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A biweekly-ish interview show dedicated to Savannah, Georgia’s artists, musicians, and authors. Each episode will feature a guest in conversation about their philosophy, practice, and current projects, as well as their thoughts on the state of the arts in our community of Savannah. Hosted by Tamara Garvey (all shows published through Aug 16, 2022 were hosted by Rob Hessler, Gretchen Hilmers, and/or David Laughlin).
Episodes
Wednesday Aug 21, 2024
Art(s) on the Air with Lusiana Morales
Wednesday Aug 21, 2024
Wednesday Aug 21, 2024
Join Tamara for an interview with Lusiana Morales, who was born in Puerto Rico and began an architecture program there, while also apprenticing at a local tattoo shop and honing her linework skills. Midway through her degree she moved to Savannah to instead get her BFA in Painting at SCAD - she arrived in town in early 2020, so her first months here were during the height of Covid!
Since graduating, Lusiana spent some time in Miami before returning to Savannah to work at Tramp Art Studios and pursue her MFA in Fibers, which she is currently halfway through.
Check out Lusiana's work and follow her here:
https://www.instagram.com/lusiana.arte/ (art)
https://www.instagram.com/lusiana_morales/ (tattoos)
https://www.lusianamorales.com/
Topics in their chat include:
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday Jul 17, 2024
Art(s) on the Air - Two-year anniversary chat w/ Tamara, Rob, and David
Wednesday Jul 17, 2024
Wednesday Jul 17, 2024
It's the 2-year anniversary of Rob Hessler handing the podcast over to Tamara Garvey (after having done it for 5 years)!
To celebrate, Tamara, Rob, and David Laughlin - who also did the show for a few year with Rob - met up for a looooong wild chat about Savannah's creative scene and the art(s) of interviewing and writing about it.
(One thing we all agree on is the excitement of getting feedback from people who are listening to/reading our interviews HINT HINT!)
Do you want even more of our unhinged thoughts? Check out each of our social media here:
https://www.instagram.com/tamgarv/
https://www.instagram.com/work_by_rob_hessler/
https://www.instagram.com/thedavidlaughlin/
Topics in our chat include:
Bonus article David found that related to our talk about Savannah!
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday Jun 19, 2024
Art(s) on the Air with Henry Dean
Wednesday Jun 19, 2024
Wednesday Jun 19, 2024
Join Tamara for an interview with Henry Dean, who works in various modes (drawing and mixed media works on paper, installation, painting, sculpture, video), and is also a Foundations professor at SCAD.
Our talk centered around his recently completed "Now and Then," a national immersive land-art project inspired by Nature and Cosmos - specifically the April 8th, 2024 total eclipse. As an Arts-Science initiative it imagines Nature and environment as unique and wonderful attributes of the cosmic whole (and was a project two years in the making!).
Henry graduated St. Andrews University, Scotland (1980, MFA honors, Geography and Fine Arts combined), and Savannah College of Art and Design (2003, MFA Painting).
Check out his work and the "Now and Then" project specifically, and follow him here:
https://www.henrydean.art/
https://www.instagram.com/nowandtheneclipse24/
Topics in their chat include:
Before Henry moved from Philadephia to Savannah in 1999, he was mostly making and selling very large, plein air landscape paintings; his theories on why North America has had 2 total eclipses a few years apart, after not having had any for years; we try to wrap our heads around the experience of the Old Masters who created art in obscurity, died, and then were discovered & lauded throughout the world for centuries (!); how a long creative career always involves different waves of work, including transitional periods, and how craftspersonship can carry your work through successfully; coming to see that "Now and Then" was not specifically about the eclipse, but really about people, honoring communities and landscapes, expressing a wonder for nature, shared experiences, and tying communities together; and the details on that project: two years' worth of work and planning, 15 sculptures across 6 locations, driving across the country reaching out to local governments and chambres of commerce to make pitches for an art project that hadn't yet been completely designed.
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday May 22, 2024
Art(s) on the Air with Will Penny
Wednesday May 22, 2024
Wednesday May 22, 2024
Join Tamara for an interview with Will Penny, who grew up in Ontario and first moved to Savannah about 20 years ago, to get his BFA in Painting from SCAD. After graduation he moved away, later returning for his MFA in Painting, and has been in town ever since.
* Special note that on Weds 5/22 and Thurs 5/23, he will participate in a two-day event at Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum: a light and sound festival entitled “Celestial Seafarers,” featuring Will and 6+ other local artists.
Info and tickets here:
https://www.shipsofthesea.org/celestial-seafarers
Will is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice incorporates an assortment of media ranging from painting, video, sculpture, programming, and projection. His work aims to combine traditional art making tools with new technologies, to create space to explore themes such as embodiment, presence, fantasy, and the sublime.
Check out Will's work and follow him here:
https://www.willpenny.com/
https://www.instagram.com/willpennyart/
Topics in their chat include:
During his BFA Will focused on refining his skills at painting realism, but when he returned for grad school he focused more on exploring concepts, and took elective classes in motion media design and visual effects; his interest in nostalgia (ex. the history of hockey masks) and working through his childhood of the 80s and 90s, both the good memories and the more traumatic ones; working through your memories, with all of the associated emotional attachments; how he came to be represented by Laney Contemporary; the whole emerging element of how archival work that incorporates technology or media is, whether it might degrade over time, and whether a museum or artist should maintain it; how his past series of 3D printed pieces were exploring the "sublime experience" of nature (but ended up too expensive to continue to produce); lessons he learned from his Big Mouth Billy Bass AI project, both from the summer heat outside of Green Truck and indoors at the recent ArtFields Festival; and his upcoming two-day event at Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum: a light and sound festival entitled “Celestial Seafarers,” featuring Will and 6+ other local artists.
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday Apr 17, 2024
Art(s) on the Air with Melyssa Amann
Wednesday Apr 17, 2024
Wednesday Apr 17, 2024
Join Tamara and David for an interview with Melyssa Amann, who was born and raised in the Caribbean country Trinidad and Tobago. She came to Savannah in 2016 to attend SCAD, and after trying a couple of directions, earned a BFA in illustration with a minor in scientific illustration.
Her website shows a wide variety of her work - portraiture, editorial and commercial work, murals, and scientific illustration - and she does a great job including sketches and progress images for each project.
Since graduating, Melyssa has gotten a steady stream of mural commissions. You can go see her public work at Kanpai II on Chatham Pkwy., the new Artstryngs Gallery on Liberty St.; and the JEA's basketball court.
Check out Melyssa's work and follow her here:
https://www.melyssaamann.com/
https://www.instagram.com/melyssaamann/
Topics in their chat include:
A little background info on Melyssa's birthplace of Trinidad & Tobago; her roundabout journey to studying illustration at SCAD after trying engineering and industrial design, due to not knowing how one would make a living in the arts if not in a "serious" design field; the weirdness of graduating college in spring 2020; how working at Wasabi's on MLK while studying at SCAD led to her first mural, of koi fish, which has in turn led to multiple other mural commissions (even today!); the agony of seeing your chalk mural getting accidentally smudged by restaurant diners; the pluses and minuses of having many different styles and types of projects on one's website; the arduous experience of painting on a basketball court during June in Savannah; her desire to continue breaking away from just depicting strict and tight representation, but to be able to incorporate concepts as well; and a lovely piece of advice Melyssa would give to other artists.
Tune in and get all the details!
* And some cool podcast news: Feedspot has highlighted Art on the Air as one of the Top 3 Georgia Art Podcasts on the web. Hooray!
https://blog.feedspot.com/georgia_art_podcasts/
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
Art(s) on the Air with Phoebe Plank
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
Wednesday Mar 06, 2024
Join Tamara for an interview with Phoebe Plank, who is just a few months from finishing her MFA in Fibers at SCAD. Her path to making art in the first place began when she studied abroad in Paris during her undergrad program, and had her eyes opened to a more unconventional way of life by the older woman who housed her. After graduating, she moved from Vermont to San Francisco, eventually making a bunch of artsy friends and attending the Burning Man festival, and from there she decided to move to Savannah and pursue her art.
Phoebe says: "With what might be considered waste, or overlooked foraged materials, I assemble and create useful art objects and experiences. To address an overwhelming degree of alienation in our time, I aim to make work that is useful, even if in quiet sensory ways."
Check out Phoebe's work and follow her here:
https://www.instagram.com/phoebe_plank/
https://phoebeplankart.squarespace.com/
Topics in their chat include:
Phoebe coining the name "stickwork" for her recent series of pieces, alluding to a magical, whimsical, wand-like vibe; playing around with hanging her stickwork on the wall with one point of contact, as a metaphor for how one exists/balances in the world, vs. hanging it from the ceiling and allowing it to sway around; what is "wet lab" felting and how do horses come into it?!; how is a jacquard loom like a player piano?; how "Dobby" refers to both a Harry Potter character and a person in the weaving process; weaving weeds in Lacoste; Phoebe's "pocket Rumi" book and how she pairs a poem with each of her pressed flower pieces; the amazing Rumi poem about cooked chickpeas that sticks in her memory; and her goal to live in France and pursue her art, post-MFA.
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Art(s) on the Air with Logan Artisan
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Wednesday Jan 17, 2024
Join Tamara and David for an interview with Logan Artisan, a painter who works in an impressionistic style and who shows/sells her work primarily at the Savannah Gallery of Art.
Originally from Fayetteville, NC, she earned an undergrad degree at Wingate University in music & vocals, with an aim to becoming a professional opera singer (!). After moving to Savannah, she studied fine art and illustration in graduate school at SCAD.
Stick around for the 54-minute-mark of the show, when Logan sings "Habanera," an aria from Carmen!
Check out Logan's art and follow her here:
https://loganartisanart.weebly.com/
https://www.instagram.com/loganartisanart/
Topics in their chat include:
Challenging the "artistic snobbery" against painting Savannah landscapes; painting soft edges and working in an Impressionist style; earning an undergrad degree in music & vocals, with an aim to becoming a professional opera singer (!), but then unfortunately being waylaid due to the effects of Lyme disease; her success in selling at Savannah Gallery of Art; the occasional horror of countryside living, as far as animals killing each other; the beauty of Ginnie Springs in Florida; Logan's practice of making a daily "drawing of a girl;" quitting drinking; her early years living in Savannah and working in the service industry (complete with server nightmares); discovering a love of egg tempera during her MFA in Illustration program at SCAD; and the wild realization during the interview that she was attempting to do illustrations in her painting classes, and paintings in her illustration classes.
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
Art(s) on the Air plays Matt Eckstine and The Maxines
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
Wednesday Dec 06, 2023
Happy holiday season! We're celebrating with a special show of music by some of Savannah's beloved local musicians.
First, Matt Eckstine, voted Best Local Americana/Folk/Roots Band/Artist in Connect Savannah's "Best of 2022" awards. Harnessing a wide range of influences from Tom Petty and Jack Johnson to Steve Earle and James Taylor, Matt released his debut solo album in 2017. In 2020, the mandatory quarantine provided him with an opportunity to move to a home studio, resulting in "Lil' Blue," 8 brand new tracks that vary in sound and feel but are grounded in their influence. We're playing 9 of his songs, most of which are from that album, plus a few older ones.
https://www.instagram.com/matteckstinemusic/
https://www.matteckstinemusic.com/
Then after our station break, switching the vibe up! We're playing music by The Maxines, an all-female rock band led by AJ Grey on vocals, with Emma Smith on bass, and twins Coco and Maddie Oke on drums and guitar. With angsty, swoon-worthy guitar riffs and moody vocals paired with powerful performances, their mesh of grunge rock and metal speaks for itself. Listen here to 6 songs from their debut album "Skin Tight" - named after the first song they ever wrote - just released on October 1 of this year.
https://www.instagram.com/themaxinesband/
https://themaxinesband.bandcamp.com/album/skin-tight
Stay tuned for future weeks of the show, because we will be featuring an interview with each of these bands, as separate episodes, as well!
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
Art(s) on the Air with Ted Michalowski
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
Wednesday Nov 15, 2023
Join Tamara - and David Laughlin, previous co-host of the show! - for an interview with Ted Michalowski, a Professor of Illustration at SCAD with a long career as an On-the-Spot/Reportage/Lifestyle Illustrator. He graduated in the inaugural class of Murray Tinkelman’s MFA Illustration program at the Hartford Art School, University of Hartford.
Ted went on to work as a courtroom artist in a variety of high-profile trials, broadcasted by CNN, CNN en Español, CBS News, ABC News, and Fox News. For ten years he also studied privately under Fred Brenner, prominent children’s book illustrator, wildlife artist, fashion illustrator, and educator.
He and his students got the chance to create live drawings of many actors visiting for the recent SCAD Film Fest, including Bob and Erin Odenkirk and Kevin Bacon. Ted also has an original piece in an exhibition opening Nov 17, at the Society of Illustrators in NYC!
Check out Ted's work and follow him here:
https://www.instagram.com/tedmichalowski/
http://tedmichalowski.com/
Topics in their chat include:
Ted's hilarious quote about courtroom illustration: "capturing people through drawing; drawing people who have already been captured;" his father's influence on Ted and instilling the value of making, keeping, and maintaining friendships; the "friendliness of drawing" in connecting with a person visually; teacher Fred Brenner who inspired him to start drawing people while sitting out in public, and his thoughts about a face being a landscape; a teaser of Ted's AMAZING rock DJ voice at the beginning of the show's second half; the annual live music and live drawing events Ted and a musician friend puts on throughout Poland; Ted's thoughts on society's salacious interest in violent video games and in the famous trials he's illustrated, vs. the real-life emotionally difficult experience of sitting near the families involved, having to listen to the testimony, etc; Fred Brenner's words: "the role of the artist is to reinforce the value of life;" Ted's compliments on the quality and emotional depth of the movies shown at the recent SCAD Film Fest, especially "American Fiction" and "Poor Things;" and his thoughts that becoming a teacher was about finding something he loved that gave him meaning, and then turning around and passing it along to a new generation.
Tune in and get all the details!
Wednesday Nov 01, 2023
Art(s) on the Air with Ivan Chow
Wednesday Nov 01, 2023
Wednesday Nov 01, 2023
Join Tamara for an interview with Ivan Chow, who's lived in Savannah since 2013 and is in the process of retiring from his lifelong career as an architect. At the same time, he's ramping up his fine art practice - Ivan has been drawing buildings and cityscapes throughout his life, of Savannah scenes and of everywhere else he's visited.
For a few years now, he's been working as an Artist-in-Residence and Educator at Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. He's also self-published two books of his artwork, created both en plein air and in the studio: "Sketching Savannah" and "Travel Sketching."
Check out Ivan's work and follow him here:
https://www.instagram.com/qkkdraw/
https://www.facebook.com/ivanchowsketches
Topics in their chat include:
Ivan was in Harvard grad school in the early 80s was when computer-based design programs started to take over in educational curriculums, quickly pushing hand drawing to the back seat; his thoughts on the importance of "the craft," of using one's hands for drawing, building, etc; the book "The Thinking Hand"; his experience as a young architect using the infamous "diazo printer" amidst all of its VOCs; his work with Fallingwater: performing a survey and recommendations of all the properties for the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy; and developing his art/illustration practice by hanging work at the Savannah Gallery of Art, making prints and cards of his drawings, and self-publishing his books so he could make sure to have gloss finish paper on the interior pages.
Tune in and get all the details!