Artroverted

In this episode, we speak with Amy Williams Monier, the co-founder and curator of Connemara Conservancy in Plano, TX. Connemara was founded in 1981 by Amy and her mother, Frances Williams, as one the first land trusts in Texas. 

At the suggestion of her mother, Amy invited artists to create work that celebrated the land's beauty that often resulted in monumental works. Over the years, it became famous for its pioneering installation art program that Amy curated its closure in 2002. During the 21-year run, the meadow attracted visitors from around the globe and was influential in the careers of many successful installation artists. 

Amy discusses the challenges of creating an installation art program, land conservation, and how Connemara was very much of its time. 

This episode is the first recording of Artrovered, via Zoom on April 23, 2020. 

Before starting her work at Connemara, Amy helped produce the inaugural edition of Baltimore Artscape in 1981. It was working with artists there that she was first introduced to installation art. When she returned to Dallas the following year, she helped run 500x, one of Texas's oldest, artist-run cooperative galleries. Her experience working with artists and organizations in both places helped her build Connemara's art program. 

Contemporary reviews of Connemara describe a bucolic union of art and community. In 1984 Janet Kutner, of the Dallas Morning News, wrote, "In Connemara's casual setting, there is nothing intimidating about these works. Visitors can move around their perimeters; some sculptures allow viewers to walk into or through them. Several pieces invite touching. One work creates musical sounds." 

The article continues quoting that year's sculpture coordinator Charlene Marsh:

"Ms. Marsh, Who has spent more time with the Connemara exhibit then anyone beside the artists, sees it as a "mini-synopsis of what's happening in sculpture today." Many of these artists see themselves primarily as builders, she says, in that they like to have physical, hands-on involvement… The Connemara exhibit also suggests what Ms. Marsh calls, "the plight of the serious contemporary sculptor," who is "hungry" for a place to show his work. The unwieldy character of sculpture, and the expenses involved in making and storing it, virtually prohibit artists from making pieces of this scale unless they are commissioned for specific sites.…Obviously, one reason artists like to show at Connemara is that their works can be seen to such advantage in the open landscape.

Kutner, Janet. Plano's Connemara showcases sculpture in rolling landscape, Dallas Morning News, April 15, 1984.

Learn more about Connemara Conservancy: http://connemaraconservancy.org/wordpress/

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License). 

In this episode, I speak John Abodeely, CEO of the Houston Arts Alliance. In our conversation, we discuss his career path, creating equity in the arts, and how he’s working to help the creative community of Houston cope with the pandemic.

We discuss how he’s worked to improve arts education access in his past positions at Americans for the Arts, the Kennedy Center, and the President's Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and his current work as CEO of the Houston Arts Alliance. 

About John:

John Abodeely is Chief Executive Officer of Houston Arts Alliance (HAA). Joining HAA in November of 2017, he brings a strong background in arts and arts education policy as the  Acting Executive Director of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, service as Manager of National Partnerships for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Manager of Education at Americans for the Arts.

As CEO of Houston Arts Alliance, John directs strategy in grantmaking, civic art development, and new programs. He is committed to developing the organization’s service to the arts community, in partnership with board, staff, grantees, investors, and other stakeholders.

At the Presidents’ Committee, an advisory body to the White House on cultural issues, John was instrumental in the expansion of Turnaround Arts, a program that leverages the unique power of arts education to improve non-arts outcomes in a cohort of the nation's most struggling schools. During John’s tenure, the program successfully scaled from eight schools to sixty-eight. In April 2016, the Committee led sent the first federal cultural delegation to Cuba, immediately following the President's own historic trip. As the Trip Director for the delegation, Abodeely organized ten bilateral meetings with senior Cuban government officials and arranged for high-visibility U.S. artists to tour artist studios, explore schools, visit youth arts programs, and perform on stage with Cuban musicians. As a result of the delegation, embedded press and ongoing, bilateral artist and preservation exchanges helped to further the President’s goal of normalizing relations with Cuba.

John has taught education policy at the graduate level, and served on boards and various review panels. He is a graduate of Amherst College with a bachelor's degree magna cum laude in Biology and Fine Arts, and holds an MBA from John Hopkins University.

About the Houston Arts Alliance:

Houston Arts Alliance (HAA) is a local arts and culture organization whose principal work is to implement the City of Houston’s vision, values, and goals for its arts grantmaking and civic art investments. HAA’s work is conducted through contracts with the City of Houston, overseen by the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. HAA also executes privately funded special projects to meet the needs of the arts community, such as disaster preparation, research on the state of the arts in Houston, and temporary public art projects that energize neighborhoods.

In short, HAA helps artists and nonprofits be bold, productive, and strong.

Alliance website: https://www.houstonartsalliance.com/

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License). 

Abraham Burickson Episode 3 Show Notes

Our conversation was taped on May 29, 2020.

In this episode, I speak Abraham Burickson the co-founder and artistic director of Odyssey Works. An organization that designs immersive experiences for an audience of one that’s interdisciplinary, and poised on the boundary between art and life.

In our conversation, we discuss the challenges of crafting and executing Odysseys, the power of performance art, and the future of individualized immersive experiences in the age of zoom. 

Trained as an architect of buildings, Abraham translates his experience into being an architect of experiences. He discusses his time working with the Whirling Dervishes in New York and Turkey, Odysseys past and present, and their transcendental effects on the participant.

About Abraham: 

Abraham Burickson is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Odyssey Works, an interdisciplinary performance group that makes bespoke performances for one-person audiences. Trained in architecture at Cornell University, Burickson’s work spans writing, design, performance, and sound art. For more than a decade with Odyssey Works, he has continually sought to push the boundaries of interdisciplinarity and participatory art, working in collaboration with poets, actors, sound artists, composers, psychologists, designers, architects, filmmakers, and more in an attempt to develop an artistic process that is as rigorous in its craft as it is devoted to the continual re-evaluation of traditional form. Since 2002, the group has produced work in New York, San Francisco, Austin, Ithaca, and Seattle. In 2009 he started the Odyssey Lab, a series of intensive interdisciplinary retreats devoted to the study of basic questions in art. He is the winner of the 2018 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize, and his work has been profiled in the New York Times, Vulture, FastCompany, KALW, ArtInfo, the Stanford Storytelling Project, the SF Bay Guardian, SF Weekly, ARTE television, Metro NY, The Alcalde, and elsewhere. He has lectured at such places as the Brooklyn Museum, Cornell University, Fordham University, The GoGame, and Southern Exposure Gallery. In 2010, Charlie, a collection of his poems, was published on Codhill Press. His book, co-written with Ayden LeRoux, Odyssey Works:Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2016.

About Odyssey Works:

Imagine waking up to find yourself immersed in a performance that is all about you. Since 2001, Odyssey Works has been creating immersive, durational experiences for an audience of one. Our team is made up of artists in dozens of disciplines who study the life of one individual and use whatever means necessary to create intimate, meaningful performances that last days, weeks, or months, and occur not on a stage but interwoven with the life of our audience of one. The experiences are transformative; most of our participants change jobs, move, make new commitments to loved ones shortly after their Odysseys.

Odyssey Works Website: http://www.odysseyworks.org/

Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One publication page: http://www.odysseyworks.org/publications

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License). 

Mark A Roglan Episode 2 Show Notes

Our conversation was taped on June 5, 2020.

In this episode, I speak with Mark A Roglan, the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

We discuss his career path, projects, and the role of university museums and the Meadow’s status as a satellite embassy for Spanish culture. 

About the Meadows Museum:

The Meadows Museum is the leading U.S. institution focused on the study and presentation of the art of Spain. In 1962, Dallas businessman and philanthropist Algur H. Meadows donated his private collection of Spanish paintings, as well as funds to start a museum, to Southern Methodist University. The museum opened to the public in 1965, marking the first step in fulfilling Meadows’s vision to create “a small Prado for Texas.” Today, the Meadows is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Spanish art outside of Spain. The collection spans from the 10th to the 21st centuries and includes medieval objects, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, and major paintings by Golden Age and modern masters.

Meadows Museum: https://meadowsmuseumdallas.org 

About Mark:

Dr. Mark A. Roglán is the Linda P. and William A. Custard Director of the Meadows Museum and Centennial Chair in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University. He has been director of the Museum since January 1, 2006. He joined the Meadows Museum as interim curator and adjunct assistant professor of art history in October 2001. He became curator of collections in January 2002 and senior curator in June 2004. He also serves as adjunct associate professor in the Division of Art History at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts. Under his leadership the museum has increased its attendance; has developed a major program of international exhibitions; has created meaningful fellowships; produced insightful publications; constructed a new sculpture garden and outside spaces; made major acquisitions; formed new ways of educating and connecting with art for impaired people; as well as established strategic alliances with major museums, most importantly with the Museo Nacional del Prado. Before coming to the Meadows Museum, Dr. Roglán worked as a curatorial fellow and a research associate in the 19th-century painting and sculpture department of the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain. Prior to his tenure at the Prado, Dr. Roglán served as a drawings department assistant with the Fogg Museum at Harvard University. During the previous academic year, he studied at Tufts University through a Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Scholarship. Among other fellowships and honors, Dr. Roglán was awarded an Erasmus European Union Scholarship for a year-long study at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium. Dr. Roglán received master's degrees in both world history and art history and a doctorate in 19th-and 20th-century art from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. In 2013 he obtained an MBA from the Cox Business School at SMU. Dr. Roglán has contributed to many publications in the areas of19th-and 20th-century Spanish art, has given many national and international lectures, and has curated important exhibitions. He has many distinctions and awards, including being knighted with the Encomienda de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, a knighthood sanctioned by King Juan Carlos I for his contributions to Spanish art.

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License). 

Our conversation was taped on April 25, 2020.

In our debut episode, we speak with Amy Lewis Hofland, Senior Director Crow Museum of Asian Art at the University of Texas at Dallas. We discuss her career trajectory from an elementary school art teacher to a university museum director. Starting with an internship at the Metropolitan Museum to meeting the Dalai Lama. She has shepherded the collection from a private family collection to a university museum with a global reach. 

The collection is the largest collection devoted specifically to the Arts of Asia in the Southwest, and “an expression of how Dallas is designing the Asian art history of its own city.” 

She discusses the challenge and benefits of going digital, including Crow Unscripted that’s live-streamed through the Museum's Facebook page. Her development as a leader, mentors, and the need to be a museum without walls.

Our discussion was taped at the outset of the pandemic and during the shelter in place order issued in Dallas. She speaks eloquently about the future and the need to create and contemplate during this time:

I think the world will be different. We’re not going back to normal. I’m almost calling this a pre-set: what do we need to design to be in place for us to know that we’re living this life that’s more closely connected between what we want to be and how we show up to the world. (36:30)

Wish for the Art World: All internships are paid. Museum visitors understand the importance of joining the insertions they support and that because of technology that artists make themselves more accessible to communities. 

Since our taping, the museum announced plans to reopen Friday, September 18 with regular weekly hours every Friday through Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Crow Museum website: https://crowcollection.org/

Museum’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CrowMuseum

About Amy: 

Senior Director Amy Lewis Hofland leads the Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas, the preeminent museum dedicated to the arts and cultures of Asia in the southern United States. On staff since the museum’s inception in 1998, Hofland’s footprint can be found throughout the museum, including her recruitment and hire of leading Asian art scholars; launching the Crow Museum as the first “wellness museum” in the United States, and molding the museum’s award-winning education programs to emphasize collaboration and collective learning; helping to draw over 100,000 museum visitors a year. In 2018, Hofland led the acquisition of the Crow Museum to The University of Texas at Dallas, helping to ensure the care and preservation of the permanent collection in perpetuity and the planning of a second museum location on campus, making the Crow the only museum in the region with two distinct locations. Hofland holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Arts degree in art education from the University of North Texas, where she was part of the distinguished Marcus Fellow program. In addition to her work at the Crow Museum, Hofland is a noted author, speaker, and community leader serving on various board leadership positions in the Dallas-Fort Worth community. She is also working to create Dallas as a City of Compassion and recently formed and co-chaired The Compassion Council for the Dallas Arts District.

Music credit: Maurice Ravel's String Quartet in F major - II. Assez vif, très rythmé produced by the Isabella Stuart Gardener Museum (issued under a Creative Commons License). 

Welcome to Artroverted, a new podcast about the art world. Each week we speak with leaders and change-makers in the arts. From artists to museum directors and everyone in between. We discuss their experiences, the communities they serve, and why they’ve dedicated their lives to art. 

The majority of season 1 was recorded April thru June 2020 during the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and is an insightful snapshot into the art world’s resilience and the power of art. 

When it comes to art, it doesn’t matter if you’re an introvert or an extrovert.  

Follow us on Instagram @artrovertedpodcast for more information about our guests. 

Please join us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen for Artroverted launching on August 28th.