“My passion is around art because I know how wonderful it is to create. There are lots of fabulous programs for people to have food and shelter. Very Important. Very Important. But we as human beings need to have our souls fed. That’s what I see happening with Art From The Streets.” Heloise Gold - Founder and Board Member At Large "We have about 35-40 artists that are actually there at a booth, that you can communicate and talk with and get to know and hear stories. I think when you take things ...
Dec 05, 2019•59 min•Ep. 78
“As any conceptual artist you feel like you are a reflection of the people around you. It’s not like you do what people want. It’s more like you try to just feel, what is the concerns or what is the highlights of your society. And how to connect people. And how to connect with people. And that’s what I love making through art.” Rehab El Sadek is a conceptual artist who’s work often has the aesthetic of objects discovered in the course of an archeological dig. And even though the work may have be...
Nov 23, 2019•59 min•Ep. 77
"It’s always scary to stop doing something. But if you don’t stop doing something, you can't do something new. Every time I’ve stopped doing something other opportunities came, or I had time to try something new." Keith Kreeger loves clay. For the past 25 years he has dedicated himself to forming and shaping various types and colors of that material, into beautiful bowls, vases, plates, and many other objects that are intended to be used and enjoyed. After college he set up his first potters stu...
Nov 16, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 76
“My goal has always been to make a painting breathe with realism, but when you get up to it you can really see the brush quality. That is what I’ve always been drawn to when I look at work. That has been my obsession since I was very young.” Karen Offutt is a figurative realist painter and one of the founders of Austin’s own Atelier Dojo, a professional arts academy offering classes, workshops with visiting artists, open studio sessions, and a new intensive study program starting next year. Afte...
Nov 10, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 75
"The nature of the business is relationship building. With clients, with artists, with framers and installers. The people that make up this whole ecosystem we call the art world. Even people who come and pack the work and ship it, even they need to understand. Building up trust with all of these people I think is important. So in building relationships you have to be true to who you are as a person. I think it is something we re-learn even on a personal level, is just being true to who you are a...
Oct 30, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 74
“The things that I think people don’t understand or misunderstand about me is that sometimes when I’m hanging out with friends or hanging out with piers, I can't help but make a joke or a comment about race. Because it is literally always there. It’s just always there. It’s an odd thing to constantly have that in your face all of the time. It’s heavy. I think it’s why black men die sooner than everyone else. That psychological weight is always there. And sometimes I wish I could explain to my fr...
Oct 22, 2019•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 73
"At this point what makes me the most excited about the business, is trying to figure out how to build something that can be a sustainable platform for a number of different artists. It’s so hard to make a living in Austin as an artist or musician. Being able to bring people in and have us all working together on this thing has felt incredibly satisfying. To be able to stand back and watch these items being made by these people who I care so much about. I’m so proud of them and am excited to see...
Oct 11, 2019•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 72
"I’m going to continue to push my work forward. The work has always come first. It has to be the work, because it’s no good if it’s not. That’s my philosophy. I don’t push that on anyone else. That’s just always been my thing. That the work has to do what it needs to do." In this highly anticipated followup to my first interview with Deborah from March of 2018, we sit down to talk about all of the wonderful and sometimes challenging aspects of her amazing career over the last year and a half sin...
Oct 04, 2019•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 71
"There are all these pressures and talks about how do you make your career. How do you make a living? How do you make it sustainable? How do you be an entrepreneur as an artist. And they are all great sounding, very trendy. But at the same time I want to come back and say, why did you want to be an artist? And what makes you want to wake up in the morning and run to the studio and make that thing. At the very beginning it was never for money, it was never for fame. It was something that’s drivin...
Sep 23, 2019•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 70
"I think artists are extremely inspirational people. You need a lot of mental discipline to continue to affirm the role of creativity and your voice in the conversation. That’s why I think artists are so important because it's just a really important point of view and perception in this cacophony that we hear. Especially now it's really good to bend your ear towards maybe more nuanced, more complicated, more complex murmurings and conversations about issues that artists are giving us." Chris Cow...
Sep 10, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 69
“I’m always trying to be tranquil. I’ve experienced a lot of sadness and crisis and trauma in the last 10 years. I think there is a part of me that could have gone that direction and you would have been able to see it in my work. I have done some small pieces where they do look angry. But as far as the larger pieces, I would always feel like if I was working on something that gave that message that it didn’t really calm me. It didn’t really work for me as art therapy which is at the time what I ...
Sep 02, 2019•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 68
"My most recent work there seems to be more of an embrace going on between parts as opposed to these diverse parts fitting together, maintaining their diversity. They seem now to be more a part of each other. That’s a mystery to me." Sydney Yeager is an artist who describes her current painting style as gestural abstraction. She also teaches drawing and painting at Austin Community College. Teaching has been a part of her life from early on, but it wasn’t until after she had kids and decided to ...
Aug 24, 2019•56 min•Ep. 67
"I just think that we have a greater strength en masse. The more we can come together and support each other the greater our potential. Don’t build walls. Don’t tell people they cant do it. Show up for the people you think that you can, and you have the strength to." GD Wright (http://gdwright.com/) is a sculptor, fabricator, and design consultant working most often with metal, cast concrete, and blown glass. He also consults with other artists to help them realize their own visions and has coll...
Jul 28, 2019•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 66
“I’m not solely an artist, that’s not my identity. I’m not just an artist, I’m a vessel. You are not defined by your occupation. You are not defined by the person that you spend your life with. You’re a creation that’s meant for more than just being an accountant, or a photographer, or a painter, or a carpenter. You’re meant for much more than just that. You are meant to use that as a place to help people.” Dallas based artist Matthew Brinston (https://brinston.co) categorizes his very distincti...
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 65
"All of us as artists have inspiration that comes from a myriad of places. I felt just through a couple situations that had occurred, where I had not intended to do something, that the art had taken a life of its own separate from me. And I had seen the positive aspects associated with it, so it encouraged and motivated me to work hard to stay out of the way and to allow the inspiration to take place. And then once I acted on it the next piece was available to me. I think that’s one of the reaso...
Jul 13, 2019•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 64
"I think more and more now people are interested in this conversation of the intersection of art and culture with social movements. Art & culture have always been a part of social movements, but being strategic with artists inside of campaigns and things that we are trying to move forward, there’s a really rich conversation that’s happening now. It’s just really exciting to be in a place where I can be both-and. Because it has felt separate. There is something about being in tune with your i...
May 25, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 63
"It’s about looking, and continually trying to hone that and develop an eye." Sev Coursen (http://arcaneworld.com/) is an artist working in multiple media including photography, sculpture, film and video. His work has been presented in exhibitions and screenings in the United States and Europe. ONE PLUS ELEVEN OBJECT SHOW Curated by Lauren Jaben APRIL 2019 Opening Reception Saturday 27 April, from 4-7pm AGAVE PRINT (http://agaveprint.com/) 1312 E Cesar Chavez Austin, TX. 78702 Open 8:30 am - 5 p...
Apr 22, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 62
"If I close it off then it’s not right. If you look at it and there’s only one answer, then it’s not right. So when I was talking about my older work, maybe it’s not technically good, but it brings up a question that everybody would give a different answer to. And not just other people. Quite often I’ll go back and see something I haven’t seen in a while and it will set off a whole new chain of thoughts." https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/4/41335247-836c-4f4a-8a8b-aeca55f322...
Apr 13, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 61
"I feel that my capacity to create, in so many different forms of media, to step into my work as an activist, to speak in a very vulnerable way in the types of spaces I’ve been invited into, really began with writing about and sharing my deepest shame. And once I had finally illuminated that, and I had brought everything into the light, the things I was the most ashamed of, the things that caused me the greatest pain in my life, I was then able to speak and to explore my creativity in ways that ...
Apr 03, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 60
"I was aware of the culture I grew up in, but I was unaware of the cost for other people, and also unaware of the cost for me. I think when you are raised in a culture like that you have definitions for yourself that feel very comfortable and safe and you’re not even really aware of that. And so you start thinking, why am I telling myself these things? Why is that true? Why does that have to be true? It started seeming like an impoverished narrative. Or like a small narrative that I wanted to st...
Mar 21, 2019•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 59
"When I was eleven I said I was going to be an artist, it’s just part of the process. You have to make bad work sometimes, it’s part of the deal. If you are not willing to make bad art then you are not willing to take chances. You have to make bad art to get to the good stuff. It’s just part of it." Text courtesy of Stella's website Stella Alesi (https://www.alesiart.com/) has resided in Austin, Texas for the last 25 years. Her work has been exhibited in commercial and university galleries throu...
Mar 12, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 58
"For me the success of a piece is if I’m able to create a weird sense of peace and disturbance to keep people there longer to sort of sit with it. Sometimes it can be hard because a lot of my work on the surface level you’re not able to see that research, you’re not able to receive that information. So a lot of it is the form and the experience with the form. I’m not necessarily interested in making didactic work. I’m very interested in using research and personal archives and communal archives ...
Mar 04, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 57
"Failure or success is really subjective, and it’s conditional. The one moment I might consider a failure, I learned something so I guess since I learned something maybe it wasn’t a failure. By having those prints I will open up another possibility that I didn’t even consider thinking of. I think those are fertilizer. Probably it stinks in the beginning but it will eventually become part of a very important fuel for the creativity. Then try to solve the problem from the difficult condition in a ...
Feb 11, 2019•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 56
"As an artist you have to remember that you are always working. And you’re not just working when you are in the studio actually making something. You are working when you’re sleeping, dreaming, reading, looking at other peoples art, having conversations, and tripping over a rock. It’s all a part of your practice. To be able to embrace every element of your life as being a part of your practice takes the pressure off of going to the studio and the blank page. Just think of your studio as another ...
Jan 28, 2019•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 55
"Seriously it's like being in love, staying in the studio." Alejandra Almuelle (https://www.alejandraalmuelle.com/) is a full time ceramic artist who creates sculptures and pottery that often merge traditional and contemporary styles and often feature the human figure. Her most recent and largest exhibition of work to date titled The Journey, interpreted the hero’s journey and was inspired by events in her own life. By making pottery, which she sells online and at art fairs, she is able to creat...
Jan 21, 2019•53 min•Ep. 54
"In a way you can use words as a lure to get people to think in a way that’s more expansive. To think in visuals, and in space, and in symbol that’s beyond language. To find meaning between words. So writing about art is really fun. Because art can mean things that really can’t be touched on with language. But you can kind of lead a reader to it. You can take these glancing blows at what arts meaning is and maybe through that long series of glancing blows map out a silhouette. And maybe people w...
Jan 08, 2019•56 min•Ep. 53
"We need to not only find ourselves but we need to find a way to each other. It’s really hard to show up fully for others if you haven’t shown up for yourself. It’s really hard to have the hard conversations we need to have right now, so that we can move together collectively, so that we can tend our relationships, if we haven’t done that for ourselves. I think it’s really hard to make courageous choices as artists if we haven’t done that work. Because our fear and the things that we are hiding ...
Dec 17, 2018•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 52
"One of the things that helped me be a better ally to other communities is to believe people. Generally you don’t need evidence to trust if a whole community is saying something. If a whole community is saying we experience this or if a whole community is saying this hurts us. Trust that they know and trust that their experience is authentic." "Do what works for you. Give yourself permission. I had so many people tell me what real art was or what is right or wrong. There would be times where I d...
Dec 10, 2018•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 51
"I think that the thread has definitely been that it’s all sculptural. I’m truly a 3D person. The idea and the making of the work kind of happen at the same time. Or maybe I cant identify exactly what comes first but I feel like I am pushed forward in the studio though making itself. Researching is a part of that but I actually have to have my hands moving." Tammie Rubin (http://tammierubin.com/) is a ceramic sculptor and professor at St. Edwards University (https://www.stedwards.edu/directory/e...
Dec 03, 2018•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 50
"Getting in the habit of noticing is what is essential to actually being an artist. You have to first off get in the habit seeing things and noticing. It's not only visually seeing, it’s hearing, and listening, and tasting and using your senses. Wake up and think, what am I going to notice today, because the work is around you. The input that you need to do the work, there is no shortage of that, if you are paying attention." Darden Smith (http://www.dardensmith.com) is a Texas born singer/songw...
Nov 17, 2018•57 min•Ep. 49
