ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

My guest today is Hazel, the founder of By Spruce, a New York-based knitwear brand. She is largely self-taught and learned her craft through YouTube videos, experimentation, and trial and error.

I joined Hazel in her studio to talk about how, since launching in December 2024, she has been developing her own designs and building a business around her love of knitting, crochet, and sewing. We cover knitting machines, sewing patterns, and yarn, as well as the subtle art of balancing a creative project with a full-time job.

We also talk about Hazel’s constant refrain when she designs: “Would I wear this?” And she shares her plans to launch a knitting circle in her studio, a space for makers to gather and connect. We close with some advice for anyone sitting on an idea and waiting for it to be perfect: just start.

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If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  

If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected]
 
host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: By Spruce
www.byspruce.com
insta: @byspruce_
 
Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

My guest today is the painter Matthew Miller, a Brooklyn-based artist who has exhibited in New York and abroad. He received his BA from Messiah College in 2004 and his MFA from the New York Academy of Art in 2008, where he was awarded a postgraduate fellowship. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, and Two Coats of Paint, among others.

I joined Matthew in his studio last month to talk about side paintings, oddball works, and the complicated feelings that can come with using your own face as subject matter. We discuss his obsessive search for the perfect paint mixture, the literal hundreds of hours it takes him to finish a painting, and his ongoing battle with his own technique.

The second half of our conversation turns to the New York Academy of Art, where Matthew and I both earned our MFAs. We reflect on the gap between our memories of the school and our feelings about it now, including its handling of the controversies surrounding Jeffrey Epstein and the Academy’s administration. From there, we move on to student debt, advice for younger artists considering grad school, and building community.

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  

If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected] 

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Matthew Miller
www.matthewmiller.nyc
insta: @matthewmiller
 
Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists.

My guest today is painter Greg Burak. Born in Haverstraw, New York, Greg received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA in Painting from Indiana University. His most recent solo exhibition was at March Gallery in New York, with previous solo exhibitions at Fortnight Institute. His work has appeared in group exhibitions at Turn Gallery, Venus Over Manhattan, and 303 Gallery. He lives and works in Queens, New York.

Now get ready for some real painting talk! I sat down with Greg Burak in his Queens studio to talk about how a painting gets built (and rebuilt) and what it means to keep changing the rules on yourself. We talk about moving between acrylic and oil, his shift away from flatness and toward forcing space into a painting, and how a problem with a figure's feet sent him down a rabbit hole of perspective and volume. We get into rhyming shapes, the weight of placing a hand, and the perfect pitch of Corot.

We also discuss the tension between observation and invention that has run through his entire practice. We talk about how Greg sets new parameters for each body of work in response to the last, the difference between single and multi-figure compositions, and artists like Cézanne, Tintoretto, and the Quattrocento. Finally, we get into finishing, knowing when to stop, procrastination, and what a good day in the studio actually looks like.

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM! 

If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected]

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Greg Burak
www.gregburak.com
insta: @greg.burak

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

My guest today is painter and artist book maker Beldan Sezen, a Turkish-European artist based in New York and Amsterdam. Her paintings, held in private collections internationally, are built through a process of layered, gestural abstraction — response and revision until the composition resolves. Her painting practice sits alongside a long-running practice in artist books, which are held in the permanent collections of the Getty Research Institute, the Library of Congress, Harvard University, Stanford University, MIT, and the Herzog August Bibliothek, among others.

I sat down with Beldan Sezen in her Gowanus studio to talk about her move from graphic novels and comics to artist books and painting, and the question that drives that shift: what is the form the work wants to be told in? We discuss the immense freedom of the artist book, her philosophy of intuition and experimentation and how it's never what she wants, but always what the work wants. We get into the difference between creating something new and reproducing, the rhythm of book days and painting days, and her relationship with painting itself. Finally, Beldan shares her love of fellow artists like Nancy Spero, Anselm Kiefer, Charles Schulz, and more. And we close on the importance of always asking for help and Beldan's complicated feelings about titling new work.Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected]

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Beldan Sezen
www.beldansezen.com
insta: @beldan_sezen
Contact Cypher ( Comics commissions for human rights and social justice storytelling)

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to a very special episode of ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists. 

This BONUS mini episode celebrates Episode #80 of the Pod - and features a very special guest. The youngest one in ARTMATTERS history, in fact.

Before we begin, I want to take a moment to say thank you. To everyone who's listened, shared the show, supported on Patreon, and to all the artists and friends who kept telling me to keep going over these past four years. Because projects like this are funny. They don't come with obvious signs that they're working. There's no paycheck. And because it takes so much time, out of my own studio practice and out of the time artists generously give me, there have definitely been moments where I've had to ask myself not whether I believe in it, but whether the value is worth what it costs everyone involved. And whenever I've hit those moments, there have always been people who reminded me that these conversations matter. Thank you.

Since we're hitting 80 this week I'll also mention that incorporating video into this project has definitely added to the overhead and time the show requires. So in the spirit of an NPR pledge drive, if you've been here a while and you're in a position to support, becoming a patron or making a one-time donation would mean a lot. I want to keep this show listener supported and ad-free as long as I can so if you'd like to help, that's the best way to do it. 

My guest today is Leo Ambrosio. Leo is eleven years old, going into the sixth grade, and he recently exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum. It began with a program called the Basquiat Project. 

The Basquiat Project is an arts education program developed by the Brooklyn Nets in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. It ran in fifty Brooklyn middle and high schools, asking students to make work about bullying, anxiety, and how you move through it. Out of everyone who submitted, about a hundred pieces made it into the show at the Brooklyn Museum.

Leo was one of them. 

For today’s episode, Leo and his mom joined me in my Bushwick studio. Leo got his hands dirty and helped me prepare some new paintings, then we sat down with the mics and had this conversation. We talk about Leo’s mixed media painting that was selected for the Basquiat Project, about finishing a painting and second guessing yourself, about Frida Kahlo and the Knicks trophy and drawing hands and art camp.  

Enjoy the episode!

The Basquiat Project 

Patreon 

Isaac Mann

Leo Ambrosio 

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

My guest today is artist and writer Matthew Weinstein. Over the course of his career, Matthew has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries throughout the United States and internationally. His solo museum exhibitions include the Johnson Museum at Cornell University, the Orlando Museum of Art, the Mint Museum, the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, and the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna. In addition to painting, his practice has also included writing, animation, film, and interactive media. His work has been featured in The New York Times, T Magazine, Artforum, Art in America, and The New Yorker, and is held in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery, the Denver Art Museum, and numerous other public and private collections.

I sat down with Matthew in his Greenpoint studio, where he told me why he believes every painting has a beauty mandate and why he distrusts art whose primary goal is to mean something, saying that meaning can feel like litter in a painting.  We discuss beauty versus prettiness, humor, queerness, and the way doubt and impatience are ever-present in his studio practice.

Matthew also reflects on obsession, arguing that for some artists it isn't a choice, and that it is neither good nor bad, but simply the thing that fuels the work. We discuss the creative crisis that led him to explore animation and why painting and writing remain the bedrock of everything he does. Matthew also discusses his airbrush collaboration paintings,  the influence the artist Hiroshege has had on his current work and why it has taken Matthew years to figure out how to paint a straight line. Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM! 

 If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected] 

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Matthew Weinstein
www.matthewweinstein.com
insta: @matthewaweinstein

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Erin M. Riley is a Brooklyn-based artist whose large-scale woven tapestries explore intimacy, memory, trauma, and identity through meticulously constructed images assembled from personal photographs, found imagery, and internet culture. 

She received her BFA from MassArt and her MFA from Tyler School of Art, is represented by P·P·O·W in New York, and has exhibited at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, Museion in Italy, and the 16th Lyon Biennale. Her work is held in numerous public collections, and she is the recipient of both a United States Artists Fellowship and an American Academy of Arts & Letters Art Purchase Prize.

I sat down with Erin M. Riley in her Brooklyn live-work studio to talk about why she intentionally lives where she works and how weaving dictates every aspect of her daily life, physical health, exercise, fasting, posture, breathing, and endurance. We explore the importance of slowness, what it feels like to spend four months making a work you can't truly see until the very end, and the dramatic reveal after removing a finished tapestry from the loom.

We talk about designing and improving weaving tools, the importance of keeping a personal archive, her fascinating system of hand-dyeing, mixing, and preparing yarn before she weaves a single stitch, and the changing place of textiles in contemporary art, and whether the old art-versus-craft debate is finally vanishing.

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  

If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected] 

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Erin M. Riley
www.erinmriley.com
insta: @erinmriley

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Today's guest is David Humphrey, a New York-based painter whose work has been shown nationally and internationally, and who has been recognized with some of the most prestigious awards in the art world, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize. He teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University, is represented by Fredericks & Freiser Gallery in New York, and is the author of Blind Handshake, an anthology of David’s art writing.

On today's episode I ask David about how he knows when a painting is finished, his works on paper, and what late-career de Kooning taught him about the surface of a painting. We get into what David calls the "ecology" of his studio, the sociability of paintings, decision-making in the studio, and the question of shallow vs implied space in his newer work. We also talk about his recent show at Kate Werbel Gallery which features works on paper, wall painting and installation. Finally, David reflects on navigating privilege and provocation during his career, including a memorable and charged moment at a Hunter College lecture that I was actually in the audience for. We finish up by talking about the stakes of painting and the absurdity, weakness, and humor inherent in the medium.

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected] 

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: David Humphrey
www.davidhumphreynyc.com
insta: @aikenhump

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Our guest today is Margaret Curtis, a feminist painter born in Bermuda whose vivid, densely layered canvases explore power dynamics at both the personal and societal level. Margaret is an inaugural recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship, and her work first gained national recognition in Marcia Tucker's landmark Bad Girls exhibition at the New Museum in New York in 1994. Since then she has shown at the Brooklyn Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, and the Wexner Center, with recent solo shows at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art and Post Times Gallery in New York City. Her work has been reviewed in the Times, Artforum, Art in America, and Harper's, and is held in permanent collections throughout the United States.

I sat down with Margaret in the last days of her exhibition entitled ‘S at Post Times in Lower Manhattan. I set up the mics and the cameras and Margaret spoke to me about endurance, dumb mark-making, her beloved Quinacridone gold and how she describes a day in her studio as 30,000 nonverbal decisions, and feeling practically broken by the end of it.

We talk Cricut, Frisket, Speedy Carve and Dibond as well as the cake decorating tools that she snatched up in a deliberate act of rebellion against her painting instructors - and originally kicked off this predilection for alternative mark-making, Margaret explains why she believes style is a market pressure, not something worth pursuing, and that each painting demands its own visual language. She also talks Jack Whitten, gives some great final advice, and tells me why painting has always been "her friendliest enemy.”

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!
If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!  

If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected] 

host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Margaret Curtis
www.margaretcurtisart.com
insta: @margarcur

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.

Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists

Today's guest is Catherine Haggarty, a Brooklyn-based painter, educator and founder whose work has been featured in Artforum, the New York Times, Hyperallergic, and BOMB magazine, among others.

Catherine has exhibited widely across New York, LA, and Miami and has been a visiting artist at institutions including Cornell, RISD, Pratt and Rutgers, where she also earned her MFA.

She co-founded NYC Crit Club in 2017 and also created the Canopy Program, a one-year mentorship platform now serving artists all around the world.

On today's episode I joined Catherine in her Crown Heights studio for an expansive conversation. We discussed the emotional weight of years of unsold work in storage to what it really means to slow down and become more deliberate as an artist.

Catherine speaks to me about motherhood, sustaining a practice over decades, the difference between style and voice and what led her to co-found NYC Crit Club and build the Canopy Program into the global platform it is today.

We also talk about drawing, watercolor and other painting practices, as well as the importance of saving money and taking care of your body.

Enjoy the conversation!

Support this podcast by clicking HERE and becoming a Patreon Supporter!

If you're enjoying the podcast so far, please rate, review, subscribe and SHARE ON INSTAGRAM!

If you have any questions you want answered, write in to [email protected]

host: Isaac Mann www.isaacmann.com 
insta: @isaac.mann

guest: Catherine Haggarty www.catherinehaggarty.com 
insta: @catherinehaggarty 
insta: @thecanopyprogram 
insta: @nyccritclub

Canopy Program Application - NOW OPEN

Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.