Podcasts about fine arts houston

This week on my podcast, “About Art” I spoke with the British contemporary artist Robert Montgomery. Montgomery is well known for his work in public space. He makes light works, billboard poems, fire poems, paintings and watercolors. His work brings text art closer to the language of poetry. He represented the UK in the 2012 Kochi Biennale and the 2016 Yinchuan Biennale. His work is in museum collections across the world including the Albright Knox in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. He has had solo museum projects at the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado, Oklahoma Contemporary in Oklahoma City, and the Cer Modern Museum in Ankara. His work was recently included in the Musée du Louvre exhibition “La Suite de l'Histoire” in Paris. His work is hugely popular on the internet, the piece “The People You Love Become Ghosts Inside of You” has been shared online more than 200 million times.   He and Zuckerman discuss the gentle 90 percent, kindness, grief, love outlasting death, the temporary nature of power and wealth, modernist poetry, how to be a painter and poet at the same time, devotional reflection, having conversations with people across time, the magic in the mundane, light, and mentorship!

Visual Artist and educator, Lydia Panas and I have a wonderful conversation about her work including her books, Falling from Grace (self published), The Mark of Abel (Kehrer Verlag), and Sleeping Beauty (MW Editions). We talk about her use of allegorical themes as a way of pushing back against them and we talk extensively about how she works with and connects with her models and how all her work has a deep personal connection to her own epxeriences. http://www.lydiapanas.com ||| https://www.instagram.com/lydiapanas_/ ||| https://www.facebook.com/lydia.panas ||| https://www.kehrerverlag.com/en/lydia-panas-the-mark-of-abel-978-3-86828-229-0 ||| https://mweditions.com/books/lydia-panas-sleeping-beauty/ This podcast is sponsored by the Charcoal Book Club Begin Building your dream photobook library today at https://charcoalbookclub.com Lydia Panas is a visual artist working with photography and video. A first-generation American, she was raised between Greece and the United States. Panas' work looks at identity and what lies below the surface, investigating questions of who we are and what we want to become. Her work is made in the fields, forests, and studio of her family farm in Pennsylvania. The connection she feels to this land is the foundation of her work. Panas' work has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and internationally. Her photographs are represented in public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Palm Springs Art Museum, Michener Art Museum, Allentown Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, the Sheldon Museum, Zendai MoMA Shanghai, among others. Her work has appeared in periodicals such as The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, French Photo, Hyperallergic, Photo District News, Popular Photography, San Francisco Chronicle, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Flavorpill, WSJ Blog, GEO Wissen, Die Volkskrant, Haaretz, and the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In this episode, artists Meghann Riepenhoff and Penelope Umbrico chat with MoCP curator, Kristin Taylor. The two artists discuss their backgrounds and shared interests in experimenting and pushing the indexical qualities of photography, as well as the work of Alison Rossiter and Joanne Leonard.Meghann Riepenhoff is most well-known for her largescale cyanotype prints that she creates by collaborating with ocean waves, rain, ice, snow, and coastal shores. She places sheets of light-sensitized paper in these water elements, allowing nature to act as the composer of what we eventually see on the paper. As the wind driven waves crash or the ice melts, dripping across the surface of the coated paper, bits of earth sediment like sand and gravel also become inscribed on the surface. The sun is the final collaborator, with its UV rays developing the prints and reacting with the light sensitizing chemical on the paper to draw out the Prussian blue color. These camera-less works harness the light capturing properties of photographic processes, to translate, in her words, “the landscape, the sublime, time, and impermanence.” Rieppenhoff's work has been featured in exhibitions at the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Denver Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, among many others. Her work is held in the collections of the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Harvard Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She has published two monographs: Littoral Drift + Ecotone and Ice with Radius Books and Yossi Milo Gallery. She was an artist in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and the John Michael Kohler Center for the Arts, was an Affiliate at the Headlands Center for the Arts, and was a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow.Penelope Umbrico examines the sheer volume and ubiquity of images in contemporary culture. She uses various forms of found imagery—from online picture sharing websites to photographs in books and mail order catalogs—and appropriates the pictures to construct large-scale installations. She states: "I take the sheer quantity of images online as a collective archive that represents us—a constantly changing auto-portrait." In the MoCP permanent collection is a piece titled 8,146,774 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 9/10/10. It is an assemblage of numerous pictures that she found on the then widely used image-sharing website, Flickr, by searching for one of its most popular search terms: sunset. She then cropped the found files and created her own 4x6 inch prints on a Kodak Easy Share printer. She clusters the prints into an enormous array to underscore the universal human attraction to capture the sun's essence. The title references the number of results she received from the search on the day she made the work: the first version of the piece created in 2007 produced 2,303,057 images while this version from only three years later in 2010 produced 8,146,774 images. Umbrico's work has been featured in exhibitions around the world, including MoMA PS1, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; MassMoCA, MA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; The Photographers' Gallery, London; Daegu Photography Biennale, Korea; Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane Australia; among many others, and is represented in museum collections around the world. She has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship; Sharpe-Walentas Studio Grant; Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship; New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship; Anonymous Was a Woman Award. Her monographs have been published by Aperture NYC and RVB Books Paris. She is joining us today from her studio in Brooklyn, NY.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha has a warm and deeply personal conversation with photographer Gregory Halpern. They discuss his latest book, "King, Queen, Knave," published by MACK, and also revisit "ZZYZX," the 2016 monograph that significantly elevated Greg's career. Together, they emphasize the importance of knowing when to assume the roles of photographer and editor, and when to let the audience engage with the work on their own terms. http://www.gregoryhalpern.com/ ||| https://www.mackbooks.us/products/king-queen-knave-gregory-halpern Gregory Halpern is an American photographer born in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of eight monographs, including King, Queen, Knave (2024), Omaha Sketchbook (2019), and ZZYZX (2016), his fantastical book of photographs of Los Angeles, now in its fourth edition. Halpern is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a member of Magnum Photos. His photographs are held in the collections of several major museums, including The Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, and the Fotomuseum Antwerpen. His work has been featured in group exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the George Eastman Museum, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Fotomuseum Antwerpen, and Pace/MacGill in New York. He holds a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and an MFA from California College of the Arts. He lives in Rochester, New York with his wife, Ahndraya Parlato, and their two daughters. He is a professor of photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This podcast is sponsored by picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom. https://phtsdr.com

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and photographer, Kelli Connell discuss her brand new book, Pictures for Charis, published by Aperture. Kelli talks about her fascination with and subsequent extensive research on Charis Wilson and the eleven year relationship she had with legendary photographer Edward Weston, and how what she learned guided her own exploration of portrait-making and landscape work while collaborating with her wife of fourteen years, Betsy Odom. Sasha and Kelli also discuss Kelli's renowned series, Double Life, which also explores the relationship between photographer and model as well as gender and identity. https://www.kelliconnell.com https://aperture.org/books/kelli-connell-pictures-for-charis/ http://www.decodebooks.com/connell.html Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer / sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, J Paul Getty Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Dallas Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications of her work include Kelli Connell: Pictures for Charis (Aperture, March 2024), PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice (Aperture), Photo Art: The New World of Photography (Aperture), and the monograph Kelli Connell: Double Life (DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships and residencies from The Guggenheim Foundation, MacDowell, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. Connell is an editor at SKYLARK Editions and a professor at Columbia College Chicago. This podcast is sponsored by picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom. https://phtsdr.com

Ep.177 features gallerist Kendra Jayne Patrick. Her art gallery operates between Switzerland and the USA. Its programming is focused on the twenty-first century avant-garde, specializing in sculpture, painting, digital, and photography from a post-conceptual and post-internet posture. The program operates from a brick-and-mortar location in Bern, Switzerland and then spare spaces within established New York art galleries; art fairs; and unusual exhibition sites. Adventure, scholarship, and the pleasure of looking govern the gallery's programming and ethos, and all are reflected in its fluid exhibition model. Kendra Jayne Patrick artists and exhibitions have been featured in The New York Times, Vice's GARAGE magazine, Artsy, Vulture, Artnet, ARTnews, Barron's, the San Francisco Chronicle, and DAZED Magazine, Art in America, Cultured, The Guardian, Gallery Talk magazine, PHILE Magazine, Document Journal, Office Magazine, The Art Newspaper, and The New Yorker. Kendra Jayne Patrick artists are represented in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, TX; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; The Dallas Museum of Art, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC. Photo credit: Ernst Fischer Kendra Jayne Patrick https://gallerykendrajaynepatrick.com/ Art Basel https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/30253/Kendra-Jayne-Patrick https://www.artbasel.com/stories/lambdalambdalambda-kendra-jayne-patrick-hua-international-young-galleries?lang=en NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/04/arts/design/art-basel-miami-diversity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/t-magazine/starting-galleries-art-dealers.html Cultured Magazine https://www.culturedmag.com/article/2023/06/12/art-basel-dealers-debut Art Forum https://www.artforum.com/news/art-basel-miami-beach-reveals-2023-exhibitors-list-252980/ Art Newspaper https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/02/23/galleries-making-their-art-basel-debuts-this-yearand-what-theyre-bringing Art Dependence Magazine https://artdependence.com/articles/what-to-expect-at-art-basels-2023-edition-in-switzerland/ Artnet https://news.artnet.com/news-pro/where-art-basel-headed-recession-2318140 EXPO Chicago https://www.expochicago.com/exhibitors/exposure/2023-exposure Yard Concept https://www.yard-concept.com/journal/kendra-jayne-patrick Vice https://garage.vice.com/en_us/article/4ad37p/kendra-jayne-patricks-seating-chart-for-a-fall-dinner-party-in-a-pandemic Halsey McKay https://www.halseymckay.com/kendra-jayne-patrick-presents-david-jeremiah-play-press-release Gallery Girls https://gallerygurls.net/art-convos/2021/7/18/art-convo-with-kendra-jayne-patrick NADA https://www.newartdealers.org/programs/nada-miami-2020/presentations/75 Ada Friedman https://www.adafriedmanstudio.com/recent-exhibitions/kendra-jayne-patrick--fall-2022 LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendra-jayne-patrick-247001180/ Glasstire https://glasstire.com/2023/07/27/top-five-july-27-2023/

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."I was just saying to Eric yesterday, we were walking down the quay and talking and suddenly I said, "People just don't think about place enough. We don't recognize the importance of place." I think it's a little bit the social media environment that we're living in now where we're all bent over a screen, but to try to locate yourself in a place is reifying. It's identifying. It gives you a sense of positive self-consciousness. I think if you find that you're comfortable or not, just being able to feel out the positive or negative effects of a space or place is really important. And I don't think people spend enough time affording themselves that contemplation of place. And, to go back to my work, that's a little bit what I'm doing...I've been trying to sort of locate myself outside of myself as a way of reflecting back on who I am as a person."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"I was just saying to Eric yesterday, we were walking down the quay and talking and suddenly I said, "People just don't think about place enough. We don't recognize the importance of place." I think it's a little bit the social media environment that we're living in now where we're all bent over a screen, but to try to locate yourself in a place is reifying. It's identifying. It gives you a sense of positive self-consciousness. I think if you find that you're comfortable or not, just being able to feel out the positive or negative effects of a space or place is really important. And I don't think people spend enough time affording themselves that contemplation of place. And, to go back to my work, that's a little bit what I'm doing...I've been trying to sort of locate myself outside of myself as a way of reflecting back on who I am as a person."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive change - unless it disturbs their cellphone use and their car driving too much. We have to get a little more serious about that.I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive change - unless it disturbs their cellphone use and their car driving too much. We have to get a little more serious about that.I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"I was so mad at the Catholic Church and my upbringing and the way that my parents, my mother particularly, was so manipulated to think that if she did one thing for herself that she was somehow hurting Jesus and the local priests. I mean, it's such a brainwashing kind of situation. On the other hand, if you're raised Catholic, you're raised to believe in miracles. And the idea of transubstantiation. There's so many things about Catholicism, there's so much imagery that's magic, magical thinking, that lets your mind run free to a certain extent. You know, it does give you the willful ability to dream and imagine and just take off on crazy tangents. I mean religious people tend to be seekers and seekers tend to be the people that keep us whole and spiritually grounded and not just religious per se."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."I was so mad at the Catholic Church and my upbringing and the way that my parents, my mother particularly, was so manipulated to think that if she did one thing for herself that she was somehow hurting Jesus and the local priests. I mean, it's such a brainwashing kind of situation. On the other hand, if you're raised Catholic, you're raised to believe in miracles. And the idea of transubstantiation. There's so many things about Catholicism, there's so much imagery that's magic, magical thinking, that lets your mind run free to a certain extent. You know, it does give you the willful ability to dream and imagine and just take off on crazy tangents. I mean religious people tend to be seekers and seekers tend to be the people that keep us whole and spiritually grounded and not just religious per se."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive change - unless it disturbs their cellphone use and their car driving too much. We have to get a little more serious about that.I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive change - unless it disturbs their cellphone use and their car driving too much. We have to get a little more serious about that.I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

"The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive change - unless it disturbs their cellphone use and their car driving too much. We have to get a little more serious about that.I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC.She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."The current climate situation is so overwhelming to people. This is a scale of problem that we have never encountered before. We talk about World War this and World War that, but this is a global catastrophe that's affecting every part of our planet. And it's, importantly, I think, bigger than anyone can actually take in. And I think everyone has the best intentions of trying to make positive change - unless it disturbs their cellphone use and their car driving too much. We have to get a little more serious about that.I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.In terms of The Church arts center. It's not a religious institution, but it had been an old Methodist church that was built originally in 1835, and we renovated it to be an arts and creativity center. The arts are deeply important and creativity in all its forms is equally important to encourage and extol. So it was a natural place to develop that way, where we have art and poetry readings, and we have dance performances and rehearsals. And all of our residents are from different kinds of creative endeavors, and we haven't quite enacted this as much as I would like, but we want to have people who are computer scientists, composers, environmentalists, and anyone who is using creativity to make a positive change in the world and to express themselves. So that's the basic idea."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"I've chosen my work because I've loved the outside world. I love the things outside of myself. I love what isn't immediate to me. And I love projecting onto that as a way of kind of trying to reach the distance between my inner self and the vastness. To try to do that in a way that makes other people feel inspired by it, not be chided for not taking care of it. It's not something that I intend to be a message per se, but I think it might be a better message if it's not saying, "People, you've been bad. You have to change your evil ways!"You know, I'd rather people look at the natural world and see the heartbreaking beauty of it and sense its fragility and its impermanence and their own impermanence and fragility and then have a response to that rather than say, you know, you have to act, you have to do something. I would hope that would inspire action rather than to cudgel them with a directive.In terms of The Church arts center. It's not a religious institution, but it had been an old Methodist church that was built originally in 1835, and we renovated it to be an arts and creativity center. The arts are deeply important and creativity in all its forms is equally important to encourage and extol. So it was a natural place to develop that way, where we have art and poetry readings, and we have dance performances and rehearsals. And all of our residents are from different kinds of creative endeavors, and we haven't quite enacted this as much as I would like, but we want to have people who are computer scientists, composers, environmentalists, and anyone who is using creativity to make a positive change in the world and to express themselves. So that's the basic idea."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."I just started reading Emerson, and I'm glad that I've gotten to it because he talks about history and says that folded into every person, if you think of this as a fractal situation, I was just reading about this and it blew my mind. There is the understanding and the containment of all of history, of all dreams, of all desires of all the furthest reaches of our minds and our accomplishments are folded into every person. And how astonishing is that? I mean, I'm so mad at people all the time about what a mess everything is. On the other hand, we are just astonishing. And we have so much potential. But we're also so misdirected by advertising, by product placement, by false desires - say, to get everybody addicted to corn syrup and then have them develop diabetes is really evil, in my opinion. So I'm just always swinging wildly between an appreciation at the amazement of the human spirit and humanity and its accomplishments and then frustration at the bad uses to which that's put."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

"I just started reading Emerson, and I'm glad that I've gotten to it because he talks about history and says that folded into every person, if you think of this as a fractal situation, I was just reading about this and it blew my mind. There is the understanding and the containment of all of history, of all dreams, of all desires of all the furthest reaches of our minds and our accomplishments are folded into every person. And how astonishing is that? I mean, I'm so mad at people all the time about what a mess everything is. On the other hand, we are just astonishing. And we have so much potential. But we're also so misdirected by advertising, by product placement, by false desires - say, to get everybody addicted to corn syrup and then have them develop diabetes is really evil, in my opinion. So I'm just always swinging wildly between an appreciation at the amazement of the human spirit and humanity and its accomplishments and then frustration at the bad uses to which that's put."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

"I was just saying to Eric yesterday, we were walking down the quay and talking and suddenly I said, "People just don't think about place enough. We don't recognize the importance of place." I think it's a little bit the social media environment that we're living in now where we're all bent over a screen, but to try to locate yourself in a place is reifying. It's identifying. It gives you a sense of positive self-consciousness. I think if you find that you're comfortable or not, just being able to feel out the positive or negative effects of a space or place is really important. And I don't think people spend enough time affording themselves that contemplation of place. And, to go back to my work, that's a little bit what I'm doing...I've been trying to sort of locate myself outside of myself as a way of reflecting back on who I am as a person."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

"I just started reading Emerson, and I'm glad that I've gotten to it because he talks about history and says that folded into every person, if you think of this as a fractal situation, I was just reading about this and it blew my mind. There is the understanding and the containment of all of history, of all dreams, of all desires of all the furthest reaches of our minds and our accomplishments are folded into every person. And how astonishing is that? I mean, I'm so mad at people all the time about what a mess everything is. On the other hand, we are just astonishing. And we have so much potential. But we're also so misdirected by advertising, by product placement, by false desires - say, to get everybody addicted to corn syrup and then have them develop diabetes is really evil, in my opinion. So I'm just always swinging wildly between an appreciation at the amazement of the human spirit and humanity and its accomplishments and then frustration at the bad uses to which that's put."In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages.www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain

In this fractured world, how do the arts build community, understanding, and inspire change? How does art help us define who we are and our place in the world?April Gornik is known for her large scale landscape paintings which embrace the vastness of sea and sky. Her imagined landscapes, built up through a series of underpaintings are meditations on light and time. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. She is a director of the board of the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and co-founded The Church arts, exhibition space, and creativity center, which is a sanctuary for visual, performing, literary artists, and other creatives. Together with her husband the artist Eric Fischl, they are at the center of Sag Harbour's arts district, and in this episode, we'll also hear from some of the talented artists they've brought to their stages."I just started reading Emerson, and I'm glad that I've gotten to it because he talks about history and says that folded into every person, if you think of this as a fractal situation, I was just reading about this and it blew my mind. There is the understanding and the containment of all of history, of all dreams, of all desires of all the furthest reaches of our minds and our accomplishments are folded into every person. And how astonishing is that? I mean, I'm so mad at people all the time about what a mess everything is. On the other hand, we are just astonishing. And we have so much potential. But we're also so misdirected by advertising, by product placement, by false desires - say, to get everybody addicted to corn syrup and then have them develop diabetes is really evil, in my opinion. So I'm just always swinging wildly between an appreciation at the amazement of the human spirit and humanity and its accomplishments and then frustration at the bad uses to which that's put."www.aprilgornik.comwww.thechurchsagharbor.orgwww.milesmcenery.com/exhibitions/april-gornik2https://sagharborcinema.org/www.creativeprocess.infowww.oneplanetpodcast.orgIG www.instagram.com/creativeprocesspodcastKimiko Ishizaka - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 - 01 Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public DomainAdditional audio courtesy of Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center.

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and photographer and educator, Andrew Moore take a deep dive into the history of Andrew's ever evolving processes and practices. Andrew talks about his varied influences from both the modern and post-modern art world movements. Sasha and Andrew also discuss how his photography kept moving him closer and closer to home culminating in work made in the Hudson Valley where he resides. LINKS HERE https://www.andrewlmoore.com https://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/andrew-moore American photographer Andrew Moore (born 1957) is widely acclaimed for his photographic series, usually taken over many years, which record the effect of time on the natural and built landscape. These series include work made in Cuba, Russia, Bosnia, Times Square, Detroit, The Great Plains, and most recently, the American South. Moore's photographs are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Library of Congress amongst many other institutions. He has received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2014, and has as well been award grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the J M Kaplan Fund. His most recent book, Blue Alabama, with a preface by Imani Perry and story by Madison Smartt Bell was released in the fall of 2019. His previous work on the lands and people along the 100th Meridian in the US, called Dirt Meridian, has a preface by Kent Haruf and was exhibited at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. An earlier book, the bestselling Detroit Disassembled, included an essay by the late Poet Laureate Philip Levine, and an exhibition of the same title opened at the Akron Museum of Art before also traveling to the Queens Museum of Art, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Moore's other books include: Inside Havana (2002), Governors Island (2004) and Russia, Beyond Utopia (2005) and Cuba (2012). Additionally, his photographs have appeared in Art in America, Artnews, The Bitter Southerner, Harpers, National Geographic, New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, TIME, Vogue and Wired. Moore produced and photographed "How to Draw a Bunny," a pop art mystery feature film on the artist Ray Johnson. The movie premiered at the 2002 Sundance Festival, where it won a Special Jury prize. Mr. Moore was a lecturer on photography in the Visual Arts Program at Princeton University from 2001 to 2010. Presently he teaches a graduate seminar in the MFA Photography Video and Related Media program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. This podcast is sponsored by picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom. https://phtsdr.com

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and photographer and publisher Matt Eich discuss the intricate play between personal work and universality, the importance of varied artistic inspiration, and the deep understanding and responsibility needed when working with communities as an outsider. Matt also expresses the necessity of having trusted voices help in the editing process. https://www.matteichphoto.com https://www.littleoakpress.com Matt Eich is a photographic essayist working on long-form projects related to memory, family, community, and the American condition. Matt's work has received numerous grants and recognitions, including PDN's 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch, the Joop Swart Masterclass, the F25 Award for Concerned Photography, POYi's Community Awareness Award, an Aaron Siskind Fellowship, a VMFA Fellowship and two Getty Images Grants for Editorial Photography. His work has been exhibited in 20 solo shows, in addition to numerous festivals and group exhibitions. Matt's prints and books are held in the permanent collections of The Portland Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The New York Public Library, Chrysler Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Art, and others. Matt was an Artist-in-Residence at Light Work in 2013, and at a Robert Rauschenberg Residency in 2019. Eich holds a BS in photojournalism from Ohio University and an MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School's International Limited-Residency Program. He is the author of four monographs, Carry Me Ohio (Sturm & Drang, 2016), I Love You, I'm Leaving (Ceiba Editions, 2017), Sin & Salvation in Baptist Town (Sturm & Drang, 2018) and The Seven Cities (Sturm & Drang, 2020). He has one forthcoming monograph scheduled for Fall 2023. Eich self-publishes under the imprint Little Oak Press and resides in Virginia. This podcast is sponsored by picturehouse + thesmalldarkroom. https://phtsdr.com

Nuestra Palabra: 2023 ALMAAHH & MFA Studio Artists Spotlight! Tony Diaz will be interviewing a few artists and spotlight them on their artistic work as part of the 2023 ALMAAHH & MFAH community! Viri Ramos was introduced to painting at an early age by her mother who was a classically trained oil painter. Growing up they would often work along side each other. Upon graduating college, she made the move from Monterrey, México to Houston, Texas. It was during her time living on her own that she discovered acrylics, which were better suited for her not so well ventilated studio apartment. She found in acrylics the best match for her laid back relaxed aesthetic and personality. Her paintings are filled with life and fun. They are happy and playful.. at times serious, but mostly not at all. She favors rough strokes and bold colors. Instagram: @viriviriramos Website: www.viriramos.com Gerardo Rosales born in Venezuela is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who has been living and working in Houston, Texas, for 21 years. Rosales first started producing art as a self-taught artist, before attending the Armando Reverón Art Institute in Caracas, Venezuela, where he earned a B.A. in Fine Art. After graduating, he moved to London to study at Chelsea College of Art and Design, where he obtained an M.A. in Fine Art. Achieving recognition for his distinct and original work in Latin America's best known art venues, Rosales has continued developing his art career in Houston. Rosales's art calls attention to social issues, using a personal iconography connected to his experience as an immigrant in the US. His work is informed by traditions of western art and Latin American folk art. Rosales' latest art projects include: Commissioned to produce 3 big artworks for the new International Arrival Terminal at Bush International Airport; “Juicy Jungle” at Bill Arning Exhibitions, Houston (current) ; “Ornamento y Delito” at Carmen Araujo Arte , Caracas, Venezuela , 2022; “The Tree of Life” at Houston Botanic Garden (current); ¡Displaced Mundo! a wall painting at the Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, 2021; “The Banquet” a wall painting at Lawndale Art Center , 2021. During 2018 -2019 Rosales was an artist-in-residence in The TransArt Foundation for Art and Anthropology; from 2019-2021was the artist-in-residence at Lawndale Art Center in Houston. He was awarded the 2019 Support for Artists and Creative Individual Grant from the City of Houston, through the Houston Arts Program. Nela Garzón is a multidisciplinary visual artist with a profound interest in exploring foreign media inspired by traditional crafts and cultures from all over the world. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, she obtained a Bachelor's of Visual Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana on 2004. In Colombia she worked as a freelance artist and took part of national exhibitions such as 12 Salón Regional de Artistas, 41 Salón Nacional de Artistas and 4to Salón de Arte Bidimensional. She immigrated to the U.S. on 2010 and settled in Houston on 2012 where she currently lives and works. Her art has been shown around the U.S. On 2019 she was the 1st place award recipient of the Assistance League of Houston Texas Art Show curated by Jennie Goldstein, Assistant Curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, on 2020 she was selected as a LIFTS grant recipient and two of her works were added to the West Collection located in Philadelphia, PA and on 2022 she was commissioned by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to create a temporary sculpture that was showcased at the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. Nela Garzón www.minkstereo.com Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund. Instrumental Music produced / courtesy of Bayden Records Website | baydenrecords.beatstars.com

Nanette (2018) TV-MA 1h 9m Written and Performed by Hannah Gadsby Maybe Hannah Gadsby's Nanette isn't quite a movie, but Screen Cares host Jennie finds value in bringing the Netflix comedy special to the table to give context to her approach to viewing creative works and her own personal attempts to grow in her authenticity and vulnerability. Co-host Sarah helps make personal connections related to growing up in small communities, Jennie's collegi ate studies in Art History, finding connections through authenticity, and defining what "being in your prime" means on our own terms. Hosts invite listeners to watch Nanette with an open mind, and a heart open to breaking down personal walls and being aware of when others are building up their own.  Episode 22-Learning the Fine Art of NOT Joking Around from Hannah Gadsby's Nanette For those who are Deaf or hard of hearing, please visit this link for the transcript of this episode of Screen Cares: Episode Transcript Episode Page with Pictures Episode Host: Jennie Ziverk Carr Co-Host: Sarah Woolverton-Mohler   Screen Shares Rating:  Solo Screen- Settle in alone and let Hannah Gadsby take you on a humorous yet highly intellectual and passionate journey through her experiences with comedy, gender, sexuality, art, and trauma. Buddy Screen- You're going to want to debrief this intense "comedy" special with someone who sees you and makes you feel comfortable telling you the truth when they've had a shit day.  Screen Sparks: What parts of your life are you living as jokes?  Do you have an obligation to regulate how you spread anger? What would it look like if we didn't ask for artists to suffer? Do you think creativity would still happen? How do we diffuse tension with jokes and self-deprecation? What if we stopped?   After the Credits Roll-Links Referenced during the show:   Hannah Gadsby's Website  Hannah Gadsby Isn't a Comedy Elle Magazine Van Gogh's Sunflowers and information from The Van Gogh Museum Soooo, when making the show notes for this episode Jennie realized she had, in fact, conflated two interviews with Kumail Nanjiani and his conversations about Hannah Gadsby. Although he was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air Three Times (https://freshairarchive.org/guests/kumail-nanjiani) . He actually talked about Nanette on an episode of the podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour.    POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR Hannah Gadsby's Netflix Special 'Nanette' With Kumail Nanjiani Behind the Scenes:       Jennie on her last day "being fancy" and working at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston 16 years ago.    Extra Amazing Quotes and takeaways from Hannah Gadsby's Nanette: Extra amazing quotes and takeaways: “There is NOTHING stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself!” Laughter is not our medicine, stories hold our cure. Honey is just the honey that sweetens the bitter medicine. We have the sunflowers not because he suffered but because he had a brother who loved him. He had connection and that's what we need. “Not enough lesbian content in your show.” Criticism we ask performers to be characters of themselves Laughter connects us, but tension isolates us. Jokes are the interplay but don't allow for truth or healing.  Creatives do not have to suffer to create “I feel like a nose being lectured by a fart.” I view being “too sensitive” as a super power. Being over sensitive is good.  Stories have 3 points: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Jokes only have two points-Tension and release. Jokes break off at the trauma point and I sealed it off with Jokes. You learn from the part of the story you focus on. “Artists are not mythical beings and mental illness is not glamorous.” Artists are tied to money and always have been. We value reputation of “great men” more than the humanity of their victims or the benefit of hindsight. When you soak one child in shame an when you give another child permission to hate you give permission for people like her to be beat up.  Your resilience is your humanity. Your story is your power because it matters.  Diversity is strength.  Hindsight is a gift. Laughter is not our medicine, stories hold our cure. Honey is just the honey that sweetens the bitter medicine.  

In this episode of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and artist, Meghann Riepenhoff discuss her book Ice, published by Radius Books. Meghann talks about how she makes work collaboratively with the environment and how she uses moments of failure as a signal that she is moving in a new direction. http://meghannriepenhoff.com https://www.radiusbooks.org/all-books/p/meghann-riepenhoff-ice Meghann Riepenhoff's work has been exhibited and is held in the collections at the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago), and the Worcester Art Museum. Additional collections include the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which holds Riepenhoff's 12'x18' unique cyanotype. Additional exhibitions include Yossi Milo Gallery, Jackson Fine Art, Galerie du Monde, Euqinom Projects, the Aperture Foundation, San Francisco Camerawork, the Denver Art Museum, the New York Public Library, and the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston). Her work has been featured in ArtForum, Aperture PhotoBook Review, The New York Times, Time Magazine Lightbox, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Oprah Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Wired Magazine, and Photograph Magazine. Her first monograph Littoral Drift + Ecotone was co-published by Radius Books and Yossi Milo Gallery.

For this episode of the Foto Podcast, I am sharing a conversation I had with Rashod Taylor in early 2021 during a photography conference I was hosting.In Rashod's work, you'll find themes of race, culture, family, and Legacy.  He often photographs his son, family, and friends during everyday life. Rashod frequently uses large format cameras and also teaches others how to do wet plate photography.Rashod has exhibited and published his work across the United States and internationally. The Museum of Fine Arts Houston has acquired his work, and he is the 2021 recipient of the Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture. He's a 2020 Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist, winner of Lens Culture's Critics Choice award, and a 2021 Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards winner. Rashod's clients include National Geographic, Essence Magazine, ProPublica, and Buzzfeed News. His work has been featured in CNN, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Feature Shoot, and Lenscratch, among others. He is currently working on a series called Little Black Boy, where he documents his son's life while examining the Black American experience and fatherhood. Make sure to see more of his work at rashodtaylor.com and on Instagram at rashodtaylorphoto.You can also find the Foto podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify Get full access to Foto at fotoapp.substack.com/subscribe

Debra Rapoport, a native New Yorker, has been curating her outfits from handmade elements since she was a girl.  Starring in Advanced Style the film and featured in three Advanced Style books, Debra is a creative force of non-traditional materials and reuse.  Her clothing and accessories are designed to be worn and displayed... and she work IS displayed in many museums. This is what the Museum of Arts and Design in NYC published about her: Debra Rapoport is a visual artist working with nontraditional and repurposed materials to create clothing and accessories that she wears with great panache. Her flamboyant embellishments and hats start with A/B/C: Assembling, Building, and Constructing for the body, incorporating color, texture, and layering. Embracing the idea that frugality is fun, she constantly re-invents and curates her closet without being a conspicuous consumer. Rapaport's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY), Museum of Arts and Design (New York, NY), LA County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA), Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum (Athens, Greece) and the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia) and the Helen Williams Drutt Collection.

To start off season 3 of PhotoWork with Sasha Wolf, Sasha and photographer, writer, curator and educator, Aaron Schuman discuss Aaron's monographs including, SLANT and his latest, SONATA, both published by MACK. Aaron reveals how he was approached to create a Masters program at the University of the West of England and how the idea of research is more than just a singular conscious effort to pursue an idea but a lifelong endeavor that permeates your work. https://www.aaronschuman.com/index.html AARON SCHUMAN is an American photographer, writer, curator and educator based in the United Kingdom. He received a BFA in Photography and History of Art from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1999, and an MA in Humanities and Cultural Studies from the University of London: London Consortium at Birkbeck College in 2003. Schuman is the author of several critically-acclaimed monographs: SONATA, published by MACK in the summer of 2022; SLANT, published by MACK, which was cited as one of 2019's "Best Photobooks" by numerous photographers, critics and publications, including The Guardian, Internazionale, American Suburb X, Photoeye (Jason Fulford / Rebecca Norris Webb), Photobookstore (Vanessa Winship / Mark Power / Robin Titchener), and Deadbeat Club Press (Raymond Meeks / Brad Feuerhelm); and FOLK, published by NB Books, which was cited as one of 2016's "Best Photobooks" by Alec Soth (Photoeye), Sean O'Hagan (The Guardian), and Jason Fulford (TIME), and was long-listed for the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2017. His work has been exhibited internationally - at institutions such as Tate Modern, Hauser & Wirth, Christie's London, Christie's New York, the Institute of Contemporary Arts London, the Ethnographic Museum Krakow, Format Festival and elsewhere - and is held in many public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The British Library, the National Art Library, and the Museum of Modern Art Library. In addition to to his own photographic work, Schuman has contributed essays, interviews, texts and photographs to many other books and monographs, including Matteo Giovanni: I Had to Shed My Skin (Artphilein, 2022), OK No Response (Twin Palms, 2021), Keeper of the Hearth: Picturing Roland Barthes' Unseen Photograph (Schilt, 2021), Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Shoot (Aperture, 2021), Amak Mahmoodian: Zanjir (RRB, 2019), Aperture Conversations: 1985 to the Present (Aperture, 2018), Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins (Prestel / Barbican, 2018), George Rodger: Nuba & Latuka, The Colour Photographs: The Color Photographs (Prestel, 2017), Alec Soth: Gathered Leaves (MACK, 2015), Visions Anew: The Lens and Screen Arts (University of California Press, 2015), Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals (Prestel / Carnegie Museum, 2014) and The Photographer's Playbook (Aperture, 2014), amongst many others. He has also written and photographed for a wide variety of journals, magazines and publications, such as Aperture, Foam, ArtReview, Frieze, Magnum Online, Hotshoe, The British Journal of Photography and more. Schuman has curated several major international festivals and exhibitions, including: In Progress: Laia Abril, Hoda Afshar, Widline Cadet, Adama Jalloh, Alba Zari (Royal Photographic Society, 2021), Indivisible: New American Documents (FOMU Antwerp, 2016), In Appropriation (Houston Center of Photography, 2012), Other I: Alec Soth, WassinkLundgren, Viviane Sassen (Hotshoe London, 2011), and Whatever Was Splendid: New American Photographs (FotoFest, 2010). In 2018, he served as co-Curator of JaipurPhoto Festival 2018. In 2014, he served as Guest Curator of Krakow Photomonth 2014 - entitled Re:Search, the main programme featured solo exhibitions by Taryn Simon, Trevor Paglen, David Campany / Walker Evans, Clare Strand, Forensic Architecture, Jason Fulford and more. Schuman was the founder and editor of the online photography journal, SeeSaw Magazine (2004-2014). He is Associate Professor in Photography and Visual Culture, and the founder and Programme Leader of the MA/Masters in Photography programme, at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol). Find out more at https://photowork.pinecast.co

Jose Lerma was born in Spain and grew up in Puerto Rico. He earned an MFA from the University of Wisconsin Madison and BA from Tulane University, and attended the CORE Residency Program, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, and Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, ME. He lives and works in Chicago and San Juan, Puerto Rico. His work has been in solo exhibitions at the Kemper Museum of Art in Kansas City, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de San Juan, Puerto Rico, among others; as well as in group exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; Institute Valecia d'art Modern, Spain; Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; and Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX, and others. His work has been written about extensively in the press, including in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Artforum.

In episode 218 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the word photograph, music and creativity, poetry and photography and positive news for some commissioned photographers. Plus this week, photographer Andrew Moore takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer's the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?' American photographer Andrew Moore is widely acclaimed for his photographic series, usually taken over many years, which record the effect of time on the natural and built landscape. These series include work made in Cuba, Russia, Bosnia, Times Square, Detroit, The Great Plains, and most recently, the American South. Moore's photographs are held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Yale University Art Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Library of Congress amongst many other institutions. He received a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 2014, and has been award grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the J M Kaplan Fund. His most recent book, Blue Alabama, was released in 2019. His previous work on the lands and people along the 100th Meridian in the US, called Dirt Meridian, was exhibited at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. An earlier book, Detroit Disassembled, included an essay by the late Poet Laureate Philip Levine, and an exhibition of the same title opened at the Akron Museum of Art before also traveling to the Queens Museum of Art, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, and the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. Moore's other books include: Inside Havana (2002), Governors Island (2004) and Russia, Beyond Utopia (2005) and Cuba (2012). Additionally, his photographs have appeared in Art in America, Artnews, The Bitter Southerner, Harpers, National Geographic, New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, TIME, Vogue and Wired. Moore produced and photographed How to Draw a Bunny, a pop art mystery feature film on the artist Ray Johnson. The movie premiered at the 2002 Sundance Festival, where it won a Special Jury prize. www.andrewlmoore.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). © Grant Scott 2022

The Cathode Ray Podcast is a series with CRT shaman Steve from Retro Tech and Louis Zezeran from Zez Retro. Together they talk about CRTs, TVs and other retro gaming topics. The last week Steve was visiting Houston, Texas where he was running a series of workshops for the Museum of Fine Art. The purpose was to educate their curators of this museum (an several other notable museums) about CRT preservation and maintenance. Steve tells the story of his 20 hour drive to Houston, the different workshops that he gave and what he learnt about the use of CRTs in the world of visual arts. He also saw a great wrestling match. If you missed last week's episode, go back and check out Steve's tour of prominent 20th century artists who used CRTs in their work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubbs9AHsZcY 00:00 Start 1:16 MiSTer S-Video updates 3:28 Steve's trip to Houston 7:20 First day of presentations - PVM 2030 teardown 22:10 Steve tears-down a dotronix monitor for the first time 30:45 The HDMI to S-video converters driving the exhibitions 32:40 Backstage in the museums CRT storeroom 37:50 CRT or flat panel for visual art? 41:51 The extremely cool 80's Sont CRT projector 51:00 A night at the wrestling! 1:17:30 Steve's pickups from the Electronic Parts Outlet (EPO) in Houston Steve and Louis maintain a blog about their projects "The Cathode Ray Blog" https://www.cathoderayblog.com You can find the audio on the web or your favourite podcast app https://anchor.fm/zezretro Catch us on Twitter https://twitter.com/zez https://twitter.com/usa_retro For all your CRT repair needs, check out Steve's channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RetroTechUSA

British artist and photographer Marcus Lyon has been in the South Bay with his team, Camila Pastorelli, and Joe Briggs-Price, working on the next edition of A Human Atlas. Previous projects include Somos Brasil (2016), WE: deutschland (2018), and i.Detroit (2020), with this next version, titled De.Coded (launching 2023). This version will explore 101 remarkable change-makers of Silicon Valley. Each regionally focused volume is more than stunning colorful images; there is an interactive mobile app that activates audio recording of the person's oral histories when hovered over the portraits. In addition, the ancestral DNA of each person to map their history and human history of the city to create a deeper understanding of the city- to mirror society. In our conversation with Marcus, we talk about his inspiration for the project, his life, his approach to photography, and how his life's work to tell more profound stories through photography has led him to our neighborhood. Find out more about Marcus, and purchase books through Marcus' website, MarcusLyon.com (https://www.marcuslyon.com) Instagram: marcus_lyon (https://www.instagram.com/marcus_lyon) Human Altas Crew: Joe Briggs-Price IG: joebriggsprice (https://www.instagram.com/joebriggsprice) Camila Pastorelli IG: camila_pastorelli (https://www.instagram.com/camila_pastorelli) View A Human Atlas Project and access all the images and data at AHumanAtlas.com (https://www.ahumanatlas.com) and @ahumanatlas (https://www.instagram.com/ahumanatlas ) Funding for De:Coded is provided by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. Nomination & fiscal support are provided by the American Leadership Forum (ALF). _____ Marcus Lyon (b.1965) is a British artist. He was born and raised in rural England and studied Political Science at University. Commissioned and exhibited globally, his works are held in both private and international collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Arts Council Collection (UK) and the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington DC. The 21st century saw his work move beyond traditional forms as he began to incorporate sound & science into his practice. He has created extensive bodies of work on dance, identity & globalization. Outside the art world, Lyon is a determined social entrepreneur: A TED speaker, he currently serves as a Board Director of Somerset House and Leader's Quest and supporting BLESMA and Home-Start UK as an Ambassador. @packardfdn @alfsiliconvalley #decoded #ahumanatlas #marcuslyon #siliconvalley #studiosutherland #packardfoundation --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/content-magazine/support

In episode 209 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on the digital forum, the mindful photographer and photographic degree shows. Plus this week photographer Rashod Taylor takes on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer's the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?' Rashod Taylor is a fine art and portrait photographer whose work addresses themes of family, culture, legacy, and the black experience. He attended Murray State University and received a Bachelor's degree in Art with a specialization in Fine Art Photography. Since then, Rashod has exhibited and published his work across the United States and internationally. Most recently his series Little Black Boy was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Rashod is the 2021 recipient of the Arnold Newman Prize For New Directions in Photographic Portraiture, a 2020 Critical Mass Top 50 Finalist, winner of Lens Culture's Critics Choice award and a 2021 Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Awards winner. His clients include National Geographic, The Atlantic, Essence Magazine, ProPublica and Buzzfeed News. He is continuing to work on his Little Black Boy series, where he documents his son's life while examining the Black American experience and fatherhood. He lives in Bloomington, Illinois, with his wife and son. www.rashodtaylor.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). © Grant Scott 2022

What you'll learn in this episode: How Jonathan moved from sculpture to jewelry to drawing, and why he explores different ideas with each medium How the relationship between craft and fine art has evolved over the years Why people became more interested in jewelry during the pandemic Why jewelers working in any style benefit from strong technical skills How you can take advantage of the 92nd Street Y's jewelry programming and virtual talks About Jonathan Wahl Jonathan Wahl joined 92nd Street Y in July 1999 as director of the jewelry and metalsmithing program in 92Y's School of the Arts, the largest program of its kind in the nation. He is responsible for developing and overseeing the curriculum, which offers more than 60 classes weekly and 15 visiting artists annually. Jonathan is also responsible for hiring and supervising 25 faculty members, maintaining four state-of-the-art jewelry and metalsmithing studios, and promoting the department locally and nationally as a jewelry resource center. Named one of the top 10 jewelers to watch by W Jewelry in 2006, Jonathan is an accomplished artist who, from 1994 to 1995, served as artist-in-residence at Hochschule Der Kunst in Berlin, Germany. He has shown his work in the exhibitions Day Job (The Drawing Center), Liquid Lines (Museum of Fine Arts Houston), The Jet Drawings (Sienna Gallery, Lenox MA, and SOFA New York), Formed to Function (John Michael Kohler Arts Center), Defining Craft (American Craft Museum), Markers in Contemporary Metal (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art), Transfigurations: 9 Contemporary Metalsmiths (University of Akron and tour), and Contemporary Craft (New York State Museum). Jonathan was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in recognition of "Outstanding Artwork," and the Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths Award for "Outstanding Achievement." As part of the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX, and The Museum of Arts and Design in New York, his work has been reviewed by Art in America (June, 2000), The New York Times (June 2005), and Metalsmith Magazine (1996, 1999, 2000 2002, 2005, 2009); his work was also featured in Metalsmith Magazine's prestigious "Exhibition in Print" (1994 and 1999). Jonathan's art work can be seen at Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts, which specializes in contemporary American and European art work, and De Vera in Soho, New York. His work can also be seen in the publications The Jet Drawings (Sienna Press, 2008), and in three collections by Lark Books: 1,000 Rings, 500 Enameled Objects and 500 Metal Vessels. Before joining 92Y, Jonathan was, first, director of the jewelry and metalsmithing department at the YMCA's Craft Students League, and later assistant director of the League itself. Mr. Wahl holds a B.F.A. in jewelry and metalsmithing from Temple University's Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. in metalsmithing and fine arts from the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is a member of the Society of North America Goldsmiths. Additional Resources: Website: www.jonathanwahl.com Website: www.92y.org/jewelry LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jonathancwahl Instagram: @jonathancwahl/   Photos: Available at TheJewelryJourney.com Transcript: With more than 60 jewelry classes offered weekly, the 92nd Street Y's Jewelry Center is by far the largest program of its kind in the country—and it's all run by award-winning sculptor, jeweler and artist Jonathan Wahl. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the different relationships he has with jewelry and sculpture; why craftsmanship should be embraced by the art world; and what he has planned for 92Y in 2022. Read the episode transcript here. Interview with Jonathan Wahl 4/3/22     Sharon: Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast.  Today, my guest is Jonathan Wahl, Director of the Jewelry Center at the 92nd Street Y in New York.  Jonathan was recently on the podcast, but we had to rush through the description of the many jewelry programs that are going on at the Y.  So, I asked him back to tell us about the programs in more detail.  Many of them are online and are recorded, so it doesn't matter where you are in the world.   Jonathan, nice to see you again.   Jonathan: Nice to see you, Sharon.  Thanks for having me back.   Sharon: You ran through it very quickly at the end because I didn't realize how much you had to say basically.  So, tell us first about your interviews you have with sculptors and jewelers.  Tell us about those.  Are there any upcoming?   Who are the next ones?  Give us--   Jonathan: Sure, so the lecture series came out of the pandemic obviously.  I think I've done about 25 or 30 lectures or interviews so far.  The most recent series was a series of three talks about female sculptors who are jewelers or jewelers who are sculptors.  As you could tell from our last conversation, I'm really interested in this line be-tween the fields of art, particularly between jewelry and sculpture or fine art and decorative art.  So, I was really curious to talk to these three in particular New Yorkers who practice in both fields and it was Joe Platner who is a longtime jeweler in New York City, Michelle Okeldoner(?) whose work was primarily sculpture and also does jewelry and Anna Corey whose work also started in sculpture, but now is primarily a jeweler.  So, it was really fascinating to talk to these women artists about how they practice and what inspires them in their practice.     Sharon: And do you have series upcoming more in the spring or summer?   Jonathan: Yup, I'm working on a series about enamel.  Enameling seems to be having a re-surgence in our department and I think in jewelry in general, we're seeing a lot more enamel and a lot more color in metals.  So, it will be with a contemporary artist, a historical collection and a contemporary fine jeweler.   Sharon: It sounds very interesting and enamel, at least in the view I see now, is becoming much more popular.   Jonathan: Yeah, yeah, I'm not exactly sure why.  I'm really curious.  I think maybe it's happy; it's colorful; it's as close to painting, I guess, as you can get in jewelry in a way.   Sharon: It's such a skill if you do it right.  It's an artistry.  Jewelry is an art, but it's such an artistry within the art in a sense.   Jonathan: Absolutely, you can, as we say, shake and bake and get color on metal pretty easily.  So, you can get pretty direct results and get color on your metal pretty simply.  Of course, to be an expert enamellist, to practice grisaille or cloisonne or brioche, you need to become master craftsman.  So, there's a lot to dig into.   Sharon: So, do we need to keep our eyes on the spring session, the summer session or when?   Jonathan: It's going to be the summer session.  I think it's going to take place in June.   Sharon: O.K., I look forward to it.   Jonathan: I'm not sure of the dates, but it's coming and you'll see it.  Most of the talks so far are on our archives at 92Y.org in the jewelry center page.   Sharon: Yeah, I know there are some that I'd really like to go look at that I missed.   Jonathan: The previous three were with three Brazilian jewelers.   Sharon: Now, you just had an interview with—I don't know how to say her last name—but she was talking about a Brazilian jeweler, Roberto Burle Marks.   Jonathan: Uhum, correct.   Sharon: But that was separate.   Jonathan: It was part of the Brazilian series because Roberto Burle Marks was a Brazilian.   Sharon: But it wasn't part of the Sculpture and Artist Series; it was a different series.   Jonathan: Correct, right, they were three and three.   Sharon: There's a lot going on.  So, tell us about this jewelry residency.  I was just looking at your Instagram and the ads for it.  So, tell us about it.   Jonathan: The Jewelry Residency Program, it would be its fifth year, but we took two years off because of the pandemic.  The Jewelry Residence Program is something that I've always dreamed of doing and I'm so happy that it's back on.  What it provides is a studio apartment here in our facility, 24-hour access to one of our studios and air-fare to and from New York City from anywhere in the world.   Sharon: Are people applying now?  When does it start?   Jonathan: Yes, the applications are open until April 15.  We extended the deadline.   Sharon: Does it start in September--   Jonathan: Sorry, it's August 18-September 19, if I'm not mistaken.  That's the residency program.   Sharon: And you get applications from all over the world or what?   Jonathan: We had applications from fifty countries in 2019.  I would love to have applications from farther afield.  Most of them come from western Europe.  We're still trying to figure out how we reach populations in Asia or sub-Saharan Africa or Africa in gen-eral or even more in South America.  It's been kind of hard to get to some of those areas.  I'm working on a trip to Korea which you know about, so I sent it to all the artists that we're going to visit in Korea.  So, I hope we get some applications from Korea and I also just was in contact with an artist who's a Ukrainian jeweler and she has started on Facebook to try and raise money and funds and help Ukrainian jewel-ers who've been displaced, so of course I've shared that residency with her and the opportunity.  We would love to support a Ukrainian jeweler and have them here in New York City for a month, particularly if they're not in a studio, but I'm also looking forward to seeing how we can support a Ukrainian jeweler in general if they are here in New York City.   Sharon: And so it doesn't matter, a male, female, anybody in between.   Jonathan: It doesn't matter and it is open to Americans.  It is an international jewelry resi-dency, but you are welcome to apply as an American.  The reason for the residency is, as I mentioned, to expand New York City's access to jewelers who don't maybe normally get here and the type of work that isn't often shown in New York City, but it's also for an artist who might not normally be able to come to New York City to come to New York City, but it's also about why an artist needs to be in New York, what would New York City do for them and that could be for a whole host of reasons and there is a jury panel that I assemble every year that helps me decide who that next person should be.     Sharon: Wow!  That sounds pretty competitive, but it's sounds really worthwhile.   Jonathan: Well, there's only one spot.  Sharon, with funding, we could expand that.  So again, if anyone wants to help support a residence.  The residency program, I'm completely open to a conversation.   Sharon: Well, I will suggest that people get in touch with you, O.K., or at least send the checks.  O.K., so tell us about the travel program to Korea.   Jonathan: I do a trip every other year to somewhere in the world and we have gone to Israel, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, India, Japan and this year hopefully to Korea.   Sharon: Wow!  That really sounds fabulous.   Jonathan: Yeah, the trips are centered around historical collections and contemporary jewelers and if you're not familiar with the Korean jewelry scene, it's really vibrant and really robust. It has its roots in Europe and the United States as well as with Korean tradi-tion.  So, I'm really excited to meet these artists who blend a lot of techniques and traditions and they're doing some really extraordinary work.   Sharon: Well, the Korean artists who have exhibited at the international shows have really been creative and really amazing.    Jonathan: Really strong work, yeah.   Sharon: So, the last I talked to you, I just wanted to double check.  Are you still thinking you'll be going October 6, whenever?   Jonathan: Yeah, that's the tentative plan.  The one thing.  Korea has lifted quarantine restric-tions which is great, but groups are still restricted to six or fewer, so it's a bit of a problem for our group which is about fifteen people.  So, I'm a little bit on edge about that.  I'm waiting to see if that will change.   Sharon: Wow!  Six or fewer, that's pretty--   Jonathan: That would make going out to dinner a problem and just going to into groups and staggering them, it's like taking two trips frankly.   Sharon: Yeah, no, it sounds like a lot of logistics.   Jonathan: With that being said, I have a trip to the southwest in the wings for the end of October.  If for some reason the gods are not with us to go to Korea, I'm putting together a trip to San Jose and Taos.   Sharon: There's lots to see there.     Jonathan: Uhum.   Sharon: So, you also have a program for highschoolers to teach them about the jewelry industry.  Tell us about that.   Jonathan: Yeah, this is certainly a program that's been a dream of mine for a long time.  It is a program that is offered to Title 1 art and design school in New York City and Title One schools tend to service underserve populations in general in New York City and most of those students wouldn't normally get access to a jewelry studio in high school.  Most kids don't get access to a jewelry studio in high school in general.  Particularly this population most likely wouldn't be taking a class at the 92nd Street Y as a fee-for-service program for obvious reasons.  So, this is a program to get kids who would normally be in the studio into the studio and expose them to the tech-niques and materials and offer them a view into a possible career path, if that's something they would like to pursue.  We're coordinating with New York City Jewel-ry Week who has organized wonderful guest speakers with these kids and with NYCJWM and the Department of Education, are able to offer paid internships this summer which is really exciting.  It's the first year of this program, so we're still find-ing our footing and I know there are going to be some kids who decide to go into the next year and I think particularly the juniors and seniors will hopefully take advan-tage of some of these opportunities and perhaps go deeper into the field.   Sharon: It sounds like a great opportunity, yeah.   Jonathan: Even master soldering to a teenager, regardless of whether or not you go into the field as a career, it's a great skill to have.   Sharon: I don't know that much about New York and the school system, but I would assume that there are not a lot of opportunities like this that are going on in New York.   Jonathan: To my knowledge, there is not a functioning jewelry studio in any of the public high schools in New York City.   Sharon: Now, that's really amazing to me.  Would a shop class teach jewelry and metal-smithing?   Jonathan: To my knowledge, there aren't any functioning jewelry programs classes in New York City public schools right now and we don't have trade schools for jewelry in America.  There are art schools and we've talked about how that's always the best fit if you're going into the trade.   Sharon: It sounds like a program that would really take off.  So, what else should we know about—and what else is coming up?  I know you have some great—you've had Tony Greenbaum teaching a class who teaches about modernist jewelry.   Jonathan: Yup and Bella Neyman just finished a great series on costume jewelry that was really fascinating.   Sharon: Uhuh, I do have to say it was great.  I did listen to it.  It was great because it was in Los Angeles and it was at seven in the morning which is usually not the time I'm up to watch class.  So, I watched the recorded classes which was great to have.   Jonathan: Yeah, and we're working on our fall programming, so I'm not exactly sure what the talks will be, but I'm sure there will be one.  I'm working on another few initiatives—well, one initiative in particular that is not confirmed yet, but I would like to also create a younger designer's award or fund in which we would help support a new jeweler and help them with classes and to continue their education as well as men-torship through our faculty and through our connections.  One of the huge leaps is to go from undergrad or grad in these very supportive environments and then to be let loose to fly free.  Many people hone their skills while working for another artist doing benchwork, but I would like to help an artist or a young designer home their skills through our classes and through our faculty mentorship and our professional mentorship opportunities.  So, I'm working on that.  I would love to see it happen by the fall, but TBD.   Sharon: O.K., well, you can keep us posted.  I know you have so much going on, so thank you so much.  I just envision you juggling so many balls.   Jonathan: There's always a lot going on as well as continuing to support the programing that we do on an ongoing basis here.  Every day, every week--there's a class going on right outside my office right now, one of three or four classes going on right now in the center.  We do offer over fifty classes a week for jewelry alone, so that in itself is enough of a job--   Sharon: For hands-on jewelry.   Jonathan: Hands-on jewelry, hands-on making.  To my right, there's a wax covering class going on.  To my left, there's a jewelry two class going on.  Further down the road is a goldsmithing class and then—yeah, I can't remember what's in the fourth studio right now, but the most pressing thing is if you are interested or know someone who might apply for the Jewelry Residency Program, I'd strongly encourage them to do so.  We've got some wonderful press from Town and Country Magazine last year and in the cut from New York Magazine, so there are some great opportunities.   Sharon: It sounds like it and since the deadline is right around the corner, April 15, people need to get on it.   Jonathan: But it's easy.  It's a submittable application.  You upload your images.  You make the case for why you want to be in New York City and away you go.   Sharon: I don't know.  That still involves somebody sitting down and really putting their brainpower behind it.   Jonathan: Get on it, people.   Sharon: Jonathan, thank you so much for being here today.   Jonathan: You're welcome.   Sharon: And we'll keep everyone posted on what else is going on at the Y.     Jonathan: Thank you, Sharon, it's always a pleasure.  Hope to see you soon.                    

What you'll learn in this episode: How Jonathan moved from sculpture to jewelry to drawing, and why he explores different ideas with each medium How the relationship between craft and fine art has evolved over the years Why people became more interested in jewelry during the pandemic Why jewelers working in any style benefit from strong technical skills How you can take advantage of the 92nd Street Y's jewelry programming and virtual talks About Jonathan Wahl Jonathan Wahl joined 92nd Street Y in July 1999 as director of the jewelry and metalsmithing program in 92Y's School of the Arts, the largest program of its kind in the nation. He is responsible for developing and overseeing the curriculum, which offers more than 60 classes weekly and 15 visiting artists annually. Jonathan is also responsible for hiring and supervising 25 faculty members, maintaining four state-of-the-art jewelry and metalsmithing studios, and promoting the department locally and nationally as a jewelry resource center. Named one of the top 10 jewelers to watch by W Jewelry in 2006, Jonathan is an accomplished artist who, from 1994 to 1995, served as artist-in-residence at Hochschule Der Kunst in Berlin, Germany. He has shown his work in the exhibitions Day Job (The Drawing Center), Liquid Lines (Museum of Fine Arts Houston), The Jet Drawings (Sienna Gallery, Lenox MA, and SOFA New York), Formed to Function (John Michael Kohler Arts Center), Defining Craft (American Craft Museum), Markers in Contemporary Metal (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art), Transfigurations: 9 Contemporary Metalsmiths (University of Akron and tour), and Contemporary Craft (New York State Museum). Jonathan was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in recognition of "Outstanding Artwork," and the Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths Award for "Outstanding Achievement." As part of the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX, and The Museum of Arts and Design in New York, his work has been reviewed by Art in America (June, 2000), The New York Times (June 2005), and Metalsmith Magazine (1996, 1999, 2000 2002, 2005, 2009); his work was also featured in Metalsmith Magazine's prestigious "Exhibition in Print" (1994 and 1999). Jonathan's art work can be seen at Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts, which specializes in contemporary American and European art work, and De Vera in Soho, New York. His work can also be seen in the publications The Jet Drawings (Sienna Press, 2008), and in three collections by Lark Books: 1,000 Rings, 500 Enameled Objects and 500 Metal Vessels. Before joining 92Y, Jonathan was, first, director of the jewelry and metalsmithing department at the YMCA's Craft Students League, and later assistant director of the League itself. Mr. Wahl holds a B.F.A. in jewelry and metalsmithing from Temple University's Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. in metalsmithing and fine arts from the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is a member of the Society of North America Goldsmiths. Additional Resources: Website: www.jonathanwahl.com Website: www.92y.org/jewelry LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jonathancwahl Instagram: @jonathancwahl/   Photos: Available at TheJewelryJourney.com Transcript: With more than 60 jewelry classes offered weekly, the 92nd Street Y's Jewelry Center is by far the largest program of its kind in the country—and it's all run by award-winning sculptor, jeweler and artist Jonathan Wahl. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the different relationships he has with jewelry and sculpture; why craftsmanship should be embraced by the art world; and what he has planned for 92Y in 2022. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. Today, my guest is Jonathan Wahl, Director of the Jewelry Center of the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The program is the largest of its kind in the country. In addition to his life in jewelry, Jonathan is an award-winning artist whose work is in the permanent collections of prestigious museums. Welcome back.    When do you have time to work on your jewelry?    Jonathan: I'm here Monday through Wednesday in the studio here. Then I'm in my studio the rest of the time, so Thursday, Friday, Saturdays and Sundays.   Sharon: Your home studio or a studio at the Y?   Jonathan: No, it's not here. It's in Brooklyn. I wouldn't be able to work here. People would be finding me. No, I maintain a studio in Brooklyn. That's where I've done all my work basically for the past 25 years.   Sharon: Tell us about your work. I was reading about you. You have a whole series of different things, drawings, collections.   Jonathan: Lest I forget, I have had a jewelry line. In 2005—and I'll get to the larger bodies of work—when I moved to New York, my work was primarily sculpture. It was the tinware. It became the oversize tinware. I got a Tiffany fellowship which gave me a nice chunk of cash, and I made a series of work based on Frederic Remington, a series called Cowboys and Unicorns. I made a series of tasseled heads for this exhibition. It took about a year. There were many bodies of work, like Aztec Astronauts, which is inspired by Jared Diamond's book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel.” There's no jewelry in it at all, but it was interesting. I had a wonderful Foundation for the Arts fellowship for Cowboys and Unicorns. I had this Tiffany fellowship. I thought I was hot to trot. I was an artist, but because I've also been very self-directed in my work, I have made choices on my own, and I certainly hadn't thought of the larger picture, like, “Who am I marketing to?”    At one point, I felt like maybe I should do something different. I saw these people putting jewelry lines together and I thought, “Well, let me try that. I'm going to throw together a jewelry line.” I did put together a jewelry line in 2004 and 2005, and it got a lot of press. Barneys called and Bergdorf called. It was exciting and, true to myself, I looked at this opportunity and thought, “What they're asking for sounds like I'm going to have to start a real business.” Between my role here as Director of the Jewelry Center and my studio practice, I wasn't sure I wanted to run a full-time jewelry business.    What this position here affords me is the time and space to work in my studio on what I want to make. I thought that if I put together a jewelry line, that was a different kind of hustle, and a hustle that was going to take over. As a consequence, I declined Barneys and Bergdorf. I did sell my line at De Vera in New York, which is a much more boutique, gorgeous store that has since moved. Interestingly enough, launching the jewelry line brought me to drawing. People who knew me and knew my work as a sculptor, when I said I'd launched a jewelry line, to put it politely, they looked confused. I've said this in many interviews: a jeweler in the art world, people don't really get. An artist who makes jewelry is different than a jeweler who makes art, may I say.   Sharon: That's interesting.    Jonathan: I think that has changed. It has changed to some extent, but it's different. It's a one-way street. A potter and a sculptor, interesting, particularly with clay being very hot right now. A painter and a bartender makes sense; people get that. Anyway, I found this look of confusion quite perplexing. I started these large drawings, renderings of jet jewelry. I was working on a series of drawings about jewelry, about history, about my love for history, and I happened upon jet jewelry. I thought it was so out of the ordinary: monochromatic, at times really epoch-shifting in terms of what it was. So, I decided to start drawing these objects to take them out of the realm of jewelry and present them to the viewer as an object. Rendered large, they took on a completely different identity. It paralleled my experience of having this conversation with people saying I'm a jeweler and a sculptor. I thought, “If I present them with these drawings that are straight-up portraits of jewelry, maybe they'll think differently about what those edges are about or what those lines are, what those determinations are.”   Sharon: That's interesting about people not getting a jeweler as a painter or an artist. That's what you said, right?    Jonathan: I wish I could deny it. Again, this is 20 or 15 or 17 years ago; I can't remember. Things have changed a lot in the art world. I'll probably get in trouble for this; I don't know if any of the Whitney curators are going to hear this, but the Whitney, one of my favorite museums, had an exhibition of artists who employ craft, I think. It was all artists who made objects or used material that represented craft in some way. It was such an artist's use of craft, and done in a way that was pure aesthetics and abstraction, which was such a different experience with respect to the materials that I think a craftsperson has. I also find that curators are really only looking at artists who use craft techniques or craft materials from this artistic, old-school, may I say modernist perspective.    I truly mean that because it was fascinating to see how a fine art museum presented craft in this way. To me, it reiterated how these fields are viewed, certainly from each corner of the art world. I found the show at the Whitney really underwhelming in terms of how they represented craft. Just because you use yarn doesn't mean it's craft. That's the takeaway. I think that represents this weird, one-way street or one-way mirror of how crafts and art are viewed together. Martin Puryear was not in that show.   Sharon: Pardon?   Jonathan: Martin Puryear, whose work definitely involves craftsmanship. He wasn't in that exhibition. There were people who I thought could have been in that exhibition to represent how craft is employed in the fine art world and would have made the statement better.   Sharon: So, what is craft? It always seems to me the question that's has no answer. How do you know, when you're looking at something, whether it's craft or fine art or jewelry made with yarn? What's the difference? Not difference, but how do you separate it?   Jonathan: I think it's many times subjective. To that point, the curators at the Whitney could have put whatever they wanted and called it craft, but I think when you see craft, you know it. I think you really do. I think their lines can be crossed. I think there's craft that's art, and I think there's art that's craft, but for myself, I know it when I see it.    I think it also depends on how you employ the materials and for what end. I've been thinking about this recently. Craft was never really thought of as espousing an agenda other than its function. That was how it started, but now in some ways, the art world is looking at craft that explores itself beyond its function. It's making social commentary and is actually functioning in the way fine art would have explained itself, as material subjugated to the thought process of the artist. Craftsmen can be both, explaining or using functional materiality. They can also use a fine arts strategy, if they're making a commentary or going beyond the object's functionality into a realm that makes you think about the object differently. That is more of a fine arts strategy. So, it gets really sticky.   Sharon: It's one of those questions. I'm thinking about craft in jewelry. I'm thinking about when you were in camp, the lanyards you would make, the necklaces you'd make with plastics. I guess you could call it a type of craft jewelry.   Jonathan: For sure. I don't think craftsmen should be offended by lanyard jewelry. That's how you start. It's weaving; it's one of the most basic weaving skills. Voice that history. Those are old skills. That's how we built civilization. Believe in that. We wouldn't be here without those skills. Don't be afraid of that. I think my own jewelry journey, if you will, has been influenced by these experiences. I love jewelry. I love objects. I love technique. I love skill. I'm so in awe of people who can make, who can really fabricate something. It takes skill. It takes work. It takes focus.    I love jewelry. I wear one ring and a watch. I change my ring up whenever I feel like that. They're mostly rings I've made, but they're a specific type of ring. Apart from my look in the 80s, I'm a relatively conservative-looking guy, so I wear jewelry that reflects the aesthetics of myself. It tends to be kind of traditional, so I have no problem with great jewelry that has a great stone, that's made well, that some would consider traditional. I'm O.K. with that. You know what? Wear whatever kind of jewelry makes you feel right.    I love art jewelry and I think it's important in pushing the boundaries or the materiality of the field. I'm happy to see and support that. I love going to SCHMUCK. I'm always blown away when I see what's happening in the world of contemporary jewelry. I think contemporary or art jewelry, the field is also changing. I have to say everything's moving more towards the middle in a way, whether it's contemporary jewelry, studio jewelry or art jewelry. When I look at work today, it's all moving a little bit towards the middle, which is fascinating. But when it comes to jewelry, I don't have any problem with good jewelry, period. I love good jewelry.   Sharon: Big stones are nice.    Jonathan: I'm just saying good jewelry, however you classify jewelry, I like jewelry.   Sharon: Why are things moving towards the middle? Why do you think that? Is that part of the ethos of the country, or that people don't want to be extreme? They don't want purple hair anymore?   Jonathan: With all that being said, the generation that's coming up now wants to have purple hair, absolutely. I look at the trends that are going on right now, and I think of myself in art school in the high 80s with my hoop earrings and my dyed red hair and my capri pants and my corny shoes and my vests and yada, yada, yada. I look at this younger generation thinking, “Wow, it's coming back around again, interesting.” Maybe I talk out of two sides of my mouth, but I think in general, the bulk of those fields are moving a little bit closer together. I think there's an appreciation in the art jewelry world for techniques and processes that might not have been so accepted 10 or 20 years ago. I think there's an appreciation all around. I think I see contemporary jewelry making gestures that might have only happened in the art jewelry world 10 or 20 years ago.    Sharon: You also talk about the rift between fine art and jewelry. Can you talk a little bit about that?   Jonathan: I've got to say, I've met some great fine art collectors in New York and their jewelry has really stunk. I find it really funny when I see people who've got a great dress on and have a great art collection and mundane jewelry. It's the last thing that people think about sometimes. Although, the one person I'll say that always bucks the trend is Lindsay Pollock, who has great jewelry and has great art and knows great art.   Sharon: Who? I'm sorry; I didn't hear.   Jonathan: Lindsay Pollock, who used to be an editor at Art Forum. Now she also works for the Whitney Museum of Art, I think, as Director of Communications. I'm not sure, but she's a wonderful collector.    Sharon: And she has great jewelry.   Jonathan: Yes, and she knows the art world really well. Your question; please repeat it.   Sharon: The rift between fine art and jewelry. Is there a rift?   Jonathan: There's a difference. I think for so long people were trying to justify themselves, so people got defensive. Now people are starting to own what they do and who they are without the defense: “I'm not an artist, I'm a craftsperson” or “I'm a craftsperson, not an artist.” I think there's less apprehension about that now in terms of owning those fields. This is a conversation had by many people, but when modernism took its toll on craft, it stepped up its identity in many ways. I think since then, craftsmen and jewelers have been trying to figure out their way back to be on par with the rest of the arts. I think for a long time, because it wasn't modern art or contemporary art, there was a real apprehension about how we define artwork.   I think about how jewelry was, for a long time, just photographed on a white background so it reads as an object, like you're presenting it like a little sculpture. For many years, that's how it was presented. I find that representative of how we explain the work we were making. When you saw it, you generally saw it sitting on nothing except white, in a void, outside of any wearability or reference to the person, which I get. But when you think about that, for me, it has resonance. I also think that's kind of who we are and what we do. I think that's changing to some extent, but the art world and the craft world have been trying to figure out the relationship for a while.   Sharon: Do you make jewelry now?   Jonathan: I do. I just made a ring for myself with a beautiful piece of lapis that I came across. It's very plain and modernist. I had an old necklace from my former landlord who passed away and left it to me. I melted down this necklace, I milled the jewelry, I rolled down the sheet and I made a half-round wire that I put through the mill again so it was more like a trapezoid and set it again. Man, I was a jeweler for a day. I love good jewelry, and I like to represent.   Sharon: You like to represent? What do you mean?   Jonathan: I like to represent the field with a good piece of jewelry.   Sharon: Wow! You made the sheet metal and then you rolled your wire. The first time I saw somebody rolling wire, I thought, “You could buy wire. Why would anybody roll it?”   Jonathan: One great thing is I didn't have to buy new gold. Another great thing is I'm recycling the gold. I recycle, recycle, recycle whenever possible. I worked it all the way down, but I do not have a jewelry line. I rarely make jewelry on commission. Most of my studio practice is focused in other ways, although as I've been drawing for the past 12 years, I recently picked up my tin shears again. I have actually been making more tinwork, which is also reflective of our current state of politics and our country again. It's been fascinating to work in metal again, so stay tuned.    Sharon: How does it reflect where we are as a country or politically?    Jonathan: I'm making tinware again, and I think a lot of what's in question right now in our country is what is traditional? Who are Americans? There's a lot of questioning about do you fit, do you belong, what are those parameters, how are you judged as an American or not as an American. The painted tin I'm making right now is so understood as a traditional object and a traditional way of making. Mixing and presenting that work within this very traditional material and history of making is, again, a metaphor for traditionality. The viewer automatically looks at this thing and things it's an original object. It's meant to look very traditional, although right now I'm working on a six-foot-by-four-foot painted stenciled decal tray, which, after a few minutes of looking at it, you will know is definitely not from the 19th century. But again, the techniques and the feeling and the look are traditional, I find that that's what we're questioning right now. We're questioning what is traditional. What are these traditions?    The more I dig into these traditions, particularly in painted tinware—Japanware is what it was called. It was meant to imitate Japanese lacquerware. It had nothing to do with America. Another iteration is painted tinware that comes from a German and Scandinavian aesthetic, also not traditional American. So, these objects that you'd see in a folk museum and be like, “Yeah, Ohio, 1840, I got it,” these traditions and materials were not traditional until they became traditional. There's a lot of this material culture history that I find fascinating. It's very layered for me. I hope it's as interesting to the viewer. I have never really found the right format for many of my ideas or questions that fit into jewelry, and that's one of those cruxes. I've never found the right way for me to use jewelry or engage in jewelry with the same intents that I have in other materials or formats.    Sharon: What do you mean exactly? It doesn't fit into a category?   Jonathan: No, I can be really political with this tinware. I've never figured out how to get the same effect, with the same feeling, in jewelry. I find, for me, the wearing of jewelry is the great part of it, and I don't want my jewelry to say the same thing as my tinware. This is personal: I don't want my jewelry to work the same way as this giant tinware piece does, because I like this ring that fits on my finger. I love it, and I love when I get compliments on it. I think jewelry is special. It's great because we wear it.    As a sidenote, it was fascinating that during the pandemic, jewelry took off. Sales of jewelry took off. All my friends in the field of luxury jewelry and studio jewelry, they had great years. Jewelry is the stuff you take with you. Jewelry is the stuff you wear. Jewelry is the intimate stuff, and I think it was fascinating to know that in this time of extreme stress and trouble, people were going to jewelers to buy these things they could hold and keep and literally run with it if they had to. There is this intimacy of jewelry that people sought out, and that's special. It doesn't exist in other places. Those are the kinds of things, the resonance, that I want to embrace and love about jewelry and that I will not run away from.    One of the reasons why I started even playing around with images of jewelry, which led me to the drawings, is because I did this class at the Met called Into the Vaults. We went through all these different departments of the Met, jewelry and old jewelry. I came across the story of the Hannebery Pearls, which were pearls that were given to Catherine de Medici from her uncle, who was the Pope. This string of pearls went through the Hanoverians and then eventually into the British Crown Jewels. I thought, “Wow, if this string of pearls could talk, what we would know. What has it seen?” I was fooling around with this image of a gem, a ring that I had Photoshopped a historical scene from a movie on top of, so it almost looked like this gem was reflecting what it saw. I thought, “Wow, wouldn't it be amazing if there was a ring from ancient Greece that was passed down every generation until now, and that ring was held and worn by 200 generations?” I don't know how many generations that would be. That intimacy and history of an object doesn't exist in other places in the same way, where it's worn and carried with it. There's something about the intimacy of jewelry and the history that it can be embraced in a specific way that I really love.   Sharon: It's something very different and novel. I don't know if it's been done already.   Jonathan: I have an idea for a novel. I'll talk about it off-camera. We should talk about it. It's about that same kind of story, a will to survive.   Sharon: All right. Jonathan, thank you so much for talking with us today.   Jonathan: You're welcome.   Sharon: I expect an invitation to the opening of the 92nd Street Y in Los Angeles. I can't wait.   Jonathan: In the meantime, I hope you can come with us to Korea. As you know, I do trips around the world. South Korea is on the books, and there are a number of other wonderful things happening. The only residency for jewelry in New York City, called the JAIR, Jewelry Artist in Residence, that's happening this summer. Applications are open on our website. We had applications from 50 countries in 2019. It has been suspended since the pandemic.   Another little sidenote: I'm excited about a program called Team Gems, which is a fully-funded program for high school kids in New York City, Title 1 high schools in New York City. It's a fully-funded program for kids to get experience in jewelry that they wouldn't normally have, and will maybe create a pathway for a career in jewelry outside the academic model. I hope I'm going to be able to tell you more about it, but it's the first year and it's very exciting. Also, keep your ears open for my new series of talks coming up. I think this topic is going to be about enamel, and then hopefully a series in June in honor of Pride Month. A lot's going on at the Jewelry Center.   Sharon: Well, thank you for being here. We want to hear more about it in the future. Thank you so much, Jonathan. We greatly appreciate it.   Jonathan: Thank you, it's such a pleasure. Be well.   Sharon: You, too.   Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

What you'll learn in this episode: How Jonathan moved from sculpture to jewelry to drawing, and why he explores different ideas with each medium How the relationship between craft and fine art has evolved over the years Why people became more interested in jewelry during the pandemic Why jewelers working in any style benefit from strong technical skills How you can take advantage of the 92nd Street Y's jewelry programming and virtual talks About Jonathan Wahl Jonathan Wahl joined 92nd Street Y in July 1999 as director of the jewelry and metalsmithing program in 92Y's School of the Arts, the largest program of its kind in the nation. He is responsible for developing and overseeing the curriculum, which offers more than 60 classes weekly and 15 visiting artists annually. Jonathan is also responsible for hiring and supervising 25 faculty members, maintaining four state-of-the-art jewelry and metalsmithing studios, and promoting the department locally and nationally as a jewelry resource center. Named one of the top 10 jewelers to watch by W Jewelry in 2006, Jonathan is an accomplished artist who, from 1994 to 1995, served as artist-in-residence at Hochschule Der Kunst in Berlin, Germany. He has shown his work in the exhibitions Day Job (The Drawing Center), Liquid Lines (Museum of Fine Arts Houston), The Jet Drawings (Sienna Gallery, Lenox MA, and SOFA New York), Formed to Function (John Michael Kohler Arts Center), Defining Craft (American Craft Museum), Markers in Contemporary Metal (Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art), Transfigurations: 9 Contemporary Metalsmiths (University of Akron and tour), and Contemporary Craft (New York State Museum). Jonathan was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, two New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in recognition of "Outstanding Artwork," and the Pennsylvania Society of Goldsmiths Award for "Outstanding Achievement." As part of the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX, and The Museum of Arts and Design in New York, his work has been reviewed by Art in America (June, 2000), The New York Times (June 2005), and Metalsmith Magazine (1996, 1999, 2000 2002, 2005, 2009); his work was also featured in Metalsmith Magazine's prestigious "Exhibition in Print" (1994 and 1999). Jonathan's art work can be seen at Sienna Gallery in Lenox, Massachusetts, which specializes in contemporary American and European art work, and De Vera in Soho, New York. His work can also be seen in the publications The Jet Drawings (Sienna Press, 2008), and in three collections by Lark Books: 1,000 Rings, 500 Enameled Objects and 500 Metal Vessels. Before joining 92Y, Jonathan was, first, director of the jewelry and metalsmithing department at the YMCA's Craft Students League, and later assistant director of the League itself. Mr. Wahl holds a B.F.A. in jewelry and metalsmithing from Temple University's Tyler School of Art and an M.F.A. in metalsmithing and fine arts from the State University of New York at New Paltz. He is a member of the Society of North America Goldsmiths. Additional Resources: Website: www.jonathanwahl.com Website: www.92y.org/jewelry LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jonathancwahl Instagram: @jonathancwahl/   Photos: Available at TheJewelryJourney.com Transcript: With more than 60 jewelry classes offered weekly, the 92nd Street Y's Jewelry Center is by far the largest program of its kind in the country—and it's all run by award-winning sculptor, jeweler and artist Jonathan Wahl. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the different relationships he has with jewelry and sculpture; why craftsmanship should be embraced by the art world; and what he has planned for 92Y in 2022. Read the episode transcript here. Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. Here at the Jewelry Journey, we're about all things jewelry. With that in mind, I wanted to let you know about an upcoming jewelry conference, which is “Beyond Boundaries: Jewelry of the Americas.” It's sponsored by the Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts, or, as it's otherwise known, ASJRA. The conference takes place virtually on Saturday and Sunday May 21 and May 22, which is around the corner. For details on the program and the speakers, go to www.jewelryconference.com. Non-members are welcome. I have to say that I attended this conference in person for several years, and it's one of my favorite conferences. It's a real treat to be able to sit in your pajamas or in comfies in your living room and listen to some extraordinary speakers. So, check it out. Register at www.jewelryconference.com. See you there.   This is a two-part Jewelry Journey podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week. Today, my guest is Jonathan Wahl, Director of the Jewelry Center at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The program is the largest of its kind in the country. In addition to his life in jewelry, Jonathan is an award-winning artist whose work is in the permanent collections of prestigious museums. It has been exhibited nationally and internationally. We'll hear more about his jewelry journey today and how art fits into that. Jonathan, welcome to the program.   Jonathan: Thank you, Sharon. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to see you.   Sharon: It's nice to see you. Hopefully next time, it'll be in person.    Jonathan: I would love that.   Sharon: Jonathan, tell us about your jewelry journey. How did you get to jewelry? Was that where you originally started out?   Jonathan: Recently I've been doing a lot of interviews myself with artists around the world—virtually since the pandemic—as Director of the Jewelry Center, and one of the questions I always ask them is “How did you find your way to jewelry?” It's one of the questions I love to be asked because, at least for myself, it was interesting. I think all of us start out as artists, unless we're born into a jewelry family. Everyone learns how to draw. Everyone paints on their own. Maybe they have classes in high school. If you're lucky, you have a jewelry class in high school. I didn't, so like many people, I discovered jewelry in college at Tyler School of Art, which has one of the best jewelry programs in the country, but I didn't know jewelry existed until I went to art school.    When I went to art school, I thought I was going to be a graphic designer. Being the son of a banker and coming from a prep school, I figured I was going to be an artist, but I had to make a living. I wasn't going to be a painter, so I was thinking I was going to be a graphic designer when I grew up. At the college, I discovered jewelry in my sophomore year. Stanley Lechtzin said to me—I'll never forget it—“After you graduate you could design, if you wanted, costume jewelry in New York City,” and I thought, “That sounds kind of exotic and fun in New York City.” That's how my jewelry journey really began, in an elective class as a sophomore at Tyler School of Art.   Sharon: Where is Tyler? I'm not familiar with it.   Jonathan: In Philadelphia. It's part of Temple University.   Sharon: And Stanley Lechtzin, is he one of the professors there? I don't know that name.   Jonathan: Stanley Lechtzin really put the program on the map. He's in collections internationally. He pioneered the use of electroforming in individual objects. Electroforming was a commercial process used throughout the country for many different industrial applications, but Stanley figured out how to finetune it for the individual artist. His work has recently had some new-found appreciation because of the aesthetics from the 60s and 70s that are also coming back into vogue. His pieces are extraordinary.   Sharon: Before you came to the Y, did you design jewelry? Did you do art? Did you come home from your banking job and work on that stuff?   Jonathan: My father was a banker. I was not a banker. The closest I got to banking was working at a casino in Atlantic City one summer. My family has a house in Ocean City, New Jersey, so I could get to Atlantic City. I had to count a bank of anywhere between $30,000 and $70,000 a night. That's the closest I got to being a banker.    I quickly then moved to London. This was the summer of my senior year after Tyler. After I graduated from Tyler, I moved to London briefly and worked for a crafts gallery in northern London. Then I decided I wanted to go to graduate school. I came back for about a year to work towards applying to graduate school, which ultimately became SUNY New Paltz. I graduated Tyler in 1990, so most of my undergraduate years were in the 80s. If you're familiar with 80s jewelry, it was no holds barred. It was any kind of jewelry you wanted. My work—or at least my practice—quickly started to veer away from jewelry and towards objects and what I would call small sculpture. My choice to go SUNY New Paltz was specific because I didn't really want to make jewelry, but I was interested in the field and decorative arts, the material culture of jewelry and metalsmithing. That's what I pursued while I was in graduate school. I was recreating early American tinware about my experience as a gay American at that time. I wish there were visuals included, but that's what I was doing at SUNY New Paltz.    Sharon: How did you find that material?   Jonathan: The tinware was a metaphor for America, for traditionalism. The pieces were metaphors for the function or dysfunction of America. These objects were a little perverse, a little sublime and really honest about how frustrated I felt about being an American and growing up in Philadelphia during the bicentennial. I thought life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was for everybody, but I found myself not really able to access the full extent of that saying, like many people in our country even today. But I'm happy to report that a piece from that era was just acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I'm thrilled that the older work is getting some interest. There's some interest from the New York Historical Society, which is not finalized yet, but it's interesting to see that work with new eyes 20-some years later.   Sharon: Congratulations!   Jonathan: When I was in Germany, my partner at the time was finishing his master's degree, and I was an artist in residence there at the Hochschule der Künste, which is now the Academy of Art, I think it's called. That was an interesting experience because Europeans in general, and Germans in particular, approach craft differently. They have a much longer and supportive tradition of craft of all kinds, so when they saw my tinware, it was a little confusing to them. I ended up in a program called small sculpture as an artist in residence because there was no jewelry program at this art university. It was interesting. It was curious.   Sharon: Tell us how you came to jewelry.   Jonathan: Jewelry eventually gets into my story. After leaving Berlin, I moved to New York. I knew I wanted to be a New York artist. That's the place I had to go. That's the place I had to find my destiny. I was walking around looking for positions in a gallery, which was what I thought I was supposed to do. I walked into one gallery and the director there said, “I don't have any gallery work for you, but I'm on the board of a not-for-profit gallery at the YWCA. That's the home of the Craft Students League. They are looking for a program associate, which pays a ridiculously low hourly wage but has health benefits.” I thought, “O.K., I can do that.”    That's when I found myself in the not-for-profit arts administration position that was developed into what I do now, at least part time. I was the program coordinator for the Craft Students League, which is unfortunately gone now, but had a wonderful ceramics, jewelry, painting, and book arts department. I ultimately became director of the jewelry studio and metalsmithing studio there, and then I became the assistant director of the whole program before I moved to the 92nd Street Y to become the director of the Jewelry Center here.   Sharon: Did they have an opening? How did you enter the 92nd Street Y?   Jonathan: Yes, there was an opening. There was John Cogswell. The Jewelry Center has some wonderful previous directors. It was Thomas Gentile from the late 60s to mid-70s, who really put this program on the map. He was followed by John Cogswell until the early 90s. Then briefly Shana Kroiz took over. She was between Baltimore and New York, and when she left the department, there was a call for a new director. That's when I joined the program here.   Sharon: Wow! I didn't know that Thomas Gentile was one of the—I don't know if you want to call it the founders, but one of the names that launched it.    Jonathan: Yeah. The program began in 1930 in its earliest form as a class in metalworking and slowly evolved into a few more classes. It became part of the one of the largest WPA programs in the country here at the 92nd Street Y, but it kind of floated along until Thomas came—and Thomas, forgive me if I get this wrong—in the mid-60s, I think, maybe later. He came in and really started to formulate a program of study here. He was the one who really created the Jewelry Center as a center.   Sharon: Was he emphasizing art jewelry or all jewelry?   Jonathan: There was a great book put out by the Museum of Modern Art in the 50s about how to make modern jewelry. Now, I don't know if the MOMA realized that they put out a book on how to make jewelry, but my point is in New York, I think there was still this idea of the modernist aesthetic and the artist as jeweler or jeweler as artist. I would say that Thomas was focused more on artist-made jewelry, the handmade, the one-of-a-kind object. It was still not looking in any way towards traditional or commercial jewelry.   Sharon: Jonathan, tell us what the 92nd Street Y is, because people may not know.   Jonathan: The 92nd Street Y is a 140-year-old institution here on the Upper East Side of New York City. It is one of New York City's most important cultural anchors. It has many different facets. We have a renowned lecture series. The November before the pandemic, I remember we had back-to-back Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Lizzo. Wednesday night it was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Thursday night it was Lizzo. Last night we had Outlander here, and I think we had a full house of 900 people plus 2,000 people online. We also have a world-renowned dance center that has a long history with Martha Graham and Bill T. Jones. In many ways, modern dance coalesced at the 92nd Street Y. The Jewelry Center has had a presence here at the Y since 1930. We have a wonderful ceramic center. We also have one of the most prestigious nursery schools in New York City. You name it.    The 92nd Street Y is a Jewish cultural center. It's part of the UJA Association, but it's kind of its own thing. It's a whole other story about what Ys are and the difference between YWCAs, YMCAs and YM-WHAs, which is what we are, but the 92nd Street Y is really a cultural center.   Sharon: When are you opening your West Coast branch in Los Angeles? Because you have such an incredible number of speakers and programs.   Jonathan: Many of them come from the West Coast. We had Andrew Garfield here the week before last to talk about his amazing performance for a Reel Pieces program with Annette Insdorf. I think that was a full house of 900 people for a performance from “Tick Tick Boom,” which was great. I don't know when we're coming to LA. We're just reemerging from the pandemic here in New York.   Sharon: This is not related to jewelry, but do you think that without the pandemic, you would have gone online to such an extent? Would it have been possible for people around the world, including on the West Coast, to see what's going on?   Jonathan: The pandemic was the catalyst to do something we'd always thought about, but yes, the pandemic definitely forced us to do it. On March 13, New York City shut down. That Monday, we flipped all of our classes, every single one of our classes in the Art Center, which is about 200 classes, to be virtual. That worked for some classes better than others, obviously for painting and drawing. It was fine for jewelry. It's tough if you don't have a studio. What we did through the summer is offer online classes. We still offer online classes to some extent, but my focus is on building back our in-person class schedule, which we're doing. We're over about half enrollment now from the pandemic and moving quickly towards three-quarters.   Sharon: Did the people who enrolled in hands-on jewelry classes, did that just stop with the pandemic?   Jonathan: Yes, it stopped from March 2020 until September 2020. In September, we actually opened back up for in-person classes. We wore masks. We were socially distanced. We were unvaccinated. I was taking the subway and it worked. It was slow at first, but I think this process is a part of many people's lives and this program is so meaningful for so many people. Being in New York, access to a studio is important, and very few people have studios at home. This is not only an important part emotionally of their lives, it's also literally, physically, an important part of making jewelry their practice.   Sharon: Since you started as director of the program, I know you've been responsible for growing it tremendously. Was that one of your goals? Did you have that vision, or there was just so much opportunity? What happened?   Jonathan: All of the above. There was a lot of opportunity. Unfortunately, the Crafts Students League closed shortly after I left. Parsons closed their department. There were a number of continuing education programs that left Manhattan, and this is before the country of Brooklyn was discovered, even though I lived there. There were no schools in Brooklyn, really. The 92nd Street Y became one of the few places to study when I came on.    Also, to my point about studying jewelry in art school, you're studying to be an artist generally in art school; you're not really studying to be a jeweler in the way most people understand jewelers to be. Although certainly at Tyler, it was a great technical education and I learned a lot of hard skills, many people, including myself, were not adept at those hard skills. We're not taught at a trade school, and I found that most of the people who were looking for jewelry classes wanted to make more traditional jewelry than the classes we were offering. Most of our faculty came from art school. There were some amazing people, Bob Ebendorf and Lisa Grounick(?) to name just a few, but as the 90s wore on and the aesthetic changed, I found that people really wanted to learn how to work in gold, how to set a stone. The aesthetics of jewelry shifted. You probably know yourself that the art jewelry world shifted a little bit too. For myself, I wanted to learn more hard skills, and I basically started creating classes that reflected my interests in how to make better wax carvings, how to set a brilliant-cut stone. I can then make that into what I want: studio jewelry, art jewelry, whatever, but those hard skills were lacking.    I've said this many times: I don't know that this program would exist in another city other than New York because there was so much talent here. There were people from the industry here. There were artists who were studio jewelers and art jewelers all at my fingertips. I think that was one of the ways it grew, not because I reduced the perspective of what was being made here, but because I enlarged the perspective of what was being made here or taught here.   Sharon: How did you do that? Did you do that by identifying potential teachers and attracting them? What did you do?   Jonathan: I was lucky to have some wonderful people in New York City at that time. We had a wonderful faculty to begin with, but we also were able to expand the faculty with incredible people who had recently resigned. Pamela Farland, who was a master goldsmith and was the goldsmith at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for many years, was on our stuff. Klaus Burgel, who was trained at the Academy of Munich, was here in New York and came to us as a faculty member. Tovaback Winnick(?), who was a master wax carver and worked for Kieselstein-Cord for many years, came on as well. Some people work here for a shorter period of my time. My good friend, Lola Brooks, was here and taught stone setting. There was some really stellar talent around that helped me build this program.   Sharon: That's quite a lineup you're mentioning.   Jonathan: And a really diverse lineup.   Sharon: Diverse in what sense?   Jonathan: Klaus' work is pure art jewelry: the iconic object, incredibly crafted, but what one would consider as art jewelry in its most essential sense. Lola Brooks, her work crosses the lines of both art and jewelry, and she's got a beautiful studio jewelry line. Then there are people like Pamela Farland, who made very classical, Greco-Roman, high-carat granulated stones, classical goldsmithing. Then there was Tovaback Winnick who teaches carving, which is how the majority of commercial jewelry is made. We had real range as well as your regular Jewelry 1, Jewelry 2, Jewelry 3 classes where we're teaching the basics of sawing, forming and soldering.   Sharon: You answered my question in part, but if somebody says, “I'm tired of working as a banker; I want to be a jeweler,” can you come to the Y and do that? Can you go through Jewelry 1, Jewelry 2, Jewelry 3 and then graduate into granulation? I don't know if there's a direct line.   Jonathan: Absolutely. We don't have a course of study. We don't have a certificate, but you can definitely come here and put your own skillset together. That's also what I found strong about the program, that it gave people access to put their skillsets together without going through art school or going through college. You're able to learn those hard skills in an environment where it's no frills.   Sharon: Are they mostly younger people, older people, people of all ages?   Jonathan: It's people of all ages. When I joked about the country of Brooklyn not being discovered yet, I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for my whole New York life, so I'm speaking the truth. There really wasn't anything out there. If you were young and hip and cool when I lived in Brooklyn, you had to come here. So, for a long time, we had a much younger population that was cool, hip. Now, everybody has moved to the country called Brooklyn. That demographic has aged a little bit for us.    We have three classes during the day. We have a morning class, an afternoon class, a late afternoon class and then an evening class. If you're a younger person, it's most likely that you have a job, so you're going to come at night for our classes. That's only one-quarter of the population that can take a class here, because there's only one slot of night classes. There could be four classes happening at the same time, but all from 7:00-9:30. So, in general our population skews old because those are the people who are generally available during the day.    That being said, it's New York City. There are lots of different ways to make a living here. There are definitely people who are actors or bartenders or artists or what have you who do have time during the day and come here. It really depends on what class, but absolutely; we have all ages for sure. We also have kids' classes in the afternoon from 4:00-6:30.

On today's episode of City Cast Houston, it's a Friday news round up! Todays topics include whether there's much of a case to be made against aides of Lina Hidalgo for illegally steering a contract (Texas Monthly says it's pretty flimsy), and if there's a case to be made against the Museum of Fine Arts Houston for a piece that once was sold to a Nazi art collector. Also, with booster shots now available for Houstonians over 50 this week, will there be citywide motivation to get them with COVID numbers so low? Sign up for our newsletter! Lisa Gray crafts it each week day to spotlight everything that's important, cool and unique about this city we all love – you don't want to miss it! Our number is 713-489-6972. You can text or leave a voicemail. Let us know who's your vote for Houstonian of the Week! We're also on Twitter - @CityCastHouston And Facebook! City Cast's Facebook Page.

Saul Robbins is interested in the ways people interact within their surroundings and the psychological dynamics of intimacy. His photographs are motivated by observations of human behaviour and personal experience, especially those related to loss, unity, failure, and the latent potential residing in traditional photographic materials and personal history. Robbins is best known for “Initial Intake”, which examines the empty chairs of Manhattan-based psychotherapy professionals from their clients' perspective; “How Can I Help? – An Artful Dialogue”, a pop-up office into which he invites strangers to speak with him about anything they wish for free and in complete confidence. Robbins is also the father of a young boy and since 2012 has created several series of abstract “photographic drawings” and sculptures made from physically altered chromogenic paper and chemistry in response to his desire and struggles to start a family, including: “Where's My Happy Ending?;” “Chemical Peels;” “Fertile Gestures;” and a new series of traditional photographs. Exhibitions include The Bolinas Museum, Blue Sky Gallery, Busters, Deutsche Haus at NYU, chashama (Windows Installation), Griffin Museum, Humble Arts, ICP, KOLGA TBILISI PHOTO, Lilac Arts, MASQUELIBROS Artist Book Fair, Lilac Arts, Massachusetts General Hospital, MICA, Museum of Fine Arts – Houston, New Orleans Photo Alliance, Ost Gallery, Moscow, Pelican Bomb, Portland Art Museum, The Educational Alliance, Philoctetes Center, Skirball Center, Mark Woolley Gallery, White Gallery (PSU), and others. His photographs have been published in Aufbau, Berlin Tagesspiegel, CPW Quarterly, D - La Repubblica, Dummy, More, The New York Times, Real Simple, TAM, and Wired, among others. Grants and awards include The Covenant Foundation Ignition Grant, Sony World Photography Awards (Finalist), U.S. Embassy, Tblisi, GE, AJPA Rockower, Gunk Foundation, and New York Foundation for the Arts. Curatorial projects include Intervening Histories, OFF_Festival, Bratislava (2015), Projecting Freedom: Cinematic Interpretations of the Haggadah (2010), Regarding Intimacy (2007), and No Live Girls, Peep Show 28 (2002). Robbins was awarded a NICA Stipendium from Berlin's Hoch Schule der Kunste in 1998, and received his MFA from Hunter College (CUNY) in 1999, where he studied with Roy DeCarava, Mark Feldstein, Juan Sanchez, and Thomas Weaver. He teaches photography in New York City and has been leading Master Workshops internationally, helping photographers and artists to incorporate communication and professional development strategies into their creative practice. Interview with Saul Robbins recorded by Michael Dooney on 14. May 2021 between Berlin and New York via Squadcast. Portrait photo by Matthew J. Bernuca   NOTES Full episode transcript (online soon) Saul Robbins Official: https://www.saulrobbins.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Saul.Robbins/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saulrobbins/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saulrobbins/

Episode No. 541 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artist Shahzia Sikander. This weekend the Museum of Fine Arts Houston opens "Shahzia Sikander: Extraordinary Realities," a survey of the first 15 years of Sikander's career, from roughly the mid-to-late 1980s and until the early 2000s. It was curated by Jan Howard and Marny Kindness, and at the MFAH by Dena M. Woodall. The exhibition will remain on view through June 5, when it will travel to the RISD Museum in Providence, RI. The RISD Museum and Hirmer have published an excellent book of the same title in association with the exhibition. It was edited by Sadia Abbas and Jan Howard. Indiebound and Amazon each offer it for about $45. Sikander came to prominence by melding Indo-Persian manuscript painting traditions with contemporary life and issues such as feminism, cultural identity, and more. Among the dozens of museums that have presented solo shows of her work are the Perez Art Museum in Miami, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.

April Gornik is an American Artist  known for her dynamic and powerful landscape paintings.  Gornik's large scale luminous paintings evoke moments of transience and calm, as well as volatility and eruption.  Yet, her vivid canvases are never literal, but rather imagined and emotional spaces.  While Gornik focuses on the light and colors of the landscape, her evocative use of contrasts brings a sense of aliveness and psychological drama to her work.  Gornik's fascination with light distinguishes her art, and she describes light as “the beating heart of your eyes''.April Gornik's work is included in major museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. We spoke in depth with April about her unique creative process and artistic journey -- with her professional career beginning in New York City during the dizzying, male-dominated heights of the 1980's art boom.  A longtime resident of Sag Harbor, Long Island, we also learned about April's recent efforts to revive the local Cinema, as well as co-found The Church, a non-profit artist residency,  creative center, and exhibition space.

In episode 198 UNP founder and curator Grant Scott is in his shed reflecting on a considered response to the podcast and hearing from Jim Mortram about #PhotoPrintDay. Plus this week photographer Alen MacWeeney on the challenge of supplying Grant with an audio file no longer than 5 minutes in length in which he answer's the question ‘What Does Photography Mean to You?' Born in Dublin in 1939, Alen MacWeeney became a press photographer for a local newspaper in 1952. One of his earliest bodies of work was of the semi-nomadic Irish travellers, images that were also turned into a movie, broadcast on RTÉ and BBC 4, and included in Itinérances, 28th Festival Cinéma d'Alès, which MacWeeney co-directed. MacWeeney left Ireland and moved to New York in 1961 to assist Richard Avedon. His work was getting noticed, resulting in them being shown in the Museum Of Modern Art. After working on glamorous shoots for influential titles such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar in Paris and New York City, MacWeeney had become disenchanted with the highly stylised nature and limitations of studio photography, and was becoming more interested and influenced by the work of documentary photographers such as Robert Frank and he returned to Ireland in late 1962. He then began an extensive career in commercial and editorial photography. His personal work from the mid-1960s capture the misty streets and cozy pubs of Dublin with Joycean affection. There are also sprawling country landscape views with flocks of sheep and ancient cairns. MacWeeney's best-known work from this period is his series and book Travellers: Tinkers No More. At a time when this centuries-old itinerant culture shifted from horse-drawn conveyance to motor-hauled caravans, the he explored their makeshift camps with his camera and tape recorder. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. MacWeeney's photographs have appeared internationally in magazines and books: among them, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, G.Q., Life, The World of Interiors, American Photographer, and Aperture, amongst many others. His work has been published books including: Irish Walls; & Ireland, Stone Walls and Fabled Landscapes, Bloomsbury Reflections, Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden, The Home of the Surrealists, Spaces for Silence, Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More, Once Upon a Time in Tallaght, and, Under the Influence. MacWeeney's archive resides at Cork University and he lives in New York and Sag Harbor, with annual travels to Ireland. www.alenmacweeney.com Dr. Grant Scott is the founder/curator of United Nations of Photography, a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, a working photographer, documentary filmmaker, BBC Radio contributor and the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019). Grant's book What Does Photography Mean to You? including 89 photographers who have contributed to the A Photographic Life podcast is on sale now £9.99 https://bluecoatpress.co.uk/product/what-does-photography-mean-to-you/ © Grant Scott 2022

What you'll learn in this episode: How Cindi helped the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston secure one of the country's most important art jewelry collections  Why jewelry is a hybrid of craft and art that doesn't fit just in one category Why the art world began to question the value of craft in the 80s, and why that perspective is changing now Why museum and gallery visitors shouldn't ask themselves, “Would I wear this?” when looking at art jewelry About Cindi Strauss Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design and Assistant Director, Programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). She received her BA with honors in art history from Hamilton College and her MA in the history of decorative arts from the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design. At the MFAH, Cindi is responsible for the acquisition, research, publication, and exhibition of post-1900 decorative arts, design, and craft. Jewelry is a mainstay of Cindi's curatorial practice. In addition to regularly curating permanent collection installations that include contemporary jewelry from the museum's collection, she has organized several exhibitions that are either devoted solely to jewelry or include jewelry in them. These include: Beyond Ornament: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2003–2004); Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2007); Liquid Lines: Exploring the Language of Contemporary Metal (2011); and Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection (2014). Cindi has authored or contributed to catalogs and journals on jewelry, craft, and design topics, and has been a frequent lecturer at museums nationwide. She also serves on the editorial advisory committee for Metalsmith magazine. Additional Resources: Museum of Fine Arts Houston Transcript: For the uninitiated, jewelry, art and craft may seem like three distinct (and perhaps, unfortunately, hierarchical) entities. But Cindi Strauss, Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, wants us to break down these barriers and appreciate the value of jewelry as an art in its own right. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she helped MFA Houston establish one of the largest art jewelry collections at an American museum; why jewelry artists should be proud of their studio craft roots; and why wearability shouldn't be the first consideration when looking at art jewelry. Read the episode transcript here.        Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. Today, our guest is Cindi Strauss, the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. If you haven't heard part one, please go to TheJewelryJourney.com. Welcome back.    I remember having a conversation where I did not know what you meant—I know now, but an encyclopedic museum. What does that mean?   Cindi: It means a museum that collects and displays art from antiquities to the present and covers—I'm not going to say all, because one could never say all as in completely—but covers very thoroughly all world cultures. We collect across the board in terms of types of art making, so the MFA in Houston is the only encyclopedic institution in our region. We're in the south-central region, if you will, so we were founded on the idea of the big institutions that were founded in the late 19th century in the Northeast and Midwest. That was the ambition.   Sharon: Well, it's Houston. I presume it's the biggest. You only go for big, I presume. You're big into crafts in terms of studying. Where do they fit into all of this? Where do you cross the line from jewelry to craft? Is jewelry is a craft? How do you see it?   Cindi: I separate design from craft—these are generalizations, but you can separate the handmade from the machine-made or the industrial-made. There are certainly design objects that have the hand as part of them. I think art jewelry is absolutely part of the studio craft movement. It comes out of that history. It's a vital history and has to do with material usage and development, handcraft skills, making things on a one-off basis, making one-of-a-kind pieces. Today, of course, we have this wonderful hybridization, which allows for a type of creativity that is unbridled. So, you will have things that have industrially based materials, or people making works in limited editions, but at its heart, it comes out of a studio practice and a studio history.   All of it, as far as we consider it at the MFAH, is art. It's art in the same way that photography is, that painting is. It's exhibited on an equal plane, and you see that throughout our new building. There are departments, specific galleries on the second floor. I have both craft and design galleries, but the third floor is completely interdisciplinary, so you get to make those connections and see the dialogue between jewelry and anything else, for that matter. At our institution, it's a wonderful way to have your cake and eat it too, because the possibilities are endless.    One of the things I have been fortunate with, both with art jewelry and our ceramics collection—because they have both been a part of the institution now for almost 20 years—is that I'm not on a steep learning curve. My colleagues aren't on a steep learning curve of understanding the tenets of the field and how jewelry connects and crosses over; it just is. That is an amazing place to be.   Sharon: As you were saying that, I was thinking about how you cover this in your mind, let alone physically. There are so many areas you're talking about.    Cindi: Yeah, and it's only one part of what I do, because I am responsible, basically, for 20th and 21st-century decorative arts, craft and design. Now, I'm really lucky that we have an endowed position for a craft curator, who was formerly Anna Walker. Joining us at the end of this month is Elizabeth Essner, who may be familiar to some of your audience because she has written on art jewelry and worked on art jewelry exhibitions. That's terrific, because she is completely dedicated to that material.    There's another curator in my department; we split the late 19th century and early 20th century material based on our own interests and expertise. She otherwise does the historical material, but she does Art Nouveau; I do Art Deco. She does Arts and Crafts; I do Reform. That 20 or 30-year period when there are so many styles of movements happening, we share that. We have a terrific curatorial assistant who helps, but I love the fact that I don't work on only one media group or timeframe or one geographic area. It allows me to see more broadly. It allows me to make a lot of connections that I wouldn't be able to make if I my job description were more solid. Frankly, you never get bored.    Sharon: It sounds very exciting.   Cindi: There's always more to learn and see.   Sharon: It sounds thrilling to cover all that. I'm wondering; it seems that some art jewelers or any kind of jeweler, like studios jewelers, they might think “craftsperson” or “that's craft” is a little pejorative.    Cindi: I don't think so anymore. That was something that—from my perspective and my personal opinion—throughout the birth and few decades of the studio craft movement, it was held in high esteem. There were galleries that showed important painters and sculptors next to ceramists and jewelers and such. In the 80s, when the art world changed dramatically, the go-go 80s, a lot of these divisions started happening. That was when the big “Is craft art?” question came. It did such damage to the field because artists were demoralized; collectors started getting defensive. Looking back on it, it's clear those questions and divisions did damage to the field.   By the time I was in graduate school in the early 90s, there was a pause on that silo-ing and splitting. So, I did not, from a graduate school perspective, learn any of those divisions. It was all decorative arts. Craft and design was all one field, but I think, certainly in the past 10 years, if not longer than that, that division, that question has been put to rest. I think from an academic perspective, from an artistic perspective, I hope from a collecting perspective, that that has all been pushed behind. It is just art.    If you look at what's happening with major galleries, they're showing ceramics; they're showing art jewelry along with their contemporary art program. In a way, that harkens back to the 70s and 60s. The market prices haven't quite caught up to where they should be based on the artistic quality of a craft artist. That will, I think, take a little more time. But every other metric, looking at reviews, art magazines, exhibitions, the big galleries that get a lot of press, they're showing fiber; they're showing ceramics. They're even starting to show jewelry. So, I hope everything has moved so far that that question gets put to bed.    I've always felt that, in this case, art jewelry should be incredibly proud of its history and its field individually and not spend all of its time worrying about what the larger art world thinks. The larger art world is interested and that's terrific, but that should not be its only goal. I think it is important and worthy as an artistic movement, statement, something to collect, etc. on its own. A lot of the encyclopedic museums that have been showing and acquiring major collections of art jewelry are validating that, beyond the more specific museums like the Museum of Arts and Designs, formerly the American Craft Museum, or Racine or the Fuller Craft Museum, or a number of different institutions around the country that collect a lot of craft, or museums like the Metal Museum that focuses just on jewelry. That's an important step forward, also.   Sharon: You're certainly an articulate champion of art jewelry being not just jewelry, but a medium. So, the Fuller and the Racine are where?   Cindi: The Fuller is in Massachusetts outside of Boston. I can't remember its exact town. The Racine is in Racine, Wisconsin. The Metal Museum is in Memphis, Tennessee. Then there are a variety of other museums that have shown art jewelry through individual artists' exhibitions. I'm thinking about San Francisco Craft and Design. It used to be Craft and Design, but now I think it's called the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum. We, of course, have the MFA Boston. You have Minneapolis, LACMA, Dallas Museum of Art, all with significant jewelry collections in terms of encyclopedic institutions, and there are other institutions that have core holdings.   Sharon: You touched on this, but the question always is: is art jewelry art? It's always a debate when you're trying to educate or explain it to somebody.    Cindi: I think that's the case because art jewelry is wearable, and people aren't used to thinking that something that is wearable is also art in the way you would display it, whether that's hanging on a wall or displaying it in glass. That is a personal divide; it's something people individually have to work through.    There's no question that it's art, but I have noticed, in my experience, when people see art jewelry in the museum context, especially women, one of the first things they're thinking about is, “Would I wear this?” Once you can get people to remove that question from a first, second or third consideration, they can look and experience the work as a piece of art. It's great for them to think about whether they could wear it, because if you remove the taste question, they're really looking to see how this piece of jewelry would interact with their body, which is so central to a lot of work in art jewelry. You want that to happen.    What you want to get away from, in terms of experiencing it as a work of art, is taste. Is this my taste? Would I wear this? When we have docent tours or any kind of educational program that centers around art jewelry, this is one of the things we stress. You can, of course, like something or not like that. That's with everything in a museum and everything in the world, but try to look at a piece of art jewelry without that consideration being foremost. Then work through it as a piece of art being displayed and then, yes, think about how it will work on your body.   Sharon: That's interesting. My first thing is to look. It's jewelry. I'll go for big pieces or big statement pieces. Some of it is too much, but if you do back off, you can look at it as art. Do you think the art world looks at art jewelry as art or thinks about it becoming art, or do you think it's not going to happen?   Cindi: I think when people encounter it, every collector out there can talk about experiences when they've been at an art fair or an opening or a party where they're wearing a piece of art jewelry and it gets attention. People have questions and they want to know about it. That is an introduction to this field, and it inspires a lot of people to learn about it and collect it. Whether it's a gallery setting, or a museum, or a booth at an art fair, or an exhibition in space of any type, the key is that people are going to react to it. Whether they like it or not, whether their interest lasts beyond that initial visit, they are being presented with the fact that this is an art form. That does a lot.    I think that's, in part, why as a field we are always striving to have more opportunities for people to see art jewelry and connect with it, because that will inspire that interest. Everything has its ups and downs in terms of viewing possibilities, the market, etc., but my personal experience, again, is that people are really intrigued by it when they see it. Even if they don't explore anything further after that initial encounter, it's still lodged in their memory. You never know when that comes back and becomes a touchstone.   Sharon: That's interesting. I'd like to ask you a lot more questions. You gave me a lot of food for thought. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, Cindi. It's been educational and illuminating, and I'll have to mull it over.   Cindi: Thank you, Sharon, I appreciate the opportunity. It's been great fun.   Sharon: Thank you.     Thank you again for listening. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.    

What you'll learn in this episode: How Cindi helped the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston secure one of the country's most important art jewelry collections  Why jewelry is a hybrid of craft and art that doesn't fit just in one category Why the art world began to question the value of craft in the 80s, and why that perspective is changing now Why museum and gallery visitors shouldn't ask themselves, “Would I wear this?” when looking at art jewelry About Cindi Strauss Cindi Strauss is the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design and Assistant Director, Programming at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH). She received her BA with honors in art history from Hamilton College and her MA in the history of decorative arts from the Cooper-Hewitt/Parsons School of Design. At the MFAH, Cindi is responsible for the acquisition, research, publication, and exhibition of post-1900 decorative arts, design, and craft. Jewelry is a mainstay of Cindi's curatorial practice. In addition to regularly curating permanent collection installations that include contemporary jewelry from the museum's collection, she has organized several exhibitions that are either devoted solely to jewelry or include jewelry in them. These include: Beyond Ornament: Contemporary Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2003–2004); Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection (2007); Liquid Lines: Exploring the Language of Contemporary Metal (2011); and Beyond Craft: Decorative Arts from the Leatrice S. and Melvin B. Eagle Collection (2014). Cindi has authored or contributed to catalogs and journals on jewelry, craft, and design topics, and has been a frequent lecturer at museums nationwide. She also serves on the editorial advisory committee for Metalsmith magazine. Additional Resources: Museum of Fine Arts Houston Transcript: For the uninitiated, jewelry, art and craft may seem like three distinct (and perhaps, unfortunately, hierarchical) entities. But Cindi Strauss, Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, wants us to break down these barriers and appreciate the value of jewelry as an art in its own right. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about how she helped MFA Houston establish one of the largest art jewelry collections at an American museum; why jewelry artists should be proud of their studio craft roots; and why wearability shouldn't be the first consideration when looking at art jewelry. Read the episode transcript here.      Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is a two-part Jewelry Journey Podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.    Today, our guest is Cindi Strauss, the Sara and Bill Morgan Curator of Decorative Arts, Crafts and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, where she's been responsible for a number of exhibits and has written extensively. She coauthored the recent book “Influx: American Jewelry and the Counterculture.” In addition, she's on the Board of Directors of Art Jewelry Forum. We'll hear more about her jewelry journey today. Cindi, welcome to the program.   Cindi: Thank you, Sharon. I'm delighted to be here.   Sharon: So glad to have you. Tell us about your jewelry journey. Did you like jewelry, or did you come to it through decorative arts? How did that work?   Cindi: Well, the story has been heard. I have told it before, about how I was introduced to art jewelry through Helen Drutt through a serendipitous meeting with her. Prior to that, we only had one piece of art jewelry in the museum's collection, a terrific Art Smith necklace from 1948. Personally, I come from a family who loves jewelry, but I have not been as much of a lover of it. I have always worn very minimal jewelry myself, so it's sort of ironic that I am the curator of this phenomenal jewelry collection, the foundation of which is the acquisition in 2002 of Helen Drutt's private collection. At that time, we acquired a little over 800 pieces, including sketchbooks and some drawings of international art jewelry dating from about 1963 to, at that point, the early 2000s. Helen continued to add to that collection up through 2006, when we were in the final preparation for the Ornamentist art exhibition and catalogue. That opened in 2007 in Houston and traveled to Washington, D.C., to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then to Tacoma, Washington. That is, from a publications point, a great point of demarcation in terms of art jewelry collections. Since then, not only has Helen continued to add pieces to the museum, but we have worked with a lot of national and local collectors, and our jewelry collection continues to grow through acquisitions and gifts.    I would say that in graduate school, I had the barest introduction to jewelry, and it was really historical jewelry as part of a larger decorative arts education, in terms of looking at styles and how they reflected themselves in historical jewelry. At the time I was in graduate school at the Cooper Hewitt, there was not a seminar on contemporary art jewelry or art jewelry in general, so my knowledge of it has really been built and continues to be built based on our collection, our commitment to it going forward, and trying to keep up with the bare minimum of what's been happening in the field. I have to say Art Jewelry Forum is an amazing way for me to do that through their website, through the articles, through the artist awards, through the artist maker pages. It's a very easy snapshot of what's happening in the field, and then I can take that research and interest into other directions.   Sharon: I can't imagine being an aficionado, whether it's to study or just being a jewelry lover, and not being involved in Art Jewelry Forum. There's no other place like it.    Cindi: There isn't. Honestly, nine times out of 10, if I am interested in learning more about an artist and I plug in the artist's name in Google, the first search that comes up is always Art Jewelry Forum. It's either an interview or an article or something. For me, it has always been a one-stop initial research location.   Sharon: How did you come to study decorative arts? How did you become a professional in the area? Was that something you had always wanted to do? What was your training?   Cindi: It really happened, I would say, serendipitously. I grew up in a family where my father was in the design field, particularly in textiles. My parents' preferred style was that of Scandinavia and Italian modern. I grew up in a contemporary house, so there was a certain amount of osmosis with this field. I grew up in Connecticut, which is more oriented towards colonial architecture and traditional interiors, and I knew our house was different and it kind of stuck out. I remember asking my parents when I was young why our house didn't look like everybody else's, and their answer was very simple: because this is what we like, and this is why we like it.   I went off to college and thought I was going to be an English major. I took an intro to art history survey and found I loved it, but it wasn't until my senior year in college that a survey of the history of decorative arts was offered, and that completely ignited my fire. As much as I loved art history, I wanted to be able to touch paintings, which I can't do. I was interested in the tactile qualities of art and texture and being able to feel and understand value. This introduction to the history of decorative arts was my gateway. That ignited a passion not only for the decorative arts, but when I was going to the museums and such during that time, I started to pay attention to decorative arts galleries more than I had in my museum billing previously. I thought, “This is what I want to do; this is where I want to be. I want to be in a museum and I want to be doing decorative arts.”   My first year out of college, I had an academic year fellowship at the Met. It was in a subset of the registrar's office called the cataloguing department, and that gave me a bird's eye, in-depth view of what was happening at the Met. At that time, I knew I was going to have go to graduate school, and I learned about Cooper Hewitt's program in the history of decorative arts. At that point, I chose Cooper Hewitt. There was no graduate center yet, and I knew I didn't want to do early American decorative arts. I wanted to have a broader art education, so I went to Cooper Hewitt. Interestingly, my thesis and a large chunk of my classes were on 18th-century European art, particularly porcelain, and I thought I would spend my career there because that's where all the research was happening. With the exception of design museums or modern art museums like MOMA, a lot of the big, encyclopedic institutions were not really paying attention to decorative arts beyond the Arts and Crafts movement. But I took as many classes as I could in 20th-century design and took decorative arts because that was what my personal passion was.   I got lucky, because my first position after graduate school was curatorial assistant here in Houston. I was split between two departments, the decorative arts department and our not-yet-opened house museum, Rienzi. It was the perfect job for me because Rienzi was all about the 18th century, whereas the decorative arts department was just starting to move past the Arts and Crafts movement into modern and contemporary. Ultimately, I was able to determine the pathway for that and create a separate department, and I made my way out of the 18th century to focus completely on the 20th and 21st centuries. So, it was a pathway of following my heart and my curiosity within this larger field.   Sharon: What were your thoughts when you were presented with this 800+ piece collection by Helen Drutt and they said, “O.K., put this exhibit together”?   Cindi: First of all, it was completely daunting. Anyone who knows Helen knows her knowledge is so vast, and she is so generous with it, but at the beginning, it's all brand new. So, it's rather intimidating, and you're doing so much looking and listening. In my initial conversations with Helen about the possibility of this acquisition, it was focused on the “Jewelry of Our Time” catalogue that she had cowritten, which featured a lot of the collection. There was a lot of study of that, trying to get myself up to speed to even make the presentations for the acquisition to not only my director, but our trustees.    It's funny; I have my initial notebooks from my first visit to Philadelphia with Helen, where I spent a number of days just sitting next to her as she held up different pieces, talked about different people, gave insight. Because I didn't know anything about the field—all the artists' names are spelled phonetically—there are a lot of notes to myself saying, “What does this really mean?” or a question mark with “follow up” or something like that, and I was drawing. I think I had a cell phone, but there was no cell phone camera. I didn't have an iPhone or iPad. I don't even know if they existed in 2002, but I would draw little pictures next to something she was talking about. Anyone who knows me knows I am quite possibly the world's worst draftsperson, so the pictures are hilarious. But I go back to those notebooks periodically, and you can see how I am intent on wrapping my head around this and trying to understand which countries, who were the major players, where things had gone.   We built a library at the museum with Helen's help. She seeded our library intending to send books. We were ordering catalogues nonstop, and I spent the better part of four years immersing myself in art jewelry and talking to artists. At that point, it was all done through these forms we would mail to artists. I tried to meet artists, and Helen's archives with all the correspondence were an incredible resource. There were interviews with artists and things like that. I would travel to the American Craft Council to see their incredible library and artist archive. I would do all of this plus travel to meet artists. I did a number of trips to Europe and across the U.S., trying to get my head around this field as seen through Helen's collection. The collection represents not only her eye and experiences and viewpoint, but truly the birth and development of the field over decades, not just in America, but globally as well.   Sharon: What's her connection to Houston? How is it she came to your museum?   Cindi: She didn't have any real connection to Houston. At the time, her son, Matthew, was the Chief Curator of the Manil Collection, which is a terrific, incredible museum here in Houston. She also had a very close and longstanding friendship with our then-photography curator, Anne Tucker. They met in a cute way over a slide table at Moore College of Art in the 70s, when they were both teaching there.    We have a festival every other year in Houston called FotoFest. It's one of the U.S.'s largest photography festivals, and all the institutions do exhibitions for FotoFest and their popup shows and galleries. The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft was only a year old at that point, but through connections, they met Helen. She curated a small show of photo-based, image-based jewelry for FotoFest, so of course she came down, and that's where I met her.    I met her at the opening. We had coffee separately during her visit. I was really ramping up our craft collection in terms of acquisitions and representation. As I said, we only had this one piece of art jewelry. I knew enough about what I didn't know to say to Helen at the time, “This is a field I'm interested in starting to acquire works from. Would you guide me?” She pointed me towards the “Jewelry of Our Time” catalogue and said, “Well, you know I have a collection.” I, of course, said, “Well, yes, it's famous, and it's in Philadelphia. It's so lucky they're going to get it.” She said, “Not necessarily. Nothing's been done. There's nothing in writing.” I seized on that and said, “Well, will you provide me with more information, and may I speak to my director about this?” She said, “Sure.”    It was, at the time, sort of a lark. I thought, “I don't know whether this will happen,” because it was not a field we were familiar with and certainly my director, Peter Marzio, was not familiar with it. I showed him the book. I talked to him with my little knowledge. He was intrigued, because he saw in it what he referred to as a “visual index” of modern and contemporary art in small scale. He saw all the connections and the creativity, and he said, “I'd like to learn more.” I arranged for him to go to Philadelphia, where he spent half a day with Helen and they talked and looked at pieces. He came back and said to me, “I want to figure this out. I want to do this,” and the rest is history.   Sharon: Wow! It's funny; when you were saying you were spelling things phonetically, I thought of Gijs Bakker. That's the name that came to mind. For people listening, it's G-i-l-s-b—   Cindi: G-i-j-s B-a-k-k-er. Gijs is one of the most important Dutch jewelry artists. He, along with his late wife, Emmy van Leersum, completely turned the idea of art jewelry on its head in the 60s. He and a number of other Dutch artists in the 60s and 70s revolutionized the field. Helen was such a great supporter, and he's one of her dearest friends. We have something like 34 or 35 of his pieces in the collection, not just from Helen, but from a couple of others that we've added along the way. I think outside of the Netherlands, we have the largest collection of Gijs' work.   Sharon: Wow! My first Art Jewelry Forum trip was to Amsterdam. I had just come to art jewelry myself, and his studio and his house were the first stop. When I think about it now, I think, “Oh, my god!” I had no idea. At the time, I didn't know which way was up when it came to art jewelry.   Cindi: I think that is a lot of people's first experience. It's visually compelling, and then you start to learn more. Quite often, you realize after the fact you met one of these super-important people, or you were in their studio or what have you.    Sharon: Yeah, it really is. I'm backing up a little. When you were studying, were there museums studies? Did you expect to be working in a museum or to be a curator? Was that part of your career field?    Cindi: Yeah, I always wanted to work in a museum, and I wanted to work in a curatorial capacity. The Cooper Hewitt's program at that time was geared towards museum curatorial careers. Also, a lot of people went into education. It was not geared towards working in the commercial sector. There were a handful of people who might have gone to an auction house or to a gallery, but it was focused on developing museum curators. That was something I knew I wanted and was really important to me in terms of being at the Cooper Hewitt. The program is embedded in the museum physically and has a lot of faculty from the museum and also, during my time, a lot of faculty from the Met, from the Brooklyn Museum. We had people teaching from MFA Boston, from Winterthur.    It was very much a program equally based on not only research and history and study, but on connoisseurship. Connoisseurship is essential to being a museum curator. You need to be able to delineate and understand the differences between different objects made by the same designer as well as within any larger aspect of the field. Cooper Hewitt was very much geared towards that, which was perfect for me. Because we were in the museum and we had faculty from other New York area museums, it was also possible to have internships with prominent curators from the various museums, again, moving you through this curatorial path.    The trick is always getting a job, and for me that was a lot of luck, I think. When I was in my second year, my last year of graduate school, I was working as an intern for one of the premier curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, particularly in late 19th-century ceramics and glass but also furniture. Her co-curator on an upcoming exhibition was my future boss at Houston. There was a job opening. Katherine Howe sent a fax, at that time, of the job description, and she handed it to me and said, “I know you still have a semester to go, but here, take a look at it.” I thought, “Well, I need to get a résumé in order. I need to start thinking about this.” I applied not thinking anything other than this is good exercise, and it obviously worked out for me.    I think in my graduating class from Cooper Hewitt—I think there were about 15 of us—there were only three of us who actually got museum jobs. A lot of it is timing because positions come open so rarely. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one from my graduating class left in a museum. It's not for everybody, and there aren't always jobs, but it was all I ever wanted to do. I also only wanted to work in a big institution, so Houston fit the bill for me. I love doing what I do within an encyclopedic institution, being able to contextualize, in this case, art jewelry, whether it's historical works of art, the idea of adornment, showing it within a particular geographical context. We exhibit the jewelry not only on its own and with other contemporary craft and design, but we exhibit it next to painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper. We embed it, and that is something my colleagues are very much used to and see it as being a vital art form.   Sharon: This is a two-part Jewelry Journey podcast. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it comes out later this week.

Join us for Episode 61 with our fabulous guest Chris Goins, the head of retail operations for the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. We first connected at her previous job as store director at Tootsies over our shared love of fashion & shopping, along with traveling & finding the best vintage and discounted luxury gems. Tune in as Chris shares her story and gives us the scoop on her favorite places to shop while traveling and what's on her wish list.

Episode No. 526 features artist Maya Dunietz and historian Jordana Mendelson. Maya Dunietz is currently in residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha in preparation for a 13,000-square-foot exhibition that will open May 5, 2022. Dunietz's exhibition will foreground the physicality of sound through a series of installations, including a 17-piano installation that builds on her 2021 work Five Chilling Mammoths and on 2016's Trembling Piano. This segment was taped before a live audience at the Bemis. Dunietz  is a composer, performer, and sound artist whose work investigates the nexus of music, visual art, performance and technologies. She has created exhibitions, site-specific sound installations and performances for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Reykjavik Arts Festival, the FRAC Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, the Centre Pompidou and the Botanical Gardens in Jerusalem. Mendelson discusses her essay, "The 'Mild' Manifesting of Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder in Protest Ephemera and International Art Expositions during the Postwar" in the catalogue for "Calder-Picasso" which is at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston through January 30, 2022. Mendelson is the director of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University.

Matt Kleberg (b.1985, Kingsville TX based in San Antonio, TX) received his BA from the University of Virginia in 2008 and his MFA from Pratt Institute in 2015. He is represented by Pazda Butler Gallery, Barry Whistler Gallery, and Sorry We're Closed. Recent exhibitions include Good Naked Gallery (NY); Johansson Projects (CA); Barry Whistler Gallery (TX); Pazda Butler Gallery (TX); Albada Jelgersma Gallery (Amsterdam), and Sorry We're Closed (Brussels). His work has been written about in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Painting is Dead, Artsy, Vice, Maake Magazine, ArtDaily, New American Paintings, Blouin Artinfo, ArtMaze Magazine, Artillery Magazine, and Hyperallergic. His work is included in public and private collections, including the Williams College Museum of Art, the University of California Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Old Jail Art Center, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the National Gallery of Art. Kleberg lives and works in San Antonio, TX. 

Highlights from the conversationI'm always encouraging my clients to brag in a good way.A logo is just a mark and some of the best-known brands in the world have really crappy logosAs far as trying to build a brand or a personality, that's memorable. It always comes from a unique place. And usually it comes from a smaller place[A logo] is just a symbol. A symbol only has meaning once you do all the other things around it that communicate that brandYou need to embrace who you are. Be true to who you are and tell that story of who you arePeople are so often very passionate about what they're making, if you can engage with that, you get away from the  mundane, sameness in so much of the communication you seeMore about DJ Stout DJ Stout is one of 24 Partners of the acclaimed international design consultancy Pentagram and the Principal of the Austin, Texas office. Stout joined Pentagram as a partner in 2000. Pentagram, founded in London in 1972 by five designers, currently has four offices around the world. In a special 1998 issue, American Photo magazine selected Stout as one of the “100 Most Important People in Photography.” In 2004 I.D. (International Design) magazine selected Stout for “The I.D. Fifty,” its annual listing of design innovators. In 2010 The Society of Illustrators honored Stout with the national Richard Gangel Art Director Award for his advocacy of illustration during his design career. Also in 2010 Stout was recognized as an AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Fellow Award recipient for his exceptional contributions to the field of graphic design. His design work is included in several national design collections including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Wittliff Collections, and the Cooper Hewitt–Smithsonian Design Museum.Stout and his team specialize in the creation of brand identity and strategy, publication design, packaging and interactive solutions. Stout and his team have done work for high-profile companies and institutions like Microsoft Windows, Ruby Tuesday, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Walgreens, Lands' End, L.L. Bean, Southwest Airlines, The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Contemporary Austin, The Houston Ballet, World Wildlife Fund, SkinCeuticals, Advanced Nutrients, Northwestern, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Middlebury, Loyola Marymount University, UC Berkley, The University of Colorado, Drexel and USC.DJ is the author of three books; The Pictures of Texas Monthly Twenty-Five Years, The Amazing Tale of Mr. Herbert and his Fabulous Alpine Cowboys Baseball Club, and Variations on a Rectangle–his forty-year design retrospective.Find DJ here: Instagram | Twitter  Show notesPeople:Michael BierutPaula ScherLuke HaymanHerbert Kokernot Jr.Companies and organisations:o6 RanchAlpine CowboysKokernot FieldTexas Monthly MagazineMiscellaneous:King of Diamonds – The story behind Alpine's Kokernot Field How can you help?There are four ways you can help us out.Give us your thoughts. Rate the podcast and leave a comment.Share this as far and wide as you can - tell your friends, family and colleagues about us (caveat: if you own a family business, these may all be the same people)Tell us how we can create a better podcast - tell us what you liked, didn't like, or what you'd like to hear more (or less) ofTell us who you'd like to hear on the podcast. Suggest someone that you think we should interview.One More Question is a podcast by Nicework, a purpose-driven company helping people who want to make a dent in the world by building brands people give a shit about.One of the things we do best is ask our clients the right questions. This podcast came about because we want to share some of the best answers we have heard over the last 13 years. We talk to significant creators, experts and communicators we encounter and share useful insights, inspiration, and facts that make us stop and take note as we go about our work.Hosted by our founder Ross Drakes.Subscribe iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google PodcastsMusic by: @dcuttermusic / http://www.davidcuttermusic.com

“Wait on or create your own platform” is one thing artist Linda Simien Kellywanted to leave the ICW audience with. We have a choice as to what we do with our lives. We can wait on others to decide for us or like Linda, we can plan our path, and make it happen for ourselves. Check out this week's episode for more. If in Houston, check out Linda's pieces at Max's Wine Driveon Washington. About Artist Linda Simien Kelly The Louisiana native is a proud Bachelor Science in Accounting graduate of Southern University, A & M in Baton Rouge and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She has over 20 years of accounting experience in the oil and gas industry. Linda Simien Kelly also is a primarily self-taught, abstract expressionist artist who has been pursuing her craft on a full-time basis for over a decade. Black identity, cultural solidarity and ethnic perception have been important themes in her work. The artist lives in Houston with her husband and is the mother of three sons. Her considerable professional accolades include first-prize honors in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston's 17th Annual Citywide African American Artists Exhibition at the Glassell School of Art and recognition as a prize winning artist at the Lawndale Art Center's “The Big Show” annual juried exhibition. Her work has been featured in Citywide Artists Juried Exhibitions at the University Museum at Texas Southern University, The Community Artists' Collective Gallery, Project Row Houses, The Assistance League of Houston Artists Exhibition at Williams Tower Gallery, The Art on The Avenue Juried Exhibition, the Archway Gallery, the Gallery Jatad and the “M” Gallery. Artist Profile: For over decade, Linda Simien Kelly has been an advocate for Sickle Cell Disease and Trait using her artworks as the platform to help bring awareness of the disease and trait. The annual event was held at the Ensemble Theatre. Exhibits: The MFAH's ''Citywide African American Artists - Exhibition' held at the Community Artists Collective, Museum of TSU & MFAH Glassell. First Place Winner of the 17th MFAH Citywide African American Artists Exhibition. Lawndale Statewide “The Big Show” Artists Exhibition - First Place Winner 2015. Participant of six (6) MFAH's ''Citywide African American Artists - Exhibitions'. Women's Work, Mind, Body and Spirit Exhibit, Community Artists' Collective Archway Gallery Ninth Annual Juried Exhibition Art On The Avenue Annual Juried Exhibition Collectors Club Exhibits, Project Row Houses Creative Women United Annual Citywide Exhibitions Annual Art League Citywide Exhibit, Williams Tower Gallery Hurricane Harvey Artist Exhibit, Community Artists' Collective Gallery Artist Exhibit Jatad Gallery Artist Exhibit M Gallery in the Heights Annual Artist of the Month Exhibit, The Breakfast Klub Exhibiting Artist Exhibition, Lucille's Restaurant Exhibiting Artist Exhibition, Bohemeo's Cafe Exhibiting Artist Exhibition, Urban Eat's Exhibiting Artist Exhibition, Max's Wine Dive Ways to Connect Call or Text (713) 417-8261 of Email: lindasimienkelly@icloud.com Instagram: lindakelly6116 and Twitter: lindasimienkelly@gmail.com WATCH + LISTEN + SUBSCRIBE + SHARE Let's #Soar and #ElevateWOCVoices #IntimateConversationWOC

¡Estamos de regreso en el Artebrije! Para comenzar con esta temporada, les compartimos nuestras experiencias sobre dos exposiciones de la CDMX y un recorrido por el Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

Es un honor para nosotros el tener hoy en Ciudad H a Mari Carmen Ramírez, curadora de arte Latino Americano para el Museo de Fine Arts Houston y directora del International Center of the Arts of the Americas.Mari Carmen nació y creció en Puerto Rico y desde muy pequeña estuvo inclinada al mundo del arte, hoy nos platica qué es la curaduría, cómo disfruta el recorrer un museo, lo controversial que puede ser la apreciación del arte y su impresionante carrera, en donde con una gran pasión promueve y da a conocer a grandes artistas latinoamericanos a Estados Unidos y al mundo.Mari Carmen ha sido nombrada como uno de los 25 Hispanos con más influencia en América en la revista Time. Ha recibido infinidad de premios como el Peter Norton Family Foundation Award por Excelencia en Curaduria, el premio anual de excelencia en curaduría del centro de estudios de curaduría del Bard College y la Beca en curaduría Getty entre muchos otros.Mari Carmen ha sido curadora de muchas exhibiciones muy importantes como “Color in Space and Time” de Carlos Cruz-Diez, The Body of Color de Gego y también, Inverted Utopias: Avant Garde Art in Latin America en el 2004 por la cual recibió el premio de la Asociación Internacional de artes criticas como la mejor exhibición temática a nivel nacional en Estados Unidos, entre muchas otras mas.Platicamos de Houston, de México y de la nueva exhibición de Ernesto Neto, SunForceOceanLife que no se pueden perder.Muchas gracias a Mari Carmen por su tiempo y por una platica en la que aprendimos mucho de todo lo que hay detrás del mundo del arte que tanto nos gusta en Ciudad H.Escuchen la entrevista completa en #spotify o en Apple Podcasts.Si conocen a alguien que le pueda servir este episodio se lo pueden enviar por Whats App desde Ciudad H Podcast en Spotify.ICAA International Center of the Arts of the AmericasMuseo de Fine Arts HoustonNueva exhibición: SunForceOceanLifeInstagram: @ciudadhpodcastEmail: ciudadhpodcast@gmail.comFacebook Group: Ciudad H PodcastAni Priego: @ana_beatMariana Cano: @yomarianablog

Doing this podcast has really just been a way for me to geek out on photography and give me an excuse to talk with artists whose work I adore, and getting to talk with Kelli Connell was a highlight. The time and focus and introspection she devotes to her long-term projects is remarkable, and she also happens to be the loveliest of human beings.Kelli Connell is an artist whose work investigates sexuality, gender, identity and photographer/sitter relationships. Her work is in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, J Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Columbus Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others. Publications of her work include PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice (Aperture), Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography (Phaidon), Photo Art: The New World of Photography (Aperture) and the monograph Kelli Connell: Double Life (DECODE Books). Connell has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, PLAYA, Peaked Hill Trust, LATITUDE, Light Work, and The Center for Creative Photography. Connell lives in Chicago where she is an editor at SKYLARK Editions and a photography professor at Columbia College Chicago.

Chelsea Dacus has a super cool job. She gets paid to learn, talk, and think about really old stuff. There's a little more to it than that, but that's the gist. As an Assistant Curator at the Museum of Fine Arts - Houston she spends a lot of her time managing the realities of cultures appropriated, sacred artifacts contaminated and/or desecrated, and a local population with changing expectations of what a museum is and should be. That's a lot. Sadly, she says that there is no bullwhip, giant boulders, or booby-trapped ruins in her job, but if there were would you expect her to admit it?? She does talk a lot about how museums are trying to be and do better. Treating artifacts with more respect, and repatriating where appropriate; making museums accessible and affordable to everyone, not just the affluent. Along the lines she also explains how museums keep their collections safe, and describes what may be the most amazing job ever - overseeing the travel and installation of a piece on "loan". While not as glamorous as anyone would hope, it still sounds pretty amazing! To learn more about Chelsea you can check her out on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelsea-dacus-curator/ To learn more about her work check out the Museum of Fine Arts - Houston: https://www.mfah.org/ Hey! I Want Your Job is sponsored by the resume and career experts at O&H Consulting. Find out more about O&H's services at: https://www.oandhconsulting.com/. This week's episode is hosted by Michele Olivier. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heyiwantyourjob/support

THE BRAVE EDUCATOR PODCASTMaking He-ARTApril 12, 2021 SEASON 2 EPISODE 5 On the 5th episode of Season 2, Tim'm features his friend and fellow Duke University Alumnus, Mikael Owunna. Listen as they talk  about making Art and following your Heart. A simple phrase with a lot of significance, following your heart is something that a lot of people identify with but very few ever take action to make a reality.The episode begins with the prose "Coming to Rhyting", a poem from "Red Dirt Revival: a poetic memoir in 6 Breaths".  After the dialogue with Mikael, the episode concludes with the song “Stone” from the album "Gravel and Grit".Tim'm would like to offer special thanks to Rayna Moore for her voice as Intro to the podcast, Frank Richardson III for his support as co-producer, and Ray Brown for his support as an editor.  About our featured guestMikael Owunna is a queer Nigerian-Swedish American multi-media artist and engineer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Exploring the intersections of visual media with engineering, optics, Blackness, and African cosmologies, his work seeks to elucidate an emancipatory vision of possibility that pushes Black people beyond all boundaries, restrictions, and frontiers.  Owunna's work has been exhibited across Asia, Europe, and North America and been collected by institutions such as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Equal Justice Initiative, Duke University, and National Taiwan Museum. His work has also been featured in media ranging from the New York Times to CNN, NPR, VICE, and The Guardian. He has lectured at venues including Harvard Law School, World Press Photo (Netherlands), Tate Modern (UK), and TEDx. Owunna's first published monograph Limitless Africans was released in 2019 by FotoEvidence, and he was awarded as a finalist for the FotoEvidence Book Award with World Press Photo. www.mikaelowunna.comIG: @mikaelowunna 

In episode 56 of The Great Women Artists Podcast, Katy Hessel interviews Loretta Pettway Bennett and Mary Margaret Pettway of the GEE'S BEND QUILTMAKERS! [This episode is brought to you by Alighieri jewellery: www.alighieri.co.uk | use the code TGWA at checkout for 10% off!] Located in a small, remote and rural community in Alabama, USA, officially known as Boykin, which is surrounded on three sides by river and has a population of around 700, the women of Gee’s Bend have been creating hundreds of quilt masterpieces dating from the early twentieth century to the present day. Electric, off-beat, full of flair, as well as both vivid and vibrant, for decades, the women of Gee’s Bend have adopted a wide range of material for their improvisatory, jazzy and geometric quilts. From denim to old patterned clothes, which they have referred to as, making something shine from something that has been thrown away.  Often quilting - and singing - in groups as they configure their stunning works, some of the women of Gee’s Bend are in the collection of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the contributions of African American artists from the Southern states, of which our guest and quilter extraordinaire, Mary Margaret Pettway is chair.  Although having been quilting for decades, with some claiming the tradition stemming from the 1800s, it has only been in recent years that the women have come to international renown and attention, exhibiting at major museums all over the world, from the Whitney Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, New York’s The Met, Margate’s Turner Contemporary, and now, their first ever solo exhibition in my hometown of London at Alison Jacques Gallery, which shows quilts spanning nearly 100 years. I should add that our guests today are first cousins, who come from an important lineage of female quilters and are showing alongside three generations worth of ancestors.  Described by the New York Times as having created some of “the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced”, the women of Gee’s Bend are rightfully forcing us to readdress the art historical canon, and I couldn’t be more delighted to have them on the show today.  ENJOY!!! FURTHER LINKS! The Gee's Bend website!  https://www.soulsgrowndeep.org/gees-bend-quiltmakers Their show at Alison Jacques Gallery (don't miss if you're in London!) https://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/exhibitions/192/overview/ More:  https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/29/arts/art-review-jazzy-geometry-cool-quilters.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHEqYVzSs7U Follow us: Katy Hessel: @thegreatwomenartists / @katy.hessel Sound editing by Laura Hendry  Artwork by @thisisaliceskinner Music by Ben Wetherfield https://www.thegreatwomenartists.com/

Episode No. 488 features artist Alex Bradley Cohen and curator Ann Dumas. The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University has recently acquired Alex Bradley Cohen's 2015 For a More Just Future. Cohen's paintings of people and places are often blendings of his personal relationships with art history. His work has been exhibited in "State of the Art 2020" at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and The Momentary and at group shows at the University Art Museum at the University of Albany, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Studio Museum in Harlem. On the second segment, curator Ann Dumas discusses "Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature,"  which is at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston through June 20. The exhibition reveals how David Hockney has mined Vincent Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in ways that have informed his mark-making, compositions and more. BONUS: Hear an excerpt from recent Bemis Center resident Lea Bertucci's forthcoming album "A Visible Length of Light!"

Steve and Katie discuss the recent deaccessioning controversies at the Brooklyn Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, and Everson Museum of Art in light of the ethical guidelines, new AAMD guidance, and the economic and social climate. They also discuss the recent postponement of the Philip Guston retrospective at the National Gallery, Tate Modern, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston due to its depiction of white nationalism and the criticisms of that decision. Please note there have been developments on all these topics since our recording, so please see the resources links for up to date information. Resources: AAMD: https://aamd.org/for-the-media/press-release/aamd-board-of-trustees-approves-resolution-to-provide-additional https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/aamd-sends-a-warning-note-to-museum-directors-on-deaccessioning Brooklyn Museum: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/16/arts/design/brooklyn-museum-sale-christies-coronavirus.html https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/brooklyn-museum-steams-ahead-on-deaccessioning https://www.artforum.com/news/brooklyn-museum-continues-deaccessioning-spree-84242 https://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2020/10/16/brooklyn-museum-to-sell-monet-miro-degas-and-more-at-sothebys-in-second-deaccesioning-round/ Everson Museum of Art: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-09-14/syracuse-museum-jackson-pollock-auction https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-art-museum-sells-its-soul-11600808127 https://www.christies.com/features/Expert-view-Jackson-Pollock-Red-Composition-10893-7.aspx https://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/2020/10/everson-museums-jackson-pollock-painting-sells-for-12-million-at-auction.html https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/to-mirror-and-support-community-everson-museum-board-chair-defends-deaccessioning-of-a-pollock Baltimore Museum of Art: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/arts/design/baltimore-museum-deaccessioning.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&smtyp=cur https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/baltimore-museum-of-art-deaccessioning-works-sothebys-1234572422/ https://www.theartnewspaper.com/comment/bma-curators-letter-response-to-deaccessioning https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/baltimore-museum-of-art-deaccession-open-letter-1234574032/ https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/former-trustees-and-donors-ask-state-to-block-sale-of-three-important-works-by-the-baltimore-museum-of-art https://hyperallergic.com/595171/baltimore-museum-of-art-deaccessions-condemn/?utm_campaign=Daily&utm_content=20201019&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Hyperallergic%20Newsletter https://www.latimes.com/_preview?_cms.db.previewId=00000175-37f8-da10-a57d-b7f976590000&_date= Philip Guston: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/philip-guston-postponement-tate-national-gallery-directors-1234572527/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LVXTB30hp2oNz1Vm4P8jpXgg4sIieWNbdaqWqffHcN4/edit https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/national-gallery-postponement-guston-show-klan-images/2020/10/07/a35adb32-0831-11eb-a166-dc429b380d10_story.html https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/10/19/philip-guston-and-the-boundaries-of-art-culture https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/arts/design/philip-guston-retrospective-date.html https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/tate-suspends-senior-curator-over-guston-controversy Additional: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-10-07/palm-springs-art-museum-deaccession-frankenthaler https://www.artnews.com/feature/most-controversial-museum-deaccessioning-plans-1234575019/

Robert L. Hodge on what it means to be an artist, early lessons and new goals. After a short stint at New York City's prestigious Pratt Institute, the interdisciplinary artist attended the Atlanta College of Art where his artistic palette was opened to all levels of creativity and he found his own voice as an artist. Since then, he's put his hometown of Houston, Texas on the map for creatives, exhibiting his work in numerous national and international institutions, including the Project Row Houses (Houston, TX), Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), Contemporary Arts Museum (Houston, TX), Coma Art Space (Los Angeles, CA), and Contemporary Museum of East Africa (Nairobi, Kenya).

Gus Powell was born in New York City in 1974 and attended Oberlin College where he majored in comparative religion. In 2003 he was selected to be in PDNs 30 under 30 issue and also published his first monograph, The Company of Strangers (J&L Books). His work has been exhibited internationally, including a solo show at The Museum of The City of New York and group exhibitions at The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts Houston and FOAM, NL. His photographs have been published in Aperture, Harpers, Vogue, M le mag – Le Monde, Wired, Fortune, W, and he has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine for a decade. He is a member of the street photographers’ collective In-Public and is faculty in the MFA Photography, Video and Related Media Department at the School of Visual Arts, NY. His work is included in the books Bystander: A World History of Street Photography and Street Photography Now.  Powell’s second monograph, titled The Lonely Ones (J&L Books, 2015) was celebrated as one of the best photography books of the year, and was reprinted as a trilingual edition in 2017.  Powell is currently at work on a book tilted Family Car Trouble (TBW Books, 2019) and his ongoing street work series titled Mise en Scène. He is represented by Sasha Wolf Projects (NY), Lee Marks Fine Art (IN), and Micamera (Milano).   Photographer Links:  Gus Powell Elizabeth Bick Brian Karlsson Charalampos Kydonakis   Education Resources: Momenta Photographic Workshops Focus on the Story Workshop - Washington DC   Candid Frame Resources The Candid Frame Newsletter The Candid Frame Alexa Skill Making Photographs: Developing a Personal Visual Workflow The Candid Frame Flickr Pool The Candid Frame YouTube Channel Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click below to download for iOS. Click below to download for Android Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort.  You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Episode four features Nigerian American artist Ike Ude. He is a photographer, a performance artist and author of several books and founder and publisher of aRude magazine. In 2017 Ike spoke during a Global Ted Talk in Tanzania to discuss his book ‘Nollywood Portraits: A Radical Beauty a stunning publication depicting major Nigerian’s in the media. His work is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Sheldon Museum, RISD Museum, New Britain Museum of American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts and in many private collections. Artsy, ranked Ike -- along with Rembrandt, van Gogh, Warhol -- among the top 10 "Masters of the Self-Portrait." He was included on the Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List in 2009, 2012 and 2015. Commenced during Art Basel Miami 2019, Ike has a one year exhibition at The Betsy Hotel on Ocean Drive. This interview offers listeners a rare peek into Ike Ude’s intellect.

The HCC Northeast Art Gallery and Student Life Department commemorate Black History Month with an exhibit titled Resurrection featuring Houston artist Kentra Gilbert. Gilbert’s work features geometric pattern paintings on canvas and wood with various types of acrylic paint. She uses colors and shapes to create optical illusions and what she describes as a beautiful deception. After earning degrees at Southwestern Christian College and the University of Houston, Gilbert graduated from Houston Baptist University with a Master of Fine Art in 2017. During her time as a student and afterward, Kentra showed her artwork in numerous group shows and juried exhibitions; however, this is her first one-person-show in a Houston gallery. While at HBU, she received 2nd place in 2017 Rockport's Center for the Art's "Rising Eye of Texas." Among her achievements are becoming a finalist at the "Biennial: Origins in Geometry" (2017) and a recent participant of the "Fresh Look: Selection of Women Artists in the MADI Collection" and "Artist of the Month" for October at the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art (2019). She was selected multiple times as a participant in the "Citywide African American Artists Exhibition," a collaborative exhibit put together by Texas Southern University's University Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.

You can listen to this week’s episode of NEXT QUESTION with Ernie Manouse in the audio above. Below, you can find audio, video and photos of the various stories discussed on the show. Beyond the Story:   Abigail Rockwell Above, Rockwell's The Four Freedoms. To learn more about Norman Rockwell, click HERE  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZpIPyO-zEI Above, Houston Public Media's profile of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston's exhibit Norman Rockwell: American Freedom To learn more about Abigail Rockwell and her music, click... Read More

In this episode of the podcast “Unwrap Your Candies Now,” Ernie Manouse chats with Philip Lehl, Co-Artistic Director of 4th Wall Theatre Company.  Now entering its ninth season, the company’s 2019 – 2020 line-up opens with a reimagining of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, starring Kim Tobin-Lehl and Joseph “Joe P” Palmore. Then, Catherine Lu interviews Marian Luntz, curator of film and video at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. They talk about the MFAH’s... Read More

This week, Travel Today with Peter Greenberg comes from the Hotel Alessandra in downtown Houston, Texas. Joining Peter is William T. Harris, President and CEO of Space Center Houston, who talks about celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and dispels the misconceptions and reveals Neil Armstrong’s real experience when he stepped on the moon’s surface. Then, Jim D. Hornfischer, Author of Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, tells the riveting story of the doomed ship: her history, tragic demise and how she’s remembered today. Plus, Jim Parsons, Programs Director at Preservation Houston, on why Houston is “a new invention,” how it has evolved in the last few decades and the city’s extensive — and surprising — open green spaces. And, David Bomford, Curator of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston reveals more about the largest Vincent van Gogh exhibit in North America. All this and more as Travel Today with Peter Greenberg comes from the Hotel Alessandra in Houston, Texas.

This week, Travel Today with Peter Greenberg comes from the Hotel Alessandra in downtown Houston, Texas. Joining Peter is William T. Harris, President and CEO of Space Center Houston, who talks about celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and dispels the misconceptions and reveals Neil Armstrong’s real experience when he stepped on the moon’s surface. Then, Jim D. Hornfischer, Author of Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, tells the riveting story of the doomed ship: her history, tragic demise and how she’s remembered today. Plus, Jim Parsons, Programs Director at Preservation Houston, on why Houston is “a new invention,” how it has evolved in the last few decades and the city’s extensive — and surprising — open green spaces. And, David Bomford, Curator of The Museum of Fine Arts Houston reveals more about the largest Vincent van Gogh exhibit in North America. All this and more as Travel Today with Peter Greenberg comes from the Hotel Alessandra in Houston, Texas.

Benito Huerta is an artist, and a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington where he has been Director and Curator of The Gallery at UTA since 1997. Huerta received a B.F.A. at the University of Houston and his Masters at New Mexico State University. He was Co-founder, Executive Director and Emeritus Board Director of Art Lies, a Texas Art Journal. As a curator, he has organized surveys and retrospectives of Mel Chin, John Hernandez, Luis Jimenez, Dalton Maroney, and Celia Alvarez Munoz. As a painter, Huerta specializes in large-scale oils that utilize pop culture and historical art references to explore the juxtaposition of death and beauty. In addition to painting, Huerta also creates three-dimensional work. He has completed public works projects which include DFW International Airport, the Mexican-American Cultural Center in Austin, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Houston Metropolitan Transit and Fort Worth’s South Main Street Public Art Project. In 2002, the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art awarded Huerta with its Legend Award. His work is included in the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, the Art Museum of South Texas and the National Museum of Mexican Art, as well a variety of private and public collections.I recently sat down with Benito at his home studio near the UTA campus where we discussed growing up in Corpus Christi, decades in curation, beauty, death, chalupas, and booking the Rolling Stones.

Benito Huerta is an artist, and a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington where he has been Director and Curator of The Gallery at UTA since 1997. Huerta received a B.F.A. at the University of Houston and his Masters at New Mexico State University. He was Co-founder, Executive Director and Emeritus Board Director of Art Lies, a Texas Art Journal. As a curator, he has organized surveys and retrospectives of Mel Chin, John Hernandez, Luis Jimenez, Dalton Maroney, and Celia Alvarez Munoz. As a painter, Huerta specializes in large-scale oils that utilize pop culture and historical art references to explore the juxtaposition of death and beauty. In addition to painting, Huerta also creates three-dimensional work. He has completed public works projects which include DFW International Airport, the Mexican-American Cultural Center in Austin, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Houston Metropolitan Transit and Fort Worth’s South Main Street Public Art Project. In 2002, the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art awarded Huerta with its Legend Award. His work is included in the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Albuquerque Museum of Art, the Art Museum of South Texas and the National Museum of Mexican Art, as well a variety of private and public collections.I recently sat down with Benito at his home studio near the UTA campus where we discussed growing up in Corpus Christi, decades in curation, beauty, death, chalupas, and booking the Rolling Stones.

Dornith Doherty is an artist whose work stimulates conversations around the world’s ever-changing ecology. A native of Houston, she obtained her BFA from Rice University and her MFA in Photography from Yale. She currently resides in Southlake, Texas and is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas, where she has been on the faculty since 1996. Dornith is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow and has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and the United States Department of the Interior, among many others. In addition, she was recognized by the Texas State Legislature as the 2016 Texas State Artist for 2D work. Doherty’s work has been exhibited extensively domestically and abroad and can be found in the permanent collections of prominent institutions such as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Her project entitled “Archiving Eden” looked at the infrastructure around the preservation of the world’s plant life through the utilization of seed banks, as well as looking at the inner beauty of the seeds themselves. That work drew the attention of major media outlets and resulted in a host of artist talks around the world, including TEDx Monterey.I recently sat down with Dornith at her current show at Holly Johnson Gallery in Dallas where we discussed growing up in Houston, the rigors of the Yale MFA, man’s impact on the environment, photographing the world seed bank vault in the arctic, backyard coyotes and the future of the banana.

Dornith Doherty is an artist whose work stimulates conversations around the world’s ever-changing ecology. A native of Houston, she obtained her BFA from Rice University and her MFA in Photography from Yale. She currently resides in Southlake, Texas and is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas, where she has been on the faculty since 1996. Dornith is a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow and has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and the United States Department of the Interior, among many others. In addition, she was recognized by the Texas State Legislature as the 2016 Texas State Artist for 2D work. Doherty’s work has been exhibited extensively domestically and abroad and can be found in the permanent collections of prominent institutions such as the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Her project entitled “Archiving Eden” looked at the infrastructure around the preservation of the world’s plant life through the utilization of seed banks, as well as looking at the inner beauty of the seeds themselves. That work drew the attention of major media outlets and resulted in a host of artist talks around the world, including TEDx Monterey.I recently sat down with Dornith at her current show at Holly Johnson Gallery in Dallas where we discussed growing up in Houston, the rigors of the Yale MFA, man’s impact on the environment, photographing the world seed bank vault in the arctic, backyard coyotes and the future of the banana.

Alleghany Meadows is a potter who lives in Carbondale, Colorado. He received his BA from Pitzer College and his MFA from Alfred University. His ceramics are in many private and public collections including of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Long Beach Museum of Art. Alleghany’s work extends beyond ceramics to projects that engage communities—both local and national. He’s the co-founder of the Artstream Nomadic Gallery—a mobile gallery in a renovated Airstream trailer that travels around the country exhibiting work of contemporary potters.