Savvy Painter Podcast with Antrese Wood

Laurie Lipton creates massive, intricate drawings using her very own peculiar drawing technique building up tone with thousands of fine cross-hatching lines like an egg tempera painting. Laurie and I talk about how she developed her own method of working- she calls it giving birth to an elephant, her need to say something about what is going on in this world. She lived in Europe for 36 years, imme...

I met Yael in Italy last summer at the JSS in Civita program. And If you have never seen her work, do yourself a favor: soak it in.  Her paintings are exquisite jewels, and like the artist herself, the paintings are eloquent and understated.  In this episode, Yael and I talk about her early years at college and why studying with someone who knows something about artistic tradition is so important....

Artist Dean Fisher lives with his wife Jo in a beautifully remodeled barn house in Connecticut. As it turns out, there is a story behind this barn house. In this episode, Dean shares a fascinating story of how determination, good luck, and a lot of sweat equity went into building their dream studio.   **Support the podcast** Savvy Painter is a labor of love. It takes significant resources to keep...

Part two of a conversation with the artist Tony Peters. We continue our conversation on focus. Tony and I also discuss coming up with a style for your work and how that is very different from doing the hard work of finding your voice. Tony and I have both recently moved, we explore how to find or create an artist community when you are new in town. We look at what happens when you allow yourself t...

Part one of a two part interview with the artist Tony Peters . In this episode, Tony and I talk about his formative years at the Art Center College of Design, and what he learned by assisting and being mentored by several influential artists there. We talk about “The Church of Art”, a term we made up ( I think) while talking about making observational drawing sacred. It’s a sort of life blood of a...

This past summer, I made a trip to Italy to participate in the JSS master program in Civita Castellana with Israel Hershberg and guest of honor Ann Gale. The master program is an intense six week immersion into painting. It’s unlike any other workshop or program I’ve ever been to. You’ve been asking for an episode about my experience there, but rather than paint kind of a ‘what I did on my summer...

Harry Stooshinoff realized pretty quickly after grad school that in order to sustain his career, he needed to make some tough choices. He took matters into his own hands and designed his life so that he could create freely. In this episode, Harry Stooshinoff and Antrese Wood talk about creative process, painting and collage work, the inherent issues in the artist-gallery relationship, finding bloc...

James Gurney talks about:  How John Steinbeck, Charles Kuralt, and a hobo named Bud inspired James to spend three months traveling across the U.S. The lasting impression of James' art on young minds and how one fan grew up to be a paleontologist and named a dinosaur after James: Torvosaurus gurneyi The criteria James uses to decide what projects to work on: "Find the work I have the most...

Part 2 with Cameron Schmitz. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to part one, you may want to go back so that it all makes sense. In this episode, Cameron and Antrese talk about the biggest mistake artists make in pricing their work, we talk about some of the misconceptions artists have about collectors, and dig into what drives people to collect art. Cameron also shares how she balances her stu...

Cameron Schmitz in the first of a two part interview. In this segment, we talk about what it means to be a professional artist, how the audience plays a critical role, and how her roles of artist, teacher, and curator combine into a balanced 'trifecta'. We talk about why many artists stop making art and common threads Cameron has noticed from supporting so many other artists. There is a...

JD Wissler has been having a decades long love affair with clouds. He is fascinated with the nuances, the fleeting moments, the way the light bounces off of them. It’s an obsession, really, but one I can understand. In this episode, we talk about his fascination with a single topic, overcoming perfectionism, when a painting is finished, curating your own work, how the art world is changing and his...

Karin Jurick's framing business took a dive after 9/11. In a desperate attempt to save the shop and to keep from having to layoff her employees, she began to paint. Karin kept the framing business going for another 7 years by subsidizing the shop with sales from her oil paintings. Eventually painting became more lucrative than her framing business. Karin sells the majority of her work online...

Stanka Kordic graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art with an illustration degree and quickly discovered she needed to adapt and reinvent herself. In this episode, Stanka shares how she found collectors initially and what happened later when she pivoted to social media and to find collectors and galleries that interested her. She shares how she used the artist community to guide her choices...

Janne Kearney started painting in her 40’s. She struggled through her own feelings of not being a “real artist” or that her work was not valid. After a health scare shifted her perspective and she was selected as a semi-finalist for the BP portrait awards, Janne is feeling a lot more comfortable in her role as an artist. Which is great for us, for her students, and for the people who enjoy her pai...

Karen Kaapke talks about her ongoing series of self portraits, why she started this series and how it helps her examine the experience of growing older. There is a certain age at which women - in US culture at least - become almost invisible. This leads us into a conversation about how we view our own bodies and how a quick glance in the mirror can sometimes be surprising. Karen uses portraiture t...

Mario Robinson talks about how remarkable teachers guided him towards his art. After two years in the U.S. Army he attended Pratt, the combined experiences shaped his drive and lead him to a quest for excellence in watercolor and pastel portraiture. Mario describes why he gifted a portrait to Spike Lee and what he thinks of the experience now. Mario's paintings contain few references to moder...

Connie Hayes created a project called Borrowed Views when her warehouse studio didn't inspire. Listen to her solution and how she turned a one time show into a 10 year project. Get Savvy! Sign up for exclusive show notes and episode guides: http://savvypainter.com Support the show And hey - if this episode hit home, do me a favor, leave a review on Apple Podcast or come say hi on Instagram: ...

Part 2 with the artist Rick Stevens. Rick and Antrese get a little more philosophical and talk about how a trip to Brazil helped Rick learn to let go of the ego, the inner critic and fear. They also play around with the almost unanswerable Zen Koan questions. Get Savvy! Sign up for exclusive show notes and episode guides: http://savvypainter.com Support the show And hey - if this episode hit home,...

As Rick will tell you in this interview, straddling the line between abstract and representational painting is exactly where he wants to be: in the grey area slipping in and out of both labels. Rick Stevens and Antrese Wood talk abut how a year of solitude focused his work. We talk about accepting the generosity of patrons, how Tai Chi has informed his perception of painting and we even get into a...

Part 2 of a multipart interview with renowned landscape oil painter Israel Hershberg.    Antrese Wood and Israel Hershberg talk about originality vs. Individuality, and what Johnny Carson can teach us about that. Israel also gives us a glimpse into his process and how he maintains the experience of the subject in his paintings. At a certain point we talk about the joy of maturing as an artist and...

Lori Putnam is an award winning Plein Air Painter. She has been featured in numerous magazines - including American Art Collector Magazine, Plein Air Magazine, Southwest Art, Fine Art Connoisseur, and Art of the West. Get Savvy! Sign up for exclusive show notes and episode guides: http://savvypainter.com Support the show And hey - if this episode hit home, do me a favor, leave a review on Apple Po...

This is part one of a two part interview with renowned painter Israel Hershberg. He talks about his childhood, his training, the "art world" and a host of other topics. Support the show And hey - if this episode hit home, do me a favor, leave a review on Apple Podcast or come say hi on Instagram:  @savvypainterpodcast I’d love to hear this episode resonated you. ❤️

Karin Olah got her start in the fabric industry. Part of her job was to create a dye to perfectly match an object to a fabric. Today, Karin uses her extensive knowledge of color and fabrics to create layered images using fabric, paint, and mixed media. Karin talks about her process for creating art plus how she built up an amazing support group of artists when she moved to a new community. Get Sav...

Kevin Macpherson has won numerous awards for his plein air paintings. In this episode, Antrese and Kevin talk about: • The development of his career • How Kevin chooses to take risks and live without regret • The surprising origin of Kevin's extremely limited palette. • Travels in China and what Kevin does to make children smile. Get Savvy! Sign up for exclusive show notes and episode guides:...

David Kassan would be labeled as a realist painter. You can practically see the blood pulsing through the veins of his subjects. But David describes his paintings more as documentaries, and as a way to spend time with his family who are often his subjects. David talks about his work, his transition from a graphic designer to a full time painter, and why he started the Kassan Foundation - a non pro...