Why Make? Podcast

Why Make? Podcast
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monthly conversations with makers exploring creativity and why they make

  1. 19 MAR

    Why Make? Episode 76: Haystack at 75 - An Experiment in Community and Education

    Today we’re sharing a piece we are calling “Haystack at 75 - An Experiment in Community and Education” in celebration of the school's 75th year. A conversation with Haystack executive director Perry Price. We talk about the history of Haystack and the iconic campus that is perched on a cliff above the Atlantic Ocean. Why it still calls itself a school of craft and not art. How the craft school experience differs from an academic institution and finally how has Haystack approached teaching technology. So take a listen, breath in the salt air and hear the sound of the waves pounding the cliffs below Haystack.You can listen to it here and on Apple Podcasts and Spotify View fullsize Haystack campus in Deer Isle, Maine, aerial photo courtesy of OPAL Architecture / Research / View fullsize Students move their looms onto the deck outside the Fiber studio to enjoy the sunshine on the Haystack campus, 2023. Image courtesy of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. View fullsize View of the Metals studio overlooking Jericho Bay, 2023. Image courtesy of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts. View fullsize Resident artists gather and collaborate in the Fab Lab during Open Studio Residency, photo by Dan Rajter, 2023. Image courtesy of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

  2. 29/12/2025

    Episode 75: Emma and the Art of Collaboration

    There are four unattributed voices in the podcast that I would also like to mention and they are in order of appearance, Adam John Manley of San Diego CA, Lisa Geertsen Seattle WA, Jason Nemec Charlton NY and M Craig Campbell of Ness Creek SK Again my many thanks the Emma board of directors for Inviting Why Make to the 2024 event and to the Emma community as whole for being the wonderful supportive generous people they are. Please go to https://www.emmacollaboration.com/ for more information

    20 min

  3. 18/12/2025

    Turning the Tables

    In Episode 74, my sister Johanna Zorn turns the tables and interviews me about the podcast. This should be a familiar name to those who listen to the credits at the end of our episodes. She has helped edit many of the episodes we have released in the last two years and was in the background making suggestions years before that. She is a veteran of radio and the audio documentary format having worked at WBEZ public radio in Chicago and then founding the Third Coast International Audio Festival, an organization dedicated to audio storytelling. She is now a freelance editor and producer. So take a listen as she tries to get me to answer the question, why I make Why Make?

    16 min

  4. 28/10/2025

    Why Make? Episode 21 Reissue: Sylvie Rosenthal

    In 2009 I attended the Furniture Society conference in Boone North Carolina and sat in on an artist presentation by three young amazing makers whose work left a lasting impression. Sylvie Rosenthal, Katie Hudnall and Yuri Kobayashi. Sadly Sylvie passed away on October 14th and that bright shining light is no longer with us. In remembrance of Sylvie please take a listen to the wonderful conversation we had with her in October of 2020. Sylvie Rosenthal is a Madison, Wisconsin based artist and educator. She maintains a studio practice making commission furniture, work for online sales, and fantastic genre challenging sculpture dealing with the intersecting flight patterns of the histories of trade, hybridity, materiality, queer theory, and the natural world.  On Episode 21 of Why Make? we discuss her fascinating 2018 show at the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum in Milwaukee called “House Of Risk” and the implications of taking risks in ones work. We also talk about the way in which Sylvie seeks to put multiple layers of understanding and interpretation in her work but ultimately leaves it to the viewer to determine meaning. Take a chance, roll the dice and join us for the next hour as we discuss risk with Sylvie Rosenthal!

    1hr 4min

  5. 28/10/2025

    Why Make? Episode 73: Smile Honey

    In Episode 73 of the podcast we talk with Teresa Audet an artist and educator based in Pittsburgh PA. Her journey as an artist took it’s first turn in college when switched from being a painting major to spending all her time in the wood shop. She then spent the 10 years after graduating making cutting boards, furniture, working in a hardware store and working one day week for a wood carver named Cecilia Schiller who creates Automata. Kinetic whimsical wooden characters that move through a system of gears and hand cranks. Graduate school led to an exploration of performance art and participation in the groundbreaking exhibition Making a Seat at the Table- Women Transform Woodworking. And that is not all, please take a listen to our conversation with Teresa Audet

    20 min

  6. 25/08/2025

    Why Make? Episode 72: 2025 Fiberart Internationa

    In this episode of Why make we are going to literally talk about something close home, both my childhood home of Pittsburgh and my mom who was a fiber artist. That is the 2025 Fiberarts International produced by the Pittsburgh Fiber Arts Guild, of which my mom was a longtime member, Contemporary Craft and Brew House Arts. We will talk with two of the artists involved in this years show Akudzwe Elsie Chiwa and Chieko Murasugi And two long time members of the Pittsburgh Fiber Arts Guild,which has produced this exhibition for over 50 years, Patty Kennedy-Zafred and Risa Nagan. Take a listen as we weave a tale that for me starts with my mom and ends with learning something about an art form long denigrated as women’s work.

    27 min

  7. 16/07/2025

    Why Make? Episode 71 : Sit Like A Girl

    Fully automated, remote controlled fighting tables that compete for ultimate supremacy, seems to be a good place to start any conversation. Especially when that conversation is with artist ,woodworker, educator and humorist Annie Evelyn. From fighting tables we move onto the merely absurd, like what it means to be a conceptional functional furniture maker. Her time as a resident artist at the Penland school of Craft. And the work she produced participating in two ground breaking exhibitions for women craft artist

    26 min

  8. 06/06/2025

    Why Make? Episode 70: Seating Assignment

    This is the story of how a seed of an idea sowed years ago becomes a ground breaking exhibition of women chair makers. The exhibition entitled Seating Assignment happened in March of 2024 at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston Salem NC. It’s chief instigator was the then artist in residence at Sawtooth Rebecca Juilette-Duex. In this Mind of Maker episode we look at the inspiration for creating this exhibition, learn about the Chair Library at Winston Salem College and talk with Elsa Hoffman one of the artists in the show.

    25 min
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About

monthly conversations with makers exploring creativity and why they make

Information

  • Creator
    Why Make? Podcast
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    79
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2019
  • Show Website
    Why Make? Podcast

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