Shows
Artists Telling StoriesMeryl Truett’s Story of ExcavationsMeryl Truett is a curator, gallerist, teacher, consultant, and artist. She earned an MFA from Savannah College of Art and Design. After years in the United States, where she taught and produced works such as Vernacular Highway and a photography book, Thump Queen and other Southern Anomalies, she moved to the magical pueblo of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Meryl continues to exhibit—in the US, Europe, and now Mexico. Her current work mixes photography with other media in order to excavate her past. She speaks of such excavations in this episode of Artists Telling Stories....2024-07-1036 min
Artists Telling StoriesJosephine Sacabo Tells a Story of Her Journey Toward Transcendence and ConnectionJosephine Sacabo’s art seeks transcendence and connection. She eschews any chasing after artistic fashion in favor of diving into what she loves. In this way she connects with those who view her work. The many layers of her work evoke layers of being, some disturbing, yes, but ultimately transcending such disturbance to “come full circle” with compassion and beauty.Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter the...2024-05-2137 min
Artists Telling StoriesArtists Telling Stories Extended TrailerIn this extended trailer, please join Austin Tichenor, Aline Smithson, Joe Harjo, Vincent Valdez, Jay Tolson, Alicia Olatuja, and Jim Lavilla-Havelin in discovering the importance of stories, the language of our humanity, and the transformative power of art. Artists Telling Stories Podcasts draw out human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of our shared humanity, bringing all of us closer together.Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of t...2024-01-0305 min
Artists Telling StoriesPoet and Activist, Words and Names, Marks and Meaning: Jim Lavilla-HavelinJim Lavilla-Havelin has written six collections of poetry, with several more in the works. His work has been anthologized widely, and he has been nominated for Poet Laureate of Texas, where he has lived for the last few decades. This episode of Studio Aesculapius is different. Jim reads three poems and has a wide-ranging discussion with co-host, Eddie Dupuy: about the poems, about poetry, about art and activism, about language and knowing and finding patterns, about the human desire to make marks and the attempt to make meaning.Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories o...2023-05-2655 min
Artists Telling StoriesJoe Harjo and Native Visibility: Not Monolithic, but Extraordinarily DiverseJoe Harjo says he didn’t have “access to seeing ‘artist as profession,’” while he was growing up in Oklahoma as a member of the Muscogee (Creek) nation. When he told a guidance counselor in high school that he wanted to teach, the counselor rebuffed him. When he said he wanted to be an artist, he got a similar response. Now he’s both artist and teacher, and his work tries to counter misrepresentations of Native peoples in popular culture. After a particularly difficult year of isolation, an injured knee, the resurgence of racial strife, and Covid, Harjo discov...2023-04-0837 min
Artists Telling StoriesAline Smithson and Finding a Visual Voice: Something Universal, Something HealingAline Smithson was always drawing as a child growing up in Los Angeles. After a stint as a large format painter, Smithson went to New York for 10 years, working in fashion. She returned to LA, took a class in photography and realized she “could use the camera to make art.” She had found her “visual voice,” and now, as a teacher for more than 20 years, savors the moments she sees that voice arise in her students. Smithson is one of the most recognized names in photography, not only because of her work developing LENSCRATCH, an online resource for and...2023-04-0442 min
Artists Telling StoriesThe Displaced and Disappeared: Adriana Corral and “Between Spaces”Adriana Corral credits both sides of her family for her interest in art. Her father's side had several physicians who invited her to see their work of healing and who gave her a strong sense of the body. On her mother's side were an aunt and uncle who opened to her ideas of social justice. Like her place between her father’s and mother’s families, Corral sees between spaces as “where vital content exists.” She invites those who view her installations to do so “bodily.” Looking up, looking down, being aware of where they are in space. The s...2023-03-3045 min
Artists Telling StoriesHard Won Pilgrimages: Paul Elie discusses Literature, Bach’s Music, and his Journey as a CatholicPaul Elie (from the Berkley Center at Georgetown University) talks about his two books, The Life You Save May be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (2003) and Reinventing Bach (2012), especially the “hard won” pilgrimages of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy. Elie goes on to speak of his own pilgrimage in and around the Catholic Church, his struggle to remain within its story while writing about some “awful things”—such as the sexual abuse crisis. He speaks of Bach’s unique place as religious artist and, finally, of his work on the American Pilgrimage Project, where h...2023-03-0946 min
Artists Telling StoriesFake News and Truth, Faith and Irony: Jay Tolson Discusses the Big Questions of our CultureJay Tolson says, following T.S. Eliot, that "in my beginning is my end." And what an end, one that has led him to see art's power to connect us to one another through a shared reality.He began as an undergraduate studying cultural and intellectual history and after a long career in journalism at US News and World Report, the Wilson Quarterly, and Radio Free Europe, he was asked by the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture to serve as editor of The Hedgehog Review. Although he has returned...2022-05-2750 min
Artists Telling StoriesShakespeare and the Arts during the time of Plague and War with Austin TichenorAustin Tichenor loves his work, and it certainly comes through when you speak to him. He's funny, "I've always loved telling stories...and I have an irreverent sense of humor." He also lives in dread of taking himself too seriously. The arts tend to foster that, but he avoids it like the plague.He says he's forever grateful to his father for telling that he would "hate law school" and that he shouldn't go. So he went into theatre, acting, and writing instead. He's been with the Reduced Shakespeare Company for 30 years. When asked "Why...2022-05-2752 min