A quick interview with Jacqueline Overby & Courtney Peterson of MotherShip Studios, who are spearheading the inaugural San Marcos Studio Tour! We talk about the inspiration for the tour, the many mentors and examples that made it possible, the importance of group artist studio settings, what to expect, all the details, and more.

Text courtesy of SMST website.

MotherShip Studios presents the inaugural San Marcos Studio Tour- anticipated to be the first of many years to come! This free, self-guided tour will feature over fifty artists all across San Marcos, Martindale, and surrounding areas. Artists will be showcasing their studio spaces and artwork during this weekend-long occasion, launching with a kick-off event held at MotherShip Studios, Friday, March 31st. As well, a group exhibition of all participants will be hosted at the MotherShip warehouse gallery featuring one artwork from each artist.

The San Marcos Studio Tour will highlight San Marcos area artists and their studios, while fostering connection and engagement in the arts and local communities. Allowing the public an insider’s look into the artistic process creates an exchange between fellow artists, community members, and art collectors. We will showcase the messy workspaces, the paint-splattered floors, the at-home and garage studios, the cluttered art supplies, the inspirational walls of reference photos, and the clay-ridden wheels. We will provide an opportunity for artists to show the raw spaces from which they create. These environments, though sometimes unpolished, are where the magic happens and creativity flourishes.

Mothership Studios will provide a tour map with numbers for each artist and signs to display during the tour weekend. A catalog of the tour participants will be available for purchase at MotherShip Studios. In addition to the map of all tour stops, this catalog will provide details on each artist, including images of work, and short statements about the artists. The kick-off event will feature our group exhibition, a live printing demo, music by local musicians, a raffle give away, and complimentary drinks sponsored by local breweries such as Middleton Brewing, Still Austin Whiskey, Austin Beer Works, and Thirsty Planet.

Please join us for an inspiring and interactive weekend of San Marcos arts and events!

When:

Friday, March 31st at 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Kick-off Event at MotherShip Studios/20027 San Marcos Hwy 80, San Marcos, TX, 78666

Saturday, April 1st 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Tour Open/Town of San Marcos and Martindale

Sunday, April 2nd at 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM

Tour Open/Towns of San Marcos and Martindale

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Links:

• MotherShip Studios
• Alicia Philley, mid-career abstract painter and installation artist based in Austin, TX
• Austin Studio Tour
• The Museum of Human Achievement
• Jacqueline Overby - Soft Sculpture
• Bask in local artistry with the inaugural San Marcos Studio Tour in April - CultureMap San Antonio

“The more I know about me and the more I explore who I am and why I am, trying to be objective about that, I think that transfers into the work”

B Shawn Cox is a Texas artist who is best known for his iconographic figurative western cowboy paintings on fabric, realized in vivid colors and patterned layers. He also uses similar images in his digital lenticular work where your shifting perspective creates movement in each piece, with the use of juxtaposing portraits. Then there are also his meticulously constructed dimensional collages which transform 2D into 3D.

Shawn has figured out how to combine these disparate bodies of work into cohesive looking and feeling exhibitions. This approach keeps things exciting for the viewer as you never know what you might see. The work is playful, adventurous, and exciting at first glance but can be delved into deeper for a full gamut and range of thoughts and ideas. Currently Shawn is exploring western societal and standardized mythologies, reflected and processed from a personal standpoint. He is looking at where he came from and where he is now, and the influences of the kinds of iconography that society celebrates in conscious and unconscious ways.

Growing up in West Texas with a desire to be creative, but with limited means, taught him to see more possibilities of use in everything around him and a somewhat contrarian approach to the rules of around what is possible. Even though his family was in ranching, he chose to leave and focus on academia, studying and practicing both architecture and law. And consistently through the decades in his spare time he took art classes and the commitment and momentum grew until he got the attention of galleries and collectors alike.

Shawn is really fun to talk with and is one of the nicest people I know. An inspiring thing about his art practice is what seems like an unwavering dedication to evolving the work and fearlessly trying new things. That keeps things fresh and fun.

The podcast is sponsored by Ivester Contemporary and East Side Picture Framing

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Links:

• B Shawn Cox Website
• The Commerce Gallery - B Shawn Cox
• Davis Gallery | B Shawn Cox
• EVOKE Contemporary - B Shawn Cox
• FORT WORKS ART - B Shawn Cox
• ICOSA - Members
• ROBERT MOORE - Idaho Landscape Artist
• Felicia Forte Artwork
• Austin Art School | Atelier Dojo
• Monahans - Google Maps
• Glassell School of Art | The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• Westward, Faux: B Shawn Cox at the Dougherty Art Center | Glasstire
• Caroline Frost, Author at Glasstire

"We are fed with this idea that we have to be so much. And of course it’s not true because each of us has a specific talent or specific things we are good at. I finally feel at this place of my life that I’m enough. I’m tying to do my best with the little corner of what I know how to do. So my goal is to keep passing this message and hoping that it’s going to effect the life or the way of thinking of certain people."

Anne Mourier is a conceptual artist who was born in France and is now splitting her time between the east coast and Italy. We met many years ago in NYC and during my travels I made a point to visit her and sit down for an interview. Some of the themes she explores in her artworks are the feminine archetype, motherhood, quiet simplicity and beauty, home and the chores of domestic life, and maybe most importantly the environment and respect for life and nature. I’m so impressed with her wisdom, groundedness, her dedication to research and a commitment and openness to using any medium which might best communicate what she is trying to say with her work.

She also has a series of separate performances called Taking Care were she prepared meals for people, washed and item of clothing, and washed their feet. Of the work she states “I strongly believe that “Taking Care” is important and may possibly be the only way to mend our broken society:  Taking Care of our planet, Taking Care of things instead of replacing them, Taking Care of each other…”

As she says so well on her website her goal is “A harmonious future, free of its dualistic and antagonistic visions; a holistic future that would acknowledge the fluidity of the masculine and the feminine principle living in harmony within each of us, in nature, in art, in everything we touch, smell, and see.”

The podcast is sponsored by Ivester Contemporary and East Side Picture Framing

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Anne Mourier
• Anne Mourier (@annemourier) • Instagram

"I think it’s so important that we accept each other for our differences, and just come together like brothers and sisters. We’re stronger as a unit. We’re stronger together. Again, community is so important."

Adrian Armstrong is a multitalented and multidisciplinary artist who creates powerful figurative portraits primarily by combining painting, collage, and circular strokes of a ballpoint pen, as well as working with printmaking and creating music. One of his goals to combine all of the mediums he works with into one cohesive experience.

And as he states on his website “He aims to portray what it means to be an African American living in modern America” We had a wide-ranging conversation about his life, starting with growing up in Nebraska and the importance of his family, to moving to Austin and creating a new community here to participate in and help to support and grow.

I’m inspired by Adrian’s work ethic and dedication to creating great work, pushing himself to be better, while also helping to support others as much as he can.

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Adrian Armstrong
• In Vivid Pastels, Adrian Armstrong Explores the Complexity of Blackness
• Art Galleries at Black Studies - UT

“I feel like by becoming an artist it’s helped me to become who I am. And it’s helped me to accept my body. Not that I didn’t love my body, but going to figure drawing and drawing every type of persons body was such a powerful thing for me. To realize that every body really truly is beautiful.”

Painter Sara Jane Parsons specialty is realistic portraits of people, landscapes, still lifes, and figure studies, all rendered beautifully in graphite or watercolor, although she did recently start learning how to work with oil paints. The incredible thing is that she creates all of her work while holding the paintbrushes and pencils in her mouth.

At the age of twenty, a spinal cord injury left her paralyzed from the neck down, but that did not stop her from getting a law degree, working jobs combining legal and social work to help hundreds of people, traveling broadly, and pursuing anything that interests her and cultivating a life that is joyful and creative.

She is a proud member of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists, a great organization that helps artists with disabilities support themselves through creating artworks that are placed on products sold far and wide. Sara Jane is such a sweet, driven, and passionate artist, and it was a joy to talk and spend some time with her and be inspired by her story, her resilience, and her dedication to being an artist.

The podcast is sponsored by Ivester Contemporary and East Side Picture Framing

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Sara Jane Parsons
• Mouth & Foot Painting Artists – MFPA USA
• BWCA, Boundary Waters, Canoe, Quetico

As an artist, educator, cultural activist, mentor, and all-around great human being, Sam Coronado, created opportunities for and changed the lives of many people before passing unexpectedly in 2013. One of his bigger accomplishments was The Serie Project, a non-profit serigraph printmaking residency that lasted for over 20 years and worked with hundreds of artists from around the US and the world, at all stages of their careers.

I worked with Sam for many years, have always thought very highly of him, and decided I should do a special episode celebrating and talking about his life and work. I'm grateful to his wife Jill Ramirez and the master printers Pepe Coronado and Jonathan Rebolloso for speaking with me about Sam, sharing their stories about him, how he changed their lives, and the legacy he has left behind.

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Painter/Printmaker/Cultural Leader Sam Coronado Dies at 67 | Glasstire
• The Serie Project | A non-profit organization promoting fine art serigraphy
• Pepe Coronado Studio and print Projects | Printmaking
• REBOPRINTS - Jonathan Rebolloso
• Mexic-Arte Museum - The Official Mexican & Mexican American Museum of Texas
• Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center | AustinTexas.gov
• ¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965 to Now | Smithsonian American Art Museum
• Sam Coronado: A Retrospective - YouTube
• Sam Coronado Interview by GSD&M - YouTube

As artist Amy Scofield states on her website she is investigating the relationship between things. And the things she is working with very often are discarded objects or what would typically be recycled. The interaction between nature and the human-made world and our effects on the planet also figure into her intentions and concerns as she captures and manipulates what catches her eye into something more curious and brave.

Like many artists, she has a compulsion to create and she uses her intuition and powers of observation to find the next opportunity or subject for the curation of her unique, refined, and thoughtful images and sculptures. Moving forward her focus is shifting more to impermanence as she considers what is real and what is not and the ephemeral nature of everything.

May 14th - June 24, 2021

Lydia Street Gallery

Saturdays & Sundays 12-5 during exhibitions, no appointment needed.

Weekdays by appointment: email or DM in Instagram

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Amy Scofield, Artist – Investigating the relationship between things…
• Lydia Street Gallery
• Big Magic | Official Website for Best Selling Author Elizabeth Gilbert
• Northern-Southern

"Oh, I can still learn something from scratch, totally different from what I do in my world. I find that is so rejuvenating. It makes you feel good!"

This week's podcast guest is Gladys Poorte. Her work for many people appears to be very otherworldly and fantastical, maybe even sci-fi inspired, but in fact, it is all based on real-life objects and 3D models that she creates in her studio to draw and paint from while controlling the light and mood to ultimately create space and depth. The inspiration often comes from observing, processing, and reacting to real-life events that have happened in the world, and concerns about the future.

I’m very impressed with Gladys' willingness to keep pushing herself to learn new skills and gain knowledge to enhance and evolve her artwork over time. We talk about her life growing up in Argentina, working as an educator, transitioning to living in the US, and her many years of diverse art classes and schooling to evolve her style and craft to where it is today.

Nuevo Mundo

Gladys Poorte's "Nuevo Mundo" debuts at the Davis Gallery. Exploring the new settings wherein which we find ourselves during an unprecedented time, Poorte helps us transition into seemingly foreign yet familiar landscapes within her interpretation and style.

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Contemporary Art by Gladys Poorte
• Davis Gallery
• Art School - The Contemporary Austin
• Sydney Yeager: Paintings

“As much as art is about creating an object, it’s also about learning about yourself. My art has always been this tool for which I decipher the world, and my place in it, or who I am and how I learn and what I see. It’s the medium through which I decipher everything.”

Artist Tom Jean Webb grew up in England but knew from an early age he wanted to live in America. His mother and grandfather helped to inspire his creativity and if not for a chance visit to a contemporary art gallery as an adult, he would not have realized that what he wanted to say with his own art was valid and possible. After many trips and back and forth from the United States to England he finally committed to fulfill his dream and made the US his home.

The work he creates is heavily inspired by the colorful and rocky desert landscapes of the southwest and are explorations of space and his own personal reality. As he consistently strives to create his distinctive artwork he prioritizes being open and present, staying playful, having fun, and letting go of control and preconceived ideas.

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• Tom Jean Webb
• Tom Jean Webb | Instagram
• Tom Jean Webb | Ivester Contemporary
• An Englishman Goes West: Tom Jean Webb at Ivester Contemporary | Glasstire

“That’s my ultimate goal. When I’m done here I want to have temples built in a lot of people's hearts. Not, oh Chris was so awesome. But because I gave them something. Because I meant something to them. Because I gave them a piece of my heart”

How can we heal our fractured system and relationships, let go of control and give over to the moment, and find our way to truth, honesty with ourselves, and learn to speak from the heart?

Chris really brought the vulnerability and bares all as we talk about his lifelong artistic practice, alcoholism and recovery, and the huge impact his late mother continues to have on his life. This conversation was so moving and inspiring to me as I hope it will be to you.

Intro music generously provided by Stan Killian

Support this podcast.

Links:

• HOME | ChrisRogersART
• Chris Rogers Artist (@chrisrogersart) • Instagram
• I Can't Breathe, Can You? (Short Documentary) - YouTube
• Artist shares message behind the mural - YouTube