- [Announcer] A production of the South Carolina Educational Television Network.

(upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Beryl Dakers, welcoming you to yet another edition of "Art's the Thing".

In this week's program, as we attempt to recuperate from a bit of Spoleto-mania, we're delighted to welcome back an old friend.

And in this case, I'm talking about none other than Ilona RS, everybody's favorite television painting teacher.

We'll be talking with Ilona a little later in our program.

We'll also be treated to a wonderful tranquil flute solo by our good friend, Paula Robison.

And at the museums, we'll take a look at McKissick Museum's continuing exhibition "Above the Fall Line", a look at southern folk art of the Piedmont area.

First however, with all of the hullabaloo about Spoleto, some say it's rather blase, others have said this was the best year ever.

Some say it's too arty.

Well, we decided to go to the source, and in this case, we'd like to share with you the comments of festival founder and artistic director, Gian Carlo Menotti.

(upbeat bluegrass music) (smooth jazz music) You know, a couple of years ago you told me that you were going to gradually wind down your involvement with the festival.

How do you see your role right now?

- Well, first of all, you must not remember what I said two years ago (laughs).

I don't.

- [Beryl] Mm hm.

- But anyway, what I probably meant to say and probably I said it, is that I gradually want to prepare the festival to be able to go on without me.

I said it again and again.

It's not that I'm planning to leave the festival.

I'm warning in the festival that I'm getting old and that any day something may happen to me.

I mean, I'm surrounded by people with strokes, with heart attacks and so on, and that may happen to me any moment.

Let's touch wood.

So that I would like people to be prepared in case anything like that should happen so that the festival is not left unprepared for a succession.

That doesn't mean that I'm going to.

As long as people want me and if they think that I'm still doing my job well, I'd be very glad to stay here.

I love Spoleto, I love the audiences here, and there's no reason why I should abandon Spoleto at this time of my life.

In a certain way, my presence during the festival is, well, it is important, yes, because I can still correct things at the last minute and so on.

But actually my most important work is in doing the program and in choosing the people that will present each offering.

Once I select them, I leave them complete freedom.

And this is one thing that people appreciate when they come here, that there's not some boring general director goes in there, say, "Cut this, don't do this, I don't like this."

I let them do what they want.

I give them my complete confidence.

I may give them advice, but I never, I'm not a censor.

And I don't like to tell people what they must not do.

Like in the case of the Miraclo D'Amore" it would've been very easy for me to go there and say, you know, "Be careful about this or that and make it a bit more palatable here."

But that would've been very wrong.

And so once I choose something, I say, "Go ahead.

You are my choice.

And now it's up to you."

- [Beryl] How do you feel about "Miraclo" and some of the other works?

In other words, how has the festival as a whole struck you?

- For me, this festival is the most important festival because finally I have achieved what I've always wanted to achieve in Charleston.

I've achieved the festival in which there's no compromise toward the audience.

It's a very sophisticated festival.

One, your main paper called it too arty.

But I don't think art is ever too arty.

And I think, I hope that next year I can make it even more arty because I think that now finally we have the kind of audience that I like to have.

I never thought we would get it here in Charleston.

I think it is absolutely miraculous and I think it has stunned critics from all over America who came here and they were astonished that we could fill a 3,000 seats opera house with an opera like "Rusalka".

Not even in New York you could have four, five performance "Rusalka" and fill the theater, but here we can.

And they all asked me why did you find this audience, this wonderful audience?

I don't know.

But we tried very hard.

With little by little, every festival we presented something a bit more difficult, more difficult.

And now I feel that we have reached the point when we can really represent anything we want in this festival.

And we find a very receptive, very adventurous audience, the sort of audience that any general manager dreams of.

We don't have to make any more compromises.

The audience, it's a festival that satisfies any kind of taste.

Some people hated something and loved something else, and that's what it should be, a festival that encourages discussions and encourages fights, which is good and can amuse and at the same time instruct, and impact great emotions.

- What about you personally?

Were you struck by something personally?

(Beryl laughing) - At 77, you are not struck by anything anymore (laughs).

- I'm sure you are.

- If you are struck, you just keel over and that's it (laughs).

You cannot keel, you cannot shock me with anything anymore.

No, I think that, I think I said that, I must say that I always learn.

You know, I always love to mention what Solzhenitsyn said in one of his books, that only stupid people like to teach.

I think that the intelligent people like to learn.

I think that I love to learn and I learn from anything.

And I'm always learning.

And even this festival teaches me great things.

I don't agree with everything, but it exposes me to new ideas.

I mean, young people have very different ideas from mine and I like to hear what they have to tell me.

- Are you working on something right now?

- Yes, alas.

I accepted a commission to write an opera for the opening of the Olympics.

It was in South Korea.

It was a very strange commission and I probably would have never accepted if it hadn't come from South Korea.

But it was, I just happened to go by Seoul, where they were giving two of my operas.

And I found out to my great surprise that in Seoul, they love my music.

That's one place where they do (laughs).

I don't get any bad criticism with Seoul.

So they wanted me to write an opera to open the Olympics.

And I thought it was very flattering and I thought was rather touching.

And so in a moment of folly or of vanity I guess, I said, "All right, fine, I will."

Then it became very difficult because first of all, they insisted that they use one of their folk tales, and their folktales are not always as inspiring as all that.

And also that it was the question of what, you know, what language to write it.

I said I would like to write my libretto in English.

But then I went there to audition singers.

I found out that their English is very primitive.

And actually, they sing much better in Italian because most of them have gone to Italy to study voice.

So I had to rewrite the whole libretto in Italian.

Anyway, it's practically finished now.

- [Beryl] Are you up against a deadline again?

- Again.

- [Beryl] (laughs) Again.

(Beryl and Gian Carlo laughing) - I'm always late on my deadline.

I hope that when I have to die, I'll do the same thing.

All of a sudden that will say, "For God's sake you were supposed to die last Thursday.

You're not dead yet."

(laughs) I'm always late.

- [Beryl] You seem like you are awfully happy this year.

Like you're in a terrific mood and you look good.

- Am I?

I don't know.

Am I happy?

No.

- [Beryl] I don't know.

- Actually, I'm not.

First of all, I have a big (indistinct) arthritis, which is not happy.

I can hardly move this finger.

I'm happy because I love my grandchild.

That has changed my whole life.

I love that little thing.

I don't know why, but I love him.

And then I'm happy because I've achieved a great serenity in my life.

I'm 77.

There's no danger of my ever falling in love again.

And that's a great thing.

You know, I'm sure you have not reached that moment, but I have, so that already.

And when you achieve, I think that the greatest source of happiness in life is to be able to achieve a certain amount of serenity.

And that I've been able to achieve.

I'm not afraid of death.

I'm not afraid of failure.

I'm not afraid of if people like my music or not.

It really doesn't much matter to me.

I've done my best and now I can just compose what I want to compose.

And if people don't like it (indistinct).

When I was young, I wanted success.

I wanted people to applaud me.

I was bothered by criticism.

But then you achieve a wonderful moment in your life when everything becomes very clear and you know that you are in this world for a very short time, and that everything, that most, I mean the famous phrase, "Vanity, vanity."

And when you pass that, I mean, it's wonderful.

And then what remains is love.

And I'm full of love.

(contemplative flute music) (contemplative flute music continues) (contemplative flute music continues) (contemplative flute music continues) (contemplative flute music continues) (contemplative flute music continues) (bright jazz music) (bright jazz music continues) (bright folk music ) (bright folk music continues) (bright folk music continues) (bright folk music continues) (bright folk music continues) (bright folk music continues) (upbeat bluegrass music) - We're all excited here at "Art's the Thing" today because we have a visit from the IRS.

In this case, I mean the artistic IRS, Ilona Royce-Smithkin, and welcome.

- Thank you.

I'm glad to be here.

- It has been such a long time since you visited with us.

- Yes, it was, we won't talk about that.

(Beryl laughing) - A few years ago when we were talking about the series "Painting with Ilona".

- Yes.

- And let's see, before that there was "Ilona's Palette".

And you're back because there is a third series in the offing.

- Yes.

It's a six part series.

And it is called "Ilona's Finishing Touches."

You know how it came?

- Finishing Touches.

- Yes, it came about because we got so many letters in which people said, you show us all the beginning and the middle and we are getting stuck in the end.

And so we figured that this might be good idea to do and showing just exactly what you do to fix the painting and how to finish it.

And so we go quickly over the first parts and then concentrate mostly on the finishing so the listener, or the viewer rather, can see it and do it too.

So this is best for all worlds, you see.

- I can't imagine that there's anyone in our viewing audience who would not realize that of course Ilona is our television painting teacher, as it were.

I have always wondered how you teach someone to paint.

Don't you have to come with a natural skill, a natural ability?

- Not necessarily at all, Beryl.

If you have the wish and the desire to paint and you have a good teacher, somebody who coaxes you into it and makes it fun, you can learn it.

Because how good you will be is another story, you know.

However, you can learn it.

It's like a trade.

You have to learn how to hold the brush, how to mix colors, how to show how to make a distance, you know, between you and the wall, there is a distance, and how to do that.

There are many, many things which are really a trade.

You learn how to use your tools.

And what I do as a teacher is to teach people to use their tools, and how to see and what to look for.

- Alright, what do you look for?

- Oh, a lot of things.

But what you look for depends on your interest.

If you are liking landscapes, well, you look for all these many colors.

If you are doing portraits, each artist has a different aim.

For instance, I look for the person behind the person.

What's a real, the feeling of the person?

What are they really like?

Not just this is a pretty girl or this is an old lady, old, old, old age.

But what's behind it?

Is it a person with thought?

Is it a person who has suffered?

Is it a person?

Whatever there is behind the person is what interests me, intrigues me.

And I try to bring that particular part out.

And as you can tell, I'm much more interested in portraits than anything else.

But I have learned, I've learned to love landscapes and still lifes as well.

- Since you are perhaps best known for the portraits, I do wanna talk about that for a moment.

Because even though the portraits are in a sense the same, they're all unique, they're all different.

- Yes, but each person is unique and different.

And I believe also that each human being is very, very special.

And most people unfortunately do not know it.

And sometimes it does take the person who is the artist to show them, look, what beautiful what you have.

It may be the eyes, it may be the forehead, it may be the nose, the mouth, whatever.

It may be just a look a person has.

Some people have a languid look, some have a sad look, but every one of us has something extraordinary and something very special.

And a good teacher must find that in each one of their students.

And I think that's important.

- Let's look at some of your portraits in particular because I wanna talk about some of the little subtleties.

Now, this one that we have here on the set.

- Yes, this is a young girl with very, very dark hair.

She was very dreamy, very thoughtful out in the garden.

And she got very strong light.

And I was intrigued with the light which fell on her.

- [Beryl] So that gives her a bit of a pensive mood.

- [Ilona] Yes.

- [Beryl] Ah, now this one, I think this is my favorite.

And I'm not sure why, except maybe.

- Now this one - [Beryl] There's a hint of mystery here.

- Yes.

This one is done which I would call as an artist very loosely.

In other words, what I'm teaching is impressionism.

And in this one, you can see you don't have to make every little detail spelled out.

And yet you see the position.

You see there's something in her mind going on.

And yet it's very loosely painted.

And then of course we have different ways of doing it all.

This is impressionism.

You can do anything with it.

You can do the landscapes, still lifes or whatever.

Now this is again a very soft, vague kind of a thing.

It's just a dreamy lady with a lovely head.

And she's just sitting there having her own thoughts.

To me, each human being is an entity in itself and has a meaning of the person, the individual.

And each one is very precious.

Each time I do portrait, it's like going on a treasure hunt.

And I'm finding, truly you smile, but it's true.

It's like discovering treasures in the other human being.

Their eyes, their noses, their mouths, their expressions, their ways, the way they tilt their head, all this is part of that human being.

And it's for me, a discovery of a treasure really.

- Do you look more for perfection in the features or are you more intrigued by features that are perhaps a little distorted (chuckles)?

- Oh, we are getting into a very deep conversation because I think perfection the word is manmade.

- Okay.

- I mean, men created, men meaning women, men, everybody.

I feel that whatever there is, whatever nature has offered us, whatever I see in itself is a work of perfection.

Because who has created, who says that we have to have high eyebrows or a high forehead?

Remember the Egyptians thought it was fabulous to have a very long forehead and squeezed everything in.

Or the Chinese used to squeeze feet into very tight little things.

That was their way of beauty.

So there is a lot of traditions there.

But actually when you come to look at one human being and just study it sometimes, and if the listeners, viewer wants to do it sometimes, how magnificent.

We have eyes.

They're not just looking.

They see.

The human being who looks at you can see, the nose, you can breathe, the mouth, you can eat, you can speak, you can express yourself.

I mean, every part is functional and every part is truly beautiful.

And I think many, many more people many people would have less inferiority complexes if they would really feel themselves how magnificently our gifts, the gifts which have been given to us by nature.

It's just wonderful.

- I think that.

- That's how I think.

- Yes, and I think that reverence for things carries over when you take a look at nature, as we see in your landscapes as well.

- Oh yes.

Yes, uh huh, absolutely.

Here is something which is a very soft landscape.

I got inspired because I saw Monet and I thought, oh, how lovely.

And I did a small, a miniature of Monet-ish kind of colors.

We learn from every artist really.

And we'll take the best, which we feel for us that's the best.

This is my studio on Cape Cod, where I'm spending my summers and paint and paint and paint and paint.

And this was a very foggy morning, a very darkish kind of a morning where it's gray, gray morning.

- Very tranquil.

- [Ilona] Yes.

And here, that's a new class I have in Tucson, Arizona.

You know, I travel twice a year for three months all around the country.

And I found that the sun, which hits these rocks was so magnificent.

And it's very hard to do, even so it looks very easy because that power of that sun coming out.

And here is another landscape which I felt was softly done.

- [Beryl] Do you carry those images with you, Ilona, or do you have to be wherever you're painting?

- No, no.

Here is a stronger painted one.

I'm doing it right from nature.

I don't really believe.

If I can avoid photos, unless somebody has passed away, I will avoid photos because I feel nature is so magnificent that we should try to help seeing what nature has given us and then do something with it.

- All right.

Oh, such a special lady, Ilona.

We do hope you'll enjoy her new series, "Ilona's Finishing Touches".

That wraps up our show for this week, and we'll go out on a little Wall Street dance from Piccolo Spoleto.

As always, I'm Beryl Dakers saying goodnight and good art.

(playful music) (tap dancers clacking) (playful music continues)