Art Dealer Diaries Podcast

Every one of these podcasts I do is unique. I never know exactly what kind of flavor person I'm going pull from the box. In this particular case, I  got chocolate (which is my favorite). You see, I've represented Carol Alleman for more than 15 years and I knew some of her background, but I didn't know the entire story. Not even close. Carol is somebody who struggled to become an art...

Fred King is an interesting guy. I've known him since 1990 but he started dealing in Native American material back in 1967.  He's one of the earliest individuals to have had a Native American art gallery in San Francisco. It's interesting to hear about the early days and what it was like to be in the bay area back then participating in both the music and art scenes. When it comes to...

I had Steve Elmore on the podcast today and I've known Steve since about 1995. He's an interesting guy with a unique story.  You see, Steve grew up about 100 miles away from where I did in Carlsbad, New Mexico. He had an intimate relationship with Carlsbad Caverns, which, if you haven't ever been to, is this immense natural wonder of the world. It's not unusual that he ends up...

I had Logan Maxwell Hagege on the podcast today. He's such an interesting person and a wonderful artist. I think you'll really enjoy this podcast as it's my 200th podcast. It's appropriate for Logan to be my guest on this milestone episode just because of the ride we've had together and how I’ve had the pleasure of watching him mature as an artist over the past 20 years. I...

I had Matt Fitzsims on the podcast today and he wrote a wonderful book called 'The Counterfeiters of Bosque Redondo: Slavery, Silver and the U.S. War Against the Navajo Nation.  I read this book twice, actually. There's so much in-depth history. I feel like you can actually hear the voices of the people sharing their perspectives of these dark times. Truth is, it was a devastating time f...

I had Jeff Mitchell on today. I've known Jeff for around 27 years and he's a really interesting guy and a very sweet man who loves art and has a unique background like so many art dealers do. This podcast tells the story of how Jeff became a leader in his field, primarily dealing in art by deceased artists, with a specialty in Maynard Dixon, which is an area that he and I have in common....

I had Philip Garaway on the podcast today. I knew it would be a very interesting podcast and I also knew it would also go very long (which it did). It was over two hours so we're going to break this into two episodes. Part 2 of the Philip Garaway interview is about his transformation into a leader in the field of Native American art. He started selling items in 1975 as a 23-year-old and even...

I had Philip Garaway on the podcast today. I knew it would be a very interesting podcast and I also knew it would also go very long (which it did). It was over two hours so we're going to break this into two episodes. Episode one is about his early life and how he became who he is spiritually and emotionally from a walkabout in India for a year to living on a kibbutz in Israel and just all th...

Peter Nesbit came by today and we actually recorded on a Sunday (something I never do). I did that because I really wanted him on this podcast and sometimes you have to work around a person's schedule to capture important stories from important people. Anyway, Peter was in Tucson and I thought: "God, I got to have Pete on my podcast."  Peter is just a really interesting individual....

I had Tom Figarelle on the podcast today and he's the Executive Director of the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. This podcast is unique because we get to hear the extent of Tom's love for his hometown which is Great Falls, MT. It's where he's from, where his parents are from, and where he lives and works to honor a historical figure that loved Great Falls just as mu...

I had Krystii Melaine on the podcast today. She was born and raised in a very small town in southeastern Australia called Bairnsdale and followed her love of art up and down, trying to find her path. Eventually, she found her way into America and started painting Western art, which was a thing she didn't even know existed.  Fast forward to today and she's one of the top artists in Americ...

I had Kim Wiggins on the show today and, wow... He's such an interesting guy. It's fun to be able to have such an erudite and wonderful artist that has such a unique story.  He's from a ranching community in southeastern New Mexico (really close to where I grew up, actually). His father was a photojournalist, a very well-received photojournalist and he started his own paper. He had...

I had Kim Wiggins on the show today and, wow... He's such an interesting guy. It's fun to be able to have such an erudite and wonderful artist that has such a unique story.  He's from a ranching community in southeastern New Mexico (really close to where I grew up, actually). His father was a photojournalist, a very well-received photojournalist and he started his own paper. He had...

Juraj Skalina was my guest on the podcast today. I've known Juraj for.. gosh.. 25, almost 30 years? I started using him as a framer in 1996 and I think it's so important (when we talk about the business of art and the world of art) that we don't forget it's not just artists and art dealers. It's also people that work to optimize art for display in homes, galleries, museums...

I had Mike Fox on the podcast today and we spoke for almost 3 hours. I knew that was going to be the case when I started because he's a very unique individual with a rich background in the arts. He's had a lot of different jobs throughout his life, and when I say jobs I mean they were all museum or nonprofits type jobs. Mike has done great work for the likes of the Heard Museum, Museum o...

I had Mike Fox on the podcast today and we spoke for almost 3 hours. I knew that was going to be the case when I started because he's a very unique individual with a rich background in the arts. He's had a lot of different jobs throughout his life, and when I say jobs I mean they were all museum or nonprofits type jobs. Mike has done great work for the likes of the Heard Museum, Museum o...

Jan Mapes dropped by the studio today to give us some paintings and a new bronze that she's recently produced. Luckily, I managed to wrangle her into the studio to do a podcast (which is not easy because she lives out in the middle of nowhere in eastern Colorado).  Jan is a professional sculptor and painter and is very successful having shown in many museums and galleries, and is represented...

Oil painter Matt Ryder is my guest on the podcast today. He flew 23 hours from the U.A.E. to get to Tucson that's a commitment for your art. Matt reached out to me after hearing a podcast I had done with Eric Rhodes for his Plein Air Podcast, and now I represent him in my gallery, sometimes it can be that simple or hard if you are the one doing the flying. I love his work. He's gifted, a...

One of the reasons I do podcasts is not only to understand the guests I have on,  or the art world for that matter but also to gain insight into my own creativity and who I am. Jill Carver really brought that home for me today because she was willing to share her incredibly personal  journey leading up to her 2022 exhibition "The Wild Southwest, Forces and Form" She had to go through som...

Today's podcast is a little different. Instead of me doing the interviewing, I am actually going to be one of the people on a panel. The panel consists of myself and Davison Koenig, who is the director of the Couse-Sharp Historic Site in Taos, New Mexico. It's a great museum and I highly recommend going and visiting it. The moderator is Michael Clawson, who is one of the editors at the W...

I'm always amazed when I do a podcast and somebody I've known for 25 years or longer like Veryl Goodnight manages to surprise me, and not just surprise me, but enchant me.  Her enthusiasm for what she does and her love of animals is and has always been the driving force for her creativity, from childhood to now. So, artists out there who are wondering, you know, "How do I make a liv...

I had Charles Fritz on today. He's such an interesting person, not just as a painter, but also as a guy who really loves the outdoors. Charles not only likes to hunt and fish, but he's also an individual that really believes in conservation. He believes that you have to get out and do plein air paintings to be able to capture what you hope to capture in the studio and this shows in his p...

I had painter Sue Rother on the podcast today. Sue is married to oil painter Francis Livingston, and, you know, they're a dynamic duo of artists. Both of them started in illustration almost 50 years ago and moved into fine art over the last 20 years. It was fun to talk to Sue about her trajectory and how she made her way through the illustration world, especially in the timeframe of the early...

Today's guest was Mark Hilbert, and he has his own museum. That alone is a very unique and amazing thing. This is an individual who started his career in engineering and invented a module that made climate control devices more energy efficient. He was able to patent the technology and then ultimately sell the company, helping him establish a commercial real estate business in California. As y...

Today was a two-for-one. I had Pat and Kim Messier on and it was fun because I had them in-house in the studio and we sat side by side and really just had a discussion about their history and how native arts have affected their lives. Pat is a native Tucsonan who first started working with native arts in 1949. So she's been in the trade and has worked for 60 years with the early Tucson Indian...