What’s My Thesis?

Recorded at her show Theories about Edges at The Fulcrum Press, Artist Megan Muller talks about making photographic images using a flatbed scanner instead of a camera. 

Artist Soyoung Shin talks about her recent obsession with Young Adult books, and the nostalgia they bring for a time when emotions were all encompassing and hormones painted your perception reality. Filmed at Tiger Strikes Astroid Los Angeles during the Inbetween group show curated by liz Nurenberg, this conversation about teenage labido goes off the rails fast.

Artist and Maiden LA Co-Founder Molly Schulman and Javier Proenza talk about how they went from relative obscurity to active members of the artist run scene in LA without having MFAs. From the Launch of Maiden LA in 2016 to the current ambitions of What's My Thesis? Javier and Molly discuss their good and bad experiences networking in the art world.

Artist, and Co Director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Los Angeles, Carl Baratta talks about his love for the artist run side of the art world. Carl is one of five founding members of High Beams, a recurring nomadic art show that started during the pandemic and gave artist run spaces and collectives and opportunity to show work during lockdown. the next High Beams will be in Colorado.

Artist Gerald Collins uses light and color

Artist Pilar Rius initiates a discussion about where inspiration comes from as we observe cultural differences between the French and Americans. Are Americans too positives and the French too negative? We observe the evolution of the genius as an external source of inspiration to the contemporary understanding that a person is a genius, because they have access to inspiration. we end on a fun discussion on wether the origin of inspiration is always a positive experience, or is it something that also comes from emotions like outrage? Is Javier a conspiracy theorist, or has America carceral system really that insane?

Artist and skater Hiroshi Clark stops by to discuss the streets as a multi-use space with ever changing context. Wether used as a metaphor, "I'm from the Streets," a means of transportation, a space where photographing strangers is legal, or a home for the presently unhoused, we consider streets in context of the use value these uniquely public spaces have.

Musician and Sound Engineer Ian McDaniel and I wax philosophical our favorite drug memories. We get in to all the wild, grimy shit we ALLEGEDLY did as kids, and make up all of it for street cred in the rap game.

Multidisciplinary artist Marley Starskey Butler shares his thoughts on the relationship between art practice and the unknown, sharing stories about how his trust in the process allows him to explore new ideas that may take him years to understand how they fit into his work.

Painter Alex Andrew Sanchez comes on the show for a post covid catch up. We talk about feigning interest in kids stuff as an artist parent, and watching the homeless encampments out side his building burn down.

Artist and poet painter Danielle Winger talks about the importance of how colors make us think and feel in the context of art making and critical media literacy.

 

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Artist Debra Broz and I think about coincidence, serendipity and fate as we explore her practice of thrifting for ceramic animal figurine , breaking them apart, and using restoration techniques to combine these fragments into seamless new adorably unholy creatures.

Artist Chris Adler stops by to talk financial strategies to keep visual artists from becoming starving artists.

Visual Artist Dakota Noot talks about Giallo Movies, which are a genre of Italian horror Films pioneered by Dario Argento. we get into camp and gore, Hellraiser, Freddy, Jason, as well as more upsetting offerings by Takashi Miike (Ichi the Killer, Audition) and Park Chan-wook (Sympathy for mister Vengence)

Aliens! Artist Jamie Hamilton and I discuss Steven Greer's claim that through meditation people are able to summon Alien Beings and have UFO (UAP) encounters. It gets wild

Artist Phillip J. Mellen talks about his approach to painting with color.

Criminal Defense Attorney Molly Parmer describes growing up the daughter of artist Skip Williamson during the Chicago 7 trial. Skip Williamson was influential in the Underground Comix movement, and did the art for Abby Hoffman's Steal This Book. Williamson was not one of the seven but was closely affiliated and active during the trial. Molly shares how her relationship to these events made her want to fight to protect people from a flawed system today, rather than work to reform it in the future. 

 Artist Anna Breininger and I try to pin down what kitsch even means in an art world where hierarchy’s are actively being dismantled.

Five LH Intel members stop by to talk their experiences running for Neighborhood Council. We talk about Los Angeles history, the brewery Arts Complex, gentrification, gerrymandering, voter suppression, homelessness, smear pieces, and Luxury apartments built on toxic superfund sight.

Artist Kale talks about the political context of midwestern landscapes, and how they represent an late stage capitalist aesthetic, before we get into a thoughtful discussion about the challenges of being both anti racist and advocating for class solidarity.

What's my Thesis? is a visual art podcast.

Artist Deidre Colgan Jones talks about living in different American cities as an Irish woman from Dublin, before we discuss the decision making process I went though collecting items for the treasure hunt she sent me on.

Artist Annie Compean talks about her obsession with collecting and arranging objects to paint, while taking us on a visual tour of her practice, from influences, to current work

Artist Adrienne Sacks talks about cuteness as a capitalist aesthetic, and worries she is the only one seeing it everywhere she goes.

This week I break down the first months of the Biden Era. It's not off to a great start.

Drawing inspiration from Pandataria, an island where Roman Emperors banished their daughters, artist Elin Karlsson describes how she writes fiction to support her visual art practice, and get a deeper understanding of the philosophical questions about sexuality she explores.