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The Conversation Art Podcast

A podcast that goes behind the scenes and between the lines of the contemporary art worlds, through conversations with artists, dealers, curators, and collectors--based in Los Angeles, but reaching nationally and internationally.
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Now displaying: 2017
Dec 29, 2017

Los Angeles-based sound artist-artist-musician Chris Kallmyer talks about:

Living in the El Sereno neighborhood of Los Angeles, where he and his wife just bought a house, with the objective of becoming neighborhood citizens rather than investors; how and why an artist like Chris is able to buy a house (a partner with a more stable job situation than an artist helps), and why they chose El Sereno; the freedom of being alternately a sound artist, a musician or an artist, depending on the context; the importance of hierarchy in his collaborative projects, because ultimately there needs to be a final-decision-maker in order for everyone to feel safe; his musical performances, including Paradise Choir at SF MoMA, and a cheese-tasting with musical accompaniment; some of the reactions to his experimental music/performance work, which he describes as abstract but also often involves the public; how he’s gotten his pieces performed in venues such as SF MoMA and LACMA relatively early in his career; and his side gigs to supplement his limited paid sound art gigs, including video editing for friends and playing guitar for a local touring chamber orchestra.

Dec 16, 2017

Brooklyn-based artist, activist, comedian and advertising creative director Jeff Greenspan talks about:

The contradictions between his artmaking and his day job in advertising, and how he rationalizes biting the hand that feeds, among other seeming hypocrisies, including whether he’s using himself to promote the issues, or the issues to promote himself; his social/activist projects, including “hipster traps,” “Tourist Lanes,”  “The World’s Most Exclusive Website” and “The Statue Experiment,” and how calling himself an artist is still relatively new for him; how to make a YouTube video that gets 1,000,000 views; his and frequent collaborator Andrew Tider’s epic Edward Snowden sculpture project, in which they commissioned and then placed a large bust of Snowden in a Brooklyn public park, and the rollercoaster life it took on —it was a project that cost them thousands of dollars each and ran the risk of arrest and potential harm to those who were assisting in the rogue installation; and the nuanced realities of working in advertising and particularly branding, and his and Tider’s recent project pitched to Virgin Atlantic airlines.

Dec 2, 2017

Legendary East Village gallerist Gracie Mansion talks about the various turning points in her life and career, including:  Her early days in the East Village (9th St. between 1st & Ave. A), when she had an apartment to live, and another for her studio, for about $200 total; the genesis of her first gallery, which she started out of the bathroom of that apartment, and managed to stir up a whirlwind of visitors and press; one of her day jobs, at a SoHo gallery, where her boss had her run a ‘museum’ of art by prostitutes; the changing landscape of the downtown NYC gallery world, as she moved her spaces through the East Village, later to SoHo, and then much later to Chelsea; how she learned how to price artworks from legendary dealer Leo Castelli; what it’s like to negotiate with gallery backers, and how that worked out for her; and how and why she changed her name to Gracie Mansion (the name of the New York City Mayor’s residence).

Nov 18, 2017

Brooklyn and Berlin-based artist Nina Katchadourian talks about:

Her Boerum Hill, Brooklyn neighborhood, which though uber-gentrified is adjacent to an area that is far less so, and includes significant gunshot events; moving her studio from the basement of her house to a dedicated studio space which she and her co-tenants are owners/occupiers of, and what it’s like being a shared owner of the building; her now-second home of Berlin, where she and her husband lived over the summer and will live for a longer stint this winter into spring—what it’s like living there as an American and the various benefits of cross-cultural habitation and relocation; the sense of American-ness which has become heightened with her time in Berlin, and the sense of subjectivity that she in turn is educating her N.Y.U. students about, so they have a sense of how their own backgrounds inform their artistic consumption; her early project ‘Wanted,’ an ad for a tiny fictional apartment which was placed in the Village Voice and received over 100 answering messages, which became part of the installation; and her series ‘Animal Cross Dressing,’ in which she used pet snakes and pet rats; her On Hold Music Dance Party, a series of ongoing performance/parties; and, as a frequent flyer, coming to terms with her carbon footprint.

Nov 4, 2017

Co-owners Sara Maria Salamone and Tyler Lafreniere of MRS. Gallery in Queens, New York, talk about:

The origin behind MRS.’s concise and memorable name; what it’s been like running their gallery in the relatively off-the-beaten-path neighborhood of Maspeth,Queens, and how they get consistent traffic despite their location; their rising success at the start of their 2nd season with Genesis Belanger’s show; their slower-paced five shows per season schedule, which is both more manageable and potentially a model that other galleries are considering using as well; sales, and all the things that go into maintaining and growing them as a small, young gallery; why Sara loves art fairs (and Tyler enjoys them as well) and how important they are at this stage for the gallery’s business, since despite being in NYC, their Maspeth location limits turnout, which they make up for at the fairs (they’re doing NADA Miami this Dec.); the importance of social media, specifically Instagram, for their acquiring new collectors, several of whom are buying works virtually, unseen in person; and Sara’s level of connectivity (as the gallery “mama bear”), and to what extent she feels it’s healthy vs. necessary.

Oct 21, 2017

Brooklyn-based artist Ellen Harvey talks about:

Her long tenure in the western part of Williamsburg, her experience of the slow but steady gentrification, and how she’s become permanently attached to her live/work loft through the Loft Law, which allows her affordable rent indefinitely; her British roots, which account for the fact that she “can’t pronounce her ‘R’s,” and the accent that has stayed with her even though she moved to Wisconsin at 14, and the pros and cons of having  a British accent in the U.S.; her start in public art doing micro murals (5”x7” paintings over graffiti in Highbridge Park), eventually evolving into larger and larger public projects, including her mural ‘Atlantis,’ a 1000 sq. foot mirrored glass piece slated for the Miami Beach Convention Center, the venue of Miami Basel; Ellen’s highly unusual prior career field as a Wall St. lawyer; and how her parents, despite her tremendous success, still wouldn’t mind if she returned to her law career.

Oct 7, 2017

Marin County-based photographer David Maisel talks about:

Moving out to Marin County from New York in the early ‘90s, where he and his wife have remained ever since; how transformative the experience of being in Marin County has been, and changed his life for the better, and meanwhile, how much the area has changed, having become obscenely expensive; his 10-year period going back and forth between architecture and photography before committing to the latter; how he first got into photographing from the sky (via plane and helicopter) via his mentor Emmet Gowin, whom he assisted on a shoot above Mount St. Helens, and how he got hooked from those first Cesna flights, particularly by the “threatening” (stomach-in-your-throat) aspects of the experience; how he grappled with and came to reconcile with the environmental consequences of making his work – from the fuel used for flight shoots all the way through the ink the prints are printed on – as a necessary complicity to being a picture-maker, and how he came to recognize that ultimately, we can’t remain completely pure.

Sep 23, 2017

Los Angeles-based artist and writer Maya Gurantz talks about:

Getting out of the staid confines of where she grew up, and what it was (and is) like being an angry feminist from an early age; her ‘accountability group,’ a group of women artists (from various art forms) she organized to hold each other accountable to work-related goals; her teaching and mentoring of students, at U.C. Santa Barbra; making work that is “messy,” as in tending to be potentially less likable than other work;  and three of her epic essays: one on James Turrell related to his retrospective at LACMA, one on Carl Andre and Ana Mendieta (the piece that led us to Maya initially), and one as yet unpublished piece on Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead.

Sep 9, 2017

New York-based artist/performer Matt Starr talks about:

His never really fitting into artist communities in New York, both during his time living in Brooklyn and now Manhattan; his performance-based art, including his highly interactive street-based performance Amazon Boy; how some of his projects led to advertising work, and his ambiguous and complex relationship to that form; his severe ADD (his description), and how it’s affected his art and his work life; co-directing his film project, “My Annie Hall: a Remake Starring Seniors,” which has led to a documentary film about their making the film; his “I’m Sorry…” bus poster project, including “I’m Sorry – Men,” which went viral and sparked a lot of dialog; his “Baby-core” couture project (inspired by norm-core), which also went viral, but despite that, none of the original fashion pieces he made were purchased; his “Famous Artist Looking for a Job” poster, which actually led to a couple of brief gigs, one working in a Japanese hair salon and the other enrobing chocolate truffles; and his project “Looking for Friends,” which is pretty much what it sounds like, and turned out to be a very satisfying endeavor.

Aug 26, 2017

New York gallerist Jimi Dams of Envoy Enterprises talks about:

His dissolution with the art world (and particularly the market and fairs); his one-a-day exhibition series, when he observed poor behavior in a curator, an early indicator of unraveling in a way that would continue to unfold through the art world; his story of switching from being an artist – which he had to quit due to health issues - to opening a gallery, despite being a socialist, with the financial support from the late Hudson, former owner of Feature Gallery; how he ran/has run his gallery as a former artist, including having pizza nights where all his artists get together and hash things out openly; his frustration with the priorities of graduate schools today, with an over emphasis on 'professionalism' and the like; his (rather firm) advice to younger artists on what they should do, advice that art students he's spoken to have struggled to hear let alone accept; and how during his gallery's openings, you won't find him out in the gallery but in his office.

Aug 12, 2017

Brooklyn-based artist Kate McQuillen talks about:

Moving to Greenpoint, Brooklyn from Chicago, a move she made rather abruptly though she cushioned the transition with brief stints in Connecticut and then Boston; the turning points that led her to her move, including both art career opportunity and the breakdown of her marriage; how the intensity of her marriage falling apart led her to seek out talk therapy for the first time mostly on her own with just a little bit of reinforcement of the idea from a friend, and what she learned about herself once she found a great therapist (on her 2nd try); the sales of a significant amount of her work to Saks 5th Avenue through their acquisitions director, who came back around to buy even more work after that first major purchase, thus becoming something like a fairy godmother for Kate; baby steps in starting to date again after leaving her marriage; and how it hit her, in the middle of this past winter, that this (New York…Brooklyn) is her new life.

Jul 30, 2017

Along with co-host (and gallerist) Deb Klowden Mann, Los Angeles-based Matthew Gardocki, former gallery manager at Patrick Painter and Mark Moore galleries, talks about:

His decade-plus time working for two long-running L.A. galleries, the different management style of each, how he transitioned from one gallery to the other (they were across the parking lot from each other at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica), and how he became a good fireman (by getting really good at putting out fires); his experiences going to art fairs, both to sell and to sneak in a little travel; we talk about the viability of mid-sized and/or family galleries as business models, vis-à-vis the recent closing of Matthew's last employer Mark Moore; various art world comparisons, particularly mid-sized galleries vs. the big galleries, the big galleries vs. museums, secondary market sales as a way for a gallery to survive (and how the 2ndary market has dried up according to Matthew), and the challenge of mid-tier galleries; how he's looking for gallery work, and what's come up in his interviews, including his availability as a father of a 2-year-old; the reliability (or lack thereof) of collectors making studio or gallery visits; gender bias in the workplace, and finally, Matthew shares a very unusual birth story (of his daughter) that you likely haven't heard before.

Jul 15, 2017

Brooklyn-based artist Jean Shin talks about:

Gradually turning her Hudson Valley barn originally bought for art storage into a summer/weekend retreat; her extensive experiences with Brooklyn real estate including living and working in spaces all over Brooklyn, and leveraging various mortgages – starting with a "tiny" apartment in Carroll Gardens, before eventually buying a 1000 sq. foot storefront studio in Red Hook and a slightly larger apartment in Cobble Hill with her husband, leaving her settled (as long as there isn't another hurricane); her massive public art project for the 63rd Street stop of the new 2nd Avenue Subway line in New York, including the $1 million dollar budget (which was comprehensive for fabrication, design, materials, etc.- she didn't even earn 1% of that herself after all was said and done), and what it was like interacting with the public as the murals etc. were being installed…it was a project she worked on from 2010 thru the end of 2016; her working in labor intensive projects (with discarded ephemera), and the process of collaborating with museum curators as well as various assistants, including learning to trust the process of working with collaborators, and even trusting them enough to give them keys to the studio; and what it's like serving on the board of the Joan Mitchell Foundation, addressing inequity where possible along the way.

Jul 1, 2017

Brooklyn-based artist and activist Grayson Earle talks about:

His unplanned landing in Brooklyn, where he couch-surfed into a commune-style house, and where he's remained since moving to NY from California in 2010; his fluid relationship with the identity of "artist," ultimately one he embraces because it affords him more opportunities that if he took on the identity of "activist;" his experiences with artist collection The Illuminator, including getting arrested while projecting provocative phrases challenging donor Charles Koch  onto The Metropolitan Museum; his admiration for open source programmers, and the process of sharing software and information, and the choice, in his words, of being an artist who either influences culture or makes saleable art objects; his experience being onsite at the start of Occupy Wall Street, and his role procuring food for that first generation occupiers (including vegan pizza); interacting with the problem of where our tax payments go through his project Tax Deductible Expenses, which features Earle eating and/or drinking in a series of YouTube videos, with the receipt for his goods posted alongside; and his Illuminator projection of a holographic bust of Edward Snowden, in place where an anonymously placed actual bust was placed in Fort Greene Park, in turn making it an odd completion of the original piece (they wound up meeting the pair behind the bust of Snowden, which is now available as a file for 3D printing).

Jun 17, 2017

New York artist Will Cotton talks about:

His neighborhood of Tribeca, where he and his girlfriend bought a place, and how he's seeing Chelsea galleries starting to move there; his studio schedule, and how he still allows time to be social and finds the need to be out – including providing face-time for collectors, et al. - even though he's had gallery representation with Mary Boone since '99; how he consciously keeps it down to just himself making his work (he does have an assistant, Emily, who handles the desk/administrative duties), because he's seen artist friends turn into managers more than artists; how he builds his 'tabletop maquettes,' and one of his anecdotes in which he got in trouble for the overuse of a root beer waterfall for one his scenes; another anecdote involving discovering something inside one of the cakes from his maquettes, after its long-since dried shell cracked; the genesis of his using live models in his candy scenes, and how that's both been fruitful and also gotten him into a little bit of trouble for accusations of exploitation; the 'hedonistic and druggy' (specifically vodka and cocaine) phase of his life, just prior to starting the candy land-fantasy work that's become his oeuvre; and his gratefulness for his life in the studio.

Jun 3, 2017

Clearfield, Pennsylvania-based artist Rebecca Morgan talks about:

Her hometown of Clearfield, a financially distressed former coal town, where she currently lives in the home she grew up in with her mom, in between teaching gigs in other states, which affords her tons of time to work, but also feels like suspended adolescence; the liminal relation she has to the town, which both rejected her and she rejects, and despite those rejections she's roughly the only one among her fellow school kids who's still (for the moment) there; her dating life in all its challenges and even brutality, through dating sites and aps, and which include things like driving 4 hours to New York to go on dates with art dudes; how happy she'll be to settle in just about any city EXCEPT New York, even though she went to Pratt and connected with the gallery that now represents her before leaving the city, and how her current home in the middle of nowhere affords her the time and space just to exist (vs. killing herself to survive in NY); how she doesn't think she would have left NY had it not been for her landing gallery representation; her very substantial Instagram following: how she got there, what she posts, how she interacts with her followers, and how it gives her a presence, and even sales, even while living in 'the middle of nowhere;' her most impactful IG supporters: Juxtapoz magazine and Amy Sedaris; body image in relation to her self-portraiture, which ranges from naturalistic to over-the-top; and we close with an audio dating profile for Rebecca, where she makes her intentions known and I begin playing a little matchmaker.

May 20, 2017

Los Angeles-based art business writer Tim Schneider, creator of­­­­­­­­ The Gray Market blog, talks about:

His nerd roots in the Midwest; "COINs," which stands for "Collectors Only In Name," who tend to be labeled villains for art flipping tendencies, as opposed to collectors such as hedge funder Steven Cohen, who 'plays by the rules' at least as perceived by gallerists, even though he's also been known to flip works himself; his Gray Market blog, which he describes as "peeling back the layers of what we can see  reported…traditionally, and asking: Why are people doing these things? What's the strategy?"; choosing between screenwriting and art for a career, and why he chose the path he chose; how he navigates the art world as a professional skeptic and somehow still get access to the inside, where some of the most useful intelligence is; the prospect of becoming "the Anthony Bourdain of the art world;" his upcoming book, "The Great Re-Framing: How Technology Will and Will Not Change the Gallery System," which he's self-publishing, because it includes time-sensitive information that can't be wasted on the overly long traditional publishing process (the book is slated to come out by June 1st, on the Amazon Kindle platform); and what it's like living in Downtown L.A. right by the Grand Central Market (directly downhill from MoCA, the Broad and Disney Concert Hall on Grand St.).

May 13, 2017

Custom framer/owner of Downing Frames Clint Downing talks about:

Starting his business out of his apartment across the street from Pratt, where he went to art school; his collaborations with artists, and how "there isn't a place that we won't go…"; how he reconciles production failures in working on new designs with delivering products that meet Downing Frames' best-of-industry standards; how he's very satisfied being behind the scenes in the art world, largely because he and his company receive a lot of gratitude for their work from customers; what it's like interacting with clients, and their staff, onsite in their homes, from the sit-down introduction to the 'shakedown' he receives from the overprotective freight elevator operators and supers, but ultimately it's about coming to the clients as an expert, and being respectful rather than subservient.

May 6, 2017

Hudson River Valley-based artist Anne Lindberg talks about:

Her relatively new (as of 2+ years) home in the Hudson River Valley, after having spent 28 years prior in Kansas City; her roots in Iowa City, where her mom was an artist and her dad taught at the University; her and her husband's decision to move from Kansas City to Ancramdale, NY, partially engineered through their pied-a-terre on the Upper West Side, which her husband moved into when he started teaching at Parsons School of Design; her unusual home and studio setting, surrounded by farms, and how the move to rural New York has been a clarifying process in terms of her priorities and the downsizing of possessions; how because of her relative remoteness, especially in relation to NYC, studio visitors need to make a day of it, between the roundtrip train ride, ride from the station, and taking a walk in the neighborhood, in addition to the studio visit itself; how the Hudson River Valley in general, though particularly its light, which she describes as both amber and seeming to come from the side, affects her work; her unique process of using a 10-foot-long architectural parallel bar on a 10-foot vertical table that raises and lowers on an electric wench; how pivotal her participation in the Omi Residency Program was for her work; and the whole world of farmers in her rural neighborhood that have opened up a new community for her.

Apr 29, 2017

Brooklyn-based artist and performer Guy Richards Smit talks about:

Moving to Williamsburg in the early '90s, and living in Bedford Stuyvesant now while having his studio in Williamsburg, after growing up in Manhattan, and how he avoids having those cliché conversations about 'how much things have changed…"; the tenuousness of living in New York, especially as an artist, and how he doesn't like being tied down with home ownership, etc., so he could leave town at a moment's notice (in his fantasy) if necessary; living across the street from Morningside Park, which during the time he was growing up was "terrifying;" his forays into comedy, starting with being the 'funny guy' for survival in his neighborhood, through open mics and eventually doing satirical comedy as the character Jonathan Grosmalerman (a name that may have come from his take on comedians as entertainers as being "gross;"  his time as the lead singer of the band Maxi Geil! & Play Colt, and how being a performer has paired with being an artist alone in the studio; navigating the murky waters of the entertainment industry in order to try and sell his alternative sitcom (which includes references to painters); the difference between 'eating shit' as an artist and 'eating shit' as an actor or screenwriter; and the Williamburg artists of the mid-'90s who inspired his Jonathan Grossmalerman character.

Apr 22, 2017

London-based filmmaker/artist Steven Eastwood talks about:

His East London neighborhood of Hackney, where he's been for 15+ years, and the evolution it's gone through from dodgy to hipster haven; the divisiveness not only between London and the rest of the U.K., but also between generations, as in Steven and his father, with whom his values vastly diverge, who voted for Brexit and perceives London as intimidating and full of cultural elites, and ultimately wants the country to go back to the way it was; his productive time in the U.S. teaching film at SUNY Buffalo from 2004-07, after a 48-hour interview process (in the U.K. you're in and out the door in 45 minutes, he said); his evolution as a teacher, which is lead him to something of a dream teaching job currently, with a research post that allows him to spend a lot of time on his films; the complexities around distribution of art-based films – when and where to release and in what addition - which still hasn't been figured out; how his ongoing state in making films is to feel alien, how feels like a stranger to himself when he's making them; his film Island, which will begin as a multi-channel art gallery installation before its release in late 2017/early '18 as a feature film, and is about the end of life (literally); all of the complex logistics with legal as well as emotional contracts and the navigation of ethics that allowed him to be a first-hand witness on more than one occasion; how art has always had a relationship with death, but it's been somewhat taboo dealing with it through film; and finally a story about a harrowing night on a Scottish isle that he and former guest Kysa Johnson shared.

Apr 15, 2017

Los Angeles and international-based artist Lisa Soto talks about:

Her Global Child tendencies, which make her itchy to be traveling and/or abroad after she's in the States for too long; how she misses the culture that you get abroad, particularly dissemination of information—in the hair salons in London, for example, they're talking about contemporary art, whereas here it's about reality show-style pop culture; her rhythm of traveling/being abroad for about three months at a stretch, which came out of her growing up going to the south of Spain every summer with her family; the strong lineage of intuition in her family, which gave her the ability to read people's energy, something she was really good at as a youth, though as you age your head gets filled with ego and so that skill has dissipate; her particular love of Ghana, where she's spent a lot of time, will be going back to and would even consider moving to when she doesn't have so many local commitments; and the energy (and chakra) forces which are how she moves through and understands the world and universe (which she is not always putting out as conversational material, but believes in, and is happy to explain to people who have prejudices).

Apr 8, 2017

San Francisco-based artist and SFAI professor Lindsey White talks about:

Her Mission neighborhood in SF, where she lives and has her studio just several blocks away (and has rent control both places), and that there are still a lot of great people in its intimate art scene that come as well as go; how her interest in combining comedy and art became an entry point to address complex issues with humor; her collaborations with comedian Ron Lynch, from photographing him to working on a comedy book together, and how her conversations with him have shaped her understanding of comedy; the class she teaches at SFAI about humor in art, which deconstructs and takes an intimate look at many forms of comedy and also includes standup performances, which she participates in along with her students (and MCs); how both artists and comedians are "noticers" of the world, among other things they have in common; comedians who have been important to her in thinking about art, particularly Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller.

Apr 1, 2017

Kansas City-based artist, educator and Rocket Grants program coordinator Julia Cole talks about all things Kanas City, including: the housing  and rental markets, which are still affordable, but gentrification is making its presence felt in certain neighborhoods; her public art projects, which she collaborates on with her husband; how living in such an affordable city allows her to take more risks in her art, since she isn't depending on income from it; how she moved from being a scientist to an artist, as well as her path from England (which she still loves and dreams about) to settling in the States; the perils of working on public art projects, whose pay schedules are  how she's come to appreciate her neighborhood and community in KC, amid a thoughtful meditation on acceptance and learning to love the here and now; how living in KC means not living in a sealed bubble (politically), which she appreciates; and she talks about her least favorite art expression of art jargon, 'creative placemaking,' which she wrote an article about: http://www.lumpenmagazine.org/thoughts-on-creative-placetaking/

And here are Julia's shout-outs to long-term, influential Kansas City artists: Mike Sinclair, Roger Shimomura, Jose Faus, Egawa & Zbryk, Peregrine Honig, Glenn North, Cary Esser, Jim Woodfill, Warren Rosser, David Ford, Sonie Joi Ruffin, Miki Baird, Marcie Miller Gross, Albert Bitterman, Gloria Baker Feinstein, Mark Southerland, Erika Nelson, Jorge Garcia Almodovar, Judith G. Levy, Dave Loewenstein, Anne Austin Pearce, Marcus Cain, Archie Scott Gobber, Barry Anderson, Susan White, Laura Berman, Caitlin Horsmon and Charlotte Street Curator in Residence, Lynnette Miranda

Mar 25, 2017

Las Vegas-based artist and museum director Alisha Kerlin talks about:

The arc that led her to be in the 2010 Greater New York show at MoMA PS1, and subsequently how that changed her career, including working at Greene Naftali Gallery; the social anxiety of being in the show, while also feeling honored to be included with so many artists she deeply admired; the opportunities she received from being in the show, including the solo show she had concurrently at the gallery Real Fine Arts; dealer Zach Feuer coming into the show at Real Fine Arts and buying all Alisha's paintings, leading to a solo show with him, allowing her to cut down on her day jobs and spend a lot of time working in the studio; how getting an artist-in-residence led her initially to Las Vegas, and within a few days she realized she probably wouldn't want to go back to Brooklyn; how ultimately it was more satisfying to get the residency gig at UNLV, five years ago, than it was getting into Greater New York; what it's like living and working (as interim director of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at UNLV) in Vegas for the last five years, including buying a house and having a kid;

And in the follow-up conversation, Alisha talks about how even though Greater New York was huge in giving her opportunities, including leading to the artist-in-residence gig and ultimately moving to Vegas, the show for her is the least interesting thing to talk about, and how she is excited and inspired by discovering unfamiliar, veteran artist's work, which comes with her current role at the Museum; the importance and influence of her former teacher at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Michael Brakke, who started the school's artist-in-residence program and was hugely influential on generations of students, among them Alisa and Wade Guyton.

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