Spark goes in search of artists who have put aside their brushes, instead opting for the stitch-by-stitch, tat-by-tat universe of needlework.

First, the art of the tattoo, which was once on the fringes of Western culture and is now a mainstream phenomenon — meet one of the world’s best-known tattoo artists, Don Ed Hardy.

In our second story, explore the method, meaning and madness behind Anna Von Mertens‘s quilts, which are covered with as many as 100,000 hand-sewn stitches.

And finally, take on issues of gender and identity with Anna Maltz‘s works of hand-knit whimsy, anatomically correct nude body suits.

Spark revels in the skill and tenacity of individuals who are keeping their ancestral traditions alive through the arts. First meet Vishal Ramani, who has spent the last 25 years passing along the finer points of classical Indian dance at Shiri Krupa Dance Company — 9,000 miles from her homeland. Then, travel to Yosemite, once home to some of Native America’s most skilled basket weavers, where Julia Parker is helping to revive the art form and tell the story of the valley through basket weaving. And finally, prep for Carnaval Bahia-style, with choreographer and teacher Conceição Damasceno and watch as she shares Brazilian culture.

Spark delights in the sound of people making music together, with ensembles that come in all shapes and sizes. In our first story, you may already know that the Grammy-winning San Francisco Symphony Chorus is one of the finest vocal ensembles in the world … but what you may not know is that most of its members are volunteers, who travel to San Francisco at least once a week from as far away as Stockton. In our second story, travel to the First Missionary Church in San Jose for a visit with the newly formed The Gospel Travelers, an unlikely assortment of blues and gospel performers. Then see how the Sonos Handbell Ensemble in Walnut Creek make music one note at a time.

In this episode of Spark, you’ll meet individuals who are using their skills as producers, presenters, fund-raisers and all-around great schmoozers to energize and invigorate the Bay Area arts scene. Cal Performances is one of the country’s premier? presenting organizations. The man at the helm here is impresario Robert Cole. Follow him as he works the room — here and in New York — to bring the best of world dance and music to the Bay Area. Then meet Angela McConnell, one of the most successful fund-raisers in the Bay Area Arts community, and witness her latest achievement, helping to raise almost $12 million in the wake of the dotcom bust to build a new Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) in Mountain View. Finally, we’ll catch a glimpse of a day in the frenetic life of Jordan Simmons, artistic director of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, as he juggles roles in the classroom, on stage, at the center and in the community.

Speaking from first-hand experience is a narrative style that’s the hallmark of many 21st-century art forms. In this episode of Spark, see how Bay Area artists are making the form uniquely theirs.

Begin with the kind of stories that won’t put you to sleep as you’ll discover with Porch Light, a monthly revue in which storytellers walk an emotional tightrope on stage, spilling their guts in front of a live audience.

In our second story, visit students at Tamalpais High School who are learning the fine art of documentary theater, a form that now dominates American drama. We follow their production from first interview to finished performance as they document the history of protest in the Mill Valley community.

Finally, we’ll go backstage with comedian and actress Marga Gomez as she workshops a new one-woman show based on her experiences growing up in an ambitious show-biz family.

In this episode of Spark, you’ll meet families that make art together. Circus artist Gypsy Snider grew up in San Francisco’s Pickle Family Circus, then toured with Cirque du Soleil. Now she’s taking the biggest risk of her career: launching a circus of her own, Les Sept Doigts de la Main, and bringing her 2-year-old daughter along with her. In our second story, we meet Sahara Sunday Spain, a published poet and accomplished dancer, singer/songwriter and visual artist … who is only 12 years old. Together, she and her mother, photographer and activist Elizabeth Sunday, make a formidable two-career family. And finally, patriarch Miguel Govea has been a fixture in the Bay Area Latin music scene for decades. Now the rest of his family, including his two daughters, are joining him onstage and in the recording studio with La Familia Peña-Govea.

In the San Francisco Bay Area’s red-hot real estate market, it isn’t always easy to make room for art. But all of the artists you’ll meet in this episode of Spark are finding ingenious ways to do just that.

Our first story is like a scene out of MTV’s “Real World”: budding young opera stars, living cheek to jowl in a one-of-a-kind residence program. It’s Opera San Jose‘s answer to the affordable housing crisis.

In our second story, we travel to Bayview Hunter’s Point in San Francisco, where former teacher and lawyer Villy Wang is putting lifelong convictions to the test, turning a warehouse into the new home of BAYCAT, a program in art and technology that targets underserved urban kids.

And finally, we’ll take to the streets of San Jose to check out Phantom Galleries, part of a nationwide trend to counter the effects of urban blight by filling vacant storefronts with the work of local artists.

Spark is along for the ride with globe-trotting members of the world’s artistic elite.

Travel to New York City with LINES Contemporary Ballet‘s artistic director Alonzo King, who works as a guest choreographer for more than 50 international dance companies.

Next, experience the Danish dancer Flemming Flindt as he begins rehearsals at Ballet San Jose for “Out of Africa,” his adaptation of the Isak Dinesen memoir of life in Kenya.

Then meet violinist Midori while she’s in town for a one-night appearance at San Francisco Performances.

In this episode of Spark, explore work by artists who are drawn to the methods, materials and meaning of technology. First, meet engineer, professor and Internet artist Ken Goldberg as he and his students design and host whimsical experiments where Internet players from all over the world jointly control games, robots and people. Next, visit electronic media artist Paul De Marinis at his studio in the heart of Silicon Valley, where he uses gas flames to emit the voices of Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler. And finally, visit the hands-on exhibit “Bang the Machine” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which demonstrates how computer gaming artists have influenced interactive arts.

Spark takes on the blank page with visual artists who work with, on and through paper.

First, visit Julie Chen as she defies traditional definitions of bookmaking, combining original works of poetry and three-dimensional paper techniques.

Then, explore a new form of printmaking in the studio of Enrique Chagoya as he takes aim at establishment religion and politics with humor that both provokes and amuses.

Finally, Spark takes a sideline seat at Southern Exposure’s Monster Drawing Rally in which more than a hundred artists take up pencils, pens and other unlikely drawing tools to create on-the-spot masterpieces.

Spark explores the fusion of cultures, styles and disciplines that make up the incredibly diverse Bay Area art scene.

Go inside the Bay Area’s burgeoning Muslim spoken word, poetry and hip-hop scene with Calligraphy of Thought poets as they create and rehearse new works for a performance at the Box Theater, in Oakland.

Then approach dance with sculptural costumer Sha Sha Higby as she creates intricate costumes made of wood, silk, paper and gold leaf.

And finally, witness the spectacle that is the Punk Rock Orchestra led by conductor John Gluck, who uses a toilet brush as a baton to conduct classically trained musicians playing punk rock classics.

Spark checks in with three artists who continue to find inspiration in the human face and form.

Over many decades, veteran ceramicist Viola Frey has created hundreds of colossal, larger-than-life figures, many of them brightly glazed in a rainbow of colors, that have become favorites of many collectors.

Shifting his focus from documentary and commercial work, iconoclastic photographer Olivier Laude photographs his friends and acquaintances cast as characters in elaborately conceived tableaux that spoof ethnographic portraits.

Using an unholy mix of beans, noodles and yarn, Jason Mecier creates mosaic portraits of friends and celebs that are shockingly realistic and endlessly entertaining.

Spark visits with several of the Bay Area’s most influential artists, elders who have been working in their art form for decades and are continuing to teach and work long past retirement age. First, make acquaintance with Pauline Oliveros, the internationally renowned pioneer in electronic and improvisational music, who continues to perform and teach her musical philosophy of deep listening. Next meet David Ireland, one of California’s most important and critically acclaimed artists working in the challenging arena of conceptual and installation art. And finally, visit with Bella Feldman as she creates what she calls “anxious objects,” metal and blown-glass sculptures inspired by the Gulf War and the current conflicts in the Middle East.

Spark explores the frontiers of the dance world with some of the Bay Area’s most innovative choreographers and performers. First, go into rehearsal with artistic director Ledoh of Salt Farm Butoh Dance Company as he uses the contemporary Japanese form to explore his Burmese ancestry. See glimpses of AXIS Dance Company‘s world premiere of “Dust,” a provocative choreo-portrait that challenges the viewer’s assumptions about each of the performers. Meet Belva Stone as she instructs students in the art of poi, an ancient fire dance first practiced by the Maori people of New Zealand.