Layers of Expression: The Art and Vision of Anna Carll, Contemporary Mixed-Media Artist

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Anna Carl and I am a contemporary mixed media artist.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello, I'm Chris Stafford and you're listening to Art, the
podcast where we get to know women from around the
world of visual arts. This is season three, episode twenty two.
My guest this week is the American contemporary mixed media
artist Anna Carl, who began her painting career with very

(00:33):
colorful figurative work, which slowly evolved into non representational abstract
work that's based on the concept of urban expansion and erosion.
Anna was born in Charleston, West Virginia, in nineteen sixty
Her mother, Maggie Schtler, a career nurse and teacher, and father,
James Carl, who worked in the auto industry, divorced when

(00:57):
Anna was just twelve years of age. She's the youngest
of six children. Anna reflects on a troubled childhood and
how she became a truant, eventually dropping out of high
school and becoming a juvenile delinquent. She describes herself as
having been a sickly child who suffered from dyslexia, while

(01:18):
becoming introspective and private. At the age of seventeen, she
ran away from home when she returned home six months
later to her mother. She went back to school and
achieved her General Equivalency diploma ged at the age of eighteen.
It was then that she decided to focus on a

(01:38):
vacation in graphic art and design by attending Sarasota County
Vocational Technical Center for twelve months. This was followed by
six months at the Venice Sun newspaper, where Anna realized
she still needed further training, so she attended the University
of Florida, graduating with a BA in Art and Graphic

(02:00):
Design in nineteen eighty four. Her career began as an
illustrator and graphic artist, and for sixteen years she worked
in Atlanta. She subsequently spent twelve years honing her craft
as a painter in the North Georgia Mountains under the
shadow of the Appalachian Mountains in the Blue Ridge area.

(02:22):
From nineteen ninety two to nineteen ninety four, she studied
with the artist Weeda Canaday before leaving her career as
a graphic artist to become a full time fine artist
in nineteen ninety nine. Anna's first gallery representation came in
nineteen ninety seven with Bender Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta

(02:43):
and She is now represented by a number of galleries
in the US. Anna's work is collected by a diverse
group of private individuals and corporations in the US, South America, Europe,
and Asia. Anna now lives in Chattanook, Tennessee, with her cat,
Sadie May. Anna.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Welcome, Thank you for joining me, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Now this is your third podcast, I believe it. Have
you become a podcast listener.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
A to some degree, not a whole lot, but yeah,
I've started to dip my toe into it.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Well, I know that you're a reader, and we're going
to talk about books later on in the show or
maybe on our YouTube channel, because those who are listening
to this season will know that. After we record the podcast,
we hop over to the Art podcast YouTube channel where
we add some content there and talk about other things.
So maybe maybe we took books later then, Anna. But

(03:41):
I want to get to know the artist in you,
because you're you're pretty much a lifelong artist, don't you.
That's correct? Yeah, yeah, growing up in Charleston, West Virginia,
but raised in Sarasota, Florida. So nineteen sixty was the
golden year for you. You were we really did grow
up in the sixties.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Yes, and as a child, so you know, not a
teenager unfortunately, didn't get to, you know, do all the
Woodstock stuff and all that.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
What were the music festivals that you were going to then?

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Oh gosh, So when I finally started getting into really
going to concerts and so forth in my teenage years,
that would have been the nineteen seventies.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
So now we're talking.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
The Eagles, Jay Giles Band. You know, I could just
get Rod Stewart, earth Wind and fire Fleetwood, Mac Pink Floyd. Yes,
do you remember the group?

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (04:48):
I do.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
Johnny Anderson I think was on keyboards.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yeah, but terrific group, some really obscure ones like Uriah Heap,
not many people do you remember?

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Then? Do you remember the Demons and Wizards? Do you
remember that?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Plus you are going back, Is this something you really embraced?
Were you really into the music scene?

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I really was, And you know, music has continued to
be a pretty big part of my life, although my
musical tastes have changed as I've aged.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
But I listened to music all.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
The time at home in the studio since I live
in my studio. So if I'm not you know, even
when i'm reading, which you know I am an avid reader,
I usually will listen to instrumental in the background. I
usually have that going on when I'm working in the studio,
whatever I feel like on my playlists.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
And so forth.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
And the only other time I'm not is if I'm streaming,
you know, videos and stuff for entertainment.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
So it's interesting you mentioned all those artists from the seventies,
those that were influencing you and your youth, and yet
your playlist is so varied as to what you're listening
to today. I was pleased to see that up my
leap it was on your list. I've been a lifelong
fan ofmar But very, very very does this mean there's

(06:09):
music in your veins and your blood? Have you inherited this?
Are you a musician yourself?

Speaker 1 (06:15):
No? And in fact not at all, because I remember
being forced to play musical instruments in school as part
of various public school curriculums. Tried the clarinet and didn't work.
Tried the violin, didn't work, tried the piano didn't work.
So I could appreciate it, but I can't play it,

(06:38):
that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
What about your family, because you're in a large family
that five siblings.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
Was there correct.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Music elsewhere that you absorbed and were influenced by.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Not within the family itself.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I do remember my mother loved opera and she would
go around humming and singing operatic stuff. Now there's someone
who had a voice and could easily have been classically trained.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
She could.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
She had pipes on her she could really sing. But
she pursued family, you know, marriage, family, kid, you know,
the whole thing. Her nurse's career. And then also she
was a gifted seamstress as well. She made a lot
of our clothes throughout our lives, you know, when we
were young. So, I mean she could make coats, you know,

(07:27):
I mean she was It was amazing, And she would
get the patterns and so forth, and she would alter them.
She would change the designs on them so that you know,
we wouldn't see our coat walking down the street, you.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Know, on somebody else. You know.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
So it was a different time, you know, you're talking
about the sixties and seventies, and people did a lot
more with their hands back then.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yeah, out of need, out of need exactly. Interestingly, she
was a nurse. Your father worked in auto parts, but
I'm wondering about your grandparents on either side, what professions
did they lean to.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Unfortunately, I mean, given the timeline in which I was born,
I was the baby out of six kids. All the
grandparents had passed by the time I came along.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
So I never knew that well. I actually no.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I do remember Grandma Carl, but she passed pretty quickly.
I have vague memories about her my father's mother, and
I don't believe she ever had a vocation or a
career of any kind other than family. I just don't
know enough about her. And Grandma Karl and or Grandma
Shutler and Grandpa Shutler were both gone by the time

(08:50):
I was born my mother's parents, and I do believe,
you know, I am the keeper of the family stuff.
So I have gone back and looked at genealogy information
that was left to me, and I do believe they
did run a small hotel.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Grandpa Shutler and more.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
Like I guess what you call a B and B
today of its time in Oil City, Pennsylvania, where she
grew up. And then I think Grandma Shutler just you
know again, was family oriented.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
Housewife kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
But if I go back in my ancestry on both
sides of the family from Germany. We're basically peasant German
farmers mostly so that I've got all that in my background.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
You have the soil in your bones, do you do
you lean towards that? Do you think subconsciously the nature
and you know, things more rural?

Speaker 1 (09:56):
I would say so, and I think that, you know,
it became part of my thesis with my work, is
the push pull of us creating cities and not in
harmony with nature. So I do recognize and utilize concepts
of nature in my work, but I do think, for instance,
I do put her around in my yard, but I'm

(10:21):
not into vegetable gardens. That's not where I go for that.
But I do have herbs. I have lots of herb
plants planted around the house and various different types of greenery.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
And I'm good with house plants too, So it must
be it must be in my DNA.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
I'm wondering if that then is subconscious, that it's actually
a spiritual experience for you, then being in touch with
nature and the.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
Soil could be.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I mean, you know, I think we're all connected, you know,
cosmically and heavenly and all that. So I do really
feel when I'm out digging in the dirt. If it's
not too hot, because I do live in the South
and there's not too many bugs, I can be quite
happy digging in the earth. But summertime yard maintenance is

(11:14):
a little bit of a misery in the South.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yes, for sure. Although you were born in West Virginia,
you were raised in Sarasota, Florida. So at what point
did you go south?

Speaker 1 (11:27):
So I would say, I mean, my parents didn't stay
in West Virginia after I was born for not even
a year, and they moved to the Atlanta, Georgia area,
and that's actually where I have my first memories, very
very young, and we lived briefly there for about three years.

(11:47):
And then when I was five, is right before I
turned five years old, that's when we moved to Sarasota.
And so that was a very obviously it was a
culture shock from you know, for the rest of the family.
Of course, I was so young, I was more malleable.
I didn't really, you know, have strong feelings about it,

(12:08):
other than I remember when we all piled out.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Of the buick.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
My dad was fond fond of these big buicks. With
bench seats. So the entire eight of us squeezed into
this car, and so we'd all piled out of the
car and we ran into this house and we turned
on the water, and I remember it was very salty,
so because you know, the water table in Florida is

(12:34):
you get you dig down just a few feet and
you're going to hit water in Florida. So it was
very salty water to me. I do remember that vividly.
So it was a but you know, back then, we
were completely unmonitored, you know, from kids today, whose every
minute is watched, you know through you know, parenting kids

(12:59):
today is very very different from when I grew up.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, we had a freedom, didn't we.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
We did.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Once we got home from school, we were off the
leash exactly. I mean when we were always outside, you know,
you could you know, they literally had to drag using
kitchen to eat dinner, right, and I mean.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
So it was definitely a very different time. I mean,
you could go out in Halloween and go anywhere not
worry about getting poisoned or razor blades or any of
the crap that came on later on. As you know,
we I'm not sure we matured. I'm not sure we've
matured as a country, but or as a society, as

(13:46):
you know, but but it's certainly much more of a
challenge to raise children today.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
I'm curious about your relationship with your mom, because I
know your parents divorced and your father went a separate way,
But what was your relationship like with your mom? She
seems like she had arts and crafts in her bloodstream too.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Yeah, she did, certainly to a large respect, and she
also had a very green thumb, so I know, I
you know. And what's interesting about the family dynamics. The
three oldest children, both physically and emotionally, took after my
father's side of the family, which has more of a
Scottish imprint mixed with German, and the three youngest of

(14:31):
us took after my mother's side of the family, which
was almost solidly German and both in looks. So there's
like this division half and half where the three oldest
looked more like the dip like Dad, and the three
youngest looked more like mom. And so I would say,
because of that, you know, she did have you, She

(14:51):
did have a level of creativity that she passed on
to me, and certainly, you know, not only being a
nurse but also being a gifted scene stress as well,
and using her hands and so forth. And I can remember,
you know, memories of her trying to teach me to sew,
and of course.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
I didn't want to be there.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
I wanted to be outside right playing with kids. But
those early lessons from her came back to me very
strongly when I moved to Chattanooga here twelve and a
half years ago and got involved with book arts at
the Open Press, which is a group of us that
we make handmade books and usually art related themes, and

(15:36):
so the stitching learning like coptic binding and Japanese stab
stitch and the long stitch, and we call it the
pamphlet stitch, but in sewing circles you call it the
running stitch. I remember mom teaching me that, and then
how that just sort of morphed into my ability to

(15:56):
pick up on book arts, which then crossed pollinated into
my fine arts practice when I started doing wall hanging.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
So all of that stitching from my mom from those
early years, I remember that what was interesting about my
relationship with my mother young is that.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
She took off from work from nursing and did the
whole seamstress thing and the at home mom for the
first five years that I was alive. And then all
of a sudden, one day, and this is what parents
of that generation did. She dressed on a Monday morning.

(16:40):
She dressed me up and you know, sort of going
out somewhere clothes. She piled me into the car and
she took me to Hansel and Gretel preschool and she
dropped me off with strangers and basically said, this is
where you're going to be until you go to school.
And she drove off and left me with these And

(17:02):
so there was a you know, there was no preparation.
There was no discussion that, hey, you know you're going
to start preschool and let me tell you about it,
and this is what's going to happen.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
There was none of that in that generation of parenting.

Speaker 1 (17:17):
You just you know, they would lay down the law
by decree and you just got in line or you
got smacked, you know, because corporal punishment was another part
of growing up in that time. So until I entered
Catholic elementary school, you know, where the nuns would hit you,
your parents would hit you, your neighbor's parents would hit

(17:38):
you all of that. If you were misbehaving, you were smacked,
you know, so very different time. So when after she
dropped me off with these strange of course I hated it.
I didn't know these people and all these strange kids, right,
nobody from my neighborhood. So I felt abandoned really and uh,

(17:59):
you know, emotionally, and I started getting migrain.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Headaches because of it.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
So I had this trauma that morphed into migrain headaches,
and you know, they stuck with me all throughout my life.
They did lessen to a certain degree once I got older,
but I really didn't get rid of migraines totally until
I went through menopause, which I thought was interesting. But
so yeah, so that early psychic break with my mom

(18:27):
kind of really made me a much more quiet kid
and very became more internal, more introspective, didn't talk a
lot because it was you know, just that that weird event.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Now I will say that later on.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
You know, I got to know my mother after because
she went after she dropped me off at Hansel and Gretel,
she signed on for the three to eleven shift at
the hospital and went back into nursing because we needed
the money for the family. And so that meant when
we got home from school, she was gone to work
and by the time we were in bed. That's she would

(19:06):
come home after we were in bed. So only on
her days off did we really see our mother again.
And it also meant that my oldest sister, Karen, who
she's the oldest of the children, I'm the youngest, with
four boys in between us, she became our surrogant mom.
And when Karen got home from school, she had Mom

(19:27):
would leave her a list of stuff that she would
have to do, laundry, chores, getting dinner on the table
because Mom wasn't there. So not only I mean our
whole family dynamic changed when that happened. But I will
say later on in life, I did get to know

(19:48):
my mother a lot better and we became actually good
friends as adults.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
What did you take away mostly from that? At the
same time, what did it actually teach you in terms
of your you know, your your insecurity and the insecurity
you talked about becoming introspective. Now I'm wondering if you
felt that sense of abandonment, but it made you stronger. Ultimately,

(20:13):
I'm curious as to how that impacted and affected you
as a young adult.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Even Yeah, I would say it eventually made me stronger.
But of course dealing trying to deal with all those
types of emotions when you're five, you know, you know
in parents who didn't really talk to you about emotions
in that generation. Of course, today everybody talks about everything

(20:42):
very openly, but back then that didn't happen. So I
would say it made me a much more private individual
as an adult. And I can look back on that
event and say, yeah, that's why I don't broadcast, you know,
my personal life on social media. I only I stick

(21:02):
totally to my studio happenings. I do not post anything
about what's going on in my private life because you know,
and I can pretty much target back to that very event.
So and then I would say, once my parents divorced
when I was twelve. Now you have to understand my

(21:24):
mom was a devout Catholic and my father converted to
Catholicism to marry my mom. He was actually raised as
a Methodist, and so, but it was one of the
I think it was Vatican two, and it was a
particular encyclical by whatever Pope was at the time. I

(21:44):
can't remember who it was who made it. So you
you went through a separation process in the church for
a year and then if you if it was still
you went into counseling with the priest, your priest, and
then after a year, if it was still your reco
you know, you just couldn't get work things out with

(22:06):
your spouse. You could divorce without being excommunicated, but you
could not participate in any sacraments, So you could go
to church, but you couldn't receive communion.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
You couldn't you know, do.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
Any of those types of rituals that my mother grew
up with. So you know, she made a huge leap,
you know, for doing that. And I would say partly
of what happened to me earlier at five, plus the total.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
Fracturing of the family.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
When I was twelve, actually I went off into being
a juvenile delinquent.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
So I got very angry and I you know, skipped school. True,
we call it truancy.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I got into the drug scene in South Florida as
a teenager. Did all of that because just from all
the emotional anger that comes out of that, How.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Did that play out for you though? Did you have support.
Were you close to your siblings, where were you getting
support that you needed as a young adult.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
I would say I had one of my brothers who
is no longer with us, Greg He I was actually
born on his fifth birthday, so we shared the same
birthday five years apart in age, and he kind of
took it on himself to be sort of my protector

(23:31):
growing up. So it was it was kind of a
double edged sword. On the one hand, I could talk
to him like none of my other siblings at the time.
And on the other hand, and you know, I was skinny,
I was kind of a sickly kid.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
I was introverted.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
I was, you know, very quiet because of what happened,
you know, at five that that major abandonment issue, and
I had like, you know, bully me tattooed across my forehead, right,
So I was like the perfect kid for bullying.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Nobody came near me.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
And I didn't find out really put it together until
later on in life, having a conversation with Greg that
my brothers who preceded me through school, made it known
to everybody that if you mess with our little sister,
you mess with all of us.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
So everybody, everybody.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Would just completely They just kept completely leave me. When
I was never bullied, it was really interesting. But on
the other side, they ran off all my potential dates
as well. So even though I had this great resource
and support from them, never I didn't get any dates
until you really until I was like maybe seventeen or

(24:50):
eighteen when I started dating, and they were largely gone.
They had moved out and were gone out of my
life at that point.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
So how are relationships impacted with that?

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Oh? I would definitely say that it had a pretty
big along with other things that happen in my childhood
that I don't want to talk about, but I would
say it definitely affected how you know, levels of intimacy
that I could have with a potential partner obviously, And

(25:26):
as it stands today, I am single and I do
live alone and prefer it that way. So I'm a
dedicated bachelorette for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
This is a permanent decision, is it?

Speaker 3 (25:39):
It is?

Speaker 1 (25:40):
And it's you know, and I did give it the
old college try. I've had lots of boyfriends in my life.
I lived in sin four times, right, never married, I
never had children. That was also a conscious decision. I
knew I didn't want to have children. I wanted to
be very career or so I did make that choice.

(26:02):
And I come from a really huge Catholic family and
with millions of cousins out there in the world, so
there wasn't any familial pressure for me to pro create,
which was good. And all all of my sibling siblings,
say four of us had children out of six, so
put plenty of grandkids and all that stuff. So I

(26:25):
would say that in those relationships, the four major relationships
in my life just didn't work out. And I would
say a lot of that has to do from the
roots of my childhood.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
For sure.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Have you found your peace then with who you are,
your identity, the spiritual side of you, and and maybe
through religion. I'm wondering how much faces played a part
in that journey.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Well, you know, certainly not any sort of organized religion
is not in my life at all.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
I did as soon as.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
I was confirmed in the Catholic Church, I walked away
from it because it was just a structure that I
didn't as a feminist, I just didn't agree with that
structure at all. So it was a very conscious decision.
I've gone through every level of I was an atheist

(27:22):
for a long time, then I would consider myself agnostic.
Then I'm like, well, I'm more science related, and I'm like, well,
where I've landed in terms of I would say spirituality
or lack thereof is I agree wholeheartedly with bart Erman,
who happens to be a professor of religious studies at

(27:46):
the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and he's been
interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air, which is something
I've listened to most of my adult life. And what
he halls he started out as an evangelical Christian and
as he got into religious studies, he basically tossed most

(28:10):
of that up, his upbringing in religion out the window,
so to speak, and what he calls himself is he
is a practicing atheist and a hopeful agnostic. So I
really actually like that a lot, because quite frankly, I
really don't know. I don't know if there's a God.

(28:30):
Everyone could be right that there's a God, So I'm
not comfortable saying that. Absolutely definitely that there's no you know,
higher power of some kind. But the way that I
govern myself in my life is, you know, just being
connected to the earth spiritually and believing in Mother Earth

(28:53):
and Gaya and the cosmos, and if that is some
form of spiritual belief, so be it. So I don't
really know how to, you know, label myself. I don't
think there is a label for what I am or
what I've become spiritually. But I would also say, you know,
just becoming a very private person, you know, all of

(29:15):
that stems out of all of these experiences as well.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Are you very meditative or do you find that your
art helps you into that place in your heart and
soul where you're most comfortable and where you can turn
the rest of the world off.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yes, and I do find.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
My art practice to be very meditative, and I would
say it is my saving grace for sure, because I
did get a lot.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
You know, my father was a career alcoholic.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
On top of that generation that went through World War Two,
they didn't talk about PTSD.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
I mean back then they called it all shock.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
None of them got any form of counseling, so most
of that generation ended up in the bottom of a bottle. So,
you know, he was a career alcoholic all his life.
And I did get counseling when in my early thirties,
I did go see a counselor and went through ACA therapy,

(30:23):
which is adult children of alcoholics, and that therapy along
with starting a yoga practice, which I still do today,
in addition to being in the creative world as an artist,
all of that is what keeps me very healthy emotionally.

(30:44):
So I'm very very happy with where I've landed and
how my life is structured and where I'm at as
an individual.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
How does being an artist frame your perspective of the
world or is it the other way around.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
That's a really good question. It's almost circular. I would say,
I think it's a circular feeding of you know, the
art feeds my view of the world, and the view
of the world feeds my art, for sure.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
And I would say that, you know, even like you know, because.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
I started out as a graphic designer and illustrator that's
what my actual degree is in and I didn't get
into fine art until my early to mid thirties. So
it's right around the time when I started a yoga
practice and was going through therapy. I mean, it really
kind of changed my life. So I was originally in
a very high pressure industry with graphic design, industry print media,

(31:49):
meaning that well, I did a lot of logo and
corporate identity.

Speaker 3 (31:54):
Design, a lot of brossures.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Pocket folders, point of purchase, packaging design, all that kind
of stuff, and a lot of that has gone away.
I mean there's still corporate identities for companies, absolutely, but
it's all becoming a virtual presence. And I when our
industry went on the internet and went digital, I missed
working with my hands. So that's when I started taking

(32:20):
painting classes and got into the fine art aspect. And
so when I'm out in the world or when like
if I'm at a restaurant and i'm reading, I'm looking
at a menu, whether it's virtual or you know, a
physical menu they hand you, I'm looking at the design, going,
this is a terrible design. You can't read that type face,

(32:41):
you know, I mean, what is that letter form right there?

Speaker 3 (32:45):
I don't even know what this is, right, you know?
Or you know product design?

Speaker 1 (32:50):
You know, you get stuff, you buy stuff on Amazon,
or you buy art supplies, or you buy buy tools.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Or whatever you're doing, you make tools.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
I mean, the best tools I have in my studio
are the tools I've made myself. Because product design is
terrible you know, anything you purchase, there's always something very
wrong with it, you know, from an engineering point of view,
barely I'll.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
Get you buy in the task.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
So and then when I'm out visually, you know, in
the world, you know, I'm always looking at like, oh wow,
look at that sunset. You can never get that in paint.
You just can't paint that. It's just impossible, right, That
is so true. Yes, so I would definitely say my my.
And then also when I look at world politics too.

(33:40):
You know, the creative mind is a very elastic mind.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
You know, we have to be. We're trained to be.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
We're problem solvers, you know, on a daily basis when
we're in the studio there there's probably a million problems
that come up when you're working on a painting or
a collage or whatever. You're your given medium is as
an artist, and you're constantly having to solve problems throughout
your day. So, you know, when I look out at

(34:10):
the world of politics, you know, I'm like, you know,
I just don't even like to go there. It's like
I've pretty much and just kind of given up on
course United States politics at this point, but even global politics.
It's not just this country. You know, global politics has become.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
So unbelievably.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Just you know, full of strife and you know all
these you know, not that we haven't always had war
and strife as humans, but it seems to be particularly
vitriolic now, and it's to the point where I just
don't even want to go there, you know. So I
am sort of in a news blackout at this time,

(34:52):
certainly through the rest of this current administration, and I
just pick and choose my sources very very carefully, and
I only dip my toe into what's going on in
the world when I need to find out something very specific.
So actually, my studio, in my worldview, has become one

(35:15):
of sanctuary. So my studio is my sanctuary from the world,
and it is it's I peer out through at the
world through the lens of my studio, and so it's
become very much a part of uh, sort of sequestering myself,
sort of like nuns do, I guess in a way.

(35:37):
So it's just that, you know, my structure, rather than
being organized religion, is my spirituality of the studio.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
That's my lens.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Your art started early, but in different forms. I'm wondering, then,
when you decided, you know, way you were going to
go to school, that that was more for a functional
career rather than now it's an artistic and performative style
of art than what you did as a young adult
for a living. So I'm wondering at what point you

(36:14):
said to yourself, actually, I'm an artist. I'm a fine artist.
That's who I am.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, there is a point of departure from one career
to the next. So the timeline sort of went, you know,
very happily being a graphic designer and illustrator. From when
I graduated from the University of Florida in nineteen eighty six,
I went directly to Atlanta, Georgia, because I felt like

(36:43):
I needed a large city with lots of potential clients, right,
you know, for the graphic design industry, and so I
settled in there.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I was there for sixteen years, and I had a
great career.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
I started out working for other people for the first
three years just to kind of get get my chops,
you know, learn learn the industry, learn from people you
know and creative directors within these entities that could teach
me the nuts and bolts of the industry. And then
after three years, I went out on my own and

(37:17):
started developing relationships with my own clientele.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
So that went on.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Of course, when the graphic design industry went online and
the Internet happened, I was starting to really feel, you know,
this isn't really where I want to go. So I
actually started spending more time on illustration and less on
graphic design. And I was in between client meetings in

(37:46):
Atlanta over off a houl Mill Road in this sort
of light industrial area, and I happened upon a place
called the Artist Attlier, and it was founded and operated
by I really was a co op, but the founder
of it we to Canaday, and this OUI da Canaday,

(38:07):
we to Canada. She was probably one of the premier
portrait artists in Atlanta and somewhat of a matriarch of
the art scene, and she, along with Joe Perrin, who
was the dean of the Fine Arts College of Georgia
State Downtown, the two of them started the Piedmont Arts Festival.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
So I walked into this.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Storefront and it turns out that it was a gallery
in front, classrooms in the back, and then artist studios
off to one side. And we'd happened to be there
manning the front desk that day. She was in her
early seventies when I met her, and she was in
remission from leukemia, so we only had her for another
two and a half years after that. But I struck

(38:56):
up a conversation with her, and her first name was Anna,
but she went by her middle name of Weeda, but
we struck. We just really clicked as we started talking,
and she took me around this co op and explained
what they were doing, and I was like, wow, this
is great, and she handed me a brochure about it.

(39:17):
And this was nineteen ninety two, I believe, maybe closing
in on ninety three. And then I went away and
went to my meeting with my clients, and I thought
about it, and two weeks later I signed up for
a Monday night painting class with her, and that's what
opened the door into the fine art world. So it

(39:39):
started off being a hobby and it continued in that
realm as really more like art therapy for myself. I
did end up getting a studio with them at the
artists Atier briefly, and then went with another artist who
she had space in her studio, just the two of

(40:00):
us off site from that, and I was with her
for about a year, and then I started setting up
a painting studio in my home alongside of my graphic
design studio. And then eventually, by nineteen ninety nine, I
started eliminating the graphic design and actually went to a photographer.

(40:24):
And back then, you took slides of your work as
an artist, and you went around to galleries and you
physically dropped off slides of your work along with your resume.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
And if you wanted to get in a gallery, and
so I did.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
That in nineteen ninety six, started, you know, just kind
of going around to the galleries in Atlanta, and I
got in one and this was Bill and Brenda Bender,
who was a Bender Fine art there.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
That gallery is no longer there.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
And Bill called me up one day about four months
later and said, we love your work and I'd like
to schedule a studio visit. And he came to my
studio and he looked at my work. I had about
twenty five pieces that I had done in between client
work as a designer and illustrator, and he said, I
want to take all this work, twenty five pieces, and

(41:20):
I said, okay. So I had to rent a truck
to move them because a couple of them were five
feet square, so it wouldn't fit in my Toyota hatchback
and delivered them to the gallery and we set up
a contract and he helped me price everything because he

(41:41):
knew I was brand new to it, so I didn't
even know how to price my work, and he said, well,
I think I can. What he asked me was how
much do you need to make off of this work?
And so I kind of just thought about it for
about a couple of minutes, and I said, okay, So

(42:02):
I'm imagining that the larger work is it's longer, it
takes more time to work on larger work than it
does on smaller work. And of course at the time
I didn't know how wrong that was going to be later.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
On, but at the time it was.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
And so I came up with a figure of what
I needed to make out of the work.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
And what he did is he went he doubled it.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
And made it retail and then they would take their
fifty percent. So he actually coached me through the process
of how to, you know, start making a living as
a fine artist, and what he needed from me to
do an artist statement, you know, let's redo your resume,
let's come up with this artist statement. You need to

(42:45):
think about what you want to say about your work
and all of that. He coached me, and that was
such a wonderful relationship. I really missed working with them
when they closed the gallery in two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
So.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
You know, I was off and rolling.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
And then he called me about a month later, you said, an,
I've sold all your work. I was like, I was stunned,
quite frankly, twenty five pieces in a month.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Yeah, So it was like, okay.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
So that at that point, that's when I really had
to start thinking about how important is graphic design to me,
how important is painting to me now? And what do
I need to do to just make the switch. So
I started. I was actually it was at a point

(43:44):
where it was coming up on renewal of contracts with
some of my clients, and that's when I made that
big leap to not renew those contracts and start painting.
I kept one client until nineteen ninety nine, and that
was the Schweps Mixer people, where I still did illustration

(44:07):
work for them, but by nineteen ninety nine I totally
dove into fine art.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Clearly these people were pivotal in your life, in your career,
and I'm just wondering who else had the most profound
impact professionally and even personally too well.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
I guess we'd have to actually go back in time
a little bit, because once I I, you know, I'm
being a juvenile delinquent in the true sense of the word.
I dropped out of high school before I graduated, and
ran away from home and went to Miami and did
all this stuff that you know, I just don't want

(44:49):
to get into. Called my mom up about six months later,
tucked my with my tail tucked in a phone booth
on the corner because there were no smartphones or cell
phones back then, and said, Mom.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
Can I come home? I'm ready to come home? And
she said yes.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
So I went back home, and you know, and she
sat me down the next day and said, Okay, you're
a high school dropout.

Speaker 3 (45:19):
What are you going to do? So I would say probably.
You know, my mother had a very.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
Profound effect because she took me back in she said, okay,
this is what. By this time, she was no longer
doing nursing at Sarasota Memorial Hospital, where she was head
operating room nurse for like twenty years she was teaching
at Sarasota County Vocational Technical Center. We called it VOTECH

(45:46):
back then, and she was teaching anatomy and physiology in
the nursing department there, and so she was plugged into
the pipeline of VOTECH and she said, they have a
great you need to get your your general equivalency diploma.
So and they ran a program there for that, and
she helped me study for that, and then I took

(46:09):
the test for it and I got my diploma through
this GED. And then she sat me down again, she said, well,
what are you going to do?

Speaker 2 (46:16):
And how old were you at that time?

Speaker 3 (46:19):
So by then I was.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Eighteen ish, okay, And so interestingly, when my age group
would have graduated from high school, I just did it
in a very different way. So I was still the
same age when I got my GED. As my contemporaries,
so she said, you got to do something, you know,

(46:49):
what are your interests in it? I didn't have a clue,
to be honest, because other than the requisite art classes
you had in public education growing up. They took me
out of Catholic elementary school and then I was thrown
into Sarahsota Junior High and Senior High, which was you know,
state run school, and they had art programs back then

(47:12):
in that time, and other than the requisite you know,
a couple of courses you took throughout public school, I
didn't really have any art training. So she said, well,
you know, they do a sort of aptitude test at Votech.
Why don't you sign up for that and it'll tell

(47:33):
you what your interests are.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
So we did that.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
So she signed me up for that, and the two
things that were like, you know, science and math were
very much at the bottom of that structure. And the
two things that really I had an aptitude for and
had an interest.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
In was art and literature. And I was like, who knew?

Speaker 1 (47:54):
I mean, who knew that that's what was going to
be my interest through this this aptitude test. So they
actually offered a commercial art program at Votech and this
is basically what we call trade school, where you went
Monday through Friday nine to five and you did it

(48:14):
for a year and that was your training. So I
signed up for the commercial art and my instructor there
was Harold Kannar, and I loved that man. He was
such a good teacher. And I did end up being
his star pupil, which was great, and I really took
to commercial art and graphic design, and he he would

(48:36):
I would say, between my mother and Harold Kannar, my
mother helped me save my life, and Harold Kannar helped
me on my journey towards into into the creative fields.
And so those two are major heroes in my life.
To really, I'm my own hero in that I recognized

(48:58):
that the path that I was on on of being
a juvenile delinquent was a dead end street and I
was going to end up dead if I just didn't
change my life. So I would say myself, my mother,
and Harold Kannar, the three of us got me on
the right path and got me actually, you know, really,

(49:21):
you know, doing something very positive with my life and
gave me a career. And then of course the fourth
person would be we to Canaday in teaching me how
to push pain around and get me started into the
fine art world.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
So those bumps in the road then they smoothed out.
And if you might look back now and say, well,
they were the failures of my life, but they set
you up for success later.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
You know, I don't look at them as failures.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
I look at them as life lessons because you know,
and I think that's so much healthier.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
And this.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Perspective came about through going through therapy in my early thirties.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Is you don't look at that as a failure.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
You look at it as a time in which you're
seeking something, you don't know what you need, You're angry,
you're going through all these emotions from a disintegrated family,
a time in which corporal punishment was pretty healthy in
the community, a time where you know, things were so

(50:26):
very different from how they are today, and.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
Of course, being off.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
The leash as we were in our generation as kids,
you had to use your imagination more than what they
do today. So I actually look back on that too
and say, you know, all of that has fed into
the psyche of who I am as an artist. And
you know, if I was born now, of course I

(50:54):
wouldn't be who I am.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
So you know, I.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Don't see them as mistakes or failures. I see them
as life lessons. And quite frankly, it set me up
to have a very strong will because I've been to
the bottom of the barrel.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
I know what it's like to claw your.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Way back out and it's given me an iron core
to my being. So it's made me very very strong
going through what I went through.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
So what would you say were the best decisions that
you made that got you onto this pathway to where
you are today as a very established artist.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Well, again, you know, recognizing that the path I was
on back then was a dead end street.

Speaker 3 (51:39):
I did experience.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
There was quite a few people during my teenage years
that committed suicide.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
So I was touched by suicides very early in life.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
And I did attempt at once myself and was really
glad that my mom found me and had my stomach
pumped at the hospital hospital, and you know, she saved
my life literally that time. So it was a time
in which when and I'm not quite sure if it
was me flirting with death, I wouldn't say I'm going

(52:14):
to take this handful of pills and kill myself. It
was more like, I'm going to take all these pills
and I don't care what happens, that kind of thing.
So I would say, you know, just going through all
of that and basically seeing that this this is just

(52:35):
you know, I've got to change something. I've got to
change this, recognizing in myself that I had this propensity
for walking on that razor's edge between what a lot
of people would call the razor edge between good and evil.
Not that I was ever evil, but I was certainly
a bad girl. But just just looking at that and

(52:58):
seeing through through these experiences of other people I knew
at the time who succeeded in committing suicide and what
it did to the people that you know, they left behind,
really formed me my belief today of you know, just
just and I would say also the peasant farmer roots

(53:22):
in my DNA from my peasant German farmer ancestry, having
that core of pragmatism, you know, being a very pragmatic person. Okay,
I'm this is what not working. I've got to change
my life. Ask your mom, seek help. You know she's
there for you. She can be there for you. Reach

(53:45):
out and grab the helping hand, because when you're in
a situation like that, you know, if people do offer
you a helping hand, quit slapping that hand away and
grab a hold of it, because you know, in this
life none of us can do this alone.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
None of us can do it alone.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
And that came out of the year of therapy that
I went through that it is definitely we're better operating
as a village rather than the loaner.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
How do you think now your family and your friends
would describe you, because you seem to be very rounded,
well rounded person, very stable as you say, at your core,
and yet the extravert in you as the artist as well,
which comes from a very central place in you. So
I'm wondering how that comes across in your personality and

(54:44):
what those closest to you would say about you now.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
I would think that they would say that I'm just again,
just someone who gets the job done. You know, I
get offers from for collaboration projects. I've asked other artists
to collaborate with me on public art projects here in Chattanooga,
so people know that they can rely on me as

(55:11):
a team member. Certainly in the creative field, a lot
of artists come to me for advice. And I'm also
very active in an organization here called AVA, which is
the Association for Visual Arts, and we have a twice

(55:32):
monthly critique group where we get together at the AVA
offices up on the North Shore here in Chattanooga. And
you know, and I'm very active in that. I do
only make it usually to one meeting a month. I
can't do both, but I'm there to help mostly. I
rarely bring my own work in, but I'm there to

(55:55):
be there to respond to other artists.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
And I do.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
Teach workshops through various entities, one here locally as well
as other entities in other parts of the country. And
so I see it as you know, vital that I
pass the knowledge and the experience I have gained through

(56:22):
my mentors throughout my life and pass that pay it forward.
Since I don't have children of my own, other than
the fact that every time I create a painting, I'm
actually sort of birthing it. So I feel really feel
like I need to pass on my experiences, my abilities

(56:42):
and pay it forward to the future. And I have
actually been known to mentor one to one to artists
as well, so I would see that the community knows
I can be counted on for you know, mentorship, for questions.
I have a pretty wide circle of friends here, very

(57:02):
several circles that overlap. A group called the South Side
Table that we get together once a month to we
have dinner parties and it's a pot luck thing and
we all get together and catch up with each other.
Then I have the AVA group, I have my book
arts group, and just a general circle of artist friends
that I go around to their studios when we have

(57:25):
open studio nights here and they know they can rely
on me for an honest opinion, to collaborate with, to
ask advice on. And so, you know, in a way
I've become And I didn't even really say one day
I'm going to start doing this. It just sort of

(57:45):
gradually built to where I'm actually really good at teaching.
I'm good at mentorship, I'm good at collaboration because I
know how to leave my ego at the door and
work with another artist, you know, And I'm just it
just sort of collectively happened. I guess through all of

(58:07):
these experiences in these groups of people, you know, friends
and colleagues that I work with.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Do you have any habits that would ground you as
you transition into the studio.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Since I live in my studio the house that I
purchase when I move here, I purchased it because the
living room, dining room space combined it's like one big
big room was perfect for my studio. So it's a
thousand square foot bungalow where the biggest space is my
studio space. So that kind of gives you an idea

(58:43):
of how important that is in my life. When you
walk in my front door, you're in my studio. It's
front and center.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
And so you know, I.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Very much set up my life to where I commute
from my master bedroom, which also has how is my
computer studio. I commute from that to the kitchen for breakfast,
and I commute from the kitchen into the living room
dining room, where I just when I walk through that door,

(59:14):
it's I just pick up where I left off, you know,
it's it's and I know that when you know I
do have a sitting room. The second bedroom in this
bungalow I set up as a sitting room, but it
also does house storage for paintings as well. I mean,
I really I live in my studio, but I do
go in there and read for quiet time. So I

(59:36):
would say when I walk in the studio from one
room to the next, it's it's almost like if you
think of it as a virtual reality. When I walk
through that door, I'm there. So it's just okay, go
over to my work table, start working on you know,

(59:57):
just pick up where I left off.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
I I believe that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Like there's a pretty famous artist, Chuck Close, which most
people have heard of. I know, was he went through
he was sort of denounced through the Me Too movement,
but he still has been you know, was a major
artist here in the United States.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
And he has a.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Great quote that I use that inspiration is for amateurs.
The rest of us just show up and get to work.
And that's exactly what I believe. You just walk into
your studio and you get to work. So I don't
need to meditate, I don't need to look at what's
going on so much as just walk up and start

(01:00:41):
working on it, and I just pick up where I
left off, and you know, and then I would say
at the end of my work day, and I have
pretty standard hours in terms of I usually get up
around five am.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
I'm an early riser, and I'm in the studio. I
like to.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Have a slow tea and breakfast time, and I ease
myself into the day. I go in, I answer any
kind of correspondence through email or anything I need to address,
spend spend about an hour doing that, and then I
walk into the studio and I'm there at eight and
I work till four four thirty and then when I

(01:01:22):
usually stop work, I immediately start doing yoga. Get just
walk right into my yoga practice, which I do in
my studio. I just roll out my mat and I
start doing yoga stretches and that kind of works out
all the kinks of the day.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
And so from I'm not sure that I would.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
I don't really sit there and breathe a lot and
do meditation through yoga, but just the process of going
through yoga and being mindful of my breast, the inhale
and the exhale of the various yoga that I go through.
And you know, the mantra that I learned through the
Pierce Program in Atlanta, which is where I learned how

(01:02:09):
to do yoga through them, Margaret Martin Pierce and Martin
is no longer with so I'm not even sure if
the Pierce Program still exists in Atlanta.

Speaker 3 (01:02:20):
But you know, just being very mindful of.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
You inhale love and you exhale compassion. That was sort
of the mantra that you know you went through with
the Pierce Program. You inhale love and you exhale compassion,
so that you're what you're inhaling and exhaling is the

(01:02:46):
part of the global community. You just you only want
the love and you want to exhale compassion for your fellow.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Human and that that, to me is beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
So that sort of breath pattern and being mindful of
it is sort of just my So doing the work
in the studio is meditative because I just dive into
it as soon as I walk in. I'm there one
hundred percent, and then ending my day with yoga and
you know, before I prepare a meal for the evening.

(01:03:21):
It's it's just it's a beautiful cycle, daily cycle for me.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
I'm wondering since you live alone, and if you have
someone that you show your work to when it's first finished,
before it goes public, and which together with that is
the most important aspect of your art. Is it the
actual creating the process or when it becomes validated in

(01:03:50):
front of the public.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Yeah, that's that's the biggie, isn't it for all artists?

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
So do you have enough personal validation for your own
work before you throw it out there? I would say
that I do again, for whatever reasons in my personal
and emotional makeup. That's you know, the path that I've

(01:04:19):
gone and where I'm at today. I really do believe
in my own abilities to create really good compositions, and
in fact, I'm sort of known for really really good
composition work. And part of it, I think stems from
the fact that I'm dyslexic, which is basically cross motor

(01:04:42):
dysfunction in the brain. I'm left eye dominant and I'm
right handed, which causes vision issues in the brain where
there's a disconnect from one side of the brain to
the other. And in fact, my optometrist was I was

(01:05:02):
twelve years old, he was one that diagnosed it. So
dyslexia shouldn't be seen as a mental illness. It's a
cross motor dysfunction in the brain where visually, if I'm
typing on a computer or writing by hand, I transpose
letters and numbers and so I have to really pay attention.

Speaker 3 (01:05:23):
But it's only with output.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
When I input, I can read just fine, but I
could never speed read. I am a careful reader, and
occasionally my brain will replace a word in a sentence
that is very similar to the sentence in print or
the word in print, and it will completely change the
meaning of the sentence. So occasionally I'll be reading and

(01:05:47):
I'll just go that made no sense whatsoever, and I'll
have to go back and reread a sentence. And that's
another thing that dyslexia does. But it's not a mental illness.
It's a cross motor dysfunction in the brain. But the
weird thing about this is that the brain, the human body,

(01:06:08):
is such an amazing machine. And I learned that through
my mother being a nurse and then also taking two
semesters of anatomy and physiology in college as a science credit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Is that when you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Develop a disability, the rest of your body tries to
compensate for it. So, for instance, people who go blind
in their lifetime, their sense of smell, taste, touch, and
their hearing gets better, gets more acute. So it's the
body trying to make up for this new disability for

(01:06:48):
that and I think what happens with those of us
who have forms of dyslexia is you develop a spatial
and proportional acuity better than the average person. So I
can look at an object, and I can look at
a doorway and I can immediately tell you whether it's
going to fit through that doorway.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
It's just an automatic thing for me.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
And I think because of that is why I'm able
to do such good proportional aspects in my work and
come up with consistently really good compositions.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Is because of that, So.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
You know, all of that's part of the makeup of
who I am as an artist. So being confident in
those skills and of course being sixty five years old,
I mean I've been around the block and I've survived
the creative arts for you know, going on forty years,
so in one form or another.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
So yeah, I think part of it is age.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
You know, you're confident in your skills.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
And you've learned and what you bring to it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
So yeah, I've definitely have that level of confidence in
my own work before I put it out to the public.
But do I tag friends of mine to look at
stuff before I post it on Instagram?

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Very rarely.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Only occasionally will I direct message one of my friends
through Instagram and say, hey, what do you think of this?

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
You know? Or can you come over for a studio visit.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
I'm wondering, though, given the success you've had and obviously
now you're in a very good place with your art,
what a year looks like to you? How's twenty twenty
five been to you? What's left for you this year.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
That's good, good question.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
So the end of last year brought a couple a
series of events that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Really shaped what this year did.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
So one of my galleries is in Charleston, South Carolina,
has kind of become my primary gallery at this time.
Tagan Fine Art and the founder of the gallery, Karen Hagen.
She sold the gallery to Wendy Carlin, who moved to
Charleston from the Northeast, and she brought to it an

(01:09:22):
extensive knowledge of she's been a curator, she's worked in museums,
she's got just a incredibly got a really impressive resume
coming into but she'd never owned a gallery before, so
she wanted to do that and she has transformed that gallery.

(01:09:42):
You know, Karen got it started, and Wendy has transformed
that gallery into a really solid entity. And one of
a couple of things that she's been testing the waters
on is to get you know, a select few of
her artists up on the Arts Seat platform, which is
the high end fine art platform.

Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
And she also took several of.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Us to Red Dot Miami, which is Miami Art Week,
part of the Basil or Basil if you pronounce it
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
I'm Art Basil Miami.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
So my work started getting got seen in Miami at
the end of last year because that happens at the
beginning of December Basil Art Week, and that combined with
the extensive public art Chattanooga projects I've worked on in

(01:10:39):
collaboration that I've done in the dedication I've had two
the arts in Chattanooga into the community here because I
just love living here in Chattanooga and I really wanted
to invest myself in public art projects. I have that
history now with the city, and these events have led

(01:11:01):
to a greater exposure of my work to the point
where I received an email from Nandany Mecrandy, who is
the chief curator of the Hunter Museum of American Art,
last fall, and she wanted to come for a studio visit,
and so I was like great. And I just happened

(01:11:22):
to be working on my solo show for Hagen Fine Art,
which coincided with Miami Art Week, and so I had
a lot of work in the studio that was both
in process.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
And done, and Nandany came.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
To my studio and stayed over an hour and asked
tons of questions to copious notes. She left, and then
she was very careful not to express personal opinions, but
as they should when they're you know.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
Doing scouting work like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
And then I didn't hear from her until November, so
I kind of forgot about it because I was really
busy getting ready for this solo show with Hagen. And
then in November I got the formal invitation to participate
in the Hunter Invitational five, which is.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Where they like they go over they do.

Speaker 1 (01:12:21):
Like virtual studio visits and physical studio visits of over
fifty artists in the region and they call it down
to eight or night artists and then they invite you
to do a group show at the Hunter Museum. So
this will be my first group show in a museum,
and I'm just so thrilled and honored and humbled that

(01:12:43):
I made the cut to be in this show with
some incredible artists throughout the region and that has dominated
the landscape of this year.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
Well, we'll put links in the show notes that people
can jump on your website and find out more about
these shows that you have the rest of the year
and coming into twenty twenty six as well. Anna, So
thank you very much for sharing that with us. And
we're going to jump over to YouTube now and extend
our conversation a little bit more. I have some other
things I'd like to chat to you about there, but

(01:13:17):
for here for the podcast, Anna, thank you so much
for taking time to do this and allowing us to
get to know you a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
It's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:13:27):
And don't forget to slide down the show notes, where
you'll find a link to Anna's social media and her website.
You'll also find a link to our social media. You
can reach us here via email of course, at the
Art Podcast at gmail dot com. That's Art with two a's.
We always love to hear from you. If you have
any questions or suggestions for guests, do drop us a line.

(01:13:49):
And if you have a minute when you're on your
podcast app either at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, do leave
us a rating and review, because that helps others to
find the show amongst the thous of podcasts out there.
My thanks again to my guests this week, Anakarl, and
to you as always for listening. We really appreciate your support.
I'll be back in two weeks time, when my guests

(01:14:11):
will be the American Director and cinematographer Ellen curras So,
I do hope you'll join me then

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