Art Dealer Diaries Podcast

Got to meet with Len Chmiel today. He's one of my favorite artists. He's just incredibly gifted and I've always been a huge fan of his work. We were at the Coors Art show in Denver and we found a little hidden conference room, and we sat down and talked. In fact, at the end of the the show that we were doing, the music was playing and it was kind of beautiful. Len is just such a cre...

What a wonderful podcast I had with Marilou Schultz. She is a master weaver and a math teacher who grew up in Leupp, Arizona on the Navajo Nation. She has been teaching her entire life and is justs now going into weaving full-time. There's good reason for that too. You see, Marilou's weavings are very in demand. She has a waitlist that includes the Basel and MoMA collections.  What she h...

One of the things I love about doing this podcast is that I get a variety of people that come through my life. In this case it's Bill Healey, who I've known probably 25 plus years. His role, his part of the art ecosystem is different than many of the other people I've had on, and that is of a collector. He's a true collector who has this unique history, which I went into and I...

You know, one of the great things about going to an artist's studio is you get an inside look at how they make art, how they create, how they see their world. With Maeve's work in her studio, you really get a glimpse of that process.  If you ever get the opportunity to go to an artist's studio, take it for sure, because it allows you to feel that what they feel, how they get to wher...

With so many of these individuals I interview, art is really the only thing they see themselves doing in life. Oil painter Raj Chaudhuri on the other hand was a very successful software engineer before committing to art. He could have gone that route and been hugely successful, especially considering the timeframe he was doing it. But no, he HAD to be an artist. You see, Raj has been drawing since...

I had the great pleasure of going to Ezra Tucker's studio and doing a podcast with him. It's so interesting to go in these sacred places that artists create, and it changes your perspective. To just feel the intimacy and the importance of these spaces... It really can't be overemphasized.  What happens in these areas of creation, and how somebody like Ezra spent the time, the though...

The best kind of podcasts sometimes are the ones that you weren't planning, and that's the one I had today with Ernie Lister. He is a silversmith and is an incredible master of his craft. There's no doubt about that. I've known about Ernie for a very long time. I've talked to him, but only at Santa Fe during Indian market. Things move very fast at that event and you can&ap...

I had Steve Weil on the podcast today. It was a really a fun, interesting interview because it wasn't done in the studio. It was actually done at Rockmount Ranch Wear Headquarters in Denver.  I highly encourage you go to this store (and bring your wallet) because there's some really great things inside. I definitely walked away with a few Western and Hawaiian shirts. You see, Steve is th...

I love spontaneous podcasts. That's what happened today with Randy Barton. He's a Diné (Navajo) artist and is just a very interesting man and a very unique and important artistic voice.  He has a great story. He moves from the reservation to Winslow, AZ and gets into  hip hop culture and graffiti at a very young age. He runs with this, and it becomes the story of his life. Randy lays it...

I had the very dynamic Knox Kronenberg on today. He's a fine art photographer and he's got a really interesting story. He's pushing the envelope and he's only 27, but it feels like he's 40.  Knox has really found his niche. We're talking about major endeavors. It's like doing directing a movie. I mean, he can spend up to $70,000 on a single shot. He has a  clear...

Today's podcast is a little different because it's a panel that was done at the Coors Western Art Show Collectors Roundup in September 2025. They have a show that's in January 2026 and this is kind of a preview get together with collectors, artists, and other key figures in the Western art world.  This particular event was a panel that was part of the programming for this preview ev...

My favorite podcasts are the ones where I get to go to the person's studio and/or house, sit in their environment, and talk to them. It gives me such a deeper understanding of that person and where their creative juices come from. I got to do that with renown sculptor Star York. We've been working on a 50 year retrospective, and this was part of that project. We recorded this interview i...

My favorite podcasts are the ones where I get to go to the person's studio and/or house, sit in their environment, and talk to them. It gives me such a deeper understanding of that person and where their creative juices come from. I got to do that with renown sculptor Star York. We've been working on a 50 year retrospective, and this was part of that project. We recorded this interview i...

I had Jeremy Lipking on today and he is such a wonderful artist. I've always been a fan of his work. You know, it's not a far stretch to compare him to somebody like John Singer Sergeant or Joaquín Sorolla. He has this strong sense for posing figures, highlighting their emotions and body language. The way he sees these images in his head and then is somehow able to translate them to the...

I had a great interview with Starr Hardridge and he's just  an incredible artist. He's Muskogee (Creek) and is known for his pointillism paintings that he does primarily of Native imagery. He also does some abstract artwork, which I really like as well. It's a very unique style and takes an insane amount of time to do it. We even talk about how he does it, which usually I get more i...

Doing podcasts can be such a joy and it was with Jordan Sprigg. This is the beauty of social media and the internet. My son and I found images of Jordan's sculptures online and we both gravitated to the man's work. It's just so interesting. He uses found material to build these beautiful sculptures of wildlife. Fish, ibex, rhinoceroses horses, etc. He seemed like a really creative a...

Barry Walsh, who's a specialist in Hopi Kachina, did a lovely presentation talking about different types of the kachinas and, as he refers to them, as katsinam. It was uniquely interesting because he's got, you know, decades of research and understanding of the kachinas themselves and has close ties to the Hopi.  He says in his lectures, he's not a expert. That 'an expert'...

Santa Fe Indian Market is such an interesting event and should be on every art lover's bucket list. This is the 103rd market and it's always the third week in August. They have a big ceremony to kick the weekend off and it's when they judge all the different art that comes in from all the artists. Medicine Man Gallery and the Sublette Family Foundation for the Arts provide the funds...

Billy Schenck's 55 Year Retrospective will open February 6, 2026 at Medicine Gallery, and over a year ago, I came out to Billy's studio to talk to him about what we're planning to do. It's been a year since then, and with the show coming up next year, that makes it a two year project. So you get to see Billy's studio (if you're watching on YouTube) and be able to hear...

I had Daniel Gerhartz on today. What a pleasant, lovely human being that he is. I've always been a fan of his work. It's emotionally driven. For me, when I see it, I feel things. This is a man who has taken his work seriously since really junior high and started showing in galleries when he was 25 years old. In fact, this year was his 35th Prix de West. He's 60 now and he's had...

I had Marc Sternberg on today, and it was a very interesting podcast, a little different than what I normally do. Marc contacted me, wanting to interview me for the documentary he's working on titled "Cowgirls: The Women of Western Art." Marc had seen a show that was about cowgirl art at Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West, and he was wondering why an exhibit focusi...

I recently visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the 2025 Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale. They have this event every year in June and it's a wonderful gathering of some of the very finest Western and Native American Artists. It's basically all sculpture and paintings, and you have very traditional art, but you also have very contemporary art as...

I recently visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the 2025 Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale. They have this event every year in June and it's a wonderful gathering of some of the very finest Western and Native American Artists. It's basically all sculpture and paintings, and you have very traditional art, but you also have very contemporary art as...

I recently visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the 2025 Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale. They have this event every year in June and it's a wonderful gathering of some of the very finest Western and Native American Artists. It's basically all sculpture and paintings, and you have very traditional art, but you also have very contemporary art as...

I recently visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the 2025 Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale. They have this event every year in June and it's a wonderful gathering of some of the very finest Western and Native American Artists. It's basically all sculpture and paintings, and you have very traditional art, but you also have very contemporary art as...