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: February 16, 2023

Yoko Molotov is a multimedia artist specializing in transgressive, gender-fluid cartoons, comics, art books, poetry and performances. She is also in the bands Sweatermeat, Cowabunga Lullaby and in the music/performance group Harpy.

“I think everything I do is art. I think my whole life is art. Everything I do is for art. Every expression I make is an extension of that … I just live to create.” – Yoko Molotov

Yoko Molotov was born and raised in Louisville, KY nestled in the basin of a polluted river. She decided at age 9 she would do comics, at that age on college rule and the backs of important documents like her original birth certificate. Five years later she discovered the saccharine and disturbing world of manga and anime and knew it was where she belonged. Inspired by such artists as Mita Ryuusuke (Dragon Half) and studio GAINAX (Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL), she carved her own world with imagination and Bristol, constantly chastised for drawing in her High School days. In 2006, Yoko made top 20 in Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga Competition with her entry "NecrOphealia" and went along to create a Shoujo-ai Web Manga called "Stray Crayons". Both titles are now published by Demented Dragon. Yoko loves her city, her better half and best friends in the entire world, and loves nothing more than to get lost in a good story (whether it be manga or not) in a song, or better yet an adventure. Some of Yoko's other hobbies have included public access TV shows and a band she is in called Gentleman Stabber.

Regretfully, the archive recording of this interview was corrupted and is not available. Apologies to Yoko.

Artists Talk With LVA: February 9, 2023

Will Oldham is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded in collaboration with dozens of other musicians under variations of Palace (Palace, Palace Flophouse, Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music). After briefly publishing music under his own name, in 1998 he adopted Bonnie "Prince" Billy as the name for most of his work.

Will grew up in Louisville and trained as an actor for several years at Walden Theatre before turning his creative energies to music and songwriting.

Will has been involved with WXOX as a DJ and guest, performing at the Voix de Ville fundraiser and working with Kentucky INTENTIONAL Sounds who helped build WXOX’s sister station, WXND 100.9.

Artists Talk with LVA: February 2 2023

Louisville-born JohnBen Lacy worked on Secretariat (2010), and Pride on the Ropes (2014).

Mike Elsherif was born in Kuwait City, Kuwait. He is a writer and director, known for City Strays (2013), and Maqluba.

Together they are Clovehitch Productions and have produced short films such as Devil’s Food Cake, The Reel, and their latest short film is Of Metal, a meditative portrait of metal artist Robert Brown which won the jury prize at last year's Short Film Slam held at the Speed Museum by the Louisville Film Society.

They also host Film Fatale here on WXOX which is currently on hiatus because they have been so busy lately

Watch the films discussed in the interview at Clovehitch Productions.

Artists Talk with LVA: December 29, 2022

Dessie Spears, Katherine Corcoran & Mary Burnley are exhibiting together in January as the newest members of Pyro Gallery and we talked to them about their work. Tune in to WXOX 97.1 FM/Artxfm.com each Thursday at 10 am to hear Artists Talk with LVA.

Mary Farnum Burnley is a Louisville native who studied at Murray State University, the University of Louisville, and the Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited in numerous, solo and group exhibitions. She has taught Art in Jefferson County at the high school level and adult classes through Louisville Visual Art. Burnley has received numerous awards and is included in collections of universities, hospitals, and corporations including the United States government, the Ford motor company and Merrill Lynch. 

Katherine Corcoran is a sculptor who describes herself as a constructivist.  The Russian constructivist movement in the early 20th century was interested in moving away from painting on canvas and trying new ways to make art. She worked designing exhibit space, fabricating custom trophies, and producing books for blind children; 

Dessie Spears is from Corydon, Indiana. Before she retired, she was an equipment operator and operation engineer. She attended Ivy Tech for Commercial Art and began working as an artist for a display company in Louisville Kentucky. At the age of 49 she enrolled in the San Francisco Academy of Art majoring in Interior Design and Architecture

Their exhibit, All in the Process opens on January 6 at Pyro Gallery. There will be an Artists’ Talk on January 15..