Artists Talk with LVA: August 20, 2026

Hannah Drake came to the studio to discuss her installation, Childhood Interrupted. Tune in to Artists Talk with LVA each Thursday at 10 am on 97.1 FM or Artxfm.com.

Hannah Drake is a blogger, podcast host, activist, public speaker, poet, and author of 11 books. She serves as the co-executive director of IDEAS xLab and co-founder of the (Un)Known Project, which seeks to discover the hidden names and stories of Black people enslaved in Kentucky and beyond. She writes commentary on politics, feminism, and race, and her writing has been featured online at Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, The Bitter Southerner, The Lily, and Harper’s Bazaar. In 2019, during Super Bowl Sunday, Hannah’s poem, "All You Had To Do Was Play The Game, Boy," which addresses the protest by Colin Kaepernick, was shared by film writer, producer, and director Ava DuVernay, and then shared by Kaepernick. The poem has been viewed more than two million times.

Her outdoor installation, Childhood Interrupted, has been presented at Riverside Farnsley Moremen Landing, Farmington, Locust Grove, and Oxmoor Farm.

Childhood Interrupted

Hannah Drake

Artebella On The Radio: December 12, 2019

Mountain Landscape. Breathitt County Kentucky, 2015. Bob Hower

Photographers Bob Hower & Ted Wathen were with us in the studio this week to talk about the Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project and “Looking at Kentucky Anew…” the Louisville Visual Art exhibit at Metro Hall featuring that work. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to listen to Keith Waits talk with artists.

Bob Hower

The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project is the state’s third photographic recording done in 40-year increments. Taking inspiration from the work of the Farm Security Administration (1935–1943) and building on the success of the original Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project (1975–1977), which included Bob & Ted, The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project will go into each of the state’s 120 counties making a contemporary visual record of Kentucky. This will be the third time in an eighty year period that photographers have roamed the state recording the landscape and how Kentuckians live, work and play.

Bob & Ted’s Gallery Talk about the exhibit is Friday, December 13 at Noon in the 4th floor Mayor’s Gallery at Metro Hall, 527 West Jefferson Street, Louisville.

Ted Wathen

Bob Hower is a Louisville based photographer who was born in Boston and educated at Middlebury College. ... His work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The International Center of Photography, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Kentucky Historical Society, and The Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Ted Wathen was born in 1947 in Louisville, Kentucky. He graduated from St. Xavier High School in Louisville, received a BA in history at the University of Virginia, and an MFA in photography from the University of Florida. Prior to receiving his MFA, Wathen was a naval officer serving on the U.S.S. Yorktown.

Other photographers who have worked on this new phase of the project and are featured in the Metro Hall exhibit are Ross Gordon, Sarah Lyon, Zed Saeed, Alyssa Schukar, Brittany Greeson, Rachel Boillot, & Harrison Hill.

Looking at Kentucky Anew...The Kentucky Documentary Photographic Project

Bob Hower & Ted Wathen