5 Questions- A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast

Ep. 77- Danny Houk

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Danny Houk.

Danny Houk is an interdisciplinary craftsperson interested in playful and accessible images serving as Trojan horses for more politically and religiously charged ideas.  He is co-owner and operator of Public Defender on main street in Belleville, IL, a contemporary art gallery and shop carrying zines, prints, and indie comics.

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region.

With Danny Houk and Joe Kohlburn

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Episode 76. Sue Giannotti

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Sue Giannotti.

Sue Giannotti is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and the founder of Mosaic Opus Studio, near St. Louis, Missouri, where she creates original mosaic artworks and architectural commissions. Originally trained in Italy, Sue uses the ancient tools, materials, and techniques of mosaic—including individually cutting and setting each tessera— to create contemporary mosaic work.   Her work has been exhibited and collected in the US and internationally, including France, Italy, Japan and Australia.   In 2026, she had an installation of her sculptural mosaics at St Louis Lambert airport and she demo’d mosaic technique at the St. Louis Art Museum.  She’s been a visiting artist instructor at The Chicago Mosaic School since 2005 and has juried multiple international exhibitions.  

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Sue Giannotti and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 75- Erin Vigneau-Dimick

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Erin Vigneau-Dimick.

Erin Vigneau-Dimick is the Executive Curator at The University Museum at SIUE where she directs all activities and programming for the museum and teaches Exhibition Design and Collection Management for the Museum Studies program. A trained book and archives conservator, she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (Massachusetts College of Art) and a Master of Fine Arts degree (The University of the Arts) with concentrations in photography, printmaking, book arts, and book conservation. Her artwork employs both digital and analog processes and is executed in multiple media. She has exhibited her artwork at galleries throughout the St. Louis region for the last 22 years.

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Erin Vigneau-Dimick and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 74- Miriam Ruiz

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Miriam Ruiz. 

Miriam Ruiz is an art museum educator with eight years of experience in community outreach, in-school, public, and interpretive programming, lately as Education Manager at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.  She is an artist and curator whose work centers around issues of labor and human rights, and is Vice President of Latinx Arts Network. Miriam has an MA in Contemporary Art Theory and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Miriam Ruiz and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 73- Second Synthesis

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld. This episode we’re doing a little something different. Brett, Sarah and I chat about our takeaways and goals for the coming year. Looking specifically at reaching new interviewees for new perspectives and untangling the threads of our region to weave a fruitful and coherent cultural cloth.

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

IG @criticalmassart

With Sarah Hammond, Brett Williams, and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 72- Ilene Berman

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld. This episode we’re talking with Ilene Berman.

Ilene Berman (she, her) is a sculptor with a studio practice and a socially engaged arts practice that stem from a pair of related questions: does art have the capacity to adequately address the structural concerns of our day and is it possible for an artist to engage the viewer in these concerns by creating spaces for them to think and feel?  Although there are moments in which large scale revolutionary action leads to social change, Ilene believes that most change happens in small sustainable shifts often sparked by artful gestures. Her work is the result of choosing intentional materials to create specific sparks. Ilene has had solo exhibitions of her installation work at Gallery 210 and fort gondo compound for the arts. For the past twelve years her socially engaged work has primarily been focused in the Covenant Blu-Grand Center neighborhood of St. Louis where she partners as a catalyst for arts initiatives with neighborhood residents. Her project, Room13Delmar, a tricycle-based mobile art studio, was the recipient of an Interchange Artists Grant that made possible the creation of the mobile gallery, The Delmar – A Senior Artists Gallery. Ilene’s work has been featured in Artforum, Sculpture Magazine, St. Louis American, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on the BBC and is a part of the Arte Util Archive. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and is an Assistant Professor in the Visual and Performing Arts Department of Saint Louis University.

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Ilene Berman and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 71- Kalaija Mallery

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Kalaija Mallery.

Kalaija Mallery is the Artistic Director of The Luminary. She is a graduate of Pacific Northwest College of Art, where she completed both her BFA in Photography and MFA with a focus on Critical Studies and Curatorial Practices. In 2017, Kalaija founded Third Room: a DIY artspace for experimental exhibitions and activations by young and underrepresented artists in Portland, OR. As a working artist and organizer, Kalaija has facilitated exhibitions and artistic projects in Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; St. Louis, MO; Springfield, IL; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; Nanjing, China; and globally, online. Her written and curatorial work has been published in MARCH International, Art in America, the Institute for Conceptual Studies, Journal.fyi, and Soft Surface Quarterly. At The Luminary, Kalaija organized KNOW/HOW books & print—a social space inside the gallery; Emerge, a professional development seminar series for artists; the renewed Arts Advisory Board for institutional feedback and support; and other resources and points of connection for local artists and creative practitioners. She serves on the board of Midwest Artist Project Services, a volunteer-led organization that provides low-cost resources for artistic professional development in the region.

With Kalaija Mallery and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 70- Kevin Harris

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Kevin Harris.

Kevin Harris is an experimental artist with a background in engineering, as a studio musician, and freelance circuit designer. Kevin is currently teaching through his non-profit The Center for Aesthetic Research (CAR). CAR works with the presentation of time-based art forms and experimental education through public performances, workshops, artist talks, and six-week long courses. These courses are currently being offered through the Luminary in St. Louis. 

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Kevin Harris and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 69- Katherine Poole-Jones

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld.This episode we’re talking with Katherine Poole-Jones.

Katherine Poole-Jones is Professor of Art History at SIUE, specializing in early modern Italy. She teaches both halves of the introductory survey course in art history, as well as upper level courses on the Italian Renaissance, the Northern Renaissance, the Baroque period, Islamic art and architecture, and the public monument in Renaissance and Baroque Italy. She also team-teaches an Interdisciplinary Studies course on the history of museums and is very active in the Women’s Studies Department at SIUE, frequently giving lectures to support the program, and also teaching two of her most popular courses, Women in Art and Women in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, as cross-listed offerings.

Professor Poole-Jones received a Fulbright Fellowship to Italy in 2005-2006 to complete the research the resulted in her dissertation, The Medici Grand Dukes and the Art of Conquest: Ruling Identity and the Formation of a Tuscan Empire, 1537-1609, and she has published several essays on the Medici family and their use of patronage as propaganda. She also has presented her research widely, including at the Renaissance Society of America conference and the College Art Association conference, as well as maintains a strong relationship with the St. Louis Art Museum where she has presented numerous gallery talks as well as the Women’s History Month lecture in 2014. Her current research project, “Civic Identity and Ideology: The Public Monuments of Forest Park, St. Louis, 1876-1917,” investigates the public monuments of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century St. Louis and the role they played in shaping collective memory and disseminating a potent civic identity for the city in the years after the Civil War. She received her Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers University (2007) and an M.A., also in art history, from American University (2002).

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Katherine Poole-Jones and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams

Ep. 68 Jessica Mannisi

Welcome listeners to 5 Questions: A Critical Mass for the Visual Arts Podcast in which we ask 5 questions of our interviewees aimed at positioning and contextualizing their respective bodies of work within the St. Louis artworld. This episode we’re talking with Jessica Mannisi.

Jessica is a St. Louis-based curator, arts consultant, and art historian with 20 years of experience in the museum and gallery field. She’s devoted to supporting regional arts, and has worked closely with award-winning artists and organizations to elevate the local arts community. She has led the art & exhibitions programming at the Foundry Art Centre since 2020. A jack-of-all-trades in galleries and museums, her primary roles are curator of the Foundry’s 3600sqft Main Galleries of rotating exhibitions and organizer of the Foundry’s large-scale art events and programs, including the annual Block Party, the Grand Hall Mural Project, and the Foundry’s First Friday Series. After earning her graduate degree in Museum Studies from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Jessica was the assistant curator/registrar of the William & Florence Schmidt Art Center at Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville, Illinois. She followed this 8-year tenure as the assistant curator of visual art for the Angad Arts Hotel in St. Louis’ Grand Center, curating the permanent collection and the Hotel’s inaugural exhibition year. Prior to joining the Foundry, Jessica was an independent consultant and the curatorial director of Houska Gallery in the Central West End, St. Louis.

5 Questions is a program by Critical Mass for the Visual Arts – a nonprofit, self-formed visual arts collaborative dedicated to promoting, enhancing and initiating contemporary visual art in the St. Louis region. 

With Jessica Mannisi and Joe Kohlburn 

Editor – Sarah Hammond

Producer – Brett Williams