- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents "Keystone Edition Arts," a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition Arts."

And now, Erika Funke.

- Welcome to "Keystone Edition Arts," where we'll be reminded that snow is for more than shoveling.

In fact, Sarah Cinto has a song that's a fitting introduction.

- [Sarah] The winter of 1934 was severe, with the Northeastern United States experiencing below normal temperatures and multiple snowstorms according to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Richard Bernard Smith may have seen one of those snowstorms from his home overlooking Honesdale Central Park, and felt inspired to write the lyrics to the popular holiday song, "Winter Wonderland."

The lyrics include ringing sleigh bells, building a Snowman, and walking in a winter wonderland.

The song was recorded by Guy Lombardo, Ella Fitzgerald, and Elvis Presley among many others, and continues to be popular today.

Artist Juan Espino from Hawley was inspired by a similar small town experience, the Hawley Winterfest, held annually since 1999.

Espino did a series of winter wonderland paintings showing the gatherings that happen when snow arrives in small towns.

Stroudsburg, another Pocono area community, celebrates winter through its Snowmen of Stroudsburg event.

Now in its seventh year, the event showcases artistic diversity and innovation as local artists decorate snowmen in a variety of styles, from traditional to avant garde, and display them throughout downtown.

For "Keystone Edition Arts," I'm Sarah Cinto, WVIA News.

- In one of Juan Espino's winter paintings, the full moon is high on the bandstand, folks are bundled up smiling at the ice skaters sailing along as an old fashioned brass ensemble performs in Bingham Park in Hawley.

Discovering new music to skate to has been a key in the career of Adam Rippon, the award-winning us figure skater who grew up here in Clark Summit and went on to receive a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

In 2016, as he prepared to skate a special program with the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, he told us an art scene about his creative leap, literally and figuratively.

(gentle music) - [Adam] One of my very good friends, his name is Benji Schwimmer, he won "So you Think You Can Dance" a few years ago.

I came to him and I said that I wanted to put together an exhibition program, and that's a program that you would skate in a show and not in a competitive environment.

And when we put it together, we decided that we were going to put it together to the Coldplay song "O," which isn't a very popular Coldplay song, but it's one of my favorite songs.

It's so beautiful, and when it echoes through a huge arena, it's magical.

I just felt such a connection to the music and to the program, and working with Benji, I really felt like I was pushing myself and I was skating and trying things that really hadn't been put onto the ice before.

And you try to be a dancer and a performer while you're competing, but it's really hard, and I think that you so easily fall back into a groove of what everybody else has done before you.

And it's so hard to break out of that because you don't even see it because you're just in that world, you're in that bubble.

And when I brought Benji, who is so totally not from the ice world, into the rink, it was like a fresh pair of eyes.

It was like a brand new world.

And so he brought things to the table that I hadn't even thought before.

Different movements, different ways of moving the body.

And we found this bird theme and we just kind of ran with it.

And we looked at different ways birds moved and we tried to add those little nuances all throughout the program.

And it's I think gonna become one of my signature numbers and one of my famous classic pieces.

- What better image than the taking of flight, of birds, they're soaring, breaking free for a bit from gravity.

Skaters always amaze us that way.

And now we have stories of angels with wings.

We'll be amazed as our guests may tell us tales of a snow angel made in Vermont on New Year's Eve of 1856, or of an angel named Clarence who hasn't earned his wings, but stands there waiting for a bell as the snow falls freely and covers his fedora and even his nose in a classic Capra film.

Bob Eckstein of New York City and Lake Ariel happens to be the world's foremost Snowman expert.

He's author of the celebrated "Illustrated History of the Snowman," also the New York Times bestseller, "Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores."

He's a New Yorker cartoonist.

His op-eds, stories, and cartoons appear regularly in the New York Times, the New York Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, among many other places.

Mary Beth Voda is an author, teacher, an independent historian whose articles have appeared in Pennsylvania Heritage, Susquehanna Life, American History, World War II Chronicles, and more.

Welcome, Mary Beth, welcome, Bob.

We wanna talk snow.

You, Bob, take snowmen very seriously, though you do have fun with them.

You've traveled around the world to learn their stories.

How and why?

- Because it's really our first selfie.

And it snowed today.

I hope people are getting excited.

I know some people are not excited about seeing the snow.

Maybe we could turn their opinion around after the show.

But I traveled the world for about seven years, tried to learn who made the first Snowman.

It's something that was an activity we shared with our ancestors in prehistoric times.

And I found that out by going to experts in the subject of archeology and cultural history to learn that the Snowman is actually something that's been with us for a very, very long time.

- And you found an image that a monk may have created in the 14th century, did you?

- Yes, it's the first real hard evidence of an illustration of a Snowman.

It's found in the margins of an illuminated manuscript, "The Book of Hours."

It was done around 1380, and this was done, well, I'm not really sure, but I suspect it's around Brussels, Belgium.

And it's actually alongside a solemn passage of Jesus Christ, so it's really unexpected.

But that is the case with the Snowman whose history is filled with dark secrets.

And there's all different crazy events that happened in his past, such as the miracle of 1511, which is an amazing story, as well as the massacre of 1691, one of the bloodiest events in American history.

You can't leave us there.

What happened?

- In the case of the American history story, it was a case of, excuse me, it was a case of a Fort Schenectady, it was gonna be attacked by the French soldiers who were marching down from Montreal.

And they came up to the fort and found it in a blizzard at midnight and the gates were frozen open from the blizzard.

And instead of two guards at their posts, instead there were two snowmen to greet their attackers.

And it was a horrific event.

But it is also a horrible event in the Snowman's history as well.

- Yeah, speaking of those ages, the old manuscript, "The Illuminated Man," you tell us that the great Michelangelo, the artist who did the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel built a Snowman.

Now what?

- Yeah, it's true, it was 1494 that he was commissioned as a teenager to create a Snowman for a party for a palace in Florence.

And this is not so unusual that famous artists did create art out of snow.

I mean, for a lot of people, it was free art supplies dropped on their doorstep when it snowed.

And for a time in the Middle Ages, this would be an activity that was very popular.

Instead of watching TV or movies, people would stroll through the streets in the early evening in town and they would see what creations people made in the street corners.

And they wouldn't just do like children's play, but this would sometimes be political commentary or even sometimes some kind of a statement they're making against the church or the government.

This was their form of expression.

And so it wasn't until Frosty came along that we all think of Snowman-making as children's play.

It used to be something that was a serious art form.

- Well, do we go into galleries or the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see snowmen?

I mean, are there artists?

- There are, there's actually some major artists who are doing that, such as at the Met, there's a frozen Snowman.

It's actually coming from MoMA and it originally came from the Art Institute of Chicago, and that's the Snowman that's in the refrigerator.

And it's making a political statement now.

But Peter, the artist, his name is Fishy, and he also worked with a partner to make this installation.

Initially it was just a commission and they made this installation.

But it has since become sort of a poster boy for global warming and the fact that what's gonna keep the Snowman alive going forward?

- Well, we know if we have seen, you mentioned Frosty, so we know there's a "Frosty the Snowman" movie.

We know there's a "Jack Frost," we know there's a thriller, "The Snowman."

But you tell us a story about one of the much loved movies of all times, "Citizen Kane."

What's the story of the Snowman in "Citizen Kane?"

- Well I contend that the Snowman's always in some kind of pivotal sort of a benchmark in history, like a frozen "Forrest Gump."

He always winds up being like right there in the advent of things like inventions like the first postcards and magazines and the first silent movies.

And sure enough, why not be in one of the most acclaimed movies ever in cinema, "Citizen Kane."

And not only that, being the most pivotal scene in the movie in which the mother is inside signing away her son as her son's making a Snowman out front.

And there's Orson wells using symbolism, using the Snowman to represent childhood and the loss of innocence, and then also using the device of it snowing.

And a lot of times in movies, snow is used to signify a magical moment or a turning point or just to emotionally grab you.

And it does that, I think when it snows, even not just in movies, but in real life, people do feel a special something when it starts to snow.

- Well you have some information in the book about how the movie snow was made for "Citizen Kane."

- Exactly, he had to think of a way of how he was gonna film and they had to come up with new ways.

And Citizen Kane had some state-of-the-art advancements in cinema.

And Orson Welles has done a lot of unusual things.

And in this case, he used painted snowflakes to create the snow in "Citizen Kane."

- Corn Flakes.

- Corn Flakes.

- Corn Flakes.

Painted corn flakes.

- And it's funny, snow has always been used in advertising and signified things like salt and flour and dandruff even.

And the Snowman would be the pitchman they would use when in the 11th hour they couldn't find someone else to sell their product.

And so the Snowman actually was in the forefront of advertising, and it just goes to show you never can get rid of the Snowman.

- Well what's so amazing to me is that we have just marked an occasion where Joseph Mankiewicz and Herman Mankiewicz of movie Hollywood fame, Joseph was born in Wilkes-Barre, Herman spent much of his childhood in Wilkes-Barre.

And so it's fascinating to me that we have that connection with the connection we're going to talk about with you, Mary Beth Voda.

You can tie a film like "It's a Wonderful Life" to our area.

Welcome, and tell us how.

- Hi, yes, "It's a Wonderful Life" has, you could say it start in Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, a tiny little rural community in Bradford County of about, the borough has about 500 residents.

In 1900, the man who wrote "The Greatest Gift" upon which "It's a Wonderful Life" was based, Philip Van Doran Stern was born in Wyalusing in September of 1900.

That picture right there is a picture of one of the places he lived, that was in Tunkhannock.

This is his mother, Anna Stern, Anna Fisher, or excuse me, Anna Fisher Van Doren Stern was his mother.

And this is a picture of Philip, first with his mother and then Philip alone, they lived in Wyalusing briefly, but why he was born here fascinated me.

I heard about it in 2004 from a local newspaper story.

And I was curious, it wasn't explained why he was born here.

His parents were from New Jersey, his father was actually from Bavaria, but his parents were married in New York City in 1899.

And when Philip was due to be born, his mother wanted to be in Wyalusing.

I thought that was odd.

I wondered about it.

Eventually I found out about why he was born here.

It seems his mother trained as a nurse in Philadelphia, and while she was training, she met some people and took care of people from Wyalusing.

When it came time for her to deliver her first child, she wanted to be among those friends in Wyalusing.

Her husband was a traveling salesman, a traveling merchant.

She apparently figured she might be alone at the time of the birth, and she wanted to be surrounded by friends that she cared for.

And that's why they came to Wyalusing and rented a house in downtown Wyalusing borough.

- Well Mary Beth, we know that the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannockevery year screens "It's a Wonder Life" and people come out, it's for free, and people feel all ready for the holiday, but many of them come out and say, "Well no, no, it's not Seneca Falls."

Bedford Falls is right here in Tunkhannock.

Do you get a sense of anything like that to Tunkhannock when you see the film or when you read "The Gift?"

- It's curious.

They're small towns.

They're very small towns.

Bedford falls in the movie or "The Greatest Gift," the community that Philip Van Doren Stern wrote about was a small town, and it's about small town people, people who are neighbors, people helping each other, people who are, in Stern's view, insignificant.

He wrote a story about what he considered an insignificant person and went on to say that no life is insignificant, they all matter.

And that's, I guess, the connection.

Now there are all kinds of conjectures about, is it really based on Wyalusing?

Well maybe not specifically, but the town that it might be a little closer related to is Sara, or excuse me, Seneca Falls in upstate New York.

And that's a whole other story, but that's connected to.

- Mary Beth, Bob just was telling us about the use of snow in films and how it can go to signify things.

Do you have some insights into the way Frank Capra used snow in the film?

- Right, and it was interesting to hear Bob talk about another film, Frank Capra in 1946, when he produced the movie and directed the movie, didn't want Corn Flakes, he said they were too noisy.

He felt they weren't the right consistency, they weren't the right kind of snow for his movie.

And so he put people on the job and they came up with a mixture of foamite, which was a firefighting chemical mixed with water, soap, and sugar.

And then it was sprayed and pumped through a wind machine onto the people.

If you look at, I just saw that one picture with the lady with the snowflakes on her shoulder.

They're not melting.

I mean, they're right there.

And whatever this foamite mixture was brought the right texture and right consistency to what Frank Capra envisioned.

- Bob, do you have any sense when you watch "It's a Wonderful Life" about the snow and how much that contributes to the effect of the story?

- Exactly, I was gonna ask Mary if she agreed that it's actually a part of the movie that's another cast member in that directors use the pace and speed of the snow to create the mood that they want.

And we see it in animation now in the classic specials like "The Grinch" and "Charlie Brown Christmas," they will use the pace of the snow to sort of control the emotions they want from the viewers.

It's almost an extra person on the screen.

- That's so great.

And another part of, or at least I agree, certainly, another part of it is they were filming in 90 degree temperatures in Hollywood.

And if you look very carefully, as I've read, you could see the perspiration on Jimmy Stewart.

They were really acting.

I mean, they used their acting chops to envision this or to present this story in the frigid cold snowflakes that were falling around them when it was actually 90 degrees.

- It does look like fake snow though.

I'm disappointed when I see "Citizen Kane" that the Snowman looks like it's made of styrofoam, and that's a disappointment.

But we've come a long way.

- Yes, yes, for certain.

- Bob, what about in the Snowman as a story figure, the writers, great writers, poets, is that something that you followed up to?

- Yes, because the Snowman has always signified magic, the magic of Christmas.

So it's a sort of a logical plot device to say that something's gonna come to life.

And a lot of times it's used just as a metaphor.

The first people who wrote about snowmen in that way, we include Nathaniel Hawthorne, and then after that, Hans Christian Anderson.

And each of them were talking about something more deep, but they used a Snowman as a vehicle to tell that story in a way and to convey that magic moment of when something comes to life.

And so now we have a lot of that with "Frosty the Snowman" is for kids, the hat goes on the Snowman, and then there's Raymond Briggs' classic holiday special, "The Snowman," which the Snowman's flying again, and flying, you can't get away from flying at snowmen it seems because it just conjures up that feeling of the holidays, I guess?

- Well, we just started out that way with the ice skaters who fly and the angel, tell the angel story.

Now what is that about?

- The angel story would be, I think one of the great American sculptors of our country is Larkin Mead.

And one New Year's Eve, he was with his two buddies and they were drinking some spiked cider, and they decided they're gonna build the best Snowman.

But in this case, it was a snow woman, and they chose as a subject the snow angel the recording angel.

And this would be the angel that ushers in the new year by writing down the people who have passed away and the great deeds.

And so there's sort of a mythical story to go behind this as well.

But this was also just a showcase to show how brilliant a sculptor Larkin Mead was.

And he would become a famous sculptor that people from other towns would come to see.

And not just that, he was written about actually worldwide this sculpture, when in the morning the town of Brattleboro would wake up and see this amazing majestic sculpture in the middle of their town.

And as a matter of fact, they even built a fountain as a memorial, I guess, to signify the melting of the Snowman.

And this fountain is still there and they've also made a marble replica.

But Larkin Mead would go on to make the Lincoln Memorial in Springfield.

So it goes to show that Snowman-making is not child's play.

- Mary Beth, can you tell us, just to tie the bow, can you tell us what became of Philip Van Doren Stern?

- Well, after his family, eventually, it seems like Mrs. Stern got tired of the traveling her husband was doing with the family.

They moved back to New Jersey.

The parents, Philip Van Doren Stern's parents, settled in Newark, New Jersey, and stayed there until their death.

Philip Van Doren Stern went on to be a graduate of Rutgers University in 1924, and eventually quite a famous and well-known historian and writer, mostly about the Civil War.

But he wrote about Abraham Lincoln, he wrote profiles of Civil War historic figures, as well as Henry David Thoreau and others.

So he was a well-respected author and teacher and historian.

In World War II, he happened to find himself in the right place at the right time, and he became part of the effort to produce small pocket-sized books for GIs that would fit the pockets of their uniforms, and according to many GIs, saved their lives.

It's a strong statement to make, but many of them felt that these stories, the most famous of which was "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," and the GIs just felt that reading these books which were passed out to the soldiers and they could pass them on to each other helped them see a part of home, or helped them have some hope that they might eventually get home and they might survive this horror that they were experiencing.

It's a fascinating life, it seems to me of Philip Van Doren Stern, and when he wrote "The Greatest Gift," it was in 19, I'm backing up again now, but in 1938, he had a dream.

And his granddaughter, whom I interviewed, said he was a great believer in dreams.

He was a deep thinker, really fascinated by dreams.

And he woke up one day after having had a dream that moved him.

And while he was shaving, he had this idea for a story, which was "The Greatest Gift," and it came fully formed in his mind.

He said that was very unusual.

He became a writer.

He was a writer.

He said, "Doesn't usually happen that way."

But he had this story fully formed and he wrote it down.

This was in 1938.

Tried to sell it and didn't, and eventually it found its way to Hollywood.

- That is some story, but it had roots here.

Just a quickie.

We go out now, we make a Snowman.

Are we making art?

- Absolutely.

It's an expression of ourselves.

It's a very rare chance that you're gonna make a life-size figure in your lifetime.

- That's it.

That's fun.

Well this book is thrilling, and we hope you'll have a chance to see it, the illustrations, because it is the illustrated guide.

Thank you, Bob.

Thank you, Mary Beth.

Thank you all for watching.

And every episode of "Keystone Edition" is available on-demand on our YouTube channel, and now is a special audio podcast.

Visit wvia.org/keystoneeditionarts to stream episodes or subscribe to the podcast.

For "Keystone Edition," I'm Erica Funke, and we'll close with some music from Marco Marcinko and the Scranton Jazz Festival Big Band playing a winter favorite recorded at WVIA.

(upbeat music)