[gong sounding] female announcer: On "Studio Space," mask maker Donvieve opens her studio to give you a behind the scene look at her processes.

♪♪♪ announcer: Then Kati Texas takes you to the studio of aerialist Leslie Castellano to talk about the meaning of her work.

Castellano dances in midair with grace, supported by years of training and physical strength.

"Studio Space" explores the thriving art colony in northern California.

♪♪♪ announcer: This activity is funded, in part, by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Kati Texas: Hi, I'm Kati Texas.

David Ferney: And I'm David Ferney.

Today on "Studio Space," we visit with two artists who love live performance.

Kati: We'll be swinging from the rafters with aerial artist Leslie Castellano.

But first, David explores the mysterious world of masks with mask maker and theater artist, Donvieve.

♪♪♪ Donvieve: So, Flo is a character, my New York City cleaning lady, and I made a Rudy for my sweetheart.

And Flo and Rudy do these performances.

What she's about and what Rudy's about is when you put the mask on, as a couple, and you're having a little disagreement, and you go and put the mask on.

So, honey, don't you dare, please.

♪♪♪ Donvieve: You work it out.

David: And get a little role playing going on.

Donvieve: Exactly.

♪♪♪ David: Hi, I'm David Ferney, and welcome to "Studio Space."

Today, we're with multidimensional artist and educator and mask maker, Donvieve.

Thanks for joining us, Donvieve.

So nice of you to have us out here at your wonderful space.

You're primarily a mask maker, although you do, do some painting and some other stuff.

But you work totally in leather, and you have a little bit of a fiber background, fiber arts background.

How did you discover and work with leather for a large portion of your artistic life?

Donvieve: Well, it's an interesting story.

I was a fiber artist, and I lived in Ferndale.

And while I was doing my fiber, I needed a lot of wool, and there was all the farmers who had all those sheep.

So, I made friends, and I would get all the wool when they would shear, and I was a spinner and a dyer, and I taught many classes with CR.

And one day, I went away, and I had mentioned to one of the farmers that I'd love to have a hide.

And so while I was away, he decided that he was butchering, he would drop off a couple of hides, and I had sawhorses outside where I would drape and dry my wood.

And he saw some wool there, so he draped these hides, which were just raw, and I'd been gone for three days, and it had rained.

When I got back, these hides were on the sawhorse, and some of the fur had fallen off of it, and the front of the hide was over the front of the sawhorse.

And I looked at it, and I went, "Oh, my gosh, that is the sheep, the image.

The magic is right there.

It's a mask.

So, I cut it out, and I brought it in, and I started working with it, and I incorporated it with a woven piece.

And I got such a response, and this woman came up to me and she said, "Have you ever met Lynn Pauley?"

And I went, "No."

"She teaches at Humboldt."

You've gotta meet her."

I went to meet Lynn, and we immediately became friends.

And she had all these leather masks in her studio, and I went, "Oh, my God, I need to know how to do that."

And she says, "Come to my class."

David: Oh, that's great.

Donvieve: Yeah, so I went to her class, and I learned the mask.

And so she took me under her wing, and she was my mentor.

David: Speaking of--I mean, you have a long record as an arts educator, as well.

Donvieve: Yes.

David: Can you tell us a little bit about how all of that teaching and that connection in the arts education world has contributed to your work?

Donvieve: Well, you know, my students, I call them my students, the children, they're my best teachers.

So, as we worked in the California Arts Grant, I wrote a book that was about correlating art with your core activities, core curriculum.

And each--say, you take life science or you take history, we would develop the mask, and the mask character to go with what they were studying.

And the mask characters, I believe, come from deep within.

They live in you.

Like, all the masks that we'll be looking at all live in me, these characters I get to explore and get rid of, if I want.

So, these characters that they would do not only make the masks, write about them, so the whole thing is a culmination of their whole learning, their learning.

And kinesthetically, they get to have hands-on.

Some of them don't learn their history or their life science, as well, by just reading.

Once I saw how they work--especially the young ones--they don't have the skill for drawing something out or anything, and they just let it be, and they would tell me the story.

I started to see that in my own work, going, "Why am I making a drawing here first?

Why don't I let that leather just tell me what it wants to do."

David: Right, it was really about discovery, yeah.

Donvieve: These are shields that I make, and they're about the vulnerability and the barriers and the screens that you can use for yourself for filters.

And I taught that for a long time, the art therapy.

David: Their protection.

Donvieve: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Donvieve: So, I'm just doing a shield for my son and his wife for their new baby, which is when they were invitro.

They got the picture.

And I did a drawing, and now I'm just letting the leather tell me what it needs.

David: Great.

Donvieve: Yeah, so in painting, I'm just putting leather dyes on here.

And as you see, they're very light.

And, you know, I'll just maybe mix some in water, so I don't get the pure color, and it might look muddy, but it's going to be fine when I get it done.

And I just go like that and drizzle it along.

And so, as you see, I've got those lines that I'm just working with.

So, from that stage, as I build this--and I'm using clamps to kind of made it to fit with the piece.

And the other interesting thing is that my son's first mask on his face-- David: Oh, so when he was really little.

Donvieve: Plastic gauze.

David: Oh, that's cute.

Donvieve: So, that's just the way that we go about it to start.

So, over here, what I did was prepare just to show you what I might do.

And the beauty in leather is when I first wet--you know, I use different gauges of leather, depending on what I'm doing.

When I first wet the leather, it's got to soak at least a half hour to an hour.

And when you first wet it, you squeeze it.

And see how the water's in there?

David: Right.

Donvieve: So, the major thing is after I make a mold, for the animals I use clay, and it's a plasticene, and it looks like this.

David: Right.

Donvieve: So, there's my giraffe.

So, then I take my leather, and it's wet like this, and I just drape it on there, and I turn it and turn it and make it in different directions.

The leather has a grain just like wood.

And I said, "Okay."

I cut a couple of different pieces for this because I said, "You've gotta be a giraffe."

And the piece I had before said, "I am not gonna be a giraffe."

"What are you gonna be?"

And I--it wouldn't do anything.

So, I went, "Uh-oh, I lost the magic."

So, then I cut this piece, and I laid it on, and I turned it and turned it, and believe it just came.

And I just started making the nose, and the eyes, and then there's ears.

And when it gets to a certain stage-- sometimes I'll just sprinkle it.

When it gets to a certain stage, after you can't squeeze any water out of it, it starts to do whatever you want.

So, if I want to make creases, I can make creases, and I can make it do those shapes that I'm looking for, right?

And then I need to keep them in that shape.

Now, my teacher, Lynn, said, "You've gotta take--once you get it, you take it off of there, and you need to score it on the wood--I mean on the table--and put it back on.

Well, for years, I did that, and it became kind of a pain.

So, I went, "Why am I gonna do that, when I can just take something and leave it on the mold?"

Because I'm more of a freeform person.

And I just take it, my awl, and I start, I draw.

David: Oh, interesting.

Donvieve: And that's gonna hold that shape.

So, I just wanted to point out these Jack Shoots, and Newman, and Lynn Pauley, who was my first mask teacher, and I stand on all the shoulders of these people.

So that's kind of what that is about there.

And this is something Lynn did when she was teaching me about working with cardboard and paper.

And then if we come over here, and we just kind of look at the characters, you'll notice that I'm making the nose, the different noses.

This is a piece that is with the scribing.

There's no creases in it.

It's the more of the Duarte type mask.

David: It has a great texture.

Donvieve: Yeah, the leather, isn't it beautiful?

David: Right.

Donvieve: One of the things that I'm gonna say about Ganesh, not only did he do a mask exhibition, and he was chosen as Best of Show, but the thing was that I had this big piece of pigskin, and there was a show about Ganesh, who was the elephant who takes all your collectibles.

You don't have to be attached.

He hates to take your attachment away.

And they said, "Would you make a mask for our show?"

So, that's where he first came.

And I took this big piece of pigskin, and I laid it over a form that I was creating an elephant, and the whole mask just pooh, and it was there.

And, you know, I just did a few little things, and he just made himself.

And my latest piece is called, with COVID that's happening, is "Back to the Earth."

David: Oh, yeah, interesting.

Donvieve: He has-- David: Acorn eyes.

Donvieve: Yeah, and he's melting into the earth.

David: Oh, wow.

So, I know this has been a, you know, challenging time for everybody.

Have you found, you know, inspiration to keep working on stuff during this time, or has it been challenging, or how has your process been in these kind of crazy times?

Donvieve: Well, I was thinking of how we're going back into the earth, and we need to really look at what the earth is about and what our destruction of the earth is, and how the earth is rebelling.

And I did the piece that was "Back to the Earth," and just let the leather melt into the earth.

And I love bringing the sticks and the trees, and nature is very important to me, and recycling is very important, and I did another piece called, "Cry for Peace," which is a shield that I haven't shown.

And these things are bringing to mind about how I feel about what's going on in a deeper sense of we-- I mean, look at the smoke, and the fires, you know.

For eons, we've had fires that have cleared the forest and, you know, but there's more people, and it's affecting people and the climate, and the climate change, you know, all these issues.

But I have a really, a deep surrendering to this is what's happening and how do I flow with it again?

And not get angry, but look at what I can do in my own backyard to make a difference.

David: Very good.

Donvieve: Yeah.

David: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.

It's been a real pleasure.

Donvieve: Well, thank you.

I'm honored, again, and everyone thank you, all of you, beautiful.

David: We've been visiting with arts educator and mask maker, Donvieve here on "Studio Space."

Thank you so much for joining us.

♪♪♪ Leslie Castellano: With a aerial dance, like the work of it is deeply satisfying.

I think everyone will tell you that it's hard work, and the hard work never stops.

You know, you kind of always have to be training, because you have to keep up the strength for it.

And, you know, so there's a satisfaction of like working and expressing that just, for me, feels really good in my body and my physical form.

♪♪♪ ♪ Strange faces, smiling faces ♪ Kati: Hi, I'm Kati Texas, and you are watching, "Studio Space."

We're here today with Leslie Castellano.

Hi, Leslie.

Leslie Castellano: Hi, Kati.

Kati: Thanks so much for inviting us into your studio.

Leslie: Thanks for coming.

Kati: Can you tell us, first of all, a little bit about where we are?

Leslie: Sure, so this is the new and future home of Synapsis.

For most of the past 15 years, we've been located in Old Town, and we got an opportunity to have a forever home in a building that we're kind of fixing up.

So, right now, it's still, you know, in process.

This backdrop you see was part of the original kind of theater sets and things that were rolled up in the basement when we first got the building.

It's still in transition.

It's a place that's becoming, and it's going to be exciting when we get that chance to reopen.

Kati: So, besides organizing an artist collective for movement and engagement, what is your art form?

How would you describe what you do?

Leslie: I consider myself a performing artist, which is a broad term, but I've studied Butoh, which is a performative form that came out of Japan.

I also worked with an acrobatic stilt walking company for a few years, kind of dabbled and delved into a pretty wide variety of performance techniques and forms.

Here, I do a lot of aerial dance, which is a contemporary circus art, using the aerial silks here.

I love the idea and the practice of embodied expression and using like our physical being to embody and transform and to express a wide range of experience.

And so I think that's why I tend to play with different forms.

♪♪♪ ♪ Soldiers, they smell of smoke and don't breathe ♪ ♪ They're here to hold us ♪ ♪ Strange faces, smiling faces ♪ ♪ fear grippin', sweat drippin' ♪ ♪ just breathe, just breathe ♪ ♪ just breathe, just-- ♪ ♪ Blast hearts and sippin' on last drops ♪ ♪ to feelings I last lost ♪♪ Leslie: Something I love about dance and performance in general is that it's like outside of or in a relationship with like language that's-- I think it affects people's receptivity in a different way in that when people watch a show, they feel something with their bodies.

And often, I think when people are watching live performance, they have an experience of, you know, maybe some things they're questioning about life.

I think a lot of people in our communities feel that artists are an important and necessary part of our communities.

Kati: Definitely here in Humboldt.

Are you from Humboldt?

Were you always here?

Leslie: I did not grow up here.

I lived here for, gosh, 22 years now, so-- Kati: What brought you here in the first place?

Leslie: I grew up in Florida, and, you know, I really wanted to travel around a little bit.

So, after college, I, you know, took road trips across the country.

Kati: Like you do.

Leslie: And exactly, like people do.

And I fell in love with just the beauty of this place.

I wasn't intending to settle here.

You know, first I think I fell in love with the place, and then I got really involved with the community, and that's what I think kept me here is feeling that this is a place where people generally want to be involved, you know, with their community and with the world.

A couple of times, where a lot of my dance collaborators are in the Bay area, and I would, you know, I contemplated in terms of, you know, having a career as a dancer.

Like, most dance grants and funding is in more urban areas.

And I contemplated moving down there, but, you know, I would go to dance shows, and it would be all contemporary dancers, you know; whereas here, if, you know, if I put on a show, if I go to a show, there's such a wide range of people in the audience.

I feel that art is really a much, like, more vibrant conversation, because there's so many different kind of people and perspectives that are participating in the conversation, in terms of both makers and audience members.

Kati: What are you working on right now?

Leslie: Gosh, well, I've been doing a lot.

I started working on a piece that's right now that I've been reading a lot, as part of the working process.

It's kind of play the relationship between compromise and compromised, and this idea that we're--it will probably have monsters in it, because I love monsters.

And so there's gonna be monsters in it.

I'm working with one of my dance collaborators, Kevin.

We have a company called Feral, Feral.

And, you know, there's a white picket fence, you know, which is problematic in the piece.

You know, it's very much in development, but there will be, you know, dancing, monsters, probably some aerial in there.

It's in the early stages.

Kati: The most recent production you did "Cave."

Leslie: Yeah, the most recent full length show I did was called "Cave," and it was a show about darkness, and about the feminine, and about this idea of, right, like inside a cave.

Caves are where you find monsters.

This idea that the unknown is something that is generative.

And so often what we project as society, as monsters, are actually things that are in a state of becoming, or are maybe new ideas or possibilities that are on the margins of society that have been, you know, in some way excluded.

And I think by creating performance, we have this capacity to make things real, right?

Like, something that, you know, otherwise would only exist in, like, my mind, or maybe the collective imagination can be seen, and then can become part of our discourse about who we are, and that's what I love about creating live performance and art, and just that it invokes a sense of wonder in people.

And I think that's, you know, for aerial dance, I think that's often like why.

People love aerial dance and why it's fun to do that and offer that to the community is because, you know, the "Oos" and "Awws", and circus, and how circus is about that each of us has this, you know, in our, like, everyday pedestrian bodies, has this capacity for wonder.

Kati: I wanted to talk a little bit about trajectory.

So, trajectory, another People Center for the Arts project.

'Cause they're everywhere in our little art scene up here.

So, that adults with disabilities of different varieties, and they are artists in your--and so what do you do?

Leslie: Yeah, I mean, the fun thing about this is, you know, basically, I'm a support person for an artist.

You know, just like many famous artists throughout history, you know, have had support people that help their careers flourish, right?

So, what I do can really vary.

I can, you know, help an artist set up a website.

I can have a conversation with someone about, like, what kind of art inspires them.

You know, sometimes it's just providing materials.

Sometimes it's going for a walk in the woods, you know, because someone wants to do a photo project about the environment here.

The artists I work with are people who are finding their place in society, like all of us are, and that, you know, I get to support that, like, kind of blossoming.

I don't know.

We spend a lot of time kind of contained in how we experience ourselves, you know.

I mean, like, most of our life we're like learning-- for instance, like, babies have kind of more, a wider range of movement than most all adults do, and that's because they don't know like how to move or the right way to move, and so they're just exploring movement as a field.

And so, you know, I think with dance, we get to return to that place of, oh, the field of our bodies in space, where for me there's this, like, push-pull between like myself as a person becoming, you know, and then also myself as a person in a world that's also becoming, and that's where I think there's a place where performance is also about society making-- or at least society reflecting, you know.

And perhaps in that, we have a capacity to make and engage with one another in different ways.

Kati: I heard an interesting quote.

It said, "Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."

Leslie: [laughing] Kati: If you are shaping our society or our community with your art form, what sort of changes do you want to see?

What do you hope?

What is the effect you hope you have?

Leslie: Well, that's maybe why I feel that wonder is so valuable, that I think there's something really like powerful about being alive and about recognizing that in other people, you know, and I hope that, like, we can be more, like, generous and kind and appreciative of one another, you know, as a community and as neighbors and, you know, also I think what, like, this, like, beautiful place we live in of Humboldt County can be for larger society, too, you know, and like the world.

I think that we have the capacity here to become, you know, models for, like, people caring for each other, you know, in a sustainable way, hopefully, right?

That's like the big dream so-- Kati: Well, thank you so much, Leslie, for inviting us in here today and talking to us about your perspectives and your philosophy.

It's been really fascinating.

Leslie: Thank you.

It's been a pleasure to be here.

Kati: And thank you for joining us on "Studio Space."

♪♪♪ Kati: We hope you enjoyed today's episode.

David: To visit with more Humboldt County artists, go to StudioSpace.tv.

♪♪♪ announcer: This activity is funded in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

♪♪♪