Memphis Material

This interview with Carl Moore was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab on January 15, 2023. The artist Carl E. Moore lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.  He recieved both his BFA and MFA from the Memphis College of Art. Moore is the recipient of the Emmett O’Ryan Award for Artistic Inspiration and the Tennessee Artist Fellowship award from the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts....

This interview with Carol DeForest was recorded on February 21, 2025 From her ceramic studio to her large scale public art projects, private commissions, teaching, interior design business and exhibitions of her sculpture, Carol DeForest has been a force in the Memphis art community for the last 30 years. She has also been a nurturing spirit to artists and art lover alike. Her shrewd and unfailing...

From her ceramic studio to her large scale public art projects, private commissions, teaching, interior design business and exhibitions of her sculpture, Carol DeForest has been a force in the Memphis art community for the last 30 years. She has also been a nurturing spirit to artists and art lover alike. Her shrewd and unfailing art and design knowledge, taste and appreciation have acted as a gui...

This interview with Carol DeForest was recorded on January 10, 2023. From her ceramic studio to her large scale public art projects, private commissions, teaching, interior design business and exhibitions of her sculpture, Carol DeForest has been a force in the Memphis art community for the last 30 years. She has also been a nurturing spirit to artists and art lover alike. Her shrewd and unfailing...

This interview with the potter Agnes Stark was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on August 3, 2022.   Agnes Gordon Stark is a studio potter creating functional and decorative stoneware. Her strong design and glaze technique combine to produce work that is widely recognized for its appealing originality. The stoneware has all of the safeguards necessary for kitchen use. A native of Baltimo...

This interview with Maritza Davilla was recorded on April 1, 2025. Maritza Dávila is owner and director of Atabeira Press and Professor Emeritus of the Memphis College of Art where she taught printmaking and drawing from 1982 to 2018 and at the University of Memphis as an adjunct professor. She is currently teaching with Creative Aging of Memphis providing art workshops for the senior community as...

This interview with Maritza Davilla was recorded on June 27, 2022. Maritza Dávila is owner and director of Atabeira Press and Professor Emeritus of the Memphis College of Art where she taught printmaking and drawing from 1982 to 2018 and at the University of Memphis as an adjunct professor. She is currently teaching with Creative Aging of Memphis providing art workshops for the senior community as...

This interview with Cory Dugan was recorded on July 14, 2022. Cory Dugan has been told that he began drawing at a very early age, a mere babe at his mother’s side on the pew in a Southern Baptist church, scrawling savantishly detailed portraits on the church bulletin… no doubt in an attempt to divert his childish imagination away from the even more childish biblical imaginings of the ministe...

Laurie Nye (b. 1972, Memphis, Tennessee) received her BFA from the Memphis College of Art, (1995, Memphis, Tenn.), and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2002, Valencia, California). Nye’s work was the subject of a recent solo exhibition “My River Runs to Thee,” at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, California). Her solo exhibition, “It Wasn’t A Dream It Was A Flood,” at Philip Ma...

This interview with Dr. Earnestine Jenkins was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on July 6, 2022. Dr. Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins is an Full Professor of Art History in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Memphis , where her scholarship focuses on the visual cultural history of the African Diaspora. The objectives of her research, publications and teaching supports scholarly...

This interview with Veda Reed was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on June 29, 2022. Veda Reed is revered for her long career of creating sublime, luminous, large-scale paintings of skies, cloudscapes, and the cycles of the sun and moon. Inspired by her childhood in wide-open spaces of Oklahoma, her works represent moments of warmth and comfort experienced while witnessing nature. Working in...

This interview with Greely Myatt was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab at the Crosstown Concourse on June 15, 2022. Greely Myatt is widely recognized for his whimsical sculptural objects and monumental installations made from found materials. Engaging with surrealism, pop, folk and outsider art, he has developed a compelling visual language of truly reimagined but recognizable forms. His works...

This interview with Beth Edwards was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab on April 27, 2022. Beth Edwards was born in Alabama and lives and works in Memphis. She received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and an MFA from Indiana University. Edwards has had an active 33-year career painting, exhibiting and teaching. She taught painting at the University of Memphis for 21 years and...

This interview with Peter Sohngen took place at the Memphis Listening Lab on June 10, 2022. Peter Sohngen was the ceramics professor at the Memphis Art Academy (that later became the Memphis College of Art) from 1969 to 2002. From the description on the  Tennessee Arts Commission page written by Aiden Layer: “Peter Sohngen was working towards a PhD in English literature at Claremont Graduate...

This interview with Pinkney Herbert is the second of two interviews recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab.  This interview was conducted on June 29, 2022 Pinkney Herbert was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1954. He received his BA from Rhodes College and his MFA from the University of Memphis. Mr. Herbert is the recipient of Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee...

This interview with Pinkney Herbert was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on June 1, 2022 Pinkney Herbert was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1954. He received his BA from Rhodes College and his MFA from the University of Memphis. Mr. Herbert is the recipient of Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and USIA-Arts America. He has participated...

Memphis-native Chuck Johnson received his Bachelor of Art in Painting and Drawing from Memphis State University in 1975. Thereafter, Johnson served in the Army, stationed in Germany; he later returned to Memphis to earn his Masters in Painting and Art History from Memphis State University. Following his jobs as Curator of Education at Brooks Art Gallery and a temporary teacher at Rhodes College ea...

Welcome to Memphis Material, an oral history project celebrating the personal histories, the intimate stories, and the studio practices of some of the people who have helped shape the creative landscape of the city.