Artebella On The Radio: October 15

Brian Hinds plays the title character and Jennifer Pennington Lady M in the new Kentucky Shakespeare drive-in production of Macbeth that runs through October 31. They are also both teachers so they came in to talk about the first live theatre with an audience since March and how teaching online or in a hybrid model is working right now. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on ARTXFM.com this and every Thursday at 10 am to hear Keith Waits speak with artists on LVA's Artebella on the Radio.

Originally from Maine, Brian Hinds spent ten years with The Children's Theatre of Maine where he served as an actor, instructor, and director. He was also a member of Mad Horse Theater Company. Since moving to Louisville Brian has worked as an outreach artist with Kentucky Shakespeare before joining the faculty at YPAS (Youth Performing Arts School). He is also a member of the Louisville Improvisors and has worked as an actor and director with several local companies, including Kentucky Shakespeare, Savage Rose Classical Theatre Company and The Liminal Playhouse.

Jennifer Pennington is currently Manager of Student and Alumni Engagement at Commonwealth Theatre Center. She holds a BFA in Acting from University of Michigan and an MFA in Theatre from the University of Tennessee’s International Actor Training Academy. In Scotland she studied Voice/Speech with Kristin Linklater and Louis Colaianni. Jen, having transplanted from Los Angeles, has worked with companies all over the country including: South Coast Rep., P.S.Arts, EastLA Classic Theatre, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Michigan Theatre Festival, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival, Tennessee’s Clarence Brown Theatre, Arizona Shakespeare Festival and many local companies. Currently, Jen is an actor with The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, serves on the board for PAL Coalition (Federal Drug Free Communities Support Grant) and is a member of VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainers Association.)

Artebella On The Radio: October 1

John Brooks, Vian Sora, Denise Furnish, & Andrew Cenci all join us to discuss the Quappi Projects exhibit "We All Declare For Liberty: 2020 and the Future of American Citizenship" which is available for viewing beginning October 9. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on ARTXFM.com Thursdays at 10 am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists on LVA's Artebella On the Radio.

For the last fifteen years, John Brooks has made his home in Louisville, with several years away in London and Chicago. In mid-2017 he launched Quappi Projects, an art-and-artist-focused gallery exhibiting work reflecting the zeitgeist. Brooks is both a visual artist and a poet.

Vian Sora was born in Baghdad in 1976. She left Iraq in 2006, during the Iraq War, eventually settling in Louisville, Kentucky with her husband in 2009. Sora works primarily with oils but utilizes mixed media and engraving techniques to create three-dimensional textures on canvas.

Denise Mucci Furnish was born in Louisville, Kentucky. She has a BA from the University of Kentucky and a BFA and MA from the University of Louisville. She has backgrounds in quilt restoration, painting, surface design, and graphic design. ... She currently works from her Portland studio in Louisville.

Andrew Cenci is an African-American artist based in Louisville, KY. He uses photography to focus on the beauty of the every day through portraits, contemporary landscapes, and candid images. ... With frames that highlight the beauty, joy, loneliness, and longing of the realities of everyday life.

John Brooks was inspired to develop this exhibit in part by this quote from a speech by Abraham Lincoln:

“The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.

With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today among us human creatures, even in the North, and all professing to love liberty. Hence we behold the processes by which thousands are daily passing from under the yoke of bondage, hailed by some as the advance of liberty, and bewailed by others as the destruction of all liberty.”

Artebella On The Radio: September 24

J.Robert Southard talks with us about his video pieces for LVA’s BallotBox exhibit for Metro Hall, curated by Skylar Smith. The exhibit has now been reinstalled at 21c Museum & Hotel in Louisville. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10:00 am to hear Keith Waits talk with artists on LVA's Artebella on the Radio.

After receiving his BFA from the University of Louisville in 2005, James Robert Southard worked for years as a freelance photojournalist and artist. In 2008 he left for Pittsburgh for graduate school in Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 2011he was invited to international exhibitions such as the Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Hel’Pitts’Sinki’Burgh in Finland, Camaguey Cuba’s 5th International Video Art Fest and he has participated in the Internet Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale in Venice Italy. After receiving his MFA in 2011, James taught as a photography professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky School of Art, and Carnegie Mellon University as a professor of fine arts. In the winter and spring of 2012, James continued his series Tooth and Nail with the collaboration of the city of Seoul, Korea at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon. Soon after he took his project to Maine where he was a participant at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, then later at MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, Yaddo Retreat in New York, Jentel in Wyoming, Vermont Studio Center and to the MASS MoCA residency in North Adams, MA. He has since returned to academia by teaching photography at the University of Kentucky.

Artebella On The Radio: September 17

Skylar Smith's BallotBox exhibit has moved to 21c and we gathered Rep. Attica Scott with Skylar, 3 of the artists: Brianna Harlan, Sandra Charles, & Jennifer Maravillas & 21c Museum Manager Karen Gillenwater to talk voting rights, voter suppression, and registration. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.com this Thursday at 10 am to hear this conversation. It will be the day of Give for Good Louisville and we think this is programming worth supporting!

Clockwise from top left: Karen Gillenwater, Keith Waits, Sandra Charles, Skylar Smith, Jennifer Maravillas, Brianna Harlan, Rep. Attica Scott.

Since 2017, Attica Scott has been a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, representing District 41. Among the committees on which she serves is the Elections, Constitutional Amendments & Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. Previously she served on the Louisville Metro Council for District 1.

Skylar Smith is an artist, curator, and educator. Her work deals with micro and macro perceptions of the natural world, and human-scale politics that influence perception. She is a founding member of Kentucky College of Art + Design (KyCAD), and she has taught college-level studio and art history courses for over a decade, in addition to teaching at non-profit and alternative-education venues.

Brianna Harlan is a multidisciplinary artist and organizer. She works conceptually in multiform, socially engaged art. Her work is driven by an obsession with interpersonal culture and how that influences quality of life, health, and habits. Brianna is a Hadley Creative and Kentucky Foundation for Women Fire Starter awardee. Her most recent residencies were at Oxbow School of Art and Artists’ Residency, Materia Abierta in Mexico City, and Makers Circle in North Carolina. She also leads community experiences and presentations, having been a speaker for organizations like For Freedoms, 21C Museum Hotels, and the KY ACLU. She is currently pursuing her MFA in Art and Social Action at Queens College, CUNY.

Visit the artist’s website: BriannaHarlan.com

Jennifer Maravillas is a Brooklyn based visual artist. She creates portraits of our land in media ranging from found paper to watercolor. Her aim in this work is to capture universalities and connections across disparate communities by studying social structures from histories, landscapes, and visual design. In 2015, she completed 71 Square Miles: a map of Brooklyn compiled from trash she collected on each block to represent the cultures and voices of the community. She’s continuing her mapping work with her long-term project, 232 Square Miles in which she will walk the remainder of New York City while collecting trash as well as exploring connections throughout historic maps and data. Her background includes studies in anthropology, painting, graphic design, cartography, and mass communication. Jennifer also works as a freelance illustrator creating color-filled works about life and the world. For artwork sales information, please contact the artist through her website. Visit the artist’s website:  www.jenmaravillas.com

Sandra Charles is an oil painter based in Louisville, Kentucky.  Her work revolves around issues that affect African American women in today’s society. She was one of three artists who received a Kentucky Foundation of Women (KFW) 2016 Summer Residency Grant.  Her series, The African Warrior Queen Project, was the result of the residency and was included in the group exhibit at Art Sanctuary Gallery in Louisville. In 2017, she was selected to exhibit in the African American Art Exhibition at the Roanne Victor Gallery at Actors Theatre of Louisville, and her work received the Mellen-Oberst Family Merit Award.   In 2017, she was one of 15 artists selected to participate in Community Foundation of Louisville Hadley Creatives’ six-month fellowship program. Sandra was one of four artists to receive a Great Meadows “Bully Grant” to travel to the Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy. Visit the artist’s website: www.scharlesart.com

Karen Gillenwater is currently the Museum Manager for 21c Louisville. Previously she was the Artistic Director of the Carnagie Center for Art & history in New Albany, IN.

Artebella On The Radio: September 10

Art in the Time of COVID-19 is an on-line exhibit for the Portland Museum curated by Bailey 0'Leary and featuring the work of Jeribai Andrew-Jaja, Rachel Singel, & Erica Lewis. All four join us for an interview on this week's show. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM, or stream on Artxfm.comThursday mornings at 10:00am to listen to LVA's Artebella on the Radio.

Art in the Time of COVID-19, a digital exhibition now being featured on Facebook and Instagram social media platforms.

Art in the Time of COVID-19 details three artists' experience of the novel coronavirus pandemic; 

Bailey O’ Leary, the Curator, is an MFA candidate in Curatorial Studies at the University of Kentucky.

Jeribai Andrew-Jaja is a Nigerian-born artist but currently;y living in Louisville, Kentucky.

Rachel Singel is an Associate Professor at Hite Art Institute, University of Louisville. She has participated in residencies in Italy, Spain, New Zealand.

Erica Lewis is an MFA candidate and graduate teaching assistant at the Hite Art Institute at the University of Louisville.