Art on the Air

Join Tamara for an interview with Ariel Felton, a writer and editor with a decade of experience in feature writing, travel writing, and copywriting. She first arrived in Savannah in 2013, to pursue her MFA in Writing from SCAD.  Post-graduation, she held writing jobs with SCAD and then taught creative writing for local non-profit Deep Center. Her writing has since been published in The New York Ti...

Join Tamara for an interview with photographer and multidisciplinary artist Nathaniel Thompson. He was born in Thailand, grew up on St. Simon's Island, and has now lived in Savannah for about 4 years. He primarily uses vintage and analog devices such as early digital cameras, 1980’s slide projectors, medium formats, 35mm, and instant film. Nathaniel finds inspiration through his current geographic...

Join Tamara for an interview with textile maven Katie Glusica. She came to Savannah in 2008 to pursue her MFA in Fibers from SCAD, where she would have access to a then-rare and sought-after jacquard loom.  Post-graduation, she exhibited her personal textile work in tons of renowned shows, including the Smithsonian Craft Show, the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, and a SCAD booth at Design M...

Join Tamara for an interview with Curtis Bartone, printmaker and SCAD printmaking professor, who's lived in Savannah since 2001. His paintings, drawings, and etchings focus on the uneasy relationship between human beings and the natural world, exploring the idea of wilderness and how it has changed from being a real place–mysterious, unknown, and pristine–to a distorted fiction. Curtis does a grea...

Join Tamara for an interview with Mary Hartman, who moved to Savannah in 1996 to get her M.F.A. in Painting from SCAD and has lived here ever since. She works with vine and compressed charcoal, pastel, and acrylic washes, traditionally on heavy hot pressed watercolor paper, but lately has branched out into canvas and panel as well. Her work is very distinctive - an abstracted, gestural way of depi...

Join Tamara for an interview with Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher, who have been on the road since July 2021, working from their Nomadic Photo Ark - a converted cargo trailer equipped with a full black & white darkroom and photo editing space. Together they're creating A Portrait of US, "photographically exploring and recording audio of the divisions and similarities in ideologies within our cu...

Join Tamara for an interview with Kamryn Shawron, who moved to Savannah from Ocoee, Florida about 10 years ago to earn her SCAD degree in Fibers, and now works as a multimedia artist. Her work focuses on the integration of portraiture, embellishment, and fibers, and she describes it as "stitching and sewing beads into both found and original photos, canvas, and everything else." Kamryn has created...

Join Tamara for an interview with Jessica Leigh Lebos: Writer, Adopted Southerner, Anti-Socialite, Camellia Thief (and, as we decided during the interview, Public Menace). She arrived in Savannah around 2005, and then spent years writing 3 columns a week during Jim Morekis's era of the Connect Savannah, where she was voted Best Newspaper Columnist. She's also a 2022 Winner in the National Society...

Join Tamara for an interview with William Kwamena-Poh, who moved from Ghana to the U.S. as a young man. After studying art in college, he eventually arrived in Savannah in 1995 and has been here ever since. He's a full-time artist with a City Market studio, a busy schedule of selling (and winning awards) in art fairs across the country, and he even had a solo exhibition at the Jepson Center for th...

Join Tamara for an interview with Ashley Havy of Pashley Pottery, who works on the wheel to create mugs, pots, TINY pots (!), vases, and ceramic jewelry, using such varied techniques as mishima, sgraffito, hand painting, carving, and sculpting. She describes her inspiration as coming from flowers/nature, Art Deco patterns, nail art, and clothing. The first ceramicist Tamara has interviewed, Ashley...

Join Tamara for an interview with Veronica Garcia-Melendez, who is half of synth band Bero Bero - described as Sade meets Kate Bush - as well as a member of the more recent grunge/metal band The Maxines. You might remember hearing a few of Bero Bero's songs on our Local Music show at Thanksgiving, and there'll be 3 clips that play during this interview as well. Awesome to be learning the details o...

Join Tamara for an interview with Angela Burson, who works in a variety of media to depict images of (frequently cropped or headless) figures, their belongings, and interior spaces, which indicate complex psychological and social relationships with one another. Her sharply painted work includes detailed classic clothing and accessories, and is frequently compared to the aesthetic of Wes Anderson m...

Content note: in the 2nd half of the interview, we discuss Sarah's advocacy with sexual assault issues and navigating the legal system.   Join Tamara for an interview with Sarah Cuda, local photographer, hairstylist, and barber. Her favorite subjects to shoot include musicians and dancers during performances, as well as nature closeups - she believes that everyone has a different viewpoint of the...

Join Tamara for an interview with Antwan Eady, author of children's book NIGEL AND THE MOON along with upcoming titles MICAH'S RISE, THE LAST STAND, and the YA anthology POEMHOOD. He writes with the intention of occupying a space within literature where the underrepresented may see themselves as the main character.  NIGEL AND THE MOON - featuring a Black schoolboy who moves past his fear of judgme...

*Hear ye, hear ye! Our show is now moving to the 1st and 3rd (and 5th) Wednesdays of the month, instead of every Wednesday. We want to continue making as high quality a show as possible, and biweekly will fit much better with our schedules and workloads. Thank you all so much for your great feedback on our first few months!* Join Tamara for an interview with self-taught artist Paul Downs, who work...

Join Tamara and Melissa(!) for an interview with Gabrielle Torres, who earned her MFA in Painting from SCAD in 2021. She works in collage, installation, sculpture, etc, with media that runs the gamut from paint, wires, chains, live plants, fabric, and plastic bags. In just the year since she graduated, she's shown her art at Sulfur Studios, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah Cultural Arts Center, Sav...

Happy Thanksgiving week! We're celebrating with a special show of music by two of Savannah's beloved local groups. First, Bero Bero - a synth band that has been described as Sade meets Kate Bush - made up of Veronica Garcia-Melendez and David Murray. Here are songs from their EP called DANCE (2020), and they are currently working on their 4th EP, set to release early 2023. Follow their IG to keep...

Join Tamara for an interview with Jennifer Mack Watkins, a printmaker with a studio in Sulfur Studios. She was born in Charleston and holds a B.A. in studio arts from Morris Brown College, an M.A.T. from Tufts University, and an M.F.A. in printmaking from Pratt Institute. Her work investigates the societal constructs that can leave women feeling isolated, resisting definitions of femininity based...

Join Tamara for an interview with Emily Heid, author of the children's books "Scarlett Moves to Savannah" and "Scarlett Wins the Race," illustrated by SCAD alum Chelsie Liberati, as well as the 'non picture book' "Establish." She's also created a consulting business called Bootstrap Books, in order to help authors self-publish professional-looking work. We chat about the 3 types/rounds of editing...

Join Tamara and David as they interview Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Jepson Center. Her retrospective "Feels like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton," has recently opened and will run through January 2023, and you have to go see it!  We chat about how Erin got into curation, tips and advice for anyone looking to enter the field, and the steps a museum takes when art arrives fo...

Join Tamara for a roundtable discussion with local authors Judy Bean, Helen Pitts Bradley, Susan Earl, and Beverly Willett. They've been meeting every Wednesday for over 5 years as a writers' critique group, the Wednesday Writers.  Topics include: the process of reaching out to agents and/or directly to publishing houses, the Ossabaw Island retreat, Savannah courthouse drama, letting real people f...

With Melissa on a break, original show host David Laughlin joins Tamara for an interview with Adrienne Berkland, a portrait and plein air painter who had work in a recent Atlanta show called "Rage Becomes Her." The conversation touches on making art as a response to the current political moment, gouache, SCAD sports, women's hair, working to music, painting live at events, and the use of hot pink....

Join Tamara for interviews related to the City of Savannah's current "Storm Drain Art" public mural project, which is taking place all over the city. From their site https://waterconnectsusall.com/ :  "What connects us to these waters, plants, and wildlife we don’t see? It is the storm drain in front of our homes, schools, offices, parks, grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations....This proje...

Join Tamara for an interview with David Laughlin - freelance artist, muralist, and original host of this show! If you know David then you know that this will be a conversation about basically everything, but topics include: freehanding a mural, bicycle theft, Norman Rockwell, the Key Westying of Savannah, farm life, and auditory vs. visual learning.  https://laughlinkw.wixsite.com/davidlaughlinart...

Join Tamara for an interview with freelance artist and longtime Savannahian Willie Smith. He's worked on an independent web comic with his brother, titled "BlackGuard," as well as channeled his love for Professional Wrestling into a career drawing portraits of many wrestlers in the industry, and even a freelance project for World Wrestling Entertainment itself. https://www.instagram.com/suicidal_a...