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A Sense of Place
On NJN’s State of the Arts
Friday, February 8 at 8:30 pm; and Wednesday, February 13 at 11:30 pm
STATEWIDE – This edition of State of the Arts looks at the importance of “a sense of place” to an artist’s work. Robert Maggio creates a composition for and about his hometown of Lambertville; Valerie Wilson Wesley sets her mysteries in the city of Newark; John Goodyear gives a tour of his site-specific sculpture; and ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu’s largest ever works reach for the stars. The encore presentation of A Sense of Place airs on Friday, February 8 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, February 13 at 11:30 pm. State of the Arts, NJN’s long-running series, has earned 28 Regional Emmy Awards, including New York Emmy Awards in 2007 and 2005, and a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy.
• At the River
Composer Robert Maggio was commissioned by the Riverside Symphonia to create a new work to help this Lambertville-based orchestra celebrate its 15th anniversary. The result is At the River, a 20-minute suite for 15 players that explores Lambertville’s history and incorporates sound collages of interviews recorded with area residents. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz discusses this innovative work with Maggio and follows him as he collects sounds and interviews used in the work. At the River premiered in January 2006 in Lambertville under the direction of Riverside Symphonia’s Mariusz Smolij. Riverside Symphonia serves the region surrounding the neighboring river towns of Lambertville, New Jersey and New Hope, Pennsylvania.
• Star Series
In 1993, State of the Arts premiered a half-hour documentary: Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist about a New Jersey sculptor who has been a figure on the international ceramics scene for close to 60 years. The award-winning program focused on the importance of both Hawaii and rural New Jersey to Takaezu’s art. In 2006, State of the Arts produced a new story about Takaezu’s more recent work,
“Star Series.” Beginning in the late 1990s, Takaezu created her largest ever clay works: “Star Series,” 14 monumental pieces that she assembled into a single installation. Takaezu donated the entire series to the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin where it was on display through early January 2006. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner visits the exhibit, meets people important to Takaezu’s early career, which started in the Midwest, and speaks with Takaezu — now in her late 80s — about the importance of both place and timing to her intuitive creative process.
• The Mysteries of Newark
Author Valerie Wilson Wesley takes State of the Arts producer Amber Edwards on a tour of Newark, New Jersey, where her popular Tamara Hayle mystery series is set. Wesley, who also writes children's books and other adult fiction, wrote her first mystery, When Death Comes Stealing, in 1994. The book introduced readers to Tamara Hayle, a wise and witty African American single mom and ex-cop, who makes her living as a private investigator in Newark. The book was nominated for the Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America as Best First Private Eye Novel. Tamara has since appeared in seven other mysteries: Devil's Gonna Get Him (1995), Where Evil Sleeps (1996), No Hiding Place (1997), Easier to Kill (1998), The Devil Riding (2000), Dying in the Dark (2005), and Of Blood and Sorrow (2008).
• John Goodyear
State of the Arts producer Chris Benincasa is going places with artist John Goodyear, a resident of Delaware Township in Hunterdon County. Throughout his career, Goodyear has been chosen to create public works that relate to the places where they are installed. The viewer travels from his home studio to the various sites of his public sculptures throughout New Jersey, and learns how an artist designs a work of art for a specific place. Works include: "The Dawn of Law," the State House, Trenton; "The Four Arts," Bettenbender Plaza, Douglass College, Rutgers University, New Brunswick; and "Drawn from the Water," The Jewish Center, Princeton. Goodyear’s art is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian Institution.
State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.
The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.
Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.
NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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