The artist Hank Willis Thomas is a voracious reader, not only of books, but of the world around us—and particularly, of images. Through his practice, Thomas interrogates and investigates, probes and prods, and ultimately helps make sense of various strands of visual culture—advertising, photographs, videos, clothing and ephemera, monuments—to tell necessary stories and shape new forms of meaning and memory. While Thomas’s roots are in the medium of photography, his work also extends far into other realms, including sculpture and memorialization. A prime example of this and a collaboration with MASS Design Group is “The Embrace,” a memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, that will be unveiled in the Boston Common in January 2023. Another is the Gun Violence Memorial Project, organized with the prevention organizations Purpose Over Pain and Everytown for Gun Safety, and also with MASS. 

Central to Thomas’s art are the subjects of truth and reality (best illustrated by his traveling “Truth Booth” installation, which toured all 50 states in the lead up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election), how they’re shaped, and by whom. Many of Thomas’s more conceptual projects also tend to be collective. Most notable among these is For Freedoms, an artist-run coalition he co-founded in 2016 as a super PAC that serves as a platform for artists of all kinds to meaningfully contribute to public discourse and help raise political awareness in the United States.

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Thomas speaks with Spencer about identity as a figment of our imaginations, race as the “most successful advertising campaign” ever, and quilt-stitching as a metaphor for all that he does.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

• Hank Willis Thomas
• [06:36] “Remember Me” 
• [06:56] “Digging Deeper”
• [12:12] MASS Design Group
• [15:27] “The Embrace”
• [18:02] “Raise Up”
• [19:27] Gun Violence Memorial Project
• [23:21] “Unity”
• [27:59] TED Talk: “A Mother and Son United by Love and Art” 
• [38:31] “Along The Way”
• [39:08] “Branded”
• [39:08] “Unbranded”
• [39:08] “Rebranded”
• [39:23] “Absolut Power” 
• [43:55] “A Place to Call Home”
• [44:01] “Question Bridge: Black Males”
• [47:00] “Truth Booth”
• [49:01] For Freedoms
• [49:01] “For Freedoms News”
• [58:46] “Guernica”

The Swiss-born, Brooklyn-based designer Tina Roth Eisenberg has, over the past 15 years or so, built a cult following of creatives around the world who, like her, constantly seek to connect, reflect, and grow together—and who view her as an inspirational curator and guide. In 2008, Eisenberg founded Creative Mornings, an egalitarian platform that hosts free talks and events, with chapters currently in 225 cities and 67 countries. A serial entrepreneur and the creator of the widely followed Swissmiss design blog, Eisenberg also founded that same year Studiomates in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood; a predecessor to WeWork, it was the borough’s first co-working space. (Eisenberg now operates the co-working space Friends Work Here in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood.) Also over the past decade-plus, she has founded and launched the aptly named to-do list app Teux Deux and the temporary tattoo company Tattly, the latter of which she sold to Bic Group earlier this year.

On this episode, Eisenberg talks with Spencer about why she views the idea of time as a farce, her spiritual belief that everything is vibration and energy, and her mantra of leading with a sense of gentleness and what she calls “an extra layer of love.”

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

• Tina Roth Eisenberg
• [18:58] Creative Mornings
• [25:53] Tattly
• [37:35] Studiomates
• [37:35] Friends Work Here
• [43:30] Fingerspitzengefühl
• [50:03] Time Well Spent
• [01:01:08] Swissmiss

Across his four-decade-long career in graphic design, Michael Bierut has amassed an impressively robust tally of bold-faced clients. From The New York Times, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the Robin Hood Foundation to Mastercard, the New York Jets, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Bierut and his team at the multidisciplinary design firm Pentagram—which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year with a two-volume book from the publisher Unit Editions, and where he has been a partner since 1990—have crafted some of the most unforgettable, standout identities and graphics around. Perhaps most notable in recent years, Bierut devised the unequivocal “H” logo used throughout Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Consistently fueled by the sheer delight he finds in design, Bierut is also a co-founder of the website Design Observer, launched in 2003 and among the first online platforms dedicated entirely to design. With everything he creates, Bierut whittles each of his concepts down to its most essential core, ultimately arriving at something that feels both rigorously thought through and inevitable in its simplicity.

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Bierut talks with Andrew about the integral practice of keeping notebooks throughout his life; the deep groundedness of his nearly lifelong relationship with his wife and high-school sweetheart, Dorothy Kresz; and why the “why” of design is far more important to him than the “how.”

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Michael Bierut
• 01:13:57 Pentagram
• 00:23:28 Design Observer
• 01:23:40 Mastercard logo
• 01:30:44 The Library Initiative
• 01:39:26 How To
• 01:39:59 Pentagram: Living by Design 

As the New York restaurant Le Bernardin celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, chef Eric Ripert humbly reflects on his three-plus decades there. Over this time, he has brought his artistic vision fully to life, subtly evolving it season to season and year to year, creating an exquisite experience for those guests lucky enough to sit in the dining room of a restaurant that has managed to maintain its four-star rating from The New York Times since shortly after its stateside opening in 1987 (it started in Paris, in 1972). Le Bernardin has also kept up its three-Michelin-star status. This year, Ripert himself was honored by Michelin with its mentor chef award.

The author of a best-selling memoir and of several cookbooks, Ripert has also been a guest judge on Top Chef, appeared on several episodes of the late Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and Parts Unknown (the two were very close friends), and was the host of his own show, Avec Eric, on PBS. Careful to nourish a particular style in the kitchen that emphasizes a fastidious attention to detail, sharing knowledge, and leading in a compassionate way, Ripert credits his practice of Buddhism for helping shape his open-armed approach to life and work.

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Ripert talks with Spencer about his cool-headed leadership style, his meticulous ways of managing time and technique in the kitchen, and the enduring influence of his mother’s culinary wonders.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Eric Ripert
• Le Bernardin 05:06
• Maguy Le Coze 05:53
• Gilbert Le Coze 10:04
• 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line 25:34
• Vegetable Simple: A Cookbook 41:51
• Anthony Bourdain 49:37

The architect Brad Cloepfil views his work as less of a job and more of a calling. Sites speak to him. He listens with his eyes. When embarking on a project, Cloepfil slowly feels out the place, studying its particularities closely in order to understand its truest, deepest nature. He and his Portland, Oregon- and Brooklyn-based firm, Allied Works, craft buildings as much as they design them. His are finely tuned, well-wrought structures, elegantly proportioned, and unforgettable in their tactility, visual wonder, and reverence for their sites and surroundings.

From the Portland, Oregon, headquarters of the advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy (2000); to Denver’s Clyfford Still Museum (2011); to, more recently, the U.S. embassy in Mozambique (2021), Allied Works sculpts spaces of meaning and feeling that also serve pragmatic functions. Not surprisingly, the firm has become renowned for its designs of museums and arts institutions, including the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2003).

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Cloepfil talks with Spencer about his multisensorial approach to design and making; how reading, writing, and poetry have shaped his perspectives on the built world; and why all of his buildings are on some level about “amplifying and elevating the idea of service.”

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, 

L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

• Brad Cloepfil
• [23:46] Allied Works
• [07:26] Wieden and Kennedy
• [45:29] Portland Institute for Contemporary Art
• [48:01] Maryhill Overlook
• [48:20] Sitings Project
• [51:40] Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis
• [53:30] Museum of Arts and Design
• [55:37] Duchess County Guest House
• [55:58] University of Michigan Museum of Art
• [58:38] Clyfford Still Museum
• [01:07:43] Eleven Madison Park
• [01:08:43] National Music Centre of Canada
• [01:11:41] National Veterans Memorial and Museum

To Annie-B Parson, choreography isn’t confined to the studio and the stage; rather, practically everything around us abounds with movement that’s worth paying attention to. In her new, aptly titled book, The Choreography of Everyday Life, an inventive, observant, and witty ode to her relationship with dance and movement over the course of her lifetime, she delves into exactly that belief. 

Across the past 30-plus years with Big Dance Theater, which she co-founded in 1991, her work has amounted to more than 20 choreographed and co-created works. As a whole, her inventive oeuvre extends in seemingly infinite directions: opera, pop music, television, movies, ballet, marching bands, symphonies. A frequent and close collaborator with the legendary David Byrne, Parson has choreographed two of his world tours, and most recently, his highly acclaimed Broadway hit American Utopia. The eclecticness of Parson’s body of work is rivaled only by that of her choreographic style, which finds inspiration in everything from traditional ballet, to Russian folk dances, to pedestrians on the sidewalk. A meticulous attentiveness and a whimsical ingenuity are the hallmarks of everything she does.

On this episode, Parson speaks with Andrew about how the pandemic has altered our understanding of the ways our bodies relate to one another, why she considers TikTok a new kind of folk dance, and choreography as a means of controlling and testing time.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Annie-B Parson
• [05:19] The Choreography of Everyday Life
• [36:15] Big Dance Theater Company
• [29:27] Paul Lazar
• [09:30] Previous books
• [49:37] The Mood Room
• [55:15] American Utopia
• [55:20] Here Lies Love
• [55:51] Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

If there were a bard for our bewildering times, Saeed Jones would be a fitting choice. In his newly released collection of poems, Alive at the End of the World, Jones dances through grief, rage, and trauma—collective and personal—with acerbic clarity and sharp-edged wit. It is a book that gets to the heart of this confounding, erratic era, by turns reflecting on the tremendous amount of loss that has come with Covid-19; more broadly, the staggering, startling nature of living through a pandemic; the unignorable realities of climate disaster; the ongoing dangers of being Black and queer in the face of systemic racism, homophobia, and white supremacy; and, individually, the 2011 death of his mother and the past decade he has spent wallowing, mourning, mending, processing, and growing in the aftermath. Following his two previous books—the 2019 coming-of-age memoir How We Fight for Our Lives and the 2014 poetry collection Prelude to Bruise—Alive at the End of the World is only sort of a hyperbolic, if coy, title. “This human era we’re in is wild,” Jones says on this episode of Time Sensitive. “I am not here to tell people, ‘Oh, it has always been this calamitous.’ No! We are in an era of instability, destability. It’s bad, and I think we need to be real about that.” 

There’s a blunt, let’s-not-beat-around-the-bush quality to Jones’s work—he intentionally and directly addresses harsh, gut-punching realities that many of us would rather ignore. But he does so in ways that are alluring, and that draw readers in. Wading through the tough stuff, slowly, thoughtfully, and with good humor, Jones gets to higher truths and finds meaningful connection points. 

Also on this episode, Jones talks with Spencer about growing up Black and queer in the suburban city of Lewisville, Texas; how the murders of James Byrd, Jr., and Matthew Shepard haunted him throughout his teenage years and still do; and why, “in our culture right now, everything’s a proxy war, everything’s one-upmanship.”

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Saeed Jones
• [03:36] Alive at the End of the World
• [05:41] “Deleted Voice Message: Hey, Robyn—It’s Me, Whitney”
• [05:41] “A Spell to Banish Grief”
• [07:03] “Saeed, How Dare You Make Your Mother Into a Prelude”
• [14:18] “Okay, One More Story”
• [16:31] “The Dead Dozens”
• [25:05] “Diahann Carroll Takes a Bath at the Beverly Hills Hotel”
• [48:07] How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir
• [52:09] Prelude to Bruise
• [52:09] “Jasper, 1998”
• [01:13:55] “Self-Portrait of the Artist as Ungrateful Black Writer”

Peter Saville is a man of the moment—and has been, again and again, throughout the past five decades. Raised in Manchester, England, in the sixties—in tandem with the growing prominence of counterculture, the rise of anti-war sentiments, and the birth of pop—Saville developed early on a keen eye and ear for the zeitgeist, or what he terms “nowness.” In his adolescence, he took up a fervent interest in music and in record covers in particular, and went on to art school to study graphic design. In his final year, he was commissioned to design the very first posters for the punk music venue The Factory, which would soon morph into the legendary independent record label Factory Records. 

Across his prolific, nearly 50-year-long career in graphic design and art direction, Saville has created album covers for Joy Division and New Order (most iconically, the one for Joy Division’s debut studio album, Unknown Pleasures); branding for clients including Ferragamo, Burberry, and Aston Martin; and more recently, even Kvadrat fabric designs—each drawing inspiration from the spirit of their times—that can be called nothing short of era-defining. Woven across all of his work are provocative dialogues between past, present, and future.

On this episode, Saville speaks with Andrew about coming of age in the punk and post-punk worlds, the increasing impossibility of tracking “nowness,” and creating literal signs of the times.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Peter Saville
• [12:11] Kvadrat Technicolour
• [01:10:48] Power, Corruption & Lies album cover
• [42:21] Factory Records
• [50:15] FAC1 poster
• [50:15] Haçienda
• [53:13] FAC 2
• [29:23] Unknown Pleasures album cover
• [01:22:13] Closer album cover
• [01:24:43] “Blue Monday” cover
• [01:35:44] The Apartment
• [01:39:29] Show Studio

Roxane Gay describes her wild trajectory as a multihyphenate writer-editor-publisher-professor-social commentator as “fairly bewildering.” And she’s not wrong: Over the past decade—and with long odds stacked up against her as a queer Black woman of size—Gay has had a meteoric rise in the media and publishing stratosphere, achieving rare heights. She has written a best-selling memoir, Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body (2017); a book of essays, Bad Feminist (2014); and two collections of short stories, Ayiti (2001) and Difficult Women (2017). She publishes a weekly newsletter called The Audacity and hosts The Roxane Gay Agenda podcast. Gay is also a contributing Opinion writer for The New York Times. This spring, she launched the Roxane Gay Books imprint with the publisher Grove Atlantic, and this fall, she begins her rarified position as the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture, and Feminist Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Her next book, the astutely titled How to Be Heard, comes out in the spring. 

Across all of her work, Gay addresses topics related to feminism, women’s rights, rape culture, sexual violence, weight and body image, trauma, race, and friendship. Gay, it is safe to say, is one of the most essential writers of our time, someone hyperattuned to the moment we’re in and who fights like hell for the issues and causes she deeply believes in. Now in a well-earned position of power, she uses the influence she has to elevate the voices of other writers she feels are being or have been overlooked.

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Gay talks with Spencer about her nomadic childhood across America as the daughter of Roman Catholic Haitian immigrant parents, her fluid and flexible approach to time, and her open-armed joy of cooking.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Roxane Gay
• [04:16] Bad Feminist
• [04:16] Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
• [13:01] Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in Media, Culture and Feminist Studies
• [13:12] Roxane Gay Books
• [13:16] The Audacity Newsletter
• [13:18] Roxane Gay Agenda Podcast
• [13:22] Roxane Gay MasterClass
• [45:31] Ayiti
• [45:31] An Untamed State
• [45:31] Difficult Women
• [48:20] T Magazine “Cooking Class” videos

For the past five decades, the British-born, New York–based artist Jamie Nares has been capturing the passage of time, the physics of motion, and the essence of self through a wide variety of mediums, including film, painting, music, photography, and performance. Many of Nares’s films, such as Pendulum (1976) and Street (2011), play with rhythm and speed as they distill the streets of New York City and the movements of its inhabitants. Nares’s vast body of work shares a common theme: the recording of a specific moment in time that gives the viewer an intimate look into a human experience. Her famous brushstroke paintings are both powerful and delicate, capturing the mere seconds of a single, continuous bodily motion using a repeated swooping gesture. One of her recent projects, “Monuments,” pays homage to the workmen who, centuries ago, chiseled marks in the huge granite blocks of downtown Manhattan. As life speeds up following the pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, Nares’s work serves as a beautiful reminder to slow down, and to more deeply explore the many movements around us.

On this episode of Time Sensitive, Nares talks with Andrew about her decades of work exploring time, rhythm, and movement; her journey transitioning to womanhood at age 65; and why her daughters and the next generation give her hope for the future.

Special thanks to our Season 6 sponsor, L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

• Full transcript
• Jamie Nares
• Kasmin Gallery
• [03:32] Street
• [15:43] Pendulum
• [25:26] Red-Handed
• [27:29] A New Vein
• [31:10] James Chance and the Contortions
• [38:18] Ramp
• [38:36] No Wave Cinema
• [39:21] Monuments
• [50:02] “Nares: Moves”