WiSP Chris Stafford

Colleen Laffey is a camera operator whose credits include: Love is Blind, World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji, American Grit, Capture, Master Chef, Jersey Shore, The Bachelorette, Kings of Pain, Are You The One, and MotoMaidens. She has, she says, become obsessed with photography, it’s her drug of choice and gets in her flow state when she’s shooting. Colleen was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1960, the oldest of three children—she has a brother, Marty, and sister Maureen. Her mother, Dale was a homemaker, and her father Marty a bank loan officer. Colleen’s childhood was largely spent outdoors and when it came time to graduate from High School she chose to attend the Art Institute of Pittsburgh where she graduated with an Associate Degree in Photography.  From there she began working in outdoor recreation as a still photographer, a river guide, video kayaker, ski instructor and ski patrol. She worked 4 years at WVPB, and chance opportunity to run camera on a large show changed the course of her career, and at the age of 44 she settled into the unscripted TV industry becoming a sought-after camera operator. Colleen lives in Fayetteville, WV, in a house she designed, and in her spare time she can be found mountain biking or whitewater kayaking.

Colleen’s IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1837418/
Instagram @cococam https://www.instagram.com/cococam/
 
Colleen’s playlist:
Talking Heads, A Naive Melody
Restless, James McMurtry
Counting Stars, One Republic
I Don’t Know, Lisa Hannigan 

Some favorite female artists in visual arts:
Annie Lebowitz, photographer
Ellen Kuras. cinematographer
Zaha Hadid, architect 

Produced by Hollowell Studios
Follow @theaartpodcast on Instagram
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Email: hollowellstudios@gmail.com


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This week the Belarusian soft pastel artist Tanya Avchinnikova. Tanya’s love of water and its translucency is the focal point and inspiration for her art. She says: ‘I specialize in seascapes and landscapes – places where you can feel a deep unity with nature, and trying to capture the illusion of presence.’  Tanya was born in Minsk, Belarus in 1988. Her mother Elena is a nurse and she has a brother, Anton.  Tanya studied music and began performing as a pianist from an early age so it was only natural that she would pursue a career in music. Tanya studied music at the Belorussian State Academy of Music and earned her Post Graduate degree in Performance at the Urals Mussorgsky State Conservatoire (Ekaterinburg) in Russia. She spent two years in China teaching piano at the Nanchang Normal University in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province.  In 2006, Tanya moved to the UK and earned her Masters Degree at the Royal Birmingham Conservatorie.  She currently works as a ballet pianist at the Performers College, which is part of BIMM University. She lives in Birmingham, England with her husband, the classical pianist Roman Kosyakov. Tanya is a Member of The Pastel Society and a Signature Member of the Pastel Society of America.
 
Tanya’s website: https://tanyaavchinnikovaart.co.uk/
Instagram: tanyaavchinnikovaart 

Tanya’s favorite female artists:
Mary Cassatt
Michele Ashby
Amy Webber
Olivia Dunn
Reisha Perlmutter

Tanya’s playlist:
Radiohead (or solo Thom Yorke projects)
Kiasmos (or tracks by Olafur Arnalds)
Puscifer (or The Perfect Circle)
Tomas Dvorak (or his project Floex)
Boards of Canada
Aphex Twin
Ulrich Schnauss
Jon Hopkins 
 
Host: Chris Stafford
Produced by Hollowell Studios
Follow @theaartpodcast on Instagram
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Email: hollowellstudios@gmail.com


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wisp--4769409/support.

This week the Vietnamese photographer and author Ngoc Minh Ngo. Ngoc was born in Vietnam in 1963 and grew up during the Vietnam War. Her father, Chau Minh Ngo, was a colonel in the South Vietnam Army and her mother Phi Truong became a nurse's aide after raising eight children. Ngoc was the sixth child—she has four sisters and three brothers. Despite enduring a brutal war, Ngoc describes her childhood as enchanting and beautiful. Her parents did all they could to protect their family and offer some normalcy to those troubling times by spending time on the beach. At the age of 12, shortly before the end of the war in 1975, the family were evacuated to the US and settled in Sacramento, California where, with the help of sponsors, they began a new life. Ngoc described herself as a very shy and reserved child but that did not hinder her development. She found her own way to the University of California, Berkeley where she earned a BA followed by a Masters of Landscape Design at Columbia University. After spending some time traveling to Japan and Europe Ngoc made her way to New York with a view to working in painting restoration. But after a chance encounter while working on a feature film she discovered her true passion was to be photography, so she learned black & white photography and developing. Ngoc's images have been published The World of Interiors, T Magazine, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Cabana, and House & Garden UK. She is also the author of five books: Bringing Nature Home: Floral Arrangements Inspired by Nature; In Bloom: Creating and Living with Flowers, and Eden Revisited: A Garden in Northern Morocco, The House of a Lifetime, and New York Green. She is currently working on a new book entitled Roses in the Garden inspired by her father’s death. She has, she says, always been independent and self-contained, paving her own way as a refugee and re-imaging her life as a reflection through the beauty of the images she creates.  Ngoc and her husband, the photographer Julian Wass, live in New York. They have a daughter Lily who works in public health and is also a poet.
 
Ngoc’s website: https://www.ngocminhngo.com/
Instagram: @minh_ngoc 
https://www.instagram.com/minh_ngoc
 
Ngoc’s playlist:
"The Rip by Portishead (I love Beth Gibbons, both with Portishead and her solo work)
The Spoils by Massive Attack with Hope Sandoval (I'm a fan of both Hope Sandoval and Massive Attack) 
Wildfires by Sault (A song about George Floyd that happens to be very catchy)
Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez (Poignant song about her relationship with Bob Dylan)
Purple Rain by Prince (bog fan of Prince for his fearless originality and incomparable talent)
Halo by Ane Brun (Ane Brun is brilliant at reinterpreting other people's song in her inimitable way) Hope We Meet Again by Brit Marling (I love her folksy songs)
La Rua Madureira (I love this French interpretation of an iconic bossa nova song)
Paradis Perdu by Christine and the Queens (I love the way she combines one of the favorite songs of my childhood with a Kanye song and makes it completely her own)."
 
Ngoc’s favorite female artists:
Agnes Martin
Anni Albers
Ruth Asawa
Hilma af Klint
Kiki Smith 

Host: Chris Stafford
Produced by Hollowell Studios
Follow @theaartpodcast on Instagram
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Email: hollowellstudios@gmail.com

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Arkansas native, Paulette Pearson, is a colored pencil artist who captures whimsy and humor in her drawings. She creates work that she says ‘reflects a unique blend of artistic skill and storytelling,’ and has an eye for detail that harmonizes with originality, authenticity and depth.  Paulette was born in Big Bear, California in 1982, the oldest of three children to Ben, an engineer and business/property owner, and her mother Paulette, an artist. She grew up on her family’s ranch in Arkansas and as a child, her New Orleans grandmother encouraged her artistic interests as she quietly amused herself not knowing that one day she would become a professional artist. It was journalism and the law that would initially appeal as a career; Paulette earned her BA in English from Lyon College, her MA in Journalism and a JD—both from the University of Arkansas, before spending over a decade as a magazine editor—first in Arkansas and later in Texas, covering luxury interior design and architecture. Paulette met her husband Rich in law school, and after spending time in Washington, DC, the couple moved to Dallas, TX where Paulette most recently served as the Texas editor for Luxe Interiors + Design magazine. Once commissions started to come in and stores picked up her work, she knew she could become the full-time artist she dreamt of being so she decided to take the plunge and return to the art that she loved. Paulette recently held her first exhibition in Austin, TX. By combining realism with imaginative elements, she says: ‘ I invite the audience to embark on a journey of discovery, where the boundaries between reality and imagination blur, and where every pencil stroke tells a story.’
 
https://paulettepearson.com/
Instagram: @paulettepearsonstudio 
https://www.instagram.com/paulettepearsonstudio/''
 
Paulette’s Playlist -The Beatles – My favorite band of all time. I especially love Yesterday, In My Life, Let it Be, Blackbird, Get Back… -Ella Fitzgerald – It’s A Lovely Day Today, Dream A Little Dream, etc. -Louis Armstrong – La Vie En Rose, Cheek to Cheek, What a Wonderful World, etc. -Pomplamoose – Les Champs-Elysées, Sympathique -Something’s Gotta Give movie soundtrack (Astrud Gilberto - Summer Samba (So Nice), Coralie Clement - Samba de mon Coeur qui bat) -Nat King Cole – Unforgettable, Smile -Billie Holiday – Blue Moon, I’ll Be Seeing You

Paulette’s favorite female artists
Jamie Beck
Bella McGoldrick
Inslee Ferris
Katie Rodgers
CJ Hendry

Produced by Hollowell Studios
Follow @theaartpodcast on Instagram
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Email: hollowellstudios@gmail.com

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Visual storyteller Flash Rosenberg, is a self described 'Attention Span for Hire' who photographs, draws, writes and talks as a performer. Flash was the pioneering artist in residence for ‘LIVE from the New York Public Library’ for seven years, capturing live-drawings of literary discussions in real-time to create panels and animated summaries known as “Conversation Portraits Flash was born in Mt. Vernon, NY; one of three children—she has a younger brother and sister— to Marilyn, an early childhood educator, and David, a chemical engineer and rocket scientist. Her family moved to Delaware when she was four years old. Flash attended the University of Delaware where she graduated with a BS in Graphic Design as a Dean’s Scholar in Visual Communication. In 2011, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts. Her animations have been commissioned for Broadway shows. Her Main Stage stories for ‘The Moth’ have been broadcast nationally on NPR. “FlashThink Cartoons” were a weekly, online feature on the Conde Nast site, Archetypes.com. Flash has had an elaborate and original teaching career, specializing in provocative approaches to art, including workshops in Visual Humor, and a Perception Studies class conducted entirely in the NYC subways for Cooper Union. She lives in Harlem, NY.
 
Websites: http://flashrosenberg.com/ https://www.archetypes.com/flash-rosenberg (http://www.nypl.org/live/conversation-portraits
Instagram: @flashrosenberg
https://www.instagram.com/flashrosenberg/
 
Flash’s playlist: Blackbird - The Beatles The Penguin - Raymond Scott Gymnopédies - Erik Satie Toc - Thom Ze Hot in Heere - Nelly Atomic Dog - Parliament Funkadelic Incense Peppermint - Strawberry Alarm Clock Sunshine Superman - Donovan Hava Neegila - Harry Belafante Oh Yeah - Yello Crazy Women - Jess Korman Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell Old Man - Neil Young Dust in the Wind - Kansas Another One Bites the Dust - Queen In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel Somebody I Used to Know...

This week the figurative painter Lisa Golightly whose work revolves around memory and how snapshots shape and influence change. Lisa was born in Eugene, OR in 1974—one of two children; she has an older brother— to parents Frank, an accountant, and Patty, a teacher. Her father was also an amateur painter and sculptor who guided Lisa’s introduction to art. She was also a keen rider and enjoyed showing hunter-jumper.  Lisa’s early academic interest was photography and she graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor in Fine Arts leaning towards a career in photography. It was after she married her husband, John, that she turned her attention back to art and progressed to becoming a professional artist. Lisa works exclusively in her studio and shows her work at several galleries, including Billis Williams Los Angeles, CA., George Billis Gallery, NYC/CT, Maya Froedman Gallery Jackson Hole, WY, Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT and the Patricia Rovzar Gallery in Seattle, WA. She lives in Portland, OR with her family and two dogs.

Lisa on Instagram: @lisagolightlyart
https://www.instagram.com/lisagolightlyart 
Lisa's website: https://www.lisagolightlyart.com/

Lisa’s playlist:
Pixies-Hey Pixies-U Mass Pixies- Monkey Gone to Heaven The Stone Roses- Don't Stop Arcade Fire- Neighborhood (tunnels) Arcade Fire- Wake UP The Verve- Velvet Morning The Temper Trap- Summer's Almost Gone M83- Midnight City Blur- The Universal Radiohead- Thinking About You Radiohead-Let Down
 
Lisa’s favorite female artists:
Kathryn Lynch
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Cayce Zavaglia
Erin Lawlor
Lois Dodd
Boo Saville
Kaye Donachie
Rose Wylie

Host: Chris Stafford
Produced by Hollowell Studios
Follow @theaartpodcast on Instagram
AART on Facebook
Email: hollowellstudios@gmail.com


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wisp--4769409/support.