After taking a week away, Process Over Product returns with a conversation about the importance of seeing art in person.
Artists Trevor Wade Thomas and Kelsey Kopp reflect on recent visits to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Pissarro exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, discussing what happens when work is encountered directly rather than through reproduction. From there, the conversation expands to the role of galleries and why artists benefit from regularly experiencing work in physical space.
They explore the relationship between gallery, artist, and audience, and how these environments shape understanding, context, and dialogue around the work. Rather than treating museums and galleries as distant or formal spaces, this episode considers them essential places for artists to study, orient themselves, and remain connected to a larger cultural conversation.
Kelsey Kopp is a landscape painter whose work is rooted in observation, repetition, and sustained engagement with place. Her practice emphasizes process as a way of understanding time, light, and perception rather than arriving at a fixed image.
Find Kelsey on instagram @kelsey_kopp_art
Trevor Wade Thomas is a painter and educator working primarily from observation. His practice centers on drawing, material process, and the relationship between labor, memory, and making. He is the founder of Oil and Earth Studio YouTube Channel, where he explores craft, teaching, and long-form artistic inquiry.
You can find Trevor online at www.trevorwadethomas.com , on YouTube at www.youtube.com/oilandearthstudio , or on Instagram @twtfineart
