Strand, the Story of an Artist

Kevin Kirkwood recorded this episode in Portland, Oregon. This conversation covers fifty years of curating, a lifelong photographic documentation of a city, and what it means to grow up inside a family of working artists.

Christopher Rauschenberg is a Portland-based photographer and curator. He is a founding member of Blue Sky Gallery, where he has co-curated and co-produced over a thousand exhibitions since 1975. He also co-founded Photolucida and the Nine Gallery co-op. In 1995 he launched the Portland Grid Project, a systematic photographic survey of the city now in its fourth round. His own photographs have appeared in 131 solo shows across eight countries and live in the collections of thirteen major museums.

At the center of Christopher's practice is a commitment to looking closely at communities.

Learn more: blueskygallery.org

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

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Kevin Kirkwood recorded this episode in Portland, Oregon, in a conversation covering craft, self-taught mastery, and the survival of a nearly lost trade.

Bryan Yonki is a Chilean sign painter, educator, and author based in Portland, Oregon. Inspired by the hand-painted signs he grew up seeing in Santiago, he moved to Los Angeles in 2014, taught himself the craft, and founded Well Done Signs in 2016, painting signs, murals, and storefronts for businesses across the West Coast under the motto "Always Hand Painted." He also teaches sign painting workshops nationally and documents vernacular lettering through books, photography, and printmaking.

At the center of Bryan's practice is a commitment to preserving traditional sign painting, not just as a livelihood, but as a living heritage worth passing on.

In this conversation, Bryan reflects on the Santiago signs that first shaped his eye, what it took to teach himself a craft with few living teachers left, and how his publishing and photography work fit into a larger effort to keep the tradition alive for future generations.

Learn more: welldonesigns.com | @welldonesigns

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and other major podcast platforms.

Kevin Kirkwood recorded this episode in Portland, Oregon during a weeklong trip through the Pacific Northwest, opening a new series of conversations with six regional artists and beginning with sculptor Ivan McLean.

Ivan took an unconventional road into art, from studying farm management at Cal Poly to the Peace Corps, a sheep station in Australia, and a furniture business run with his brother. He first learned to weld out of necessity, fixing machinery on Northern California ranches, and moved into sculpture full time only after the furniture business hit a downturn in 2001. Since then he has become known for his intricate sculptures, working across steel, bronze, kiln-formed glass, wood, and stone.

In this conversation, Ivan reflects on the winding path that led him to sculpture, the moment welding stopped being a repair skill and became a creative language, and what he is making in the studio these days.

Learn more: ivanmclean.com | @ivanmcleanart

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand at Kevin-Kirkwood.com , Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and other major podcast platforms.

Kevin Kirkwood recently sat down with Savannah-based artist and designer Nikole Nelson.

Nikole Nelson is the founder of BLKCORAL, an interdisciplinary studio renowned for crafting immersive, thought-provoking environments that bridge fine art, interior architecture, and set design. A SCAD graduate, she has collaborated with premier global brands including Tory Burch, Kate Spade, Coach, and NBC Universal. In 2022, she debuted her Botanical Collection as an Artist in Residence at SCAD Lacoste in France.

Nelson's practice is rooted in transforming organic elements and conceptual environments into experiences that invite a deeper connection to space and the natural world.

In this conversation, Nikole reflects on her journey from Hawaii to New York and Miami, and how each place shaped her creative voice. She also speaks to the mentors who recognized her potential early on, and what she hopes people feel when they first encounter her work.

Learn more: blkcoral.com | @blkcoral

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

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Kevin Kirkwood recently visited Basil's studio to discuss his journey from Jamaica to the international stage, the development of his artistic voice, and the responsibility of creating public monuments that preserve collective memory.

Over the course of his career, Basil Watson has created public sculptures that explore history, identity, culture, and the human experience. His work can be found throughout the Caribbean, the United States, and Europe, including the National Windrush Monument in London, a tribute to the contributions of the Windrush generation to British society.

Watson's practice is rooted in translating complex narratives into public form, using sculpture to create spaces that invite reflection and connection.

In this conversation, Basil reflects on the artists who influenced his early career, the challenges of creating work for diverse audiences, and the importance of gratitude and finding peace in everyday life.

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Kevin Kirkwood recently visited Navin's studio to talk about the objects, places, and histories that have shaped his art and practice.

Norling's work spans painting, assemblage, reclaimed windows, salvaged signage, and found objects: materials pulled from the edges of American life and reassembled into layered visual narratives. His practice draws on family history, folk traditions, quilting, and the vernacular of both rural and urban America, transforming discarded things into work that holds memory, identity, and cultural inheritance.

Born in California, shaped by the Bay, New York City, and now Atlanta, Norling brings a wide range of experience to his art. In this conversation, he and Kevin trace the environments that formed him, including the lasting influence of artist Raymond Saunders, and how time in New York deepened his thinking about race, class, and Americana.

They discuss his exhibition Dangerous Games at Johnson Lowe Gallery, exploring the role of whitewashing, visibility, and erasure in his work, and how beauty, humor, and materiality can hold difficult histories.

Learn more:

navinjunenorling.com   |   @navinjunenorling

johnsonlowe.com   |   @johnsonlowegallery

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand on all major platforms. Including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Jeffry Loy, an Atlanta-based sculptor, public artist, and metalworker whose work explores the intersection of nature, fire, steel, and public space. Active in the Atlanta art scene for more than 30 years, Loy is known for creating hand-forged botanical sculptures, immersive installations, and large-scale public artworks that blend traditional blacksmithing with modern technology.

A graduate of the Atlanta College of Art and SCAD Atlanta, Loy has exhibited work across the United States, including Georgia, Florida, New York, Texas, Virginia, and California. Working from his longtime studio at The B-Complex artist cooperative in southwest Atlanta, his practice combines sculpture, lighting, fabrication, and public art conservation.

In this conversation, Loy shares stories about growing up in the southeastern United States, traveling to Burning Man in the early 2000s, building a lifelong career in the arts, and helping shape Atlanta’s creative community through spaces like The B-Complex.

The episode also explores craftsmanship, public art, nature, conservation, and the role curiosity plays in sustaining a creative life over decades.

Learn more about Jeffry’s work at firesculptor.com and thebcomplex.com.

Follow Jeffry on Instagram: @spaceorbitstudio | @thebcomplexatl

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

All images courtesy of the artist.

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Yu-Kai Lin, founder and director of Kai Lin Art, a gallery that has played a major role in shaping Atlanta’s contemporary art scene for nearly two decades.

Over the years, Lin has worked with curators, developers, architects, and designers to build collections and curate exhibitions for organizations including High Museum of Art, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Atlanta Hawks, and Emory University. His work moves between the worlds of fine art, education, hospitality, and design, helping connect artists with institutions and audiences across the city and beyond.

A graduate of Emory University with a background in piano performance, Lin approaches creativity as something interdisciplinary and deeply human. In addition to his work as a gallerist and curator, he has given a TED Talk at Emory, taught piano for years, and remained an active voice in Atlanta’s arts community.

In this conversation, they discuss building an arts community in Atlanta, balancing intuition with discipline, sustaining a creative life, and the importance of creating spaces where artists and ideas can grow.

Learn more about Yu-Kai’s gallery: kailinart.com     |     @kailinart

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com    |    @kevinwillpaint     |     @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand on all major platforms. Including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Kevin Kirkwood is joined with Esteban Patino, an Atlanta-based artist whose work explores language, symbolism, and the construction of meaning through painting, sculpture, and collage. Born in Medellín, Colombia, Patino builds visual systems that resemble language while resisting direct translation, moving between abstraction and representation.

His current solo exhibition, Shapeshifter, on view at Spalding Nix Fine Art through May 22, brings together paintings and sculptures developed from an invented symbolic language. Across the work, fragments of recognizable imagery, figures, gestures, and organic forms emerge and dissolve, holding meaning in flux.

Patino’s practice draws inspiration from universal systems of communication, from ancient pictographs to contemporary signage, examining how meaning is constructed, shared, and broken apart. His work asks what it means for form to communicate and whether meaning can ever be fixed.

In this conversation, we discuss his process of building a personal symbolic system, the relationship between sculpture, painting, and collage in his practice, and the tension between clarity and ambiguity in visual language.

Learn more:

esteban-patino.com   |   @estebanpatino

spaldingnixfineart.com   |   @spaldingnixfineart

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.

Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Josh Aronson, a Miami-based artist and photographer whose work explores masculinity, vulnerability, and the shifting landscape of the American South. Born in Toronto and raised in Florida, Aronson’s perspective is shaped by a deep familiarity with the region’s contradictions, something that becomes a central thread throughout the conversation.

His photographs, which often blur the line between portraiture and landscape, have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Paris Review, Financial Times, Frieze, Italian Vogue, Teen Vogue, Dazed, i-D, British Journal of Photography, Document Journal, and Apartamento. Across this work, Aronson engages questions of identity, intimacy, and place, building images that feel both personal and culturally resonant.

He is currently a 2026 Leonian Foundation Fellow in Photography at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a Studio Artist-in-Residence at Deering Estate in Florida, and an ON::View Artist-in-Residence at ARTS Southeast in Georgia. His work has been exhibited internationally, and in 2024, he became the only artist to receive both the People’s Choice Award and Juror’s Prize for the City of Miami Beach’s No Vacancy public art commission.

In this conversation, we explore Josh’s early influences and what first drew him to photography, how collaboration and trust shape his process, and the evolving relationship between artist and subject. We also discuss the emotional terrain of the South, the challenge of representing Florida beyond cliché, and what it means to document a place that resists easy definition.

Learn more: | josharonson.us   |   @jda.usa

vcca.com  |   @vacenterforthecreativearts

deeringestate.org   |   @deeringestate

artssoutheast.org   |   @artssoutheast

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com  | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand via all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.