How to Get Started

How to Get StartedIn honor of our first episode, we decided to ask an artist about what it takes to get started. What happens when you’ve got a blank page or an empty stage in front of you and you want to make something? We thought Johanna Winters could help answer that. She’s a visual artist and puppeteer, and an assistant professor at the Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design. We started with an empty pool. The Bryan Park pool, if you know Bloomington. In that otherwise empty pool was the strange character she’s created called The Protagonist. The protagonist is half papier-mâché and half human body – so far, it’s always been her own in there. She makes short films that are somehow both uncanny and tender as they explore things like longing and embarrassment and sensuality in an aging body. We also talked about how she helps students explore materials and ideas, about aging and vulnerability, and how that led her to put on a puppet costume, and the documentary about two real living humans, a mother and a daughter, that started her puppet trajectory.Cicada CinemaCicada Cinema is Bloomington’s premier pop-up movie theater. They screen a wild variety of movies in locations across town including Orbit Room, Backspace Gallery, Upland Woodshop, and Butler Park.They highlight everything from campy genre flicks to arthouse and independent films as part of their goal to bring movies to Bloomington that would otherwise go unseen. Bloomington Symphony and My Sister’s ClosetFor the Bloomington Symphony’s next concert, they’re collaborating with My Sister’s Closet. My Sister’s Closet is an organization whose goal is to help people improve their life circumstances – they also sell gently-used clothing. We talk about how the collaboration came about.The BSO’s concert is Sunday, October 19, at 5pm at the. Buskirk-Chumley Theater. There’s a pre-concert talk with My Sister’s Closet at 4pm.Ale’s Ice CreamBloomington has its fair share of ice cream shops, but Ale’s Ice Cream shop is one that stands out from the pack. Modeled after a traditional Mexican ice cream shop or paleteria, Ale’s offers ice cream flavors that venture well outside the norm for the area. Flavors like corn, queso fresco, horchata, ganzo, soursop and more to boot. And since it’s a paleteria it also offers popsicles and snacks including street corn (elote prepardo), chicharron, equites and nachos.