Art on the Air

Art(s) on the Air with Antwan Eady

Join Tamara for an interview with Antwan Eady, author of children's book NIGEL AND THE MOON along with upcoming titles MICAH'S RISE, THE LAST STAND, and the YA anthology POEMHOOD. He writes with the intention of occupying a space within literature where the underrepresented may see themselves as the main character. 

NIGEL AND THE MOON - featuring a Black schoolboy who moves past his fear of judgment to share his big dreams with his class during Career Week - has been a HUGE success! It was named a Barnes and Noble Most Anticipated Kid's Book of February, Amazon Editors' Best Books of the Month Pick, Colin Kaepernick's Current Favorite Children's Picture Books, and Today Show Best Children's Read, amongst many other awards. 

https://www.antwaneady.com/
https://www.instagram.com/antwan.eady/

Topics in their chat include:

Antwan having a 10-year-plan in 8th grade; how meeting Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah at Savannah’s Book Festival in 2019 inspired him to start writing; the lack of both characters of color and creatives of color in the book world; his terms "young dreamers" and "young dreamers of color" for children; his edict that "having no agent is better than having a bad agent;" having kept a gratitude journal since 2002, learning to advocate for some down time to recharge during his book tour; and a possible future Christmas rom-com type story! 

 

Bonus! Antwan was kind enough to provide a terrific list of resources for writers.

Podcasts:
 The Manuscript Academy - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-manuscript-academy/id1171799743
 First Draft - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-draft-with-sarah-enni/id896407410
 Save the Cat- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/save-the-cat-podcast/id884651026
 Society of Children's Books Illustrators and Writers - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scbwi-podcasts/id1465188050
 The Growing Readers Podcast- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-childrens-book-review-growing-readers-podcast/id1550324351
Books:
 Writer's Market (latest edition) - can be borrowed from local libraries.

 

 

P.S. - During the first few minutes of the interview, you'll hear the train passing by off in the distance, which gives it a real genuine Savannah feel! ;)  

 

Tune in and get all the details!

Art(s) on the Air with Paul Downs

*Hear ye, hear ye! Our show is now moving to the 1st and 3rd (and 5th) Wednesdays of the month, instead of every Wednesday. We want to continue making as high quality a show as possible, and biweekly will fit much better with our schedules and workloads. Thank you all so much for your great feedback on our first few months!*

Join Tamara for an interview with self-taught artist Paul Downs, who works in oil, acrylic, and watercolor paints, striving to evoke a sense of storytelling and design in his work. He shows regularly in art fairs in Savannah, St. Simons Island, and Hilton Head Island. Paul serves on the board of Arts on the Coast and is a member of Savannah Art Association, and has recently launched a watercolor painting class for adults! 

https://www.pauldownsartist.com/
https://www.instagram.com/art_monkey16/

Topics in their chat include:

Paul's recollections on living in Seattle during the 90s grunge scene; the gallery scene in Savannah's City Market in the late 90s/early 00s; how his pet portrait commission business has exploded just since Covid; what shape of head and eyes reads as "cuter" in a yeti holiday card; in which store you can shop his "tasteful nude" painted bookmarks; and the learning curve of doing your first outdoor art shows, including Paul and Tamara's hot tips for securing your small paper products during windy shows. 

 

P.S. - the local crime novelist he was trying to think of was...Rita Herron! 

 

Tune in and get all the details!

Art(s) on the Air with Gabrielle Torres

Join Tamara and Melissa(!) for an interview with Gabrielle Torres, who earned her MFA in Painting from SCAD in 2021. She works in collage, installation, sculpture, etc, with media that runs the gamut from paint, wires, chains, live plants, fabric, and plastic bags.

In just the year since she graduated, she's shown her art at Sulfur Studios, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah Cultural Arts Center, Savannah State University, and the September Gray Gallery in Atlanta, as well as having completed an Artist Residency at Sulfur Studios. Whew! 

https://www.gabrielleelizabethtorres.com/

Topics in their chat include: what Gabrielle's early artwork of horses represented to her, teaching art to kids as early as possible, explaining to gallerists the watering process for her artwork, the symbolism of English ivy, the location that her thesis show shared with recent horror movie "Halloween Ends," and using her Sulfur residency to talk to Savannahians about colonialism and other weighty topics. 

Tune in and get all the details! 

Art(s) on the Air plays Bero Bero and the Eric Jones Trio

Happy Thanksgiving week! We're celebrating with a special show of music by two of Savannah's beloved local groups.

First, Bero Bero - a synth band that has been described as Sade meets Kate Bush - made up of Veronica Garcia-Melendez and David Murray. Here are songs from their EP called DANCE (2020), and they are currently working on their 4th EP, set to release early 2023. Follow their IG to keep up with their news, including lots of live shows! 

https://www.instagram.com/beroberoband/
https://www.beroberoband.com/ 

Next up, music by the Eric Jones Trio, who play every Sunday and Thursday nights at Good Times Jazz Bar downtown, and have also appeared at the Savannah Jazz Festival. These songs are from from their 2020 album Azubuike (which our show's theme song is also from), provided to us by their bass player Marc Chesanow. 

https://www.ericjonesmusic.net/ 
https://goodtimesjazzbar.com/ 

Art(s) on the Air with Jennifer Mack Watkins

Join Tamara for an interview with Jennifer Mack Watkins, a printmaker with a studio in Sulfur Studios. She was born in Charleston and holds a B.A. in studio arts from Morris Brown College, an M.A.T. from Tufts University, and an M.F.A. in printmaking from Pratt Institute. Her work investigates the societal constructs that can leave women feeling isolated, resisting definitions of femininity based on widely held notions of beauty and cultural norms.

If you happen to be in NYC in the next couple of months, Jennifer currently has a piece on view in The Metropolitan Museum of Art(!) - "The Power of Portraiture: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints," October 13, 2022–February 7, 2023.

https://www.instagram.com/mack_jenniferprints/
http://www.mackjennifer.com/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/675828/you-gotta-meet-mr-pierce-by-chiquita-mullins-lee-and-carmella-van-vleet-illustrated-by-jennifer-mack-watkins/ 

Topics in their chat include: Shina plywood (a soft wood for woodblock printing), what Jennifer's dream print shop would contain, what is risograph?, what getting rejected from an AP art class in high school inspired in her, and the soon-to-be-published children's book she illustrated: "You Gotta Meet Mr. Pierce!" 

Tune in and get all the details! 

Art(s) on the Air with Emily Heid

Join Tamara for an interview with Emily Heid, author of the children's books "Scarlett Moves to Savannah" and "Scarlett Wins the Race," illustrated by SCAD alum Chelsie Liberati, as well as the 'non picture book' "Establish." She's also created a consulting business called Bootstrap Books, in order to help authors self-publish professional-looking work.

We chat about the 3 types/rounds of editing that a manuscript goes through for publication, the nitty-gritty of self-publishing and selling an e-book and/or physical book through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, the Weenie Dog races of Savannah, Queen Elizabeth's corgis and dorgis, and combating writer's' block.

Bonus - toward the end of the show you'll get to hear music clips from 2 of our past interviewees - harpist Kristin King and electronic musician Derek Hakíkta Lynch (Kola Hak).

Check out Emily's books, plus the others she's consulted on via Bootstrap Books, here:

https://bootstrapbookspublishing.com/books/ 

Get the answers to such burning questions as:

Does Emily recommend that professional authors set up an LLC?

How has "print on demand" made life so much easier for up-and-coming authors?

How did the children's book collaboration between Emily and illustrator Chelsea Liberati come about? 

What is a life lesson/tip that Emily builds into her children's books?

 

Tune in and find out!

Art(s) on the Air with Erin Dunn

Join Tamara and David as they interview Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Jepson Center. Her retrospective "Feels like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton," has recently opened and will run through January 2023, and you have to go see it! 

We chat about how Erin got into curation, tips and advice for anyone looking to enter the field, and the steps a museum takes when art arrives for an exhibition and needs to be checked over for any degradation, plus lots of specifics about the Hampton exhibition and his incredible artistic range. 

Toward the end David gets to ask her his favorite query, and she really knocks it out of the park!

Connect with Erin and her curatorial life here:

https://www.instagram.com/erindunn_art/

https://www.telfair.org/exhibitions/feels-like-freedom/ 

 

Bonus - a mini-interview with painter Laura Till Barton (at 56 minutes) about her most recent series of large-scale figures and interiors.

 

https://www.instagram.com/laura_barton_fine_art/ 

Get the answers to such burning questions as:

What are Erin’s favorite and least favorite aspects of being a curator?
What were the steps involved for her to curate and put up her current exhibition?

How did Philip J. Hampton’s work run the gamut from social realism and speaking about the Black experience in Savannah, to the expressionist/conceptual art that had begun to boom in the art world in general? 

Why might artists want to avoid making too much work on newsprint? 

 

Tune in and find out!

Art(s) on the Air with the Wednesday Writers

Join Tamara for a roundtable discussion with local authors Judy Bean, Helen Pitts Bradley, Susan Earl, and Beverly Willett. They've been meeting every Wednesday for over 5 years as a writers' critique group, the Wednesday Writers. 

Topics include: the process of reaching out to agents and/or directly to publishing houses, the Ossabaw Island retreat, Savannah courthouse drama, letting real people find their way into your writing, how a group keeps you accountable, having reading/book launch events in local shops, and the usefulness of Query Tracker.

Check out each of their work here:

 

Judy Bean https://www.linkedin.com/in/judy-bean-8aa1475 

Helen Pitts Bradley https://nexttribe.com/grandparents-raising-grandkids/ 

Susan Earl https://www.susan-earl.com/ 
https://sulfurstudios.org/susanearl 

Beverly Willett https://beverlywillett.com/

https://www.independent.co.uk/us/voices/breast-cancer-awareness-month-pink-b2205494.html

Get the answers to such burning questions as:

What are a few recommendations for getting past creative block?

How does a writer/artist decide whose advice/criticism to take?

What are the marketing materials you need to be top notch in order to pitch your novel?

 

Tune in and find out!

Art(s) on the Air with Adrienne Berkland

With Melissa on a break, original show host David Laughlin joins Tamara for an interview with Adrienne Berkland, a portrait and plein air painter who had work in a recent Atlanta show called "Rage Becomes Her." The conversation touches on making art as a response to the current political moment, gouache, SCAD sports, women's hair, working to music, painting live at events, and the use of hot pink. 

https://www.instagram.com/adrienneberklandart/
https://www.adrienneberklandart.com/

Get the answers to such burning questions as:

How did Adrienne transition from sports to art?
What part of a human or pet portrait do you really have to get right, for the painting to be "successful?" 
Who in the interview has to paint to background music, and who absolutely can't?

 

Tune in and find out!

Art(s) on the Air - Talking Storm Drains and other murals with Jen Palmer and Dana Richardson

Join Tamara for interviews related to the City of Savannah's current "Storm Drain Art" public mural project, which is taking place all over the city. From their site https://waterconnectsusall.com/ : 

"What connects us to these waters, plants, and wildlife we don’t see? It is the storm drain in front of our homes, schools, offices, parks, grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations....This project is part of a larger campaign to lift the lowly storm drain to a level of prominence, so we are reminded of our connection to our rivers and ocean. We are reminded that our actions impact the wildlife and local economies that depend on our waters staying healthy."

The first half of the show is a group interview at Heard Elementary School, with storm drain muralist Jen Palmer; STEAM Lab teacher & 5th grade teacher Angela Willis; 4th grade teachers Deanna Fanning and Ms Green; Assistant Principal Mary Ann Rogers Lamberth; AND three students from the school.

In the second half, Tamara interviews another storm drain muralist Dana Richardson, on site at White Bluff Elementary School. The discussion includes her other mural work (including at the Jepson Museum and Starland Dairy), and her work as an art teacher at Savannah Christian, including her theory about the process of teaching paralleling the design process.   

https://www.instagram.com/jenpalmerart/
https://www.jenpalmer.art/

https://www.instagram.com/danawrich/
https://www.danarichardsonart.com/

Get the answers to such burning questions as:

What do the science teachers recommend that homeowners do, to keep yard detritus from blowing into the storm drains?

What animals have the kids found in the creek behind Heard Elementary?

What are Dana's thoughts on teaching students about representational vs. conceptual art, and the ways we can appreciate each in their own way?

 

Tune in and find out!