Artists in Offices

On this final episode of season 2, I'm thrilled to welcome  Carrie Lederer to the podcast! She's a painter, sculptor, and installation artist whose nature-inspired work has been shown across the U.S. Carrie has completed public art commissions for places like Facebook, UCSF Medical Center, and several Bay Area cities, and she's currently an artist-in-residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley. Ca...

I'm so excited to welcome Meredith Steele to the podcast! Meredith is a painter and educator whose work is rooted in a love for the everyday. In 2020, she created 100 Paintings of Oakland , a project that was featured on KQED and led to major commissions with Chandra Cerrito Art Advisors and a body of work now permanently installed at the John Muir/UCSF Berkeley Outpatient Center. She's had solo s...

On this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Ellen Lake to the podcast! Ellen is an interdisciplinary artist based in Oakland, California, whose work spans painting, video, sculpture, installation, and public art. She often experiments with technology and archives, creating projects that blur the boundaries between process and material. Her public art initiative, Bench Projects , replaced ads with art...

On this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Lisa Solomon to the podcast! Lisa is a studio artist, college professor, and illustrator whose work explores themes of domesticity, craft, and personal history—often blurring the lines between art and craft through her mixed-media pieces and large installations. She's exhibited nationally and internationally, with work in both private and public collections...

In this episode, I'm excited to welcome Sarah Kobrinsky to the podcast! Sarah is the former Poet Laureate of Emeryville, California, and the author of Nighttime on the Other Side of Everything . Her poems and stories have appeared in places like Magma Poetry, Red Light Lit, Monkeybicycle, 100 Word Story, and many more. Born in Canada, raised in North Dakota, seasoned in England, and tempered in Ca...

On this episode, I'm excited to speak with Susana Sanchez-Young! Susana is a visual journalist with more than 20 years of experience in newspaper design and graphic and photo illustration. Her award-winning work has covered everything from presidential inaugurations to Spanx for men to nudist camps in South Florida—and pretty much everything in between. She's been recognized by the Society of News...

I'm thrilled to talk with David Burke on this episode of the podcast! David is an artist whose career balances teaching, studio practice, and public art. Over the past two decades, he's created murals, exhibitions, and collaborative projects that merge creativity with community storytelling. He's the founder of Hungry Ghost Productions, a Bay Area mural collective dedicated to diversity, social ju...

This week's guest is Briana Loewinsohn! Briana is a high school art teacher and cartoonist, and the author of the acclaimed graphic memoir Ephemera , published by Fantagraphics in 2023. The book was named one of the American Library Association's top graphic novels of the year and won the 2023 Foreword Indies Editors Prize for Nonfiction. Her latest graphic novel, Raised by Ghosts , came out in ea...

In episode 3, I speak with Buffalo-based artist Andrea Wenglowskyj. Andrea is a photo-based artist and commercial/editorial photographer whose work explores how memory and community are shaped by war and authoritarianism, inspired by her Ukrainian-American heritage. A Fulbright Grant recipient in Ukraine, she has exhibited across the U.S. and internationally, including at CEPA Gallery, Silver Eye...

On this episode, I'm excited to welcome back Janine Biunno to the podcast! When we last talked, Janine was wrapping up her MLS degree while working as an archivist and maintaining her art practice. This time around, we talk about life after that degree, parenthood during a pandemic, day jobs that turn into careers, daily practices, and valuing the little moments. During our conversation, we discus...

For the first episode of season 2, I welcome back Lisa Jonas Taylor , who became a parent in 2023. Lisa is a Santa Rosa-based artist who makes paintings that often incorporate sculptural and theatrical elements. Lisa has shown her work at places like Bass & Reiner Gallery, Southern Exposure, the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Casa Romantica Cu...

Artists in Offices explores how the work we do for pay supports the work we do for love. I'm your host, Rebecca Bird Grigsby —visual artist, mom of two, and full-time project manager by day. Season 1 featured artists balancing day jobs and creative practice. This season, I'm talking with artists who are also parents about making art while raising kids. We'll dive into the challenges and joys of su...

In this bonus episode between seasons 1 and 2 of the podcast, I talk to Lennon Michelle Wolcott Hernandez , a Boston-based interdisciplinary artist who works in graduate admissions. Originally from Michigan, Lennon is a Latinx artist who speaks better Japanese than Spanish, is named after a Beatle, and comes from a family line that signed the Declaration of Independence. She completed her Bachelor...

In this bonus episode, I check in with Laura Torres , the second artist I interviewed for season 1 of the podcast. About a month after our initial interview in December 2018, Laura quit her full-time day job in higher education fundraising to focus more time on her circus arts training and everything else that supports her creative practice. This bonus episode was recorded in March 2019, a couple...

In this bonus episode, I check in with Elizabeth Amento , the first artist I interviewed for season one of the podcast, who has since left her day job in San Francisco and moved to New York City. This bonus episode was recorded in late June 2019, a week before she started her new job, and about three months after she made the move. Elizabeth was born in Boston, MA, and raised in the San Francisco...

In the final episode of season one, I speak with Mike Rothfeld , an artist living and working in Oakland and San Francisco. He received his MFA in Fine Art and MA in Visual and Critical Studies from California College of the Arts (CCA) and his BFA in Photography and Imaging from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU). Rothfeld's lo-fi, seemingly clumsy sculptures serve as set-pi...

In episode 9, I speak with Nicole Kita ,  a visual artist living and working in Northern California, who works as an educator and advocate for artists with developmental disabilities. As an educator, Kita has taught artists of diverse ages, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, as well as individual behavioral and learning needs. She currently works as a full-time teacher at The Studio , a non-...

Em Meine makes drawings, paintings, and sculptures as a means of exploring collective memory, storytelling, natural history, and anthropomorphism. The works are often figurative representations of imaginary objects or landscapes. She considers her artistic practice to be a ritual for contemplation and self-care, which enables her to experience a sense of connectivity and communion with everything...

Gabriel Martinez specializes in political art and Visual Cultural design. Gabriel has an eclectic history of being an artist whose works span the spectrum of being displayed on Bay Area gallery walls or finding their way directly to the hands of people for political empowerment. He has even had his portrait displayed at the de Young Museum. Gabriel's work unifies art and design. The discursive sty...

In this mini bonus episode, Los Angeles area artist & museum preparator's assistant Christopher Thomas Ford discusses the decision to attend the Museum School's post-baccalaureate program before pursuing his Master of Fine Arts degree. If you'd like to hear our full conversation, look for episode 6 of this podcast. Music provided by Mr. Neat Beats .

In episode 6, I speak with Christopher Thomas Ford, an interdisciplinary artist from the Boston area who relocated to Los Angeles in 2016. He received his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. In Dorchester, Massachusetts, he co-founded the Howard Art Project artist space and artist collective. He has taught at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Lesley Univers...

In Episode 5 I speak with Brooklyn-based artist and archivist  Janine Biunno . About three years ago, Janine decided to go back to grad school, having previously attended for art, to obtain a Master's degree in Library Science. In this bonus mini-episode, Janine and I discuss her experiences the second time around and the similarities and differences between the MLS and the MFA. If you'd like to h...

Janine Biunno is a visual artist and archivist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work is focused on analyzing and interpreting the semiotics of the built environment. Janine's artwork addresses the subjective practice of understanding and representing the architecture, infrastructure, and density of urban space, and how our general perception of those physical spaces is altered due to the increasin...

Helena Hsieh was born and raised in Long Beach, California. She received her BA in English Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2004, her BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2008, and her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/Tufts University in 2012. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in Vancouver, Los Angeles,...

In episode three, I talk to San Francisco-based artist Lisa Jonas Taylor , who works by day in the field of art and design higher education. Lisa's studio practice is grounded in various mediums, primarily painting, sculpture, and installation, as well as project-based collaborative work. Her work has been exhibited at Good Mother Gallery and City Limits Gallery, Oakland; Studio 110 Projects, Saus...