Episode 391 revisits the OLD NEWS (Jeff Weiss’s nightly email blast of art-related content) and dovetails with a Lucien Smith obituary, including comments from readers of the obit more than the obituary itself.
George Stoll, a comment from The Art Daddy, and passages from a long Atlantic article by Sebastian Smee exploring the career and influence of Norman Rockwell, particularly on the films of David Lynch, round out the episode.
In BONUS footage for Patreon, there is more tribute to Lucien Smith and more content from the article on Rockwell, and Lynch.
Sept. 9th, 2026 (ny times)
Lucien Smith, Art-World Star Whose Career Abruptly Turned, Dies at 37
A phenom in his 20s, he became the poster child for Zombie Formalism before abandoning the gallery frenzy for Montauk.
In the 2nd half, available to Patreon Supporters of the show, we share former guest Greg Allen’s (greg.org) tribute to Smith, and more from Smee’s article on Norman Rockwell and David Lynch.
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This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
Nyack, New York-based artist Rob Strati talks about:
Living in Nyack, as far as its local arts community and proximity to NYC; his early artist years in San Francisco, including driving a cab for several years, and eventually getting into tech (starting as a web designer at Yahoo) as a day job, always to support the art even though it became a big part of his then-identity; how his 25 years working in research, marketing and technology all started when he was exposed to web design while staying with friends in DUMBO, Brooklyn; how he shared his 2025 earnings in an end-of-year newsletter, why he did so, and what kinds of responses he received (without naming the number here, the earnings are in the top 1% of artists); how he’s applied his research experience in tech to his sales approaches, including making different entry points available to collectors, and taking what he learns from selling direct to collectors on Instagram and applying to future sales; how he’s been doing non-exclusive consignment agreements up until now, but is signing on with a London-based gallery for exclusive sales in the U.K. and Turkey, and why he’s doing so; the fact that he’s had such success selling on IG that it’s allowed him to establish consignment-based agreements with galleries as opposed to contractual ones, which has given him more autonomy and leverage than most artists (who do traditional contractual agreements); how he took Dec. of ’25 and the first two months of ’26 “off,” to recover from the grind of 2025, did a lot of skiing with his 13-year-old son, and generally recharged, while acknowledging the accomplishment of such a strong year; the nine different galleries he’s currently working with (including Duane Read Gallery in St. Louis and Fremin Gallery in New York); the origin story of his signature art object(s), which has been the work that’s transformed his career, all staring with his wife breaking a plate in the kitchen, and how he saw an expanded world in it; the conversation around his work as far as decorative art- how it fits into that lineage, and the emotional connection to that tradition, in contrast to the conceptual tendencies of contemporary art, but how he sees elements of both.
In the 2nd half of our conversation, available to Patreon Supporters of the show, Rob talks about:
How he first improvised the drawing that accompanied that first broken plate piece, and how subsequently he evolved his style in extending the plate patterns into extended landscapes and scenes; we geek out materials, including his determining that Signo pens are the best for the fine lines that he needs (and we geek out on pens for a moment); why being transparent about income (his income) is something he stands behind, including investing in the marketing of his work (boosting posts, advertising, and so on), and how last year, for example, he spent 50k on marketing his work; the “Decision I Did Not Take Lightly,” which was his canceling his exhibition at the James Cancer Center Gallery at Ohio State University (his alma mater) because of it being under the umbrella of Leslie Wexner, the philanthropist who funded the Wexner Center for the Arts as well as many schools at OSU, and who has very much been part of the Jeffrey Epstein saga, how Rob was able to shift the show to the Columbus Museum by renting out a space there and continue the conversation about justice and making space for him to stand up for it, but also recognizing how difficult it is to stand up to a boss whom your livelihood depends on; and his job history – prior to striking out on his own making a living from his work alone – including being fired a lot, partly for standing up against abuse in the workplace.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
To see video of this episode, check out our YouTube page
Arleene Correa Valencia, June 2026
Arleene Correa Valencia, June 2026 Artwork 2
Arleene Correa Valencia, June 2026 Artwork 3
Arleene Correa Valencia
In this inaugural/premiere/pilot episode of The Intrepid Artist, an advice podcast presented by The Conversation, host Michael Shaw sits down with guest co-host Arleene Correa Valencia to answer listener questions including the relevance of your social media feed in grant and open call applications, and how (and why) to get motivated to make your work.
“To Post, or Not to Post….That is the Question”
The main question posed is whether one’s social media feed plays an important role to grant and open call jurors. Arleene advocates for developing a thoughtful, engaging and empathetic feed, as opposed to one in which an artist is simply constantly sharing work. She wants a feed in which the artist shares who they really are, beyond the gallery setting; whether to use Stories vs. Posts, and the importance of sharing what you want to share, and how Arleene likes to be able to share her failures on IG as a way of showing her full output and working through those failures; whether you would make the work if it isn’t/wasn’t posted- a key question for artists to ask themselves, and how (of course) the ultimate objective is to be engaging in the studio.
In the 2nd question, a listener asks how to get motivated to draw, to make work, which has Arleene recalling a life-changing moment in her first real drawing class in art school, led by a professor who asked his students if they needed – not just wanted – to be there; Arleene and I share our very different takes on what it feels like being in the studio- euphoria vs. reality; how the research and other behind-the-scenes work done in the studio that’s necessary for making our work goes unseen, and for Arleene that means it’s hard to have gratitude when she’s not making the art;
And in the extended Patreon BONUS, Arleene talks about her forms of meditation- the gym and working out, as well as swimming, as key rituals that help to clear her head before she gets to the studio, so when she’s there, she’s in the most optimal mental space to focus on her work.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
Her 12 years at Artforum magazine, including its balance between advertising and hard-core art writing, and how her chapter on Fierce Pussy was written while at Artforum; the classes on Activism she’s taught at Hunter College, which were not to get students to become activists but to make them aware of its history and context; how teaching activism and writing the book were both ‘rage containers’ but also ways to inspire difference; how activisms ‘expire,’ including in the case of her colleague Carrie Moyer, whose hardcore activism (including her campaigns for Dyke Action Machine) lasted two years and followed by going back to the studio and making abstract paintings; the difference between ‘activists’ and ‘artists activists,’ which culminated in a question at one of her book events at the New York Public Library: “why are you focusing on artists? What makes them so special? Why can’t you talk about other activists too?” and how, in addition to bringing an aesthetic to their activism, as part of the answer, artists are beleaguered; the seminal moment in the artist Rick Lowe’s career, when a student living in the 3rd Ward of Houston asked him why, as opposed to just showing them the problems in their neighborhood that they were already aware of, wasn’t he being creative about coming up with solutions?; her contention that all art is political, but what does an artist’s role look like in terms of their actions; how there’s no purity in America and no purity in activism, and how Project Row Houses wouldn’t have become as robust without the corporate effort; Sarah Schulman’s recent writing on the importance of solidarity, and how the left keeps pointing the figure and keeps eating itself; what Project Row Houses looks like, including the mix of affordable and market rate housing, artists who live in them, and expensive condos recently going up in the neighborhood amidst preserved housing in the 3rd Ward of Houston.
Why she included (former guest) Ben Davis’s critique of Project Row Houses, along with a contextual framework on the challenges of limiting the effects of gentrification, primarily as a way to point out that it isn’t artists who are the problem fixers, it’s our government representatives; for Rick Lowe and Project Row Houses, it was about trying to do better for the locals; the highly influential and impactful activist organization P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), started by artist Nan Goldin, which was instigated by the terrific irony of the Tate Museum, with £4 million in donations from the Sackler Family Trust, purchased Goldin’s “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” at the same time as she was addicted to Oxycontin (the highly addictive pain medication that led to an epidemic, of which the Sacklers are known for); the successful objective of P.A.I.N. (which is a non-partisan group despite it being formed by a politically progressive artist) to eliminate the art-washing of the Sacklers by putting their names on so many museum wings, and in turn what it was like for PAIN members to attend the protests with fellow protesters who were in very different cultural spheres, including hard-core trumpers; how savvy PAIN was in cultivating and working with the press, which really got their actions thoroughly covered, and even their private meetings were recorded, which helped provide lots of content for Laura Poitras’s documentary on Goldin; how Lauren uses YouTube video footage of the PAIN protests, which were so well thought out and dramatic, in her classes; why she didn’t right about the Stop Oil! Activist actions in museums (because it’s mainly taken place in the U.K.); how the effectiveness of a protest depends very much on the press coverage and the level of circulation of the images from a given action; how most activisms have a figurehead (Goldin), and how it matters, for better or worse, when there’s a public-facing person in a group; how successful activism depends on bringing in new blood and new ideas, and how big a factor burnout is for activists; the state of agitprop, or postering, today vs. the 90s- Carrie Moyer and Sue () of Dyke Action Machine would say that the street postering they did wouldn’t work today, because there’s just too much visual noise, and Lauren’s nostalgia for the 90s for those reasons; the ‘Secret Handshake’ sculptures of trump and Epstein that have been making the rounds on social media around the world, work which she hates but recognizes as effective nonetheless; the hostile takeover of the New College of Florida, Lauren’s undergraduate alma mater, by governor Desantis, and how she’s been part of the alumni response to the takeover including the forming of nonprofits, a project that is very close to her heart and how she’s been involved in it for the past three years, and the struggle of the school was recently featured on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.”
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
To see video ofthe first 50 minutes of the episode, check out the YouTube page
"A Little Life" book cover featuring Peter Hujar's "Orgasmic Man" (1969), Penguin Random House
Paul Thek, Untitled (from the series Technological Reliquaries), 1965–1966. Wax, synthetic resin, and painted sculpture housed inside a yellow Plexiglas vitrine
Paul Thek, Warrior's Leg from the series Technological Reliquaries, 1966-67 wax, leather, metal, and paint, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Joseph H. Hirshhorn Bequest Fund, 1990. The Estate of George Paul Thek
Paul Thek, Untitled (Meat Piece with Chair), 1966, wax, bronze, Formica, Plexiglas, 16.5 by 21.5 by 9.5 inches. From the series Technological Reliquaries, 1964–67
Writer and Frieze editor-in-chief Andrew Durbin talks about:
His book tour, which has been hectic; how he became familiar with Peter Hujar’s work initially, and why his and Paul Tek’s legacies really took off after their deaths; Peter’s persona and personality as someone who could be as charming and engaging as can be, but also someone who flew off the handle with a volatile anger at some in his life, and how he actually using photography to deal with some of that anger; how Paul Tek appeared to be thoroughly charming and quintessentially hippie-ish from the various television footage of him in interviews, despite his ultimate distaste for and rebellion against the hippie archetype, and how he had an ongoing contradiction in wanting to be around people and then wanting to get away (he often questioned the love of those who loved him), which he did prolifically, from Miami right out of school to various parts of Italy throughout his adulthood; Peter’s troubled relationship with his mother, who was emotionally abusive and neglectful, and whom was described by a boyfriend of Peter’s at the time as “very good at being unsatisfied;” how Peter learned much of his photography skills working in commercial photos studios in the ‘60s and ‘70s (including that of Richard Avedon) and eventually applied and expanded them in the darkroom for his own work, and to what extent Gar Schneider, his friend and the printer of the work in his estate, will make prints posthumously from the estate.
The legacies of Peter and Paul, including via Linda Rosenkranz’s book “Peter Hujar’s Day,” which became a film by Ira Sachs, and how Andrew’s book may just be part of the rise in their respective public profiles; how he was more interested in and relied on their own memories of their childhoods (and adulthoods) as opposed to thru the lenses of family; how Andrew melded with his subjects, and how consuming and surprisingly somatic the experience of writing the book became, leaving him unsure how to re-fill his time once the writing finally ended; how thru writing the book he had to confront his own fears of AIDS, of death, and his insecurities, and the therapist who guided him gracefully through that process; how, despite the book being published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, he still maintained his full-time job (editor of Frieze magazine), and in fact how much the book strained his finances, as biographies turn out to be expensive endeavors (with almost no opportunity for grants to support them); how the reason that Andrew’s book and Ira Sachs’ film (Peter Hujar’s Day) are coinciding has to do with a hunger for authenticity, including especially a yearning for a time (the ‘70s) in New York when artists could live together in a community and scrape by financially on whatever they made, a time long-gone but one that even some young people are aware of; iconic writer/cultural critic Susan Sontag’s relationships with Peter and Paul, the latter of whom became infatuated with her, and how Andrew showed her as ‘an intoxicating’ individual, and what that feels like; Paul’s complex relationship with his sexuality, to the extent that he often pursued relationships with women, whom he dated quite often but never got serious with, and how sexuality was something he may have tormented himself over; how the actor who played Peter in “Peter Hujar’s Day” could never fill Peter’s robust shoes, but at the same time how happy Andrew is for how many people the film has brought to Peter’s work; the differences between living in New York and London (where he lives now), including how London actually has more in common with Los Angeles in terms of its size and its more deliberate social dynamics whereas in New York you’re constantly running into people everywhere; and how he’ll finally be ready to transition to his next project once this one if finally done, as it’s been such an immersive, somatic experience.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
Why he’s written about contemporary art so extensively, as a history academic who’s very interested in the present, going to galleries and wondering who collectors are right now, raising a lot of questions about archetypes for what would become a big part of his book; how collectors can not only be defined as powerful, they can also be defined as weak, unhinged and deranged, among other things; how the profile of the collector, over time, is more a corkscrew than an arc, with the Freudian view of the collector was seen as repressed and even dangerous, whereas the contemporary collector is seen as being more about power; how in Robert Bloch’s book “Psycho,” upon which the movie was based, the Norman Bates character is actually described as a collector but one who is ugly and unprepossessing, and how the Hitchcock film turned him into a charming, ingratiating figure who turns the audience on his side; how really thoroughly experiencing housed collections (prime examples are the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, CA, and the Vittoriale degli Italiani in Gardone, owned by Gabrielle d’Anunzio) was embedded in his writing the book; the collector as puppeteer, as orchestrator (and collector) of people, as William Randolph Hearst was; how encountering someone’s place, and their things, is “a physical experience that constitutes the way you understand this person and your relationship to them,” as James put it; and how Freudian interpretation has had such a lasting relevance over the years, even as it’s gone out of fashion.
How hoarding, like the Middle Ages, has waned, and is tossed around far too lazily; the ‘l’ word, as in “loser,” which he used to describe Robert Bloch’s Norman Bates, whom he qualifies as a ‘lovable loser,’ particularly because collectors like Bates collect authentically, out of passion, not for financial gains; how he couldn’t quite get the marketing department to change the subtitle of his book (particularly “The Dark Side” part), and why he’s interested in authentic collectors, those who collect for love, with no thoughts of profits or strategy, the type of collector who he believes is vindicated in the end, as opposed to the Charles Foster Kane-type collector, who collects to accumulate; the democratization of collecting, including ‘garbologists,’ in which everything can, and does, get commodified; countercultural collectors, who collect things like deformed animal corpses, their own child’s placentas, and other curiosities, and how they don’t care what people think of them, or in fact that they want to defy popular opinion…as James put it: “their truth to self is uncompromised…by notions of taste or fine arts or utilitarianism…they’re the freest people of all…they’ve freed themselves from the tyranny of the respectable opinion of other people;” and finally he describes an exhibition about Marie Antoinette at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London (the lines to get in were staggering), a collector of shoes and porcelain and snuff boxes and furniture…who was so vilified/demonized for political reasons, as the enemy of the people…she is the classic case of the political demonization of a collector who is executed as if it would purge the suffering of her subjects; the most classic case of that political question around the collector, and how, ironically, it was her execution that made her immortal.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
Book Talk with Emma Campbell of Array Collective Belfast
Vetch Veg, in Swansea, organized by Owen Grifiths
Grizedale Arts: The Farmers Arms
Assemble Turner Prize Installation, 2015
Dead Ink Books, Liverpool
New World Summit, Rojova, at Van Abbemuseum
If you’re new to Useful Art, a great resource is the Association of Arte Útil a recipe book for Useful Art making/projects/thinking/learning https://arte-util.org/
The city of Liverpool and its art community, with about 20 total galleries, and how he fits into it; where he’ll be book touring the book; a key framing in the book, being in a ‘neo-liberal occupation’ that we live under, which has a huge impact on the culture industries and means the financialization of essentially everything; the surprising pushback there’s been at conferences and other events where Useful Art is discussed, including a lot of resistance from those in the art world who may feel that their positions of power are being threatened; the complex but far too under-considered distinction between “use value” and “aesthetic value,” and why it’s worth considering “use value” as a legitimate part of art-making (and which can even somehow manage to incorporate some aesthetic value); how one of the things he’s interested in is having a radical re-think of what aesthetics are but also what they can be; some among many Useful Art projects, including by individual artist Tania Bruguera and Indonesian collective Ruangrupa, which curated Documenta 15, and how they came to be as a group…and, in turn, what the effect of having Ruangrupa curate that Documenta, which was an adventurous choice of curation, a role that John has heard described as “the curatorial Everest.”
If you’d like read more about Useful Art and what John is up to, check out his substack.
How the Indonesian art collective ruangrupa came to be, a very unusual trajectory even for a collective, as they didn’t grow up in a culture with contemporary galleries or museums (though they did go to art schools abroad), but had a goal to make a living as artists through the collective, more specifically the “lumbung,” equivalent to a co-operative; how the controversy that arose from a single figure with a swastika in the much, much broader scope of ruangrupa’s curation led to calls of anti-semitism which overshadowed that Documenta from an outsider’s and the press’s perspective, and how John believes this distraction was used by many as a way of avoiding discussing some of the core meanings and significance of ruangrupa’s contributions to the vaunted art event; the importance of “switching the aperture of the Overton Window,” a term he mentions several times, which is about re-orienting your settings in terms of shared understandings of what big concepts are, like Art with a capital A, and how venturing into Useful Art doesn’t in any way mean excluding being an individual artist who works solo- they can exist simultaneously; it’s also that if we don’t open up and expand the definition of what an artist can be and art can be and who can make it, we run the risk of surrendering Art to the neoliberal occupation; his interest, back in the day when he was a young person, in DIY culture (Rough Trade Records, et al.) and how that’s a good analog for Useful Art projects; the artist Ahmet Ögüt, a former student of John’s who started The Silent University, a knowledge exchange which evolved into a significant cultural platform; Tania Bruguera’s project for the Tate Modern which entailed accessing/experiencing police horses and their corralling, and how inside the institution it follows certain basic and old-school protocols, whereas she also has done several projects outside the institution/into the street/community; the concept of 1:1 Scale Art, which the critic Steven Wright appropriates from a Lewis Carol story, in which a map is produced that is so elaborate that it covers everything that exists in the ‘real world’ of that map, and Wright takes that perspective and applies it as the idea that artists jettison making representations of the real world, and instead affecting change in the real worlds itself (one of the cruxes of the book), which the art world hasn’t been able to understand because of the condition of neoliberal capture; a former student who’s working on a project in which public libraries become spaces of the Commons, open to all kinds community members including especially those on the margins (whether pensioners, immigrants, etc.); and how posting some of the entries from the Association of Arte Util in open community meetings/events has been a great starting point – another bringing someone in to introduce a skill – to get people engaged in a Useful Art project and think and live artfully.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
The Boston art community (which is often connected to the art school and universities) and why he’s lived there the great majority of his life (he lives in the house he grew up in); he’s a dedicated Mass-hole- there’s an edge to people there and you have break that edge; how he navigates random passersby when he’s photographing for long sessions with his wooden large-view camera (his exposures range from a second to 20 minutes), with people always around him (here’s a short video of a food stand guy singing tango where Jim was doing a shoot); his experiences with the difference between analog and digital photography, each of its pros and cons, and why he uses digital for documenting exhibitions which he’s used for his teaching; suggestions for how to best edit documentation of your own work, which starts with photographing on your phone, to get a good sense of color that you can use as a template for your photo editing; how he used the NEA’s selection process, of not using artist statements as part of the process for the initial rounds, as a tool to teach his students (including as a guest lecturer at Harvard) about how decisions are made; the Harvard student he had who wrote a study evaluating the value of photography based on economic models; two fully adults students he’s had over the years, and how their stories impacted both Jim and his other, younger students; and how the odds of becoming monetarily successful artists are worse than becoming a professional baseball player, at least by one (possibly obsolete?) metric.
His own relationship to financial success as an artist, both as a teacher and a photographer, which has added up to a solid middle-class income, and how ‘his photography supports his photography,’ just barely; how crucial it is for artists to have day jobs; how scarcity and nostalgia play a big role in a photograph’s market value; his insights on financial precarity, not only through his students but his own kids, and what he tends to advise kids to do vis-à-vis art school; how he worried about students who thought their path after leaving art school was being an art star – because of those low odds he mentioned – and meanwhile how many mature adult students he had who were in their 30s all the way up to even their 70s, and how they got so much out of his classes with the life experience they brought; how he wrote ‘a million’ letters of recommendation for students, always starting from scratch (no template); though he didn’t want to necessarily become friends with his students, he’s become good friends with about 7 of them between early 30s and early 70s; how he saw his students as “peers-in-training;” the visual sophistication of the recent college kids he taught, due to their lifelong exposure to such a vast range of imagery; how the women and the gender fluid students were infinitely more articulate than the men, in his experience; how one of his students, who grew up on a dairy farm, expressed her frustrations with class differences she experienced amidst her fellow students (read: privilege); and his next project, documenting the food stands and other businesses along north-south highway 111, using it as an opportunity to explore the ‘hallway doors’ along the way.
This episode is sponsored by MyArchitectAI, where you can get a photorealistic rendering in 10 seconds. Use the code CAP15 to get 15% off any subscription plan.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
The 1st cartoon the New Yorker told Guy almost made it in
The first one the New Yorker bought
installation at Independent Art Fair in NY with A Hug from the Art World
Guy’s cartoon that went viral, especially in Turkey, where a Turkish cartoonist won an award with his version
Guy’s alter-ego
The perfect encapsulation of rich people
Smit’s take on Sisyphus
whose art is being referenced here? find out in the Patreon bonus full episode
another hit with the art crowd
Brooklyn-based artist and sometimes New Yorker magazine cartoonist Guy Richards Smit returns to the podcast eight years after his first visit to talk about:
His admitted high self-regard, paired with self-awareness, which we identify as being rare; our respective experiences and takes on artist blowhards; his history with cartooning, going back to his obsession with gag cartoons, going back to a New Yorker cartoon book he read at his grandparents’ house when he was a kid; how he started making his own gag cartoons; the steps he took to build his cartoon portfolio, leading to getting published in the New Yorker after a year and a half of submitting (which is much quicker than some); the cartoon he made for the New Yorker website, the ‘Daily,’ that went viral (receiving 1500 comments, not to mention other viral stats), including getting re-created in Turkish by a Turkish cartoonist; how he actually sees the cartoons as sketches for paintings (and gets quite painterly in the making of them); how about half of his cartoons are more insider-baseball-art cartoons, and the one he made that references one artist that he had in mind, although several reactions interpreted it as another artist, whom Guy actually heard from, wondering if it was about them.
How the parameters for where art can come from have changed, and how humor in art is still held, especially in the U.S., as a bit off limits; how his desire to paint a rock led to his Sisyphus cartoon (every cartoonist wants to do a Sisyphus cartoon); his desire to make a put out cartoons that are beautiful, not really a quality that the cartoon editor, or even cartoon consumers, are necessarily looking for; why the New Yorker cartoonists haven’t been able to form a union, which is related to why there aren’t really any other high-profile venues for gag cartoons to be seen; how he didn’t have a gallery for 15 years, and was “forced to sell” his own work, using Instagram successfully for sales in the pre-algorithmic takeover era, when he got three to four times more engagement than he gets now (and thankfully for him he now doesn’t require sales thru IG as much); his new dealer, Adam Cohen, who opened the gallery A Hug from The Art World three years ago; and how wanting to draw a Miro sculpture led to one of his most popular and most responded to cartoons at the Independent art fair in NYC this past spring.
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
Gribaudi-Plytas home in Champagne (old-school-house-on-the-left-house-on-right)
‘Penis’ (the spikes are mild steel, made by angle grinding mild steel rods)
Mycellium making in London studio
their current studio
London studio when moving/settling in…
their garden
Storing-Structure-In-London-Studio
In Episode 376, artist duo and couple Alex and Theo Gribaudi-Plytas talk about:
Their location in rural France, at the southern end of the Champagne region, where there are tons of vineyards, many of which they take friends from out of town to, and how even in their minimally populated area they see plenty of income inequality; how they met while living in London’s version of dorms for art students, even though they were going to art schools that weren’t at all near each other, and how they evolved from friends to romantic partners to romantic partners who make art collaboratively; Theo’s art school professor, Leigh Clarke, who looked through the class’s sketchbooks, and if they didn’t past muster he’d throw them in the trash (it was symbolic); how they organically evolved into making art together as a pair, and what the advantages (and occasionally disadvantages) are, including the energy from vibing off each other’s ideas, and how one can inspire the other and v.versa; how their life is their art, particularly with the evolution of their home/home studio and garden, all together as a piece.
In the 2nd half of our conversation, which is available on our Patreon page, Alex and Theo discuss: their perpetual moving in and moving out of studios in London, each after just a year or two, because they got priced out or the situation was unsustainable, and how they’re translating the various functioning areas of those fleeting studio spaces to this permanent one, which is still very much a work-in-progress after three years (it’s a former school house built in 1879 and a house next door); their 24-hour work/artmaking sensibility, which they make sound quite appealing, a world in which breakfast can be art, or they can be working on art-related sewing while watching a film; why they left the city for the country, even when they had such a wonderful time during art school and beyond in London; the details of their property, including the view into the forest, where hunting takes place (and which we discuss); their complex relationship using Instagram (they don’t like to but need to); Theo’s sister, Sarah Rosenzweig, who they both admire for getting off of Meta platforms despite living in the mountains in the south of France (she sends out calendars and advocates for progressive political causes).
This podcast relies on listener support; please consider becoming a Patreon supporter of the podcast, for as little as $1/month, here: https://www.patreon.com/theconversationpod
Marcy’s studio and house at Sitka Center residency
Chimera, from Sitka Center residency in 2025
smoke over Morro Bay from the Thomas Fire, 2017
studio at Banff Center residency, 2024
Cascade Head Trail, Sitka Center Residency
Chimera, Estero Bay, 2024
Marcie Begleiter, an artist based on the Central Coast of California, talks about:
Artist residencies, including the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where she recently did a 4-week residency, including collecting biological specimens/samples, and how her time and relationship with the residency evolved over those four weeks, which lead to artistic breakthroughs; how she likes deadlines, and can structure her residency experience with the clock ticking and puts extra focus on what she’s doing, and in addition having the support of the people running the residencies; the importance of the artist statement in applications for residencies; what her experience was like at Sitka, from where she stayed (at an offsite house as opposed to the onsite cabins) to how she spent her days and nights, and what her studio days are like on a residency vs. the studio where she lives; why she left New York (Manhattan) for, initially Taos, N.M., and eventually California (essentially she needed more access to nature); and the interdisciplinary program she started at Otis College of Art that focuses on social change in the community.
In the 2nd half of our conversation, which is available on our Patreon page, she talks about: how she’s restarting the local CERT (citizen’s emergency response training) in her unincorporated town (of Los Osos, CA), partially inspired by not having much access out of her area in an emergency; how she and her husband came to leaving Los Angeles for Los Osos, back in 2015/16, after she toured extensively with her documentary on the artist Eva Hesse; the benefits of living in a small town (Los Osos) which she prefers to city life; the lucky circumstances of having a great studio space in a location where you wouldn’t expect great studios; why she vastly prefers a studio outside her home; she breaks down the different type of residencies: 1) fully funded plus stipends…2) fully funded, no stipend….3) highly subsidized…4) paying full ride; and finally, she addresses our standard finishing questions: how does she feel like social media in this moment, and how success is defined across various careers in the arts.
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His first graphic novel, The Murder Next Door, including what led him to finally making a graphic novel after being a big fan of them for a long time; studying fine art at the California College of Arts and Crafts back in the 1980s, and then going back to the same school, now called simply California College of the Arts, to get a masters in graphic novels; graphic novelists who have been influential to Hugh, including Adrian Tomine from nearby Berkeley, Chris Ware, who he refers to as both a giant and a genius in the field, as well Art Spiegelman, Thi Bui (whom he had as one of his graphic novel professors), Marjane Satrapi, and Phoebe Glockner; how the graphic novelists he’s met have generally been very talkative and have quirky sensibilities, but also have introverted streaks which are necessary for long stretches alone that are necessary for producing their work; how he worked on the beginning of his graphic novel while in grad school, where the crits were very nurturing and supportive, unlike crits from back in the day (undergrad); where graphic novel reading falls in our attention economy; the value he puts on the hand-drawn in comics, with modest digital intervention; and how Vipassana meditation, the first chapter of the book, played a big role in Hugh’s healing journey….
In the second half of our conversation, which isavailable to Patreon supporters, Hugh talks about: the distinction between cartooning and illustration, and how challenging it is to render a person from multiple views in that style; what feedback he’s gotten so far, with at least one reader saying that it was ‘very unique,’ probably meaning they found it too dark; the roll his parents played (or didn’t play) in healing from his trauma (the murder the book is focused on); his trolling of conspiracy theorists on social media (which is described in the book), which came out of his reaction to people making things up about who was responsible for the murder, along with the pros and cons of engaging with a conspiracy theorist; his description of 3 or 4 major career trajectory paths for artists in big art capitals, inspired by his nephew and students and their impending career paths- the A path/A-train: rock star; B path/B train: you have a partner who has a job/supports you financially; C path/train: artist with a day job; D-train: you live just outside of a major city, or in a college town, or rural areas; housing in the U.S., particularly in the art capitals (a sort of passion of both of ours) and how he bought a house in East Oakland, a part of the city he had never been in and he’d been living in the East Bay for decades; how he’s in a ‘coffee dessert,’ meaning he needs to drive at least 10 minutes to get to a good coffee spot, leading to a beautiful paradox: as a participant in gentrifying his neighborhood, he realizes that as soon as that fancy coffee place pops up in his neighborhood, the gentrification will essentially be complete; the neighborhoods Hugh lived in in San Francisco, particularly the Mission, Hayes Valley and the Tenderloin, and their respective reputations and what he experienced living there as an older young person going to punk shows and the like; his friend Rebecca Solnit’s book Hollow City, about how gentrification displaces people of color as well as creative communities; we dig quite a bit into the weeds of the housing crisis, and how he lived on the cheap in the Bay Area for years, including getting around by bike up until 10 years ago; and finally he talks about his music show highlights over the years, including his changing relationship to the Grateful Dead over the decades.
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