- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents Keystone Edition Arts.

A public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is Keystone Edition Arts, and now Erika Funke - Welcome to Keystone Edition Arts and a program where we'll explore the creative lives of three powerful women artists who work in different media.

We'll ask who's inspired them on their journey, and how they help others in turn.

You're invited to join the conversation by calling +1 800-326-9842.

Sending an email to keystoneedition@wvia.org, or on social media at #keystonearts.

Paul Lasar provides us with a larger perspective to begin.

- [Paul] What started as a week to celebrate women's history in 1982, grew to the entire month of March in 1987.

And continues as an annual presidential proclamation.

These proclamations celebrate the contributions women have made to the United States, and recognize the specific achievements women have made over the course of American history in a variety of fields.

Women's history month.gov provides information and links on virtual events and exhibitions occurring throughout March at the national museum of American history, the national gallery of art, and many others.

WVIA like other PBS stations, also offer programs this month dedicated to exploring women's contributions.

While we celebrate the contributions women have made in all fields.

When we look at arts and culture specifically, we learned from a report by the national endowment for the arts that nearly half of visual artists in the United States, are women.

On average, they earned 74 cents for every dollar made by male artists.

So while we all benefit from the contributions of women and spend time in March acknowledging there many and varied accomplishments, we could ask whether one month is sufficient to learn about and recognize the value of those benefits.

For Keystone Edition Arts, I am Paul Lazar.

- Sherrie Maricle had an aim scene.

She always aims high, and she had the grit to make it along the rock strewn path to the summit, to the rim of this fantastic volcano in Iceland, her sights were set on doing what she does there on the edge.

She took out her drum sticks and began playing playing the magma from deep in the earth that had hardened there.

The once fiery molten lava alive, always below the earth.

So much a symbol of our own creative buyer.

And there, among the elemental rhythms, wind, rain, her heartbeat, her breath, she brought all she is to that encounter meeting the mountain on its own terms, listening deeply and bringing alive, something new in the moment.

At ground level Sherrie Maricle has traveled the rock strewn paths we all do in life, but she's a woman and a jazz drummer.

In the acclaimed documentary girls in the band she remembers trying to sit in with the guys at jam sessions New York.

She'd got sass back, take your shirt off I'll let you sit in.

Can you handle the tempo honey?

And it would make me see them fury she says like inside, I would feel like a volcano about to explode.

All these centuries of creative energy welling up, cut off at the source by institutional obstacles and power imbalances, keeping so many women especially from their creative destiny.

But Sherrie Maricle has stayed the course and reaches into inner wellsprings of creative buyer each time she plays.

(upbeat music) We have three guests with us, each filled with intense creative fire, finding ways to be who they are in and through their art.

Mentoring others along the way.

Nikki Moser of Northeastern Pennsylvania is a visual artist and educator whose favorite form is iron sculpture.

Award winning writer Marjorie Maddox Williamsport has 11 collections of poetry to her credit.

And she's a professor at Lockhaven University.

And Sherrie Maricle of Marshall's Creek and Philadelphia and award winning jazz drummer and bandleader master of scales and scaling volcanoes too.

You were invited to join the conversation by calling +1 800-326-9842 sending an email to keystoneedition@wvia.org or on social media, #keystonearts.

When we speak of creative fire with respect to Nikki Moser we mean it literally, she's a visual artist who grew up in Wayne County and she works in many different media.

Most dramatic is the sculpture she creates from molten iron.

But maker of objects is just a part of Nikki Moser's way of art.

Welcome, Nikki.

It really seems that your art and the way you do it can't be separated from who you are and the way you live For you, what does it actually mean to be an artist?

- No, I think it's, well it's a little bit about being disruptive, I think but also about analyzing things and recombining things to present a new sense, right?

You sort of wanna lift someone out of the space they're standing in and move them a little bit so that they see something from another perspective.

And maybe then that perspective changes the way they think about other things.

And that sort of changes starts to slowly change everything.

- Well, when you create with molten iron 2,800 degrees there's a clear physical danger.

And in your work, if you take on injustices in society or even dig deep inside yourself in ways that make you open and vulnerable, you need real gumption.

Where does the courage come from to be an artist with backbone and spirit?

And would it have anything to do with your mentor?

- You know, it's interesting me you ask about mentors because I immediately thought of this woman Blanche Heller who I met when I was really small in Pennsylvania and she was a painter and she painted on these fungus's and that I thought really what she did was she gave me permission.

She looked at me one day when my family was visiting her house bringing her these fungus and said of course you can be an artist.

Of course you can.

And then the older Nick, he realizes that the reason I'm so attracted to her is because you know, she was sort of, she was painting on fungus's.

She totally told the canvas to sort off.

And she was gonna paint on these objects, right?

These crazy natural objects, natural scenes.

So she was doing this really interesting thing.

And of course I had a great high school art teacher Chris Ganzer who just let me be.

And then I think, you know you have to credit all of the people who told you you couldn't, right?

the people who laughed when I applied to Cooper Union, and the people who said you'll never get that grant you'll never get to do that thing.

All of those things really can fire you up.

Being told no is an incredible motivator but it's nice once in a while to have a permission slip.

- Well if we didn't know better we might think of casting iron as a guy thing.

And we look at a photo that you have given us of a colleague and you're engaged in an intense or comical process.

And we can't tell who's who.

It does it matter if it's you on the right and a guy across from you you're in these get ups to keep you safe.

Are there differences, you know, if there are in guys doing an iron and women doing iron, how do they appear?

- You know, it's interesting when I first poured iron in the '80s there were very few women on the floor.

And now when I meet students there are many of those female students who have only had faculty who are women.

And I think that the thing like I hate simplify it down to gender, but I will say this, that when you were pouring iron it is an incredibly collaborative group process.

You were literally putting your hand in your life in someone else's hands and you have to work very closely and seamlessly and with a great amount of trust.

And I think the thing that I realized is that as a kid growing up leadership roles weren't offered to women.

Like you learned to be collaborative.

You learn to be a part of a team because you weren't going to head the team that wasn't really something offered.

And I think that when you have these people who have are really good at collaborating have leadership roles and begin to work together you start to have a more layered, seamless process.

That goes more smoothly I think.

I've often equated an iron pour or that difference in gender to, you know, like that joke about when guys are sitting around at a party and the chip bowl is empty and they all look at each other.

And like, when it's a bunch of women, there's a conga line and then there's salsa and there's guacamole and everything gets done and the dishes are done and bam.

And I think it is a response to that not ever having power, right?

Not having that, just that assumption that you get to be in charge.

And so you figure out these ways.

And I mean, when you're out on the floor, I don't think that I'm better off or worse off by the gender of the person across from me.

You find a team you like and you trust and respect that team.

But I have to say that, you know, like pouring iron with a bunch of women on the floor, like, I feel like it's always gonna be a good day and I'm always gonna be safe.

- And what's so exciting, Nikki is that you take that understanding of collegiality and working together as a team.

And you know that in your own experience, that that bears fruit and it has larger implications for us in our lives, working together in society.

So tell us about the at-risk young people you mentor through Keystone iron works.

It's quite, you know you'd think maybe you'd want them to draw things, but you take them into the floor and they're working with molten iron.

- They are, I mean, I think, you know we've always from the beginning said that what Keystone I our work as teaches is how to be a citizen, right?

It's casting the future.

And this idea that you come into the classroom and you from whatever your circumstances are, right?

And you're intimidated by the tools and the machinery and the process.

And for that first day you get to do something with your own hands but then the next day you need the hands of the person next to you to get the task done.

And then as you do that process you need another pair of hands.

So you're learning how to work as a team.

You're learning how to respect the person next to you how to engage with that person and support them.

And then, you know, slowly by the time we get them to the casting for they've formed bonds of trust together, and they've started to recognize what their personal skill set is.

And they've started to actually, you know master some skills and start to be like, hey I can use that drill.

I'm not afraid of that big mueller like, I packed 300 pounds of sand today.

Look, I lifted that up, you know and those kinds of problem solving and skill sharing and community building things that are embedded in a group activity like a dangerous group activity like iron casting are the things that will grow those students into better people.

- Well, I know Nikki, and we thank you for that.

We know that you worked with a recent group about the meaning of public monuments and the talk in society that's been going on about that.

And that's something you writer Marjorie Maddox have done during the pandemic in a poem type of Liberty and quarantine virtual tour May, 2020.

In the poem scales in her, imagine all 300 five feet of the statue of liberty touting ultimate freedom at the tip top of the world on fire to breathe free.

Marjorie is a professor of English and creative writing at Lock Haven University and an award winning writer with 11 collections of poetry to her credit, three about baseball.

And we might chalk up the choice of subject matter to the fact that she lives with her family and Williams Ford home of the little league world series and its founding but major league baseball has been important in her life.

And the American ideals that we'll hear about have shaped her experience of the game.

So we welcome you Marjorie.

And we know that you were able to read your poetry at the national baseball hall of fame in Cooperstown in 1997.

What was the event and what was the impact for you?

- Well, that was really exhilarating.

I went because it was the 50th anniversary of the breaking of the color barrier for Jackie Robinson to be let into the major leagues.

And my great grand uncle is Branch Ricky who helped with that and was a good friend.

And this is a Branch Rickey, the third, his grandson.

But when I went in 1997, I had a three month old baby and my husband and I arrived.

I was reading from some of my baseball poems and I was one of the few women there actually pushing a stroller at the same time.

So that was really fun.

And one of the most exciting parts of it was I got to meet Rachel Robinson who just is one of my heroes and one of my idols.

And so that was just really kind of a dream come to true, to talk to her for a moment.

I also got to serve as the visiting author at the little league world series two years in a row.

And that was amazing meeting players from all over the world.

- Well, you have a little lovely poem titled sweet spot.

And I wonder if you have it there and whether you could read it for us.

- I do, so this is from rules of the game baseball poems.

And as you said, just a short little poem.

The sweet spot knows no sting, sings it's center of percussion six inches from the sticks end resonating energy it sounds the cosmic note before you can listen, the ball is gone.

- It sounds like we were thinking about Sherrie on top of the volcano in the groove.

What state of being are you describing there?

Is it something like writing and when you get it right.

- You know, I think it's exactly like writing and like art, like music.

You're looking for that place where everything kind of comes together everything works and it takes a lot of experimentation right?

It's, you know, give and take it's a process of discovery, but just like when things click in sports and you hit the ball in exactly the right place, you know, sometimes that happens with the poem and with a story and you wanna achieve that.

So it's again, a very exciting moment when that occurs.

- You didn't need to ask permission of anybody to write about baseball or body parts but is there a person or a writer who said, yeah maybe I can range in all those directions.

- Well, one of the quotes that I love about poetry is by Marianne Moore.

And she talks about poetry being like imaginary gardens with real toads in them.

And that you have to become like a literalist of the imagination.

And everything can be about every subject can be written.

When you're talking about poetry or fiction there's nothing that's off limits.

And so I love that idea.

- What do you do to mentor young writers who may not have been as brave as you were?

- I'm not sure if I'm always brave but you know it's easier to be brave, I think on the page because you can take those risks.

You can, fool around with words you can play with words.

And that's what I really try to encourage my students to do.

Sometimes I tell them, you know the idea might come through the front door, you know exactly what you wanna write about but sometimes it comes the back door.

There's a line that plays over in your head or an image that you see, or you overhear a conversation and that starts generating some ideas.

And you're kind of, you know, starting to write in the back of your head before it kind of comes out through the arm or through the ink.

- Well, let me just ask you a quick question about all those hearts that you have in your poems.

You have your dear dad's transplant, heart transplant.

You have the wonderful stone broken stones that you're reacting to in your collection.

You're not sentimental in any way.

You're, an incarnational writer, right?

Tell us about the body's important.

- I'm very interested in the intersection of the body and the spirit.

And as you mentioned I had this whole series of body part poems.

I carried around Grey's anatomy one summer and wrote about kidneys and spleens and big toes and elbows.

But a lot of that came about because of my father's unsuccessful heart transplant.

And so I was very intrigued by just the ways that the body works and the idea of the transformation that occurs as you're thinking about the body, as you're thinking about the spirit, as you're writing and discovering the world inside and outside of you.

- Well, we can't thank you enough and thanks for reading the poem, but it's fascinating to see that you've written a poem titled my mother gives me a tape of my father's dance band.

Your father was a bandleader Sherrie.

You write a feeling his beat in the canal of your ear in the curving aorta, pumping in your veins.

You say joy cracks his rhythm in notes too strong to keep him in the grave.

So there's that life force thing that we keep talking about.

We wanna talk with you about the power of music, Sherrie Maricle, you're an award winning musician a band leader, three ensembles, diva jazz, orchestra your quintet five play your dear to your heart group three divas, which you co-leader.

So you have a sense when you tell us that you were young and you were in an auditorium at the back of the hall and Buddy Rich was there with his fiery group that was called the killer force orchestra.

And that changed your life.

You knew that's what you wanted to do but you really didn't know what jazz was.

What was that moment?

- Well, I just wanna take one second and say Nikki and Marjorie.

You're so awesome.

I just love listening to everything you've had to say.

I think there's such a thread between what we're doing creatively it's really inspirational.

So thank you for sharing all that you do.

It's really wonderful to hear and Erika for having me so, okay.

So this is and I feel, I tell the story so many times and it's like it was yesterday.

A teacher took me to see Buddy Rich's killer for us.

As Erika mentioned at the forum in Binghamton to New York I grew up in a small town called Endicott New York.

It's right on the Pennsylvania border.

And I was up there in the balcony.

The band came out and hit the first note and every hair on my body stood on end everything bristled up the back of my neck.

I felt that moment, like right when you're on the tip top of the rollercoaster and it's just starts to roll.

And that adrenaline surge that makes your stomach in your shoot up into your neck.

Whenever your adrenaline surges feel like.

And I was just like riveted like this at the edge of the stage.

And I ran home and I told my mother, mom I don't know what this is.

I was 11 I didn't hear any jazz growing up.

I grew up with country Western music and Irish folk music.

My mother did play music every single day of our lives.

Like every morning we woke up to one either country or Irish music.

So I didn't know what jazz was.

And I really just said, mom, I have to be a drummer.

I don't know what this music is, but I love it so much.

I don't know why I feel like the music chose me.

I definitely did not choose it.

And I think that's a thread through all artists too.

Creative artists any form of creative expression Your first motivating factor is because you do it because you love it and you can't not do it.

And that's one that's one of the keys to being successful as an artist in your career you really have to love it.

My mentor Stanley Kay who's right behind me.

I'm gonna point with my drum stick.

He's right there.

The great Stanley Kay.

He was manager of the Buddy rich band which to me is like full circle because Buddy's the reason I played the drums.

He used to say, you have to love it.

He said, if you like it, don't do it.

The career it's going back to the roller coaster you know, freelance, creative arts, like the, you know it's a roller coaster of a profession for sure.

But that motivation and when Nikki was talking about permission before I kept thinking, and it's so that's the self-drive and motivation.

Like I remember like not just I felt like this like a horse with blinders, like I'm doing this.

I didn't matter to me what was happening or what anyone said to me, especially when I was very young.

I was very, very driven by it.

And I just, I loved it so much.

And all those things you mentioned of the beginning of the show where two people did say insane things to me but it was water or water off a duck's back.

I'm like, you know, that's stupid.

I can't even listen to that.

So don't feel like I paid attention to it as I've gotten older and I've had my big band now for 28 years.

And I'm working with younger women and mentoring now.

especially since the me too movement probably.

I've changed a little bit in my thinking in this regard and have been made aware of many many things that I probably I didn't like about when I was young because I was just so passionate driven about the instrument and the music.

- Well, I was just gonna ask you about if you have a band that's 28 years how do you talk, heard about Nikki saying that the women working together she knows it's going to be a good day when she goes out on the iron floor and you and your band do you have a style that you feel is how do you explain that you're 28 years and you make just terrific music.

What does it have to do with the sense of respecting the artists in a way that some other bands might not?

- I missed actually, Nikki, sorry I keep stealing all your things that you said but when you were talking about the party and how the chip bowl is empty and the men who stare at it, I agree with you.

I've had that experience so many times and the 28 years and all, you know, dozens and dozens if not hundreds of women that have passed through my band it's yes, you get things done.

We're gonna do this when you're together and everybody's wildly supportive of each other and we're not onstage in competition with each other we're on stage saying, I'm so lucky to make music with you because it's in the very truest sense.

No matter if it's my 15 piece band or three the sum of our parts is far greater than anything we're doing individually.

That support, that support system and also trust, which I know Nikki also mentioned.

The trust level of you trust that your people you're creating with jazz is wildly spontaneous.

Every time you hear it live, it's completely different if you're doing it right because improvisation is central to jazz music.

So that's requires a lot of trust as well.

You know, interestingly, when we first formed the band and it was actually formed in June of 92 most of the women, including myself were very used to being the only woman in a band, you know, in our whole careers.

So when we were all together in this one space, we weren't unique anymore.

We weren't, oh there's that great woman lead trumpet player.

There's that woman that plays the trombone.

It was like we were all.

And I think some of the band members had a problem with the inhaler.

Had to do some ego adjustments 'cause we were singled out as being special, you know and we weren't special anymore.

We were just musicians in a room trying to create something great together.

And it did take it took a minute to find that balance between all of us and all our previous experiences.

Prior to that, I don't think in Nikki or Marjorie if maybe you didn't experience anything like this what I'm gonna say but a lot of times prior to Stanley forming diva, a lot of our experiences were mostly to do with what we looked like and little to do with how we played our instruments.

Or how creative we were literally ads in downbeat and billboard magazine would say show us a picture of your legs.

And you know, we were playing in Lake Tahoe one time with a great singer Joe Williams and one of the producers said, Oh, in the third step maybe you could consider including sub topless and Stanley and I looked at him speechless.

We're like, are you insane?

What, like a concert, jazz orchestra.

I mean, would you say that to count Basie or Buddy Rich you know, take your top off that that really happened.

It's so simple and so stupid.

You think it's a joke and you just can't believe it.

That's something come out of people's mouths.

- Well, thank you for that.

You leave us laughing and it's a wonderful, thank you Nikki Moser, Marjorie Maddox, and sharing our article.

And thank you for watching.

For information there are links on our website wvia.org/keystone, go to their websites so you can watch this episode any previous episodes on demand any time.

Thank you.