By Maria McGinns/ Broadcast version by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman
Reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration

COLUMBUS, Ohio - It's a warm summer night at the movies. This year, with the majority of indoor theaters in Ohio still closed because of COVID-19, lines of cars form outside the ticket booths of drive-in theaters instead.

After getting their tickets, drivers pull their cars slowly into the lot marked with poles indicating where to park. Moviegoers then tune their car radios to the right station to hear the old blockbuster feature that night. They listen to ads for the concession stand, where people can wait in line - six feet apart - for their popcorn and snacks. When the sun finally starts to go down, headlights turn off and the movie begins.

As co-owner of the Holiday Auto Theatre in Hamilton, Ohio, Mark Althoetmar has seen an increase in weekday business and first-time guests at the drive-in.

The movie theater industry in general had been dwindling before the pandemic, especially with the increase in streaming services. But now, in a time when social distancing is a top priority, drive-ins are experiencing a resurgence.

"We've seen high school graduations, we've seen weddings," said Nick Hensgen, the owner/operator of driveinmovie.com, a database of all the drive-in theaters currently in operation, worldwide. "Not only are they showing movies now, but several of them have found other ways, other sources of revenue, to help get by until movies start coming out again - which will be later this summer, hopefully."

The first drive-in movie theater opened in 1933 in Camden, New Jersey. By the late 1950s to early 1960s, the number of drive-in theaters in the United States exploded, with more than 4,000 drive-ins opening from coast to coast.

But this "golden age" of drive-ins lasted only about a decade. Most were built in more rural areas, and as urban sprawl continued in the 1970s, it became more profitable to sell the land than operate a drive-in on it, Hensgen explained.

In addition, he said, the implementation of daylight saving time in the summer pushed the drive-in movie start times back by an hour.

"I live in Louisville, Kentucky," Hensgen said. "We're in the very western part of the Eastern time zone. So, during the peak summer, drive-ins around here don't start until 10 p.m. So it's late, especially on weeknights when people have to work. And there's so many entertainment options; it kind of started way back to the '70s and '80s with VHS tapes. But, of course, now we have streaming - just so many in-home entertainment options that folks have now. It's not just drive-ins; the number of indoor theaters has also been decreasing the last several years."

Drive-ins continued to close throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But in the late '90s to early 2000s, the drive-in theater industry experienced a minor comeback as previously closed theaters were renovated and reopened, and some new ones emerged as well.

Then, when the movie industry began using digital cinematography rather than film in the 2000s, some small, rural theaters were forced to close because they couldn't afford the new digital projectors, costing anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000.

Despite the challenges, there are 305 functioning drive-in theaters in the U.S, according to United Drive-in Theatre Owner Association (UDITOA) figures from October 2019. Ohio is home to 24 of them, making it the third-largest state for drive-ins behind New York and Pennsylvania.

"Drive-ins are kind of made for social distancing," Hensgen said. "A lot of these [drive-ins] have gone to online ticket sales, online concession ordering. So, you could literally go to the drive-in and stay in your car the entire time, if that's what you want to do. And inside your car is an environment you can control, versus going to an indoor movie theater - you don't know who's been there, who might be positive for COVID and things like that. But when you're in your car, you can control that environment."

Businesses across the board that have reopened in the pandemic are implementing new policies to keep employees and customers safe, and drive-in theaters are no exception.

At the Skyway Twin Drive-in Theatre in Warren, Ohio, owner Brian DeCiancio said they are enforcing a six-feet-between-vehicles rule, as well as having people order and pick up concessions at windows, since the customers are not allowed inside.

Althoetmar said the Holiday Auto Theatre has also made changes to keep customers and staff safe. He said they've always offered online ticket sales, and have seen an increase - because purchasing tickets beforehand guarantees a spot at the drive-in.

Social distancing markers have been added to the concession stand and restrooms to keep customers at a safe distance, as well as Plexiglas barriers separating customers and employees in the concession area.

Althoetmar added that doorknobs are also regularly sanitized along with general, extensive cleaning at the theater. All employees wear masks and patrons are welcome to either stay inside their cars, or sit outside of them, to watch the movies.

Some drive-ins also host events other than movies. DeCiancio said the Skyway Twin Drive-in Theatre has hosted six graduations, a dance studio recital and is planning other special occasions, as well.

Hensgen said drive-ins are also turning out to be good venues for concerts. Country music artist Garth Brooks performed live on June 27 in Nashville, Tenn., and the concert was shown on screens at 300 drive-ins in the U.S. Tickets cost $100 per vehicle.

Some people will stay home and stream their entertainment; others will go to indoor theaters as they reopen. The big screen and sound system of the indoor movie experience is an immersive way to enjoy a show without household interruptions. Still, Althoetmar said, the drive-in offers a unique experience that can't be duplicated - at home or indoors.

"Going to a drive-in is not only experiencing a movie on a large screen, but also a social experience," he said. "It's almost more like going to a theme park in a lot of ways. It's not just about the movie, but it's sitting outside, watching the sunset and seeing a film under the stars in lawn chairs. During the trip to the concession stand, one may see friends and neighbors. Drive-ins offer entertainment and a sense of community."

The sheer uniqueness of the experience leads Althoetmar to believe the industry won't see much of a decline, although he acknowledged that it depends on what the companies producing and releasing films decide to do.

In the past, when a movie was released, it would not be available on streaming platforms for several months. Now, that window has shrunk - it can be anywhere from 45 days to two months. This has long been a source of contention between theater owners and film companies, as theaters like having an exclusive window of time to show movies before they are more widely available.

Althoetmar said he doesn't think this will affect drive-ins, however.

"People do want to just get out of the house right now," he said. "So, even though there's not a big movie that's been released, people are coming out to the drive-in. That could be something that might be unique to COVID-19, is that people are willing just to go out to see a movie, no matter what movie it is."

Hensgen agrees that drive-ins can survive financially this season, even if they only show retro films or older movies released before the pandemic.

"I do think it's possible," he said. "Now, one of the reasons they're selling out is, most drive-ins are operating at 50% capacity because they're leaving a space between cars. But so far, most of these drive-ins appear to be having no problem filling up."

DeCiancio said drive-ins are at the mercy of the movie studios for new fare, as new releases aren't likely to happen until many more indoor theaters have reopened. He said there simply aren't enough drive-ins for film studios to justify putting new movies out at this time.

Althoetmar's Holiday Auto Theatre is going to continue to show retro movies, with new releases as the studios provide them. AMC Theaters, the world's largest theater owner, plans to reopen all its theaters in July - bringing good news to drive-in owners.

"Disney pushed back Mulan, which was the very first, big movie of the summer season," Althoetmar said. "So, we're looking forward to that hitting the screen and having a new movie. After that, I think there will be other films that start to get released. I think they're all just taking it week by week, maybe throwing something out there, and then seeing how it works."

The drive-in theater pioneers of the 1950s probably could not have predicted that this form of entertainment would go out of style - or that a health crisis would prompt its surprise resurgence some seven decades later. Drive-ins may be seen as a novelty, but these businesses operate in their own unique niche in the entertainment world.

"Over the next decade, we may lose a couple more, but I think the majority of the ones that are around today are still going to be around," Hensgen said. "Most of them don't have competition from other drive-ins. Of course, they have competition from other entertainment options - indoor movie theaters, streaming services. But most drive-ins that are still around, there's a lot of them where there's not another drive-in for hundreds of miles."

This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.


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By Kate Mothes for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Wisconsin News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

In a self-portrait titled “First Aid Kit” by DarRen Morris painted in 2019, the artist clutches a large, abstract object with fanned white bristles. At first difficult to recognize, the object in his arms is a giant paintbrush. Incarcerated within the Wisconsin Correctional System since the age of 17 and serving a life sentence, Morris clings to art as a survival tool, emphasizing that without it, he would not be able to endure the conditions of imprisonment. 

“Art Against the Odds: Wisconsin Prison Art defines art making as not only a creative pastime but a life-saving tool of self-definition for those who are removed from society,” opens the preface of the exhibition’s catalog. The wide-ranging group exhibition, most recently on view at the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin, brings together work by artists incarcerated within the state’s correctional facilities as a way to counter assumptions about imprisoned individuals and the prison system itself.

Debra Brehmer, director of Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, and curator of Art Against the Odds, traces the genesis of the exhibition to a very different project, yet one also focused on the impact of art-making where access to art is often scarce. The program, called On the Wing, met every Tuesday at the House of Peace, a local community center, to draw in sketchbooks.

“It was about gathering, drawing, experimenting, sharing stories, conversing, and building relationships across the divides of poverty and race,” Brehmer says. “Many conversations at the table touched on incarceration. My eyes were opened to the fact that if you are Black and poor in Milwaukee, you’ve had a friend, son, or relative in prison. It was shocking to me that this was such a normalized part of existence.”

Around this time, Brehmer began working with an incarcerated artist named M. Winston to exhibit his work in the gallery. Portrait Society works with artists who have been marginalized, ignored, dismissed, or discriminated against. “M. was a point of entry into the larger carceral world,” Brehmer says. “Exploring art made in Wisconsin prisons felt like a good COVID project, and so many inmates at that time were really suffering during lockdowns.”

Reconstructing a Sense of Being in the World

Winston, who grew up in Mississippi, is currently serving a 30-year sentence at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution and has since become a friend and guide to Brehmer during her research. He makes vibrant acrylic paintings of landscapes, buildings, and abstract color fields, and his sculptures of miniature houses often evoke real places around Milwaukee, made with materials like paper, food boxes, and paint.

Numerous letters that the artist wrote from his cell, which are included in the exhibition catalog, elaborate on his love for walking, a grounding practice in Zen Buddhism, and observations of daily life separate from the outside world. In one letter, dated March 26, 2022 he writes: 

This jail is a slave ship without the water. Do you know I have nothing but my mind to keep me going. I have art that may and may not tell my story. I do try hard to tell it. I think that art is something of a person’s soul, our days and nights come and go. But I can do a painting and tell why I did it and what I think it is and that will last forever. If you view art I have done over these long 20 years, you can bet I wasn’t here in the mind. I must do art each day. On some days, because of the size of the painting/drawing, I will do up to six. There’s so much I want to talk about, and I will in time. Let’s see where this ship takes me tomorrow.

Letters play a core role in the show, with an entire wall dedicated to handwritten notes—a small selection of hundreds sent to the gallery during the process of organizing the show. The display is accompanied by a table and an invitation for visitors to write a letter back to an artist from the show. Audio clips of the letters being read aloud are streamed on a loop through the gallery, a poignant backdrop to artworks that delve into each individual’s personal stories, challenges, and reflections.

An Emotional Outpouring

In January 2023, the first iteration of Art Against the Odds opened in the galleries of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. “I can only say that the impact of the MIAD show was shocking,” Brehmer says. “We did not expect the attendance: 7,000 people in seven weeks. We did not expect the emotional outpouring. The gallery became a safe space for public conversations that people could not have otherwise.”

Brehmer, who curated the show with Portrait Society Gallery Manager Paul Salsieder, attributes much of the success of the show to the fact that it revolves around accomplishment in addition to the deeply important—yet often dismissed—role that art plays within society. “Art heals and focuses the maker in a space of meditation,” she says. “These artists who turn to art in prison—with no formal training for the most part—find rather quickly that it not only soothes their anxiety but takes them on a journey of expression and self-knowledge, and it builds pride and esteem.”

The visibility afforded to the artists in Art Against the Odds is significant because while the carceral world is hidden, it affects an incredible amount of people in society, from victims to family members to prison staff to social justice system workers and more. The U.S. currently has one of the world’s top incarceration rates—in 2018, it was the world’s highest. Today, approximately 531 of every 100,000 people are in a prison or jail. “Most of these individuals will be released back into the community,” Brehmer says. “If they lack self-esteem and skills, this transition will not be successful.”

Art Against the Odds provides a new lens through which to view the prison system and those living within it. “This is not to deny the pain inflicted by crime, nor the lingering impact on victims, but to privilege redemption and the potential expansiveness of the human spirit,” the catalog introduction continues. “This provides space for hope. Without hope, there is no humanity.”


Kate Mothes wrote this story for Arts Midwest.


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The Wind River Water and Buffalo Alliance is looking for a graphic artist to develop a logo.

Before Europeans arrived, some 60 million buffalo roamed North America.

After the animal was slaughtered, in part to extinguish tribes that lived alongside buffalo for centuries, just 23 remained by 1900.

Wes Martel - senior conservation associate with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition - said the new logo should convey a message of hope and power, as the alliance works to restore buffalo and other key elements of indigenous culture.

"So now we're seeing a revival," said Martel, "we're seeing a new energy, we're seeing our young people now becoming educated in the modern technological ways and scientific ways that we need to protect what we have. And that's all we're trying to do, protect a way of life."

Artists are encouraged to submit logo designs by email to media@greateryellowstone.org by May 15. The top entry will be awarded $2,500, second place will receive $1,00, and third place gets $500.

Details on how to apply and the design specifications are online at greateryellowstone.org.

The alliance - based on the Wind River Indian Reservation at Fort Washakie, Wyoming - uses a community-centered approach to support food sovereignty, river restoration, buffalo restoration, advocacy, and education.

Martel said the reservation's landscapes are ideal for protecting the Indigenous way of life.

"We have everything at Wind River that Yellowstone has, except Old Faithful," said Martel. "All of the buffalo, and grizzlies, and wolves, and bighorn sheep, and elk, and deer, and antelope - and all these other relatives that we have on this earth, are with us at Wind River."

The project is an Indigenous-centered organization of the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes working with elders, young people and tribal leaders.

Martel said he hopes the new logo can capture the sentiments and energy felt when tribes are blessed with buffalo, their spiritual connection, and the power they bring to lodges, ceremonies, and overall well-being.

"This whole movement that we're seeing now, of restoring buffalo and restoring our heritage and restoring our energy, our spiritual strength," said Martel, "that's really powerful."




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By Kate Mothes for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Mike Moen for Minnesota News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

In Norway, the hardingfele, or the Hardanger fiddle, is deeply woven into the nation's cultural tapestry. From the earliest known iteration made in 1651 by Ole Jonsen Jaastad, the instrument originates from its namesake region, the western district of Hardanger, where it was traditionally used to play wedding music, dances, and other songs.

A Hardanger fiddle looks at first glance like an intricately ornamented violin, with a fingerboard and tailpiece often inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ebony, or bone. It is more lightweight, however, with four slimmer strings, ink decorations on the wooden body, and the scroll at the end often carved into the likeness of a dragon or wild animal.

Another key element of a Hardanger fiddle is the addition of sympathetic strings, which sit in a layer below those that the bow touches, vibrating when the instrument is played and adding a richness to the sound. "You are playing, generally, two notes at once whenever you play a Hardanger fiddle," says luthier Robert "Bud" Larsen, a side effect of the instrument's flat bridge.

Larsen, who is based in Brainerd, Minnesota, was introduced to the art of fiddle-making and restoration with the help of local violin-maker Gunnar Helland. Helland had emigrated to the U.S. from Norway in 1901. After stints in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, he established a shop in Fargo, North Dakota, to carry on his family's craft tradition.

"Our family moved into the same building where Gunnar had his shop," Larsen says. "We hung out a lot, and I was very interested in what he was building. When I was in the seventh grade, he gave me an old violin and helped me through the process of restoring it."

Larsen's lifelong love for the instrument was born. Over the next several decades, he would build at least 40 Hardanger fiddles and restore more than twice that many.

Preserving, and Evolving, Tradition

Troyd Geist, state folklorist of North Dakota, is a big fan of traditional culture and history. He focuses not only on the heritage of traditional arts but also sees the potential for craft to contribute to health and a sense of wellbeing. He heads an apprenticeship program where a master artist is paired with a younger person in order to pass along knowledge.

Geist is fascinated by how U.S. makers have gradually evolved the Hardanger fiddle over time. Though the instruments have maintained many of their recognizable features, their designs have become distinctly American.

"For instance, the fiddles in Norway would have different rosemaling designs and different flowers that they really focus on," Geist says. "And the head above the fret is often carved, in Norway, like a lion or a dragon. They do that here, too, but they also carve, instead of a lion or a dog head on the end of it, a buffalo head."

Larsen and others in the community who are passionate about the Hardanger fiddle liken the craft to being similar to language.

"We know that a language that is not willing to change will soon die," says Larsen, who was a linguist in Papua New Guinea for more than 20 years before turning to fiddle making. "If people say a language should be prescriptive and you should write it the way the dictionary tells you to, and speak it that way, then the language will die out because it can't change. And that's the same with Hardanger fiddle music. Because new music is being written, and it's being used in different genres as well, it will stay with us for a long time because the music has learned to adapt to people's interests and cultures."

Both Geist and Larsen agree that it's important to continue to teach others how to make the fiddles, which can sometimes take a novice apprentice up to two years to complete. Some makers seek to protect their secrets, but "if you're not willing to share broadly and freely, the tradition is going to die," Geist says.

A Generational History

First comes the making of a fiddle and then, of course, comes the playing. Arts Midwest's GIG Fund recently supported an event at the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County (HCS) where more than 220 people attended a concert performed by the Fargo Spelemannslag.

A spelemannslag is a group of folk musicians, often dominated by fiddles.

The wintertime concert featured a song written two centuries ago by Eirik Medås. "Eirik's direct descendant, a high school student named Elsa Ruth Pryor, played a new song that she wrote herself, on a Hardanger Fiddle that she made herself," says Markus Krueger, programming director of HCS.

"Minnesota and North Dakota are the two most Norwegian states in America. For a lot of people in our community, this is the music of their childhood that they remember their parents and grandparents playing," Krueger says, reflecting on the significance of the event. "It's a symbol of Norwegian culture and heritage, and even more than that, it's a symbol of Midwest culture."

The concert featured performances by Bud Larsen and Loretta Kelley, the president of the Hardanger Fiddle Association of America. It was a meaningful showcase of a living tradition, passed down through generations.

"The immigrants brought their fiddles with them, and they kept playing them in America, says Krueger. "They kept making them in America. We still make them and play them today."


Kate Mothes wrote this story for Arts Midwest.