podcasts
Downloadable podcasts of Libby and Roberta talking with art world figures from Philadelphia and beyond. New episodes available every other Monday.
Beth Heinly on the importance of collecting and community – an artblog radio podcast
Beth Heinly grew up in the Philadelphia area. She draws comic strips (under the title the 3:00 o’clock book) that tell humorous and dark stories from her life and she sometimes creates graphic novels, like a new one “Server Serial Killer” she is working on. (Beth’s day job is being a server at the Irish pub, Fado, so we are guessing she’s got lots of material to work with for her new book.) But Beth’s also a performance artist and a self-taught curator responsible for some great programming at Little Berlin, where she was a member, and now, at Vox ... More » »
Michelle Post on artblog radio – a podcast interview
Michelle Post’s sculptural Tronies will debut as a permanent installation at Grounds for Sculpture this fall. In our podcast the artist tells us how she received the commission and how she conceived of the ten large portrait heads that sit on plinths like a chorus of grumpy citizen jurors waiting for something to pass judgment on. Post, a self-taught artist who has worked in wood engraving as well as sculpture, showed the original prototypes for her commission at DaVinci Art Alliance last fall and that is where we first saw the amusing characters that are vaguely reminiscent of characters drawn by Daumier. Michelle Post spoke with us ... More » »
Celestine Wilson Hughes talks about becoming an artist – an artblog radio podcast
Celestine Wilson Hughes began to feel like a real artist about the time she got a band saw and started cutting wood in the backyard for painting projects. Before that she considered herself a vendor of jewelry and hand-painted t-shirts. Customers told her she was an artist and she began to adopt that mantle. Wilson Hughes, who is self-taught, makes large totemic sculptures out of colored glass shards. Her works are celebrations of community, the garden and especially of women’s undervalued inner strength and women’s bodies. Hughes just got a studio outside her house when she started a residency at ... More » »
Brian Wallace on curating at Bryn Mawr College – an artblog radio podcast
Brian Wallace knows a lot about academic institutions. He’s worked for a number of them. Now, as Curator and Academic Liaison for Art and Artifacts at Bryn Mawr College, he is organizing exhibits and learning about the vast holdings of the College. Brian’s first exhibit at Bryn Mawr, Docu-Commencement (ended Dec. 14) commissioned four artists to create work on the theme of graduation. In organizing the exhibit, the curator worked with Public Safety officers and staff in other departments, all of whom were very happy to be introduced to the contemporary art that resulted from the project. Brian is a ... More » »
Old City gallerists Becky Kerlin and Christine Pfister on business and art – podcast interview on artblog radio
On the 20th anniversaries of Gallery Joe and Pentimenti, two wonderful contemporary art venues in Philadelphia that we admire, we talk with the gallery’s owner/directors, Becky Kerlin (of Gallery Joe) and Christine Pfister (of Pentimenti). Both galleries are located in Old City, and both started in the recession of 1992/93. In our interview, they talk with us about starting their galleries, about deciding to participate in the art fairs, about working with artists and selecting artists, and about some of the online scams involving the sale of art that are circulating on the Internet. We spoke with the two gallery owners ... More » »
Shelley Spector on making things look effortless, and on the Philly art scene – a podcast on artblog radio
Shelley Spector studied dance for many years — her mother was a dance teacher and taught dance classes out of the studio in the basement. So the idea of creating art that looks effortless — the way dancers make dancing look effortless — was built into Shelley’s way of working. Spector founded the influential Spector Gallery on 6th and Bainbridge in 1999, and that space, which closed in 2006, was a launching pad for a lot of young Philadelphia artists, like Jim Houser, Adam Wallacavage, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Rebecca Westcott, and Rob Matthews. For many years Shelley showed her work ... More » »
Syd Carpenter’s gardens and farms of clay – a podcast interview on artblog radio
Syd Carpenter’s ceramic sculptures are in many museum collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy and the Renwick in Washington, DC. Carpenter’s muscular and biomorphic forms pull together recognizable imagery — chains, fences, flowers, and a series of farms based on small family farms in the South. Considered together, her work is a loose narrative that suggests personal and black history. Syd, who is a Pew Fellow (1992) and Tyler MFA chairs the Studio Art Department of Swarthmore College. In our podcast, she talks about what fuels her art, and about her experience working with a community in ... More » »
Open Air’s Rafael Lozano-Hemmer talks about art we all can share – an artblog radio podcast
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer‘s public art piece Open Air has been making a big light-filled splash on the Ben Franklin Parkway since its launch Sept. 20. We spoke to Hemmer Aug. 23, before the 24-spotlights-triggered-by-iPhone-messages piece went live. Among other things we learned that Hemmer is an engineer with some theater in his background. You can participate in the project until Oct. 14, between 8pm-11pm nightly, by adding your message online or going down to the Parkway and voicing your message using the free downloadable iPhone app on your phone (download here) or on a phone loaned to you for that purpose, from a ... More » »
Tim Portlock’s digital simulations – a podcast interview on artblog radio
Tim Portlock‘s new digital prints, made using 3D animation and gaming software, are influenced by the American sublime landscape painting tradition, he says. That makes sense if you know that the artist comes from a painting background, where he painted beautiful landscapes, including some murals in Chicago. Portlock’s new works — which go on exhibit at Vox Populi Gallery this Friday (he is a member) — are indeed painterly, although they are not make with paint. What they look like are birds-eye views of depopulated urban scenes of Philadelphia and other cities. Working from photographs that he takes, Portlock builds up ... More » »
Alex Baker on Australia and on being the new director of Fleisher-Ollman Gallery – a podcast on artblog radio
Alex Baker enjoyed his four-year stay in Melbourne, Australia, where he was senior curator of contemporary art for the National Gallery of Victoria. He’s back now, and as director of Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, he will have new challenges, like selling art. Alex talks with us about his shows in Melbourne, with Harrell Fletcher and others. He’s interested in working with art by mentally-disabled artists, so we’re guessing we will see that in the future at F-O Gallery. Right click to download Alex Baker 15-min. podcast A slideshow version of this podcast will appear here and on YouTube later this week. This ... More » »
