STATEWIDE – This week, NJN’s State of the Arts looks at four artists who are Crossing Over: a reporter who writes poetry, a jazz musician who paints, a WWII transvestite, and artists who go commercial. Crossing Over airs on Friday, January 19 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, January 24 at 11:30 pm. State of the Arts marks twenty-five years on NJN this season. The program has earned 25 Regional Emmy Awards, including a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy and a 2005 New York Emmy.

• Oliver Lake
Alto saxophonist Oliver Lake is known for his expansive and creative musical vision: a co-founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, he also heads a jazz trio, a quartet, a big band, and has recorded with musicians as diverse as a steel drummer and a Navajo flautist. He’s also a published poet, a painter, and a performance artist who stars in his own one-man shows. Lake says it’s his sense of curiosity that drives his constant experimentation. He traces his history of “crossing over” artistic boundaries to his early involvement with the Black Artists Group (BAG) in St. Louis in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner visits Lake in performance with his “Trio 3” at the Sweet Rhythm club in Greenwich Village, and at his home in Montclair, New Jersey.

• David Tucker
Poet David Tucker is a deputy managing editor of The Star-Ledger newspaper in Newark, New Jersey, and was part of the team that won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage of Governor James E. McGreevey's resignation and the scandal surrounding it. He’s also a poet, and has recently published a collection of his poems called “Late For Work.” State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa follows Tucker as he makes his rounds in the newsroom, and reads his poetry before live audiences at the 11th Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival at Waterloo Village. Tucker is used to people doing a double take when they learn that he “crosses over” to write poetry, but, as he likes to point out, Walt Whitman was a journalist, too.

• I Am My Own Wife
“I Am My Own Wife,” the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Doug Wright, is being presented at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, January 16 through February 11. Based on the true story of an East German transvestite who survived both the Nazi and Communist regimes, it stars Mark Nelson. State of the Arts producer Amber Edwards goes behind the scenes of this remarkable one-man show to explore how “crossing over” literally saved a life.

• Aljira Design
Aljira, a Center for Contemporary Art, has been fostering the visual arts in Newark, New Jersey through exhibits and educational programs for more than 20 years. In 1992, Aljira opened Aljira Design, a graphic design studio, which now has a long list of both non-profit and for-profit clients. Aljira Design employs a core group of artists who comfortably “cross over” between the fine arts and commercial graphic design. Not only do these artists get a regular paycheck, but the group also provides 40 percent of Aljira’s operating budget and is seen as a model in the art world. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz talks with Aljira’s executive director, Victor Davson, about its unique solution to the problem of the bottom line.

State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm. The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.

Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.

NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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