From his breakthrough series "Anthology," which turned Calvin & Hobbes into poetry, to his epic installation pieces that transform William Buckley's arguments from his 1965 Cambridge debate with James Baldwin into graphite-coated strenography, Tony Lewis has carved a unique space for himself in contemporary drawing. Working mainly in graphite, Lewis' practice challenges the conventions of language and functions simultaneously as abstraction, text-based, conceptual, personal, and political, creating one of the more innovative bodies of work in art today. Tony joined me from his studio in Chicago to discuss the recent 4-person show he was a part of, What Drawing Can Be: Four Responses, at the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, as well as how stenography found its way into his work, and what he had to sacrifice to create his Calvin & Hobbes-based series.

Photo: Evan Jenkins

https://massimodecarlo.com/artists/tony-lewis

https://www.menil.org/exhibition/what-drawing-can-be-four-responses

Michael James Schneider's quotes that promote positive mental health rendered in mylar balloons have become an online sensation. They seem somewhat destined to succeed, but his route to this point was far from assured. A self-taught artist, Michael has gone from retail management to now releasing his second book on August 5th, 2025, with a special book signing happening on Saturday, August 9th at Powell's Books in Portland.

We discuss the new book, some of the bad advice he received along the way, and his symbiotic relationship with a very unexpected group of people.

Instagram: @blcksmth

X: @BLCKSMTHdesign

Online store: https://blcksmth.dashery.com/

Powell's book signing event: https://www.powells.com/events/michael-james-schneider-8-9-25

Penguin Books: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/728757/the-writings-on-the-wall-by-michael-james-schneider/

Jesse Duquette has been skewering DJT, and the various boot lickers in his orbit, since day one of the first Trump administration. He started the Daily Don in 2017, by posting one drawing everyday detailing all the lies and buffoonery. His current Instagram account continues that same mission and has been a consistent target for the political right. Jesse is threatened consistently by online trolls and Meta has harassed him with an onslaught of shadow bans, and even removing all of his accounts, along with his 200K+ followers, from all Meta platforms right before the election back in October of 2024.

I sat down with Jesse to discuss all of this, as well as the fate of his archive after he was banned by Meta, the current state of political cartooning, and how far is too far for his art.

jesseduquette.com

jesseduquette.substack.com

Iceland's Halldór Ragnarsson uses a combination of repetitive phrases in his native Icelandic, abstract compositions, and a muted palette punctuated with bright yellow to create the signature look of his paintings. I had a chance to ask Halldór about how he comes up with his phrases and how repetition fit into his philosophy of language, and the transformative nature of losing his home studio in a fire. He was recently here in Los Angeles, but despite missing each other, we might get to meet up again after all!

hragnarsson.com

The creative journey of Lake Charles, LA artist Robbie Austin is filled with starts and stops, detours, and coincidences. You could say in a way it's all been one very long u-turn, which led him from Louisiana, to Los Angeles for college, on to Houston, then back to his hometown. After an extensive period away from art he's back and better than ever, putting his signature abstractions onto old text-laden pages from field books and maps sourced from a most unlikely location. We discuss this journey, 80's new wave music, the role art plays in Robbie's spiritual quest, and the power of opening yourself up to divine inspiration.

https://robbieaustin.com/

After a 35-year career in advertising that saw him co-found not just one but two of the top firms in the British ad world, Dave Buonaguidi (whom you might know from Instagram as Real Hackney Dave) was at a crossroads, both personally and professionally. He needed to find a new path for himself, and found just that after a fateful screen printing seminar. It should come as no surprise that the same razor-sharp wit that served him so well on accounts for Ikea and Nintendo would become a staple of his equally profane, profound, and positive statements on his posters. It would also make sense that he would print those statements on vintage ephemera sourced from flea markets on both sides of the Atlantic, providing them with a second act similar to his own.

Dave and I get into his exit from advertising, his entry into fine art, the connection between the two, and the surprising communal nature of chicken sandwiches.

Oh! And as for the promise he makes at the end of the interview... he made good on that before I could even finish posting this episode. He's a man of his word. Thanks Dave!

realhackneydave.com

In honor of Tim Youd's latest installation of the 100 Novels series, here is an encore presentation of his visit on the very first episode of Finding the Words. Tim will be retyping The Dick Gibson Show by Stanley Elkin, as well as the short story collection Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers, in conjunction with the current exhibition "Stanley and Joan Elkin's Artistic Kingdom" at the Olin Library at Washington University in St. Louis. Since the novel is about a late-night radio DJ, Tim will be doing the retyping (an entire novel onto one page over and over to create a battered and layered "drawing") at the Wash U college radio station KWUR 90.3 during the overnight shift from April 14 to May 1. During the typing he will be playing a series of recorded interviews with artists, writers, curators, astrologists, typewriter historians, typewriter repairmen, costume designers, and more. Including one podcaster who *might* sound a bit familiar.

To access the interviews visit timyoud.com

From woodblock prints and paintings, to concert posters for top-line acts and recording his own music, Indianapolis-based multi-disciplinary artist Nathaniel Russell has proven he can do it all. I sat down with Nathaniel a few days before the closing reception for his two-person show along with Lori Damiano, Foot Chorus, at Minnow Arts in Santa Cruz, CA, to discuss how he's able to keep creating in so many different mediums, the importance or connection and relationships, and the role that art and music play as an extension of life. Plus, I learned that something I always thought was a nickname is actually an official term!

www.nathanielrussell.com

Photo by Katie Coles

Reconnecting with someone who's been an important part of your life is always wonderful, but when that person is also a top-notch painter with fantastic stories to tell, you just have to share. Greg Miller, one of my former college teachers, is also a skilled mixed media artist. A self-described "contemporary cave painter," he combines painting and collages of vintage magazines to add layers and depth, as well as mixing figuration with text to create nuanced narratives that, despite a certain level of nostalgia, still look forward towards contemporary issues.

On top of all that, he tells some great stories about art world luminaries, how visiting abandoned ghost towns in northern California as a child still influences his work today, and (my personal favorite) the infamous Keith Haring volleyball incident.

https://gmillerstudio.com/

This episode with Florida-based collage artist Duane Toops is bittersweet. While excited to chat with Duane about his immersive analog/digital hybrid collages, the circumstances surrounding the interview were challenging to say the least. Recorded a few days after wildfires tore through the LA area (my home and family are ok, but the effects on the city can't be understated) which caused a huge pause in this episode's production. Then on the eve of finally posting this Duane revealed that he not only lost his job, but was then forced to let go of his studio.

In our discussion we touch on the importance of the studio to not only his daily art practice, but how it's his "happy place," a place crucial to his daily well-being. Listening back to our talk, it hits a little differently now; a reminder of the January fires that seem a lifetime ago, an echo of an artist's bygone routine, but it's also a reminder that a lot of people out there are struggling with the havoc that this "project" that is 2025 is wreaking on our society and that we need to look out for and check in on our friends and neighbors now more than ever.

Despite all of this, our conversation was one of the most joyous and philosophical of the ten that I've done so far. We discuss his need for routine, his innate need to create, and of course the role his studio played in not only his art, but in his everyday life.

Instagram: @duanetoops

Substack: duanetoops.substack.com