Episode 106: Today I talk to Rebecca Hart and Jena Pruett of the Denver Art Museum. We are talking about the Jordan Casteel, Returning the Gaze exhibition. Jordan is a Denver-native who lives in New York.
She starts her work with simple snapshots of people she sees on the subway and transforms them into larger-than-life paintings.
Episode 105: Today I talk with Sheena Smith of Jungle Girl Designs. A line of clothing and merchandise with her original art on it. The line was inspired by her son. She wanted to find a way to explain tough concepts like evolution, global warming, and nutrition to him. She figured the best way was through art. We talk about her brand, her love of teaching and learning.
Episode 64: Today I meet & chat with Howard Yezerski, of The Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts, about Sandra Stark’s atypical artwork. You’ll get to see my opinion change in real-time.
Eliot’s Pot, 2017, Archival digital prints, 23 x 20 in.
By Fire, 2017, Archival digital prints, 18.5 x 25.5 inches
For Egon, Flora and Jeffrey, 2017, Archival digital print, 25.25 x 18.25 inches
Episode 68: Today I chat with Assistant Curator, Orin Zahra from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington DC. We talk about the Woman House exhibition, which is on view from March 9–May 28, 2018. It is inspired by Judy Chicago & Miriam Schapiro’s feminist installation of the same name.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #35, 1979; Gelatin silver print, 15 7/8 x 12 3/8 in.; Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York
Laurie Simmons, Walking House, 1989; Chromogenic print, 64 x 46 in.; Collection of Dr. Dana Beth Ardi; Photo courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New YorkZanele Muholi, Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta, ext.2, Lakeside, Johannesburg, 2007; Lambda print, 30 1/8 x 29 3/4 in.; Private collection
(Editor’s Note: For some reason the interview is taking a while to buffer. Please press the play button once, give it five seconds, and it should work. You can also go to your iTunes or Podcast App and subscribe to “Let’s Talk Art With Brooke”)
Episode 52: Brooke talks with Rock Hushka, chief curator of the Tacoma Art Museum about the 30 Americans exhibition which runs until this Sunday, January 15, 2017. The critically acclaimed showcase of influential African-American artists who have have emerged as leading contributors to the contemporary art scene in the United States was put together nearly a decade ago, but is making its West Coast debut at the TAM. Eight of the thirty artists featured have strong Pacific Northwest connections, and the TAM has several programs related to the exhibition to involve the community in the discussion.
Featured Image: Glenn Ligon, America, 2008. Neon sign and paint, ed. of 1 plus AP, 24 × 168 inches. Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection. A group of 30 Americans artists, left to right: Rashid Johnson, Nick Cave, Kalup Linzy, Jeff Sonhouse, Lorna Simpson, Carrie Mae Weems, Barkley L. Hendricks, Hank Willis Thomas (front row), Xaviera Simmons, Purvis Young, John Bankston, Nina Chanel Abney, Henry Taylor, Mickalene Thomas (front row), Kerry James Marshall, and Shinique Smith.
Photo credit: Kwaku Alston, 2008.
Kara Walker Camptown Ladies, 1998 Paper, 8 × 55 feet Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection
Jean-Michel Basquiat Bird On Money, 1981 Acrylic and oil on canvas
66 × 90 inches Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection
Glenn Ligon America, 2008 Neon sign and paint, ed. of 1 plus AP 24 × 168 inches Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection
Rashid Johnson The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Thurgood), 2008 Lambda print, ed. 2/5 69 × 55½ inches Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection
Hank Willis Thomas Who Can Say No to a Gorgeous Brunette? from the Unbranded series, 1970/2007 Digital C-print Edition 1 of 5 31⅛ × 30 inches Courtesy of the Rubell Family Collection
Episode 51: Brooke talks with Nancy Marshburn on-site about her Healing Power of Art series which are part of the Harvest exhibition at the Anne Neilson Fine Art Gallery in Charlotte, North Carolina. Marshburn uses her 20 year experience as a medical artist to combine art and science and anatomy and beauty.
Art has the power to heal. It evokes an emotional response, and emotions have an effect on the body’s physiological responses. Medical studies document the favorable therapeutic impact of visual arts: Looking at art can change brain wave patterns, the autoimmune response and neurotransmitters that shift the body from stress to relaxation. It also can modulate attitudes from fear to acceptance, from negativity to hope. Excerpt from Harvest exhibition press release from Anne Neilson Fine Art Gallery.
Episode 50 : In a special 50th episode Brooke talks talk to her long-time friend Luann Schwall, who actualized her dream of being an artist after establishing a career as a therapist. Check out her designs at http://www.fifiandluludesigns.
(Editor’s Note: This episode was recorded several months ago, and we have a large number of interviews that are back-logged several weeks. All apologies to our listeners and interviewees. We have been overwhelmed with the positive responses and the amount of downloads and page views. I have been doing my best to make Brooke’s podcast the best it can be. Thank you for your patience and for making Let’s Talk Art With Brooke possible.)
Episode 53: In Montgomery, Alabama, a few streets away from the Alabama State University campus, is a museum dedicated to the most famous couple of the 1920’s, F. Scott and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald. For many, the Fitzgeralds provide the lens through which we now understand, or attempt to understand, the Roaring Twenties.
The Fitzgerald Museum is housed in the last home that the couple lived in together. Scott and Zelda never owned a home and famously never settled down. They rented this house in 1931-32, and since 1999 it is the one place in the world that the lay person can visit to learn of Scott and Zelda’s legacy. The Fitzgerald Museum is now the permanent home that Scott and Zelda never had during their lifetime.
Brooke talks to Willie Thompson, the Executive Director of The Fitzgerald Museum, about the troubled and turbulent life of Zelda Fitzgerald and about her career as an artist.
The Fitzgerald Museum website can be found at thefitzgeraldmuseum.org and has information on the museum’s events including a breakfast celebrating Scott’s 120th birthday on Saturday, September 24, 2016, and an annual Fitzgerald Gala which takes place in April. The Fitzgerald Gala is a “Jazz Age” party of epic proportions, and guests from all over the southeastern United States will be in attendance, decked out in 1910s, ’20s, and ’30s costumes.
Anniversary Painting, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Notre Dame, Paris Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Zelda Gawaine, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Rhododendrons, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Featured Image: Candler, North Carolina, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Episode 52: “I wanted to make art where the viewer wouldn’t walk away, he’d get pulled into history, into fiction, into something totally demeaning and possibly very beautiful.” -Kara Walker
Kara Walker has created art that is unquestionably provocative, challenging and thought-provoking. Her silhouette images present the brutality of slavery in a way that is both demeaning and beautiful.
Brooke talks with Jennifer Navva Milliken of the Bellevue Arts Museum in Bellevue, Washington about Emancipating the Past: Kara Walker’s Tales of Slavery and Power, which runs through November 27, 2016. Milliken gives a brief biography of Kara Walker and explains the challenges and rewards involved in curating this powerful and moving exhibition.
Kara Walker African/American edition 22/40, 1998
Linocut. 44 x 62 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Photo: Frank Ross
Kara Walker The Emancipation Approximation (Scene #18), edition 7/20, 1999-2000
Screenprint. 44 x 34 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Kara Walker The Keys to the Coop, edition 39/40, 1997
Linoleum block. 46 X 60 1/2 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Kara Walker The Keys to the Coop, edition 39/40, 1997
Linoleum block. 46 X 60 1/2 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Kara Walker An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters: Savant, edition 19/30, 2010
Etching with aquatint, sugar-lift, spit-bite and dry-point. 27 X 17 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Kara Walker Harper’s Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated): Confederate Prisoners Being Conducted from Jonesborough, edition 21/35, 2005
Offset lithography and screenprint. 39 X 53 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation
Featured Image:
Kara Walker An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters: No World, edition 19/30, 2010
Etching with aquatint, sugar-lift, spit-bite and dry-point 27 X 39 in.
Photo: Courtesy of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation