Dear Adam Silver

Brian Tran, my first guest ever on the podcast, is back to help me discuss my inclusion of iconic words by Charles Barkley in the opening credits of every Dear Adam Silver episode. Brian is a writer and a dedicated basketball and baseball fan. He is based in St. Louis, MO where he is pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis.  This episode was...

Brandon Donahue is a multi-media artist based in College Park, MD and the current artist-in-residence at the David C. Driscell Center. Brandon's "blooms" or assemblages using found basketballs and footballs is the work that initially drew me in, especially in relation to my own work with basketball nets. But throughout our interview it was clear that Brandon't first art related loves- ai...

Noah Cohan is a Lecturer of American Culture at Washington University in St. Louis. His book, published earlier this year, entitled We Average Unbeautiful Watchers , is a critical unpacking of sports fandom in relation to larger societal issues. Noah engages this subject as a fan himself and rethinks ways that fans and spectators can have a healthier, more productive relationship with both sports...

Bradley Robert Ward is a multi-media artist based in Houston, TX.  Ward's work touches on his relationship with the basketball players that have impacted him the most and the culture around the game, both from present time and the past few decades. He uses the techniques of image transfer and collage to recreate iconic imagery with his own hand,  in a way that forces the viewer to redefi...

Jeremy John Kaplan is a Brooklyn based artist and longtime fan and player of the game of basketball. His Gold Nets Project, where he hangs gold spray painted basketball nets on hoops that are without or have unusable nets, has spread far and wide, starting in Philadelphia, moving to New York City, along the US-Mexico border and in other countries. He sees the gesture of hanging the net as a way of...

This is part 2/2 with Abdi Farah ( www.abdifarah.com ) on the pod to discuss the beginning of the NBA season. Intro bonus, I read the letter I received from Bill of NBA Fan Relations, in response to the artwork I sent to Adam Silver earlier this year!  Thanks for listening! And please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. Every bit helps.  This episode was edited and produced by E...

New Orleans based artist Abdi Farah is back on the pod! Last time we spoke I was extremely worried about the Warriors losing in the finals.....a lot has happened since then.  We catch up on recent happenings in our artwork and also continue to unpack the China-NBA controversy and how it might have been handle differently.  Our discussion will be released in two parts, with our analysis o...

Adam Silver has been in the news a lot lately because of a recent controversy involving free speech, Daryl Morey, pro democracy protestors in Hong Kong, Ted Cruz, Elizabeth Warren, and of course, the Chinese government. As the podcast is centered around my attempt to engage with Silver through my artwork, it felt important to discuss this ongoing situation on my first ever solo pod....will be cove...

On the corner of Main and Schiller in Over-the-Rhine, a neighborhood in downtown Cincinnati, there are two public basketball courts and a garden; located across the street from an elementary school, this is a spot for neighborhood kids and adults to play basketball, work in the garden, or just hang out. Since 2015, outside developers have been interested in buying this property from the city and t...

Coleman Collins is an artist and former professional basketball player. He played in college at Virginia Tech University and has since played for teams both at home in the States and abroad, with squads in Germany, France and the Ukraine, winning championships in Bosnia and Bahrain. He received his masters of fine art from UCLA and just completed the studio arts Independent Studies Program at the...

Breanne Trammell is a multi-media artist often making work in response to pop-culture icons, including sports figures. We had the chance to discuss her practice and some specific pieces during my time as an artist-in-residence at Wave Pool Gallery in Cincinnati. Please check out more of Breanne's work at https://breanne.info and follow her on Instagram @breanne_ This episode was produced and edite...

Bill Bamberger is a fine art and documentary photographer based in Durham, NC. While visiting Washington DC earlier this year, I saw an exhibition of Bill's work at the National Building Museum entitled HOOPS; this work included photographs of basketball hoops from all over the world. Our conversation spans the idea behind the work overall as well as specific stories of his time searching for hoop...

Isaac Eger writes about many different subjects, including the ins and outs of pickup basketball. Two years ago, I read an essay he wrote for Los Angeles Magazine entitled What Pickup Basketball Reveals About L.A.. I immediately felt the need to reach out and tell him how much I appreciated his piece. It was exciting to discover Eger's work; he learns about different places all over the world thro...

Shea Serrano is a staff writer for The Ringer and author of The New York Times Best Seller Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated. We had the chance to discuss his collaborative relationship with Arturo Torres, the artist who created all of the drawings for the book. Shea is also the author of The Rap Year Book: The Most Important Rap Song From Every...

New Orleans based artist Abdi Farah is back on the pod to discuss the outcome of the NBA playoffs, the ongoing finals and the real reason why Anthony Davis wants to leave the Pelicans (note: it has to do with their name). Abdi's work can be found at http://www.abdifarah.com

Tema is a Toronto based freelance writer and Director of Community Engagement at Holy Blossom Temple. Recently, she wrote an article for the Jewish Daily Forward entitled "Are Jews White? American History Says It's Complicated." This piece takes a deep dive into the term "passing" and how it has been used and misused historically. Although this conversation does not touch directly on sports, disse...

Abdi Farah is a New Orleans based artist and educator. We had the chance to talk about the upcoming NBA playoffs, his deep love for Allen Iverson, and his practice rooted in the appreciation and critique of the culture surrounding football. This is my longest episode to date, but truly filled with the most crossover between sports and visual art(!). Abdi's work can be seen at http://www.abdifarah....

Dana Bassett is a Chicago based curator. She is a host and producer of Bad at Sports, a contemporary art podcast that focuses on artists and exhibitions in the Midwest region. Please do not forget to subscribe to Dear Adam Silver on Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud. This episode was produced by Eliseo Casiano.

"Organized sports may be one of the great achievements of the modern state: they provide a means of public release of frustration, and they model the achievements of a supposedly meritocratic society. They also locate and inscribe a tribal identity that at times appears to transcend race and social class. But the awful truth is that is doesn’t. And now I understand why audiences are so enraged by...

Ronny Quevedo is a visual artist based in The Bronx. His work offers us a non-traditional approach to the spaces where sports are played while alluding to pre-colonial Latin American symbolism in much of his mark making. Through his work, basketball courts become both celebratory and spiritual, soccer balls are brought into question as a tool of oppression and the audience is called upon to rethin...

Carrie Ann Welsh is a writer for ESPNW. She approaches the game of baseball through the lens of a poet, searching for meaning beyond physical boundaries. We discussed what formed her sense of the game as well as our own perception of athletes playing at the highest levels. You can read Carrie's essays on baseball by clicking on the following links: http://www.espn.com/espnw/culture/article/1906929...

Glauco Adorno(a dear friend of mine) is an art historian and curator based in New Orleans, LA. For this episode we adjusted our original topic of tennis to discuss the recent shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and Kroger's in Jeffersontown, KY. We discuss these two horrific events through the lens of artists and focus on fear around the body, racism, religion and empathy. Th...

R. Eric McMaster is an artist making work about the most physically practiced and trained people: athletes. Through his practice he disrupts their normal routine. We also speak about his work that uses sports to highlight our social hierarchy and the use and control of the body. I hope you enjoy our discussion; please subscribe and share with friends and family. I am currently in the process of mo...

Brian Tran, writer, die hard Dodgers and Lakers fan and MFA candidate at Washington University in St. Louis, joins the first episode of Dear Adam Silver to discuss why we both love basketball, critique and analyze some of our favorite(and most famous)players and begin to break down our relationships with representation of athletes (this subject is too big for just one episode, more to come). This...

This show is an artist's take on sports — I believe both art and sports have the power to translate and help us reconsider the largest social issues we face. On each episode, we will be discovering and discussing the many connections between the two alongside artists, athletes, journalists, commentators, critics and fans.