Podcasts about Mint Museum

A new exhibit at Charlotte's Mint Museum Uptown looks at the art and artists of the South in the first half of the 20th century. The show called "Southern/Modern" has more than 100 paintings and works on paper by artists from the region, or who worked here. On this episode of the Piedmont Arts podcast, we talk with curator Jonathan Stuhlman and take a tour of the exhibit. Learn more at Mint Museum: "Southern/Modern"

This week we will be talking with Jonathan Stuhlman and Martha Severens about their book, Southern/Modern: Rediscovering Southern Art from the First Half of the Twentieth Century (2024, UNC Press). Jonathan Stuhlman is the Senior Curator of American Art at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, and Martha Severens is in independent scholar based in the upstate of South Carolina. Together they have created a book that springs from an exhibition at the Mint but is so much more than just a catalog for the exhibit.

Museums across the Piedmont are hanging their fall shows. On this Piedmont Arts podcast, we have a preview that includes local and regional art at Charlotte's Mint Museum, Surrealism and African American artists at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, a Wizard of Oz-themed show at UNC Charlotte and more.

In the 78th episode of Perceived Value, host Sarah Rachel Brown takes listeners to the Penland School of Craft, where she's participating in their Winter Residency. Leading up to the residency, Sarah had heard from a few fellow artists attending, but overall, she had no idea who she would cross paths with. To her delight, the residency allowed her to meet many artists she's admired from afar. Among them is the guest for this episode, Lauren Kalman, who has been on Sarah's interview wishlist for some time. After sharing a few meals, Sarah asked for an interview.The two women sat down to discuss how Lauren unexpectedly got her first teaching position, the art of negotiation and why it's a crucial skill, how to sell work when your work is challenging to sell, and how an artist's work is not always representative of their personality.OUR GUESTLauren Kalman is a visual artist based in Detroit whose practice is rooted in craft, sculpture, video, photography, and performance. She completed her PhD in Practice-led Research from the School of Art and Design at the Australian National University. She earned an MFA in Art and Technology from Ohio State University and a BFA with a focus in Metals from Massachusetts College of Art.Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Museum of Contemporary Craft, Cranbrook Art Museum, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Mint Museum, World Art Museum in Beijing, and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris among others. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, and the Korean Ceramics Foundation. In 2020 she received the Françoise van den Bosch Award for her career's impact on the jewelry field; in 2022, she received the Raphael Founders Prize in Glass from Contemporary for Craft; and in 2023 she was named a Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow.She is a dedicated educator and is currently a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Art, Art History, and Design at Wayne State University in Detroit.www.laurenkalman.comInstagram: @laurenkalmanFacebook: @LaurenKalmanArtDon't forget to Rate AND Review us on iTunes!SUPPORT PERCEIVED VALUE!www.patreon.com/perceivedvalueMORE WAYS TO SUPPORTInstagram + Facebook: @perceivedvalueInstagram: @sarahrachelbrownThe music you hear on Perceived Value is by the Seattle group Song Sparrow Research.All You Need to Know off of their album Sympathetic Buzz.Find them on Spotify!

Do Greater Charlotte's William McNeely joins hosts Matt Olin and Tim Miner on this episode, recorded immediately following Creative Morning's September gathering at Uptown Charlotte's Mint Museum.

Randy and Caly welcome back travel photographer Carrie Hanrahan to discuss the NASCAR Hall of Fame, the U.S. National Whitewater Center, and other exciting attractions in The Queen City: Charlotte, North Carolina.Subscribe to RV Destinations Magazine at https://RVDestinationsmagazine.comDownload the top things to do in Charlotte, NC for FREE atLearn more about Carrie Hanrahan at https://carriehanrahanphotography.comCHAPTERS00:00 Introduction06:10 Fun Facts12:13 Brooklyn Bedding14:26 Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden17:20 Craft Breweries21:04 Billy Graham Library24:20 Free Museum Nights28:02 Crowders Mountain State Park30:51 BattleBorn32:11 Sporting Events34:38 NASCAR Hall of Fame37:55 Hot Glass Alley42:50 Charlotte Motor Speedway47:07 US National Whitewater Center51:33 CampgroundsPARTNERSHIPSNot getting a good night's rest in your RV? Visit https://rvmattress.com to get 25% off any RV mattress by Brooklyn Bedding!Upgrade your power with BattleBorn Lithium-Ion Batteries at https://battlebornbatteries.comCharlotte, North Carolina, is an appealing destination for RVers thanks to its blend of urban attractions and natural beauty. The city offers a vibrant cultural scene, with museums like the Mint Museum and the NASCAR Hall of Fame providing engaging experiences for visitors. RVers can easily explore the city's diverse neighborhoods, such as the historic Fourth Ward or the lively South End, which are filled with unique shops, restaurants, and breweries. With ample RV parks and campgrounds nearby, it's convenient to enjoy the city's offerings while having a comfortable place to stay.Outdoor enthusiasts will find plenty to do around Charlotte, making it an ideal stop for RVers who enjoy nature. The U.S. National Whitewater Center offers a wide range of activities, from whitewater rafting and kayaking to hiking and mountain biking. Lake Norman, just a short drive from the city, is perfect for those who enjoy boating, fishing, or simply relaxing by the water. For a more leisurely experience, the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden offers stunning landscapes and peaceful walking trails.Charlotte's location also makes it a great hub for further exploration in the region. RVers can easily venture into the Blue Ridge Mountains for a scenic drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, or head east to explore the coastal areas of North Carolina. The city's mild climate means it's a pleasant destination year-round, and its well-maintained roads and highways make getting in and out with an RV hassle-free. Whether you're looking to immerse yourself in culture, enjoy outdoor activities, or explore the wider region, Charlotte is a destination that offers something for every RVer.

Charlotteans Lorne Lassiter and Gary Ferraro helped found the former Mint Museum of Craft and Design in uptown. They've also donated dozens of pieces from their own collection. The exhibit "Craft Across Continents" features many of those works in glass, wood, ceramics, and textiles. On this edition of the Piedmont Arts podcast, we tour the exhibit and talk with the couple about their passion for collecting. Charlotte collectors Gary Ferraro and Lorne Lassiter (l-r) in their uptown Charlotte apartment. Work from their collection is featured in the show "Craft Across Continents" at the Mint Museum in Charlotte. Photo courtesy Mint Museum. "Smok," which means dragon in Polish, is a glass sculpture by the Polish artist Anna Skibska. Lorne Lassiter and Gary Ferraro have donated it to the Mint Museum, along with other works in the show "Craft Across Continents."

So excited to share this fantastic interview with artist, Philemona Williamson! Find out more about Philemona's vibrant paintings that show twisting, gender-bending adolescents "up to stuff," and her fascinating ambiguous poetic sense of narrative (and also why I have appointed her an Honorary New Orleanian!). Philemona also grew up in a famous Art Deco building in NYC, and her childhood stories are not to be missed. Works mentioned: "Branching Eyes" 2023, "The Gathering" 2021, "Verbena Street 2" 2022, "Snow Interrupted" 2021 More info about Philemona Williamson: Philemona's website: https://www.philemonawilliamson.com/ Philemona on IG: https://www.instagram.com/philemona8/ Her MTA Fused Glass Panels at Livonia Ave, Queens (L train): https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/artwork_show?206 Current/Upcoming Exhibitions: June Kelly Gallery, NYC, Apr 18 - June 4, 2024: https://www.junekellygallery.com/williamson/index.html Passerelle, Centre d'art contemporain d'intérêt national, Brest, France, June-Aug 2024: https://www.cac-passerelle.com/expositions/en-cours/ In "Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM" Montclair Art Museum, NJ, Through July 7, 2024: https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/exhibition/century-100-years-black-art-mam Philemona Williamson has exhibited her work for over 25 years at the June Kelly Gallery in NYC and recently, at her mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in NJ. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock Krasner, National Endowment For The Arts, New York Foundation For The Arts and Millay Colony as well as serving on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education. Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions such as The Queens Museum of Art, Wisconsin's Kohler Art Center, The Sheldon Museum in Nebraska, The Bass Museum in Miami, The Mint Museum in North Carolina, The Forum of Contemporary Art in St. Louis, The International Bienal of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador and most recently at the Anna Zorina Gallery in NYC. She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including The Montclair Art Museum; The Kalamazoo Art Institute; The Mint Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Hampton University Museum; Sheldon Art Museum; Mott-Warsh Art Collection, and AT&T. Her public works includes fusedglass murals created for the MTA Arts in Transit Program at the Livonia Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, a poster for the MTA Poetry In Motion and — for the NYC School Authority — a mosaic mural in the Glenwood Campus School. She currently teaches painting at Pratt Institute and Hunter College in NYC. All music by Soundstripe ---------------------------- Pep Talks on IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@peptalksforartists⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Amy, your beloved host, on IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@talluts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Pep Talks on Art Spiel as written essays: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/7k82vd8s⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BuyMeACoffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Donations always appreciated! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/peptalksforartistspod/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/peptalksforartistspod/support

Cornell Watson is a Dope-Ass Black photographer based in Durham, North Carolina.  He frequently contributes photography to national publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Bloomberg. He has also photographed national ad campaigns for companies such as T-Mobile, MeUndies, Bombas, and Adidas. His photography centers Black stories and has been featured in museums such as The Mint Museum, Nasher Museum of Art, and most recently at the National Civil Rights Museum with a solo exhibition titled “Tarred Healing”. When he's not watching the 1000th episode of CoComelon, being the best spouse in the world, problem-solving changing his baby diaper blowouts in men's bathrooms without changing stations, or editing photos while his five-year-old daughter edits the furniture with non-washable crayons, you can find him passed out from exhaustion on the living room couch. In this episode, Cornell reflects on his transition into becoming a professional photographer, the artistry sparked by his love of music, and how making a photograph eternalizes moments and how it can be a form of resistance by helping preserve and tell black stories. Visit Cornell's website: Durham Commerical, Editorial, and Family Photographer Take his next class through Illuminate Classes - registration opens 3/27!   As always, you can learn more about what we do at thedocumentedheart.com And follow along on Instagram @thedocumentedheart  

Yuan Fang (b. 1996, Shenzhen, China) is an artist who lives and works in New York. She graduated from the Visual and Critical Studies Program at the School of Visual Arts in 2019 and received Rhodes Family Award for Outstanding Achievement and several scholarships. She received her MFA from the same institution in 2022.  Her works have been acquired by museums, institutions, and collections around the world, including ICA Miami, Lafayette Anticipations, The Flag Art Foundation, Long Museum, Pond Society, Green Family Art Foundation, He Art Museum, Asymmetry Art Foundation, Song Art Museum, Green Rapids Art Museum, Mint Museum, Inima de Paula Museum, and Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. She is having a solo show at the Long Museum in Shanghai as the youngest artist ever who holds a show there until March 24th, and will open her first solo exhibition in the UK at Skarstedt Gallery during London Gallery Weekend this May.

Michael Horton is joined by Ann Tarwater to discuss the place of art in the Christian life, if art is just for the elites, and how churches can emphasize truth, but neglect goodness and beauty. Ann started her career as a model for famous American fashion designers Oscar de la Renta, Mary McFadden, Alpert Nipon, and many others. She also graduated with a Masters of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. Building upon her background in modeling and fashion as well as theology, Ann launched The Appropriate Method, a business teaching etiquette and protocol to children and adults. Ann currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Arts at Queens University, the Board of Craft and Design for the Mint Museum, and the Chaplains Advisory Board for Atrium Health. CHECK OUT THIS MONTH'S OFFERS: Sign up to receive an original art print for this series at whitehorseinn.org/offers Subscribe to Modern Reformation magazine, and don't miss this month's issue, “The Arts.” Become a Partner to support the work of White Horse Inn as we apply the riches of the Reformation to the modern church. For more information, visit us at whitehorseinn.org or email us at info@whitehorseinn.org Featuring: Michael Horton and Ann Tarwater

We've had the honor of being asked to host the 2024 Bechtler Museum Gala, and we are so excited to make this a night to remember! In this episode, we sat down with Todd Smith, the Executive Director of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, to discuss the gala, the iconic exhibits at the museum, and the legacy of the Bechtler family. Join us on April 19th at 7:00 PM for the 2024 Bechtler Museum Fire + Ice Gala! Click here to get your tickets!   Visit the Bechtler: Website Bechtler Events Fire + Ice Gala   Leave us a voice memo at https://Speakpipe.com/BePowerful! Send us a question to answer on the show, something that resonated with you from an episode, whatever you'd like! We can't wait to hear from you!   Step up your sleep game with Baloo, the leading name in luxury weighted blankets that are eco-friendly, non-toxic, and machine washable! Use code “LIZ” at Baloo to get 22% off your order!   Sakara offers sleek and science-backed nutrition products that will help you feel your best and hit all your wellness goals! Get 20% off at Sakara with promo code “XOLIZHSM”   Some key takeaways from this episode include: We were invited to host the 2024 Bechtler Museum Gala, and were tasked with making the Bechtler weird again! Our goal is to create an environment where people can let their true selves out and feel completely welcome and accepted for it. This year's theme is Fire + Ice as a nod to artist Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson, whose exhibit Infinite Space, Sublime Horizons pulls inspiration from Iceland's beautiful landscapes. Even though Charlotte is considered a banking city, it is so rich with art centers like the Bechtler, the Harvey B. Gantt Center, the McColl Center, and the Mint Museum. That balance is essential for a vibrant city!   Hilliard Studio Method takes working out to the next level to produce results that are nothing short of a total mind-body transformation. If you're ready to get in incredible shape, you can work out with us in-person at our Charlotte studio, join classes from home via Zoom, or sign up for our on-demand streaming service! HSM In-Person Classes HSM At Home (Via Zoom) HSM Streaming   Be Powerful with Liz & Lee is focused on helping you find your inner power and for us to share our thoughts on society, culture, and current events. As the team behind Hilliard Studio Method in Charlotte, North Carolina, we love all things wellness and will also share info on how to live your healthiest life mentally, physically, and emotionally.   Podcast contact info: Liz's Instagram  Lee's Instagram Hilliard Studio Method HSM Facebook Liz & Lee's YouTube

Matt and Tim discuss creativity and community with Jennifer Sudul Edwards, Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art at The Mint Museum, in a conversation recorded immediately following Creative Mornings Charlotte, January 5, 2024 at The Mint Museum on Randolph.

Windy O'Connor is an award-winning American painter whose work is collected around the globe. Her art and design passion developed into a lifestyle brand of textiles, wallpaper, clothing, and home accessories. She has a degree in Interior Design and has studied under artist Andy Braitman in studio painting. Her work is guided by the notion that “life is a pursuit of creating something that brings another person joy” and conveys an experience, emotion, memory, or person, thanks to her dedication to utilizing various mediums. Her series of abstract portraits of women she calls Chicas has taken on a life of their own. “That is the power of energy in the creative process!” Windy's Chicas represent the intricacies, humor, strength, and power of women. They are our mothers, sisters, friends, and history makers. Windy's work has been featured in House Beautiful, Southern Accents, Traditional Home, The Zoe Report, and several Charlotte publications. She was chosen as the Mint Museum Artist for the Women of Vision Luncheon in 2019. Her work was recently in a group exhibit entitled “Local/Street” at the Mint Museum, and she will be a part of a group show at Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC in late 2021. Her studio and showroom are located at Camp North End in Charlotte. https://windyoconnor.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theartistspool/message

Some might say that Daniel Clayman is more a sculptor using glass as his primary material than a glass artist. That is to say his sculptures would be successful from a formal point of view no matter what material they were created in. With one major exception: the play of light in Clayman's glass art enhances the objects dramatically in comparison with how they might appear in a solid, non-translucent medium. Born in 1957 in Lynn, Massachusetts, Clayman planned a career as a theater lighting designer, studying in the theater and dance departments at Connecticut College, eventually dropping out of college to work in the professional theater, dance and opera world. A chance class in 1980 introduced the artist to using glass as a sculptural material. In 1986, he received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and has maintained a studio in East Providence, Rhode Island since then. ​Clayman's interests in engineering, the behavior of light, and the memory of experience, act as an impetus for much of his work. Having turned his attention to large-scale installations, he employs technology from the simplest hand tool to the latest three-dimensional modeling and production tools. Recent public projects include Rainfield, Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Media Center Atrium, exhibition dates: January 23, 2017 – January 23, 2018; and Radiant Landscape, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township, New Jersey, exhibition dates: May 7, 2017 – February 28, 2018. Clayman is the recipient of several grants and awards and has had numerous one-person shows throughout the country to include the Tacoma Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. Works in glass sculpture by the artist can be found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Art in San Francisco, The Museum of Art and Design in New York, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.  An artist/educator, Clayman has taught in Japan, Israel and Australia in addition to a robust teaching schedule here in the U.S. He has been a Visiting Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design and Artist in Residence at Tyler School of Art and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He lectures frequently and teaches workshops at Penland School of Crafts, Pilchuck and The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, among others. In 2018, Clayman became the first endowed chair of glass at University of the Arts, Philadelphia.  Clayman states: “While I moved away from a professional career pursuit in lighting design, I have never turned away from my observations of light. Using glass as my primary sculptural material, I have spent the last 20 years developing a vocabulary of forms which describe volumes of light. Over the past four years, my studio work has centered around the creation of large-scale glass castings that thematically reference the capturing of light. One of the many mysteries of light is that it refuses to reveal any of its essence until it happens to reflect on something other than itself. For instance, the headlight of a car projects (reflects) light onto objects as the viewer approaches, but not until there is a foggy mist in the air does one see the shape and arc of the beam.”  

Miguel Meets Gloria at the Mint Museum in Uptown. Monday 9/18/23

Town Hall Seattle and Gage Academy of Art present Preston Singletary: Honoring Stories Through Glass-Blowing. The art of Preston Singletary has become synonymous with the relationship between European glass-blowing traditions and Northwest Native art. His artworks feature themes of transformation, animal spirits, and shamanism through elegant blown glass forms and mystical sand-carved Tlingit designs. Singletary learned the art of glass blowing by working with artists in the Seattle area including Benjamin Moore and Dante Marioni. As a student and assistant, he initially focused on mastering the techniques of the European tradition. In 1993 he traveled to Sweden and was immersed in the Scandinavian design community where he met his future wife Åsa and lived there for 6 months. Throughout his over thirty years of glass-blowing experience, he has also had opportunities to learn the secrets of the Venetian glass masters by working with Italian legends Lino Tagliapietra, Cecco Ongaro, and Pino Signoretto. In 2010, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from the University of Puget Sound. Now recognized internationally, Singletary's artworks are included in museum collections such as The British Museum (London, UK), The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA), The Seattle Art Museum (Seattle WA), the Corning Museum of Glass (Corning, NY), the Mint Museum of Art and Design (Charlotte, NC), the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ), and the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, DC). Preston Singletary maintains an active schedule by teaching, lecturing, and exhibiting internationally. In 2009, the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, launched a major mid-career survey of his work, entitled “Preston Singletary: Echoes, Fire, and Shadows”. In 2018 he launched a new traveling exhibition with the Museum of Glass, titled “Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight”, which pushes the boundaries of glass as a medium for storytelling. His latest work is a large Killer Whale Totem created entirely in lead crystal and standing at nearly eight feet tall.

Host Glenn van Zutphen and award-winning author Neil Humphreys speak to Gerald Wee, Director of International & Museum Relations, National Heritage Board, and Chang Yang Fa, CEO, MINT Museum of Toys as the NHB marks the 81st anniversary of The Battle for Singapore with a series of guided tours, talks, exhibitions, and screenings and how the MINT Museum of Toys has curated Second World War vintage toy exhibit.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ellie Richards is a furniture designer and sculptor interested in the role the furniture and domestic objects play in creating opportunities for a deeper connection between people and their sense of place. Ellie looks to the tradition of both woodworking and the readymade to create eclectic assemblage, installation, and objects exploring intersections of labor, leisure, community, and culture. She has traveled extensively to investigate the role play and improvisation have on the artistic process. Her work, both furniture and sculpture, has been included in exhibitions at the Mint Museum; Center for Craft, Creativity, and Design; SOFA Chicago; and the Society of Contemporary Craft. Most recently Richards was awarded Windgate residencies at the Center for Art in Wood, and in the wood/furniture design programs at San Diego State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Additionally, she maintains an active teaching schedule sharing the fundamentals of woodworking and artistic practice with a breadth of audience including appointments at Yestermorrow Design/Build School, Appalachian Center for Craft, and Haystack Mountain School of Craft.  She is currently a resident artist at Penland School of Craft 2020-2023. You may follow along with Ellie on Instagram and her website. Follow along with the Podcast on Instagram.

Charlotte is one of two cities to land a new Pablo Picasso exhibition. Hear about "Picasso Landscapes: Out of Bounds,” coming to the Mint Museum in February.

What you'll learn in this episode:   How Wayne used his trip around the world to learn the art and science of metalsmithing Why it's important for emerging metalsmiths to understand they are part of a global mosaic of creatives How Wayne made jewelry for the Grateful Dead and Blues Traveler Why Wayne is selective about the jewelry shows he attends Why teachers benefit from living as an artisan before teaching   About Wayne Werner Jeweler, goldsmith, and educator Wayne Werner is a third-generation metalsmith from Maryland. He has been jewelry maker for over 30 years with clients worldwide.   Wayne Werner has traveled around the world to learn with metal workers from Italy and Egypt to Java and Bali. Specializing in cold forging precious metals, Werner has incorporated the traditional techniques of gold and platinum smithing with his artistic vision of paying homage to the fertility cults of the ancient world.      Werner's work explores the relationship to metals liquid opus and the opus of mankind, both being a product of the earth cooling down. Through his work Werner attempts to remind people of the miracle of life and the cosmic happening that we all are.      Primarily making a living retailing his work, Werner has participated in over 250 high-end craft shows nationally. He has received many awards for his work including the World Gold Council's Gold Distinction award and the MJSA Vision award for Mokume Gane. Werner is a former instructor at the Fuji Studio in Florence, Italy, and was adjunct faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore for 17 years. He has also taught over 100 workshops in universities and craft schools around the country. In 2006 he was asked to demonstrate his craft at The Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte, NC, an event marking his 40th birthday. He is founder and host of THE ALCHEMIST PICNIC, a metalsmithing retreat at Touchstone Center for Craft, now in its 6th year. Werner is also an accomplished musician who has appeared on both television and movies as himself. His clients are some of the most interesting people on earth. Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional Resources: Website Instagram Facebook Transcript Known for his psychedelic designs that reference ancient myths, fertility cults and the splendor of the sun, it's no wonder that metalsmith Wayne Werner has connected with clients like the Grateful Dead. A self-taught jeweler who learned traditional techniques by visiting metalsmiths around the world, Wayne has found success by selling his pieces at craft shows. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about his tips for building a long-lasting career in the jewelry industry; how he chooses the shows he attends; and why metalsmiths are all part of a global creative community. Read the episode transcript here.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the second part of a two-part episode. If you haven't heard part one, please head to TheJewelryJourney.com. Today my guest is Wayne Werner. Wayne is a very unusual and accomplished goldsmith. He is self-taught. As well as a goldsmith, he's an educator, artist and world traveler. Welcome back.   Wayne: I'm so lucky to have that energy be part of me profiting from a passion I have. I'm probably diverging. I'll have a sip of bourbon.    Sharon: You were talking about developing your niches. One of the things you told me was that you limit shows. You say you pick and choose your shows so you don't have to go to a hundred shows. Yes?   Wayne: Yes. I'm at the ripe old age of 56 now. I started when I was, I think, 21. I've done over 350 shows. I did actually count them a few years ago. There were 350 shows all over the United States. I had some gallery representation for a while. It was something I didn't need as much of if I were doing lots of good retail shows. These are everything from a museum show and sale to the American Craft Council's show and sales to arts festivals or even just art in the park. I had gone out and done these and ran myself ragged. I decided what I was willing to do and not willing to do.    In the course of that, I met my wonderful partner, Barbara Bayne, who is also a silver and goldsmith. Now we talk to each other and have these little executive board meetings in the hallway or wherever in the house. We say, “What do we want to do this winter? Let's apply to some shows in Florida. Where do we want to find ourselves in August? How about Sausalito Arts Festival”—when that was happening—"or go up to the mountains in Idaho.” Now Barbara works with me, and she has a lot to say about setting the course. We go out and do shows in spurts.    She's really good at throwing the applications out there, and we're really good at traveling together. Sometimes we'll share a booth, or we'll have separate booths and just help one another, but we're getting really selective. There are a lot of reasons. Sometimes it's places we want to be because they're pleasant at that time of the year. Sometimes it's the safety or the not safety of being in a big city. I have to acknowledge that running around America with all your work in a backpack can create some stress, let's say. I've never been robbed, but I'm always aware.    Now we're doing between five and eight shows a year, the ones we want to do, the ones where we love and respect the promoter and we feel the love and respect back from the promoter. That's very important to me, because what I really want is that warm feeling. I made it and you bought it, and there's no middleman. I have grown to cherish that. It's become a focal point of my business, to say, “I make it, you buy it.” There's nobody between the love or the affection towards my work.    Michael Good grabbed me and said, “You know what your job is, Wayne? Your job is to connect and reconnect with the people that connect with you and your work.” He walked away and I said, “Wow! Good lord, that's it! He just boiled it down.” I thought about the Ramones; they're a punk rock band. They knew like four chords. All the songs sound about the same. It's just a bunch of guys with leather jackets, but they found a way to connect and reconnect with people that connected with them. They weren't the greatest at what they did, but they kept doing it and they made it available to their fans, their people, by doing shows and things like that.    I've done a lot of shows around the United States. A lot of them were not worth my time, but I did learn from them. At a lot of them I met the most amazing traveling artisans of my life. The biggest and best influences I ever got were from visiting my mentors between shows and seeing their studios. I'd say, “Wow! This is what you get to do for a living.” A couple of them said, “Yeah, it's a living, but you've got to be on top of doing this stuff. You've got to have that business thing going.”   Sharon: Did you start becoming a teacher and educator because you wanted to share what you were doing? Was it because they inspired you, or it was happenstance?   Wayne: It was happenstance. It was a combination of a number of things. It was like finding another facet to your existence, another flickering point of what you were doing. In 1996, when I traveled around the world, I went to Florence, Italy and fell in with Kathy Knipple and Fuji Yamamoto. They had the Fuji Studio in Florence, Italy. I did a little residency there. They asked me to teach, and I said, “O.K., I haven't done that much teaching.” In the back of my mind, I always felt that some teachers should make a living as an artisan before they teach. I thought, “Well, I'm going to try to teach,” and I stumbled through it with Fuji Studio.   When I was back in Maryland, within a year or two after doing that, a friend of mine was working at the Maryland Institute of Art. It's a pretty prestigious private art school. It's a cornerstone of Baltimore and all the artisans there. I said, “Yeah, I'll come down and teach at the Maryland Institute of Art, but I have no master's degree. I have no degree in art at all.” They said, “That's O.K. We're going to do it by recommending you. We're going to offer you an adjunct position.” I didn't know what the hell that meant, but I knew this much: The person who hired me said, “You're going to make some waves here because you've got a job teaching with no degree.” I said, “Then I want to do it. But I'm warning you. I'm going to use you all as my guinea pigs. I'm going to learn to teach here and get paid for it, and then I'm going to go and teach all over the United States at art centers and craft campuses like my mentors, like the people I know that are mainly artisans, but they go out and teach a few workshops.”    So, I started offering the workshops. The first thing I learned immediately was I wasn't a teacher. I was a maker. People got to watch me work and then I helped them work, but I would always say, “Mistakes are good. You need to make them. I'm not here to make your piece for you.” Teaching was just another facet to polish up, and it's been very rewarding. It's been a little frustrating. I probably learned more about myself than anybody in the class doing metalwork, but I cherish the students and young people.    These workshops are all ages, so you learn how to be in a group environment where you're not in control. It's very different than being in the studio or being at an art show. I joked and said, “At least in the studio, I can leave or ask somebody to leave.” When you're in a room with 10 people and they paid money to learn to set stones, I'm a jester in the deck or a loose cannon. I've got to watch what I say. I can't joke around as much. There are powers that be that won't appreciate certain things I might say or do.    It's interesting seeing somebody on the path they're on, and then I get to play the part of the person who gets to take them a little further down their path. It could be somebody who's just retired that always wanted to make a ring, or some 20-something-year-old kid that I look at and think, “He reminds me of me when I was that age. What an asshole he's going to end up being. He knows it all and he doesn't know anything,” and then I get to be the big brother or the mentor figure. I've got some great relationships like that all over the country, all over the world now. I tell people, “Call me.” I've made that mistake before. “Call me. I'm your pal. You don't owe me anything. Call me.”    I'll tell you this funny story. In 1986, I sold my work in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert for $20.   Sharon: Say that again. You sold what? Something for $20?   Wayne: Yeah, I sold hippie jewelry in a parking lot when I was young. Within 10 years from selling hippie jewelry in a parking lot at a Grateful Dead show, I was selling to a gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City. That still blows my mind, but anyhow, last summer, I went up to Philadelphia and I swear I saw myself. I met this young kid from Idaho. He was doing some crystal wrapping and casting. I said, “Wow, man, it's like meeting myself years ago.” The young man came to my house a few days after this concert, and I gave him a bunch of tools and a little goldsmithing lesson. It feels great. It really makes me feel good.   Sharon: It makes you feel good because you're helping to put somebody on a path?   Wayne: Yeah. There's a vibrant community of makers around the country, making things and making jewelry, but goldsmiths and platinum smiths and stone setters, there's real demand for it. There's a big DIY movement that's been happening for many years, but there are going to be plenty of jobs for someone who wants to be self-sustaining as a metalsmith if they have experience in goldsmithing and stone setting and what I would call applicable skills to the trade. Now, you take those and do that and make a coin, but then you have money to go out and do far-out, really weird things or explore some other aspect of your libra. I'm a Libra, so I look for that balance. I still size rings and do antique restoration, but at the same time, I'm making pieces for an upcoming show I'm doing at the Boca Museum for an upcoming touring exhibition. I don't make money off my art jewelry is what I'm trying to say. I don't think my interesting pieces pay my rent and keep my boat afloat. I have to do production work to have at a show, and I do some repair and antique restoration. I spread it out.   That's kind of the thing I like to instill in these little creatures that say, “I'm going to be a metalsmith.” I say, “Well, if you have this fantasy like I did about having a surreal job with rainbows and butterflies and psychedelic lights and everybody's going to throw money at you, well guess what? You'll come down off that cloud and you're going to say, ‘Oh shit, today I've got to sweep to floor. Today, I've got to apply to shows. I've got to do my taxes or keep myself busy.'” That serpent that eats its own tail, that is the death of itself.   Sharon: Is that why you say you're the joker in the pack, the joker in the deck? You've used that expression with me.   Wayne: I think you had been to my website and looked at some of these crazy little pods and this fertility goddess worship I try to bring into my work. I heard a great word the other day, “cryptographic.” They're little stories or things I like to put down about my fascination with life, with sperm swimming to eggs or our liquid opus, everything being liquid. A lot of my pieces, they're sexy; they're fluid; they're pods; they're coming from an ancient fertility goddess world. I always thought the joker in the king's court was pretty cool because he could be a fool and make a fool of himself, but at the same time he could speak divine truth, and because it was a ha-ha joke, he wasn't put to death by the king.    When I talk about this infinite jest in making pieces that revolve around how amazing it is to be alive in the first place, a lot of people say, “Oh, this joker's just making these little designs, pressing buttons, trying to get people to think about stuff.” That's really what I want. I don't mind doing that as long as the message gets through. I think you'd have to look at my work to delve into it and understand that, yeah, I'm putting these things together. They are sperm; they are egg; they are all about life and the creation of life. Joker in the deck. If that's the job to do today, I'm here showing up and punching my card.    Sharon: Do you think about that when you start a piece? Do you have something in mind when you make a piece of jewelry?   Wayne: Yeah. The last cool piece I made—I think I sent a picture of it—was for the Tellus Museum. Elyse Zorn Karlin had a wonderful show at the Tellus Museum, and she was nice enough to tell me what it was about. It was called “Jewelry in the Space Age.” They were looking for alternative materials, so I used some meteorite in a couple of pieces. With the meteorite, I also did this little design in the middle of a pod in the form of an egg being born in the top. In the middle of the pod was a little sun. The sun was shaped like little sperm swimming at the center of the piece, so it looked like sun rays. This was something that Rick Griffin, a psychedelic poster artist that worked for the Grateful Dead—he did the Aoxomoxoa album cover for the Dead—he had done that. So, I threw that into the piece.   The curator came to me and said, “O.K., how does this fit into my show?” I said, “Well, there's meteorite in the piece and it talks about star seeds and things like that. If you go back to ancient Egypt, you end up with this idea of splendor solis, the splendor of the sun, and how we are all creatures that are made possible by the splendor of the sun, the fertility of the earth, plants, animals, everything. It all goes back to the sun and sun worship. I used this sun pattern that came from ancient Egypt. I used meteorite, but I also wanted to use these other symbols of eggs and being born and gestation phases and things like that.” She scratched her head and said, “Nobody's going to get that. Nobody's going to see that in your work.” I said, “That's O.K. If they want to talk about it, that's O.K.,” but I do think about that.   I've been told by different people, “You've got to get away from this theme of sex and fertility and things like that. You should get away from that theme,” and then I said to myself, “Well, why? This is an ancient idea. Hermes and Mercury and Thoth and all these enlightened deities, that's what they were talking about.” I try to stay true to it, but it creeps in all the time. I want to try to be a visionary goldsmith. I would like to have people scratch their heads a little bit, but whenever they get into it, they say, “Oh, that's interesting.”    Take a second and think that we're all cosmic miracles and little happenings under the splendor of the sun. If people thought about that more, I think they'd think less about walking into a grocery store and shooting up a bunch of people or going into a school and doing this. It's so disturbing to watch the news every night and see some of this creep up. If we would all just take a minute and walk around with our jaw open and go, “Wow! Far out! We're all a bunch of little miracles and cosmic happenings.” We need to find a way for this to work, for us to appreciate each other and live with each other. Deep down a rabbit hole, Alice. Here we go.   Sharon: Is that the suggestion or advice you would give someone at the beginning? Somebody who says, “I don't know. This is a really hard path. Should I do this or should I go get a job?”   Wayne: Like advice for young people?   Sharon: What's your advice for emerging jewelers, let's say. People who are just emerging, just starting out.   Wayne: I'd say you're just as lucky as I am to have found this stuff and picked it up and touched it and for it to touch you back. Automatically they're lucky. Some people aren't going to do this for a living. They just want to explore the craft. Some people are like, “No, this is my living.” I think a young person needs to know what they know and what they don't know, which means they can go about making jewelry with their skillset, but when it gets out of their comfort zone, maybe repair or doing something else for somebody, they need to know when not to do that. Hopefully they have in their group of friends or their tribe an older person or a younger person who knows how to do that.    Another thing—I had this conversation with a fellow not long ago because he was frustrated. I said, “Look, we are a big mosaic. Metalsmithing and jewelry making is a big mosaic, and we all make up the picture. You're never going to know it all, do it all, be it all. It's not all about you or me. This is about a collective community that has been lucky enough to find materials and to have the patience to make things. Look at it like a big mosaic, and don't be so upset that all eyes aren't on you all the time, because it's not going to be that way. It's very flattering to be speaking to you right now at a heart-to-heart level. It's very flattering, but tomorrow, I'm going to be just another monkey on the vine of this big banyan tree of other metalsmiths.”    I have to realize that even the metalwork I don't like, I have to find something about that metalsmith or that work that I appreciate or respect, just because they're out there doing this stuff. The big mosaic is something I like to remind people of. I like to remind young people that it's the jewelry business. It's half business, half art, and if you have to split your day up that way, have at it. I'm a musician as well, and one of the best things I learned from one of my musician friends was, “You've got to be it all the time. You've got to take care of your business. You've got to plan what you're doing six to nine months from now today.”    Today, you have to concentrate on where you're going to be six to nine months or a year or five years from now. You need to consciously address that, whether it's applying to shows or getting your résumé together or getting slides taken or documenting or putting it on, whatever the hell it is. You need to think about what's far down the road, and then stop and go to the bench and do whatever the task of the day is, making jewelry or whatever. You need to have time to wear the hat of the businessperson. If you're not willing to do that, you've got to get somebody to do that for you, because business is everything; everything business. If you want to have a surreal job and be surreal busy, you've got to ride that surreal white horse to that job and do that job.    Sharon: That's a great piece of advice—well, pieces of advice, but the last one resonates with me in other areas, not just jewelry. Thank you very much for being here today, Wayne. I greatly appreciate it.   Wayne: Thank you. Again, I'm flattered to be here, and I love what you're doing.   Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please head to TheJewelryJourney.com to check them out.   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 Wayne used his trip around the world to learn the art and science of metalsmithing Why it's important for emerging metalsmiths to understand they are part of a global mosaic of creatives How Wayne made jewelry for the Grateful Dead and Blues Traveler Why Wayne is selective about the jewelry shows he attends Why teachers benefit from living as an artisan before teaching   About Wayne Werner Jeweler, goldsmith, and educator Wayne Werner is a third-generation metalsmith from Maryland. He has been jewelry maker for over 30 years with clients worldwide.   Wayne Werner has traveled around the world to learn with metal workers from Italy and Egypt to Java and Bali. Specializing in cold forging precious metals, Werner has incorporated the traditional techniques of gold and platinum smithing with his artistic vision of paying homage to the fertility cults of the ancient world.      Werner's work explores the relationship to metals liquid opus and the opus of mankind, both being a product of the earth cooling down. Through his work Werner attempts to remind people of the miracle of life and the cosmic happening that we all are.      Primarily making a living retailing his work, Werner has participated in over 250 high-end craft shows nationally. He has received many awards for his work including the World Gold Council's Gold Distinction award and the MJSA Vision award for Mokume Gane. Werner is a former instructor at the Fuji Studio in Florence, Italy, and was adjunct faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore for 17 years. He has also taught over 100 workshops in universities and craft schools around the country. In 2006 he was asked to demonstrate his craft at The Mint Museum of Craft and Design in Charlotte, NC, an event marking his 40th birthday. He is founder and host of THE ALCHEMIST PICNIC, a metalsmithing retreat at Touchstone Center for Craft, now in its 6th year. Werner is also an accomplished musician who has appeared on both television and movies as himself. His clients are some of the most interesting people on earth.   Photos Available on TheJewelryJourney.com Additional Resources: Website Instagram Facebook Transcript Known for his psychedelic designs that reference ancient myths, fertility cults and the splendor of the sun, it's no wonder that metalsmith Wayne Werner has connected with clients like the Grateful Dead. A self-taught jeweler who learned traditional techniques by visiting metalsmiths around the world, Wayne has found success by selling his pieces at craft shows. He joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about his tips for building a long-lasting career in the jewelry industry; how he chooses the shows he attends; and why metalsmiths are all part of a global creative community. Read the episode transcript here.   Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. This is the first part of a two-part episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you can hear part two as soon as it's released later this week.    Today my guest is Wayne Werner. Wayne is a very unusual and accomplished goldsmith. He is self-taught. As well as a goldsmith, he's an educator, an artist and a world traveler. He has traveled from Italy to Egypt, Java and Bali to learn different metalworking techniques and to be the best possible metalsmith. We'll hear all about his journey today. Wayne, welcome to the program.   Wayne: Thank you, Sharon. I'm flattered to be here.    Sharon: Thank you so much for being here. Tell us about your jewelry journey. You came from a family of goldsmiths, you said.   Wayne: Yes. I hope the journey has not already happened. I think it's still happening as we speak. But, yeah, I came from a family of makers, I would say. My one grandfather worked on the World Trade Center in New York and the George Washington Bridge among other things. He was an ironworker. My grandfather on my dad's side worked for the government. He worked for Aberdeen Proving Ground. He did metalwork. He made hand grenades and guns that shot around corners and weird things like that.    My mom was a decorator, but it was my uncle Russ Springer who really blew my mind and affected me when I was a child. Russ Springer, a German immigrant on the east side of Baltimore, was a watchmaker, clockmaker and repairman. He made jewelry, but he also did movie projections. He was a projectionist. He did things like help put movies on airplanes back in the 60s. When I went to see uncle Russ, he was working at the Essex Movie Theater on the east side of Baltimore. My mother took me there. She would leave me at the movie theater because he was working in the projection room, and she would go shopping. I was there to watch 101 Dalmatians, but Russ had a work bench in there, and while he was running the projectors in this small projection room, he was working on watches and clocks and carvings. Imagine being six years old, walking into a tiny room with flickering lights and big wheels turning, movies turning, and there's an old man with a skinny moustache and a German physique hunched over a workbench over little mechanical things that look just like that movie projector. I didn't want to watch the movie; I wanted to be in this little room with flickering lights and my uncle Russ. For me, that was the most fascinating. It was something out of a carnival, but all on a microscopic level. It really affected me.    The highlight of my six-year-old life was to go to Russ' house. He had a hundred clocks, and they would all chime or go off or do something. If I could just be at his house to hear all these clocks chime and go off at noon. It was Pink Floyd time. It was bing, bong, boom. It was so exciting, the anticipation and all that. So, Russ Springer was the one to hand me some wax as a child and light a fire of fascination with small things.    One thing led to the other. I started sculpting with Sculpey and things like that. When I was a young kid, I'd go to Bethany Beach and pretend to be a sculptor. I'd hang out under the boardwalk and do sculptures out of clay. Lo and behold, a man came up and talked to me and gave me a commission—I think it was for six dollars—and these little things fuel your fire. So, I was sculpting and doing wax carvings.    When I hit my teenage years, I was really getting into wax carving. The Grateful Dead came to town and my friends took me to a Grateful Dead concert. There were all these crafts in the parking lot and really cool counterculture stuff, so I started doing little wax carvings at 17, 18 years old and selling them in the parking lot of Grateful Dead concerts. I ended up selling work to the Psychedelic Shop in San Francisco and the Psychedelic Solution in New York City. These pieces were $12 to $20 each, but it fueled the fire for the next step.    That next step was to discover the American Craft Council. That was a really enlightening thing for me. I had a teacher at community college who was upset that I wasn't an art major, and he said, “Go down to the Baltimore American Craft Council's show. I want you to see the business of art, of jewelers and silversmiths, glassblowers, leatherworkers, all those kinds of people.” So, the American Craft Council in Baltimore was the first place I experienced contemporary craft.   Sharon: Did that make you want to go around the world?   Wayne: It's funny you should say that, but it did. I found myself, God forbid, growing up and needing to make money and do something, and I felt like I was getting good at metalwork. I was in California. I went to the Revere Academy for a few classes. I wanted to be in San Francisco around the Psychedelic Shop, but I was getting involved with shows. I met some successful craftspeople, and I realized it was something to commit to. Between the ages of about 22 and 29, I began doing ACC shows. I wanted to do crafts at Lincoln Center, which was interesting, but I put the brakes on it. I thought to myself, “I see how this could become you.” Becoming a craftsperson was a commitment. I would do it, but it was a commitment. Before I committed to being in a bunch of galleries and doing a bunch of shows, I wanted to pause and take a trip around the world. At the time, I had just done a commission for the band Blues Traveler. They commissioned me to do platinum rings for the band. I had worked for other rock bands before.   To get back to your question, if it made me want to travel around the world, absolutely. My 30th birthday gift to myself was to take a trip around the world, and I did that. I planned it for close to a year. This was 1995. I wrote letters to some galleries, artists and schools saying I had an intent to travel and visit these places. I literally paused my creative endeavors of trying to have a studio and trying to be a contemporary American craftsman. I paused and said, “Wait, let me take a trip around the world first, because I don't think I will be able to do it later.” This was pre-millennium and everything else, pre-9/11. I knew in my stomach that in the future, I felt like the world wouldn't be as easily traveled. Does that make sense?   Sharon: Yes.   Wayne: How did I decide to do that? I just wanted to do it. I wanted to say I did it. I wanted to visit metalsmithing places and villages, everything from King Tut. I wanted to see King Tut. I wanted to walk the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. I wanted to go see the metalsmiths in Java and Bali and get into their world, walk in and out of the door, at least for a day.   Sharon: Did you know they were metalsmiths? Did you know they had something you wanted to learn, something specific? Or did you just want to see what they did?   Wayne: A little bit of everything. One of the first things I did was go to Goldsmiths' Hall in London and see the show there. I had some friends there, made some friends, interviewed people like Wendy Ramshaw and Gerda Flöckinger. I was meeting people and I would interview them. I ended up in Pforzheim, Germany and Italy, but where it really got interesting was when I went to Egypt. I was in Cairo hanging around with metalsmiths in the market, who had all the time in the world but not the technology.    One of my destinations I had to see was Java, to see the kris-makers of Java. They used to make knives out of meteorite and iron. They're kind of supernatural and super fascinating. A kris blade is something that every Indonesian man possesses. It was the same thing with the Balinese doing granulation work. I had it loosely mapped out in my head. I had written my letters. I'd gotten some letters back saying, “You're welcome to come here,” or “You're welcome to come use the bench for the week.” It was really cool that I found this global family, not just the American craftsman family, but this global family. They're still there. They're out there for all of us.    Sharon: When you came back, did you find the travels influenced what you made or how you made it?   Wayne: Yeah, it really did. First of all, I realized there was some kind of metallic cultural heritage in different regions around the world. We talk about how in Toledo, Spain, they do inlaid work. I already mentioned the kris blades, Balinese granulation. That influenced me, knowing that being a metalsmith was being part of a cultural heritage. Being from Baltimore, the American Craft Council show was so important at the time. I realized I was a hammer person. I ended up using a hammer and forging when I did sculpting, and that led to Douglas Legenhausen, who I worked for. He worked for Ron Hayes Pearson. So, I found myself in that little tribe of makers.    The other thing I was developing at the time was not just making craft, but I was trying to bring in ancient techniques or ancient religious ideas. A lot of the travels I did revolved around going to temples like the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Turkey and the Temple of Isis in south Egypt. Those were fertility temples, and a lot of my work was a quest to document how amazing it was to be alive and how mother nature and all these things were such a force. That was the story I was telling. It got influenced by these ancient temples and religious things. The facts that mattered to ancient culture were written in metal or stone. It all started churning up, fermenting, but it all started with my fascination with psychedelic art and the art of Rick Griffin. He was a poster artist, and he did a lot of work that revolved around these fertility cults and temples. So, did it influence my work? How couldn't it influence my work?    You also have to accept the fact that there are some things that are much larger than any one maker. I realized I was in this mosaic of creative people; they just happened to be metalsmiths. They could have been musicians or poets or whatever, but they were metalsmiths. It was a crazy, life-changing adventure. It was survival. There were a lot of things that went wrong. There were a lot of things that happened that I never would have guessed. I didn't think I would have ended up in a workshop in Cairo, Egypt, looking over the shoulder of someone who was doing filigree work the way their father and father and father probably five or six generations before him had done.    It was amazing to me to realize that if the workshop had a dirt floor, the people in that workshop were very in tune with their creative process and the material. When you got into a room with a concrete floor and all these fancy machines, I think it really separated them from the earth and the earth, air, fire and water scenario. I found that the primitive metalsmiths were more tuned into their material. It's when I started to really pay attention to the material and what it could do, what it would do, and especially what I could and couldn't do with the material. Did that answer your question?   Sharon: Yeah, you did. I'm wondering if what you're saying is what resonated with the rock musicians you also talk to. Maybe you're making a different ring, but it's a different story or a different piece of jewelry, I guess.   Wayne: We'll back up to Psychedelic Solution. I was in New York. Jacaeber Kastor was his name, and he had a gallery where you could buy rock-and-roll collectable things, not only collectable posters, but original artwork from different artists like Rick Griffin and H. R. Giger. I guess they're psychedelic artists, outsider artists, pop or visionary artists, whatever you want to call them. I also sold to the Psychedelic Solution in San Francisco. That was more of a head shop, but they had some collectable posters. Through both of them, I met a lot of interesting people. I was just a lucky kid who had a relationship with his creativity, which happened to be metal, and things would happen.    Bill Graham and some of the Grateful Dead would have me do pieces. I met Jerry Garcia's guitar maker, and then Jerry Garcia said, “I'd like to have some little pins with my logo on them. I'm going to give these away.” It was interesting to be near those people. Blues Traveler, I made some platinum rings from them. Prior to that, they were silver rings. I found myself growing comfortable around certain bands. I remember riding on the road with one of these musicians and I said, “Man, you've got the coolest job ever,” and he said, “No, you've got the coolest job ever. You're playing with fire. You're sitting at home. You're listening to records, staying in your studio. You don't have to deal with what I have to deal with.” It's kind of cool to have a rock musician say, “No, you have the coolest job, not me.”    They were into the same stuff. When I told somebody where I traveled, I said, “Yeah, I saw the pyramids a couple of times and I went to see my cousin, King Tut.” He said, “Wow, man, that's great. Make me something. Bring these designs forward. Reinterpret them.” Again, I'm just a regular guy who got fascinated with metalsmithing and history and world religions and things like that. Whenever I sat down to write a story, it was in metal. It was all part of the fascination. I was a guy on the hustle, Sharon, like you wouldn't believe. I was not, in any uncertain terms, going to get a regular job and have a regular life. I thought there was a way to have a surreal job and a surreal life as long as you were willing to work at it. To me, the artists, whether they were musicians or whatever, they were professionally themselves. They were outsiders. They may have been socially inept, but they figured out a way to be professionally themselves. That was the goal. “The harder you work, the more luck you will have,” as someone said to me. I said, “All right. I'm going to go work hard at this surreal thing I have going on.”   Sharon: Is that when you decided to go into jewelry making, because he said it was a neat job? Did you realize, “This my thing. This is the way I am creative the way I work hard and grow”?   Wayne: I think any creative person has a time in their life when they have to make a decision. Do you bet it all on your creativity, and then you have the business aspect of this creativity? Because business, no matter what you do as an artist, is super important. They call it the music business; they call it the art business, because of half of it is art and half of it is business. For me, I got to a point where I realized I was getting some chops. Honestly, I was told by JoAnne Brown, who ran the American Craft Council's shows, “Wayne, you're one of the youngest goldsmiths to do these shows as a goldsmith. Not as a silversmith, as a goldsmith. You're really betting it all here.” I just had to laugh. I said, “I'm totally unemployable. I've tried it and I can't work for people. I have to figure this out.” All I wanted to do was find my niches and find other facets of a creative career to go into.   It's funny; I don't know if I made the decision or the decision made me. I swear to God, if this didn't find me, I would have had a very different path in life. Probably it wouldn't have worked out so good, but I love it. I love the craft. I love the makers I work with. I love everything about it. Alan Revere said something I thought was asinine at the time. He said, “Wayne, you're becoming a metalsmith. You could become a lawyer and people would come see you when they're in trouble. You could be a doctor and people would come see you when they're sick, but you know what? You're going to be a metalsmith and a jeweler. People are going to come see you when they're in love. Whether it's a wedding band or a gift or whatever, they're going to come see you when they're in love. You're going to be part of their love, their relationship.” I looked at him like he had two heads, of all the things to say.   After years of doing this, every time I make a wedding band, I thank the customer. I say, “You know what? Thank you.” The ultimate compliment I can get is for someone to say, “Make my wedding ring.” This week I'm restoring a wedding band that's close to a hundred years old. It was someone's grandma's, and that's pretty cool. I have to admit I'm so lucky to have that energy be part of me profiting from a passion I have.   Sharon: We will have photos posted on the website. Please had to the JewelryJourney.com to check them out.

On this episode of “Date Night with Jake and Page,” your hosts sit down with Brad Panovich, Chief Meteorologist for WCNC in Charlotte. They talk weather, fears of flying (OK, maybe that was just Jake) and television careers. It's tough to tell during the latter discussion whether or not if Page is happy to be out of the business. ;-) Brad has a wealth of knowledge, and if you're even remotely interested in weather, this episode is a must-listen! A self-proclaimed weather and science geek, you can catch Brad on the socials at @wxbrad. Even if you aren't in Charlotte, he's an incredible follow, especially on Twitter. You can also find him driving around town with WXBRAD license plate. Check Page's Instagram for pics! **This episode of Date Night is brough to you by the Mint Museum Uptown's Fashion Reimagined exhibit, running December 10, 2022 – July 2, 2023. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the fashion collection's founding in 1972 by the Mint Museum Auxiliary, Fashion Reimagined features 50 outstanding examples of fashionable dress drawn entirely from the permanent collection of The Mint Museum. Encompassing a wide range of attire, the exhibition includes men's and women's fashions from 1760 to 2022 and is divided into three thematic sections: minimalism, pattern and decoration, and the body reimagined. For more information, visit https://mintmuseum.org/fashion-reimagined/.

Every year, the American football season ends with the Big Game, but this week, Anna and Amber are superfans of a much bigger game: the 3500-year-old Mesoamerican ballgame. From its Olmec origins to the athletes keeping it alive today, learn all about how to play, why you might not want to (ouch), and what makes it so significant to past and present communities. To learn more about this week's topic, check out: Scarborough, V. L., & Wilcox, D. R. (1991). The Mesoamerican ballgame. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Whittington, E. M., & Mint Museum of Art. (2001). The sport of life and death: The Mesoamerican ballgame. New York: Thames & Hudson.Ballgame (NEH Summer Teachers Institute)The Mesoamerican Ballgame (Metropolitan Museum of Art)The Brutal and Bloody History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss Was Death (Atlas Obscura)Early evidence of the ballgame in Oaxaca, Mexico (PNAS)Maya Ritual and Myth: Human Sacrifice in the Context of the Ballgame and the Relationship tothe Popol Vuh (OpenSIUC)Popol Vuh (Mesoweb)Glyphs for “Handspan” and “Strike” in Classic Maya Ballgame Texts (The PARI Journal)Death Ball (National Geographic)Tlachtli (Polymer Science Learning Center)

Richard Royal, a native of the Northwest, has become recognized internationally as one of the most skilled and talented glassblowers in the Studio Glass movement. Bodies of work such as his early Diamond Cut series to the more recent Geometrics are the hallmarks of his successful career in glass. The artist began working as a glass sculptor in 1978 at the Pilchuck Glass School, located north of Seattle. After spending a number of years as a ceramist, the birth of a new artistic movement appealed to the young artist.  Working his way through the ranks, Royal became one of Dale Chihuly's main gaffers. This relationship lasted for a number of years and consequently led to Royal's emergence in the art market in the 1980s. He has since been an independent artist exhibiting work internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. Wrote gallerist, Ken Saunders: “When Royal joined the staff of Pilchuck it was ostensibly as a maintenance man. In those early days a guy hired to clean up and a guy hired to drive a truck – Royal and William Morris respectively – might easily find themselves assisting the world's greatest glassblowers as they worked the hot glass, in demonstrations for students and for themselves after hours and after the summer sessions had ended for the season. Though Royal was introduced to glass as a student at the Central Washington University he pursued an interest in ceramics and in 1972, he and fellow student Ben Moore built a studio in their hometown of Olympia, Washington. There they created a line of production objects made from clay. The young men worked compulsively and energetically but typically found themselves in bohemian circumstances. Royal made his rent money building high-end wood furniture and endeavored to keep the studio viable while Moore enrolled in the under-graduate program at the California College of Arts. At CCA Moore met Marvin Lipofsky, who was running the glass program, though Moore did not participate in glass at that time and went on to earn his undergrad degree in ceramics. For graduation, Moore's parents gifted him with a session at Pilchuck Glass School in Stanwood, Washington. There, Moore met Chihuly who liked his energy and encouraged the young artist to help out during the summer programs at Pilchuck and later to attend RISD to earn an MFA in glass. As the small staff of the school expanded to accommodate the explosion of interest in the programming, Moore reached out to his buddy Royal, inviting him to join the staff in 1978. Royal jumped at the chance to get out of Olympia where maintaining the ceramics studio had become a lonely enterprise. ‘I'd heard about what was going on at Pilchuck but I was just thinking about having a job and getting fed regularly. I had no idea what was going to happen…it changed my life.' After spending the summer of 1978 at Pilchuck, working maintenance and, on many occasions, assisting in the hot-shop during classes and after hours, Royal was invited to stay for the fall to assist Chihuly with his work. Chihuly was assembling a large team that he felt would allow him to create ambitious, large- scale sculptures and installations… Once winter descended on the Pacific Northwest the team was forced to abandon Pilchuck for the season. Chihuly filled his calendar with Visiting Artist Residencies at colleges and universities around the country and took members of the team with him. Royal recalls the excitement: ‘We'd take over the art department and during our demonstrations the hot shop would be standing room only,' the team putting on what amounted to a performance with Chihuly playing the master of ceremonies breathlessly directing the action. ‘We would hit the campus like rock stars.' While Chihuly developed a very specific vision of a large studio employing extremely gifted crafts people to handle very specific tasks in an effort to harness the best each had to offer to the process, most artists working in glass in those days worked in very small teams, basically a handful of artist/friends who took turns leading the creation of their own works with the assistance of the others. ‘We all had our own ideas. In fact, when it was your turn you were expected to have your own ideas for your own work.' And led by the example set by Dale, ‘everybody was completely supportive of the others and willing to lend a hand if need be.' Dale set the tone, ‘really supporting whatever each of us wanted to create.'  Royal continued working with Chihuly for nearly 30 years until 2006,. He simultaneously worked at Benjamin Moore Inc. beginning in 1984.  Wrote Saunders: “Royal's first series of blown objects to find commercial and critical success, the Diamond Cut and Shelter Series, were begun at this time… The most important technical characteristic of this early work was the overlay of color on the outside of the bubble – a strategy that turns the usual process of picking up color first on its head. Royal describes the process: ‘In the Diamond Cut Series I overlaid four or five different colors on the outside of a bubble, brought the blank down to room temperature and used a diamond band saw to cut through those layers…I wanted to create an object that would allow you to look at the outside and inside simultaneously…This was a personal metaphor for exploration, looking inside.” The Shelter Series extended this metaphor reflecting profound changes he was going through emotionally, financially and professionally.  In 1989 his engagement and subsequent marriage to Jana led to Royal's Relationship Series. The form consists of a top and a bottom of equal size that meet and entwine around a smaller vessel at the center of the sculpture. ‘The Relationship pieces…show two equal entities coming together around a single idea.' Central to these works was the artist's sense of scale. Royal committed early on to working in the largest scale that was technically feasible. Those early bodies of work especially reflect the profound influence Moore and Chihuly had on the artist's work. Moore's tight technical approach was itself influenced by Italian Design. Moore blew on-center and his work is often characterized by a restrained use of color. Chihuly, on the other hand, had an organic sensibility but his approach to the creative impulse was as much informed by Warhol as by nature. His pieces were gestural, gaudy and loud in color and in form. Royal thinks that his work has benefited from the influence of these two opposites. In Royal's latest body of work, the Geos, the artist has sought to capture the qualities of kiln cast glass in his blown glass constructions. He has emphasized simple and subtle coloration and given the individual pieces a sculptural presence by referencing organic forms as opposed to utilitarian objects. The artist is also reinventing his Diamond Cut series, creating fresh new objects (such as those seen at the top of this page). Royal's work can be found in such noteworthy museum collections as The Mint Museum of Art + Design, The High Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Tampa Museum of Art, and the Daiichi Museum (Japan). His artwork is also included in the SAFECO Collection, PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM, and the Westinghouse Corporation. One of the first Artists-in-Residence at the Waterford Crystal Factory, Royal continues to teach as both a guest artist and faculty member at various universities and the Pilchuck Glass School. A past grant recipient from the National Endowment for the Arts, he has served as a visiting artist at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Ohio State University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.  

MINT Museum of Toys Singapore has unveiled their latest exhibition 'Unbox Presents: Toy Figurines', showcasing toys such as Barbie, G.I. Joe and Bratz to show how generational shifts are reflected in toy culture. Anna Koh, Marketing and Comms Manager, MINT Museum of Toys tells us more about their latest exhibition.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The inaugural Local/Street exhibition drew more than 1,000 people to the Mint Museum, prompting a move to the Mint Museum in Charlotte's Center City. Curator Carla Aaron-Lopez and Tim Miner, co-founder of Charlotte is Creative, talk about Local/Street's second year, its goals and how it breaks stereotypes of what's art and inclusion.

Jami Farris, Commercial Litigation Partner at Parker Poe, joins Trent and Patrick on “At Home with Roby”.  Jami regularly advises and represents clients on a wide range of issues including breach of contract claims, real estate development, construction, automotive, manufacturing and more.  She is also a leader in our community, serving on boards for the Children's Theatre of Charlotte, Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden, Girl Scouts of America and Mint Museum just to name a few.  In all of her roles, Jami lives by honesty and believes honesty is critical in all relationships – clients, spouses, children, etc.  Tune in to meet Jami and to learn more about her education and impressive resume.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Cristina Cordova received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Puerto Rico and continued to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In 2002 she entered a three-year artists residency program at Penland School of Crafts where she later served on the board of trustees from 2006 to 2010. Recognitions included a USA Artist Fellowship, and American Crafts Council Emerging Artist Grant, a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship, a Virginia Groot Foundation Recognition Grant and several International Association of Art Critics Awards. Her work is part of the permanent collections of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Fuller Craft Museum, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Puerto Rico, the Everson Museum and the Mobile Museum, among others. She currently lives and works at Penland. You can follow along with her work on Instagram. Find and follow your hosts Katie Freeman and Katie Thompson on Instagram.

In episode 6, Valentine interviews artist and educator Yvette L. Cummings.  Yvette opens up about her path, the process of leaning into her vulnerability, the layers of meaning and significance in her boldly patterned, colorful work, and much more.She received her BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design and completed her Masters of Fine Arts degree at the University of Cincinnati's School of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning in 2003. Cummings is currently Assistant Professor of Visual Arts in Painting/Drawing at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina. Her work can be found in both public and private collections and has been exhibited in multiple group and solo exhibitions throughout the south and mid-west. Cummings has been featured in the 701 Center for Contemporary Art South Carolina Biennial 2015 and 2019 in Columbia, SC, winner of the 2016 701 CCA Prize for artist under 40 in South Carolina, as well as Contemporary South at Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, NC.  Most recently she was one of 65 artists chosen for The Mint Museum's Coined in the South Exhibition 2019. www.yvette-cummings.com/wpwww.instagram.com/yvettelcummingswww.artmumsunited.comwww.instagram.com/artmumsunitedwww.instagram.com/artmumseuropewww.facebook.com/artmumseu/www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=MUYN33NSPUTB4Support the show

Episode No. 538 features curator Virginia Mecklenburg and artist Elizabeth Alexander. Mecklenburg is the curator of "Fighters for Freedom: William H. Johnson Picturing Justice," which is at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston through August 7. The exhibition features a series of paintings Johnson made in the 1940s. It shows mostly Black activists, scientists, and educators, and spotlights their impacts on their communities and on the American nation. Johnson's subjects include Crispus Attucks, Harriet Tubman, Marian Anderson, and John Brown. The series also the international heads of state who brought an end to World War II. The exhibition was organized from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which holds over 1,000 Johnsons within its collection. Mecklenburg is a senior curator at SAAM. The exhibition will travel to SAAM in 2023-24; a significant national tour is in development. Elizabeth Alexander is included in "Reckoning and Resilience: North Carolina Art Now" at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The exhibition features over 100 works by 30 artists working across North Carolina. Alexander's sculptures and installation are often made from deconstructed domestic materials and address America's history, especially the construction and memory of white supremacy. She's been included in exhibitions at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; and the Museum of Art and Design, New York. Museums such as the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark., and the Mint Museum, Charlotte hold her work in their collections.

.Armin and Valerie had the distinct honor of interviewing artist Robert Schefman about his life as an artist, his new body of work, The Secrets Project, and his recent notification of being a finalist in The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery opening this spring. Born and raised in Detroit, Robert Schefman earned a BFA in sculpture from Michigan State University and an MFA in sculpture from the University of Iowa. He lived and worked in New York City for fourteen years, returning to the Detroit area in 1990. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; The Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN; Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI; Midland Center for the Arts, Midland, MI; The Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph, MI; Manifest Research Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; Foley Square/ Federal Plaza, New York City; the Brooklyn Army Terminal, New York City; Ward's Island, New York City; and United Nations Plaza, New York City. Grants awarded include the Pollack-Krasner Foundation, the Bernard Maas Foundation, the Arts Foundation of Michigan, and the State of Michigan Creative Artist Grant. Schefman's drawings, paintings, and sculptures are in multiple private and public collections, including the Eli and Edythe Broad Museum of Art, East Lansing, MI; the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC; the Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI; the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL; Wayne State University, Detroit, MI; Thomas M. Cooley Law School, Lansing, MI; and the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. The Secrets Project Robert Schefman's recent series of paintings and drawings explore the hidden world of secrets. Using social media as a device to reach a large audience, Schefman posted a request asking followers to send him one personal secret that he could use as a subject or an element in his paintings. The response was immediate and revealing. More than one hundred anonymous secrets were sent through the internet or by mail to the artist's post office box. Using the private information gathered from strangers' letters as a point from which to investigate the conceptual nature of secrets, Schefman explored the specific responses and began to develop the ideas for this series over the course of several years. Many of the pieces in the Secrets exhibition refer directly to the actual secrets touchingly revealed in the anonymous letters or messages received by the artist. Additionally poignant were the descriptions of relief or catharsis brought on by confessing personal baggage, often for the first time. Here are links for Robert Schefman: Robert Schefman: Website David Klein Gallery: Artist Robert Schefman The Outwin 2022: American Portraiture Today

Studio Noize teams up with the good folks at Print Austin to bring you interviews with the winners of the 2022 Print Austin 5x5. This annual juried show features 5 amazing printmakers with a fantastic range of skill and experience. Ryan O'Malley is an artist, educator, event organizer, and teaches at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Ryan talks about his philosophy on teaching, how his students have affected his personal work over the years, and how he is finally creating the work he wants. Listen, subscribe, and share!Episode topics include:printmaking philosophycreating a good teaching environmentworking in different print mediumstraveling teaching vs personal workPrint AustinRyan O'Malley is an artist, educator, event organizer, and traveler based in Corpus Christi, Texas. He works in a variety of media with a focus on the expansive realm of printmaking. His love of people and process is explored in his ongoing body of work Shapeshifter. Transmuting traditional and technology-driven techniques, O'Malley contrasts their static and dynamic properties and navigates the spaces between precision and imperfection; between the ephemeral, and perpetual.As an artist, educator, and member of the Outlaw Printmakers, his work has been included in numerous national and international exhibitions, publications, and portfolios. He has shown internationally including in Canada, Estonia, Russia, Japan, France China, Mexico, Italy, Latvia, and Iran. His expertise is included in Printmaking: A Complete Guide to Materials and Process, Second Edition, by Fick and Grabowski, and his work is in numerous collections including the Mint Museum of Art and the U.S. Library of Congress. O'Malley's commitment to education includes serving as Professor of Art and Graduate Coordinator at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi.See More: www.ryanomalleyart.comFollow us:StudioNoizePodcast.comIG: @studionoizepodcastJamaal Barber: @JBarberStudioSupport the podcast www.patreon.com/studionoizepodcast

Well-known early on for their signature blown glass Bags, the subsequent cast glass work of John Littleton and Kate Vogel provided a new outlet for complex contemplations, questions and reflections. In this dramatic departure from their lighthearted Bags, faces and hands are used in various poses and combinations to explore states of mind, relationships, and even spiritual themes. Cast arms with hands in amber glass hold a brilliant jewel-cut form, which seems to spread its glowing light to all that surrounds it. Use of multiple techniques by Littleton and Vogel reveals an intimate understanding of their medium, and the execution of each work reflects artists deserving of their place at the top of the contemporary glass movement. Not only visually stunning, their sculpture allows the viewer to create a narrative, each piece a captured moment in a story of the viewers' choosing. They state: “As we focus on each form, we see possibilities for the next, and our vocabulary of form and ideas expands. We bounce ideas back and forth, we build on each other's concepts, and we learn from each other's insights. Collaboration brings our individual sensibilities together to generate something neither of us would have made alone. “ Littleton and Vogel are nationally renowned American Studio Glass Movement artists who work and reside in Bakersville, North Carolina. Their creative partnership began in the mid-to-late 20th century, when they began collaborating on their first glass pieces in 1979 after meeting as art students at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.  Creating sculptural blown and cast glass works and installations that speak to the importance of their relationships to one another, their family, and their community, Littleton and Vogel currently exhibit their works in Between Us: A Retrospective Exhibition of Work by John Littleton and Kate Vogel at the Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass in Neenah, Wisconsin. On view now through February 13, 2022, the exhibition is accompanied by a perfect bound 84-page publication with essays by Casey Eichhorn, exhibition curator, and Susie J. Silbert, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass.  “This retrospective exhibition highlights important works, milestones, and innovations in their shared careers,” says Casey Eichhorn, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions,” – all while tying their experiences and influences back to John's father, Harvey Littleton, an American glass artist, educator, and one of the founders of the American Studio Glass Movement.”  Harvey Littleton, whose influential work will also be shown in the exhibition, is often referred to as the “Father of the Studio Glass Movement.” In his role as an educator, he initiated the first hot glass program offered by an America University at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and promoted the idea of glass as a course of study in university art departments in the United States. Littleton's students went on to become the dominant figures in the American Studio Glass Movement while broadening the study of glass art and university-level hot glass programs throughout the U.S.  John Littleton states: “Harvey introduced glass as a medium for artists. The Toledo workshops were dad's idea. He had help from Norm Schuman and later Dominic Labino. The workshops wouldn't have happened without him. He certainly had help developing technique, but more than anyone else he saw the possibility of putting glass in the hands of artists. The industrial model was designers who worked on paper passing the design to the factory worker who had little expressive input. There were artist craftsmen and women who worked with glass individually, but dad pursued the idea of glass being available to art students. The early years were a time he pushed to get glass into universities to expand glass's creative and expressive potential. He saw the need for many artists working with glass for the growth of the field.” Littleton and Vogel's work has appeared in several group exhibitions including the Sculpture Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) in Chicago and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. Their glass works can also be seen in private and public collections in North America, Europe, and Asia. Locations include the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, AR; the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Switzerland; Glasmuseet Ebeltoft in Denmark; the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY; The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA. Features on their work have appeared in various publications—such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and CBS Sunday Morning.  Littleton and Vogel state: “Choice, chance, circumstance, seductive qualities of the material…a little bit of all of the above. We stay with glass because it feels right. The process allows us to collaborate, start to finish. Glass is versatile, and we see endless possibilities in it and through it. In our work we strive to make something that is a personal expression of our thoughts and experiences.”  

Episode 192: Today I talk with MyLoan Dinh about her recent Constellation CLT feature at the Mint Museum. We talk about her history as an immigrant and a woman of color and how they intertwine to create her present collection of art. You can check out more of her work at the Elder Gallery of […] The post MyLoan Dinh, Constellation CLT appeared first on Let's Talk Art With Brooke.

There's a 12-year difference in the life expectancy of people who live in the ZIP codes that house the Grier Heights Community Center and the Mint Museum's Randolph Road location, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The neighborhoods are just a three-minute drive apart. We take a deeper look and ask local and national experts about the social drivers of health and how those factors impact life expectancy.

On this episode of Hello CMS, we're exploring Youth Arts Month with Dr. Chilcutt and art partners from The Gantt, The Mint Museum and Opera Carolina.  The Harvey Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture will provide a virtual tour of 20th-century African-American art that includes several works from the Harlem Renaissance. The Mint Museum will provide a virtual tour of its collection with a focus on the work of Kehinde Wiley and other diverse artists. The Mint will build on the use of visual thinking strategies to facilitate understanding of the artwork and promote critical thinking skills. Opera Carolina will provide a virtual performance of I Dream. The show focuses on the last 36 hours of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life through a series of dreams, premonitions, and reminiscences that lead up to the April 4, 1968, assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.

Intro, Grayson and Roger took weekend trips.  Dave and Busters is fun, video game bars, Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC is kind of cool,  0:05:45 - Box-office, upcoming releases 0:12:15  **NEW EGMENT** What's Streaming? DISNEY+ THE BOOK OF LIFE, Dir, Jorge. Gutierrez – Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Pearlman, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube, Hector Elizondo, Danny Trejo.  2014 BIG HERO 6, Dir Don Hall – Ryan Potter, Scott dsit, Jamie Chung, T.J. Miller, Damon Wayans, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, Maya Rudolph. 2014 ANASTASIA, Dir. Don Bluth – Meg Ryan, John Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Kelsey Grammer, Hank Azaria, Kirsten Dunst, Angela Lansbury. 1997 0:16:40 - Trailers - EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE and VOYAGERS 0:23:00 - 2021 Oscar nominations  0:27:30 - COMING 2 AMERICA, Dir Craig Brewer (AMAZON) 0:50:40 - RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON, Dir. Don Hall, Paul Briggs, Carlos Lopez Estrada, John Ripa (DISNEY+)   Coming 2 America (Amazon)   Eddie Murphy is a weird conversation these days when he used to be the MAIN conversation in Hollywood, or one of them at least.  In the same tradition as other recent decade(s) later sequels, Coming 2 America does some things right and many things wrong.  But, the spirit of the original is kept in tact...without any of the thoughtful and cleverness that made the original so wonderful and well received.  Akeem is great, as always though!  Roger (2/10) - Grayson (5/10)   Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney+)   The latest Disney flick is here and her name is Raya and the Last Dragon.  As 96% of the time, Disney does not disappoint.  A new princess and a new region represented now also in the Disney family.  It's an emotional ride, pleasantly well paced with a fun and engaging story.  Though, sorry to say it doesn't master any of those, but does them well.  Tiny humans and big humans alike will enjoy this even for repeated viewings.  (7/10)   Hosted, produced and mixed by Grayson Maxwell and Roger Stillion.  Music by Chad Wall.  Quality Assurance by Anthony Emmett. Visit the new Youtube channel, "For the Love of Cinema" to follow and support our short video discussions.  Roger wears aviators!  Please give a like and subscribe if you enjoy it.   Follow the show on Twitter @lovecinemapod and check out the Facebook page for updates.  Rate, subscribe and leave a comment or two.  Every Little bit helps.  Send us an email to fortheloveofcinemapodcast@gmail.com Your email might be featured on the show the next week! Happy Listening! 

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Arts department has collaborated with several Charlotte arts organizations to provide E3 Virtual Field Trips experiences for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The program has the potential to reach over 100,000 students. From March through mid-May, the Children’s Theater of Charlotte, Charlotte Ballet, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte Symphony, Mint Museum, Harvey Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture and Opera Carolina will provide unique performing and visual arts experiences for CMS students. We're speaking with Dr. Michael Chilcutt about this incredible opportunity for our students! 

Judith Page was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and studied art at the University of Kentucky and Transylvania University. Early influences were her father, an amateur historian, photographer, and raconteur, who instilled in her a love and respect for history and the creative process, and writers such as Flannery O’Connor and Carson McCullers who provided her with many potent visual images. Other early influences include the Roman historian Tacitus and the politician Cassius Clay. Page says that her "art emerges from a Gothic sensibility, a place where horror and beauty exist in close proximity, where innocence encounters depravity, where the spirit is consumed and revived from moment to moment.” Page lived and worked in Florida until relocating to New York City in 1992, and currently lives in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. She received individual artist grants from the Gottlieb Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the State of FL. Exhibitions include Pop Surrealism and The Photograph as Canvas, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and Disarming Beauty: The Venus de Milo in 20th Century Art, Dali Museum, and solo exhibitions at Luise Ross Gallery, New York, NY; Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC; Massry Center for the Arts, Albany, NY; Lesley Heller Gallery, New York, NY and Stetson University, DeLand, FL. Known for her inventive use of materials and stimulating social commentary, Page’s numerous exhibitions and installation projects were written about in Art Papers, Sculpture, The New York Times, Art on Paper, and Art in America. Page’s art is represented in numerous public collections including Vanderbilt University; FSU Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee; University of KY Art Museum; Mint Museum of Art; University of TN; University of Iowa Museum of Art; and Orlando Museum of Art, FL. She was on the General Fine Arts faculty of MICA from 2004-2011 and on the faculty of the MFA Fine Arts program at SVA from 2010-2016. Her website is www.judithpage.com. Fruits of War (Brooklyn), 2021, archival pigment print on rag paper Spider’s Kiss (Manhattan), 2021, archival pigment print on rag paper

75: How to Engage Your Community Through Nonprofit Leadership (Stacy Sumner Jesso) SUMMARYPerhaps you are considering a move between nonprofit sectors, or even moving to an entirely different community to advance your career. As a nonprofit leader, these are transitions you’ll likely manage along your journey, and you may also be helping navigate such a transition for someone who joins your team. My guest in episode #75 of the Path Podcast, Stacy Sumner Jesso, has managed all of these transitions, and shares great lessons and advice from her nonprofit career in healthcare philanthropy, human services, education and arts & culture. She’s also navigated the move from for-profit to nonprofit, and has learned how to bring these skills – and her community connections – to best benefit her charitable causes and the communities she’s served.ABOUT STACY Stacy Sumner Jesso is the Principal of SumnerMadison Consulting, LLC. She is an experienced non-profit leader with diverse background in the areas of strategic planning and facilitation, volunteer program development, organizational development, new business development, board relations, community relations, marketing and communications, fund development, and public relations. Stacy’s specialties include building productive teams and implementing growth strategies by moving individuals, teams, and organizations to their next level of functioning. Prior to her current consulting role, Stacy served as the Vice President/Chief Development Officer for Nash UNC Health Care for seven years in Rocky Mount, NC. Before moving to Rocky Mount, Stacy held several Director of Development/Executive Director roles at the Council for Children’s Rights, Mint Museum, Presbyterian Hospital Foundation, and St. Marks Foundation, all in Charlotte, NC. EPISODE TOPICS & RESOURCESJohn Kotter’s book Leading ChangeAssociation for Fundraising ProfessionalsLearn more information about PMA’s Mastermind programsApply for the next Leadership Gift School cohortTake the Podcast Survey!

I visit the Harvey B Gantt Center for African-American Arts and Culture and the Mint Museum in uptown Charlotte, NC. I also tell you about one of the best food dishes I've ever had.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/touristintown)

Silvie is a working studio potter living in Floyd, Virginia. Her work is in the Collections of:The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN, Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC, Museum of Ceramic Art, Alfred University, Alfred, NY, Art Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke, VA. She provides an active mentorship for young potters, teaches and is an avid collector of art. "Making pottery for me is about giving and receiving simultaneously. It is about hospitality. I would like my pottery to embody my unspoken assumptions about our heritage and culture. How and what we eat is one of the means by which society creates itself, and acts out its aims and functions. By thinking about food as identity, as sex, as power, as friendship, as a means of magic and witchcraft, and as our time controller, I see food as the root of culture: that which gives meaning to our lives. As a potter, I hope my pots will shape and dramatize the rituals surrounding food and allow me, the potter, to partake actively in the lives of those who enjoy my work." Silvie Granatelli

Philemona Williamson is a narrative painter who has shown widely in the United States and abroad. Her work explores the tenuous bridge between adolescence and adulthood, encapsulating the intersection of innocence and experience at its most piercing and poignant moment. The lush color palette and dreamlike positioning of the figures ensures that their vulnerability - of age, of race, of sexual identity - is seen as strength and not as weakness. “My figures navigate a world of uncertainty as they search for understanding—both internally and in ever-shifting environments. I see the figures as vehicles to explore the existence of the most vulnerable adolescents, those evolving people of color, grappling with what will define and identify them. My paintings give voice and space to invisibility.” Williamson has exhibited her work for over 25 years at the June Kelly Gallery in NYC and recently, at her mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in NJ. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock Krasner, National Endowment For The Arts, New York Foundation For The Arts and Millay Colony as well as serving on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education. Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions such as The Queens Museum of Art, Wisconsin's Kohler Art Center, The Sheldon Museum in Nebraska, The Bass Museum in Miami, The Mint Museum in North Carolina, The Forum of Contemporary Art in St. Louis, The International Bienal of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador and most recently at the Anna Zorina Gallery in NYC. She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including The Montclair Art Museum; The Kalamazoo Art Institute; The Mint Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Hampton University Museum; Sheldon Art Museum; Mott-Warsh Art Collection, and AT&T. Her public works includes fusedglass murals created for the MTA Arts in Transit Program at the Livonia Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, a poster for the MTA Poetry In Motion and — for the NYC School Authority — a mosaic mural in the Glenwood Campus School. She currently teaches painting at Pratt Institute and Hunter College in NYC. For Philemona’s latest project, she created a series of paintings for the children’s book Lubaya’s Quiet Roar, just out from Penguin Random House. "The Gathering" 48" x 60 ” oil on canvas 2019 "Here I Hold Becoming” 48” x 60” oil on canvas 2020

What you’ll learn in this episode: How Art Jewelry Forum went from a small meetup of art jewelry enthusiasts to an international organization Why Susan wanted to focus her support on mid-career artists, and how she defines what a mid-career artist is What Susan hopes grant recipients and applicants will gain from the award How past winners have used the funds to advance their work About Susan Beech Susan Beech is an avid jewelry collector and longtime member of Art Jewelry Forum. Her extensive collection of art jewelry has been featured in several museum shows, and she was awarded the 2008 McColl Award for her work in expanding the permanent collection of the Mint Museum. She created the Susan Beech Mid-Career Artist Grant in 2016 to provide mid-career artists with the resources to push the boundaries of their work and expand the field of art jewelry. After seeing her children reach middle age and struggle to balance their dreams with work and family life, jewelry collector Susan Beech realized that many jewelry artists face the same challenge. Although there are numerous grants for young, emerging artists, the is a gap in resources for mid-career artists who want to continue their work. This was the inspiration behind Art Jewelry Forum’s Susan Beech Mid-Career Artist Grant, a $20,000 award given to one mid-career artist every other year. Susan joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about her hopes for grant recipients, why the award isn’t just limited to makers, and how the two past winners have already made an impact. Additional resources AJF Website AJF Facebook AJF Instagram Transcript Photos: Judges, Susan Beech, Daniel Kruger, and Emily Stoehrer   First winner of the Susan Beech Mid-Career Grant: Christina Filipe (middle) with Susan Beech (left) and Rebekah Frank (right) Second annual winner of the Susan Beech Mid-Career Grant: Tiff Massey

Episode 161: Today I talk to Andrea Downs, who is here, in Charlotte. She created the Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry installation, that is currently at the Mint Museum of Charlotte. But Airing Out the “Dirty” Laundry is also an ongoing community art movement that responds to the silencing of women. Both create space to […] The post Airing Out the Dirty Laundry Exhibition at the Mint Museum appeared first on Let's Talk Art With Brooke.

BARRIE BENSON is a Charlotte-based interior designer best known for balancing the modern with the traditional in her signature interiors. She transforms residences like her iconic 1950s ranch with traditional pieces to create an interesting blend of periods, rooms, and moods. Barrie is also known for giving architecturally traditional homes a dash of energy and color with her fresh take on European and American 20th-century furniture, art, and collections. In addition to interiors, Barrie designs a signature line of furniture for Highland House and a line of decorative hardware and accessories in collaboration with Addison Weeks. Top publications have featured Barrie’s work including AD, Coastal Living, Domino, Elle Dècor, Garden & Gun, House Beautiful, Southern Living and The Wall Street Journal. A true lover of the arts, Barrie is an active board member of the Mint Museum and the Charlotte Symphony and regularly visits galleries and art fairs around the world.

GBC Ep17:Robert Mickelsen- From Fine Art to Degenerate Art This is a conversation  that I've wanted to have for years. For myself personally, Robert Mickelsen has been a major influence in my glass work with his refined details and proportions. With 45 years of dedication to this wonderful medium of glass, Mickelsen has a ton of knowledge to share while also understanding he still has a wealth of knowledge to gain.  Hope you enjoy this conversation and if you have any questions for Robert you can reach out to him on Instagram @ramickelsen   Other links referred to in the episode: - Robert's Bio: Born Dec.12, 1951. Grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii and attended high school at Punahou (same school as Barack Obama, just ten years earlier). I went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, Ca for one year but dropped out. Started blowing glass in Greeley, Colorado in 1974. Moved to Florida in 1977 and continued glass selling my wares at street craft shows and flea markets. I made my living on the street exclusively until 1989 when I switched to wholesale craft shows. It was also around this time that I took a class at Penland with Paul Stankard that opened my eyes for the first time to the artistic potential of my craft. My work blossomed after that. I began my teaching career at Pilchuck in 1994 where I was deeply influenced by the artists that I met including Dante Marioni and Bill Morris. I continued doing wholesale craft shows, indoor art shows, and teaching for the next ten years. During that time I had several solo shows at prominent glass art galleries and attended SOFA in Chicago numerous times represented by several different galleries. I stopped doing wholesale shows in 2001 and shifted my focus to selling exclusively through high-end art galleries. This lasted until the great recession of 2008 when I found myself in a crisis when all my galleries closed and shows dried up. I struggled for about four years until 2012 when I was introduced to pipe-making by Salt and Kevin Ivey. I experienced a rebirth and a newfound enthusiasm for glass. The rest you already know.  I am proud to have my work included in some of the most prominent museum collections including Renwick Gallery of American Crafts at the Smithsonian Institution, the Corning Museum of Glass, The Toledo Museum of Art, The Museum of Arts and Design, The Carnegie Museum of Art, The Mint Museum, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and The Museum of American Glass at Wheaton Village. 

William Warmus and Tim Tate: Founders of 21st Century Glass – Conversations and Images/ Glass Secessionism Facebook Group Glass Secessionism does not mark the death of Studio Glass. It makes it stronger…In many ways, Glass Secessionism is putting glass back on the path it should have followed. It encourages those areas of glass that had progressed over time and builds heavily upon them. It reveres those artists who advance the medium, taking chances with new directions. In other words, we are not destroying the past, we are constructing a future. An exchange on a tour bus between artist and art historian inspired the formation of 21st Century Glass – Conversations and Images/ Glass Secessionism. This Facebook group, founded and moderated by Tim Tate and William Warmus, underscores and celebrates glass sculptural art in the 21st century and illustrates the differences and strengths compared to late 20th-century, technique-driven glass.  Warmus is a Fellow and former curator at The Corning Museum of Glass (CMoG). The son of a glassblower at Corning Incorporated, he studied with art critic Harold Rosenberg and philosopher Paul Ricoeur while at the University of Chicago. As curator of modern glass at CMoG in 1978, Warmus curated three landmark exhibitions: New Glass, which was also shown at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the Louvre; Tiffany’s Tiffany, which focused on the masterpieces Tiffany had in his home and studios; and the first major exhibition in North America of Emile Gallé’s work. He is the founding editor of New Glass Review and has served as editor of Glass Quarterly Magazine, faculty member and visiting artist at the Pilchuck School of Glass, executive secretary of the Glass Art Society, and board member at UrbanGlass. The recipient of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass award for outstanding contributions to contemporary glass, Warmus lives near Ithaca, New York. A Washington, D.C. native, Tate has been working with sculpture now for 30 years. Co-founder of the Washington Glass School, his artwork is part of the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and the Mint Museum. He participated in 2019’s Glasstress show with Ai Wei Wei and Vic Muniz during the Venice Biennale. Tate has received numerous awards and honors including the 2010 Virginia Groot Foundation award for sculpture; a Fulbright Award from Sunderland University, England, in 2012; second place in the 2017 London Contemporary Art Prize; and the 2018 James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Artist Award. His involvement at Penland School of Craft includes teaching, serving as featured artist for the 2018 annual auction, and acting as the Development Chair for the Penland Board of Trustees from 2014 to 2018.  Modeled after Alfred Stieglitz and the redefinition of photography by Photo Secessionists, Glass Secessionism is similar in that both mediums were born of science and industry, and both had similar paths of evolution as a result. Photography and glass art emerged from the lab or factory with inherent technical barriers, and genius was required to make something from the materials. Thus, early pioneers had a vested interest in keeping secrets and making adaptation by other artists difficult. “We respect good technique, and understand its importance in creating great art from glass. However, we believe that great art should be driven primarily by artistic vision, and technique should facilitate the vision. For too long, technique has driven the majority of Studio Glass. As Secessionists we do not seek to isolate ourselves from other artists working in glass, but to enhance the field as a whole,” says Warmus. Another motivation for Glass Secessionism, fine art galleries were not showing enough 21 century glass, and glass galleries were not showing emerging glass sculptors. Tate and Warmus believe, “Only by seceding would we succeed.” A primary drive of their Facebook group is to attract and support younger artists working with glass. In this conversation, Tate and Warmus discuss their Facebook group, how Studio Glass will move forward in the 21stcentury, and how glass artists and galleries can survive the effects of the current Covid 19 global pandemic.  

Dr. Keith Cradle sits down with Rubie Britt-Height, Director of Community Relations with the Mint Museum to discuss her upbringing, how museums can expand the field of engagement and why developing community relationships are so important. [Disclaimer: This show was taped prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 and current shelter-in-place/social distancing guidelines]. Crafted With Cradle is a curated conversation over cocktails with Charlotte's finest, and hosted by Dr. Keith Cradle. Our producers are Chuck Holliday and Jameka Whitten. Our theme music is "I Wanna Have You" by Jason Jet. Remember to subscribe, favorite and review us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, and anywhere you find podcasts. Follow us on social media, on Facebook and Instagram (@craftedwithcradle) and Twitter (@craftedwithcra1). Crafted With Cradle is sponsored by JSW Media and Suite929.

Good things come in threes, and with this week's episode, The Biscuit CLT Podcast hits the trifecta with an episode on visual creativity in the Queen City.  Classic Black is the most recent sculptural exhibition at the Mint Museum Randolph. Inspired by the hauntingly dark and matte basalt sculptures of Josiah Wedgwood. The sculptures are striking in their own right, but they're presented in conjunction with the amorphous and flowing designs of local artist Owl, part of the Southern Tiger Collective. Tim Miner sits down with Brian Gallagher, Curator of Decorative Arts at the Mint Museum, and Owl. Hit the play button now to hear them talk about the design behind the exhibition, how Owl's art enhances the sculptures, and what the collaboration with a local artist means for the museum.

Tim Tate: Alternate Paths In 1989, Tim Tate received an HIV-positive diagnosis and was told he had one year to live. The terrible news inspired him to follow a dream he’d had since the age of 9 when he visited the Corning Museum of Glass. Driven to use the time he had left to become a glass artist, Tate travelled to Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina for the first in an intensive succession of classes. Penland and the artwork made during this time saved his life. A Washington, D.C. native, Tate has been working with sculpture now for 30 years. Co-Founder of the Washington Glass School, his artwork is part of the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum and the Mint Museum. He participated in 2019’s Glasstress show with Ai Wei Wei and Vic Muniz during the Venice Biennale. Tate has received numerous awards and honors including the 2010 Virginia Groot Foundation award for sculpture; a Fulbright Award from Sunderland University, England, in 2012; second place in the 2017 London Contemporary Art Prize; and the 2018 James Renwick Alliance Distinguished Artist Award.  Along with William Warmus, Tate is the founder and moderator of the Facebook group 21st Century Glass – Images and Discussions. His involvement at Penland includes teaching, serving as featured artist for the 2018 annual auction, and acting as the Development Chair for the Penland Board of Trustees from 2014 to 2018.  In 2001, Tate helped establish the Washington Glass School to focus on sculptural glass made by kiln-casting and mixed media rather than traditional studio glassblowing techniques. Modeled after Penland and the Crucible in Oakland, the school has offered instruction to more than 4,000 students while providing a permanent studio in which Tate makes his work.  After 10 years of making bowls, between 1999 and 2005 Tate made 30 large blown glass hearts, an exercise which required him to work with a glassblowing team and revealed his preference to work solo. His Reliquary works created between 2004 and 2014 drew attention from journalists, galleries and critics, putting Tate on the map of the art world at large.  Never fully fitting into any one definition of Studio Glass, steampunk or video artist, Tate blends traditional craft with new media technology, the framework in which he fits his artistic narrative. Through moving images and endless mirrors his contemporary work possesses the aesthetic of Victorian techno-fetishism, which emerged from fascination with Jules Verne as a boy. Artwork and video, he believes, will be society’s relics of the future.  He says, “I like to reference many possible histories and will do so with video or mirrors to show our common artistic ancestry and illustrate alternate paths. Perhaps centuries from now my work will have the same presence as abandoned archaic machines from the Turn of the last Century, as people marvel over what could have possibly been its intent.”  

Christopher Staley is an artist and educator who works out of Pennsylvania where at Penn State he is a distinguished Professor of Art in ceramics in the School of Visual Arts. He received his BFA from Wittenberg University, studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and received his MFA from Alfred University. He served as the president of NCECA (the National Council of Education of the Ceramic Arts), he was the Chair at the Haystack Mountain School in Maine, he’s a member of the International Academy of Ceramics based in Geneva, he was an artist in residence at the Ceramic Art Museum in Fuping, China, he’s been an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana and has received an NEA grant twice. His work is included in collections such as the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, The Palmer Museum of Art in Pennsylvania, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii and the Smithsonian National Museum of American Art to name just a handful. There’s many more. He’s had over twenty five solo shows and has been in countless group exhibitions. He currently has a solo show at the Jane Hartsook Gallery at Greenwich House Pottery at 16 Jones Street in New York City entitled “Touching Time” up until September 27th. Sound & Vision is proudly sponsored by Golden Artist Colors. Golden makes the best acrylic paints, mediums and gesso in the business. They also make QoR Watercolors and Williamsburg Oil Paints. Based in New Berlin in upstate New York, they are an employee owned company dedicated to making the best supplies for you to make your best work. Check out their products in just about any art store or at golden paints.com

Our arts and cultural sector are a necessary way to create connections, build bridges across difference, and enrich our community. Every day, arts programming throughout the county is allowing members of our community to think creatively, move freely, and spend more quality time with their friends and families. In this episode of the Culture For All podcast, we look at some of the many ways arts and culture programming helps connect Mecklenburg County residents. You’ll hear the sounds of a Dragon Boat race on the shores of Lake Norman. Charlotte Dragon Boat Festival founder John Chen will tell us about how the festival exposes people to different cultures. We’ll take you to the West Charlotte Recreation Center and hear how Demond Carter’s Stepping Into Health program allows seniors to stay fit and active through free community dance classes. We’ll step into the home of Deborah and Lionel Wellington, a couple whose lives have been directly impacted by this kind of access and programming. You’ll hear how the Mint Museum is reaching out to the youth of Grier Heights through educational programming led by Rubie Britt Height. We’ll sit in on a free jazz concert organized by Dapper Street Productions and talk to founder Nicci Canada about how access to programming is so important. Finally, we’ll speak with other leaders in our community, including Reverend Ricky Woods of First Baptist Church- West, Daniel Valdez of Charlotte Pride, Mattie Marshall of Washington Heights and Patsy Burkins of Charlotte Community Services Association. Host Banu Valladares, a Mecklenburg County resident, leads you through this look at arts and culture in our community. If you’ve just found this podcast and are unfamiliar with the tax, please listen to the first episode (Culture For All) in this series first. That episode will provide an overview of the tax and give you all the information you need to know right now. Remember to share your voice with the Arts & Science Council on this important topic. Call or text us at 704.286.6288 and leave a :30 message. Your responses may be used in a future episode of this podcast. You can also email us at asc@artsandscience.org, or contact us via social media. This podcast was produced by the Arts & Science Council and GohJo Studios. Original Music by Harvey Cummings. Contact the Arts & Science Council on: Facebook Instagram Twitter asc@artsandscience.org 704.286.6288   Subscribe, rate and review Culture For All on: Spotify Apple Podcasts Stitcher TuneIn SoundCloud   Arts & Science Council Website Podcast Page on ASC Website

Natalie Frazier Allen is founder and executive director of The Arts Empowerment Project, a non-profit organization which provides funding to connect court-involved and at-risk children to high-quality existing arts programs. Natalie formerly served as Family Division Policy Counsel and as Chief of the Domestic Violence Unit in the Attorney General’s Office for the District of Columbia. She serves on the board of directors of The Mint Museum and has previously served on the boards of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture and the Women’s Impact Fund. Natalie earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Spelman College, and a J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center. This episode is perfect for anyone interested in connecting at-risk children to the arts and finding one’s way back to childhood passions.    IN THIS EPISODE Natalie describes the mission and work of The Arts Empowerment Project. She discusses the population of at-risk children that The Arts Empowerment Project serves. She explains Adverse Childhood Experiences and the toxic stress it often causes in adulthood. She details the programs that The Arts Empowerment Project delivers. Natalie considers the effectiveness of her programs and the importance of social capital. She addresses how the arts helps people who have experienced trauma. She shares a story of a student who flourished after being exposed to the arts. She answers why the work of The Arts Empowerment Project matters. Natalie notes what she would prioritize if she had additional resources for The Arts Empowerment Project. She reflects on growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, the work of her siblings, what was most important in her family, and being a rule-follower. She shares what she loved about attending Spelman College and what being in the AKA sorority means to her. Natalie explains why experiencing studying and practicing law in Washington D.C. was a dream come true. She remembers a file that crossed her desk as a lawyer that had a particular impact on her. She answers why she left the law, what became most important to her, and how the idea of The Arts Empowerment Project came about. Natalie reflects on the importance of family and faith in her life. plus Mark’s Personal Word Essay: The Disquieting Muses of the Space-Time Continuum To learn more, visit On Life and Meaning

What’s next for the Mint? Hear it straight from the new President & CEO Todd Herman, PhD. In the first part of an in-depth conversation with Sheri Lynch, Todd discusses his excitement in joining the fast-paced Charlotte community, his plans to engage the next generation, the importance of storytelling, and his wish that museum visitors could put their hands on every work of art in front of them (which isn’t possible, but it’s his wish).Storytelling is the key to a great museum, and Herman discusses plans and dreams for evolving the museum in the digital age, while never losing sight of the power of experiencing art up close and personal.

What’s next for the Mint? Hear it straight from the new President & CEO Todd Herman, PhD. In the first part of an in-depth conversation with Sheri Lynch, Todd discusses his excitement in joining the fast-paced Charlotte community, his plans to engage the next generation, the importance of storytelling, and his wish that museum visitors could put their hands on every work of art in front of them (which isn’t possible, but it’s his wish).Storytelling is the key to a great museum, and Herman discusses plans and dreams for evolving the museum in the digital age, while never losing sight of the power of experiencing art up close and personal.

What awaits this holiday season at The Mint Museum Store? Stacee Michelle drops in for a fun conversation with Store Manager/Buyer Amy Grigg, who shares holiday gift ideas as unique as the Mint itself – plus details on one of the year’s biggest discounts, for one day only. Tune in to ART CRUSH for inspiration on gift giving for all ages and price ranges, all in support of the Mint.

What awaits this holiday season at The Mint Museum Store? Stacee Michelle drops in for a fun conversation with Store Manager/Buyer Amy Grigg, who shares holiday gift ideas as unique as the Mint itself – plus details on one of the year’s biggest discounts, for one day only. Tune in to ART CRUSH for inspiration on gift giving for all ages and price ranges, all in support of the Mint.

Using his backyard botanical sanctuary for inspiration, ceramic artist Joseph Sand purposefully crafts sculptural forms and functional pottery utilizing elements from the natural world including wood, stone, and seashells. He is focused on keeping the final function in mind, such as the fluted vase made to showcase a single stem of iris.  Growing up in rural Minnesota, attending college on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, and eventually moving to rural North Carolina, it’s no surprise that Joseph finds inspiration in his surroundings.  Joseph moved to North Carolina in 2006 for a full-time apprenticeship with master potter Mark Hewitt.  It is there he learned that wood-fired pottery allowed for a deeper connection between him and the final piece, using his hands to form, guide, and finish each creation.  Joseph wood fires his 40-foot-long, 8-foot-wide kiln only three times per year.  His work has been featured in Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated and in several permanent collections, including at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC and the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM.  Most recently, his 36-piece large-scale work “Resurgence” was selected for permanent installation at the Benton Convention Center in Winston Salem, NC. Joseph’s creations can be purchased locally at his rural home and gallery space in Randleman, North Carolina, as well as at many galleries nationwide.

Watie White joins me on today’s show. This is part 2 of my interview with Watie White. Working as a painter, printmaker and public artist, Watie has been based in Omaha since 2006. Watie’s work has been shown nationally and internationally including at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Telfair Museums, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Frist Center for the Arts, The Mint Museum, and Joslyn Art Museum. Watie White’s site-specific social practice has led to large-scale public art projects with Omaha area nonprofits: Habitat For Humanity-Omaha, InCOMMON Community Development, Justice For Our Neighbors-NE, Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance and Omaha Public Schools. Watie has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Puffin Foundation, Nebraska Arts Council, Humanities Nebraska, and the Mid-America Arts Alliance. In this part of the interview, Watie and I talk about his 100 People project. Part 1 Interview - Episode 003 100 People Project GalleriesProject Project Gallery 72 Benson Petshop Gallery Darger HQ Gallery   OrganizationsBenson Theatre Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Omaha Creative Institute Omaha Creative Institute - Artist INC Artists Jave Yoshimoto Angie Seykora - Website Angie Seykora - Instagram William Kentridge Kerry James Marshall Andy Goldsworthy Follow Watie WhiteWebsite Facebook Instagram Follow Amanda StevensonAmanda on Instagram Amanda on Twitter Voices Creating Change on Facebook Voices Creating Change on Twitter Support the show on Patreon

Watie White joins me on today’s show. This is part 1 of a 2 part series with Watie White. Working as a painter, printmaker and public artist, Watie has been based in Omaha since 2006. Watie’s work has been shown nationally and internationally including at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Telfair Museums, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Frist Center for the Arts, The Mint Museum, and Joslyn Art Museum.   Watie White’s site-specific social practice has led to large-scale public art projects with Omaha area nonprofits: Habitat For Humanity-Omaha, InCOMMON Community Development, Justice For Our Neighbors-NE, Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance and Omaha Public Schools. Watie has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the Puffin Foundation, Nebraska Arts Council, Humanities Nebraska, and the Mid-America Arts Alliance.   In this first part of the interview, Watie and I talk about his background and about his Lead Stories project with Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance.   Stockyard Institute Jim Duignan Omaha Healthy Kids Alliance   Follow Watie White Website Facebook Instagram   Follow Amanda Stevenson Amanda on Instagram Amanda on Twitter Voices Creating Change on Facebook Voices Creating Change on Twitter   Support the show on Patreon

Nick Napoletano is a painter, muralist and designer known for hyperrealist works brimming with allegory and symbolism. His work can be found in galleries and museums internationally, including the collections of Amway and the New Britain Museum of American Art. He recently exhibited at Jerald Melberg Gallery and at the Mint Museum. He has painted a series of large-scale exterior murals in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. He has expanded his work into the fields of augmented and virtual reality.  Nick earned a Bachelor's of Fine Arts at the University of Hartford, Connecticut. This episode is perfect for anyone interested in figurative painting, public art, augmented and virtual reality, and the challenges and rewards of 'a monkey mind.'   IN THIS EPISODE Nick describes the three different trajectories of his work. He explains how his art reflects Mannerism and the High Renaissance. He discusses measuring himself against Renaissance masters. He considers whether his art challenges the viewer, the illustrations of Norman Rockwell, the role of public art, and whether it is enough for public to just be beautiful. Nick talks about one of his murals and the idea that informs it. He answers whether he prefers public or private art commissions, the challenge of his 'monkey mind,' and what an unfettered public art project might be. He describes the work of Two Form, a design collaboration group merging our world with augmented and virtual reality. He explains how he paints augmented reality components onto sculpted spaces to enhance dialog between the work and viewers. Nick talks about his work creating digital worlds using virtual reality. He shares how Nordic and biophilic design influences his art. He shares what he remembers seeing as a child and how his interest in figurative work developed. He considers what it means being an artist and moving through the world differently. Nick talks about living and painting in New York, taking a tour of the south, and what Snug Harbor has to do with why he lives in Charlotte. He discusses a current recurring dream, a question on his mind, what delights him, what truth he wants revealed, a vision he has, what he is certain about, what draws him in, and what matters most. Mark Peres adds a personal word that begins this way, "As I sat across from Nick Napoletano I thought of Leonard da Vinci. I imagined Leonardo explaining his art to a journalist or at least trying to as the journalist busily scribbled away..." To learn more, visit On Life and Meaning.

Jazz influences. Burning buildings. Disastrous first dates... Partygoers at the ART CRUSH podcast launch at The Mint Museum share their art crushes and unfiltered impressions with Stacee Michelle.

There’s power in being weird, according to William Ivey Long. This multiple Tony Award-winning costume designer shares his thoughts on the art of design, his eureka moment in biology class, and walking into The Mint Museum for the first time as a boy growing up in the Charlotte area. Sheri Lynch and Stacee Michelle host the final episode of this entertaining chat with the Broadway legend.

He has dressed Rolling Stones and Pink Ladies. Now William Ivey Long brings his adventurous creativity to Charlotte with an exhibition at The Mint Museum. Sheri Lynch and Stacee Michelle continue an entertaining conversation with this multiple Tony-Award winning Broadway legend and costume designer for Grease Live! and The Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels tour, among other triumphs.

Robert Bush is president of the Arts & Science Council, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg region's lead resource hub and cultural advocate. Robert serves as the chief strategic and executive officer of the organization and lead representative of the ASC to the broader community. Prior to joining the ASC, Robert served as president of the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County and president of Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, as Director of Development with the Mint Museum of Art, and as Executive Director of the Catawba County Council for the Arts. He is a recipient of the Salina Roberts Ottum Award for Arts Leadership from Americans for the Arts, the Legacy Award from the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, and the Governor's Award for meritorious service to the citizens of North Carolina. Robert holds a B.S. and M.A. in Education Administration and Supervision with a concentration in Community Education from Appalachian State University.    This episode is perfect for anyone interested in the development of art and culture in community and the power of art to changes lives.   IN THIS EPISODE Robert describes the Arts & Science Council (ASC) and what makes it unique. He responds to assertions about the Charlotte arts scene, how arts and culture has been the core of the economic development strategy of the city, and what is changing. He reveals the question that haunts him in his work. He answers whether there is a sufficient pool of artistic talent in Charlotte to shift the culture.  Robert talks about what a creative community is and why he does what he does. He shares what Charlotte doesn't talk about and what it needs to do better. He reflects on Charlotte's bid to attract Amazon HQ2. He describes the vision the ASC has for arts and culture by 2025 and the three things the vision is based on. Robert discusses what ASC is winning at in differentiating the Charlotte arts scene. He shares the ASC response to the Keith Lamont Scott shooting in Charlotte, why access and inclusion is the business of the ASC, and why its personal to him. He talks about how the power of art changed his life. He describes where he grew up and why he had a perfect childhood. Robert discusses his first career as a teacher and how he sees the city as his classroom today. He answers what he learned from the three ASC presidents he served: Harriet Sanford, Lee Keesler and Scott Provancher. He responds to whether he felt passed over during the changes in presidency at the ASC. He reflects on what is different about being president versus being a senior vice president of the ASC. He reveals how he thinks the ASC is different because of his leadership and what he thinks is his greatest accomplishment. Robert shares what art he loves and when he is happiest. Mark Peres adds a personal word that begins this way, "Robert Bush's passion for the arts is real and exciting. His love for the arts overflows as he reveals what art means to him. You can hear the jazz fusion in the air..." To learn more, visit On Life and Meaning

In this latest episode of ART CRUSH, fashion insider Stacee Michelle chats with fashion collector Ann Tarwater, a contributor to the 'Charlotte Collects' exhibition at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Ann talks about modest couture, why art and fashion are so important to creating a vibrant city, and walking in on the arm of designer Geoffrey Beene.

How did a North Carolina boy become a legendary costume designer?In this episode of ART CRUSH, Sheri Lynch and Stacee Michelle roll up their sleeves with multiple Tony Award-winning costume designer William Ivey Long, the subject of the retrospective William Ivey Long: Costume Designs 2007-2016 at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Episode 1 of this in-depth interview includes conversation about William’s North Carolina roots, his challenge in hiding the zipper for opera diva Renee Fleming, and his breakthrough moment designing a ruffled Elizabethan collar for his dog.

In this episode of ART CRUSH, Stacee Michelle chats with fashion collector Lisa Dargan, a contributor to the Charlotte Collects exhibition at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Lisa discusses wearing snow boots under her wedding dress, why Charlotte is her favorite shopping destination in the world, and a one-of-a-kind item known as “the car wash dress.”

In this episode of ART CRUSH, Stacee Michelle chats with fashion collector Lisa Dargan, a contributor to the Charlotte Collects exhibition at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Lisa discusses wearing snow boots under her wedding dress, why Charlotte is her favorite shopping destination in the world, and a one-of-a-kind item known as “the car wash dress.”

In this episode, Stacee chats with collector and TV news anchor Ashley Anderson Mattei, a contributor to the Charlotte Collects exhibition at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Ashley talks about a little black dress covered in bats, how fashion is all about solving a problem, and why yoga pants look like underwear on the streets of Paris.

In this episode, Stacee chats with collector and TV news anchor Ashley Anderson Mattei, a contributor to the Charlotte Collects exhibition at The Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC. Ashley talks about a little black dress covered in bats, how fashion is all about solving a problem, and why yoga pants look like underwear on the streets of Paris.

Robin Reif spoke with Lyndsay Kibiloski, Digital Media Manager, The Mint Museum

Welcome to the #CharlotteIsCreative podcast. Today’s show features hosts Tim Miner and Matt Olin speaking with photographer Nelson Morales, immediately following the September 8 Creative Mornings Charlotte event at Warehouse 242, where Nelson spoke about the global theme of “compassion”. Nelson Morales is a photographer born in the Oaxaca region of Mexico. His photography focuses on a third gender of people in Mexico, the muxe community. Nelson is currently based out of Mexico City, but will be spending the next three months as an artist in residency at the McColl Center, as well as having his work viewed in exhibitions at the Light Factory and Mint Museum. Remember to RSVP to the next Creative Mornings Charlotte event Friday, October 6 at Warehouse 242, when SkillPop founder Haley Bohon will be speak on the global theme of “Pioneer.” Register for this free event by visiting charlotteiscreative.com at 9am, Monday, October 2. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #CharlotteIsCreative, and tweet us @CM_CLT whenever you see Charlotteans showing their creativity.

In this episode, I interview artist Greg Climer. Yes, he's my brother, but he's also an amazing artist and a professor at the Parson School of Design in New York. He talks about his artistic practice, where he gets his ideas, and offers advice for how to get more creative. What You'll Learn Three tips from artist Greg Climer to help you be more creative How Greg comes up with new ideas and how you can do the same About Greg Climer Greg Climer is an artist whose work, though primarily textiles, bridges media and explores ephemeral experiences, film, sculpture and technology. His exploration of craft forms inverts methods and explores making through a queer lens. He was a 2016 Artist-In-Residence at the Museum of Art and Design, where he created the animated quilts. His work has shown in the Mint Museum of Craft and Design (North Carolina), Kustera Projects (Brooklyn), Fred Frelinghuysen Presents (Brooklyn), and other galleries throughout the United States. He is an Assistant Professor of Fashion Design and the Associate Director of First Year at Parson School for Design in New York City. Resources Greg Climer's website Greg Climer on Instagram Greg Climer in Fast Company magazine Parson's School of Design The tool Greg and Amy both use for daily writing - 750words.com Podcast Bored and Brilliant Episode 35: The Leadership Style Continuum Episode 40: How Positivity Can Increase Creativity with Dr. Tina Hallis Episode 44: How Diversity in Teams Can Increase Creativity with Dr. Tanya Williams The Weekly Challenge Take Greg's advice this week and find 4-5 magazines you wouldn't normally read and dive into all of them at once. What ideas come up? Share your thoughts and experience in the comments!  Transcript Feel like reading instead of listening? The transcript will be available in a few days. Enjoy!

Frank Dominguez welcomes Dr. Kathleen Jameson, President and CEO of the Mint Museum, of Art about their upcoming exhibit, The Panama Canal at 100 . Listen to the interview below and learn how this exhibit came to Charlotte.

Julie Wiggins is a full time studio potter living and working in Charlotte, North Carolina.  She graduated from East Carolina University in 2001 with a BFA in Ceramics. In 2005, she received an honorary degree from the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China, where she focused her studies on traditional Eastern techniques. Her work has been shown in galleries across the country, including AKAR Gallery, Charlie Cummings Gallery, CrimsonLaurel Gallery, and Lark & Key.  Julie’s work has been featured at the American Craft Council and the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, as well as several national conferences and exhibitions, including NCECA.  Julie has over a decade of experience as an educator and will be one of the presenters at the Functional Ceramics Workshop in 2016.

We will speak with the creator of the cultural event that will take place tonight at the Met Museum Mrs. Rubie Britt-Height. Rubie R. Britt-Height has been the Director of Community Relations for The Mint Museum since 2008.  She initiates and manages opportunities to collaborate with culturally diverse community groups, businesses and other organizations to promote art exhibitions and programs.   She manages audience development through education and outreach initiatives, represents the Mint at public speaking engagements and serves as an arts ambassador with an emphasis on underserved and underrepresented populations, but her outreach includes numerous diverse groups.  She also founded the Romare Bearden Society at the Mint, which has acquired and gifted 3 major works of art to the Museum. Her main diversity programs are the Grier Heights Youth Arts Program, now in its 11th year, and Mint to Move Cultural Dance Night, held quarterly at the Mint Museum Uptown at the Levine Center for the Arts.  

Children learn to play in an orchestra with the Instrument Zoo. Ben Owen III & Lee Abbot talk about an annual exhibition at the Mint Museum. "Cotton" Ketchie is an artist in many mediums. And we visit the NC Music Hall of Fame.