Art · The Creative Process: Artists, Curators, Museum Directors Talk Art, Life & Creativity (Artists, Curators, Museum Directors Talk Art & Creativity · Creative Process Original Series)

Laurent Le Bon, President of Musée Picasso in Paris at the time of this interview, is now the President of the Centre Pompidou. The Musée Picasso holds over 5,000 of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s artworks and tens of thousands of sketches, photos, and many scripts, making the collection an impressive and holistic representation of Picasso’s career.

Centre Pompidou houses the largest museum for modern art in Europe Musée National d'Art Moderne, a vast public library,  and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. His curatorial practice has included curating 50 exhibitions for Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Arte Moderne Versailles and others across France.

· www.museepicassoparis.fr

· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.centrepompidou.fr/en/

“Picasso is a symbol of the creative process.

Always in metamorphosis. Always in transformation. Sometimes when you become wealthy and famous, you stop having the energy of the creative process, but if you see the whole span of his career, you have 50,000 works of art in all mediums. So the main mission of the museum is to display like a kaleidoscope, and we have always a new angle, a new direction.”

Laurent Le Bon, President of Musée Picasso in Paris at the time of this interview, is now the President of the Centre Pompidou. The Musée Picasso holds over 5,000 of Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s artworks and tens of thousands of sketches, photos, and many scripts, making the collection an impressive and holistic representation of Picasso’s career.

Centre Pompidou houses the largest museum for modern art in Europe Musée National d'Art Moderne, a vast public library, and IRCAM, a centre for music and acoustic research. His curatorial practice has included curating 50 exhibitions for Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay, Musée de l’Arte Moderne Versailles and others across France.

· www.museepicassoparis.fr

· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.centrepompidou.fr/en/

Dr. Dwandalyn Reece is a storyteller, ethnomusicologist, and museum professional. Reece studied American Studies and Music at Scripps College, American Culture and Museum Practice at the University of Michigan, and Musical Performance at New York University. Her research and projects include exhibitions at the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New Jersey State Museum, and the Motown Historical Museum, as well as being the former senior program officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Reece is currently the Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, where she co-curated the Smithsonian Year of Music and “Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration.” Reece also curated one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions, Musical Crossroads, and received the Secretary’s Research Prize to do so in 2017. Reece is a community-driven artist, and she uses her experience and works in the community to inspire the work she collaboratively produces.

· https://nmaahc.si.edu

· https://music.si.edu/dr-dwandalyn-reece

· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo credit: AlanKarchmer

“This museum, this institution has a long history and actually, the idea of a museum goes back to maybe 100 years ago when Civil War veterans wanted a monument recognizing the service and the sacrifice of African Americans during the war effort. It wasn't until the mid-late 80s when congressman John Lewis with some other colleagues started to bring forth the idea that the Smithsonian needed to have a presence to recognize the significance and contributions of African Americans to the history of this country.”

Dr. Dwandalyn Reece is a storyteller, ethnomusicologist, and museum professional. Reece studied American Studies and Music at Scripps College, American Culture and Museum Practice at the University of Michigan, and Musical Performance at New York University. Her research and projects include exhibitions at the Louis Armstrong House and Archives, the Brooklyn Historical Society, the New Jersey State Museum, and the Motown Historical Museum, as well as being the former senior program officer for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Reece is currently the Curator of Music and Performing Arts at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, where she co-curated the Smithsonian Year of Music and “Freedom Sounds: A Community Celebration.” Reece also curated one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions, Musical Crossroads, and received the Secretary’s Research Prize to do so in 2017. Reece is a community-driven artist, and she uses her experience and works in the community to inspire the work she collaboratively produces.
· nmaahc.si.edu
· music.si.edu/dr-dwandalyn-reece

· www.creativeprocess.info

Museum director, curator, and cultural producer at large, Chris Dercon is the President of the Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, an umbrella group of national museums in France. His career in major cultural institutions across Europe spans several decades. From 2011 to 2016, he was director of London's Tate Modern. He has been program director of MoMA PS1 in New York, and has served as director of the Witte de With Center of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and Berlin's Volksbühne theater. He is also a presenter, writer and maker of cultural documentaries.
· www.grandpalais.fr
· www.creativeprocess.info

Museum director, curator, and cultural producer at large, Chris Dercon is the President of the Réunion des musées nationaux – Grand Palais, an umbrella group of national museums in France. His career in major cultural institutions across Europe spans several decades. From 2011 to 2016, he was director of London's Tate Modern. He has been program director of MoMA PS1 in New York, and has served as director of the Witte de With Center of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and Berlin's Volksbühne theater. He is also a presenter, writer and maker of cultural documentaries.

· www.grandpalais.fr

· www.creativeprocess.info


Photo Dazaifu89 CC BY-SA 4.0

Marilyn Minter lives and works in New York. In 2006, Minter was in the Whitney Biennial and collaborated with Creative Time to install billboards throughout Chelsea in NYC. Her video Green Pink Caviar was shown in the lobby of the MoMA from 2010-11 and on digital billboards in Los Angeles and New York. In 2013, Minter was featured in the exhibition Riotous Baroque, which traveled from Kunsthaus Zürich to the Guggenheim Bilbao. In 2015, Minter’s retrospective Pretty/Dirty opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX and traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Orange County Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in November 2016. Minter is represented by Salon 94, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Baldwin Gallery, Aspen.

· www.marilynminter.net

· ​www.creativeprocess.info

"That's what my work is about. Women owning agency. Any kind. And that's what makes you really excited. Having agency. Sexual agency. Owning sexuality not being the object of it."

Marilyn Minter lives and works in New York. In 2006, Minter was in the Whitney Biennial and collaborated with Creative Time to install billboards throughout Chelsea in NYC. Her video Green Pink Caviar was shown in the lobby of the MoMA from 2010-11 and on digital billboards in Los Angeles and New York. In 2013, Minter was featured in the exhibition Riotous Baroque, which traveled from Kunsthaus Zürich to the Guggenheim Bilbao. In 2015, Minter’s retrospective Pretty/Dirty opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX and traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Orange County Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in November 2016. Minter is represented by Salon 94, New York, Regen Projects, Los Angeles and Baldwin Gallery, Aspen.

· www.marilynminter.net

· www.creativeprocess.info

Eric Fischl is an internationally acclaimed American painter and sculptor. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Fischl’s paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints have been the subject of numerous solo and major group exhibitions and his work is represented in many museums, as well as prestigious private and corporate collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modem Art in New York City, The Museum ofEric Fischl is also the founder, President and lead curator for America: Now and Here. This multi-disciplinary exhibition of 150 of some of Americaís most celebrated visual artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, and filmmakers is designed to spark a national conversation about American identity through the arts. The project launched on May 5th, 2011 in Kansas City before traveling to Detroit and Chicago. Eric Fischl is a Fellow at both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY with his wife, the painter April Gornik.

Fischl is President of the Guild Hall Academy, East Hampton. Mia Funk is honored to have been chosen to be the inaugural artist participating in the Fischl Gornik residency and to be conducting interviews, artworks and community art initiatives with Guild Hall Academy, Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, and other initiatives founded by April Gornik and Eric Fischl.

· www.ericfischl.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

Eric Fischl is an internationally acclaimed American painter and sculptor. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in over one thousand publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him one of the most influential figurative painters of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Fischl’s paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints have been the subject of numerous solo and major group exhibitions and his work is represented in many museums, as well as prestigious private and corporate collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modem Art in New York City, The Museum ofEric Fischl is also the founder, President and lead curator for America: Now and Here. This multi-disciplinary exhibition of 150 of some of Americaís most celebrated visual artists, musicians, poets, playwrights, and filmmakers is designed to spark a national conversation about American identity through the arts. The project launched on May 5th, 2011 in Kansas City before traveling to Detroit and Chicago. Eric Fischl is a Fellow at both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science. He lives and works in Sag Harbor, NY with his wife, the painter April Gornik.

Fischl is President of the Guild Hall Academy, East Hampton. Mia Funk is honored to have been chosen to be the inaugural artist participating in the Fischl Gornik residency and to be conducting interviews, artworks and community art initiatives with Guild Hall Academy, Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center, and other initiatives founded by April Gornik and Eric Fischl.

· www.ericfischl.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

“Now I think we’re in another culture war. I think we’re in, as we see the realm of cancel culture in social media and this very polarising war between the liberal left and the conservative right. I think that we’re in another culture and a lot of it is centering around gender and race. If you look at what’s happened to black women athletes in the last couples of months, the censuring of their bodies either because of hormones in the case of Caster Semenya or Naomi Osaka, there’s a lot of ways that our society has found to police black bodies for being too exceptional in a lot of ways. For performing in exceptional ways, and the white patriarchy doesn’t like to see that because it starts to diminish their power.”

Professor Micol Hebron is a video and performance artist who works out of Los Angeles. Professor Hebron has studied at UCSD, Academia di Belle Arti at Università di Venezia, and UCLA. She founded Gallery B12, a cooperative artists-run exhibition and lecture space in Hollywood. Hebron co-produced the Full Nelson Festival a showcase of international performance art and, in 2004, founded the LA Art Girls. Hebron has held teaching positions in new genres and contemporary art history and theory at Chapman University, Art Center College of Design, UCLA Extension and Chaffey College.

· micolhebron.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Professor Micol Hebron is a video and performance artist who works out of Los Angeles. Professor Hebron has studied at UCSD, Academia di Belle Arti at Università di Venezia, and UCLA. She founded Gallery B12, a cooperative artists-run exhibition and lecture space in Hollywood. Hebron co-produced the Full Nelson Festival a showcase of international performance art and, in 2004, founded the LA Art Girls. Hebron has held teaching positions in new genres and contemporary art history and theory at Chapman University, Art Center College of Design, UCLA Extension and Chaffey College.

· micolhebron.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“We have a motto that says that ‘we want to change the gaze on immigration or to open the eyes on immigration’. We’re not here to make action in society, but we want people who come here to have elements of reflection, perception about the question of immigration. To change a mind, because immigration is about the stories of people who come from another country–they are someone else, basically–by assisting them we want to show how someone else can be great for us and not a stranger, foreigner, nor an enemy, but a friend. Someone who will bring us many things about culture, about work, about a way of meaning, of thinking. We have a historical point of view. We want to show that from the French Revolution until now, so two centuries of stories.”

Sébastien Gokalp is the director of France’s National Museum of Immigration. He has managed projects at Centre Pompidou and musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and curated exhibitions of Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Robert Crumb, and others. He curates at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and teaches at the Ecole du Louvre. Recognizing that immigration is one of today’s most important issues, he sees his work as an opportunity to educate and combine his background in history and art. 

· www.histoire-immigration.fr
· www.creativeprocess.info

Sébastien Gokalp is the director of France’s National Museum of Immigration. He has managed projects at Centre Pompidou and musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris and curated exhibitions of Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Robert Crumb, and others. He curates at the Louis Vuitton Foundation and teaches at the Ecole du Louvre. Recognizing that immigration is one of today’s most important issues, he sees his work as an opportunity to educate and combine his background in history and art. 

· www.histoire-immigration.fr
· www.creativeprocess.info

© Photo : C.Cantais

“In origami design, historically people have always used their intuition. They probably started by folding traditional shapes or folding designs by others, developed an intuitive understanding of how the paper behaves and then from there they can explore that intuition to create new shapes. That was the way design worked for years and years, that was the way it worked for me, but I eventually hit a limit to what I could do with my intuition and so part of my motivation for exploring mathematical methods was to externalise some of the design process. If I could get some of the design process on paper in a meaningful way, then I could handle more complicated goals than I could just fit in my brain.”

Robert J. Lang has been working with origami for over fifty years and is now recognized as one of the world’s leading masters of the art and one of the pioneers of the marriage of origami with mathematics and technology. He has consulted on applications of origami to medical devices, airbag design, and space telescopes, is the author or co-author of twenty-one books and numerous technical articles, and lectures and consults on the connections between origami, science, and technology.

· langorigami.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

Robert J. Lang has been working with origami for over fifty years and is now recognized as one of the world’s leading masters of the art and one of the pioneers of the marriage of origami with mathematics and technology. He has consulted on applications of origami to medical devices, airbag design, and space telescopes, is the author or co-author of twenty-one books and numerous technical articles, and lectures and consults on the connections between origami, science, and technology.

· langorigami.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

“When we moved back to Hawaii and lived on Molokai. I was teaching at the Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony, we had no money. And I was spearfishing, not for sport, but to get food for  my family. And it was a beautiful time of our lives. We were so poor, but we were not poor. Poor is a state of mind. We were without money, but we were having so much fun… You find out that art is really good for…whatever is inside comes out. And if you don’t have a way out, that’s not good. You need to have the air go from the inside to the outside, otherwise it becomes dead air.”

After leaving his home in Hawaii to journey through Asia in 1974, Paton Miller arrived on the East End of Long Island with a collection of travel inspired artworks that won him an art scholarship from Southampton College. Graduating with honors, Paton launched his career in over twenty solo and numerous group exhibitions in New York City and throughout the United States. Today, his works are exhibited internationally, in cities such as Florence and Shanghai. Paton’s paintings are now among the most widely collected works between the East End of Long Island and New York City.

· www.patonmiller.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Boy and Painted Horse

Oil on canvas, 60 x 86 inches

After leaving his home in Hawaii to journey through Asia in 1974, Paton Miller arrived on the East End of Long Island with a collection of travel inspired artworks that won him an art scholarship from Southampton College. Graduating with honors, Paton launched his career in over twenty solo and numerous group exhibitions in New York City and throughout the United States. Today, his works are exhibited internationally, in cities such as Florence and Shanghai. Paton’s paintings are now among the most widely collected works between the East End of Long Island and New York City.

· www.patonmiller.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“So the Museum of Arts and Design historically, for me, is part of a New York avantgarde scene. It's just that it was dedicated to artists working in these historically-marginalized materials. And it continues to do that. That mission has never changed.”

Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.

· madmuseum.org

· www.elissaauther.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

Image Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

Elissa Auther is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and William and Mildred Lasdon Chief Curator at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Previously, she was Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Colorado and a visiting associate professor at Bard Graduate Center. A feminist public intellectual, Auther founded and co-directed for the past ten years the program “Feminism & Co.: Art, Sex, Politics” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver that focuses on issues of women and gender through the lens of creative practice.

· madmuseum.org

· www.elissaauther.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

Image Courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York

“I have this idea art should be in the world in as many forms and ways as possible, and I love communicating with skate decks… It partially started out in Brazil because what I was doing in Brazil is x-raying animals in the Amazon and I thought there was this idea in the old days that you’d go to the Amazon, you’d kill an animal, stuff it, bag it, and then you’d have this trophy of your kill. The alligators that we x-rayed were alive. I got them from a zoo in a town called Belem, which means Bethlehem in Portuguese.”

Steve Miller is a multimedia artist born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Being an early pioneer for the ‘science-art’ movement, his most recognized works are those of paintings and sculptures of the natural world. One of his latest projects, entitled, “Health of the Planet”, works with Brazilian scientists to showcase the diversity and necessity of the lungs of our planet, the Amazon rainforest. With surfboards depicting diagrams of alligators, and stingrays, as well as printed x-rays of sloths and native fruits of the country, the intention of the project is for Brazil to take a closer inspection on their global contribution to the planet. Over the past 30 years Steven has presented over 30 solo exhibitions at institutions across the US, China, France and Germany, continuing these conversations about ourselves, each other, and the planet that connects us all.

· www.stevemiller.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Steve Miller is a multimedia artist born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Being an early pioneer for the ‘science-art’ movement, his most recognized works are those of paintings and sculptures of the natural world. One of his latest projects, entitled, “Health of the Planet”, works with Brazilian scientists to showcase the diversity and necessity of the lungs of our planet, the Amazon rainforest. With surfboards depicting diagrams of alligators, and stingrays, as well as printed x-rays of sloths and native fruits of the country, the intention of the project is for Brazil to take a closer inspection on their global contribution to the planet. Over the past 30 years Steven has presented over 30 solo exhibitions at institutions across the US, China, France and Germany, continuing these conversations about ourselves, each other, and the planet that connects us all.

· www.stevemiller.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I think direct contact with the material should be important to every sculptor because I think once you lose that it becomes a second-hand process. It’s one of the reasons the casting process isn’t so interesting to me just because the final product, the final piece has not been touched by the artist. There’s no relationship with the mind that conceived the piece or designed it. I think something is lost when that happens. And it becomes something else.”

Born in Cedar Falls Iowa and raised in New York City Mark Mennin graduated with a degree in History from Princeton University, where he also taught ceramics under Toshiko Takaezu. He began to carve stone in Italy in 1984, and worked there for three years, executing commissions and preparing for solo shows in New York. From 1989-1993, he worked in Paris, The scale of his sculpture has evolved to giant landscape and architectural works, often involving hundreds of tons of granite, prompting a move from New York to a large indoor-outdoor atelier in Bethlehem, Connecticut. where he lives with his wife, writer Marcia DeSanctis and two children.

· www.markmennin.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo by Charles Lindsay

Born in Cedar Falls Iowa and raised in New York City Mark Mennin graduated with a degree in History from Princeton University, where he also taught ceramics under Toshiko Takaezu. He began to carve stone in Italy in 1984, and worked there for three years, executing commissions and preparing for solo shows in New York. From 1989-1993, he worked in Paris, The scale of his sculpture has evolved to giant landscape and architectural works, often involving hundreds of tons of granite, prompting a move from New York to a large indoor-outdoor atelier in Bethlehem, Connecticut. where he lives with his wife, writer Marcia DeSanctis and two children.

· www.markmennin.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo © Visko Hatfield

The National Museum of Contemporary Art EMST started its operation in Athens in 2000. With help from grants and funding, EMST was able to begin moving into a permanent museum space by 2015 and opened fully to the public in February 2020. This museum is the first of its kind in Greece, as much of the museums and culture are focused more on ancient history or foreign artists. Curators Daphne Vitali, Tina Pandi, and Elena Ganiti are focused on the areas of painting, sculpture, and engraving, while Stamatis Schizakis curates photography and audiovisual works.

· www.emst.gr

· www.creativeprocess.info

The National Museum of Contemporary Art EMST started its operation in Athens in 2000. With help from grants and funding, EMST was able to begin moving into a permanent museum space by 2015 and opened fully to the public in February 2020. This museum is the first of its kind in Greece, as much of the museums and culture are focused more on ancient history or foreign artists. Curators Daphne Vitali, Tina Pandi, and Elena Ganiti are focused on the areas of painting, sculpture, and engraving, while Stamatis Schizakis curates photography and audiovisual works.

· www.emst.gr

· www.creativeprocess.info

Debra Kerr is the Executive Director of Intuit - the Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago. She was previously at the John G. Shedd Aquarium for 17 years - she is a past board member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, past chair and instructor for its Professional Development Committee and management courses, past chair of the zoo and aquarium committee for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, and former board member of the National Veterans Art Museum.

She currently serves on the board for the Merit School of Music and the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes Leaders Council.She frequently presents on issues related to museum relevance, teen empowerment and activating the public for social good.

· www.art.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

"You know, I've always liked, since I started painting, particular landscapes, I like to see work as the artist wants it to be seen. I'm curious about the creative process to a certain extent, but I'm much more interested in the effect of the final work. And the underpainting for me is always important because I believe that there is a bit of a thin dimension on the surface of all of these paintings that exists that's a conversation that's going on between the underpainting and what it is eventually subsumed by on the surface of the painting. And it's more or less evident in different paintings that I do. Sometimes it gets almost completely obliterated, but I still believe that there's a little resonance that exists between the final layer of the painting."

Award-winning landscape artist April Gornik’s paintings and drawings of land, sky and sea are anchored in observed reality and a world synthesized, abstracted, remembered and imagined.

Award-winning artist April Gornik has work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and other collections. Retrospectives of her art have traveled to museums in the U.S. and Canada. She has shown at the Whitney and Venice Biennales, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Weisman Museum, Guild Hall, Parrish Art Museum, and in Seeing Nature, a traveling exhibition of Paul Allen's collection featuring Monet, Klimt, Turner, Hockney, and others.

She has contributed much to preserve the history and culture of Sag Harbor, leading many projects, including the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and The Church.

Mia recently completed a residency, as an inaugural artist participating in The Church’s new program, where she was able to witness first hand the depth of April’s engagement with the community and her dedication to art, not just as a means of self-expression but as a vehicle for bringing people together. She sat down with April in her studio in North Haven.
· www.aprilgornik.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Award-winning landscape artist April Gornik’s paintings and drawings of land, sky and sea are anchored in observed reality and a world synthesized, abstracted, remembered and imagined.

Award-winning artist April Gornik has work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney, and other collections. Retrospectives of her art have traveled to museums in the U.S. and Canada. She has shown at the Whitney and Venice Biennales, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Weisman Museum, Guild Hall, Parrish Art Museum, and in Seeing Nature, a traveling exhibition of Paul Allen's collection featuring Monet, Klimt, Turner, Hockney, and others.

She has contributed much to preserve the history and culture of Sag Harbor, leading many projects, including the Sag Harbor Cinema Arts Center and The Church.

Mia recently completed a residency, as an inaugural artist participating in The Church’s new program, where she was able to witness first hand the depth of April’s engagement with the community and her dedication to art, not just as a means of self-expression but as a vehicle for bringing people together. She sat down with April in her studio in North Haven.

· www.aprilgornik.com

· www.creativeprocess.info

"The truth of the matter is that there are some people who are born to be creative and they're going to be artists. And the importance of fostering that is necessary, because if we each fulfill our purpose as humans, then society is better off for it. So in other words, if I had been anything else other than what I have become, I would have only been living up to half of my potential. And so that's really important to address that. I have a lot of students whose parents don't want them to be artists because it doesn't make money, but that means they're only living up to half of their potential because they're truly meant to be artists. And so society needs to shift this understanding on what is important. "

Reem Bassous received her Bachelor of Arts from The Lebanese American University in Beirut. Lebanon and her master of Fine Arts from The George Washington University in Washington DC. She started teaching drawing and painting in 2001 at The George Washington University, taught at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa for 9 years, and is currently an instructor at Leeward Community College at the University of Hawaiʻi. Bassous’ work is in permanent collections which include the Honolulu Museum of Art and Shangri La Museum for Islamic Art, Culture and Design. · www.reembassous.studio

· www.creativeprocess.info

Doctor in English studies and lecturer at the University of Paris-Diderot until 2002, Bénédicte Alliot was Director of the French Institute of South Africa in Johannesburg (2002-2006), then Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy in New Delhi, India (2006-2010). She then headed the Cultural Seasons unit at the Institut Français in Paris. Since early 2016, Bénédicte Alliot has been the Executive Director of the Cité internationale des arts, a residency centre that welcomes 326 artists, writers, filmmakers, dancers, playwrights, etc. from more than 100 countries located in the centre of Paris, in the Marais and Montmartre districts.
· www.citedesartsparis.net
· www.creativeprocess.info

Doctor in English studies and lecturer at the University of Paris-Diderot until 2002, Bénédicte Alliot was Director of the French Institute of South Africa in Johannesburg (2002-2006), then Cultural Attaché at the French Embassy in New Delhi, India (2006-2010). She then headed the Cultural Seasons unit at the Institut Français in Paris. Since early 2016, Bénédicte Alliot has been the Executive Director of the Cité internationale des arts, a residency centre that welcomes 326 artists, writers, filmmakers, dancers, playwrights, etc. from more than 100 countries located in the centre of Paris, in the Marais and Montmartre districts.
· www.citedesartsparis.net
· www.creativeprocess.info

“One of the things that is dying is our planet. We hear these sirens every single day. We’re being warned daily by experts and concerned people how vast that squandering is going. It’s a case of urgency and it’s astounding and a very sad, a very pathetic comment on modern life that most people are ignoring those signs. As a poet, it seems to me that one of the tasks that the poet takes on, it’s a vocation that’s born with it, it’s this consciousness, this serving as witness.”

Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border.

· www.anacastillo.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Xicana activist, editor, poet, novelist, and artist Ana Castillo, was born and raised in Chicago. She is known for coining the term “xicanisma” which is defined in her book the Massacre of the Dreamers as, “a sociopolitical movement in the United States that analyzes the historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic intersection of Mexican American women that identify as Chicana.” The term cross bred Chicana feminism, which came to include the indigenous ancestry of Mexican Americans, unifying us with our sisters on the other side of the border.

· www.anacastillo.net
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

FX Harsono, one of Indonesia’s most revered contemporary artists, has been a central figure of the Indonesian art scene for over 40 years. In 1975, he was among a group of young artists who founded Indonesia’s Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement), which emphasized an experimental, conceptual approach, the use of everyday materials, and engagement with social and political issues. Over the course of recent decades that have seen enormous transformations in Indonesia, Harsono has continuously explored the role of the artist in society, in particular his relationship to history. During Indonesia’s dictatorial Suharto regime (1967-98), his installation and performance works were powerfully eloquent acts of protest against an oppressive state apparatus. The fall of the regime in 1998, which triggered rioting and widespread violence, mainly against Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority, prompted an introspective turn in Harsono’s artistic practice. He embarked on an ongoing investigation of his own family history and the position of minorities in society, especially his own Chinese-Indonesian community. The recovery of buried or repressed histories, cultures, and identities – and the part that the artist can play in this process – have remained a significant preoccupation. Through looking into his own past, Harsono has touched on concerns that resonate globally, foregrounding fundamental issues that are central to the formation of group and personal identities in our rapidly changing world.

www.creativeprocess.info

FX Harsono, one of Indonesia’s most revered contemporary artists, has been a central figure of the Indonesian art scene for over 40 years. In 1975, he was among a group of young artists who founded Indonesia’s Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru (New Art Movement), which emphasized an experimental, conceptual approach, the use of everyday materials, and engagement with social and political issues. Over the course of recent decades that have seen enormous transformations in Indonesia, Harsono has continuously explored the role of the artist in society, in particular his relationship to history. During Indonesia’s dictatorial Suharto regime (1967-98), his installation and performance works were powerfully eloquent acts of protest against an oppressive state apparatus. The fall of the regime in 1998, which triggered rioting and widespread violence, mainly against Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese minority, prompted an introspective turn in Harsono’s artistic practice. He embarked on an ongoing investigation of his own family history and the position of minorities in society, especially his own Chinese-Indonesian community. The recovery of buried or repressed histories, cultures, and identities – and the part that the artist can play in this process – have remained a significant preoccupation. Through looking into his own past, Harsono has touched on concerns that resonate globally, foregrounding fundamental issues that are central to the formation of group and personal identities in our rapidly changing world.

www.creativeprocess.info

Pinaree Sanpitak is one of the most compelling and respected Thai artists of her generation, and her work can be counted among the most powerful explorations of women’s experience in all of Southeast Asia. Her primary inspiration has been the female body, distilled to its most basic forms and imbued with an ethereal spirituality. The quiet, Zen-like abstraction of her work owes something to her training in Japan and sets it somewhat apart from the colorful intensity of much Thai art. Her rigorous focus on the female form, explored through a variety of media – painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, performance, and culinary arts, to name but a few – has resulted in an astoundingly varied and innovative body of work. For the past twenty years, a central motif in her work has been the female breast, which she relates to imagery of the natural world and to the iconic forms of the Buddhist stupa (shrine) and offering bowl. Often called a feminist or Buddhist artist, she resists such easy categorizations, preferring to let her work speak to each viewer directly, to the heart and soul, with the most basic language of form, color, and texture. Her work is not lacking in a conceptual framework, but it is one informed primarily by a deeply felt spiritual sense rather than by rigid dogmas or ideological constructs.

Pinaree’s work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions in Asia and Europe during the past twenty years, and she has participated in major biennials in Australia, Italy, Japan, and Korea.
· www.trfineart.com/artist/pinaree-sanpitak
· www.creativeprocess.info

Helen A. Harrison is the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center and an authority on 20th century American art. She is the author of Hamptons Bohemia and Such Desperate Joy: Imagining Jackson Pollack. In 1990, after serving as curator of the Parrish Art Museum, director of the Public Art Preservation Committee in Manhattan, and curator of Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, she became the director of the Pollock-Krasner House, a National Historic Landmark museum and research collection in East Hampton. She has lectured widely at Stony Brook University, the School of Visual Arts, and other universities. For five years her visual art commentaries, “Art Waves,” were heard on NPR affiliate WLIU 88.3 FM.

www.creativeprocess.info

The technique, the means of expression is dictated by what those feelings are. It's not the other way around. People think – Oh, he used the liquid material and then he sort of danced around and that kind of gave him ideas. – No."

Helen A. Harrison is the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center and an authority on 20th century American art. She is the author of Hamptons Bohemia and Such Desperate Joy: Imagining Jackson Pollack. In 1990, after serving as curator of the Parrish Art Museum, director of the Public Art Preservation Committee in Manhattan, and curator of Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, she became the director of the Pollock-Krasner House, a National Historic Landmark museum and research collection in East Hampton. She has lectured widely at Stony Brook University, the School of Visual Arts, and other universities. For five years her visual art commentaries, “Art Waves,” were heard on NPR affiliate WLIU 88.3 FM.

Alicia Longwell is the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education, at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York. She has organized numerous survey and solo exhibitions on Marsden Hartley, Frederick Kiesler, Dorothea Rockburne, Alan Shields, and Jack Youngerman. Longwell received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, where her dissertation topic was John Graham, the subject of a retrospective she organized for the Parrish Art Museum in 2017.

· parrishart.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo by: Kkwok7

Alicia Longwell is the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education, at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, New York. She has organized numerous survey and solo exhibitions on Marsden Hartley, Frederick Kiesler, Dorothea Rockburne, Alan Shields, and Jack Youngerman. Longwell received her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, where her dissertation topic was John Graham, the subject of a retrospective she organized for the Parrish Art Museum in 2017.
· parrishart.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

"Whatever I do, quite often I say– Is this good for my work? Should I go here? Should I do that? When I had my initial debut, I became known for a book called The Somnambulist. I took 24 of those pictures in one weekend and then I worked for three years on the next 24."

Ralph Gibson began taking pictures while in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, and later assisted Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank before establishing his own studio in New York. His work is widely exhibited and held in public collections around the world, such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His books include The Somnambulist, Déjà-vu,, Days at Sea and Ralph Gibson: Self-Exposure. The recipient of NEA and Guggenheim grants, Gibson was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2002. He lives and works in New York.
· www.ralphgibson.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Ralph Gibson began taking pictures while in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, and later assisted Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank before establishing his own studio in New York. His work is widely exhibited and held in public collections around the world, such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His books include The Somnambulist, Déjà-vu,, Days at Sea and Ralph Gibson: Self-Exposure.The recipient of NEA and Guggenheim grants, Gibson was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2002. He lives and works in New York.
· www.ralphgibson.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

"We have Leonardo in full when we read his texts because it's still there. It's a full testimony, but his private life, we don't know much about it, but he certainly must have been very well organized because you can't make so much work without a base in the organization of your life which is very strict. And you can't go and penetrate such high intellectual spheres unless you're a man of good. Do you understand what I mean? To have some ideal of perfection, beauty, and humanity inside yourself."

Jacques Franck is a specialist in Leonardo da Vinci who has trained both as an art historian and as a classical painter. A consulting expert to the Louvre, the Armand Hammer Centre for Da Vinci Studies at UCLA, and other institutions, he has spent almost fifty years immersed in the Italian master’s body of work. Franck has made “critical copies” in order to better understand DaVinci’s techniques, which have been shown at the Uffizi, and has dedicated his life to raising awareness about the dangers of restoration based on insufficient knowledge. He spoke to Mia on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of DaVinci and his major retrospective exhibition at the Louvre bringing together almost 120 works from the most prestigious European and American institutions.

www.creativeprocess.info

Jacques Franck is a specialist in Leonardo da Vinci who has trained both as an art historian and as a classical painter. A consulting expert to the Louvre, the Armand Hammer Centre for Da Vinci Studies at UCLA, and other institutions, he has spent almost fifty years immersed in the Italian master’s body of work. Franck has made “critical copies” in order to better understand DaVinci’s techniques, which have been shown at the Uffizi, and has dedicated his life to raising awareness about the dangers of restoration based on insufficient knowledge. He spoke to Mia on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of DaVinci and his major retrospective exhibition at the Louvre bringing together almost 120 works from the most prestigious European and American institutions.

www.creativeprocess.info

Christina Mossaides Strassfield is the Museum Director/Chief Curator of Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York. She oversees the artistic leadership and overall management of the Museum and its exhibition schedule, curating or overseeing as program manager. The mission of the museum is to showcase artists who have an affiliation with Eastern Suffolk County. The Hamptons is the summer home for most of the New York Art world.  This has allowed Strassfield to forge close relationships with leading artists, dealers and collectors. She has been instrumental in coordinating biannual group invitationals. At Guild Hall she is charge of curating the collection of over 2000 objects, works of art by artists associated with the Eastern Long Island, as well as organizing the traveling exhibition of works from the collection, managing education programs, design, conservation and other exhibition related work.

· www.guildhall.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Christina Mossaides Strassfield is the Museum Director/Chief Curator of Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York. She oversees the artistic leadership and overall management of the Museum and its exhibition schedule, curating or overseeing as program manager. The mission of the museum is to showcase artists who have an affiliation with Eastern Suffolk County. The Hamptons is the summer home for most of the New York Art world.  This has allowed Strassfield to forge close relationships with leading artists, dealers and collectors. She has been instrumental in coordinating biannual group invitationals. At Guild Hall she is charge of curating the collection of over 2000 objects, works of art by artists associated with the Eastern Long Island, as well as organizing the traveling exhibition of works from the collection, managing education programs, design, conservation and other exhibition related work.

· www.guildhall.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

Latest Spirituality & Mindfulness interview from The Creative Process’ MAIN CHANNEL. To listen to more of our interviews across the arts and other disciplines, visit tinyurl.com/thecreativepod, tinyurl.com/thecreativespotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

This ARTS podcast focuses on interviews with visual artists, curators & museums, but you can find hundreds more conversations across the arts, culture, society & the environment on our main channel. We hope you’ll check it out!

For more than 30 years, Master Shi Heng Yi has been studying and practicing the interaction between mind and body. His strength is the ability to smoothly combine this knowledge with physical exercises and to practice Martial art –Kung Fu and Qi Gong. He has an academic background but he prefers to live at the Shaolin Temple Europe, Monastery located in Otterberg, Germany. Since 2010 he has been taking care of the settlement and he personifies sustainable development and spreading Shaolin culture and philosophy.

· www.shihengyi.online
· www.shaolintemple.eu
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and Just Transition, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."

· Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly

· WECAN COP26 Analysis Blog: Despite Government Failures at COP26, Peoples' Movements Continue Rising to Transform our World - https://www.wecaninternational.org/post/despite-government-failures-at-cop26-peoples-movements-continue-rising-to-transform-our-world

· WECAN Programs: https://www.wecaninternational.org/our-work

- WECAN Women Speak Storytelling Database: https://womenspeak.wecaninternational.org/  

· Join the WECAN Network: https://www.wecaninternational.org/join-the-network

· WECAN Social Media Handles:

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WECAN_INTL

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecan_intl/

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

“There’s a wide range of reasons that we really need to understand the root causes of a lot of our social ills and environmental ills. I think we need to continue to come back to this question of how we heal this imposed divide between the natural world and human social constructs. And that healing is key to how we’re going to really unwind the perilous moment that we face right now. How do we reconnect with the natural world? Not just intellectually, but in a very embodied way.”

Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International dedicated to accelerating a global women’s climate justice movement. She works nationally and internationally with grassroots and Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralized, democratized energy future. She serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and Osprey is the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, and actively leads WECAN’s advocacy, policy and campaign work in areas such as Women for Forests, Divestment and Just Transition, Indigenous Rights, a Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, and UN Forums. Osprey is the author of the award-winning book,"Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature."

· Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice: Solutions from the Frontlines and the Protection and Defense of Human Rights and Nature
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly

· WECAN COP26 Analysis Blog: Despite Government Failures at COP26, Peoples' Movements Continue Rising to Transform our World - https://www.wecaninternational.org/post/despite-government-failures-at-cop26-peoples-movements-continue-rising-to-transform-our-world

· WECAN Programs: https://www.wecaninternational.org/our-work

- WECAN Women Speak Storytelling Database: https://womenspeak.wecaninternational.org/  

· Join the WECAN Network: https://www.wecaninternational.org/join-the-network

· WECAN Social Media Handles:

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WECAN_INTL

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wecan_intl/

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

· www.creativeprocess.info

"I think any time we are closer to the earth, we can feel the struggles of other human beings as well. I encourage young women to find whatever it is they are passionate about and invest their entire soul in it and go for it! Because you’ll be happy if you’re passionate about your work." –Mary Edna Fraser

"Southern Africa, south of the Sahara, they’re expecting within this century 200 million climate refugees. Where are they going to go? Who wants those refugees. We have the same thing happening in Central America. Where are they going to go? All over the world, we’re seeing because of climate change we’re seeing vast changes affecting all aspects of society. It’s very worrisome and that’s something that we’ve not been able to face politically. We need to do that.” – Orrin H. Pilkey

Duke University Professor Emeritus Orrin H. Pilkey is one of the rare academics who engages in public advocacy about science-related issues. His collaborator, Mary Edna Fraser, is an artist who highlights environmental concerns in large silk batiks and oils. They are the co-authors of A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands and Global Climate Change: A Primer. Their traveling exhibits, “Our Expanding Oceans” and “Shifting East Coast Barrier Islands” creatively merge science and art.

· www.maryedna.com
· www.deleteapathy.com
· https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/orrinpilkey

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Duke University Professor Emeritus Orrin H. Pilkey is one of the rare academics who engages in public advocacy about science-related issues. His collaborator, Mary Edna Fraser, is an artist who highlights environmental concerns in large silk batiks and oils. They are the co-authors of A Celebration of the World’s Barrier Islands and Global Climate Change: A Primer. Their traveling exhibits, “Our Expanding Oceans” and “Shifting East Coast Barrier Islands” creatively merge science and art.

· www.maryedna.com
· www.deleteapathy.com
· https://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/orrinpilkey
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Born in 1926, Jacques Villeglé is a major artist of the second half of the 20th century and considered one of the first street artists. He lives and works between Paris and Saint-Malo. He attended the School of Fine Arts in Rennes and Nantes, where he studied architecture. He soon gave up painting and became interested in found objects which he appropriated for his work.

In 1949, he became fascinated by posters and discovering beauty in urban fragments. Having always lived in cities, he was drawn to architecture, colors, typography, and other elements of post-war society. In 1960, Villeglé joined the New Realists with Yves Klein, Arman, and Jean Tinguely as the group turned its gaze on the burgeoning consumer society.
Jacques Villeglé is represented in prestigious collections, including Centre Pompidou, MoMA, and Tate Modern, among others.

This interview has been translated and abridged from French by Sarah Bortel

.
· villegle.free.fr


· www.galerie-vallois.com/en/artiste/jacques-villegle/


· www.creativeprocess.info

Né en mil neuf cent vingt six, Jacques Villeglé est un artiste majeur de la deuxième moitié du vingtième siècle et est considéré comme l’un des premiers street artists. Il partage son temps entre Paris et Saint-Malo.  Il est allé à l’École des Beaux Arts à Rennes et à Nantes, où il a étudié l'architecture. Il a rapidement abandonné la peinture et s'est intéressé aux objets qu’il s’est approprié pour son travail.

À partir de mille neuf cent quarante neuf, il se fascine pour les affiches et la découverte de la beauté dans les débris urbains. Puisqu’il a toujours vécu dans des villes, il est attiré par l'architecture, les couleurs, la typographie, et de la société d’après-guerre. En mille neuf cent soixante, il a rejoint les Nouveaux Réalistes avec Yves Klein, Arman, et Jean Tinguely, où la groupe s’est focalisé sur la société de consommation florissante. 

Jacques Villeglé est présent dans les collections prestigieuses au Centre Pompidou, au MoMA, et au Tate Modern, entre autres.

Born in 1926, Jacques Villeglé is a major artist of the second half of the 20th century and considered one of the first street artists. He lives and works between Paris and Saint-Malo. He attended the School of Fine Arts in Rennes and Nantes, where he studied architecture. He soon gave up painting and became interested in found objects which he appropriated for his work.

In 1949, he became fascinated by posters and discovering beauty in urban fragments. Having always lived in cities, he was drawn to architecture, colors, typography, and other elements of post-war society. In 1960, Villeglé joined the New Realists with Yves Klein, Arman, and Jean Tinguely as the group turned its gaze on the burgeoning consumer society.
Jacques Villeglé is represented in prestigious collections, including Centre Pompidou, MoMA, and Tate Modern, among others.

This interview has been translated and abridged from French by Sarah Bortel

.
· villegle.free.fr


· www.galerie-vallois.com/en/artiste/jacques-villegle/


· www.creativeprocess.info

Ralph Gibson began taking pictures while in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, and later assisted Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank before establishing his own studio in New York. His work is widely exhibited and held in public collections around the world, such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His books include The Somnambulist, Déjà-vu,, Days at Sea and Ralph Gibson: Self-Exposure.The recipient of NEA and Guggenheim grants, Gibson was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2002. He lives and works in New York.
· www.ralphgibson.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

"Whatever I do, quite often I say– Is this good for my work? Should I go here? Should I do that? When I had my initial debut, I became known for a book called The Somnambulist. I took 24 of those pictures in one weekend and then I worked for three years on the next 24."

Ralph Gibson began taking pictures while in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s, and later assisted Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank before establishing his own studio in New York. His work is widely exhibited and held in public collections around the world, such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. His books include The Somnambulist, Déjà-vu,, Days at Sea and Ralph Gibson: Self-Exposure. The recipient of NEA and Guggenheim grants, Gibson was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government in 2002. He lives and works in New York.
· www.ralphgibson.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Mark Seliger was born in Amarillo, Texas. He was Rolling Stones chief photographer for 20 years, where he shot over 150 covers silica shoots frequently for Vanity Fair, GQ, Italian Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, L, and other magazines. His advertising work includes projects for Adidas, Anheuser-Busch, Levi's, Netflix and Ralph Lauren. Seliger received the Alfred Eisenstadt Award, Clio Grand Prix, the C Award, Cannes Lions Grand Prix, The One Show, ASME, SPG and the Texas Medal of Arts were exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. 

His photographs are in the permanent collections at the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the National Portrait Gallery in London.
· markseliger.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Ian Wardropper is the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director of The Frick Collection and has organized more than twenty exhibitions in his specialties of European sculpture, earlier decorative arts, and twentieth-century design and decorative arts. Exhibitions he co-organized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art include Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure for the Palaces of Europe in 2008 and Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution in 2009. Recent publications include European Sculpture, 1400–1900, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bernini: Sculpting in Clay; Limoges Enamels at The Frick Collection; and The Frick Collection: Director's Choice.
· www.frick.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Self-portrait, Rembrandt

The Frick Collection

"I actually assumed in graduate school that I would become a teacher and I've taught in a number of different universities, but it was working with art objects and seeing them in museums like the Metropolitan Museum or The Frick that made me want to go into museum work and ultimately become a curator. So when I was finishing my dissertation and had to think about a career, I applied to a lot of teaching jobs and there was one job that year in America in my specialized field, which was European sculpture, and I was very lucky. But a professional career is a bit of luck as well as predisposition, so I knew I wanted to work in museums, and I was lucky enough when I was able to find my way here."

Ian Wardropper is the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director of The Frick Collection and has organized more than twenty exhibitions in his specialties of European sculpture, earlier decorative arts, and twentieth-century design and decorative arts. Exhibitions he co-organized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art include Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure for the Palaces of Europe in 2008 and Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution in 2009. Recent publications include European Sculpture, 1400–1900, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Bernini: Sculpting in Clay; Limoges Enamels at The Frick Collection; and The Frick Collection: Director's Choice.
· www.frick.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Dimitrios Pandermalis is Professor Emeritus of Classical Archeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he has served as President of the History and Archeology Department and Dean of the Philosophical School. He is the President of the Acropolis Museum, and Director of Aristotle University's archeological excavations at the ancient site of Dion on the foothills of Mount Olympus. There  he has conducted innovative programs converting the excavated area into an archeological and environmental park. 

He has presented lectures and seminars on classical archeology at many institutions internationally and is the author of more than 60 publications on the subject. He is an ordinary member of the Archeological Society in Athens and of the German Archeological Institute in Berlin.

· https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en
· www.creativeprocess.info

Dr. George Maginis is the Academic Director of the Benaki Museum in Athens Greece. He holds a PhD in archaology and history of art. He has taught Byzantine, Islamic, and Chinese Art History at the University of London for SOAS and the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum. He has excavated in Greece, Cyprus, France and Egypt, and has worked for the Hellenic Children’s Museum and the Archaeological Museum of Ioannina. He has also acted as museum development consultant in the United Kingdom.

· www.benaki.org


· benaki.academia.edu/GeorgeManginis


· www.creativeprocess.info

Dr. George Maginis is the Academic Director of the Benaki Museum in Athens Greece. He holds a PhD in archaology and history of art. He has taught Byzantine, Islamic, and Chinese Art History at the University of London for SOAS and the Courtauld Institute of Art (University of London), the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Museum. He has excavated in Greece, Cyprus, France and Egypt, and has worked for the Hellenic Children’s Museum and the Archaeological Museum of Ioannina. He has also acted as museum development consultant in the United Kingdom.

· www.benaki.org


· benaki.academia.edu/GeorgeManginis


· www.creativeprocess.info

Richard Flood serves on the International Leadership Council and Ideas City Initiative at the New Museum. For nine years, he was the museum’s Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large, and from 2005 to 2010, he served as Chief Curator. Prior to this, he was Chief Curator and Deputy Director at the Walker Art Center. He has curated notable exhibitions of the work of Rivane Neuenschwander, Sigmar Polke, and other artists. Flood previously served as the director of Barbara Gladstone Gallery, curator at P.S. 1, and Managing Editor of Artforum. He has taught at the Rhode Island Institute of Art and Design, The Royal College of Art in London, and the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. His writing has appeared frequently in Artforum, Parkett, and Frieze.
· www.newmuseum.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

Richard Flood serves on the International Leadership Council and Ideas City Initiative at the New Museum. For nine years, he was the museum’s Director of Special Projects and Curator at Large, and from 2005 to 2010, he served as Chief Curator. Prior to this, he was Chief Curator and Deputy Director at the Walker Art Center. He has curated notable exhibitions of the work of Rivane Neuenschwander, Sigmar Polke, and other artists. Flood previously served as the director of Barbara Gladstone Gallery, curator at P.S. 1, and Managing Editor of Artforum. He has taught at the Rhode Island Institute of Art and Design, The Royal College of Art in London, and the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. His writing has appeared frequently in Artforum, Parkett, and Frieze. www.newmuseum.org · www.creativeprocess.info

Dorothea Rockburne was born in 1932 in Montreal. She attended Black Mountain College where she met the mathematician Max Dehn, whose tutelage in concepts including harmonic intervals, topology, and set theory were deeply influential to her art practice. After moving to New York City in 1954, she became involved with Judson Dance Theater, and later participated in Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy and other performances. In the late 60s, Rockburne began exhibiting paintings made with industrial materials and creating drawings from crude oil and graphite applied to paper and chipboard. Her “visual equations” based on set theory were first exhibited in New York in 1970. Her later paintings draw on ancient systems of proportion and astronomical phenomena. She’s had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Dia:Beacon, and a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum.
· www.dorothearockburne.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“The walks were amazing. We walked up every morning at eight o'clock. There's a waterfall on campus at Black Mountain, and we walked to this waterfall, and he explained water to me. He explained how things worked. You know, when I was a little kid, I used to take alarm clocks apart and put back together and things like that.” Dorothea Rockburne was born in 1932 in Montreal. She attended Black Mountain College where she met the mathematician Max Dehn, whose tutelage in concepts including harmonic intervals, topology, and set theory were deeply influential to her art practice. After moving to New York City in 1954, she became involved with Judson Dance Theater, and later participated in Carolee Schneemann’s Meat Joy and other performances. In the late 60s, Rockburne began exhibiting paintings made with industrial materials and creating drawings from crude oil and graphite applied to paper and chipboard. Her “visual equations” based on set theory were first exhibited in New York in 1970. Her later paintings draw on ancient systems of proportion and astronomical phenomena. She’s had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Dia:Beacon, and a major retrospective at the Parrish Art Museum.
· www.dorothearockburne.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

Siri Hustvedt is the internationally acclaimed author of a book of poems, six novels, four collections of essays, and a work of nonfiction. In 2012 she was awarded the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities. Her books include What I Loved; Memories of the Future; Living, Thinking, Looking; and The Blazing World, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Book Prize for Fiction. She has also published numerous papers in scholarly and scientific journals. She has a PhD in English literature from Columbia University and is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

· sirihustvedt.net

· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo by Marion Ettlinger

Siri Hustvedt is the internationally acclaimed author of a book of poems, six novels, four collections of essays, and a work of nonfiction. In 2012 she was awarded the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities. Her books include What I Loved; Memories of the Future; Living, Thinking, Looking; and The Blazing World, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Los Angeles Book Prize for Fiction. She has also published numerous papers in scholarly and scientific journals. She has a PhD in English literature from Columbia University and is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

· sirihustvedt.net

· www.creativeprocess.info

Photo by Marion Ettlinger

Claudia Bueno is an internationally recognized Venezuela born artist renowned for creating immersive technological wonders using light, sculpture, painting and sound. Claudia creates large scale, multi-sensory experiences that communicate a profound sense of wonderment and awe. Lights, motors, wind, and video power her creations with pulsations and movements. Detailed drawings, meticulous cutouts and elaborate structures leave evidence of the intimate dedication the artist has with her work. Claudia fills her art with a quality of mystical curiosity that mirrors her personal fascination with Energy, Consciousness and Nature - ultimately transforming her art into a celebration of Life and Creation.

· www.claudiabueno.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Photo credit: Morris Weintraub

“Nature is my home because. It doesn't matter where I am. It’s available and it's there and it's always giving me the same sort of nourishment. All of us have had to develop a sense of home elsewhere. With me in particular, I've been traveling and living in different countries for the last 20 years since I was 22, so it's not even that I've had a geographical place that is my new home because I've moved around every four years. I'm in a new place a new community and new friends, so nature is my home.”

Claudia Bueno is an internationally recognized Venezuela born artist renowned for creating immersive technological wonders using light, sculpture, painting and sound. Claudia creates large scale, multi-sensory experiences that communicate a profound sense of wonderment and awe. Lights, motors, wind, and video power her creations with pulsations and movements. Detailed drawings, meticulous cutouts and elaborate structures leave evidence of the intimate dedication the artist has with her work. Claudia fills her art with a quality of mystical curiosity that mirrors her personal fascination with Energy, Consciousness and Nature - ultimately transforming her art into a celebration of Life and Creation.

· www.claudiabueno.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
Instagram @ClaudiaBuenoArt
Photo credit: Laurent Velazquez, "Pulse" Meow Wolf Las Vegas

“I’m not just taking beautiful pictures. I’m collecting their voices, collecting their movement, collecting different aspects, and preserving this moment because they will not always be here. I don’t just see myself as a photographer, an artist. I also see myself as an archiver. Someone who is archiving as a researcher.”

Etinosa Yvonne is a self-taught documentary photographer and videographer born and raised in Nigeria. Her work focuses on the human condition and social injustice. She has received grants from Women Photograph, National Geographic in partnership with Lagos Photo and Art X and an award from the Royal Photographic Society for her project; It’s All In My Head. In 2020, she was one of six photographers selected the World Press Photo 6*6 Global talent in Africa.

· www.etinosayvonne.me

· www.creativeprocess.info

“We're all part of a web like a dreamcatcher. Everybody knows a dreamcatcher and whatever you do that’s wrong will eventually come back and affect you because we’re all connected. What would we like people to learn about Native Americans? I was an educator for over 21 years, so for me it's probably overcoming fear from the outside and fear from the inside to know the outside, so there needs to be more understanding.”

“What really helped me as a Shinnacock person was traveling out to different nations in the country and Canada and talking with people who went to the same things. And where they're at in their historical cycle colonization cycle. Tribes that are culturally similar to ours, that's what really helped me out was actually visiting.”

The Shinnecock are a nation of Native Americans made up of 12 Algonquian-speaking tribes. This nation occupied the territory between Long Island and Connecticut, today their descendants live on a 400-acre reservation in Southampton, where they are officially called Shinnecock. They currently have over 1,200 enrolled members. Photo by Jeremy Dennis

· www.creativeprocess.info

Douglas Wolk is the author of the NYTimes bestseller All of the Marvels, and the Eisner Award–winning Reading Comics and the host of the podcast Voice of Latveria. A National Arts Journalism Program fellow, Wolk has written about comic books, graphic novels, pop music, and technology for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Believer, Slate, and Pitchfork. He has lectured and moderated panels at Comic-Con International, the Experience Music Project Pop Conference, the Center for Cartoon Studies and other events.
· douglaswolk.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

“I like the idea that your actions in the world can be motivated by both idealism and realism about how to achieve those ideals. I like the idea that morality is not simple. There is this idea that there are the heroes and there's the villains and you can easily tell who's who, and that's not so true as it used to be in comics and that's meaningful. One thing that is interesting about the Marvel story is there’s basically nobody who's just a bad guy to be a bad guy. Everyone has their reasons. Almost everyone is capable of redemption in some way, even the worst of the worst are capable of tremendous heroism and tremendous idealism and genuinely wanting to heal the world make it a better place.

I think communicating what those ideals are and how they can change and need to change as time passes is really special, and I think that addressing those through stories, through things where there’s not necessarily a one-to-one meaning, where this is not a parable, where this is not something where character X stands for concept Y in always exactly the same way. That’s important that things can shift, that things can be different, that a better world is possible and that you can make it so, that your abilities may be things that you work very hard for for a very long time or they may come to you. Your body may be transformed in ways that are wonderful or horrible, and you can make something of it.”

Douglas Wolk is the author of the NYTimes bestseller All of the Marvels, and the Eisner Award–winning Reading Comics and the host of the podcast Voice of Latveria. A National Arts Journalism Program fellow, Wolk has written about comic books, graphic novels, pop music, and technology for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Believer, Slate, and Pitchfork. He has lectured and moderated panels at Comic-Con International, the Experience Music Project Pop Conference, the Center for Cartoon Studies and other events.
· douglaswolk.com
· www.creativeprocess.info

The Shinnecock are a nation of Native Americans made up of 12 Algonquian-speaking tribes. This nation occupied the territory between Long Island and Connecticut, today their descendants live on a 400-acre reservation in Southampton and have over 1,200 enrolled members. Mia visited the Shinnecock reservation to do this interview with photographer and founder of Ma’s House BIPOC Art Studio Jeremy Dennis; beadwork artist and dancer Tohanash Tarrant; traditional singer, dancer, and artist  Standing Buffalo (Shane Weeks); and artist and educator Denise Silva Dennis.
· www.jeremynative.com
· www.thunderbirddesigns.com
· bizhiki.com
· denisesilvadennis.com
· accessgenealogy.com/new-york/shinnecock-tribe.htm
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Tony Walton was an award-winning director and production designer.  His work was vast and stretches from Broadway productions and operas to films and television.  Over the course of his long and coveted career Tony  was honored with 16 Tony Award Nominations for his Broadway sets and costumes.  Of those nominations he received awards for Pippin, House of Blue Leaves, and Guys and Dolls.  In his television career he worked on over 20 films and received tremendous recognition for his work on Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz where he won an Oscar and Death of a Salesman where he received an Emmy.  In 1991, Tony Walton was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame. Until his passing in 2022, he lived in New York City with his wife Gen LeRoy Walton.

www.tonywalton.net

www.creativeprocess.info

“Creativity is perhaps the ultimate mystery. I veer wildly between opposing views on it and have different feelings depending on whether the creator is isolated or a collaborator. Gropius said the artist is an exalted craftsman. “In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of Heaven may cause his work to blossom into art, but proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies the source of creative imagination." And Steve Sondheim said, "Art is craft, not inspiration." And Rilke mistrusted any artist's knowing participation in his own creative process.”

Tony Walton was an award-winning director and production designer.  His work was vast and stretches from Broadway productions and operas to films and television.  Over the course of his long and coveted career Tony  was honored with 16 Tony Award Nominations for his Broadway sets and costumes.  Of those nominations he received awards for Pippin, House of Blue Leaves, and Guys and Dolls.  In his television career he worked on over 20 films and received tremendous recognition for his work on Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz where he won an Oscar and Death of a Salesman where he received an Emmy.  In 1991, Tony Walton was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame. Until his passing in 2022, he lived in New York City with his wife Gen LeRoy Walton.

This interview was originally aired in 2019.
· www.tonywalton.net 

· www.creativeprocess.info

Azby Brown is a leading authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environmentalism and the author of several groundbreaking books, including Just Enough, Small Spaces, The Japanese Dream House, The Very Small Home, and The Genius of Japanese Carpentry. He is lead researcher for Safecast, a global citizen-science organization that pioneered crowdsourced environmental monitoring. Azby Brown has lived in Japan since 1985.

· azbybrown.com
· www.safecast.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

“Certainly all Japanese architects have been trained in both the Japanese tradition and the Western tradition and we see a lot of very very well thought out designs in architecture that make use of features of Japanese traditional houses. Japanese buildings like many and other parts of East Asia and Europe before the modern period are held together with wooden joints and pegs and wedges and they can be dismantled. And when a Japanese house was taken down, was demolished, every part of it could be reused. All the beams and columns. There were lumber yards that sold only used timber. Someone would come to buy that. Someone would come to buy the roof shingles, the tiles. Someone would come to buy the tatami floor mats or the sliding screens or all of the metal hardware. All the stuff was reusable and was intended to be reused. There is a concept now of “building as material bank”, and there is actually an organization that is promoting this idea that when you build a building, the materials are simply being borrowed for a certain period of time, a few tens of years, a century perhaps, and when the building is at end of life, when it needs to be replaced, then those materials go back into a resource pool to be reused.

In Edo Japan, basically life was pretty good, and they recycled everything. Everything was reused, upcycled. Waste was considered taboo. A person who was wasting was considered an ugly person. So there is a lot that we could talk about: design, the layout, scale. Buildings were rarely taller than two stories. Very good use of environmental features, microclimates, use of wind for cooling, passive solar heating. Good use of planting, gardens, etc. But regarding cities of the future, I think the main thing is it needs to be a place where people feel like they belong and want to take responsibility.

I'm from New Orleans, and I am very interested in the fact that cities and the places we live in teach us. They shape us, as much as we shape them. And New Orleans was a wonderful place to grow up in because you wouldn't have said it was sustainable, but the vernacular traditional architecture was naturally cooler in summers because of the way it was built with high ceilings with deep eaves from the roof, with verandas shaded with lots of breezes and lots of gardens, plus it is full of older buildings. And things become gentle over time.”

Azby Brown is a leading authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environmentalism and the author of several groundbreaking books, including Just Enough, Small Spaces, The Japanese Dream House, The Very Small Home, and The Genius of Japanese Carpentry. He is lead researcher for Safecast, a global citizen-science organization that pioneered crowdsourced environmental monitoring. Azby Brown has lived in Japan since 1985.

· azbybrown.com
· www.safecast.org
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org
· www.creativeprocess.info

John Powers was born in Chicago. He is a sculptor. After doing an apprenticeship on the West Coast with the sculptor Tom Jay, he moved to New York where he studied at Pratt and Hunter College. His artwork has been shown at MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bruges Triennial, and PostMasters Gallery, among others. He was recently featured in the New York Times after injuring his hand.

· www.johnpowers.us

· www.creativeprocess.info

“The figure in my work is me. The figure in my work is you. It's me placing objects. It’s me putting things together. It’s you standing near it. It’s you in proximity moving back and forth, moving around it. It’s us. One of the reasons I make the things I do the way I make them is because I can't imagine them. I make things that I couldn't draw or even think about clearly. I can only look at them. I enjoy the complexity that I make because I'm striving to see it.”

John Powers was born in Chicago. He is a sculptor. After doing an apprenticeship on the West Coast with the sculptor Tom Jay, he moved to New York where he studied at Pratt and Hunter College. His artwork has been shown at MoMA PS1, the Brooklyn Museum, the Bruges Triennial, and PostMasters Gallery, among others. He was recently featured in the New York Times after injuring his hand.

· www.johnpowers.us

· www.creativeprocess.info

Artist Donald Sultan rose to prominence in the late 1970s as part of the “New Image” movement. Sultan has challenged the boundaries between painting and sculpture throughout his career. Using industrial materials such as roofing tar, aluminum, linoleum and enamel, Sultan layers, gouges, sands and constructs his paintings—sumptuous, richly textured compositions often made of the same materials as the rooms in which they are displayed. He lives and works in New York City.

“I always feel that you can never fail if you don't know what you're doing. The best work is what you do when you don’t know what you’re doing…A lot of the images that have struck me, that I get drawn to, a lot of them were from painting. Some of them were from early movies. Some of them were from places I visited, but mostly gardens or wild gardens that had things in them I’d never seen before, and then learning what that was when I'd been working on it. Generally speaking most of what I do had to do with my feelings about other artists work that I admired. A lot of the industrial materials that are use, floor tiling and things like that came from site specific artists, sculptors, people who built into the buildings, Arte Povera. Using works that were just found, the poor materials, that kind of thing. Tar I kind of got from working in my fathers tire shop with the grinding of the rubber and so on. Things come together and I wasn’t even aware of it until people start asking me about it. I remember telling them about this man, being in black room with all this rubber, smoking Camels. It was a very cool image. I’ll never forget the guy, but when I was doing it myself, that’s not what I was thinking. I was really thinking about the materials I was using and inverting them.”
· donaldsultanstudio.com
· ryanleegallery.com
· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Photographer and filmmaker Ami Vitale shares her personal odyssey—from documenting the heartbreaking realities of war to witnessing the inspiring power of an individual to make a difference. Her award-winning work illuminates the unsung heroes and communities working to protect our wildlife and find harmony in our natural world. Hear her awe-inspiring stories of the reintroduction of northern white rhinos and giant pandas to the wild, as well as Kenya’s first indigenous-owned and run elephant sanctuary. 

Ami has traveled to more than 100 countries, bearing witness not only to violence and conflict, but also to surreal beauty and the enduring power of the human spirit. She has lived in mud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, and donned a panda suit— keeping true to her belief in the importance of “living the story.”

Ami is an Ambassador for Nikon and a contract photographer with National Geographic magazine. She has documented wildlife and poaching in Africa, covered human-wildlife conflict, and concentrated on efforts to save the northern white rhino and reintroduce pandas to the wild.   She is a six-time recipient of World Press Photos and published a best-selling book, Panda Love, on the secret lives of pandas.  She lectures for the National Geographic LIVEseries, and she frequently gives workshops around the world.

After more than a decade covering conflict, photographer and filmmaker Ami Vitale couldn’t help but notice that the less sensational—but equally true—stories were often not getting told: the wedding happening around the corner from the revolution, triumphs amidst seemingly endless devastation. As a result, she re-committed herself to seeking out the stories within and around “the story.” Her belief that “you can’t talk about humanity without talking about nature” led her to chronicle her journey from documenting warzones to telling some of the most compelling wildlife and environmental stories of our time, where individuals are making a profound difference in the future of their communities and this planet.  

She is Executive Director of Vital Impacts whose mission is to support grassroots organizations who are protecting people, wildlife and habitats. She is also a founding  member of Ripple Effect Images, a collective of scientists, writers, photographers and filmmakers who document challenges facing women and girls in developing countries. She is chair of the Photographers Advisory Board for National Geographic magazine photographers and also a member of the Executive Advisory Committee of the Alexia Foundations Photojournalism Advisory Board.  

· www.amivitale.com
· vitalimpacts.org
· www.rippleeffectimages.org
· Print sale for Vital Impacts: https://vitalimpacts.org/collections/impact-now
· https://newhouse.syr.edu/centers/the-alexia

· IG: @amivitale
· IG: @vital.impacts

· IG: @wild.lifeincolour

Photo of Ami Vitale by Ken Lavazza

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

"When are we all going to start to care about one another? Because all of our individual choices do have impacts. And I just think the demands that we place on this planet, on the ecosystems, are what are driving conflict and human suffering. In some cases, it's really the scarcity of resources, just like water. In others, it's the changing climate and the loss of fertile lands to be able to grow food. But in the end, it's always the people living in these places that really suffer the most. All of my work today, it’s not really about wildlife, and it's not just about people either. It's about how deeply interconnected all of those things are. People and the human condition are the backdrop of every one of the stories on this planet."

Photographer and filmmaker Ami Vitale shares her personal odyssey—from documenting the heartbreaking realities of war to witnessing the inspiring power of an individual to make a difference. Her award-winning work illuminates the unsung heroes and communities working to protect our wildlife and find harmony in our natural world. Hear her awe-inspiring stories of the reintroduction of northern white rhinos and giant pandas to the wild, as well as Kenya’s first indigenous-owned and run elephant sanctuary. 

Ami has traveled to more than 100 countries, bearing witness not only to violence and conflict, but also to surreal beauty and the enduring power of the human spirit. She has lived in mud huts and war zones, contracted malaria, and donned a panda suit— keeping true to her belief in the importance of “living the story.”

Ami is an Ambassador for Nikon and a contract photographer with National Geographic magazine. She has documented wildlife and poaching in Africa, covered human-wildlife conflict, and concentrated on efforts to save the northern white rhino and reintroduce pandas to the wild.   She is a six-time recipient of World Press Photos and published a best-selling book, Panda Love, on the secret lives of pandas.  She lectures for the National Geographic LIVEseries, and she frequently gives workshops around the world.

After more than a decade covering conflict, photographer and filmmaker Ami Vitale couldn’t help but notice that the less sensational—but equally true—stories were often not getting told: the wedding happening around the corner from the revolution, triumphs amidst seemingly endless devastation. As a result, she re-committed herself to seeking out the stories within and around “the story.” Her belief that “you can’t talk about humanity without talking about nature” led her to chronicle her journey from documenting warzones to telling some of the most compelling wildlife and environmental stories of our time, where individuals are making a profound difference in the future of their communities and this planet.  

She is Executive Director of Vital Impacts whose mission is to support grassroots organizations who are protecting people, wildlife and habitats. She is also a founding  member of Ripple Effect Images, a collective of scientists, writers, photographers and filmmakers who document challenges facing women and girls in developing countries. She is chair of the Photographers Advisory Board for National Geographic magazine photographers and also a member of the Executive Advisory Committee of the Alexia Foundations Photojournalism Advisory Board.  · www.amivitale.com
· vitalimpacts.org
· www.rippleeffectimages.org
· Print sale for Vital Impacts: https://vitalimpacts.org/collections/impact-now
· https://newhouse.syr.edu/centers/the-alexia
· IG: @amivitale
· IG: @vital.impacts

· IG: @wild.lifeincolour

Joseph Wachira comforts Sudan, the last living northern white rhino on the planet, moments before his death on March 19, 2018 at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in northern Kenya. 
Ⓒ Ami Vitale

Anthony Gardner is Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Oxford, where he was the Head of the Ruskin School of Art from 2017 to 2020. He has published widely on subjects including postcolonialism, postsocialism and curatorial histories. His books include Politically Unbecoming: Postsocialist Art against Democracy, and Biennials, Triennials and documenta: The exhibitions that created contemporary art, co-authored with Charles Green.

“I think art can engage with the body, the mind, and the imagination in so many different ways that can compliment modes of thinking, other modes of creating, thinking through, working through and devising.
I was thinking about this in relation to the last 18 months and how the sciences have rightly been heralded as the great way of getting ourselves out of this pandemic, but culture is the way and art is the way that we've been getting through the pandemic. So many people have been watching Netflix, reading, singing music, playing music, making images, and making art as a way of getting through very difficult times and reflecting through that process. And in that sense, science compliments the arts, and the arts compliment the sciences because you can't get out of a situation without getting through it. So in order to get to the end of this sort of crisis, we have to be able to work through them.
And so art becomes a very important means and space and time for being able to reflect, but also delve into thinking through and thinking where the situations we have at hand and the situations we find ourselves in.”

· https://www.rsa.ox.ac.uk/people/anthony-gardner

· https://www.rsa.ox.ac.uk

· https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Biennials%2C+Triennials%2C+and+Documenta%3A+The+Exhibitions+that+Created+Contemporary+Art-p-9781444336641

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“I think art can engage with the body, the mind, and the imagination in so many different ways that can compliment modes of thinking, other modes of creating, thinking through, working through and devising.
I was thinking about this in relation to the last 18 months and how the sciences have rightly been heralded as the great way of getting ourselves out of this pandemic, but culture is the way and art is the way that we've been getting through the pandemic. So many people have been watching Netflix, reading, singing music, playing music, making images, and making art as a way of getting through very difficult times and reflecting through that process. And in that sense, science compliments the arts, and the arts compliment the sciences because you can't get out of a situation without getting through it. So in order to get to the end of this sort of crisis, we have to be able to work through them.
And so art becomes a very important means and space and time for being able to reflect, but also delve into thinking through and thinking where the situations we have at hand and the situations we find ourselves in.”

Anthony Gardner is Professor of Contemporary Art History at the University of Oxford, where he was the Head of the Ruskin School of Art from 2017 to 2020. He has published widely on subjects including postcolonialism, postsocialism and curatorial histories. His books include Politically Unbecoming: Postsocialist Art against Democracy, and Biennials, Triennials and documenta: The exhibitions that created contemporary art, co-authored with Charles Green.

· https://www.rsa.ox.ac.uk/people/anthony-gardner

· https://www.rsa.ox.ac.uk

· https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Biennials%2C+Triennials%2C+and+Documenta%3A+The+Exhibitions+that+Created+Contemporary+Art-p-9781444336641

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Petra Cortright is a Los Angeles-based digital artist known for her elaborate paintings, videography, and digital media. Crafted from massive digital files on Photoshop, her paintings are often composed of physical and digital images, simulated brushstrokes, and marks that blend both abstract and figurative elements. Petra has exhibited at the Walker Art Center, Whitechapel Gallery, and the Hammer Museum, in addition to solo exhibitions around the world. Her work is featured in permanent collections at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Miami’s Péréz Museum, and the Moderna Museeit in Stockholm–amongst many others.

“I think to pursue mystery and beauty, these things are a bit subjective, so you can't really tell people exactly what it shouldn't be about. And also I have to preserve these things for myself. I primarily make the work for myself, so if I don't have some questions that are unanswered, even for me, then there's not really an interest to like keep going otherwise. So it's also sort of protection and a preservation mindset that I have about leaving things really open for other people and for myself.”

· www.petracortright.com

· Show at Societé in Berlin: BALEAF GYS AKADEMIKS MAAMGIC BROKIG: 
https://societeberlin.com/exhibitions/baleaf-gys-akademiks-maamgic-brokig/

· Show at Foxy production at the beginning of this year: https://www.foxyproduction.com/exhibitions/1756

Photo by Stefan Simchowitz

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

“I think to pursue mystery and beauty, these things are a bit subjective, so you can't really tell people exactly what it shouldn't be about. And also I have to preserve these things for myself. I primarily make the work for myself, so if I don't have some questions that are unanswered, even for me, then there's not really an interest to like keep going otherwise. So it's also sort of protection and a preservation mindset that I have about leaving things really open for other people and for myself.”

Petra Cortright is a Los Angeles-based digital artist known for her elaborate paintings, videography, and digital media. Crafted from massive digital files on Photoshop, her paintings are often composed of physical and digital images, simulated brushstrokes, and marks that blend both abstract and figurative elements. Petra has exhibited at the Walker Art Center, Whitechapel Gallery, and the Hammer Museum, in addition to solo exhibitions around the world. Her work is featured in permanent collections at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Miami’s Péréz Museum, and the Moderna Museeit in Stockholm–amongst many others.

· www.petracortright.com

· Show at Societé in Berlin: BALEAF GYS AKADEMIKS MAAMGIC BROKIG: 
https://societeberlin.com/exhibitions/baleaf-gys-akademiks-maamgic-brokig/

· Show at Foxy production at the beginning of this year: https://www.foxyproduction.com/exhibitions/1756

Petra Cortright

BENGAL TIGER_beurteilungsschreiben Better Homes and Gardens, 2021
Digital painting on anodized aluminum
149.9 x 215.9 x 3 cm
59 1/2 x 85 x 1 1/2 in

· www.creativeprocess.info
· www.oneplanetpodcast.org

Neil Grimmer is Brand President of SOURCE Global, innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel, a renewable technology that uses the sun to transform water vapor in the air to clean, safe and perfectly mineralized drinking water. The Public Benefit Company’s mission is to bring perfect drinking water to every person, every place, and Neil leads its marketing, consumer packaged goods and last-mile water solutions for community, consumer and commercial customers in more than 50 countries.

"I think art is essential to all cultures. We know that, if you go back to the earliest parts in history, artists played a role in culture, and some are directly obvious in how they shape and impact people's lives and others are more peripheral, but I think artists are essential to any society. And even increasingly, when you think about the reflection that an artist can bring at a societal level, even through an idea, a picture, an icon, something that makes people think about the world differently. That in and of itself, I think, is transformative.”

www.source.co

How it Works

www.source.co/team/neil-grimmer

www.oneplanetpodcast.org

www.creativeprocess.info

"I think art is essential to all cultures. We know that, if you go back to the earliest parts in history, artists played a role in culture, and some are directly obvious in how they shape and impact people's lives and others are more peripheral, but I think artists are essential to any society. And even increasingly, when you think about the reflection that an artist can bring at a societal level, even through an idea, a picture, an icon, something that makes people think about the world differently. That in and of itself, I think, is transformative.”

Neil Grimmer is Brand President of SOURCE Global, innovator of the SOURCE Hydropanel, a renewable technology that uses the sun to transform water vapor in the air to clean, safe and perfectly mineralized drinking water. The Public Benefit Company’s mission is to bring perfect drinking water to every person, every place, and Neil leads its marketing, consumer packaged goods and last-mile water solutions for community, consumer and commercial customers in more than 50 countries.

www.source.co

How it Works

www.source.co/team/neil-grimmer

www.oneplanetpodcast.org

www.creativeprocess.info

Designer, author, educator and artist Bruce Mau is a brilliantly creative optimist whose love of thorny problems led him to create a methodology for life-centered design. Across thirty years of design innovation, he’s collaborated with global brands and companies, leading organizations, heads of state, renowned artists and fellow optimists. Mau became an international figure with the publication of his landmark S,M,L,XL, designed and co-authored with Rem Koolhaas, and his most recent books are Mau MC24: Bruce Mau’s 24 Principles for Designing Massive Change in Your Life and Work and, with co-author, Julio Ottino, dean of Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, The Nexus: Augmented Thinking for a Complex World – The New Convergence of Art, Technology, and Science. Mau is co-founder and CEO of Massive Change Network, a holistic design collective based in the Chicago area.

"I'm very, very concerned that we are already in a time of being lost, that a lot of people feel lost, and they feel like the world has kind of moved out from under them, and that they have lost their bearings. They've lost their anchor, and they don't have what it takes to actually navigate.

And in that kind of environment, it's a very rich environment for fascism and for the worst kind of political movement, for the worst kind of political actors to take advantage of that feeling of powerlessness and fear and disconnection. Design is a methodology that is an empowering methodology within a condition of being unmoored.

So when you don't know what to do, design is a methodology of figuring out what to do, and it's why we're doing a project that we call Massive Action, which is to really give people the tools of empowerment to give them the power to design their life because over the coming couple of decades people are going to see a level of turmoil and change that has not happened in human history. The foundation of any culture is energy, and we have to change fundamentally our source of energy, which is going to change everything else. And I really worry that it's going to be a time – and we're already seeing it - it's going to be a time where the forces of autocracy and totalitarianism and fascism will find fertile ground if we don't actually help people navigate those conditions."

www.massivechangenetwork.com

www.Brucemaustudio.com

Mau MC24

The Nexus

Image Courtesy of Massive Change Network

www.creativeprocess.info

www.oneplanetpodcast.org