KyArtsCast

National Arts in Education Week (Sept. 8-14) is coming up and we thought it was a good time to highlight a valuable educational program that the Kentucky Arts Council offered its support to this summer. This unique educational opportunity available to Fayette County Youth, the Summer Enrichment Program at Consolidated Baptist Church, is a four-week program that connects the arts to STEM skills and agriculture in a meaningful way to youth in kindergarten through fifth grade. We talked with program director Demetria Blair, a paraeducator at Jessie Clark Middle School in Lexington; Lanora Long, an art teacher with the summer program and a retired Fayette County Schools art teacher; as well as student participants Alana Young and DeVaughn Elery. Check out this episode and find out more about how this program is making an impact.

Episode footnote

• Summer Enrichment Program web page

In May, Louisville's iconic Galt House Hotel introduced the public to its inaugural artist in residence, geometric abstract artist Gibbs Rounsavall. This residency is believed to be the first of its kind for a Kentucky hotel. In this episode of KyArtsCast we talk to Gibbs as well as Scott Shoenberger, president and CEO of the Al J. Schneider Company, which owns the Galt House. Listen in and learn more about this fantastic new initiative.

Episode footnotes:

• Galt House Hotel Artist in Residence webpage
• Gibbs Rounsavall's homepage

Back in March we visited the 2019 Lexington Comic & Toy Convention at Lexington Convention Center. Our mission was twofold. We wanted to talk to the artists in our Kentucky Crafted program who also exhibit at the convention and find out why it makes sense from an artistic and business perspective to have a presence at Comic Con.

We also chatted with a handful of costume players, or cosplayers as they are commonly known - folks who create a costume based around their favorite character and/or comic book universe or sci-fi genre. Many cosplayers create their costumes from the ground up, and we wanted to explore what kind of artistry they bring to their creations.

As you're listening, peruse the photos below that we got of some cosplayers during our visit to Comic Con. We've also included links to extended interviews with the folks we talked to. Enjoy this special episode!

Justin Stewart, Lexington Comic & Toy Convention Art Director

Listen to our extended interview with Justin!

Alisha Martin, left, Kentucky Crafted artist

Listen to our extended interview with Alisha!

Jason Sturgill, Kentucky Crafted artist

Listen to our extended interview with Jason!

Billy Tackett, Kentucky Crafted artist

Listen to our extended interview with Billy!

Janna Sedwick, cosplaying as the 1970s television series version of Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter)

Listen to our extended interview with Janna!

Stacy Humphreys, cosplaying as the character Qi'ra from "Solo: A Star Wars Story." And check out her steampunk and Dia de los Muertos variations on the Batman villainess Poison Ivy.

Listen to our extended interview with Stacy!

Poison Ivy photos by Galaxi Photos

Chris Marcus, cosplaying as Lego Batman

Listen to our extended interview with Chris!

Nolan Williams, cosplaying as a member of the music duo Daft Punk

Listen to our extended interview with Nolan!

Check out video of the lighting effects in his helmet.

Theme music for this episode was "The Decisive Battle – Heroic Epic" by Keys of Moon Music, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

We've packed up the podcast studio and hit the road for this episode. Join us as we learn more about an important art-based component of substance abuse addiction recovery called The Culture of Recovery, and initiative of the Appalachian Artisan Center. We're talking with two participants in the recovery program, Kim Patton and Nathan Smith, along with program coordinator Savannah Napier Hall and instructors Doug Naselroad, Dan Estep and Kirk Banks.

Episode footnotes

• Culture of Recovery Facebook page - read through testimonials excerpts written by program participants. Learn how the arts have helped them cope with their addiction and aid in their recovery.
• Appalachian Artisan Center
• Appalachian School of Luthiery

The third annual Artists Thrive Summit is July 30-Aug. 2 in Berea, and for this episode Emily Moses, Kentucky Arts Council executive staff advisor, is chatting with Beth Flowers, executive director of the AIR Insitute of Berea College and a member of the summit leadership team. Emily and Beth talk about what goes on at the summit, who should be there (spoiler alert...YOU) and how to get a 75 percent discount on registration!

Episode footnotes

• Artists Thrive Summit
• Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation

Listen in as we chat with three Kentucky Crafted artists, Deb Chenault, Justine Riley and Bill Berryman, about their work, what makes it unique and how they've benefited from being juried into Kentucky Crafted.

The application process for Kentucky Crafted is open through Aug. 15, and this episode also features the Kentucky Arts Council's arts marketing director, Dave Blevins. Dave talks about the program guidelines and navigates the answers to questions that artists frequently ask about applying.

Special thanks to 91.3 FM WUKY in Lexington for allowing us to record in their studio and to the station's operations and programming director John Lumagui for engineering this episode.

Episode footnotes

• The Kentucky Crafted program guidelines and application
• Deb Chenault's Kentucky Crafted online directory page
• Justine Riley's Kentucky Crafted online directory page
• Bill Berryman's Kentucky Crafted online directory page

Remarks from newly installed Kentucky Poet Laureate Jeff Worley of Lexington and outgoing poet laureate Frederick Smock of Louisville made April 24, Kentucky Writers' Day, at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives.

Meet Lori Larusso, Lexington visual artist and the South Arts Kentucky State Fellow in the third annual Southern Prize competition. Lori represented Kentucky among the nine other State Fellow, each from one of the South Arts member states, last month at the Southern Prize awards ceremony in Columbia, S.C.

On this episode we're chatting with Lori about her life in art, the work that earned her the distinction of Kentucky State Fellow and what awards like that, and her 2012 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship, have meant to her as an artist.

Episode footnotes:

• Work that Lori Larusso submitted to South Arts for consideration for the Southern Prize
• General information on the South Arts Southern Prize
• The Bo Bartlett Center in Columbus, Ga., where the Southern Prize exhibit, including works by Lori Larusso, will be on display through the summer
• Lori Larusso's website

Kentucky Writers' Day is just around the corner, 10 a.m. April 24 at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, and to get stoked for it we brough two Kentucky Poets Laureate into Studio B for a chat about Kentucky poetry, literature and the poet laureate position. Tamara Coffey, Kentucky Arts Council organization support and individual artists director, takes the interview microphone for a lively chat with incoming Kentucky Poet Laureate Jeff Worley and former poet laureate Richard Taylor (1999-2000), who nominated Jeff for the important post of Kentucky's literary ambassador.

Jeff will be inducted as poet laureate during the morning ceremony at KDLA, and will read his work that same day, along with five other Kentucky Poets Laureate, at Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort beginning at 2 p.m.

By the way, the deer theme that seems to run through the podcast was completely unplanned. As the late American painter and teaching artist Bob Ross would say, "it was just a happy accident."

If you missed out on the chance to visit The Kentucky Crafted Market last month, you also missed an opportunity to hear fantastic live music from the Kentucky Stage. Not to worry. We've curated highlights from groups that performed on the stage and collected them in this special episode.

Each group or individual that performed on the Kentucky Stage is a member of the Kentucky Arts Council's adjudicated Performing Artists Directory, a valuable resource for people looking for entertainment at any size gathering.

If you enjoy the sounds of a particular act that you hear in this episode, we're providing links to their entire set below. You can also click on the artist's name and learn more about them on their online directory page.

• Cloigheann Click to hear their entire set
• Phourist and the Photons Click to hear their entire set
• The Local Honeys Click to hear their entire set
• JOANNA~JAMES Click to hear their entire set
• Kentucky Wild Horse Click to hear their entire set
• A Girl Named Earl Click to hear her entire set
• Marcus Wilkerson Click to hear his entire set
• Barrenhart Click to hear their entire set
• TDH Click to hear their entire set
• Jeri Katherine Howell Click to hear her entire set