AOTA-240830 - Rick DellaRatta, Laurie Renee Moore, NW Indiana Superstar

The transcription is about the Out of the Air show, featuring jazz artist Rick Della Ratta and emerging artist Lori Renee Moore. It also highlights the NWI Superstar Singing Competition, which supports the Wounded Warrior Project. The competition is in its fourth season and aims to give back to the veteran community. The competition involves auditions and a seven-week process to select winners who receive cash prizes. The judging criteria include vocal ability, song choice, and stage presence. The competition's website and social media pages provide more information and ticket prices range from $0 to $10. The grand finale will be held on September 27th at Geno's in Hobart. This week on Out of the Air features acclaimed jazz artist from New York City, Rick Della Ratta, who founded Jazz for Peace after witnessing firsthand the events of 9-11 from a nearby rooftop. Next, self-taught emerging artist Lori Renee Moore, who specializes in painting with an aim towards realism. Our spotlights in the fourth annual NWI Superstar Singing Competition that supports the Wounded Warrior Project. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, out on the air today. They're in the know with Mary and Esther, out on the air our way. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Express yourself who you are, and show the world your heart. Welcome, you're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, WVLP 103.1 FM, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. I'm Larry Breckner of New Perspective Photography, right alongside here with Esther Golden of the Nest in Michigan City. Aloha, everyone. We're your hosts for Art on the Air. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art on the Air is heard every Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Also heard on Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP 103.1 FM streaming live at wvlp.org. Our spotlight interviews are also heard Wednesdays on Lakeshore Public Media. Information about Art on the Air is available at our website, breck.com slash A-O-T-A. That includes a complete show archive, spotlight interviews, plus our show is available on multiple podcast platforms, including NPR One. Please like us on Facebook, Art on the Air WVLP, for information about upcoming shows and interviews. We'd like to welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight. He's got a program going on that's called the NWI Superstar, and it's going to be September 27th. It's an ongoing contribution. You can also, if you're interested, by August 30th, you can be a sponsor of this program. Robert Head, who is the Executive Director of the NWI Superstar, starting their fourth season. Welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Hello. Welcome. Well, we want you to tell a little bit about your background and how it led to you establishing NWI Superstar. Great. Well, I'm a veteran. I served in the Navy from 2004 until 2012, and I moved to the Northwest Indiana area a few years back, got together with a few people, one of them, George Atkins, Robert Bender out of Fortage, and Ray out of Hobart, and we came together and put this karaoke competition together, kind of willy-nilly. But it was put together because during the pandemic, a lot of venues didn't have a lot of people getting together. A lot of people weren't able to sing karaoke. As you know, before the pandemic, everybody was getting together, doing things, but right around the time of the pandemic, things just kind of came to a shutdown, and we found that it hurt a lot of veterans, too, because there wasn't any interaction. So after the pandemic started clearing up a little bit, we started to get together, wanted a way for the community to get involved, wanted music to be kind of the centerfold of it, and then wanted a way to give back to the veteran community. So that's how we got started. Well, thank you for your service, first of all. Yeah. I appreciate it. Do you choose different charities that support veterans each year? Is there a different charity, or is it just the Wounded Warriors every time? Yeah. So we work with the VFW here in Lake Station. We work with the Wounded Warriors program. We're looking for other veteran organizations that need the help, especially like in Gary, where there's a veteran village where veterans can go if they're homeless. But it's mostly for veterans at this point. We have another division of NWI Superstar, which is for the minis, and that focuses more sports like childcare, things like the Boys and Girls Club, things like that. But we did do a Boys and Girls Club last year since they were one of our partners and our sponsors. But we are kind of deviating from that at this point and just focusing on veteran organizations in the community for the adults, and then like Boys and Girls Club for the minis. So you're now in your fourth season. Can you tell us a little bit about what the actual competition is about the Superstar competition? Eligibility, things like that, who's participating, and how it works? Yeah. So people from all over Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana region audition. They audition from around May time frame until the end of July, and then they audition for about two, three weeks. Then the show actually is a seven-week process. So we go from 50 contestants down to 25, and then those 25 contestants compete for six weeks until the grand finale, which is actually coming up September 27th. And then the top winner is chosen, second place is chosen, and then they're all divided into little teams. So even the first place team wins, too, and then they get to kind of showcase themselves every summer. So if you look at the calendar around July 27th and 28th, we usually have a concert that's held in Lake Station, Riverview Park, and they get to showcase their talents on a stage with a live band. It's really pretty awesome. And what prizes do you have for the winners? Well, everybody gets a prize, which is really great. So if you're an audience member, you get door prizes. So you get a ticket when you come in. They give out TVs and cell phone cases. Different vendors and different sponsors in the community give out free meals. So you're getting to participate that way, and then if you're an actual contestant, you're getting your first place grand prize, which is $5,000, second place, which is $1,000, and then a team prize, which is $500. And who does the judging? Yeah, so local either artists or local instructors who do vocal coaching or teaching at local schools, they usually do the coaching and the judging. In addition to that, every audience member gets a vote while they're at the facility. So every week they vote for the person they really want to stay on board, that they really thought was like really inspirational, and so those votes also get taken into account. So it's very much community engagement, community involvement, not just like, hey, we're in front of a panel and then we get to meet these people. Doing this like once a year sounds like, and you're talking about the mini, it's been everything. Is that something that you might expand to maybe like a twice a year type thing? No, we're pretty much set with the one year thing. It's a big production. So until things kind of change, we definitely want to stay one year at a time. What are the criteria that your judges use for your various contestants? Yeah, so they check vocal ability, make sure that the contestant can actually sing, what kind of songs they choose, stage presence, how they interact with the audience. We originally started out with just karaoke, but it's kind of shifted into a singing competition where they're actually performing, using sounds, going on stage, meeting the audience member, those kind of things. Well, we're almost about in our last minute here, so I want you to have a chance to tell people how they can find you online, show dates again, costs, if there is any, all those types of details. Yeah, so you can find us online at nwisuperstar.com, or you can check out any of our social links at NWISuperstar, whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We start running anywhere from $10 all the way down to $0 if you're a veteran, things like that. You can find us on Eventbrite as well, looking up at NWISuperstar, and we're running from August 16th all the way through September 27th. And September 27th is like your grand finale then, correct? That is correct, yep. Very good. Well, we appreciate you coming on our air, that's Robert Head, the Executive Director of NWISuperstar, and on September 27th, Geno's in Hobart is where the final performance will be. And if you're in before August 30th, you can also be a sponsor of this wonderful project. Robert, thank you so much for coming on Art on the Air and NWISuperstar. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, Robert. Art on the Air Spotlight and the complete one-hour program on Lakeshore Public Media is brought to you by McCauley Real Estate in Valparaiso, Oval Patrician Senior Broker. Hey, this is Bela Fleck, and you're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, and on WVLP, 103.1 FM. We would like to welcome Rick Della Rocca to Art on the Air. Rick is a singer-pianist, author, visionary, and innovator. It is his lifelong endeavor to help advance people to their highest potential through the understanding of jazz, as well as spreading peace worldwide through his Jazz for Peace world tour. Jazz for Peace was inspired by a poem he wrote from the rooftop of his home in New York, a quarter mile away from the World Trade Center towers on 9-11. He didn't realize at the time that Jazz for Peace would become a worldwide movement promoting peace through jazz. He also has a book, Paving the Path for Peace Through Music. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Rick. Very nice meeting you. It's a pleasure. Thank you guys so much. So glad to be with you guys today. Well, Rick, we appreciate you coming on our show and sharing your story, but we're also interested in your background. I always call it your origin story, and I always say, how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us all about yourself. Well, I was born into a musical family, actually, at least as far back as my grandfather, who he asked me to go back, so I'll go way back. Actually, I can go all the way back to Spain, because I used to play, when I started playing live jazz gigs, people thought I was Spanish. And I said, no, no, no, I'm so sorry, I'll keep correcting them. And then some relatives in Italy that I never met are jazz buffs, and they heard about me, and they're like, we can't believe you're related to us, and blah, blah, blah. And then they came over, one of them came over here and told me that we really came from Spain. We were aristocrats. The Dolorado family was aristocrats in Spain, like big kings or queens or whatever. And then in those days, they overthrow you. And you don't run for re-election four years later, or even eight years later, you get out of the country. You've got to get out of town. So they all just packed up with their gold or whatever they had and rushed off and founded a city called Caserta near Naples, Italy. Somewhere along that lineage came my grandfather, who was a great accordionist, and he came over here with nothing but an accordion and a winepress, which is really the two most important things to have if you're ever going to America. And he had them. And so he was the man for Ophuls, you know, he was really a big shot because, like I said, he had that winepress. He also was an incredible accordionist, and he used to play in the bootleg era, and they used to pick him up in a Bentley, and then in the back of that would be tied to a trailer with all the bootleg alcohol, blah, blah, blah. And there's all these stories that, you know, when Topone used to come over, he'd always request my grandfather, he was his favorite musician, all kinds of stories like that. I can't verify any of them, but I can tell you that I did hear my grandfather play many times, and he was phenomenal. There's a crazy story about a real famous musician in the upstate New York era who got Alzheimer's, and one day his whole family was sitting around—hopefully I'll get to me at some point, but anyway—his whole family sitting around in a circle, nobody can recognize him. I mean, he can't recognize any of them. So he doesn't recognize his wife, his kids, he can't recognize anybody. And all of a sudden he stands up and he goes on this big oratory about my grandfather. Peter Delaware was the greatest musician, and all the stuff he could play, anything he could play by ear, he could do, blah, blah, blah, blah, on and on about my grandfather as if, you know, as if he never—as if he had every brain cell in them some. And then he sat back down in the chair and didn't recognize anybody. They thought they had him back, you know? But then after the big thing about my grandfather, back to not recognizing his own daughter. So it was just stuff like that, but my grandfather was kind of an idol and really laid a foundation for me to feel like, wow, you know, if he could do all that, maybe I could play a couple of tunes here and, you know, get a, you know, whatever, buy a cup of coffee or something. But I started studying on a piano that was brought in to my house on Christmas. So I thought that was Santa Claus-related, and I figured I'd better figure out what that is, because, you know, obviously couldn't get it through the chimney, must have been a lot of work. So I started doing that, and then I got caught, because I was secretly trying to learn the piano on my own, and then I ended up in a situation with a piano teacher. So now I had my own improvisatory stuff to try to figure out the piano by myself, lumped with all this classical music, which was—I could tell was amazing. But then I also had the music going on in the kids in the school, and I liked all the same music as, you know, the other kids. So I had a lot of music, you know, in a short amount of time, and one thing just led to another. I did have another job. I was a paperboy at about 13 years old, and, you know, that was going pretty smoothly until my homeroom teacher wanted me to play in his son's rock band that played the school dances. Then there was a grown-up band that promised my mother they were going to sneak me in and out of the clubs and whatever, these private parties, and they promised that they'd pick me up, drive me back, make sure that I was, you know, you know what I mean? Make sure I was safe and all that stuff. And then my mother really put, you know, just last straw in the camel or what they call it when she dumped the church organist job on me, and that was pretty much the end of my non-music career. So that paperboy was kind of a one-shot deal, but I had to give up the route. I only got up to 13, oh my God. So then I ended up, I did end up going to music school. I never really thought of being anything else, you know, other than a paperboy. So I, you know, I've done music all the way through. I did go to New England Conservatory, and I went there because I thought I could study all kinds of music. They were very specialized, but they had everything there. So after dealing with the dean and some people there, I kind of got the message that, look, you can learn as much as you want in our school, as long as you don't screw up our matriculation program so all the other students don't come and, you know, try to learn everything, because we need people in specific categories to matriculate them through the program, you know, so we stay in business. So I did. I learned a lot of jazz, Jackie Byers, people like that. I was a great scene in Boston at that time, I don't know about still, but definitely then. You can play all kinds of gigs and all kinds of bands and all that. And then, of course, they had a great classical program, which I was, you know, drawn to as well. So I had a very well-rounded thing when I got out of New England Conservatory. I was making a living already as a musician, you know, paying my bills. So I thought, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I stayed in Boston as long as I could. And then I came down to visit a friend who said, hey, why don't you just come down, check it out in New York, you know. And someone recognized me on the street and just approached me and said, you know, hey, what are you doing? I was just here for a few days. Oh, what are you doing? Well, we're looking for a piano player who has original music, you know, I'm like, okay, so you're like looking for me or something, you know. So then they, the next thing they're like, can you move down here? And I was like, I really, I have a cheap place up there, I'm making a living, but maybe someday. What if we found you a place? So it was one of these kind of deals. So they found me a place in Jersey City, and I knew I had to make the move anyway, kind of a rite of passage at that time. So I went to, I went to Jersey City, but you know, that's just a tap train from New York. And then some other guy that wanted me to play in his band, and he had a Red Patrol apartment on Central Park West, not Central Park West, not a really great, people think it's a really nice neighborhood. But at that time, it was not the greatest neighborhood, but it was Central Park West. I was in the city, I was by the park. So one thing just led to another. And man, I mean, you don't have time for the whole story. But where should I go from here? I mean, I couldn't go up to 2000 when I founded Jazz for Peace. And the only reason I did that was because I happened to witness the events from the rooftop of a building on the Lower East Side, less than a quarter of a mile away. And words came out in the form of a poem, which I called Jazz for Peace. So my life since 2000, since September 11, 2001, my life has basically consisted of trying to live up the words of a poem. So can you read the poem for us? Well, what I usually do is, I mean, I have something else playing musically, but I usually recite it with a little bit of free improvisation underneath it. Would you like to hear that? Let's do that. Yes, please. Okay. I hear jazz for peace coming through the trees, and in my heart it fills me like a celebration. I see the lights, and I want to follow, inspire by the past contributions of those that came before. Lay the groundwork for us to build on, in its universal language, that it's the gift of all mankind. An intelligence that leads to reaching potential that we have in our souls. So we can raise our total conscience and say that the gift of giving is our greatest privilege. I hear jazz for peace. Thank you. That's Rick Della Rata's Jazz for Peace, inspired by, I don't know if inspired is the correct word, but the events on 9-11. Giving birth, you could say, kind of like your waterfall. This is true, yes. And so that poem, and now the movement that it grew from, let's explore that. I mean, you're already gigging in New York, and maybe you touch on that, but then jazz for peace. How'd that come and be, and then what's its purpose? Well, you know, one good thing I had going for me was by that time, I was gigging in New York and around the world with some of the greatest jazz musicians ever. I mean, my CDs had come out, and I was touring. So the very first jazz for peace event had myself, Eddie Gomez on bass, Lenny White on drums, and Paquito G. Rivera on saxophone. It was my own quartet. And I was going places with my own quartet of people like Sonny Fortune, as a sideman in my band, and Victor Lewis and people like that. Sometimes I'd get off a plane, all the people would recognize my sideman. You could hardly know who I was. But because of that momentum, you know, when 9-11 did hit, I was in a very interesting situation as a poet, who only wrote one poem. So I'm sitting here with a poem. I don't know what to do with this thing, but I know it was on 9-11, and it came out of me, who I don't consider myself a poet, even though I am a lyricist, but there must be some significance to this, because, you know, I mean, it's all, you know, all these things happen. So what am I going to do? So I thought, well, I'll read the poem. So when it opened up again, you know, when the country opened, I happened to have a headliner gig at the Savannah Jazz Festival. And I said, how many people are going to be there? They said 8,500 people. They're all going to be at your thing, because you're the headliner for this festival. So I said, wow, you know, I'm feeling sorry for Edgar Allen Poe, but, you know, I'm going to read a poem for 8,500 people, and this poor guy, you know what I mean, one of the greatest poets of all time, and I don't know if he ever, even his mother listened to his poems, you know. So anyway, here I was, and I did read the poem, and it affected a lot of people, you know. I mean, even the sidemen had no idea I wrote a poem. So they were just like, oh, my God, what was that that you just did on the stage? And everybody was, you know, in tears and emotional. And then it worked its way north, you know. I mean, Sherman marched south, but this poem marched north, you know. And by the time I got back, I was getting calls, you know, hey, what's this poem, what did you do down there? What's going on here? And then they said, are you going to do that for our concert? And that concert, the thing I had in Georgia was a trio, just me, Eddie Gomez, and Lenny White, and I was picking up a quartet with Pequito de Rivera at that next one. And I said, I guess, they said, are you going to put some music? I said, I guess so, I don't know, maybe, yeah. So I figured I better do that. So I did that, and I started the concert with that, just to get that out of the way. But then when the press came out, it was all, Telarona starts out concert with Jazz for Peace, and all, you know. So, you know, what am I going to do next was always the question. And I started doing little concerts around New York. And then I told my manager, listen, you know, while you're a little breaking the action here and there, why don't you just call over to that United Nations over there, you know, right across the street here on 50th, right down the street, really across the island. We walk straight across, we have the United Nations. Call them up and just see what they say about the idea. Tell them who I am, tell them, you know, give them information on me, and just say he wants to bring a multicultural band in there and do, you know. So she just, you know, mucked around and messed around with it every now and then. I said, listen, there's no pressure, just see, just, you know. And then almost a year later, she briefed me about a couple of things I had coming up with different people. And she says, you know, by the way, that United Nations thinks they want to do that. So I was like, I thought it was a big deal, but that's just me. I'm only the piano player. And, you know, I said, listen, here's the thing. It's a multicultural band, but you've got to have one Israeli person and you've got to have one Palestinian person. And I said, I don't care if the other guy is from Tuscaloosa, Oklahoma, I don't care where they're from. Just these two guys you got to have, and whoever else, you know, put it, just whatever they're from is fine. I mean, there was, I think the drummer was from Europe or whatever. But I did have Israeli-Palestinian and, you know, it was going along with something I've been telling people, which was that I play, you know, I run around all over the place in New York playing jam sessions and playing with people and just, you know, just whatever is going on. And I would find myself with Israeli and Palestinian people in the same room playing jazz because they come over here to study jazz. And I would tell people, you know, and they were like shocked. Like, I thought there's supposed to be a war over there. And I said, I don't know what to tell you. And I said, I know if I have a gig, there wouldn't be any problem. So we did this thing at the United Nations. I thought it was a big thing, but it took many years for people to think what I thought. But they started thinking it, you know. One time I played in Chicago and I got this letter from Barack Obama and he talked about that United Nations event, you know. And I mean, on and on. I mean, people, in other words, people started like referring to that United Nations event and how, what they thought of it. But like I said, it wasn't the next day, you know. In fact, it wasn't even that day because we sent out a lot of press releases. I don't know where CNN was on that day, but they just, you know, I guess they had something to do, they had a double book or something. What does Jazz for Peace do now? Tell us about that because you can go to the website and find out a lot about it. But just tell our audience briefly. There are grants available. Yes, absolutely. You know what I'd really like to do, and of course everyone thought I was crazy back in 2002 when I said we should work on this Palestinian-Israeli thing now, like 2002, you know. Of course I was crazy back then, so I'm going to say something so crazy now. But I don't know about 20 years from now, and I hope we don't wait 20 years to consider this idea. I would like the world, and I mean the whole world, and I'm telling everybody, I would like to go from 0 to 1. I would like to go from 0 funding for peace, 0%, and 100% funding for war. And no one's arguing, but you see it in these announcements. 30 billion, Ukraine, 30 billion. I want to go, I want to take it down just a little peg here. I'm going to go down from 100, I'm so sorry, 99% funding for war. We'll still be at 99, okay? You can still go wacky, drop all these bombs. But I want to go 1% funding for peace and just see what happens. Because look at all the jobs for peace that's done with zero. And I'm telling you, it would change the world for the better if we could fund peace at 1%. And so that's how they do it. So they can apply for grants. How do they do that with your organization? It's real easy. So to apply for a grant, a great idea to do, you know, I'm considered an entrepreneur now. So there's a website called EnterpriseZone.cc. I don't know where the cc comes from, but it's called EnterpriseZone.cc. And they have these little things, they ask, you know, Richard Franks or this one, that one. They ask them for 100-word answers to questions. And if you go there, you'll see a question that says, what kind of organization would you fund, you know, or what kind of organization do you want to put your, you know, everything behind? And in 100 words, I answer, an organization that follows our easy steps to confirm, you know, for success. And so you can go there, read a couple of those, send me an email, send us an email, of course, info at jazzforpeace.org, and you are in the driver's seat because we've helped over 850 of the world's most outstanding causes. And if you have the will, Jazz for Peace has the way. We'll take you through those easy steps that you see on that website in that little 100-word answer. We'll take you through those steps, and you'll be like, you'll be just as good as these 850 that have already received this offer. Tell us about what's down the road for us. You know, this airs at the 1st of September, end of August. But what do you have performance-wise for Jazz for Peace coming up in the rest of the year? Well, I'm trying to just, right now, I'm just trying to keep up with this massive flood of interest in this world, this cyber world. You know, I have, wow. See, I spent a lot of time trying to free Julian Assange. So I did about 150 performances online, a few of them in places like Nigeria and New York, et cetera. But now that Assange has been freed, and now that people are catching up to, you know, there's just a tremendous, you know, and so I'm using that to do little things like I did to you, where I tell the story and play these little things. And I don't know, I'm flooded with these interview requests. So once I get past that, hopefully we'll, you know, it'll get back to some kind of a normalcy or something like that. Or maybe this is the new norm. I don't know. But we do have the new book. So the new book, I really advise, it's called Paving the Path for Peace Through Music, The Amazing Story of Rick Dollarod and Jazz for Peace. Now, get this book because we can really help you with our foundation. If you have this book, because there's all kinds of little things in it to help fund you once we get rolling with you, help raise as much funds for you as possible. And they find the book, your website? Amazon. Oh, it's on Amazon. Yeah, it's on Amazon, Paving the Path for Peace Through Music. And you can just get it right off Amazon. And if people want to find out more about you in our last minute here, and then maybe you can even play us out a little bit when we do that, but in our last minute, tell us how people can find you online, Jazz for Peace, and more about you. Sure. So jazzforpeace.org is our website. Rickdollorod.com is me. If you type in Rick Dollarod, a famous quote, that would be a cool thing to do. And I'm going to play you out with something called The Island. It's by a Brazilian person named Ivan Lenz. And I finally get to get some mileage out of this island shirt that I wore for the occasion. Well, let me do the thank you here. Thank you, Rick Delgado, for coming on Art in the Air and sharing your Jazz for Peace journey. Appreciate you coming on the show, and he's going to play us out. Yeah, thank you, Rick. Be with your kisses. Find the secret places. Touch me till I drown. Free my wings for a flying hand. Catch me while I'm falling. Keep your arms around me. Like there's no tomorrow. Let me know you love me. On our little island. Not a soul can see us. Show me how to love you. Teach me how to please you. You lay your dreams beside me. Only stars will listen. To your cries and whispers. You were made to love me. I was made to love you. Keep your arms around me. Lose yourself inside me. Make it last forever. I can see the island. Shining in the distance now. We're getting closer. Keep your arms around me. Feel our love. We're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Love, we're almost there. Welcome Lori Renee Moore to Art on the Air. Lori is an award-winning emerging artist specializing in painting with an aim towards realism. She is a self-taught artist with a commitment to composition, consistency, and accuracy. Her artistic vision merges the analytical left brain endeavoring to captivate the viewer not merely with the scene itself but through her distinctive representation of it. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Lori. Really nice meeting you. Thank you so much, Esther and Larry. I'm very excited to be talking with you guys today, too. Well, we're very happy to have you on. I'm glad to meet you at the Art Barn and we were both exhibiting there. And our audience wants to know a little bit about you, your whole background, your, what I call, origin story. So I say it like how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us all about Lori. Okay. Well, I kind of took the long way around but finally ended up here in the art. I think I've always had the art in me and calling to me. But I think that I was, through growing up, you take different paths to find your way in life. And I wore a lot of different hats before I got to where I am now. Grew up in a lower socioeconomic family in Waco, Texas and lived there the first 18 years of my life. I have an older sister and a younger brother. Went to a small school, but it was a good school. And always just the weird kid and out of place. That hasn't really changed too much. I don't know if I'll outgrow that one. You really want to? You know, I'm starting to get more comfortable with being who I am. Because if I was like everyone else, I wouldn't be who I am, you know? Right. And you wouldn't have the vision to paint the way you paint. No, I would just be another regular person. And I think you can't have it all. So there's plenty of things I lack. But I'm very good at this and I'm grateful for that. Well, maybe jumping ahead, but did you have any arts experiences in school and such? And then jumping ahead to your Navy career. Okay. So I think that I was always a little bit better at some of the art stuff that we did in classes as a child and growing up. But it wasn't until I was in high school and took an art class that I had so much more focused time. And my brain was probably just more ready for it and made some really impressive strides as far as my abilities and skill honing. And that's when I was like, oh, I have something here, you know? In what areas? In what areas in high school? So we just had like a general sort of art class because I went to a small school. We didn't have a big budget for a bunch of different things. We didn't have like pottery studios or anything like that. It was just kind of general. And I remember I did a portrait pencil drawing of Princess Diana. And that was really like a mark point for me where I'm like, oh, this is something that I can do. And then somebody asked me, they saw that I was good at stuff and they were like, how do you paint smoke? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, let me teach myself and then I'll teach you. That's just kind of what I do. I like look at something and I'm like, I want to do that. And then I just teach myself how to do it. So I painted this picture of Bob Marley and I actually still have it. And still really good for a first. It's nothing like what I can do now, but like I'm happy with it. And yeah, I took many years off not painting anything because I ran away and joined the circus, a.k.a. the U.S. Navy. I moved away from home at 18 when I joined the Navy and I was an information systems technician. So I was in IT. So I worked on computers and printers and programmed radio stations and worked with satellites for telecommunications between our ship and other ships at sea or the shore. So how did you choose the Navy? Is it a family sort of branch? Well, my dad was in the Army and actually he's in the Army National Guard right now. So I guess he's still in the Army. But he was always encouraging me to join the military and I was like, gosh, whatever, I'm not going to do that. I went to community college and before my first semester of college was over, I had already changed gears and decided to join the Navy. They were at one of those things where they have a big room and there's a bunch of tables and different colleges sit at all the different tables so you can figure out where you want to transfer to and the Navy was there. And they seemed to be the only ones not trying to call me over and so that intrigued me. So I went to them and just saw what they were about. I think my curiosity kind of kept pulling me at it. I actually did not tell anybody that I had enlisted until I had already done it because I just didn't want anyone's opinions to influence my decision because it was such a big decision. Yeah, I've seen one of your works. You actually have a picture. I'm guessing it's either a destroyer or a frigate in one of the works you have. Yeah, that's actually the ship I served on. That's a guided missile destroyer from the Arleigh Burke class. So the Navy, they don't have battleships anymore. You know, when you think of the battleship games, they don't have battleships now. It's more like the modern day battleship. So it's really beefed up with a lot of science stuff, but it's pretty cool. Keep about 300 people on there. So it's kind of like a high school. You lock the doors and you're just in there together for months. You're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM on WVLP 103.1 FM. So were you sketching? Were you sketching this whole time? No. I mean, I really just put it aside for the most part. I maybe drew, painted less than five or six things over multiple years while I was in. I mean, you can't have a studio. You can't set anything up. You barely have a locker for your belongings, you know, and you're moving around. I was still very early in finding myself, and it wasn't something that was at the front of my mind at the time because I was exploring a different past time. And, of course, when you're on a ship like that, isn't it usually 12 on, 12 off? Yes. Yeah. Well, it depends. For the ITs, we did 12-hour shifts. But if you're one of the lucky ones, me, who did 12-hour night shifts, well, they also wanted you to be around to do stuff during the day. So it's like 12 plus this and that. You better be here for this and that. And then they would wake you up in the middle of the day to do fire drills and all sorts of stuff. And, yeah, my sleep cycle has been whacked for sure. So post-Navy, tell us a little bit about that. Where does surgical nursing come in? So coming towards the end of my four years, I was really feeling like 20 years in the military wasn't for me, and I felt pretty strongly about, like, either you do all of it so you can retire or you get out after the first list-ment. I felt like that's, like, the way to maximize what you can get out of the experience. So I decided, I planned my exit, and I had a job lined up to be a tattoo artist in Bryan College Station, where Texas A&M is at. I found a shop. I had researched them and, like, hey, I would like to print this, and I had everything lined up. And my husband at the time was also in the Navy, but he went on deployment and was on deployment for all the time. Like, he went on deployment, like, three days after our son was born and was gone until I had already been out for a few months. We came to Texas, and I was there, and these ended up being not the most trustworthy people I had kind of gotten into bed with, and it wasn't working out. I kind of noticed some money things, brought it up. We needed to split ways. I tried to find a different place to go to in the area, but they called around and told me everything but a white woman, so I couldn't really find a different place. And then my husband was having trouble finding a job when he got back from deployment, so we came up to Indiana to visit his family, which is here. New Paris is where his family is at. We came up to visit since we didn't have anything going on, and then he just never left, so I went home, packed up our whole house, brought it up here, and we had one vehicle at the time, so I'm like, okay, one of us needs to work, so it was going to be him. And I'm like, well, I need to do something, bring in income. I had the post-9-11 GI Bill. So if you go to school full-time, as long as one of your classes is in person, the rest can be online, and you'll get a monthly stipend. So it was like I was going to school became my job, and I'm just like, I look up which associate's degrees are the highest earning. I'm trying to think tactically, like, okay, I've got to provide for my family. How do I do this efficiently, quickly? At first, I was going to be a dental hygienist, and I saw it's not so easy to find a job, and you ended up looking at what other options with what I've already done, and all the credits I had already taken would count towards this degree, so I switched it to nursing, and then after I started on that path, I found out they want you to have a bachelor's. So I'm like, well, I mean, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. So I applied to a bunch of different colleges and ended up choosing to go to Goshen College. That's where I got my bachelor's of science nursing with a minor in art, and during my nursing program there, I just by chance was pulled into a C-section surgery. I was supposed to be on a pediatric rotation, but there were no children there, which is good. No sick kids. That's nice. But since I wasn't doing anything, they're like, hey, there's a C-section. You want to see it? Experience. Come look. So they let me come watch, and I just felt like a light bulb. Like, oh, this is very interesting. It was just like watching something so most people in their life may never see, and new life was happening at the same time. It was just like a lot of things. I was just like, oh, whoa, this is awesome. So I decided I wanted to do, if I'm going to do nursing, I would like to do surgical nursing. So I worked towards that. I got myself an externship, which is like a full-time job between my junior and senior year at Goshen in their surgery. It's kind of wild. I applied for the position, because you have to apply, sent my stuff off like 20 minutes before the deadline on the due date, so I barely got it in on time, and then you had an interview. They only had one spot. Out of all the people that interviewed, they picked me, and they told me because they're like, we see a passion in you. So I was very fortunate. That's actually how I met my husband was during that externship, my current husband, and I was there for a bit, and then I went to, after a while, I moved to Memorial in downtown South Bend and started mainly being neurosurgery. I kind of could do everything, but, like, I was, like, the most passionate about neurosurgery. It's great for me because in surgical nursing, it's more episodic. You have patient, start, finish, done. You know, you only have one patient at a time. Great for my attention span. Also, it's not just all on you. It's not just me and this one patient. There's a surgeon or two. There's an anesthesiologist, so there's at least two doctors in the room. Then there's other staff members around, so you're part of a team with, like, one big goal, and you're working as a team. Like, you're facilitating, like, this whole goal together, and I love it. There's plenty of things about any job that can kind of, like, ruffle your feathers. I didn't leave my job because I hated my job. I walked away from that position to put more focus on my family and what my family needed at the time. And so at that time then, so when is the art introduced in full in your life? Well, COVID. So COVID happens. You're not doing surgeries, nothing elective, because you do a surgery. Somebody has to stay in the hospital after that surgery. Well, there's lots of people in the hospital that need to be there because of COVID, so you can't just be, like, filling it up if it's, like, at max capacity. So a lot of us surgical nurses were furloughed. So I was at home for a bit, and I was able, you know, this art that was in me and tugging at me at the back of my mind this whole time, you know, I finally had a little bit of space in my life to, you know, have an outlet and, you know, just hooped up, and this energy just came out. Like, I made this big portrait painting of Cher. I got to see her perform live the summer before, and she took me, like, three days. I was just drank a lot and danced around and listening to Cher very loudly in my underwear. Got this thing done pretty quickly, I think, in three days, and then it was just like I wanted more and more. Every time I do something in my art, like, I learn something from it, and I get a little bit better with the next one, and it's just, it's, like, become just this addiction. And I think, like, the more I do, the more I can do. So how many paintings am I going to make in a year if I'm creating my time for money as a nurse, you know, working very hard at a very, like, physically and emotionally demanding job, coming home, I have three children. One of them is, you know, not even two yet. That's very physically and emotionally demanding. There's only so much resource of you you have. And so you kind of have to think about it wisely. Like, you know, you only get one kick at the scan. What do you want to do with your life? I want to make more art. So if I can make more of it and sell it, then I can create my paintings for money instead of my time for money, and I can make more paintings. It's true. Now, the Cher picture, I'm looking at your website right now, is the one where she has the feathers and things like that. Is that the one you did? Yeah. And if you get, like, very close to it in person, you can see, like, little individual, like, pieces of the feathers, like, very detailed. Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's amazingly detailed. It's close to photorealistic, and yet it still has an artsy quality to it, like a painting quality. I mean, some of your other work is pretty close to photorealistic also. I mean, the one you have of the guy in the Navy uniform holding the baby, you have the actual photograph you worked from, and then you painted it. And, really, it's pretty close to photorealistic as a painting in how you do that. So tell us a little bit about your process. Do you work from a photo? Like, if someone comes to, like, a commission, obviously, for that, or when you're thinking about something inspirational, how do you – tell us a little bit about your process. I've mostly worked from photographs, but I'm trying to grow past that. The danger in veering away from that is if you're trying to create something with your imagination, to make it look real, there's a lot about the natural world that you have to understand to be able to pull it off. You know, the way light hits and refracts and passes through things and illuminates. So if you can use a photo for the majority of your reference, if you're working towards the goal of realism and being representational, a photo really helps. That picture of the Navy guy with the baby is actually my oldest son, and that's his dad holding him. And I made that for him as a present. There was very few. I actually made it with only red and green, blue, white, black. I didn't even have black, I don't think. And I feel like that really taught me a lot and prepared me for moving into the path that I'm on now. And what is that path you're on now? I'm just always trying to improve wherever I'm at, surveying how I can get to the next step and having big, big dreams and just working towards that big goal, setting my sights high, trying to snowball everything, all of my effort. So what's on your easel right now? A very weird picture of two of my weird friends dressed up for a 90s party. So it's not a commission, but I try to stay busy between commissions. It's pretty great, though. Oh, how fun. And what's some of the other art? I'm scanning through your website, but some of the other things you do besides portraits, you do, well, pets and some of the other non-portrait stuff. Yeah, so representational isn't just about portraits for me. There's a whole gemstone series that I did this year, and just in the past four months I've tried to move into oils out of acrylics, and it's really felt like a leapfrog in my abilities. I'm looking at the disco ball that I just made on the wall out of oils, and it's just a bunch of gemstones up there. It's great. I think I like to look at things and think, how do you do that? And then teach myself how to do that. Yeah. So what is that? What are you doing? Are you reaching toward YouTube and gleaning information from that? Is it just paint on canvas, trying to figure it out? I am a voracious reader. It's good, and also sometimes I call it procrastilearning, just getting to it. I'm like, well, let me just read two more books, you know? So I have this growing library of used books, and my husband's like, are we going to have to get some more bookshelves? When I read forums, sometimes I watch YouTube videos. I'm just constantly trying to learn more about my materials, the materials that are out there, techniques. There's different kinds of techniques. I'm just trying to master my craft. What's your daily process like? Do you have a time you set aside to do painting, or is it just kind of serendipity, like, okay, I'm going to read books, okay, now I'm going to go paint? Do you have a daily schedule for that? Right, and do you have a 2-year-old attached to you during that time? Right. It's very hard with my family needs to find painting, and I beg, borrow, and steal to find time, but I do have kind of a schedule. I get up, baby and I, we go to the gym first thing in the morning. We're there for two hours. I just shower while I'm there, so I'm good to go. Home, snack, I put her down, and, like, her nap time is, like, my protected, like, I'm working. That's my work time for sure, and if I don't get any other time today, I better get that time. So I'll work as long as I can, and then if I can find time and energy later, I will work some more. I try to do as much, make as much progress as I can with the limited time that I have available, so I try to not just waste all my time. I spend all the time that I can't paint thinking about painting. That's what I do. A lot of my reading and daydreaming and writing down ideas in books, and, you know, I've listed lists of paintings that I would love to do, and it's just like hungry for more painting time, but she's only going to be a little for a short amount of time, and it's coming. It's on the horizon. Well, unfortunately, we're going to have to wrap it up here. I want you to be able to share your website or contact information if people want to reach out to you for a portraiture that you may do and everything like that. So if you want to go to my website, it's morethanportraits.com, M-O-O-R-E, like my last name, like that if it's clever. And it's nothing impressive, but it's just like a website you can go to and find some examples of my work and find some links to where else you can find me on the Internet, such as Instagram. It's L-R-M underscore artwork is my handle. And Facebook, not much following there. Most people seem to be on Instagram. And I also have an Etsy, and you can reach that through a link on my website as well. Well, we appreciate you coming on Art of the Year and sharing your art journey. Even though some of it's not artistic, we thank you for your service. That's Lori Renee Moore. She is an ambitious and emerging artist. Thank you so much for sharing your art journey with our audience. Thank you so much for having me. This was great. Yeah, thank you very, very much. We'd like to thank our guests this week on Art of the Year, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. Art of the Year is heard Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Art of the Year is also heard Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP, 103.1 FM, streaming live at wvlp.org. If you have a smart speaker like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri, just tell it to play Art on the Air to hear the latest episode. Our spotlight interviews are heard every Wednesday on Lakeshore Public Media, thanks to Tom Maloney, Vice President of Radio Operation for Lakeshore Public Media, and Greg Kovach, WVLP's Station Manager. Our theme music is by Billy Foster with a vocal by Renee Foster. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. We'd like to thank our current underwriters for Lakeshore Public Media, Macaulay Real Estate and Valparaiso, Olga Patrician, Senior Broker, and for WVLP, Walt Ridinger of Paragon Investments. So we may continue to bring you Art on the Air. We rely on you, our listeners and underwriters, for ongoing financial support. If you're looking to support Art on the Air, we have information on our website at berec.com slash aota where you can find out how to become a supporter or underwriter of our program in whatever amount you are able. And like I say every week, don't give till it hurts. Give till it feels good. You'll feel so good about supporting Art on the Air. If you're interested in being a guest or send us information about your arts, arts-related event or exhibit, please email us at aota at brec dot com. That's aota at brec, b-r-e-c-h dot com. Or contact us through our Facebook page. Your hosts were Larry Breckner and Esther Golden, and we invite you back next week for another episode of Art on the Air. Aloha, everyone. Have a splendid week. Express yourself through art And show the world your heart Express yourself through art And show the world your heart You're in the know with Esther and Larry With Art on the Air today They're in the know with Larry and Esther Art on the Air are we They're in the know with Larry and Esther Art on the Air are we Express yourself through art And show the world your heart Express yourself through art And show the world your heart Express yourself through art