Art Works Podcast

Professor, art historian, and curator Dr. Nicole Fleetwood has spent years exploring the art of incarcerated people and how it is essential to our understanding of mass incarceration and the people it affects. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, Fleetwood began this work as she reflected on her family’s and community’s history of imprisonment. The project grew into an award-winning book Marking Time: Art in...

In March 2020, Joy Jones was rehearsing the part of Vera in the Arena Stage production of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars directed by Tazewell Thompson. It’s not a surprise that Arena Stage would be mounting Seven Guitars . A long-time grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts,  Arena Stage is a pioneer of the Regional Theater Movement and the largest company in the country dedicated to America...

Andrew Krivak’s novel The Bear , which is a recent NEA Big Read title, is a story about the last of humanity. Yet the book somehow is remarkably hopeful. Set far into the future, it’s a fable that seems as old as time with a sense wonder that weaves throughout it. Without humans, or with the last of humans, nature has reclaimed its prominence and its rhythms once again prevail. The last two humans...

Today, we revisit a conversation with 2019 NEA Jazz Master composer, conductor, and arranger Maria Schneider who creates highly original and evocative compositions for her jazz orchestra. A New York Thanksgiving tradition was a week-long series of performances by the Maria Schneider Orchestra at the Jazz Standard. As we know the pandemic put the performance of live music on hold for over a year, t...

David Rodriguez is the Executive Vice President & Executive Producer of NJPAC (New Jersey Performing Arts Center)—it’s not only one of the largest performing arts centers in the country, it’s also one of the most diverse from its programming to its artists to its staff and its audiences. From its inception, NJPAC ‘s goal was to serve as a cultural anchor and help revitalize downtown Newark thr...

Today, we revisit our interview with 2018 National Heritage Fellow and black ash basket maker Kelly Church. An Anishinaabe belonging to the Gun Lake Potawami Band, Church combines the centuries-old tradition of ash tree harvesting and processing, creating ribbons of ash she then weaves into stunningly original and colorful baskets. Tied to her artistry is a deep commitment to keep this tradition n...

Arlo Iron Cloud (Oglala-Sioux) embraces and celebrates Lakota culture through his radio broadcasting, photography, filmmaking, language reclamation, and work in food sovereignty. He passionately embraces Lakota tradition and is deeply committed to its future. Iron Cloud is the station manager (and long time programmer) on KILI Radio—the radio station designed by and for the Lakota people on the Pi...

Today, Hill Country blues musician, songwriter, and 2021 National Heritage Fellow Cedric Burnside talks about bringing his musical roots to the 21st century. Cedric Burnside has the blues in his bones: his father, uncles, and cousins all played. His grandfather was blues legend R.L. Burnside, known to Cedric as “Big Daddy.” Cedric essentially grew up in R.L.’s house, listening to the music, playin...

Dr. Niyati Dhokai is Program Director of Veterans and the Arts Initiative at George Mason University’s Hylton Performing Arts Center .  The program has been supported, in part, by Creative Forces®: NEA Military Healing Arts Network -- an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.  Creative Forces places creative arts...

Co-founder, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter for the band Los Lobos, named 2021 National Heritage Fellows, Louie Pérez is one of the great storytellers. For more than 40 years, he’s written songs from the Chicano experience that speak to the joys, struggles, challenges, and hopes of everyday life.  Los Lobos is an East LA band who came together almost 50 years ago, and, miraculously, it still...

Snehal Desai is the producing artistic director of East West Players (EWP). One of the longest running theaters of color, EWP is now the nation’s leading Asian American theater company. For half a century, EWP has been raising the visibility of Asian Americans and inspiring and advocating for a world free of racism and discrimination through transformative theater. In this podcast, Desai talks abo...

With her second novel The Taste of Sugar ,   Marisel Vera has created an epic tale with an intimate heart. Her two protagonists Valentina and Vicente are small coffee farmers in late 19 th century Puerto Rico whose lives had been shaped by Spanish colonialism. Then in 1898, Puerto Rico was invaded by the United States which assumed control of the island, devaluing the peso and levying property tax...

Two-time Newbery Award winner and the 2014-15 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature,  Kate DiCamillo  writes stories that matter. From the fantastical like  The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane  (which author Ann Patchett calls a “ perfect novel ”)    to the more realistic Raymie Nightingale series, DiCamillo always finds the balance between humor and heart. First and foremost a sto...

Folklorist Elena Martínez is a producer for the documentaries “From Mambo to Hip Hop: A Bronx Tale” and “We Like It Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo.” What makes these documentaries stand out is, of course, the fabulous music. But the perspective or point of view of both films is just as important.  The films examine the music through the lens of urban folklore—music created by and for the p...

September 27 will be an historic night for opera lovers: the Metropolitan Opera, the largest performing arts company in the nation, will open its season after the long pandemic shut-down with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts since its development period, “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is based on the memoir by Charles Blow. It’s composed by jazz great Terenc...

Tap Dancer and 2021 National Heritage Fellow Reginald “Reggio the Hoofer” McLaughlin has been motivated by one thing his entire life: his love of tap-dancing. He walked away from a successful R&B career as a bassist to pursue his unlikely dream of making it as a dancer. Born and bred in Chicago, he turned to mentors like Jimmy Payne to teach him the foundations of tap dance which only affirmed...

In Washington, DC, the evening of September 10 promises to be momentous: at 6 pm ET, Ford’s Theatre is presenting Come From Away: In Concert at the Lincoln Memorial. It’s hard to think of a more appropriate play than Come From Away to mark this occasion. The Tony and Olivier Award-winning musical was inspired by the aftermath of 9/11, when a small town in Canada welcomed some 7,000 people whose fl...

2020 NEA National Heritage Fellow, teacher, and Haudenosaunee Raised Beadworker, Karen Ann Hoffman (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin) creates contemporary art that is deeply rooted in the past. Haudenosaunee  or Iroquois raised beadwork is unique to the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, which includes the Oneida. Its hallmark is beads sewn in a such a way that they arch above the fabric crea...

Drummer, producer, educator and 2021 NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington is not only a virtuoso musician, she’s also a strong advocate for social justice and gender equity on the bandstand and in the classroom.  Deeply committed to empowering the next generation of musicians, Carrington is the founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.  Carrington has spen...

With the new school year upon us, this week we’re turning our attention to arts education. First, Ayanna Hudson , director of Arts Education at the National Endowment for the Arts (and currently acting deputy chairman of Programs and Partnerships), reminds us of the singular role the arts and arts education can play as students return to the classroom. Hudson emphasizes that involvement in the art...

This week, we’re talking about investing in the creative economy from two perspectives. First, we get an overview of the issues from Laura Callanan. She’s the founding partner of Upstart Co-Lab ,  an organization which works to connect impact investing to the creative economy.  With global partners from the UK and Argentina, Upstart Co-Lab co-published a report about this-- Creativity, Culture &am...

In his documentary The Story Won’t Die --an official selection of the AFI DOCS Film Festival -- director David Henry Gerson looks at the lives and work of eight Syrian artists in exile. Since the civil war in Syria began ten years ago, more than half of the country’s population has been forcibly displaced. Of these, 6.8 million are refugees and asylum-seekers who have fled the country. The life of...

Anita Fields , a citizen of Osage Nation, is a renowned textile and clay artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her art reflects Osage philosophy with its connection to nature and emphasis on duality. Her work also gives a new visual language to the complexities of Native history and culture. While immensely talented in other media, Fields has been named a National He...

In 2015, the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four Confederate monuments from public grounds. Death threats, protests, lawsuits, and rallies ensued, and writer and comedian CJ Hunt thought the situation ripe for a short satirical YouTube video.  He was curious “why a losing army from 1865 still holds so much power in America.” He covered the hearings and protests, and a bigger story began...

One of the most important public artists in New Orleans is Enrique Alférez who was born in rural Mexico of indigenous Nahua heritage.  His life spanned the 20 th century, and his distinctive vision helped shape the look of the city. His figurative sculptures, fountains, architectural friezes, bas-reliefs and carvings can be found on buildings and streets throughout New Orleans from City Park to La...