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November 20, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E7 Aaron M. Thompson; Painter of Observation And Imagining

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast reconnects with Pennsylvania based painter, Aaron M. Thompson to discuss his work, his journey as an artist and the relationships he has forged with his mentors, two exceptional American realist painters--Phillip Geiger and Scott Noel.

Website: www.aaronmichaelthompson.com

Instagram: @paintlanguage

Phillip Geiger Retrospective, Daura Museum of Art, University of Lynchburg

Scott Noel talk at the Phillip Geiger Retrospective

Bio

Aaron M. Thompson is a professional painter whose Paintings and Drawings have been exhibited in P.A.F.A.’s Samuel M. V. Hamilton Museum, the Charles DeMuth Museum, and Provincetown Art Association Museum. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, Thompson earned his BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design and was awarded The Merit Scholarship from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he later earned a Masters Degree in Painting. As a Gamblin Artist Colors Mid-Atlantic Educational Representative, Aaron has given lectures on “navigating color space” and oil painting “material practices” at Museums and Institutions of Higher Education for a decade. Currently, he is a Full-Time Assistant Professor at the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design where he teaches drawing and painting in the Fine Art Department.

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation"

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

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October 8, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E6 Morgan Irons; Painter of Archetypal Symbolism Within The Western Landscape

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast has a moving and at times astonishing conversation with Montana based painter, Morgan Irons about her psychologically charged work set within the Western landscape that she lives in. Don't miss this inspiring episode that will have you listening with bated breath.

Website: www.morganirons.com

Instagram: @morganirons

Old Main Gallery, Bozeman Motana

Bio

Primarily a self taught painter, Morgan Irons began studying painting in 2015 following her move to a rural piece of land in Montana. It was then she began studying the work of master painters and has since sought out workshops with some of the top representational painters today. A figurative painter by nature, Irons believes in painting solely what she knows best, life on the land she lives. Her paintings are narrative and timeless in theme and palette.

 Morgan Irons has been a featured artist in Fine Art Connoisseur's "Artists to Watch", Southwest Art Magazine’s “21 Under 31: Young Artists to Watch in 2017”, and Big Sky Journal's "Ones to Watch". She is a two-time recipient of the 2018 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant for emerging figurative painters. Irons is represented by Old Main Gallery in Bozeman, Montana where she currently lives and paints in a cabin on a mountaintop.

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation"

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

Send us a text

September 2, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E5 Lenny Campello; Artist, Gallerist & Curator

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast talks with Cuban born, American Artist, Gallerist & Curator-Lenny Campello. Lenny shares his journey to becoming the artist he is today in this engaging episode as well as discusses his largest curatorial project to date; a multi-venue Washington DC area survey show happening this Fall 2025 entitled "Women Artists of the DMV".

Website: www.lennycampello.com

Facebook: @lenny.campello

Instagram: @lennycampello

"Women Artists of The DMV" Exhibit

Bio

Lenny Campello (Florencio Lennox Campello) was born in Guantanamo, Cuba and studied art at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle, Washington from which he graduated in 1981. While there Campello helped to create the Arts NW Student Gallery in Seattle, the area’s first art gallery focused on student artwork. He also organized several exhibitions at the School of Art. 

In 1996 Campello opened the Fraser Gallery in Washington, DC. Within five years the gallery had become one of the most important independent fine arts commercial galleries in the city and in 2000 became one of only three DC area art galleries to be invited to become a Sotheby’s Associate Dealer. In 2002 Campello opened a second Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, Maryland, at the time the largest art gallery in the Greater DC area. In addition to organizing and curating several hundred exhibitions for the Fraser Gallery, he is also an independent curator and has organized many important shows in the Washington D.C. capital city area, and other places such as the 2001 “Survey of Washington Realists” at the Athenaeum in Alexandria, a huge salon style show that for the first time catalogued together the artists working in the realist tradition in the DC area. He also organized a worldwide homage to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in association with the Cultural Institute of Mexico and most recently he reviewed the work of over 2,000 artists and organized a seven-gallery show for the Washington Project for the Arts/Corcoran in Washington, DC. 

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago Arthur
Theme M

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

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August 19, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E4 Jack Rasmussen; Director and Curator at American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast has an engaging conversation with one of the principal figures of the Washington DC arts scene for the past several decades--The Director and Curator at American University Museum, Jack Rasmussen. Jack and Suzanne discuss the history of the local arts scene, as well as a Cold War era espionage tie-in and share professional development advice for artists in this not to be missed episode.

American University Museum Website: www.American.edu/cas/museum
American University Museum Instagram: @aumuseum_katzen

Jack Rasmussen Instagram: @jack.rasmussen1

Modern Art and American Cold War Foreign Policy

Bio

Jack Rasmussen is the Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. He previously held Executive Director positions at di Rosa Preserve: Art & Nature, Maryland Art Place, and Rockville Arts Place. He was the owner and director of Jack Rasmussen Gallery in Washington, DC.

Since opening its doors in 2005, the Katzen Arts Center at American University has served as a vibrant hub for the visual and performing arts in Washington, DC. This year marks two decades of innovation, collaboration, and creativity, showcasing the work of students, faculty, and renowned artists from around the world across the Departments of Art and Performing Arts and the AU Museum.  

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago Arthur
Theme Music by Up North Music 

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

Send us a text

July 10, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E3 James Lloyd; A Brush with Royalty

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast has a delightful conversation with British Portrait Painter, James Lloyd about his exceptional career painting portraits of some of England's most extraordinary individuals including Sir Paul Smith, Dame Maggie Smith and the late Queen herself, Elizabeth the II. 

Website: jameslloyd.org.uk
Instagram: @james_lloyd_artist   and  @james_lloyd_drawings

Representation: Browse & Darby and Galerie Hübner + Hübner

ArtUK.Org

National Portrait Gallery, UK

Bio:

James Lloyd graduated in the 90s with an MA from the Slade School of Fine Art,
following a BA in Fine Art from Coventry and a Diploma from Blackpool College
of Art and Design. He teaches at the Royal Drawing School and has won numerous awards including the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award, Paul Smith Scholarship, Windsor & Newton Young Artists’ Award, Carrol Foundation Young Artist of the Year Award, First Prize in the BP Portrait Award, and the Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture.

Lloyd has undertaken commissions for many private and public clients and institutions including Newcastle University, the Bank of England, Queen’s College, Lords Cricket Ground, the House of Lords, the Royal Collection and the National Portrait Gallery.

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago Arthur
Theme Music by Up North Music 

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

Send us a text

May 22, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E2 Matt Klos; Perceptual Painter of Lived Environments

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast has a conversation with Baltimore M.D. based, perceptual painter, Matt Klos about his work and inspiration, his development as an artist and the various roles that he occupies as a creative professional.

Website: mattklos.com
Instagram: @mattklosspainting

Yorkshire Dales, UK Workshop co-taught with Erin Raedeke

Jemulpo Club Museum, Incheon, South Korea

Bio:

Matt Klos received his MFA in painting from University of MD, College Park and his BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). He is a recipient of three Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council (2016, 2012 and 2008). His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions including the Prince Street Gallery in Chelsea, NY in 2011. He was awarded first place in the Bethesda Painting Awards in 2007 and received an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant in 2001. Klos currently teaches drawing and painting full-time at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD and has served as a guest lecturer/critic at various institutions including the New York Academy of Art, Boston University, College of William & Mary, Towson University, University of Missouri, and Mount Gretna School of Art. He is a member of the collective Perceptual Painters and Zeuxis.

He resides in Baltimore Maryland where he co-directs Exeter Gallery which has featured almost twenty solo and group exhibitions since its founding in 2017. He has served on panels and as a juror for exhibitions, residency programs, and awards. His curatorial projects include "A Lineage of American Perceptual Painters" at St. John's College's Mitchell Gallery (2015).

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago Arthur
Theme Music by Up North Music 

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

Send us a text

April 21, 2025
Creative Contemplation
S4E1 Alex Cree; Painting with Imagination from Lived Experience

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast converses with British painter, Alex Cree about his training in observationally based, representational painting and how he broke away from a more traditionally realist approach in order to find his own true artistic voice.

Website: alexcree.co.uk
Instagram: @alexjcree

Classes

Galleries:

Tregony Contemporary, Cornwall England U.K.

Fraser Gallery, St. Andrews Scotland U.K.

Grandy Art, London England U.K. 

Alex's Favorite Sketching Pencil 

Bio:

Alex Cree has shown extensively throughout the United Kingdom, Spain and Ireland, including: London's Trinity House Paintings, Mall Galleries, Dulwich Picture Gallery, British Museum, RA summer show and the Solomon Gallery in Dublin. Alex is now based in Dorset where he has his studio. In 2002 he was awarded the Sidney Cooper prize for drawing, in 2010 the Denis Mahon scholarship from the Royal Drawing School and in 2012 he received the Phyllis Roberts award from the Royal Institute of Oil Painters.

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago
Theme Music by Up North Music 

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

Send us a text

December 31st, 2024
Creative Contemplation
S3E10 Bryan Whitney; Photographing the Transcendent and the Unseen

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast has a fascinating conversation with NYC based photographer and artist, Bryan Whitney who specializes in alternative methods of imaging such as X-Rays, 3-D Imagery and Virtual Reality and uses them to explore subjects in our world that are both seen and unseen.

Website: bryanwhitney.com
x-rayphotography.com
Instagram: @temporarypedestal

Partial List of Artists Mentioned:
Minor White
Bill Viola
Ana Mendieta
Emmet Gowin


Bio:

Bryan Whitney is a photographer and artist living and working in New York City whose work often involves experimental imaging techniques, such as x-rays, 3D imagery, virtual reality, and other alternative processes. Whitney holds an MFA in Photography from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and a BA in the Psychology of Art from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has taught photography at Rutgers University and currently teaches at the International Center of Photography in New York City. A recipient of the Fulbright Grant: Lectures on American Photography, he has exhibited across the United States and internationally as well as traveled the globe for special projects, including archeological photo expeditions with the Qatar Museum Authority and the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation, Republic of Georgia. Art exhibitions include various prestigious venues such as the Center for Holography on Governor's Island, Currents New Media Festival in Santa Fe, the Fringe Art Fair in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the Islamic Museum of Art in Berlin, Germany. His work has appeared in several media outlets such as Martha Stewart, Harpers Bazaar, Fortune, the New York Times, and in books, posters and advertising campaigns worldwide.

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago
Theme Music by Up North Music 
Party Pack, Horn Coil 01, Long, 01.wav by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk)

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

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December 17th, 2024
Creative Contemplation
S3E9 Rob Evans; Magic Realist Artist Elevating the Ordinary into the Extraordinary

Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation Podcast interviews famed Magic Realist Artist, Rob Evans about his fantastic work and his amazing career which includes hanging alongside many of his own artistic idols.

Website: robevansart.org
Instagram: @robevansart

Partial List of Artists Mentioned:
Jerome Witkin
Julio Larraz
Chris Van Allsburg
Antonio López García

NFT Sites:
SuperRare.com
Objkt.com


Bio:

Rob Evans is an artist and independent curator who lives and works near Wrightsville, PA. He received a BFA from Syracuse University in 1981 and has been awarded numerous grants including two fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and a prestigious fellowship from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation.

Evans' work can be found in more than 30 prominent public collections across the nation including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art; Corcoran Museum of Art; Library of Congress; San Francisco Art Museums; Baltimore Museum of Art; and the Portland (OR) Art Museum among others. His paintings have been featured in numerous books, newspapers and magazines and on public radio and television. His work has also been showcased in many blogs and online publications including a recent interview on the Huffington Post.

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "Abby in Contemplation" by artist Suzanne Lago
Music by Up North Music 

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.

Send us a text

November 14th, 2024
Creative Contemplation
S3E8 Bethann Moran-Handzlik; Painting from Intuition, Memory and Observation

Join Suzanne Lago Arthur, host and creator of The Creative Contemplation podcast for this deep and enlightening conversation with Wisconsin based painter, Bethann Moran-Handzlik on the subjects of intuition, memory and painting from observation. This is an episode that will stay with you and transform the way you think about painting.

Website: bethannmoran.com
Instagram: @pasmeche
Tory Folliard Gallery, Milwaukee MI
Edgewood Orchard Gallery, Door County MI

Suggested Reading:
James Elkin "What Painting Is"
Joyce Carey "Art and Reality, Ways of the Creative Process (World Perspectives)

Bio:

Combining joyous brushwork and careful observation, the seasoned Wisconsin painter Bethann Moran-Handzlik, generates works that are at once accurate and poetic.  Moran-Handzlik takes large format canvases into the landscape to paint from direct observation, while also engaging her imagination and memory.  The paintings are accomplished in all seasons and the artist is equally invigorated painting outside in cold winter landscapes, spring woodlands or sunlit gardens.   Moran-Handzlik earned an MFA from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, a BA from St. Norbert College and has recently left a life teaching at universities to return to painting full time.  Her work has been exhibited nationally, and she has been the recipient of fellowships, grants and awards.  She lives in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin with her husband, the poet Patrick Moran

Host Bio:

Suzanne Lago Arthur is a contemporary realist painter from Northern Virginia. Born in Puerto Rico to Cuban-American parents, her artistic explorations were nurtured from an early age by her family.

Through her paintings Suzanne explores the themes of beauty, transience and memory.  She has exhibited both nationally and internationally in such venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, Booth Museum of Western Art in Cartersville, GA, the United States Interests Section, Havana, Cuba and in art galleries across the United States. She holds a BFA from the Corcoran School of Art and an MA in Museum Studies from George Washington University.

Website: www.lagoarthurstudio.com
Instagram: Suzanne Lago Arthur (@lagoarthurstudio)
Logo design by Elisa Nader,  Mag7
Artwork, "

Announcing a new, special mini-series on famed British painter Euan Uglow.