Meet artists who are creating art out of items found around the home. Spark starts off with a visit with woodworker Garry Knox Bennett, known outlandish and often humorous furniture designs, at his Oakland.

Then we catch up with ceramic artist Richard Shaw as he finishes teaching a semester at UC Berkeley and begins to work feverishly on a new set of work destined for unveiling at the Braunstein/Quay Gallery in San Francisco.

Next, watch mosaic artist Laurel True transform one small corner of her West Oakland neighborhood with her brilliantly colored designs.

Spark talks with painters who are exploring new forms of expression with a centuries-old medium.

First, Robert Bechtle reveals the painstaking method behind his extraordinary photo-realistic works.

Next, visit with Hung Liu while at work on a series of figurative works that combine images of Chinese concubines culled from vintage photographs with a surface that literally drips with paint.

Then, renowned artist Nathan Oliveira reflects on his lifelong fascination with the painted surface.

Catch up with world-renowned dancers in this episode of Spark. First go into rehearsal with famed choreographer Michael Smuin and his versatile dancers for an eclectic Christmas show and a sexy new ballet set to the music of Frank Sinatra. Then travel with Margaret Jenkins to China as she introduces her unique collaborative choreographic techniques to the Beijing Modern Dance Company. Next visit with renowned flamenco artist Rosa Montoya, who now retired from the stage but still teaches, as she works with her dedicated followers, many of whom have studied with her for ten years or more.

Spark follows Bay Area artists who are bringing the world’s most venerable art forms right to our doorstep. Visit with Chinese acrobat Lu Yi at the Circus Center, as he prepares two of his top students for their debut as professional performers. Then join Dr. Zak Diouf and Naomi Washington Diouf and their Diamano Coura West African Dance Company in the weeks leading up to their annual repertoire concert. Next, meet Kulintang master Danny Kalanduyan who is helping to bring the rich cultural heritage of his native Philippines to the United States.

In this episode of Spark, go on a visual journey with artists who are using the camera to reveal hidden realities.

Starting with photographer Catherine Wagner, whose stark, pristine images present startling new perspectives on the worlds of science, nature and material culture.

Then see how experimental filmmaker Kerry Laitala creates works of handmade cinematic art, one frame at a time.

Finally, video artist Ben Wood uses digital technology to retrieve and restore a centuries-old mural painted by Native American artists in San Francisco’s Mission Dolores.

Spark interacts with a group of artists as they put viewers in the hot seat. Machine artist Kal Spelletich catapults his subjects to the brink of sheer panic with his fire-breathing works of post-industrial folk art. Next, meet artist Scott Snibbe, who mesmerizes gallery-goers with wall-sized electronic installations that come alive to their touch, breath, and motion. Then, new media artist Amy Franceschini uses fingerprint scanning technology to take viewers on an up-close journey of their own bodies.

Experience artists whose work emanates from the street.

Once a professional skateboarder, Tommy Guerrero channels the skate culture through his music and visual artwork.

Next see graffiti artist and self-described bad boy David Choe, who has moved from the streets of Los Angeles and San Jose to the brink of stardom. He has self-published graphic novels, produced illustrations for magazines and mounted dozens of gallery shows of his paintings.

Also check out reflections of “Life on Market Street: An Audio Archive,” with the four-wheeled interactive artwork by the artist team of Wowhaus (thewowhaus.com).

Spark looks at extraordinary craftspeople at work.

The Bay Area is considered one of the centers of glassmaking in the United States, and Pamina Traylor is part of that growing community. Pamina combines dozens of delicate hand-blown glass shapes to create sculptural objects of lyrical beauty.

Then follow Gary Stevens, who got his start as a carpenter, but once he’d stumbled across the ancient stumps in his own backyard, he found the inspiration to create forms unlike anything he’d ever made in woodshop.

Finally, Chris Natrop is a real-life Edward Scissorhands, transforming vast rolls of paper into freeform lace panels.

In times of trouble, Spark shows how art can be the force that heals.

First meet Rhodessa Jones, who has been the heart and soul of the Medea Project since 1989.

She uses improvisational theater to transform the lives of incarcerated women and ex-offenders. Next, see how the Sixth Street Photography Workshop gives the dispossessed of San Francisco’s Tenderloin district the tools and resources they need to create moving photographic chronicles.

Then see how Eleanor Coppola has brought part of her journey in Ireland to the Oakland Art Gallery, allowing grieving parents to remember their children in and through the installation artwork Circle of Memory.

Spark shows the magic behind the Bay Area’s most ambitious stage productions — starting with the creation of a striking new set design for the San Francisco Opera‘s staging of “Doktor Faust.” Next is costumer extraordinaire Sandra Woodall, who has designed for a variety of genres, including ballet, modern dance, performance art and theater. We see her in action at A.C.T. and the San Francisco Ballet. Then, meet Joy Marcelle, the wig master for the Best of Broadway’s production of “Hairspray.”

When successful local performers try to take their careers to another level, Spark asks, “Do they have what it takes?”

Chanticleer’s Matt Alber harkens back to his Midwestern roots as he tries to make it into the big time as a country and western star.

Next, they’ve been making music together for decades, but now the members of the Greek band Kymata want to move beyond wedding gigs to create their own unique fusion of musical styles. A fixture in the Greek community, the band takes a step back from performing to begin recording.

Then have the last dance with ambitious young ballroom dancers as they go head to head at the Bay Area’s first Ballroom Blitz Junior Dance Sport Championship.

Gifted teenage artists jump at the chance to strut their stuff on this episode of Spark. Catch the Bay Area’s best young jazz musicians vying for a spot on the region’s premier high school jazz ensemble SFJazz Allstars. Then meet high school artists who have come from across the country to hone their skills at Napa Valley’s exclusive Oxbow School and see what it takes to get there. As a final note, hear Youth in Arts San Rafael‘s teen a cappella music group, ‘Til Dawn.

Spark visits with some of the Bay Area’s most accomplished and daring performers.

First, skate along the cutting edge with Berkeley Symphony Orchestra‘s conductor Kent Nagano, who works with young composer Naomi Sekiya on her concerto for two guitars.

Then, travel from first draft to finished production with veteran playwright John O’Keefe as he mines the politics of the personal.

And finally, choreographer Robert Moses (at robertmoseskin.org)and the young poets of Youth Speaks debut a collaboration using words, music, and movement.

In this episode of Spark, contemporary artists breathe new life into classic performance works.

In our first story, choreographer Mark Morris resurrects the 19th-century Parisian masterpiece “Sylvia” at the San Francisco Ballet — infusing this mythological tale of nymphs and satyrs with his own unique blend of humor and sensuality. Follow Morris from his first rehearsals with the dancers right up to opening night.

Then go backstage at the American Conservatory Theater as director Carey Perloff takes on one of the 20th century’s most important and challenging plays: Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”

And finally, in what might qualify as the season’s most unlikely artistic collaboration, the San Francisco Opera teams up with Oakland’s industrial arts center, The Crucible, to stage a pyrotechnic version of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas.”