Art on the Air

Art(s) on the Air with Jazz Howington

Join Tamara for an interview with Jazz Howington, a versatile painter, muralist, and illustrator who started her career in 2012 (SCAD Illustration Alumna 2011). She has a day job in UX Design and creates art part-time, out of her studio at Cedar House (go visit her on weekends, receptions, or by appointment!).

She'll have work in the upcoming Cedar House show “SPECTRUM,” June 6th - 27th, with a reception on Friday, June 6. 

Her "Project Adoration" is a life-long endeavor to capture authentic queer relationships and the affection and adoration of those relationships, both romantic and platonic. The continued consideration of bold color, negative space, and degree of finish are constant themes in her works.

She is always looking for authentic relationships to capture, so if you and your partner(s) feel comfortable being photographed and then painted, sign up to model! 

 

Check out Jazz's work and follow her here: 

https://www.jazzhowingtonart.com/ 
https://www.instagram.com/relicz_art/ 

 

Tune in and get all the details! 

Art(s) on the Air with Dana Richardson

Join Tamara for an interview with Dana Richardson (b. Sewanee, TN), an artist, muralist, and art instructor at Savannah Christian Preparatory School. Her connection to landscape painting began during a year spent at the Marchutz School of Painting in the south of France. 

Dana first moved to Savannah to get her B.F.A. in Painting from SCAD, and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. at the Maryland Institute College of Art, expected to graduate in 2026. In her current work, she explores the re-enchantment of spaces through her subconscious painting method, using automatic processes to channel internal landscapes.

Dana returns annually to Ossabaw Island, where she completes a residency to study the unique environment. She currently has a piece installed at Artfields (running through May 3), and in June she and artist Lisa D. Watson will install collaborative work in the Boxed In/Break Out windows at the Jepson Center. 

Check out Dana's work and follow her here: 

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

Tune in and get all the details! 

Art(s) on the Air with Mandy Madson

Join Tamara for an interview with singer-songwriter (and ukulele queen) Mandy Madson, who trained in opera and musical theater and then eventually "traded the stage of Carnegie Hall for the dim lights of the honky tonks."

Mandy is one half of Andy and Mandy - she and Andrew Sovine are "a brother and sister classic country duo that brings low brow laughs with a high lonesome sound across the lowcountry." 

She has a Bachelor’s in Music Education with a focus in Voice from Brewton-Parker College and currently works remotely as a middle school Music Teacher, and a freelance accessibility designer. Mandy has also developed a Mary Poppins-esque vibe for her "Miss Madson’s Magical Music" project of leading singalongs for children. 

Song clips played during this episode:
Duet cover of Happy Days Are Here Again / Get Happy by Judy Garland & Barbra Streisand
Solo cover of Proud Mary by Tina Turner 
Solo cover of Crazy by Patsy Cline 
Original song: Holiday Heartbreaker by Mandy Madson

 

Check out Mandy's music and projects and follow her here: 
https://www.instagram.com/mandylynnmusic/ 
https://www.instagram.com/andyandmandyband/ 
https://www.instagram.com/missmadsonsmagicalmusic/ 
https://andyandmandy.bandcamp.com/track/holiday-heartbreaker  
https://andyandmandyband.com/ 

 

Tune in and get all the details! 

Art(s) on the Air with Maxx Feist - Podcasthon collab!

Join Tamara for an interview with Savannah, GA artist Maxx Feist, a nonbinary self-taught artist from Asheville, NC who spends all the days and all the times painting! Highly influenced by a regular regiment of caffeine, heavy metal, and true crime podcasts, Maxx fights to connect the cerebral with the visual…always trying to maintain a balance between the dark and the light. This generally come through by way of underworld subject matter highlighted in bright colors and fun abstract shapes, borders, rope-like imagery, and other whimsical additions. 

 

** For this episode, I (Tamara) am very happy to participate in this 3rd edition of Podcasthon! For one week, more than a thousand podcasts will highlight a charity of their choice. There's no money involved—it’s all about raising awareness for various charitable causes.

I am highlighting The ACLU, which defends the rights of all people nationwide.

“With immigrant rights, trans justice, reproductive freedom, and more at risk, we’re in courts and communities across the country to protect everyone’s rights — and we need you with us.”

https://www.aclu.org/

If you enjoyed my episode, feel free to visit https://podcasthon.org/ to discover hundreds of other great causes through the voices and talents of other podcasters around the world! **

 

Check out Maxx’s work and follow them here: 

https://www.instagram.com/maxx_feist/

https://www.maxxfeistart.com/

 

Tune in and get all the details!

Art(s) on the Air with Darcy Melton

Join Tamara for an interview with oil painter Darcy Melton, a local native who attended Savannah Arts Academy and then tried fashion school in NYC for a year, before returning to Savannah and the self-directed study of fine art. Her work focuses on portraits (she accepts commissions) and still lifes, and she has taught painting workshops at the Jepson Center and at Arts on the Coast in Richmond Hill.

Darcy's mother-in-law is Melinda Borysevicz, a former local figurative oil painter who has moved to Italy, and through her Darcy's been able to gain Italian residency too. She now splits her time between Savannah - look for her in shows at Location Gallery, SLAM, and Isle of Hope Art Fair - and Padula, Italy! 

 

Check out more of Darcy's work and follow her here:

https://www.darcymeltonfineart.com/
https://www.instagram.com/darcymeltonfineart/

Topics in their chat include:

How Darcy transitioned from watercolor painting to oil, and her advice that if you can work simply, with a limited palette and just one "solvent," moving from watercolor to oil painting is actually way less intimidating and complicated than people tend to think; once she started showing her work in person at a Sulfur Street Fair, and expanding to portrait work, both around 2021/2022, her career rapidly got a foothold; a large part of her art business recently is portrait commissions (she is open if you would like to book one!); juggling trying to learn Italian and/or Neapolitan, the dialect spoken in her town of Padula; and the 2 projects she shares with her husband Nathaniel Mellor - the "Only a Bag" podcast of Italian travel tips, news, and history tidbits, and their art & literary magazine "Pigeon Review," which they started during COVID and hope to reinstate in the near future.

P.S. - at some point we could not remember what ASMR actually stands for and I promised to do research, so here it is! "ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) is a relaxing sensation triggered by specific sounds or visuals, often described as a 'tingling' feeling in the head or spine." 

Tune in and get all the details! 

Art(s) on the Air - A Local Music Special Show!

Hi everyone! It's the holidays and I'm taking a little break. Please enjoy a compilation of songs from many of the Savannah musicians I've interviewed over the last 2.5 years (since Rob Hessler handed the show over to me). 

Here are timestamps of the musicians included, and links to listen to their interview and to follow them, if you like what you hear and want more of it!

 

1:27-9:55
Kristin King (harpist and co-owner of New Arts Ensembles, a music booking agency)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-s-on-the-air-with-kristin-king/id1483496536?i=1000577827751 
https://www.instagram.com/kristinharp9
https://www.facebook.com/newartsensembles

9:55-13:22
Derek Hakikta AKA Kola Hak (solo electronic musician and also bassist for the metal band Black Tusk)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-s-on-the-air-with-derek-hak%C3%ADkta-lynch-kola-hak/id1483496536?i=1000580221896 
https://www.instagram.com/kola_hak/
https://kolahak.bandcamp.com 

13:22-22:01
Veronica Garcia-Melendez (half of synth band Bero Bero - singer, keys, songwriting)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-s-on-the-air-with-veronica-garcia-melendez-of/id1483496536?i=1000597614544 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSeLKL2d5alzeNSpMAQHDVg
https://www.instagram.com/beroberoband/ 

22:01-27:54
Matt Eckstine (Americana/Folk singer, guitar, songwriting)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-s-on-the-air-with-matt-eckstine/id1483496536?i=1000640427905 
https://www.instagram.com/matteckstinemusic/
https://www.matteckstinemusic.com/ 

27:54-35:44
The Maxines ("a badass all chick rock band in Savannah, GA - grunge w/ a kiss of metal")
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-s-on-the-air-with-the-maxines/id1483496536?i=1000644487928 
https://www.instagram.com/themaxinesband/
https://themaxinesband.bandcamp.com/album/skin-tight

35:44-42:19
Jason Bible (Americana and rock singer-songwriter, guitar, harmonica) 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/art-s-on-the-air-with-jason-bible/id1483496536?i=1000664592162 
https://www.instagram.com/jasonbiblemusic/ 
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1UXKMDrq24J2TJIJi4DJAN
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-7NvBK95xe8bPrdmvtW_IA

42:19-56:13
Eric Jones Trio (Jazz band who kindly provides she show's intro and outro music) 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLwMrATqJ7yl6ZCM_o1_VJA  
https://www.instagram.com/edjmusicworld/ 

Thanks so much for listening, to this show and in general! I appreciate all of your support and kind words about our interviews.

Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, and see you back here with a new interview on Weds, Jan 1, 2025! 

--Tamara 

Art(s) on the Air with Charles Alexander

Knives out! Join Tamara for an interview with Charles Alexander, the Chef de Cuisine at Farm Bluffton. He grew up in NYC with a father who worked as a chef in Manhattan, and Charles has worked at fine dining restaurants in Key West, Atlanta, and now Savannah/Bluffton. 

Passionate about high quality and seasonal cuisine, Charles is trained and experienced in classical French, Mediterranean, Asian, and American cuisines.

Mark your calendars: Charles will be putting on a ramen pop-up at Strangebird on Tues, Dec 10! *Edit Dec 6 - unfortunately this has been canceled, but keep an eye on his IG for events to come*

 

Check out Charles's work, follow him, and get news on more pop-ups he'll be doing here:

https://www.instagram.com/chefcharlesalexander/ 

 

Topics in their chat include: 

Knives - seriously, so much info about Japanese knives!; the crossover between working in ceramics and working as a chef; how to use a thin metal probe to test whether fish is cooked properly (it's not as simple as using it to test a cake); the importance of math - how Michelin star restaurants measure ingredients out to the gram, so a recipe can easily be scaled up and down; the French term "mise en place;" why the earliest restaurant kitchens were run by military cooks; his tips on food photography and on multitasking when cooking a meal with multiple components; and how "farm to table" means that Charles has personal relationship with local farmers. 

Tune in and get all the details!

Art(s) on the Air with Zack Turner

Join Tamara for an interview with Zack Turner, a Savannah native who studied Sequential Art at SCAD for 3 years, until COVID happened. Since then, he has been working and pursuing his art by creating sequential art zines, illustrations, and occasional murals.

For the month of October, you can find Zack every Saturday 11-6 and Sunday 1-5 at Neighborhood Comics, where's he's working as the Artist in Residence. 

And check out “Sunday Scaries” - his newly-self-published 16 page horror-comedy comic collection - available at Neighborhood Comics or through his IG. 

 

Check out Zack's work and follow him here:

https://www.instagram.com/intentional_zombiehorde/
https://www.zackturnercomics.com/ 
https://neighborhoodcomics.com/pages/neighborhood-comics-sequential-artist-in-residence-program 

Topics in their chat include:

The challenges of working in traditional sequential art media - pencil and then pen and ink on paper or board - when you have a "heavy hand;" how the industry really calls for artists being able to do at least some of their work in digital, unless there's a big enough budget for the time it generally takes to work traditionally; for his artist residency Zack is working on a collaborative zine called Radio Jammers, with a few artist friends in Texas, creating narratives based on songs they've chosen (Zack's is Death Machine by AJJ); the physical challenges of painting murals, including the need to constantly run back and forth away from it, to evaluate the entire scene; learning how to do comic book lettering with an Ames Lettering Tool; thinking of comic books as "a movie on paper," and you do the work of the director, sound designer, costumer, screenwriting, etc, so a lot of comic book artists also work in storyboarding for movies; the common practice in comic books to collaborate with a different artist who specializes in the graphic design and lettering aspects; did you know that the GA Southern Armstrong campus has a print shop available to the public?; the joy of classic Sunday newspaper comics such as Peanuts, Garfield, and Calvin and Hobbes; how much fun he had during the SOY X SOY Art Battle back in July and how surprised he was to make it to the last round; and finally: Zack loves art collaborations - feel free to reach out to him if you're interested!

 

Tune in and get all the details!

Art(s) on the Air with Kasey Jeffrey

Join Tamara for an interview with Kasey Jeffrey, a mixed media artist and graphic designer. She is currently focusing on collage and watercolor, often incorporating organic and hand done elements into her digital designs and illustrations.

She's a member of Dreamhouse Studios, an artist workspace above the Starland Strange shop, where she both creates her art and leads various craft workshops.

You can order her "Magic Beet" book through Barnes & Noble, etc! 

 

Check out Kasey's work and follow her here:

https://www.instagram.com/kaseymakesstuff/
https://www.kaseyjeffrey.com/
https://www.dreamhousesavannah.com/workshops

Topics in their chat include:

How Kasey moved here from Pennsylvania in 2022, sight unseen, with her partner, and loved it here right away; her degree in Communication Design - comprised of graphic design, advertising, web design, and illustration - and how the illustration parts have inspired her to bring in handmade, physical collage into her graphic design; her first post-college job as an in-house designer for Martin Guitars in PA, doing such work as the labels inside sound holes, art on the guitar neck and fretboard, and the graphics for the company's guitar museum; visiting the workshop where the "inlay guys" were hand-creating the fretboard art she had designed; the joy of using a "clay pasta" machine to make her polymer clay jewelry; she's now a year into being completely freelance, juggling her graphic and web design work, making and selling her own prints and jewelry, and hosting regular creative workshops; "Magic Beet," a book illustration project she landed while still in college, after having proactively reached out to local design businesses for gigs; Kasey's belief in the benefit of cold-calling potential clients to grow her graphic design business; her advice to only show work in one's portfolio that's the type you want to continue to make; and going forward, she's pushing herself to work on larger and more detailed pieces, using paper that expands out beyond the page and has non-flat elements, and working through how to finish/frame it.

 

Tune in and get all the details!

Art(s) on the Air with Jason Bible

Join Tamara for an interview with Jason Bible, an Americana and rock singer-songwriter and instrumentalist who was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He began performing and recording music in the 90s - singing and playing guitar and harmonica.

He left Texas and moved to Savannah in 2001 (due to a "banking issue"), and immediately began playing multiple shows a night, focusing on bars on River Street, and eventually out on the islands. In 2005 he formed the band The Train Wrecks, who are still going strong today.

Nowadays you can catch Jason playing solo, with The Train Wrecks, *and*, recently, out playing Nirvana covers with his teenage son Jack.

 

Check out Jason's music and follow him here for concert and album news:

https://www.instagram.com/jasonbiblemusic/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1UXKMDrq24J2TJIJi4DJAN 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-7NvBK95xe8bPrdmvtW_IA

 

Topics in their chat include:

How Jason started learning guitar and harmonica in HS, through private lessons focusing on early Dylan songs; playing solo both in indie coffee shops and in various Barnes & Nobles in Denton, TX during the heydey of the coffeehouse era; his recent gig opening for BB King's daughter and Stevie Ray Vaughan's nephew at Tybee Post Theatre; what does he mean by "leave sawdust on the stage?;" how his longtime band The Trainwrecks started, playing 3 gigs a night running around out on Tybee and Wilmington Island; how he and a co-writer have written 2 books, with a corresponding song per chapter, named for principles/tenets of Buddhism (contact Jason for these books); how difficult it is to find left-handed guitars and Jason's recommendations for where to buy them; the "Quarantine Concerts" Jason played during the pandemic; Jason's recent musical endeavor with his drummer son Jack, performing Nirvana covers around town for the past year, and the challenge of reenacting Kurt Cobain's screams; his karaoke song is "Roadhouse Blues;" and his upcoming projects: keep an eye on his IG about a new record and book coming out hopefully fall 2025, and about all of his upcoming gigs.

 

Tune in and get all the details!