Who Arted: Weekly Art History for All Ages

Felix Gonzalez-Torres was a Cuban American artist who rose to prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s with his poignant minimalist installations. His stack pieces of unlimited edition prints make the fine art gallery space more democratic. Patrons are not only able to touch and take a piece from the artist, but the viewer becomes a collaborator as every person who takes one of the prints changes the dimensions of the sculpture. Throughout his career, Felix Gonzalez-Torres was focused on art and community as well as cultural connections. In this episode, we discussed "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) from 1991. The first time, I saw this piece, I was walking through a gallery and saw just a giant pile of candy. At first, I dismissed the work as a sign of everything wrong with contemporary art. I simply walked past thinking how ridiculous it was that simply pouring bags of candy on the floor would be considered worthy of a museum. Of course, as with most things I initially dismissed, I found upon further research that it was actually quite thoughtful and deliberately created. Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work was actually a big influence on my development as an artist and a teacher in getting me to think of art as not simply a static object created by an artist for others to look at, but rather something for all to participate in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andy Warhol was an odd dude with an expansive and extremely odd collection. He basically hoarded all he could with boxes of stuff that could fill warehouses. His collection ranged from the ordinary objects that were the subjects of his iconic pop art, to curious artifacts from history such as the mummified foot he kept in his studio. It is unclear where he got the foot, but a popular story is that he bought it from a flea market. While acquiring ancient Egyptian remains at a flea market may seem incredible today, there is actually a long history of mummies being used as decorations, party games, paper and they have even been ground up to be consumed as medicine or as pigment for paints. As always you can find more at www.whoartedpodcast.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's guest is Andy Warhol, famous and influential Pop Artist. They discuss his unique approach to art, including his love for mass production and automation. They explore how he used images from newspapers and magazines as inspiration and his preference for flawed prints. Despite his criticism, Warhol's work reflects a deep reflection of shallow culture. Other topics include his name change, his background, and his collaborations with other artists.

For this fun fact Friday mini episode, I discuss the color purple. Purple has long been associated with royalty and that is largely because purple dyes have been hard to come by. The time consuming, labor and resource intensive process of producing purple dyes made them very expensive and thus only people of wealth and power could afford such finery.  As always, you can find more to learn about on the website www.whoartedpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this episode, I spoke with Dr. Rosemary Lee an artist far more serious and accomplished than myself to gain some insights into the work of Bisa Butler. Specifically we talked about The Safety Patrol from 2018. For images, and more go to www.WhoArtEdPodcast.com Bisa Butler is a contemporary American artist. She was born and raised in New Jersey. She attended Howard University where her primary studio concentration was painting. Later on, she worked as an art teacher, but one of the most significant impacts on her personal and professional life came when she was pregnant. For health reasons, she gave up oils and solvents during her pregnancy but she could not give up on making art. When her grandmother got sick Butler wanted to make something for her. She found an old wedding photo of her grandparents, and used that image as inspiration for a quilt. Butler continued working making portraits on quilts. Her subjects include both famous and forgotten figures. A lot of her imagery comes from found photographs. She says she prefers black and white images as they allow her to be more creative in her selection of color. Bisa Butler uses an appliqué method layering colorful fabrics to make quilts that look like paintings. Her method actually starts off similar to how one might construct a large scale painting or drawing. She projects the image and draws out the shapes for the various color separations to capture the range of values needed. She then carefully selects fabrics in a variety of colors, textures and patterns to suit the subject and she cuts/stitches them together to form her image. Her portraits are life size bringing the viewer face to face with forgotten and overlooked people from history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a part of my series of fun fact Friday mini episodes about different colors. This week you can learn a bit about the history of different pigments used to create blue in artworks. For a long time, blue pigment was more valuable than gold. Blue pigments were so labor intensive and expensive that some prominent artists like Michelangelo were said to have left some paintings unfinished because they could not afford more blue paint.  While we see blue all around us in the sky, the water, even people's eyes, blue pigments are relatively rare in nature. There is no blue pigment in people's eyes, just as the sky does not have blue pigment. Blue eyes, and the blue of the sky are just optical illusions produced by the shorter wavelengths of light scattering more readily through the gasses in earth's atmosphere or in the case of blue eyes, the way the light scatters through the fluid in the stroma of the iris.  As always, you can find more at www.WhoArtEdPodcast.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marcus Bromander is one of the co-creators and co-designers of the extremely popular game, Among Us. For this episode, I spoke with Jeff Arndt, a fellow art teacher, about Bromander and his work. Although Among Us is an online game, it was actually inspired by Bromander's love of a game he played with his friends in real life when he was growing up. The social aspects of gaming have become particularly important during the global pandemic making Among Us a perfect game for this time as it has allowed for people to maintain connection with friends while social distancing.As always you can learn a bit more at www.whoartedpodcast.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Remember the voting in round 1 of the Arts Madness tournament will begin Monday, March 1. Visit www.WhoArtEdPodcast.com for more information. This week's Fun Fact Friday mini episode is about the color green. Learn a little more about associations with the color green as well as sources of green in nature, in food and a surprising fact about green eyes.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For this week‘s episode I talked with Chuck Hoff about Joe Mills. Joe is an artist based out of Chicago and both Chuck and I were lucky enough to work with him years ago. Joe Mills was born in Kentucky but he came to Illinois for college. He studied industrial design at the University of Illinois and after college, he worked as a toy designer. A big turning point in his artistic development came when he moved to Australia in 2010. While in Australia, he missed his adopted home town of Chicago and he began creating work based on the city he loves. That Chicago themed work came to be his signature. Over the years he has captured many different subjects, but he focuses on his passions whether it is the city and the culture of communities around Chicago, or figures from pop culture. Mills creates work that is both meticulous and whimsical. He has the precision of an industrial designer combined with the creative and aesthetically pleasing style of a fine artist. For this episode we discussed his Chicago Factory piece to discuss. You can find the image and more at www.whoartedpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Voting for the Arts Madness tournament will begin March 1. Right now, you can check out all 64 artists and enter your prediction to win at www.WhoArtEdPodcast.com  This week's fun fact Friday mini episode is all about the color yellow. The ancient Egyptians associated yellow with gold, and gold was symbolic of the gods and the eternal. Consequently, they used quite a bit of yellow to decorate their tombs. Of course just as with orange, the yellow pigment favored by the Egyptians contained arsenic so kind of ironic as a connection to immortality and yet perfect for the decoration of a tomb.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices