

That's a different thing.

So I never thought I would have a community support me.

I never feel like I finished a painting.

I can look at every painting and go back and say, "I should have done this and I should have done that."

I have to put that detail in there and make that thing go all the way, and I'll still leave something out.

It's a struggle, but it's something I strive for.

Leather artist Pamela Graham says she likes to go with the flow.

She creates works of art from discarded and upcycled leather using no sketches or outlines.

Instead, she lets the work spill out of her on-the-spot creativity, creating rich pieces full of depth.

I was surrounded by art at an early age.

My mother taught me how to sew.

My art is heavily inspired by my upbringing.

Leather art is something that I love to do.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC ♪ Scrap pieces, so valuable.

What's really important to me is taking raw materials, things that people may deem as scrap materials and making something out of nothing.

Turning scrap pieces into beautiful works of art.

Because the leather art and what I do come so natural to me, it really feels like a spiritual assignment.

For me, it is the whisper of my ancestors.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC ♪ I'm led by my intuition in terms of what to create.

So I'm putting together a puzzle with these various materials to create an image that people will find value in, that I find value in, and that actually represents where I come from, where my family comes from, and the exposure I was blessed with as a child.

♪ RISING SYNTH ♪ The first piece is an African shield.

It's one of 10, this is my third one.

And the shield represents leaders within our community and the strength and resilience that they possess.

And then this piece is a warrior that I am creating with leather.

So I used some of the smallest pieces of leather as to nothing going to waste to create a resemblance of like skin tone and then garments.

And then I'll continue on to the top to create the image.

The main part of my art that I do, I do a lot of leather mask, I do a lot of leather shield.

I do source locally.

I often go to Tandy Leather, which is in Hell's Corner.

Also State Fair, I found some amazing hides at the leather vendor that comes there every year.

It's very hard for me to, as you can see, throw away any of the odd and end pieces of leather that I do have because from, this is very useful to me.

Like this small piece of purple could be the, you know, the top layer of an earring that really just makes it pop out.

So I do do a lot of wearable art.

I do small accessories, so I do leather jewelry, leather wallets.

When my mother was young, she wore these long feathers in her hair, which really inspired me with the leather earrings that I make that resemble feathers.

I do leather bags.

I did do some clothing pieces for a few wearable art shows.

I feel like a large part of my personality goes into the work because my spirituality and my belief that my family and my ancestors have contributed to this gift that I have.

The name of my art is called Zula's Whisper, and Zula is the name of one of my aunts on my dad's side.

When I'm working, I'm not laying out what I'm doing.

I'm not drawing a blueprint in the beginning.

I'm just going with how I feel, and I often think about my family.

It's very spiritually led.

I feel like it doesn't have to be explained.

I don't need to know who it came from or where it came from because I can actually feel it as I'm creating.

It's something that I absolutely love to do.

I could spend, you know, the rest of my life being a creator and creating artworks.

It makes sense for me to utilize my time doing something that I really love and enjoy, and I feel like it's an inherited gift.

Ten years ago, Milwaukee artist Nemo Edwards lived in an empty apartment.

He decided to fill that emptiness with art by his own hand.

That was step one in his journey to becoming a full-time practitioner of the arts, and it's through that work that he seeks to convey a message of love and hope.

I've always known that I was a creative.

I started painting by, I don't want to say accident, but it was a desire to actually have art on my walls in the previous place that I lived in.

It had just big, blank white walls, and I'm like, you know what?

I want art on my walls.

And I want large art.

I want to actually fill my space up with art.

There we go.

Ah, fresh.

It was in a moment where it's like, you know what?

I'm a creative person.

I could just make something myself.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC ♪ The type of art that I make, I would classify it as abstract expressionism.

So it's objects that you can depict to some extent, but still you have the ability to sort of craft your own narrative to a degree or pin your own sort of feeling to it still.

The more abstract you make a thing with intention as well, I believe it gives the ability to have others go deeper and you can pull a wide array of meaning from an abstract piece.

You give people the opportunity to feel as they desire to feel or pull from it as they desire to pull from it.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC ♪ I am working on a story.

The story of when the sea was parted and Moses led the Israelites out of Pharaoh's captivity and they were washed away by the waters as they were granted access to pass through.

And so that's what the image is.

And you have the big God-like angel character in the middle as the thing that's separating and holding the waters apart for these people to come through.

A lot of my earliest works were biblically based.

I was thinking at that point in time too, of how can I create something that can be authentically mine that is identifiable, as well as be something that challenges people's thoughts.

♪ GENTLE SYNTH ♪ I just painted these two characters without them even interacting with each other, just like face on, they're just like angel character and the demon character.

However, when we typically think of angelic beings or demonic beings, the angelic character is typically a lighter color or, and the demonic character is usually a darker color.

I decided to flip that on its head.

Even that simple swap is enough to get people to think, well, why did he do that?

You know?

Or it could challenge your own biases as well.

Some people when they see it initially painted to race and you have to think, well, why did I do that?

It's rooted in something that really doesn't matter.

It's the colors at the end of the day.

And it's like, why are they that way?

Who said they had to be that way?

And so good could look like all sorts of shades and things.

So it's just like, it could be green and purple, they can be whatever.

And so I felt that was enough to run with as well.

And like how I create them, kind of this playful nature that I make them in, I can tell recurring stories with these characters.

♪ GENTLE SYNTH ♪ What matters to me most in life and what I do my best to convey through my art is the feeling of love.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ Love truly is the answer to quite literally all of the problems that we have as humans.

And it is the core feeling that we all seek in all that we are doing.

And so that's what I do my best to convey in my art.

♪ CALM SYNTH ♪ And now we've reached the end of our time together.

From all of us at AZPM, thanks for watching.

I'm Mary Paul, and I'll be back next week with more stories from the arts world.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪