Pep Talks for Artists

In this audio essay, I roam from post-war France to the abstract expressionists to the artists of the East Village and even to outer space to consider times in art history when art was forced to bloom in the dark. These under-the-radar moments yielded deeply experimental work, and I wonder how we might channel some of that spirit in our own time.

Artists mentioned: Laurie Anderson, Joan Miro, Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, David Woj...

I'm offering for you here a new mini ep about what I've been thinking about lately: the wackiness of Meret Oppenheim's titles - and how they expand the mystery of her images rather than explain them. 

I recently snagged the catalog from the Moma retrospective show from last year and highly recommend it if you don't have it yet. It's full of lovely color plates: https://store.moma.org/products/meret-oppenheim-my-exhibition-hardcover ...

This is Part 2 of Mandolyn Wilson Rosen and my review of "Lifeline: Clyfford Still" 2019 directed by Dennis Scholl. It's a juicy art bio tell-all with a crusty curmudgeon as its talented but embittered subject. Don't forget to listen to Part 1 too!

Find the film on Amazon ($2.99 SD) or for free on ⁠Kanopy⁠

Find Mandolyn online at: ⁠https://mandolynwilsonrosen.com⁠ and on IG at ⁠@mandolyn_rosen⁠

Artists mentioned: Philip Guston, Bar...

Mandolyn Wilson Rosen is back on the podcast! This time, instead of a book we are talking about an artist documentary. The film is called "Lifeline: Clyfford Still" 2019 directed by Dennis Scholl. It's a juicy art bio tell-all with a crusty curmudgeon as its talented but embittered subject. Come along with us as we enter a turbulently Still world.

Find the film on Amazon ($2.99 SD) or for free on Kanopy

Find Mandolyn online at: http...

Jennifer Coates is back with me this week to cohost Part 4 of our series about researching our way to feeling better as artists. This time we go all the way back to 1306 to the Mongol empire and then zoom forward to the 1970's in the USSR and with a few more stops in between. We studied hard (and maybe got C minuses) but we ended up feeling inspired and hope you will too.

The artists we spoke about:

Zheng Sixiao of Southern Chin...

Welcome back, Elisabeth! This time I am very excited to be speaking to Artist, Elisabeth Condon, about one of my favorite Chicago Imagists: Christina Ramberg.

The Art Institute of Chicago recently mounted a retrospective of Ramberg's work and Elisabeth travelled to see the show this past summer. She spent time telling me about her favorite works, but also offered insight into Ramberg's personality and teaching style - as Elisabeth ...

Artist, Jennifer Coates is back for Part 3 in our series about finding artistic resilience through research! This time we look at these artists and how they adapted to their own gloomy times of foreboding:

Visit glögg glögg, a POP up ART sale, Dec 13-14 in Woodstock NY: website or IG

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What can an artist do during times of political unrest and instability? In this episode (Part 2 of our series), we aim to find out. Jennifer Coates joins me again to share some stories from the past of how artists coped throughout history, because somehow research is very reassuring right now!

We looked at the ways these specific artist...

Jennifer Coates, friend of the pod, is back to help me consider a new way forward (artwise) after the destabilizing event of the US election. She, herself, is finding comfort in the long history of rocks, geology and the cosmos, while I find myself turning to a book about how Matisse and his daughter, Marguerite, both reacted to the trauma of WWII in opposite yet valid ways. It's a bit of a potpourri, but we promise some great galv...

This bonus episode is a promotion for NYC Crit Club's "The Canopy Program" 2025, a year-long mentorship community for artists. Founder and artist, Catherine Haggarty, stopped by the pod to tell me more about what the program offers, who it's for, and which artists she has on deck to lead the cohorts next year.

I'm back in the interview seat with Kristen Mills, an artist working in video, sculpture and installation. We discussed her latest show at Turley Gallery where she covered an entire room with cardboard and made it into a spaceship cockpit. Her video work features clones of herself, multiplied, and combines humor and old school editing techniques to create surreal worlds of play and exploration. The digital elements are then ensconc...

Dear Listeners, it's spooky season. In that spirit, I offer you this mini episode about taking a mini break from the career grind. Why not instead light a spell candle while getting clear on what we really want? Shelve the "should's" for a bit and get witchy with me.

Charles Burchfield (Chas to his friends) once noted how an oak leaf had fluttered down and stuck upright in the snow in his neighbors yard, like a flag, for the entire winter. It weathered many Buffalo "gales" and storms and thereafter Burchfield used it as a personal symbol of steadfastness. In fact its alternate title is "Steadfast Leaf."  The painting he made of it is attached here "Constant Leaf, also k...

Today I'm taking us on a space, art and space-art journey. Because, I've been thinking about how when William Shatner recently went up to space in Bezos' rocket, he saw in real life what he had always pretended to see on TV: space and the final frontier. But to his shock and horror, he...sort of hated it: At least he hated the outer space view. He quaked in the face of all that vast emptiness and ended up with a new app...

We're back!

Join me and my guests: Jennifer Coates, David Humphrey and Catherine Haggarty as we discuss the topic of Drawing this week. This discussion was broken up into 2 parts, so keep an eye out for Part 2 coming soon.

...or the future of our own cultural output? Dear Listener, please enjoy this space-y, star-filled Mini Pep about the infinite freedom that comes from making digital doodles.

This episode is based on an internet slang mantra which translates to "Delusion is the Solution." Find out why healthy artists rely heavily on healthy self-delusion to self-motivate. Like Comedian, Nina Oyama, says, one must create a "self deception turducken" to persevere in a creative pursuit.

This is my hot take on the seven-year-old (it's new to me!) Eva Hesse doc and the scandalous revelations contained within. Also, I receive further evidence for why we still stan our queen, Sylvia Mangold, as she asks: Is the Home Depot the new Canal Street?