The Inspiring Conversations Podcast

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/mtIROY61xvQ

Jeff sits down with Heather Duncan, Interim Executive Director of Living Arts of Tulsa, to hear a very compelling and very inspiring story about how she and the team there have pivoted and adapted since mid-March. 

She shares a very personal account of how this process has affected her, about what they have learned through this process, and about their vision and plans for 2021.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/VOSG54vTLfU

Jeff sits down with artist PetraBaye to hear about what her work means to her at a deep level, about how she got started creating art, and about what inspires and energizes her to continue to create work on an ongoing basis. 

She also shares about her beCAUSEicare Foundation and how she sells art and other items to raise money to help children in need and how it makes her feel better than anything else has in the world.

To learn more about PetraBaye and her work, visit 
https://www.petrabayeart.com/

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/PDwDyiuly5w

Jeff sits down with artist and educator Larry Hefner to hear about his current work, about his career as both an artist and as an educator, and about how he and his art have evolved over the years.

He also shares deeply about his early career and about some formative experiences that informed the direction of it.

To learn more about Larry and his work, visit
http://www.larryhefner.com

Larry Hefner received his Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Oklahoma. He is a Professor Emeritus of Design in the Department of Design at the University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, Oklahoma. 

Larry is currently a professional fine artist working from his studio in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is a multi-disciplined artist working with a variety of media and techniques. In an effort to stay on the cutting edge of the graphic design industry, Larry spends a great deal of his time researching and working on Macintosh computers and their associated software applications. 

His work has been exhibited in many local and regional museums and galleries winning numerous awards. 

For the past forty years, Larry has worked as a graphic designer/photographer, owning his own studio, The Hefner Group.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/qAO6mXDAgPk

Jeff sits down with OKC based artist Jaiye Farrell as he shares deeply about his artistic perspective and what informs and inspires his work. In addition, he also talks in-depth about what it has felt like for him to create very large murals at different locations in the OKC area. Jaiye also speaks about his experience as an artist and as a human being since the pandemic began and about how he has continued to build his network of fellow artists and hearing different perspectives during this time.

To learn more about Jaiye and his work, visit
https://www.jaiyetheartist.com/ 

Oklahoma-based artist Jaiye Farrell cultivated his style of painting from abstract patterns that transcend societal and cultural divides and remember the communal roots of humanity. From an infatuation with archeology emerged a creative and ambitious talent: to craft signature designs that inspire self-reflection. 

He describes his process in the following way, "Typically, I start with a void (black canvas) because that comes from a place of wonder and I want to explore that. When there’s a void and I’m committed to exploring it, intuition becomes fluid. This is how I paint my white lines on black canvases: with intuition as my guidance. Sometimes I have an outline that I follow but it’s not a boundary. I often veer into nonlinear movements because they move out of stagnancy. That’s how you create a rhythm and a circulation."

Jeff sits down with artist Anita Fields to hear her perspective about the intersection of indigenous art, culture, and language.

She also reflects about the significance of Speak: Speak While You Can, the recently closed exhibit at Living Arts.

To learn more about Anita and her art, visit
https://www.anitafieldsart.com

Born in Oklahoma, artist Anita Fields creates works of clay and textile that reflect the worldview of her Native Osage culture. Her practice explores the complexities of cultural influences and the intersections of balance and chaos found within our lives. The early Osage notions of duality, such as earth and sky, male and female, are represented in her work. 

Heavily textured layers and distorted writing are elements found in both her clay and textile works. These reference the complex layers and distortion of truths found in the written history of indigenous cultures. 

Fields creates narratives that asks viewers to consider other ways of seeing and being in an effort to understand our shared existence.

The power of transformation and transformative actions are realized by creating various forms of clothing, coverings, and figurative forms. The works become indicators of how we understand our surroundings and visualize our place within the world.

Landscapes, environment, and the influences of nature are themes found throughout the work of Anita Fields. They reflect time, place, and how the earth holds the memory of cultures who once called a specific terrain home. 

Fields is currently a 2017-2020 fellow with the Kaiser Foundation Tulsa Artist Fellowship. 

Fields’ work has been featured in American Craft, Ms Magazine, American Style, and First American Art. Her work can be found in several collections, such as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Museum of Art and Design, New York City, Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, and the National Museum of American Indian, Smithsonian, Washington, DC.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/axDo-6CL4_8

Jeff sits down to visit with artist Liz Downing from her studio in Baltimore to hear her share deeply about her perspective, her process, and about what her live performance art that with "aural images as companions to visual symbols."

Liz speaks about the healing aspect of her work and about the origins and inspiration for it that is rooted in her childhood and from her experiences growing up in the South.

To learn more about Liz and her work, visit
http://lizdowningart.com/

Liz Downing creates aural images as companions to visual symbols. She collects sounds from beloved environments and embeds these sounds into a blanket for words to rest upon. If all goes well, when these words are sung they activate the symbols, which live again in the air. This is the magic of music. The visual images whom she paints and draw arise from the landscapes which she loves to manipulate into existing upon a flat surface. 
This is the magic of art.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/ijwuNHHsFZ8

Jeff sits down with the Tony Tiger, the curator and 3 other artists from this exhibition, Antonia Belindo, Joshua Hinson, and Randi Narcomey-Watson to hear their perspective on the connection between Indigenous art and language and how it is all connected to their tribal communities and to the Ancestors.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/wxnTyImpirg

Jeff sits down with artist and educator Ebony Iman Dallas to hear about her work, her artistic perspective, and about how she has evolved as a result of creating and sharing her art.

She also shares about how she tells stories that are often overlooked with her art and how that has impacted her at a deeper level.

To learn more about Ebony and her work, visit

https://www.ebonyimandallas.com/

Ebony Iman Dallas is a fifth-generation Oklahoman, second-generation Somali-American. She is an artist, writer, and founder of Afrikanation Artists Organization (AAO).Ebony received her BA Journalism Advertising and Arts degree from the University of Central Oklahoma and her MFA Design degree from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. 

Her thesis titled "Painted Bridges" explored ways to unify the African American, Afro Caribbean, and continental Africans through art and design for community activism. 

As a result, Afrikanation Artists Organization was founded as a non-profit, NGO based Hargeisa, Somaliland, and a 501(c)3 in the United States.Ebony’s work has exhibited extensively in the United States and Somaliland, Somalia in group and solo exhibitions. 

Her artwork was included in Food Network’s "Restaurant Impossible" renovation of Urban Roots in Oklahoma and she was a featured artist in the Romare Bearden Centennial Celebration in New York. Her work can be found at The Hargeisa Cultural Center, Joyce Gordon Gallery, and private collections in Namibia, Somaliland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Ebony is a proud graduate of the Oklahoma Arts Council’s Leadership Arts program and ArtistINC.

*Photo credit Charlie Neuenschwander

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW AND TO SEE HER ARTWORK THAT SHE SHOWS, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/Y47enNAK38g

Jeff sits down with Cherokee artist and educator Candessa Tehee as she shares very deeply about the connection between her artwork, her work teaching American Indian Studies and coordinator of Cherokee Language Education and Cherokee Cultural Studies Programs at Northeastern State University, and how this is all integrated within a life spent serving her community.

She shares some of her artwork and a story about how she learned finger weaving and the oblique form and about how she has been teaching this centuries-old art form to others as well.

Honored for her finger weaving, Candessa Tehee has helped resurrect this nearly forgotten art form, winning several finger-weaving awards since she began in 1999. She has mastered both the warp and weft form of finger weaving and the oblique form. In 2015, Tehee was an apprentice to Cherokee National Treasure Dorothy Dreadfulwater Ice.

Currently, she serves as an assistant professor of American Indian Studies and coordinator of Cherokee Language Education and Cherokee Cultural Studies Programs at Northeastern State University.

Candessa Tehee received the honor of Cherokee National Treasure in 2019.

Before joining NSU, Tehee managed Cherokee Nation’s Cherokee Language Program and oversaw the Language Technology Department, Translation Department and Community Languages Program.

TO WATCH A VIDEO OF THIS INTERVIEW, GO TO INSPIRING CONVERSATIONS PODCAST CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE OR VIEW DIRECTLY AT https://youtu.be/TQUoCk64fdk

Jeff sits down with Cherokee artist and writer Roy Boney, Jr. to hear about the evolution of his art, about his life journey, and about his work with the Cherokee Nation Language Program.

He also shares about how this program has adapted to make it easier for citizens of the Cherokee nation and others who are interested to learn the language to communicate with one another using popular electronic devices,

Roy Boney, Jr. is an award winning Cherokee artist & writer. He grew up in Locust Grove, Oklahoma and currently lives in Tahlequah, where he works for the Cherokee Nation Language Program. His work has been exhibited across the US , Paris, and London. 

His writing and artwork have appeared in First American Art Magazine, Native Peoples, Indian Country Today, Oklahoma Today, and Art in AmericaHe is a painter, comic book artist, and digital media artist.

He has also contributed to the graphic novel anthologies Tales of the Mighty Code Talkers, Trickster, Native Graphic Classics, and the newly released Moonshot,