Artists Talk with LVA: January 4, 2024

Carnegie Center for Art & History opened "Intentionally Intimate: The Choice to Work Small," which runs through March 16 & the artists, Wendi Smith, Nancy Currier, Caroline Waite, Kay Grubola, and Rachel Singel joined us this week.

Wendi Smith’s work has been exhibited regionally for over thirty years. She has been a member of local co-ops Zephyr and PYRO Gallery, as well as a supporter of the local arts scene. Exhibit credits include Four Star Gallery in Indianapolis, the Carnegie for the Arts in Cincinnati, and Zephyr Gallery in Louisville. She has taught fine arts at Bellarmine University and Indiana University Southeast.

Nancy Currier is a painter who also creates drawings and mixed-media sculptures. She grew up around art as the daughter of the esteemed Louisville painter Mary Ann Currier. She also has taught art at Louisville's Foster Traditional Academy.

Caroline Waite is from an English village called Cookham Dean, known for its famous and eccentric resident, wartime artist Stanley Spencer whose stylized scenes in the 1940s of Cookham village life and residents have hung in the nation's leading museums. He described Cookham as a “village in Heaven”.

In England, Waite taught at Northbrook College, Sussex North East Wales University Telford College, Shropshire. Since moving to the U.S. in 2001, she has lived in Texas and New Mexico but prefers her current home Louisville.

Kay Polson Grubola is an artist and independent curator in Louisville, Kentucky. Creating assemblages using natural found objects, Grubola’s work is a celebration of nature. The work is also an allegory for the natural process of human life, both its ascendance and its decline. She has shown her work nationally and internationally. 

Grubola was the Executive Director of Nazareth Arts, a regional arts center on the campus of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth in Kentucky, as well as the Artistic Director of the Louisville Visual Art Association.  For 10 years she taught drawing and printmaking at Bellarmine University and Indiana University Southeast. 

Rachel Singel is a printmaker and faculty at the Hite Institute at the University of Louisville. Rachel has participated in residencies at the Penland School of Crafts, the Venice Printmaking Studio, the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, and Art Print Residence in Barcelona. As an artist interested in working using non-toxic methods, Singel, has studied with the founder Grafisk Eksperimentarium studio in Andalusia in 2018 and worked as a resident artist at Wharepuke studio in New Zealand.

Artists Talk with LVA: October 12, 2023

As Open Studio begins we speak with 2 of the artists, Ton'nea Green & Victor Sweatt. Also in the studio will be J. Barrett Cooper talking about "The Weir" at Bunbury Theatre. Barrett & Victor were my 1st guests on this show as we celebrate being on WXOX/Artxfm.com for 10 YEARS! Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

J. Barrett Cooper is an Actor, Director, Fight Director, Dialect & Acting Coach, Former Prod. Dir.-Savage Rose Theatre Co. he has worked with Kentucky Shakespeare, Bunbury Theatre, CenterStage at the Trager JCC, Constellation Stage & Screen in Bloomington, IN, and recently appeared in the feature film White Noise, directed by Noah Baumbach. Currently, he is directing The Weir for Bunbury Theatre, which opens tomorrow and runs through October 28.

Ton’nea Green, a recent recipient of a Black Artists Fund grant, is a talented portrait artist. With this grant, Ton’nea aims to create beautiful paintings that reflect the lived experiences of children during this global pandemic. As a mother, Ton’nea wants this project to capture the complicated emotional experiences that many children have had to go through during this difficult time. Ton’nea will be participating In Open Studio Louisville this Saturday, October 14 at Mellwood Art Center.

Victor Sweatt is a Louisville-based, self-taught painter and muralist. Sweatt was born in Louisville. He has shown his work in both group and solo exhibitions and appears in public and private collections throughout the United States. Sweat is a signature member of Louisville Visual Art, the Kentucky Artist Pastel Society, and the Kentucky Watercolor Society. Victor is participating in Open Studio Louisville at the LVA Studios on October 14 & 21

Artists Talk with LVA: March 2, 2023

Moon-he Baik was a Professor of Interior Design at the Hite Art Institute in 1991-2021. She received her BFA from Ewha University in Korea, and her MFA from the University of North Texas. Her research focuses on Textile Design, Multi-Cultural Interiors, and Sustainability & Environmental Design.

Since 2018 she has been working to develop the Korea Fiber Form Biennial, which took place in South Korea in 2022 and is unfolding now in Louisville at LVA, KMAC, Asia Institute-Crane House, 21c Hotel & Museum, and the University of Louisville. She has now been invited to bring the Fiber Forum to the 2024 Venice Biennale.

In April 2023 Baik will once again be a featured designer in the KMAC Couture event!

Korea FiberArt International consolidates leading artists in Korean fiber arts to organize symposiums and workshops in correlation to exhibitions. The objective of KFAF is to shed light on Korea's creative endeavors using a wide range of fiber-based materials. The scope is broad from artistic narrative expressions to practical approaches that encompass function.

Artists Talk with LVA: February 23, 2023

REMEMBRANCE, an exhibition honoring the late Lida Gordon featuring Bette Levy, Elmer Lucille Allen, Denise Furnish, and Melinda Snyder, opens at PYRO Gallery on March 3 and runs through March 26, 2023.

“As an artist, I am interested in using historic handwork techniques to create contemporary art and to address personal and societal issues. It is important to me to use these skills in an increasingly technological/virtual world and to maintain an ongoing relationship with the past. 

 For the past 20+ years, I have been a hand embroiderer, using vividly colored silk thread on black grounds. This approach intensifies thread colors and creates strongly contrasting figure-ground relationships. Over time, I have developed a personal language of stitches that enables me to "paint" or "draw" with thread on fabric.  My subject matter is based on the photographic studies that I abstract and manipulate to emphasize seemingly inconsequential structures.  I am interested in textures and how to give form to structures through the layering of stitches and the use of color.  Labor- and stitch-intensive, my work often takes considerable time to research and complete.  It is the very detail of this work, however, that provides a meditational focus”.

The Sanctuary Project is a collaborative performance art initiative with Louisville Visual Art taking place on March 3 & 4 at LVA. Two of the five participating artists, Joyce Barbour and Magnolia Hensley came to talk about it. Joyce is a multi-media artist and teacher and Magnolia is an actor and improv artist.

Five artists create performances around the idea of sanctuary using a variety of media, space, time, spoken word, and music.

Joyce Barbour. Amy Davis. Magnolia Hensley
Sara Noori. Taylor Sanders Curated by Keith Waits

Artists Talk with LVA: December 22, 2022

Imuzi Ryzoncity Thompson and Autumn McKay Lindsey talk about their exhibits at 1512 Creative Compound's The Common Gallery. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Imuzi Ryzoncity Thompson is a self-taught artist who was born in Manchester, Jamaica but is now based in Louisville KY. His exhibit, Birth Of An American Beast, is now on view at The Common Gallery at the 1512 Creative Compound.

Autumn McKay Lindsey is a ceramic artist whose newest exhibit, Return to the Beaten Path,is now on view at The Common Gallery at the 1512 Creative Compound.