Sonya Clark is a Winifred L. Arms Professor of Art and Humanities at Amherst College in Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited in over 450 museums and galleries across the globe and she is the recipient of multiple awards and residencies. And you may have seen her work featured in the New York Times, Sculpture, Art in America, Time Magazine, Lo…

Noah-O is an innovative rapper and entrepreneur that has been a staple on the Virginia Hip Hop scene since his debut project Monument Avenue in 2014. He founded the Charged Up Entertainment record label and recently launched a flagship store in Richmond, Virginia. He’s made appearances on Sway in The Morning and Hot 97 and was named one of Style We…

Jonathan is known for writing a Song-A-Day, which he has done every day since January 1st of 2009 - which means he is rapidly nearing 5,000 original songs. His songs have gone viral, gained him worldwide recognition and are now even available as NFTs. In this hour long conversation, we discuss the benefits of daily creative projects, what NFTs can …

Jennifer is the Pulitzer prize winning author of the novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, she also wrote Manhattan Beach, which won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and many other multi-award winning books. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New York Times Magazine. And her new …

Hamilton, AKA Ham, is a Richmond, Virginia based artist with a background in architecture and design. Ham is a prolific painter and muralist, who is well known for using his art as a tool for inspiration and healing in the community. In 2020, Ham founded the influential large-scale public art project: Mending Walls which was created to bring about …

Kate is a literary agent at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency in Brooklyn, NY. She is also an adjunct professor at New York University. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, Catapult, Racked, Popula, and in SCRATCH: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living. She writes the fantastic substack newsletter Agents & Books about, you guesse…

Freehand is an LA based multi-disciplined artist who’s infamous for destroying coveted sneakers to make unique masks - a body of work stemming from a year long, daily project called MASK365 (inspired by own Skull-A-Day project!) Since 2010 he has made more than 200 one of a kind sneaker masks, working with brands like Nike, adidas, Puma, Cadillac, …

Michael-Birch is a fiber artist and fashion designer. Pierce has interned for Diane von Furstenberg, embroidered Christmas decorations for the Obama White House, and designed an exclusive collection for Levi’s. They have performed their embroidered portraits at Oscar and Super Bowl events, Design/Miami, and SXSW, and worked with clients such as Vis…

For this very special episode I’m interviewing my own parents, Mim Golub and Chuck Scalin! Both Mim & Chuck are artists and art educators and were of course fundamental in my own foray into the art world. It’s always a pleasure for me to hear the stories of their career arcs and I’m so glad to have captured this conversation in my studio earlier th…

Jesse is an internationally known artist whose goal has always been to translate his skewed perspective of the world onto paper, canvas, concrete or skin. He has been published in almost every tattoo magazine, has won a ton of awards for his unique use of color and even found his way onto the reality TV show Ink Master. He currently works in Richmo…

Terry Border worked in the commercial photography industry for a dozen years before leaving it to follow more artistic ambitions. He began his world famous Bent Objects project in 2006 and since then he has published many, many books of his art He also speaks about and exhibits his work internationally and lives with his wife and cat in Indiana. Fo…

Kat Roma Greer is based in Hong Kong and works as an urban disruptor and curator of public art interventions for positive social change. She is the founder and artistic director of Micro Galleries, curator of Urban Nasty, and was named as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence for 2015, for her work in the cultural sphere. Foreground/Background …

Sarah Cameron Sunde is an interdisciplinary artist and director working at the intersection of performance, video and public art, including her project 36.5 /A Durational Performance with the Sea, which is an ongoing work spanning seven years and six continents. Foreground/Background is a conversation between working artists – pulling back the curt…

Alfonso Pérez Acosta is a Colombian artist who received a Fine Arts Degree as well as a Masters in Education in Bogotá. Since 2007, he has been actively involved in art education as a teacher for elementary, middle and high school groups at various schools and non-profit organizations. He is now the Art Program Director with Sacred Heart Center in …

Mica Scalin is an innovator in the use of art and media for community engagement and creative development. She also happens to be my sister! She was among the first producers hired by NBC Universal Digital Studios, she launched social media strategy at Showtime Networks and consulted on CBS Interactive marketing. She has produced documentary films,…

Ika Vantiani is a self-taught artist from Jakarta, Indonesia with an extensive communications background who now mostly works with what’s available within her surroundings. Her work sparks conversations related to women, media, consumption and art in general. Apart from being an artist and crafter, she also curates and organizes art and culture eve…

*Heads up, this episode has a lot of not safe for work language, so headphones on!Taraka Larson is most well known for the band Prince Rama, a collaborative, decade-long project made up of herself and sister, Nimai. Her visual art practice, an extension of her music, has garnered her opportunities to show internationally, including exhibitions at t…

Rob Tarbell has been recognized for developing unique and unorthodox processes involving the indirect manipulation and exploitation of the inherent material properties of smoke and porcelain. Tarbell’s work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Korea, China, and England. He is currently teac…

Jenny Kendler is an interdisciplinary artist, environmental activist, naturalist, and wild forager who lives in Chicago and various forests. Jenny holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago as well as a BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art. She currently helps run the artist residency ACRE and the art/research/activism i…

Joe Seipel is a sculptor and conceptual artist who served as a Virginia Commonwealth University faculty member for over 40 years, including 17 years as chair of the sculpture department, 8 ½ years as the Senior Associate Dean of the School of the Arts. And in 2018 even returned from retirement to spend a year as the interim director of VCU’s Instit…

Pallavi Sen is a multi-talented artist from Bombay, India who works with installation, printmaking, textiles, and intuitive movement. Pallavi has obtained an array of creative jobs in addition to receiving a handful of artist residencies and currently teaches as an Assistant Professor of Art at Williams College. Her recent art-making has focused on…

Matt Bilfield is self-described fastidious minimalist. He is an LA based artist who combines pointillism with wood dowels to create dynamic, dimensional images. His work has been internationally showcased in multiple galleries and when he’s not fitting round pegs into round holes he makes on-air television graphics.Foreground/Background is a conver…

On this episode I’m interviewing Eva Rocha. Eva is a multimedia artist from Brazil who’s studied Theater, Cultural Studies, and Fine Art. she has an MFA in Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been shown in museums internationally including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Eva also happens to be my neighbor!Foreground/…

On this episode I interview George Ferrandi, a Brooklyn based artist whose performative work focuses on experimental approaches to human imperfections. George currently teaches Sculpture and Performance Art at Pratt Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University, as well as at the Rhode Island School of Design and runs a small business which specializ…

Foreground/Background is a conversation between working artists – pulling back the curtain on the real day-to-day efforts that go into making a living from our passions and the realities of dealing with the art word. On this episode I interview Gary Lockwood AKA Freehand Profit. This LA-based artist is internationally known for his work transformin…