Art Throb

William M. Duffy’s solo exhibition currently at the Speed Museum, is the second installment of the Louisville Black Avant-Garde series, highlighting local, historically significant Black visual artists active from 1950–1980. A lifelong artist, Duffy first began with painting, silk-screening, and drawing. However, after witnessing a car crash destroy a bank building’s marble column, he felt compelled to ask for remnants of the broken stone; from then on, he taught himself how to carve and sculpt through research, improvisation, and repetition. This retrospective exhibition spans over 4 decades of creativity and presents not only the sculpture that Duffy is now known for, but also his earlier drawings, paintings, and digital art. In addition to featuring works of fine art, this retrospective also includes commercial works commissioned by local community groups and works made over the course of his long career as an educator in the Jefferson County Public Schools – and done in collaboration with his students.

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Cacey Nadalilo, Executive Director of the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, shares insights into this year's highly anticipated festival, including the variety of programming and community outreach initiatives. Joined by host Kate Savage, Cacey highlights the festival's mission to bring world-class chamber music to Central Kentucky through an array of pop-ups, educational workshops, and main stage concerts. The conversation covers the festival's partnerships with local schools and the significant impact of their outreach programs designed to inspire young musicians. Bringing together renowned artists like Nathan Cole and Ken Olson, this year's festival promises a rich blend of traditional and contemporary chamber music performances. Cacey also delves into the logistics of hosting such an event, the selection of distinguished musicians, and the importance of community engagement in fostering a love for classical music.

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Phoebe White is a 14 year old multi-instrumentalist, singer / songwriter whose first nationally released album in 2022 when she was 12, debuted at number 7 on the Western radio charts.

​Phoebe was a featured guest on the GRAND OLE OPRY in 2023 where she performed with Grammy award winners Riders in the Sky. She was presented with a special honorary exhibit at the KENTUCKY MUSIC HALL OF FAME in 2023.
​She has also performed with Suzy Bogguss, and shared the stage with Michael Johnathon, David McLean, Bluegrass band of the year: The Farm Hands, members of Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, New Grass Revival, The McLain Family Band, and many more. 
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Phoebe has performed multiple times on WOODSONGS OLD TIME RADIO HOUR and WOODSONGS KIDS as well as Best of America by Horseback on RFD-TV; The country music capital of Kentucky: Renfro Valley, The Kentucky Opry, and more. Phoebe is currently getting ready to release her new album Cowgirl’s Delight featuring Grammy Award winners Riders in the Sky and Suzy Bogguss.
​To listen to the WEKU/NPR interview here

For more and to connect with us, visit https://www.artsconnectlex.org/art-throb-podcast.html

Samantha Simpson and Becky Alley, founders of the Muse Collective, a curatorial group in Lexington were inspired by the closure of Parachute Factory and the dearth of gallery space in the city. They discuss their innovative approach to building community and fostering inclusivity through pop-up exhibitions in unconventional spaces like garages and moving trucks. The guests share their vision of creating immersive art experiences enriched with music, poetry, and lectures, and their openness to showcasing works from beyond Kentucky. Challenges of balancing personal boundaries with community engagement are highlighted, alongside the excitement and flexibility their method allows. Their ongoing project, Blink, aims to nurture genuine relationships within the art world, emphasizing the collective's need for growth and collaboration.

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Larry Kezele, owner of Ruth Hunt Candy and the early champion for the soon-to-be installed Freedom Train Monument, and Yvonne Giles, Historian and Researcher also known as The African American History Guru, talk about the lives of the enslaved couple Lewis and Harriet Hayden and how once escaped from Lexington to the north, they became freedom fighters for those looking to escape via the Underground Railway.
Larry talks about how the memorial project initially was conceived by Sherry Maddoc ten years ago.  Its bumpy way forward after she returned to Australia, then how it has recently gained traction and funding, and the process and selection of a sculptor as well as where the project stands today.
Yvette talks about the Haydens, their remarkable story of escape, their lives before and after breaking out of bondage, and how incredibly important it is to keep their story alive today and celebrate their quest for freedom as a fundamental human right. 
Hayden, when asked why he wanted to be free, simply responded - "Because I am a man." 

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Jordan Campbell, an award-winning actor and educator originally from Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, is a leading figure in the global arts and culture ecosystem. His career spans theatre, education, and policy, utilizing his acting background for diverse creative initiatives. While Jordan has performed worldwide, including on Broadway tours and prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center, and worked at the White House during the Obama administration, he is now back in his hometown.

Jordan is the Executive Director at the Gateway Regional Arts Center in Mt. Sterling, the place where he got his start in the arts. 

​The Gateway Regional Arts Center (GRAC) is the premier regional cultural center for the Central and Eastern regions of Kentucky.  With a mission of providing excellent arts experiences for the communities along the I-64 corridor between Lexington, Kentucky and Huntington, West Virginia, GRAC is on the forefront of cultural programming and continues to grow its reach into the Appalachian and Bluegrass regions of Kentucky.

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As a young girl growing up in Kentucky, Constance Grayson was drawn to and influenced by traditional handcrafts. She learned traditional quilting techniques from her Appalachian aunts and was fascinated, even as a young child, with the interplay of color, form and texture. Although she no longer utilizes the traditional techniques she learned as a child, she is still fascinated with the process of creating something from bits and pieces of the almost nothings that she comes across. Most of her work utilizes techniques of collage to create a new whole from these bits and pieces. Her work results from the bringing together of handmade paper, commercial paper, and found objects with additions of paint and ink.

​Constance's interest has always been in color, form and texture and the ways in which those three elements interact with one another. She does not strive to have her finished work resemble any object or person in a realistic way. Instead, she wants to see whether she can successfully create energy and mood through the colors, forms and textures she uses in the piece.

Her work has been displayed in U.S. galleries, museums and exhibits in Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, including academic institutions in New York (St. John’s University), Arkansas (Crittenden County Community College) and Tennessee (Christian Brothers University). She has participated in international solo and invitational exhibits in Fabriano, Gubbio, Milan and Foligno, Italy as well as Spa, Belgium. One of her fabric collages was the cover image for, as well as the subject of an article in, the August/September 2014 edition of Quilting Arts magazine. Her art has also been featured in the May/June 2015 edition of Kentucky Home and Gardens magazine and the March 2010 issue of ArteCulture, an Italian monthly magazine. Currently, her art is in the permanent collections of Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee; the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky; Christ Church Cathedral in Lexington, Kentucky; LeBonheur Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee and the Jessamine County Public Library, Nicholasville, Kentucky as well as in numerous private collections.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION - New Editions Gallery until mid July 2024
This is an interpretive art exhibition based on Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. Listening to each of the 10 movements and the recurring and varied Promenade theme, Constance created 15 energetic abstracts depicting her reaction to Mussorgsky's virtuoso masterpiece. 

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Shawn Okpebholo was born in Lexington, Kentucky and a graduate of Tates  Creek High School.  He earned his doctoral degree in composition from the   University of Cincinnati's Celloge-Conservatory of Music.  Currently he serves   as the Jonathan Blanchard Distinguished Professor of Composition at   Wheaton College-Conservatory of Music and the Saykaly-Garbulinska   Composer-in-Residence with the Lexington Philharmonic.

 Two Black Churches is a song set in two movements for baritone soloist and   orchestra.  Originally composed for voice and piano, featuring baritone Will Liverman and pianist Paul Sanche, this orchestration was co-commissioned by   the Lexington Philharmonic during Shawn E. Okpebholo's tenure as the   Saykaly-Garbulnska Composer-in-Residence.
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Two Black Churches serves as a musical reflection of two significant and tragic events perpetrated at the hands of white supremacists in two Black churches, decades apart;

• The 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing Birmingham, Alabama which took the lives of four girls.
• The 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, taking the lives of nine parishioners.

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After receiving his BFA from 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 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.

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Originally from Cynthiana, Kentucky, Wylie Caudill has emerged as a distinguished artist, rooted in the verdant landscape of Lexington. He is presently this year’s official artist for the prestigious 150th Kentucky Derby.
Wylie's artistic narrative is woven with a distinctive imprint—a signature style he affectionately terms as "organic repetition." This unique aesthetic can be easily recognized throughout his portfolio.
His work can be seen not just in Kentucky but across the United States, vitalizing urban landscapes with murals that echo his artistic ethos.
Wylie's artistic journey began when he was quite young.  Pokemon, trains, and dragons served as his inspiration and ignited his imagination. However, it was while at college that Wylie found his artistic niche using chalk to draw on the streets and sidewalks of his campus, that earned him the nickname 'the chalk guy’.  Murals were a natural transition from there.
Today, Wylie's artistic creativity transcends the confines of concrete walls to work on canvases, bourbon bottles, apparel, and beyond. He likes to think his journey stands as a testament to the transformative power of passion, dedication, and an unwavering commitment to his art.

For more and to connect with us, visit https://www.artsconnectlex.org/art-throb-podcast.html