WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> BRANDON: Coming up.

>> ASHLEY: Meet an artist finding inspiration right at home.

>> BRANDON: Revel in some retro recreation.

>> ASHLEY: And mean a manufacturer brewing up something deliciously unique.

>> BRANDON: That's all on this episode of -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana"!

♪ >> ASHLEY: Welcome to "Journey Indiana."

I'm Ashley Chilla.

>> BRANDON: And I'm Brandon Wentz.

And today, we're coming to you from the Fort Wayne Electric Works.

Today, this beautiful 39-acre campus is home to an eclectic mix of offices, shops, restaurants, and outdoor spaces.

But for more than a century, this was the site where General Electric churned out many of the electrical components that shaped modern life in the 20th century.

At its peak, during World War II, GE claimed that one-third of Fort Wayne's workforce punched their clocks at these downtown factories.

>> ASHLEY: And we'll learn all about the history and the future of this electrifying place in just a bit.

But first, producer Tyler Lake takes us to Monroe County to explore the work of painter Ellen Starr Lyon.

>> Artist Ellen Starr Lyon has put a twist on an old writer's maxim.

Instead of write what you know, it's paint what you know.

>> Right now, I am focusing on the figure and specifically portraits.

I have been focusing on my family for the most part.

>> These bold, luminescent works often feature the expressive faces and lively gestures of herself and her family members.

>> Working on my skill and getting back to the figure has coincided with my kids moving into these teenage years.

You know, their emotions are off the charts, and they express them in a way that adults do not.

To have these live models who are around me and emoting extravagantly, and I can capture that, that has been really exciting, and I think that has really pushed my practice.

>> As a busy working mother, practice wasn't always easy to come by.

She had to find a balance between art, work, and life.

>> How do you do a job, be a mother, and still have a studio practice?

>> One of the ways she made it all work was to set up her studio in her home.

>> It has worked really well for me to get back to my studio practice of doing a few hours at a time, to have it right here.

I will come back from work, and I will come to the studio, and I will put a couple hours in before dinner.

And I'm very grateful that I have a spouse who takes care of the cooking so I don't have to worry about it.

It's one of those practical details that you don't hear artists talk a lot about.

It's, like, how do you make this work?

How do you find that balance?

It was also important for -- for me to have my kids see me put real time and energy into something that I love, and see that, you know, mom still works because there's a reality of paying the bills, but this is something really important to her, and she's still putting that time in.

>> It's from this rambling dining room turned studio, itself a work of art, that she puts in the time and energy to craft ethereal, light-drenched images snatched from her own experiences.

>> I work from my own photography.

So when I'm doing my setups and doing my photography, for me it feels a lot like preparatory sketches.

I want to capture something vulnerable, whether it's a self-portrait, which I do quite a bit of, just because I know myself and my expressions so well.

I can capture an idea and use my own face.

>> Lately, she has been creating self-portraits of another kind.

These compositional pieces, arranged by the artist, have a dense narrative quality.

>> How do you build a narrative with still life objects?

Not only are these all, like, living things, living plants, they're plants that I've grown.

So they -- it all feels like just an extension of myself.

So even if some of them won't have a self-portrait that you can see, a face, it is still this is me.

This is how I see.

This is how I live.

And I do that all around my home.

I'm constantly, like, moving furniture, moving plants, moving little glass things with water and marbles for the light to pass through.

So it's -- it's just a part of being who I am.

>> And if the subjects of her work are often the people and things around her, it's how they interact with light that shows off a keen eye and a skilled brush.

>> I'm just fascinated by the play of light over surface.

So light and shadow.

The effects that you can get from natural light, you cannot get elsewhere.

Because it's coming around things, and it's modulating, and you see a lot of reflected light.

So that gives your eye this idea of space.

With this particular painting, I did several washes in lights and darks because I really needed to get my head around where that light was passing through before I started to add a lot of color.

Like, for this glass float, it, itself, is transparent and it's green, and what are you seeing through it?

The color changes.

It blurs the lines.

So thinking forwards and backwards to get to accomplish what you want to accomplish.

>> To be as accomplished as Lyon is no simple matter.

It takes time, dedication, and focus.

>> It's just not you feel struck with inspiration and you run to the studio and you create one -- no, no, no.

In my experience, at least, there's a lot of hard work and time spent.

And so when I finally was just honest about what could my schedule tolerate, what would give me time in the studio, what would give me still family time and time for everything, because it -- if you don't find that balance, you will not have a studio practice that endures.

>> For Lyon, it's that balance that makes her paintings special, bringing her studio into her home, and her family into the work makes for striking and intimate images that hit close to home.

>> ASHLEY: There are so many things that I connect to about this story.

I mean, first of all, I love Ellen's pieces.

I think they're beautiful and stunning and her light work is, I mean, amazing.

But I think both of us can relate to the fact that when you are an artist and a human being, you have to figure out how those two pieces work together.

The nuts and bolts of a family.

Who makes dinner?

Who goes to work and pays the bills?

But also, how do you find time to be an artist, really?

You know, how do you find that space?

And I love what she had to say about that, and I love her work.

Want to learn more?

Head to EllenStarrLyon.com.

>> BRANDON: Earlier, we spoke with the folks at Electric Works to find out what gets their motors running.

♪ >> It's hard to overstate the importance of the Fort Wayne General Electric plant to the local community and the devastation that followed its closure in 2015.

For more than a century, workers here could rely on GE to provide a steady stream of middle-class jobs building the motors that powered modern life.

>> There was a point in time, especially around World War II era, that they had 16,000 employees, which was a third of the workforce in Fort Wayne worked at GE.

And then as years progress and each year some sort of attrition, I ended up being, basically, the last man standing.

>> When GE moved out, there was no question that it was devastating for our community.

10, 12,000 jobs were lost, and we had this huge campus, well over 1 million square feet.

I forget how many buildings.

>> GE was very, very reluctant to do anything except maybe put a fence around the property, board it up.

The last day, when they -- when I had to walk out of here and lock the gate, I literally almost became sick to my stomach.

But what has happened here is totally revitalizing this whole area.

And I never thought in my lifetime I would see this.

>> The stunning transformation underway at the former GE campus is the result of a public/private partnership between the city of Fort Wayne and developer RTM Ventures.

At a price tag of $286 million, the Electric Works project is the largest adaptive reuse project in the state of Indiana.

Those funds have turned this once rusty relic into a mix of trendy offices, shops and restaurants, with further developments to come.

>> This campus has been so important for the history of Fort Wayne and so many people.

There was a real focus on honoring the history, and I think that was critical for the -- not just the ownership, but the community at large.

I have not met an individual that hasn't been touched by this campus.

There's somebody whose grandmother worked here, they met their spouse here.

They've had some -- some critical milestone in their life, and now they're excited to see how they can have the next one or the next generation can be a part of it.

>> We committed ourselves sometime ago in Fort Wayne to try to make our downtown a point of destination by offering additional hospitality offerings and office space and professional amenities and so on.

And we felt that this campus had some possibilities.

>> My favorite component of working at Electric Works is just the way in which kind of the community in general has bought in.

One, because there's so many elements that are unique to these historic buildings that you actually don't see in new construction today.

For example, the windows.

There's these massive windows along with all this red brick.

Well, when these buildings were first constructed, there wasn't ready electricity.

And so they had to rely a lot on natural light, which has really just created a great environment.

>> But not only that, if you go through these buildings, you see the old radiators, the old cranes, the old crane rails that they have restored and kept.

They're not functional, but they sure are cool.

>> It was just critical for us to find a way to honor the history, but also to bring spaces up to a way that was effective and efficient for today's uses.

>> Fort Wayne, not that long ago, was considered a very dormant, Midwestern community, with a couple hundred thousand people who had lost its manufacturing base.

We had to do some creative, innovative, imaginative things, take some risks in order to prove to people that we did have value in this community.

And that's the real goal, is to make sure that this entire area is considered an area of interest to those who might want to call downtown Fort Wayne home.

>> ASHLEY: This space is just super cool inside.

I really like when spaces are taken and repurposed to fit the needs of many different people in the community, and this space definitely does that.

>> BRANDON: Yeah.

Want to learn more?

Head to fortwayneelectricworks.com.

>> ASHLEY: Up next, producer Jason Pear keeps us right here in Fort Wayne, and nabs a high score at Wizards World Pinball Arcade.

♪ >> I grew up in North Manchester, Indiana, a small town back in the '70s and '80s.

♪ Since I was knee-high, I've been playing pinball.

♪ We had probably four arcades, and a bunch of other places to go -- to go play pinball and video games.

♪ I'm not sure what attracted me to it, but I always had a lot of fun.

♪ 1986, I bought my first machine.

It was a little cocktail table pinball, and it could fit in my apartment, you know, when I was going to college, and I still have it.

It's an Allied Leisure 1920s theme.

♪ It's come back strong, pinball has.

It was nearly dead back in 2000, and, you know, I spent 30 years raising kids.

So from the '80s, '90s and 2000s, early on, I was raising kids and didn't get to play a lot.

There's a lot of things I think that's bringing on the popularity.

You've got the old fellas like me that the kids are now out of the house, and we can go back and do these fun things we did when we were kids.

>> There's always a theme that can resonate with you, like sports themes or like old TV shows.

My personal favorite is Batman '66.

I was always a big fan of the TV show.

>> Right now, they're really hard to find.

It's a supply and demand issue.

Right now, the demand is greatly outnumbering the supply.

If there weren't supply chain issues because of the pandemic, Stern and all the other pinball manufacturers would be flying machines out the door right and left.

Right now, used machines are incredibly expensive compared to when I was buying them back in the 2010s and early 2020s.

But that's what you get, you know, when the supply goes down, demand goes up.

♪ We are the largest all pinball arcade in the world.

That means I don't have any video games on the floor for the public to play or any other type.

It's strictly pinball.

We'll fluctuate between 136 and 144 in the arcade, depending on what event we have going on.

We've got over 300 pinball machines.

>> And so many machines that you have to really hunt down, you would think in different locations, are all under this one roof.

>> And hopefully by the 1st of May we'll expand and double our size again.

♪ We have people that travel for business, and they'll look up, okay, where do I want to play pinball?

Lots of people from -- from out of state, and I like inviting people from out of town.

I like it when they show up, because it's -- a lot of us locals wouldn't have the chance normally to play against them.

And when they show up, it's just awesome.

>> What I really like about doing the arcade is all the young kids that are coming in, these little knee-high kids that are just playing the daylights out of pinball.

And once they figure out they're really good and they can beat us old guys, they'll be getting involved in the tournaments.

We have a tournament every Monday night.

It starts at 7:00.

We average 24, 28 people.

It's been as high as 40.

We always play a four-strike, four player group on Monday nights.

And rarely on a Monday night will you play the same machine twice.

It keeps things different.

It keeps things hopping.

You never know who you're gonna play.

So it's pretty good.

>> It's more of a competition where we cheer each other on, and hey, I learned something new on a table.

I think when you are open to that and just feeding off each other's energy a little bit, it's really nice to have that family atmosphere.

>> I think the thing that I love most is all the memories that it brings back, growing up with pinball machines and arcades.

You think back to your childhood, and there's certain things that stick out.

>> This place is a hidden gem here in town, right here in Fort Wayne that really not a whole lot of people know about.

I didn't.

I mean, I've lived here my whole life, and I had no idea this place even existed.

And I don't know if the regulars want to kinda keep it that way, but it's definitely something that we'll keep coming back to.

It's awesome.

>> ASHLEY: Brandon, if you had the resources, would you have a pinball machine in your house?

>> BRANDON: There is a Back to the Future one that I remember as a kid that would always play the dah, dah, dah, dah, you know, whenever you got a good score.

So that would be a nice kind of theme to walk through the house to.

>> ASHLEY: Yeah, do you think your dogs would like it?

>> BRANDON: Oh, no, they would just constantly bark at it.

But, you know, that's the price you pay.

>> ASHLEY: Want to learn more?

Head to FortWaynePinball.com.

>> BRANDON: Next up, we're once again staying in Fort Wayne.

As producer John Timm explores the caffeinated contraptions from the folks at Modbar.

♪ >> Hi, I'm Aric Forbing with Modbar.

We make commercial espresso machines that are a little bit different than the standard ones that you see in the cafe.

♪ >> Myself and a friend of mine, Corey Waldron from Conjure Coffee here in Fort Wayne, spent a lot of time playing music together.

We really met through music, and then formed our friendship outside of that.

♪ >> I had started doing these sketches of machines that kind of looked like soda fountains or beer taps, you know.

They were impossible to make, really, and Aric and I were playing a band.

So we had this funk, jazz funk band thing going on.

♪ >> Well, we're playing music, hanging out after, he kept talking about this espresso machine that you could kind of see through.

>> For some reason, I had this zany idea that we could make a machine where all of the internal components could be shelved out of the way from the actual business end of an espresso machine.

The whole concept was to enhance interaction between a barista and a customer to enhance the coffee experience.

♪ >> If we look at a typical espresso machine, it's a fairly large piece of equipment on the bar.

You'll order a drink, and you'll see somebody disappear behind the machine.

You'll hear some strange noises and then, you know, a minute later out comes your drink, your cappuccino, your latte, your Americano, that sort of thing.

We spent a lot of time in my basement and Corey's apartment at the time, drawing crazy things on the computer in CAD, trying to figure out how to -- how to build something differently.

And a lot of time on the -- on the style of the component.

We didn't want something boxy and strange looking.

We wanted it to be really organic an aesthetic.

>> Aric brought this whole technical manufacturing element in to kind of like my big idea element, and we worked together pretty tirelessly.

>> Through that first prototype machine that we built, we got to know the folks at La Marzocco pretty well.

So La Marzocco is a company based out of Florence, Italy.

That's been making amazing espresso machines for a bit over 90 years now.

And they're really known for their quality, for their customer service, for the reliability of the machines.

They're just an absolutely fantastic company.

And getting to know a couple of the people involved with that company, they helped us launch Modbar once we had the idea to split things up into separate taps that you could install on the counter.

♪ >> We've got four different products in the showroom here.

So we've got the newest version of our espresso machine that we call the Espresso AV.

It's kind of the workhorse of the Modbar line.

We also have the original version which is the Espresso EP.

It gives us some geekier control over how the coffee is extracted in terms of, you know, we can create a pressure profile where things change during the course of the extraction, that sort of stuff.

We have a unit that steams the milk, and we also have equipment to make pour-over coffee, like brewed coffee.

We can produce up to about 50 modules a week.

So that would be like 50 things that go on the bar, and then because the equipment is modular, you can do whatever you want with it.

That doesn't mean that we're selling to 50 cafes, but, you know, one place might buy four things, and one place might buy six things, that sort of thing.

Here in Fort Wayne, Fortezza Coffee was our first customer.

We also have Conjure Coffee here, which the cofounder of Modbar started his own roastery and uses our equipment there.

Sweetwater Sound here as well, but we -- we span most of the US, and a lot of the major metropolitan areas globally as well.

♪ Seeing a lot of the buildouts where -- where Modbar is installed still gives me this huge sense of joy in that, wow, they've -- they're super creative with this.

It looks absolutely amazing and people love it, like, I can't be more proud of that.

In Fort Wayne, we've got a dozen at the factory here, between assembly and administration and all the roles that we fill out of Fort Wayne here.

From there, we kind of mesh in with the La Marzocco team.

So, you know, globally, there's, I don't know, probably 50 people or so that all touch the Modbar product line at some point.

We've got a great team of people here.

It's really a pleasure to see everybody grow with the organization.

Of course, I take a lot of pride in being an Indiana-based company.

I think there's a lot of amazing things that we're doing throughout the state now, and it's great, you know, especially in Fort Wayne.

To have that -- that presence here is something that makes me really proud to have Modbar here.

I think there's also been a lot of innovation that's come out of Fort Wayne, things like gas pumps and handheld calculators and televisions.

I think there's a lot of history and innovation in this town, and I'm proud to be at least a small part of that with Modbar.

♪ >> BRANDON: Speaking of expensive noisy machines, would you have an espresso machine in your house?

>> ASHLEY: You know, I do have one.

It was a gift.

It is nowhere near as cool as those espresso machines.

If I had the resources, I would certainly get one of those for my house.

>> BRANDON: Want to learn more?

Head to modbar.com.

>> ASHLEY: And as always, we'd like to encourage you to stay connected with us.

>> BRANDON: Just head over to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, and suggest stories from your neck of the woods.

>> ASHLEY: We also have a map feature that allows you to see where we've been and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

>> BRANDON: So we've spent our time down here inside of the shared work space, but there's also shops and restaurants.

So I think it's time for us to explore a bit.

>> ASHLEY: Yeah, we've got to go look around.

>> BRANDON: We'll see you next time on -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by WTIU members.

Thank you!