Born and raised in a lower middle class neighborhood fixed between the Mississippi border, the Memphis city limits and the well off suburbia; Lawrence Matthews’ early life was lived in places, ignored, forgotten and in the liminal interiors of southern family homes and spaces. His life and work exist as an extension of the southern gothic voices with whom he is aligned. He emerges as somewhat of a Morrisonian beloved ghost, a child who desired more. Now, fully grown as a manifestation of his environment’s love and bitterness intertwined.

With a BFA from The University of Memphis and a decade long career exhibiting, performing and working with various arts nonprofits, his work in nearly every area of the arts is an amalgamation of his whole life.

Visually inspired by Parks, Eggleston, and the regionalistic mythology of Paul Thomas Anderson and early Spike Lee; Matthews’ own visuals weave African spirituality with the Christian mythology that permeates the region. While working as a musician he’d create with the rap, soul and alternative rock references he’d come in contact with through his upbringing. His artistic practice highlights the deep relationship between the often maligned spiritual connections Black people have explored for generations, creating a hauntingly familiar but surreal experience.

Born and raised in a lower middle class neighborhood fixed between the Mississippi border, the Memphis city limits and the well off suburbia; Lawrence Matthews’ early life was lived in places, ignored, forgotten and in the liminal interiors of southern family homes and spaces. His life and work exist as an extension of the southern gothic voices with whom he is aligned. He emerges as somewhat of a Morrisonian beloved ghost, a child who desired more. Now, fully grown as a manifestation of his environment’s love and bitterness intertwined.

With a BFA from The University of Memphis and a decade long career exhibiting, performing and working with various arts nonprofits, his work in nearly every area of the arts is an amalgamation of his whole life.

Visually inspired by Parks, Eggleston, and the regionalistic mythology of Paul Thomas Anderson and early Spike Lee; Matthews’ own visuals weave African spirituality with the Christian mythology that permeates the region. While working as a musician he’d create with the rap, soul and alternative rock references he’d come in contact with through his upbringing. His artistic practice highlights the deep relationship between the often maligned spiritual connections Black people have explored for generations, creating a hauntingly familiar but surreal experience.

Born and raised in a lower middle class neighborhood fixed between the Mississippi border, the Memphis city limits and the well off suburbia; Lawrence Matthews’ early life was lived in places, ignored, forgotten and in the liminal interiors of southern family homes and spaces. His life and work exist as an extension of the southern gothic voices with whom he is aligned. He emerges as somewhat of a Morrisonian beloved ghost, a child who desired more. Now, fully grown as a manifestation of his environment’s love and bitterness intertwined.

With a BFA from The University of Memphis and a decade long career exhibiting, performing and working with various arts nonprofits, his work in nearly every area of the arts is an amalgamation of his whole life.

Visually inspired by Parks, Eggleston, and the regionalistic mythology of Paul Thomas Anderson and early Spike Lee; Matthews’ own visuals weave African spirituality with the Christian mythology that permeates the region. While working as a musician he’d create with the rap, soul and alternative rock references he’d come in contact with through his upbringing. His artistic practice highlights the deep relationship between the often maligned spiritual connections Black people have explored for generations, creating a hauntingly familiar but surreal experience.

Patricia Lee Daigle is Chief Curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (MBMA), where she leads the curatorial department and specializes in modern and contemporary art. Prior to this role, she served as MBMA Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art between 2021 and 2025. At MBMA, she has curated numerous exhibitions including Suchitra Mattai: with abundance we meet (2025), Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative (2023), and Tommy Kha: Eye is Another (2023). She has also served as site curator for traveling exhibitions such as Christian Siriano: People Are People (organized by SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film) and Black American Portraits (organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

From 2015-2020, Patricia was Director of The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at The University of Memphis, organizing solo exhibitions featuring the work of Virginia Overton, Jefferson Pinder, Umar Rashid, and others. She has also held curatorial positions at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Patricia has written for numerous exhibition catalogues and other publications. She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a specialization in race and representation in twentieth-century American art.

Patricia Lee Daigle is Chief Curator at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (MBMA), where she leads the curatorial department and specializes in modern and contemporary art. Prior to this role, she served as MBMA Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art between 2021 and 2025. At MBMA, she has curated numerous exhibitions including Suchitra Mattai: with abundance we meet (2025), Harmonia Rosales: Master Narrative (2023), and Tommy Kha: Eye is Another (2023). She has also served as site curator for traveling exhibitions such as Christian Siriano: People Are People (organized by SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film) and Black American Portraits (organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

From 2015-2020, Patricia was Director of The Martha and Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at The University of Memphis, organizing solo exhibitions featuring the work of Virginia Overton, Jefferson Pinder, Umar Rashid, and others. She has also held curatorial positions at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. Patricia has written for numerous exhibition catalogues and other publications. She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a specialization in race and representation in twentieth-century American art.

Tracy Lauritzen Wright is Chief Operating Officer at ARTSmemphis, a Local Arts Agency supporting the arts to strengthen the community.  She administers $3.4M+ in grants to 90 arts organizations and artists annually.  She has 25 years’ experience in museums and cultural organizations, including 14 years at the National Civil Rights Museum.  She served as Executive Director of Delta Axis, a contemporary art and film organization, was a founding board member for Indie Memphis Film Festival and served on the Board of the Tennessee Association of Museums.  Her current focus is on strengthening local communities through the arts, by expanding ARTSmemphis support to more artists and organizations, and connecting community partners with arts organizations.

Tracy Lauritzen Wright is Chief Operating Officer at ARTSmemphis, a Local Arts Agency supporting the arts to strengthen the community.  She administers $3.4M+ in grants to 90 arts organizations and artists annually.  She has 25 years’ experience in museums and cultural organizations, including 14 years at the National Civil Rights Museum.  She served as Executive Director of Delta Axis, a contemporary art and film organization, was a founding board member for Indie Memphis Film Festival and served on the Board of the Tennessee Association of Museums.  Her current focus is on strengthening local communities through the arts, by expanding ARTSmemphis support to more artists and organizations, and connecting community partners with arts organizations.

From Paula Kovarik’s amazing website:

Paula Kovarik creates art with stitch and fabric. Her intuitive line work travels the surface of her work as if a meditation has become solid. Inward thoughts become outwardly apparent through slow and studied attention to detail.

Kovarik’s award-winning fiber art has been recognized by Quilt National, Quilts=Art=Quilts, World of Threads, and FiberArt Now Excellence in Fibers exhibitions. She has been profiled in American CraftandFiberArt Nowmagazines. Her work is featured inArt Quilts Unfolding – 50 Years of InnovationandArt Quilts International Abstract & Geometric.Kovarik shares her ideas and techniques in workshops and in her book,At Play in the Garden of Stitch. Her work has been collected by the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE and the International Airport in Memphis, TN as well as several private collections. Kovarik lives and works in Memphis, TN.

From Niles Wallace’s webiste:

I was born in Western Pennsylvania in 1948.  My serious interest in Art began in high school and extended to college.  I graduated from Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania in 1970 with a degree in Art Education.  At Edinboro I became interested in Ceramics and subsequently attended graduate school at Alfred University, Alfred, NY, where I studied under Val Cushing, Daniel Rhodes, Robert Turner, Ted Randall, and Wayne Higby.  I received my MFA in Ceramics in 1974.  After short teaching stints at The Philadelphia College of Art, and The State University of New York at Albany, I began teaching Ceramics at Memphis State University, which later became The University of Memphis.

For the past fifteen years my work has focused on mixed media sculpture.  Since 2012 I have focused on Stoneware ceramic bowls as paintings. My work has been exhibited nationally and is included in many private and corporate collections.

My parents were divorced when I was quite young and my older sister and I lived with my Mother and my Grandparents. My Grandfather was a barber who never seemed able to adapt to changing hairstyles. He insisted on cutting men’s hair in the 1960’s the same way he did in the 1940’s. Consequently his clientele was dying out and he never made much money.  He was a devout Union man and active Democrat who vehemently railed against inequalities for the workingman.  He was cantankerous and hard to live with. His shop was attached to our house so he was always home. My Grandmother worked at home as a seamstress to make extra money.  She was warm and loving, baked bread once a week, canned vegetables, and always drank one beer before going to bed.  Here I was exposed to the fruits and frustrations of people who worked with their hands.

My Mother worked as a Presbyterian church secretary for over twenty years. Though she often struggled with self-doubt, her faith and her belief in her children seemed to enable her to move ahead.  I now find it amazing that she was able to be the main provider for a family of five on a secretary’s salary, and still send two children to college.  She was a beautiful woman who always looked twenty years younger than her true age.  Though she dated and loved dancing, she never remarried until she was in her seventies. My sister is four years older than I.  She is outgoing, smart, popular, feisty, and was the homecoming queen.   Strong women, the motivation of faith, the ability to work with what was available, and not to waste anything, have been recurring influences in my life and work.

In college I learned that materials have a life of their own.  I became familiar with pottery vessels and the importance of what is inside and not seen.  The object is you, and it is that idea. Concept gives meaning.  We all must believe that things will get better; that we will find what we are looking for, that our dreams have importance, that all things will converge on the horizon.  It is this faith that I try to address as I work.

From Niles Wallace’s webiste:

I was born in Western Pennsylvania in 1948.  My serious interest in Art began in high school and extended to college.  I graduated from Edinboro State University of Pennsylvania in 1970 with a degree in Art Education.  At Edinboro I became interested in Ceramics and subsequently attended graduate school at Alfred University, Alfred, NY, where I studied under Val Cushing, Daniel Rhodes, Robert Turner, Ted Randall, and Wayne Higby.  I received my MFA in Ceramics in 1974.  After short teaching stints at The Philadelphia College of Art, and The State University of New York at Albany, I began teaching Ceramics at Memphis State University, which later became The University of Memphis.

For the past fifteen years my work has focused on mixed media sculpture.  Since 2012 I have focused on Stoneware ceramic bowls as paintings. My work has been exhibited nationally and is included in many private and corporate collections.

My parents were divorced when I was quite young and my older sister and I lived with my Mother and my Grandparents. My Grandfather was a barber who never seemed able to adapt to changing hairstyles. He insisted on cutting men’s hair in the 1960’s the same way he did in the 1940’s. Consequently his clientele was dying out and he never made much money.  He was a devout Union man and active Democrat who vehemently railed against inequalities for the workingman.  He was cantankerous and hard to live with. His shop was attached to our house so he was always home. My Grandmother worked at home as a seamstress to make extra money.  She was warm and loving, baked bread once a week, canned vegetables, and always drank one beer before going to bed.  Here I was exposed to the fruits and frustrations of people who worked with their hands.

My Mother worked as a Presbyterian church secretary for over twenty years. Though she often struggled with self-doubt, her faith and her belief in her children seemed to enable her to move ahead.  I now find it amazing that she was able to be the main provider for a family of five on a secretary’s salary, and still send two children to college.  She was a beautiful woman who always looked twenty years younger than her true age.  Though she dated and loved dancing, she never remarried until she was in her seventies. My sister is four years older than I.  She is outgoing, smart, popular, feisty, and was the homecoming queen.   Strong women, the motivation of faith, the ability to work with what was available, and not to waste anything, have been recurring influences in my life and work.

In college I learned that materials have a life of their own.  I became familiar with pottery vessels and the importance of what is inside and not seen.  The object is you, and it is that idea. Concept gives meaning.  We all must believe that things will get better; that we will find what we are looking for, that our dreams have importance, that all things will converge on the horizon.  It is this faith that I try to address as I work.

Fred Burton is a painter/printmaker born in Diablo Heights, Panama, Central America.

His career began in the 1970s as both a working artist and educator. Travels and various artist residencies have influenced his personal vision and approach to art-making.

Burton distills his life experiences into a visual diary, drawing inspiration from diverse sources including the Book of Kells in Trinity College, Dublin; exploration of the ruins of ancient Carthage in Tunisia;  bird forms experienced on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean; the vastness of the cosmos as well as star charts,  architectural elements, especially particular shapes and spatial arrangements

Burton has exhibited his paintings and prints in  Paris, London, New York City, Chicago, Houston, and Orlando, Florida.

Artist residencies include The Edward Albee Foundation, Montauk, Long Island; The Michael Karolyi Foundation, Vence, France; Altos de Chavon in the Dominican Republic; The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Ireland; Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California; Millay Colony for the Arts, Steepletop, Austerliz, New York; Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forest, Illinois; Woodstock School of Art, Woodstock, New York; The Morris Graves Foundation in Loleta, California and the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont.

Currently Burton is a professor emeritus residing in Memphis, Tennessee.

From the amazing UrbanArt Commission’s Movable Collection site:

Frank D. Robinson Jr. is a Memphis-based visual artist with a primary focus on narratives and the transformation of discarded objects from everyday life, such as packaging, cereal boxes, fast food papers, glass, and keys, into exquisite jewels for his large-scale mixed-media artworks. He holds a BFA from the University of Memphis and a Masters in Painting from the Art Institute of Chicago. His artwork can be found in numerous private collections and is also a part of the collection at the University of Illinois.

Robinson is best known for his Trash to Treasure Portraits, which delve into the beauty of life’s struggles, the ability to turn adversity into positivity, and the overarching theme of caring for humanity. Over the course of two decades, he has faced personal challenges related to diabetes and dialysis, and these experiences have significantly influenced his creative work, incorporating elements from his health journey.

In his efforts to inspire young artists and art teachers, Robinson offers the following advice: “Dream big, use kind words, express love, embrace laughter, and find joy in silliness. Share your talents, remember to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ practice gratitude, lend a helping hand, and always keep your promises. Avoid complaining, be open to new experiences, take moments to breathe, stay composed and carry on, and, most importantly, don’t forget to laugh out loud.”

From Birdcap’s amazing website:

Birdcap is a myth-making muralist and comic artist whose work drifts between folklore and philosophy. With roots in street culture and a mind full of ghosts, he creates poetic narratives about impermanence, rebellion, and the strange joy of continuing on.

From Birdcap’s amazing website:

Birdcap is a myth-making muralist and comic artist whose work drifts between folklore and philosophy. With roots in street culture and a mind full of ghosts, he creates poetic narratives about impermanence, rebellion, and the strange joy of continuing on.

From Paul’s amazing website:

Paul Behnke (b. Memphis, Tenn.) is an American painter whose practice is grounded in contemporary abstraction, with a sustained engagement in chromatic intensity, gestural mark-making, and the formal possibilities of non-objective painting. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the Memphis College of Art.

Behnke’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in New York City, Philadelphia, Heidelberg, Saint Augustine, and Memphis, and included in numerous curated group exhibitions in San Francisco, Honolulu, London, Dublin, Glasgow, Paphos, the Netherlands, Cernay-lès-Reims, and New York. His paintings have garnered critical attention in publications such as Hyperallergic Weekend, The New Criterion, and The New Republic, where his work has been situated within ongoing discourses around abstraction and contemporary painterly practice.

In addition to his studio output, Behnke contributes to the field as a writer and editor. His essays and critical reflections have appeared in AbCrit: A Forum for Debate on Abstract Art, Painters’ Table, Gamut, and No. Magazine. He served as co-editor of Shad Runn, an independent art zine based in Memphis, and has maintained Structure and Imagery, a blog dedicated to contemporary painting and visual culture, since 2011. From 2015 to 2017, he co-directed Stout Projects, an artist-run exhibition initiative in Bushwick, Brooklyn, focused on emerging and mid-career artists.

Following a three-year residency in Taos, New Mexico, Behnke currently lives and maintains a studio practice in Memphis, Tennessee.

From Paul’s amazing website:

Paul Behnke (b. Memphis, Tenn.) is an American painter whose practice is grounded in contemporary abstraction, with a sustained engagement in chromatic intensity, gestural mark-making, and the formal possibilities of non-objective painting. He holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the Memphis College of Art.

Behnke’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in New York City, Philadelphia, Heidelberg, Saint Augustine, and Memphis, and included in numerous curated group exhibitions in San Francisco, Honolulu, London, Dublin, Glasgow, Paphos, the Netherlands, Cernay-lès-Reims, and New York. His paintings have garnered critical attention in publications such as Hyperallergic Weekend, The New Criterion, and The New Republic, where his work has been situated within ongoing discourses around abstraction and contemporary painterly practice.

In addition to his studio output, Behnke contributes to the field as a writer and editor. His essays and critical reflections have appeared in AbCrit: A Forum for Debate on Abstract Art, Painters’ Table, Gamut, and No. Magazine. He served as co-editor of Shad Runn, an independent art zine based in Memphis, and has maintained Structure and Imagery, a blog dedicated to contemporary painting and visual culture, since 2011. From 2015 to 2017, he co-directed Stout Projects, an artist-run exhibition initiative in Bushwick, Brooklyn, focused on emerging and mid-career artists.

Following a three-year residency in Taos, New Mexico, Behnke currently lives and maintains a studio practice in Memphis, Tennessee.

Don Estes is known for harmonious, dimensional abstractions of the landscape of the American South. He focuses on geological formations, river bluffs, coastlines, and horizons- places where water, land, and light interact and change through the passage of time. In a range of intensities and textures, he layers dry pigment, pastel, and gesso in horizontal and vertical bands, narrow stripes, wide blocks, and translucent washes onto raw canvas or panel. His works share the same dualities and subtle complexities of the environments he interprets: solid yet temporal, monumental yet vulnerable, present and grounded yet untethered. Like fossils, they reveal hidden dimensions and histories through their shape, form, and texture.

Don Estes received his BFA and MFA from the University of Memphis. Estes has participated in exhibitions in Boston, New York, Nashville, Austin, and Amsterdam. He was an original founder of Number: A Quarterly of the Visual Arts, as well as a pioneer of the South Main Arts District. His Second Floor Contemporary Gallery (1999-2005) was an important non-commercial art space for new work by regional and national artists.

Don Estes is known for harmonious, dimensional abstractions of the landscape of the American South. He focuses on geological formations, river bluffs, coastlines, and horizons- places where water, land, and light interact and change through the passage of time. In a range of intensities and textures, he layers dry pigment, pastel, and gesso in horizontal and vertical bands, narrow stripes, wide blocks, and translucent washes onto raw canvas or panel. His works share the same dualities and subtle complexities of the environments he interprets: solid yet temporal, monumental yet vulnerable, present and grounded yet untethered. Like fossils, they reveal hidden dimensions and histories through their shape, form, and texture.

Don Estes received his BFA and MFA from the University of Memphis. Estes has participated in exhibitions in Boston, New York, Nashville, Austin, and Amsterdam. He was an original founder of Number: A Quarterly of the Visual Arts, as well as a pioneer of the South Main Arts District. His Second Floor Contemporary Gallery (1999-2005) was an important non-commercial art space for new work by regional and national artists.

From a text message from Tom Lee after I asked for a brief bio:

“born somewhere in texas, i ain’t sayin, moved a bit with preacher dad, sweetest mom, too many sibs to admit to, some strangers to me and mine, texas education, say what you will, understand you’re being a skeptic, i do, higher ed tho, land of grizzlies, bozeman and all, lotta nice and smart folks, artists all, highest ed, the old miss, ha! tolerable, took me where i went, mca, a haven and heaven to who i am deep, no longer tho, still lying and talking shit to friends unwilling to say ‘enough, bob’ (got called bob a lot, wtf), miss all the ones i grew to treasure, some the ones i thought i wouldn’t, i keep sayin, “i don’t wanna die in mississippi”, but here i be until i ent…

art forever, honeys, and goodnite.”

From a text message from Tom Lee after I asked for a brief bio:

“born somewhere in texas, i ain’t sayin, moved a bit with preacher dad, sweetest mom, too many sibs to admit to, some strangers to me and mine, texas education, say what you will, understand you’re being a skeptic, i do, higher ed tho, land of grizzlies, bozeman and all, lotta nice and smart folks, artists all, highest ed, the old miss, ha! tolerable, took me where i went, mca, a haven and heaven to who i am deep, no longer tho, still lying and talking shit to friends unwilling to say ‘enough, bob’ (got called bob a lot, wtf), miss all the ones i grew to treasure, some the ones i thought i wouldn’t, i keep sayin, “i don’t wanna die in mississippi”, but here i be until i ent…

art forever, honeys, and goodnite.”

From a text message from Tom Lee after I asked for a brief bio:

“born somewhere in texas, i ain’t sayin, moved a bit with preacher dad, sweetest mom, too many sibs to admit to, some strangers to me and mine, texas education, say what you will, understand you’re being a skeptic, i do, higher ed tho, land of grizzlies, bozeman and all, lotta nice and smart folks, artists all, highest ed, the old miss, ha! tolerable, took me where i went, mca, a haven and heaven to who i am deep, no longer tho, still lying and talking shit to friends unwilling to say ‘enough, bob’ (got called bob a lot, wtf), miss all the ones i grew to treasure, some the ones i thought i wouldn’t, i keep sayin, “i don’t wanna die in mississippi”, but here i be until i ent…

art forever, honeys, and goodnite.”

Brittney Boyd Bullock is a visual artist living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. As an artist working in fiber, mixed media, and abstraction, her practice explores the power and connection felt when we slow down to reimagine and reframe the observable world. Outside of her studio practice, she is a non-profit arts consultant, educator, and arts advocate. She has been awarded grants and fellowships for her work as an artist working in communities, including the Americans for the Arts Public Art Scholarship and Robert E. Gard Award, The Kresge Foundation, and the Assisi Foundation. In 2022, she was awarded the Crosstown Arts artist residency and was a recipient of the 2022 Current Art Fund grant from Tri-Star Arts.

Boyd Bullock describes creativity as a “conduit for our well-being” and a bridge that connects us to the voices of artists and people from the past. She invites us all to sit in a place of inquiry and redefine how, why, and for what purposes we create.

Brittney Boyd Bullock is a visual artist living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. As an artist working in fiber, mixed media, and abstraction, her practice explores the power and connection felt when we slow down to reimagine and reframe the observable world. Outside of her studio practice, she is a non-profit arts consultant, educator, and arts advocate. She has been awarded grants and fellowships for her work as an artist working in communities, including the Americans for the Arts Public Art Scholarship and Robert E. Gard Award, The Kresge Foundation, and the Assisi Foundation. In 2022, she was awarded the Crosstown Arts artist residency and was a recipient of the 2022 Current Art Fund grant from Tri-Star Arts.

Boyd Bullock describes creativity as a “conduit for our well-being” and a bridge that connects us to the voices of artists and people from the past. She invites us all to sit in a place of inquiry and redefine how, why, and for what purposes we create.

Brittney Boyd Bullock is a visual artist living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. As an artist working in fiber, mixed media, and abstraction, her practice explores the power and connection felt when we slow down to reimagine and reframe the observable world. Outside of her studio practice, she is a non-profit arts consultant, educator, and arts advocate. She has been awarded grants and fellowships for her work as an artist working in communities, including the Americans for the Arts Public Art Scholarship and Robert E. Gard Award, The Kresge Foundation, and the Assisi Foundation. In 2022, she was awarded the Crosstown Arts artist residency and was a recipient of the 2022 Current Art Fund grant from Tri-Star Arts.

Boyd Bullock describes creativity as a “conduit for our well-being” and a bridge that connects us to the voices of artists and people from the past. She invites us all to sit in a place of inquiry and redefine how, why, and for what purposes we create.

Nancy Cheairs is a Memphis-based American  painter known for creating symbolic, luminous works inspired by nature, folk art, and literature. She holds a BFA from the Memphis College of Art and an MFA from the University of Memphis.  She founded Flicker Street Studio, an art school in Memphis, Tn. in 2010.   Nancy  has exhibited extensively in the U.S., with her work in numerous collections, including the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Tennessee State Museum.

Nancy Cheairs is a Memphis-based American  painter known for creating symbolic, luminous works inspired by nature, folk art, and literature. She holds a BFA from the Memphis College of Art and an MFA from the University of Memphis.  She founded Flicker Street Studio, an art school in Memphis, Tn. in 2010.   Nancy  has exhibited extensively in the U.S., with her work in numerous collections, including the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Tennessee State Museum.

Fredric Koeppel was the art writer and reviewer for The Commercial Appeal newspaper from 1987 to 2017. He also wrote about restaurants, books and classical music recordings. He has had poems, stories and novel excerpts published in a variety of literary journals. He writes the wine review website biggerthanyourhead.substack.com.

Fredric Koeppel was the art writer and reviewer for The Commercial Appeal newspaper from 1987 to 2017. He also wrote about restaurants, books and classical music recordings. He has had poems, stories and novel excerpts published in a variety of literary journals. He writes the wine review website biggerthanyourhead.substack.com.

Lauren Kennedy grew up in Little Rock, then suburban Dallas, then came to study at Rhodes College where she graduated with a degree in Art History in 2008.  She returned to Dallas to work at the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Art Fair.  Kennedy returned to Memphis to work for Ballet Memphis and she ran South Fork, an alternative art space that showed dozens of local and national artists.  She became the director of the UrbanArt Commission in 2015 where she oversaw and facilitated great growth in the organization for over eight years, including the massive expansion of the Memphis International Airport.  She founded the vibrant and award winning Sheet Cake Gallery in 2024.

This is the first of what we hope to be many, many conversations with Lauren Kennedy.  For now though, this is the only one in the series.

From the artist’s website:

Mary K VanGieson is an artist, educator, storyteller and sometime writer.  She received my BAE from Oklahoma State University and her MFA from the University of Memphis. She discovered early on that educating high school people in the visual arts is a completely rewarding career.

Her work delves into themes of Cover, Cloak, Shadow, Loss and Erosion.  The practice encompasses drawing, painting, book arts, printmaking and alternative media sculpture and has been exhibited throughout the United States.

“I am what I have learned. I remember to light the candles. I never regret. If the horse dies I get off. I don’t postpone joy. I know that grief lasts forever, and that life should abrade.”

VanGieson lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee

In this episode I mention Mary Oliver’s appearance on On Being.

From the artist’s website:

Mary K VanGieson is an artist, educator, storyteller and sometime writer.  She received my BAE from Oklahoma State University and her MFA from the University of Memphis. She discovered early on that educating high school people in the visual arts is a completely rewarding career.

Her work delves into themes of Cover, Cloak, Shadow, Loss and Erosion.  The practice encompasses drawing, painting, book arts, printmaking and alternative media sculpture and has been exhibited throughout the United States.

“I am what I have learned. I remember to light the candles. I never regret. If the horse dies I get off. I don’t postpone joy. I know that grief lasts forever, and that life should abrade.”

VanGieson lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee

Coe Lapossy is an interdisciplinary visual artist educator committed to collaboration.

Lapossy centers erased histories and marginalized labor. Revisiting artifacts —things forgotten, messages that ‘flew under the radar’. The resulting work is a meditation on what bodies we value, how we memorialize, and what/who survives under the conditions we create.

Lapossy (b. 1980, Medina, OH) has created site-specific works for Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Clough-Hanson Gallery (Rhodes College), Track 16 Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) Dimensions Variable (Miami, FL), Elsewhere Living Museum (Greensboro, NC), the Howard Art Project (Boston, MA), and The Boston Center for Arts.

Dr. Lisa M. Williamson is a writer and artist in Memphis, TN. She received her MFA in painting from the Memphis College of Art and her PhD in aesthetic theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

Williamson’s practice begins with observations of psychological time-keeping, and responds with immediacy to the urgency of the contemporary moment. Upon returning from the Arctic Circle Residency, her work shifted to focus on the collective anger and grief she experienced while studying the climate crisis.

As a Professor of Practice at the University of Memphis, Williamson teaches both undergrad and grad students. She is also a co-founder of Shapeshifter Art School and Gallery, scheduled to begin hosting art classes in January 2026.

Dr. Lisa M. Williamson is a writer and artist in Memphis, TN. She received her MFA in painting from the Memphis College of Art and her PhD in aesthetic theory from the Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts.

Williamson’s practice begins with observations of psychological time-keeping, and responds with immediacy to the urgency of the contemporary moment. Upon returning from the Arctic Circle Residency, her work shifted to focus on the collective anger and grief she experienced while studying the climate crisis.

As a Professor of Practice at the University of Memphis, Williamson teaches both undergrad and grad students. She is also a co-founder of Shapeshifter Art School and Gallery, scheduled to begin hosting art classes in January 2026.

Lester Julian Merriweather (b.1978) is a Memphis-based visual artist. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He holds an MFA from Memphis College of Art and a BA from Jackson State University.

Merriweather has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. at various venues such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, CAM St. Louis, TOPS Gallery, CrosstownArts and Powerhouse Memphis, Diverseworks in Houston, Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, and the Atlanta Contemporary. He has also exhibited internationally at the Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland.

Merriweather served as the first Curatorial Director of the Jones Gallery & the Martha & Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Memphis from 2010-2016. He worked on the Board of Directors for Number, Inc. independent journal where he created the Art of the South Exhibition Series.

He is a founding member of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council and the artsAccelerator Grant Panel. Merriweather served as the Curatorial Consultant for the PPF Contemporary Art Collection in Memphis, Tennessee.

Merriweather most recently participated in Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage. Originating at The Frist Art Museum, the exhibition travels to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston & The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Lester Julian Merriweather (b.1978) is a Memphis-based visual artist. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He holds an MFA from Memphis College of Art and a BA from Jackson State University.

Merriweather has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. at various venues such as the Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, CAM St. Louis, TOPS Gallery, CrosstownArts and Powerhouse Memphis, Diverseworks in Houston, Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, and the Atlanta Contemporary. He has also exhibited internationally at the Zacheta National Gallery in Warsaw, Poland.

Merriweather served as the first Curatorial Director of the Jones Gallery & the Martha & Robert Fogelman Galleries of Contemporary Art at the University of Memphis from 2010-2016. He worked on the Board of Directors for Number, Inc. independent journal where he created the Art of the South Exhibition Series.

He is a founding member of the ArtsMemphis Artist Advisory Council and the artsAccelerator Grant Panel. Merriweather served as the Curatorial Consultant for the PPF Contemporary Art Collection in Memphis, Tennessee.

Merriweather most recently participated in Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage. Originating at The Frist Art Museum, the exhibition travels to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston & The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Terri Jones lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee. She received her BFA from Atlanta College of Art, Georgia in 1985.  In 1992, she was awarded a Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award for Works on Paper. In the summer of 2004, Power House, a DeltaAxis initiative, in Memphis asked Terri to respond to their landmark building.  For that exhibition, Drawing A Line 1993-2004, Jones’ response included planting red zinnias and melting red wax in four installations created specifically for the space(s) as well as an exhibition of ten years of work. Since 1993 Jones has lived and worked in that same area, the South Main Historical District–bordered by the Lorraine Motel and the Mississippi River. Today, her work continues to address the objecthood of drawing through her multi-disciplinary approach to art-making and site-specific installations.

Terri Jones lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee. She received her BFA from Atlanta College of Art, Georgia in 1985.  In 1992, she was awarded a Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award for Works on Paper. In the summer of 2004, Power House, a DeltaAxis initiative, in Memphis asked Terri to respond to their landmark building.  For that exhibition, Drawing A Line 1993-2004, Jones’ response included planting red zinnias and melting red wax in four installations created specifically for the space(s) as well as an exhibition of ten years of work. Since 1993 Jones has lived and worked in that same area, the South Main Historical District–bordered by the Lorraine Motel and the Mississippi River. Today, her work continues to address the objecthood of drawing through her multi-disciplinary approach to art-making and site-specific installations.

From the Dixon Gallery and Gardens website about her amazing show there in 2023.  Jeanne Seagle’s perceptive drawings portray the landscapes surrounding Memphis with a remarkable precision. Delicately rendering the trees and swamps of Dacus Lake along the Mississippi River, Seagle captures the subtle effects of light and atmosphere on the varied textures of the natural world. A longtime Memphis resident and graduate of Memphis College of Art, Seagle’s oeuvre includes public art projects for LeBonheur Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as well as illustrations for the Memphis Flyer.

In Of This Place, Seagle turns a careful eye to her surroundings. The works in this exhibition reflect significant time spent observing the landscape. Seagle draws from photographs that she takes during camping trips in nearby Arkansas, depicting the wilderness of the Mid-South. Back in her Cooper-Young studio, Seagle painstakingly translates her photographs and sketches into large-scale, photorealistic drawings. Depicting scenery that is only a twenty-minute drive from downtown Memphis, yet seemingly a world away, these detailed charcoal drawings celebrate the natural forms of our own community.

From the Dixon Gallery and Gardens website about her amazing show there in 2023.  Jeanne Seagle’s perceptive drawings portray the landscapes surrounding Memphis with a remarkable precision. Delicately rendering the trees and swamps of Dacus Lake along the Mississippi River, Seagle captures the subtle effects of light and atmosphere on the varied textures of the natural world. A longtime Memphis resident and graduate of Memphis College of Art, Seagle’s oeuvre includes public art projects for LeBonheur Children’s Hospital and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as well as illustrations for the Memphis Flyer.

In Of This Place, Seagle turns a careful eye to her surroundings. The works in this exhibition reflect significant time spent observing the landscape. Seagle draws from photographs that she takes during camping trips in nearby Arkansas, depicting the wilderness of the Mid-South. Back in her Cooper-Young studio, Seagle painstakingly translates her photographs and sketches into large-scale, photorealistic drawings. Depicting scenery that is only a twenty-minute drive from downtown Memphis, yet seemingly a world away, these detailed charcoal drawings celebrate the natural forms of our own community.

Melissa Dunn’s studio is in her house in Memphis, Tennessee, where she was born and has lived most of her life.  She spent her early years immersed in the city’s music scene, splitting her time between playing with bands and making visual art.  Her abstract-based work is the landing pad where stream of consciousness and the world meet, telling stories that shapes and color carry, either over a lifetime or through a passing thought.  She has exhibited her work extensively over the last twenty-five years and is a teaching artist with a focus on continuing art education for adults.  She shows her work at Sheetcake Gallery and is a cofounder of Shapeshifter Art School and Gallery

Melissa Dunn’s studio is in her house in Memphis, Tennessee, where she was born and has lived most of her life.  She spent her early years immersed in the city’s music scene, splitting her time between playing with bands and making visual art.  Her abstract-based work is the landing pad where stream of consciousness and the world meet, telling stories that shapes and color carry, either over a lifetime or through a passing thought.  She has exhibited her work extensively over the last twenty-five years and is a teaching artist with a focus on continuing art education for adults.  She shows her work at Sheetcake Gallery and is a cofounder of Shapeshifter Art School and Gallery

This interview with Jamie Harmon was recorded on March 1, 2024.

From his amazing Amurica website:

“I use photography and found objects to tell stories and give glimpses into individuals’ characters and their responses to each other and to their environments. In this way, I consider myself a sort of “visual anthropologist,” making observations in communities by driving around, meeting people, listening to their stories and collaborating intellectually on how to use my media as a platform for revealing a type of truth.

“It’s a human-driven approach, for which sometimes the art can be one solution to a problem—a shared emotion caught in a photograph can profoundly impact a viewer and a community. I like to create a feeling of frankness in my photos—a sense of authenticity even in surreal settings or playfully staged drama.

“I don’t like labels, so I’ve never really called myself an artist; it’s possible I have an oppositional reflex – but I often consider the quote, “Talent is hitting a mark no-one else can hit. Genius is hitting a mark that no-one else can see.” I am by no means a genius, but that quote always struck me as a tool to understand others and how to challenge myself.”

This interview with Jamie Harmon was recorded on February 10, 2024.

From his amazing Amurica website:

“I use photography and found objects to tell stories and give glimpses into individuals’ characters and their responses to each other and to their environments. In this way, I consider myself a sort of “visual anthropologist,” making observations in communities by driving around, meeting people, listening to their stories and collaborating intellectually on how to use my media as a platform for revealing a type of truth.

“It’s a human-driven approach, for which sometimes the art can be one solution to a problem—a shared emotion caught in a photograph can profoundly impact a viewer and a community. I like to create a feeling of frankness in my photos—a sense of authenticity even in surreal settings or playfully staged drama.

“I don’t like labels, so I’ve never really called myself an artist; it’s possible I have an oppositional reflex – but I often consider the quote, “Talent is hitting a mark no-one else can hit. Genius is hitting a mark that no-one else can see.” I am by no means a genius, but that quote always struck me as a tool to understand others and how to challenge myself.”

This interview with Carl Moore was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab on February 5, 2023.

The artist Carl E. Moore lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.  He recieved both his BFA and MFA from the Memphis College of Art.

Moore is the recipient of the Emmett O’Ryan Award for Artistic Inspiration and the Tennessee Artist Fellowship award from the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts. He has exhibited in various galleries and museums in and around the Memphis area and around the country.  Additionally Moore has curated and organized numerous exhibitions in small galleries, non-profits, alternative and independent spaces, as well as served as juror for local and national exhibitions.

Moore’s work explores everyday narratives through color and identity, by comparing ideologies about race and stereotypes to everyday perception of social and environmental culture. He uses media-based events as the primary theme of his work, by taking situations and reducing them down to their most basic conversation. He also use color and content to redefine the social connection between people and their environment, by making color part of the compositional statement.

This interview with Carl Moore was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab on January 15, 2023.

The artist Carl E. Moore lives and works in Memphis, Tennessee.  He recieved both his BFA and MFA from the Memphis College of Art.

Moore is the recipient of the Emmett O’Ryan Award for Artistic Inspiration and the Tennessee Artist Fellowship award from the Center of Excellence for the Creative Arts. He has exhibited in various galleries and museums in and around the Memphis area and around the country.  Additionally Moore has curated and organized numerous exhibitions in small galleries, non-profits, alternative and independent spaces, as well as served as juror for local and national exhibitions.

Moore’s work explores everyday narratives through color and identity, by comparing ideologies about race and stereotypes to everyday perception of social and environmental culture. He uses media-based events as the primary theme of his work, by taking situations and reducing them down to their most basic conversation. He also use color and content to redefine the social connection between people and their environment, by making color part of the compositional statement.

This interview with Carol DeForest was recorded on February 21, 2025

From her ceramic studio to her large scale public art projects, private commissions, teaching, interior design business and exhibitions of her sculpture, Carol DeForest has been a force in the Memphis art community for the last 30 years. She has also been a nurturing spirit to artists and art lover alike. Her shrewd and unfailing art and design knowledge, taste and appreciation have acted as a guide to many. DeForest works from a studio connected to a 170-year-old home in midtown Memphis which she shares with her husband and assortment of dogs.

From her ceramic studio to her large scale public art projects, private commissions, teaching, interior design business and exhibitions of her sculpture, Carol DeForest has been a force in the Memphis art community for the last 30 years. She has also been a nurturing spirit to artists and art lover alike. Her shrewd and unfailing art and design knowledge, taste and appreciation have acted as a guide to many. DeForest works from a studio connected to a 170-year-old home in midtown Memphis which she shares with her husband and assortment of dogs.

This interview with Carol DeForest was recorded on January 10, 2023.

From her ceramic studio to her large scale public art projects, private commissions, teaching, interior design business and exhibitions of her sculpture, Carol DeForest has been a force in the Memphis art community for the last 30 years. She has also been a nurturing spirit to artists and art lover alike. Her shrewd and unfailing art and design knowledge, taste and appreciation have acted as a guide to many. DeForest works from a studio connected to a 170-year-old home in midtown Memphis which she shares with her husband and assortment of dogs.

This interview with the potter Agnes Stark was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on August 3, 2022.

Agnes Gordon Stark is a studio potter creating functional and decorative stoneware. Her strong design and glaze technique combine to produce work that is widely recognized for its appealing originality. The stoneware has all of the safeguards necessary for kitchen use.

A native of Baltimore, Agnes received a BFA degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She studied pottery at the Memphis College of Art and also at Louisiana State University and under Michael Cardew at Arrowmont School of Crafts. She established her own studio in 1970.

Her work is sold to shops and galleries all over the country. Agnes creates an interesting variety of pieces which have been exhibited at The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the American Crafts Council Show in Dallas, the Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge, and the Governor’s Mansion in Nashville. She is continually expanding her knowledge and abilities in her field and is active in preserving and extending the craft movement. 

Agnes came to Memphis to work at Front ST Theatre under George  Touliatos – She designed  the scenery for OH DAD, POOR DAD SOMEONE HUNG YOU IN THE CLOSET and MAJOR BARBARA!! 

She lives and works in Eads, Tennessee.

This interview with Maritza Davilla was recorded on April 1, 2025.

Maritza Dávila is owner and director of Atabeira Press and Professor Emeritus of the Memphis College of Art where she taught printmaking and drawing from 1982 to 2018 and at the University of Memphis as an adjunct professor.

She is currently teaching with Creative Aging of Memphis providing art workshops for the senior community as well as workshops for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in various areas including bookbinding and printmaking.  Dávila has exhibited around the world and has works in collections in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia. Those include the National Library in Madrid, Spain; the National Library of Paris, France; Taller ACE of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museum of Art and History at the University of Puerto Rico; the Memphis International Airport Art Collection; and the National Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.  Dávila was involved in the Mobility Project mural in Memphis in 2023, and has collaborated with American poet Kay Lindsey and visual artist Indrani Nayar Gall from India on various art projects. She was also a visiting artist at the University of Bilbao, Spain in 2011 and the School of Fine Arts of the Institute of Culture of Puerto Rico among others. Residencies include Taller ACE in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2011 and 2018) and Illinois State University’s Normal Editions (2016). In furtherance of her art and research, Dávila has travelled to Spain, France, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, South America, Mexico and Japan. Among the awards given for her work and to pursue artistic projects are the Emmett O’Ryan Award for Artistic Excellence finalist (2017 and 2023); the UrbanArt Commission “Bridging the Distance” video project purchase award in collaboration with Jon W. Sparks (2020); Accelerator Award from Arts Memphis (2018); Fogelman Faculty enrichment award (2016-2018); and the Panton Award (2014-2018). Other awards include the Juror’s Special Mention in the Pressed and Pulled Exhibit, Georgia (1997); Prix de Dessin et Gravure, Salon International du Val d’Or a laSalle Des Fetes d’Orval, France (1996); Screen Printing Association International Mentor Award (1993).  A long-time participant in community activities, Dávila has been involved as a committee member with Works of Hearts benefiting the Memphis Child Advocacy Center; was a board member of Latino Memphis 2002-2009; and served as a member of the Fine Arts Committee of Centro Cultural Latino in Memphis 2010-2013. She also was a mentor during several Southern Graphics International Conferences in New Orleans; Portland, Oregon; St Louis; Las Vegas; and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

This interview with Maritza Davilla was recorded on June 27, 2022.

Maritza Dávila is owner and director of Atabeira Press and Professor Emeritus of the Memphis College of Art where she taught printmaking and drawing from 1982 to 2018 and at the University of Memphis as an adjunct professor.

She is currently teaching with Creative Aging of Memphis providing art workshops for the senior community as well as workshops for the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in various areas including bookbinding and printmaking.  Dávila has exhibited around the world and has works in collections in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean and Asia. Those include the National Library in Madrid, Spain; the National Library of Paris, France; Taller ACE of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museum of Art and History at the University of Puerto Rico; the Memphis International Airport Art Collection; and the National Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.  Dávila was involved in the Mobility Project mural in Memphis in 2023, and has collaborated with American poet Kay Lindsey and visual artist Indrani Nayar Gall from India on various art projects. She was also a visiting artist at the University of Bilbao, Spain in 2011 and the School of Fine Arts of the Institute of Culture of Puerto Rico among others. Residencies include Taller ACE in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2011 and 2018) and Illinois State University’s Normal Editions (2016). In furtherance of her art and research, Dávila has travelled to Spain, France, Poland, Italy, the United Kingdom, South America, Mexico and Japan. Among the awards given for her work and to pursue artistic projects are the Emmett O’Ryan Award for Artistic Excellence finalist (2017 and 2023); the UrbanArt Commission “Bridging the Distance” video project purchase award in collaboration with Jon W. Sparks (2020); Accelerator Award from Arts Memphis (2018); Fogelman Faculty enrichment award (2016-2018); and the Panton Award (2014-2018). Other awards include the Juror’s Special Mention in the Pressed and Pulled Exhibit, Georgia (1997); Prix de Dessin et Gravure, Salon International du Val d’Or a laSalle Des Fetes d’Orval, France (1996); Screen Printing Association International Mentor Award (1993).  A long-time participant in community activities, Dávila has been involved as a committee member with Works of Hearts benefiting the Memphis Child Advocacy Center; was a board member of Latino Memphis 2002-2009; and served as a member of the Fine Arts Committee of Centro Cultural Latino in Memphis 2010-2013. She also was a mentor during several Southern Graphics International Conferences in New Orleans; Portland, Oregon; St Louis; Las Vegas; and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

This interview with Cory Dugan was recorded on July 14, 2022.

Cory Dugan has been told that he began drawing at a very early age, a mere babe at his mother’s side on the pew in a Southern Baptist church, scrawling savantishly detailed portraits on the church bulletin… no doubt in an attempt to divert his childish imagination away from the even more childish biblical imaginings of the minister and his unimaginative sheeplike flock. Dugan was henceforth excommunicated and exiled to the hellish netherworld of scribblers who are condemned to draw and/or otherwise document their fevered truth-like hallucinations.

In early adulthood, he managed to foist his drawings, paintings, and other less-than-tangible artistic efforts on unsuspecting publics, earning a BFA from the University of Memphis and actively exhibiting these efforts during the latter decades of the previous century at various established/alternative/guerrilla galleries (most of which are now historical curiosities) including:

• Trix Gallery (which was located at the corner of Cooper and Young where Margaritas Mexican restaurant currently resides)
• Brad McMillan Gallery (which was located on Front Street on the second floor of one of those former cotton warehouse buildings that is most likely an expensive condo today)
• Turner Clark Gallery (which was located in the former site of the main Memphis Public Library at Peabody and McLean; its actual geographic location is probably where someone’s garage or master bath is now)
• Memphis Center for Contemporary Art (which was located on South Main Street in the current home of Dugan’s friend [and fellow artist] Terri Jones)
• Art Museum at the University of Memphis (which is still located in the same place it’s always been)
• Various temporary spaces, mostly downtown, in guerrilla exhibits put together by a variety of curators (including himself)

During this same time period, Dugan was actively involved in attempting to revitalize art journalism in Memphis and the Mid-South area. In 1987, he was among the creators of the regional arts journal Number: and served as its founding editor until 1991. He was approached by the fledgling Memphis Flyer in 1989 to become part of the original editorial staff as its art critic, a position which he held off-and-on into the early years of the current century. His writings about art have also appeared over the years locally in The Commercial Appeal and Memphis magazine, and nationally in publications such as Art News, Sculpture, Art Papers, and New Art Examiner.

For almost a decade (2004-2013), Dugan neither exhibited his artwork nor published his opinion, and most cognizant souls gratefully accepted his apparent demise as logical and justified and probably past-due. In 2013, he came out of hiding and exhibited some of his new scribblings at Material Gallery and Crosstown Arts. An exhibition of works from his series entitled Hapax Legomena was shown at the Beverly & Sam Ross Gallery at Christian Brothers University in 2016. And work from his 1990 solo exhibition at the Memphis Center for Contemporary Art was included in the retrospective exhibition entitled “Catalyst: McGowan/MCCA/Number/South Main” at the Art Museum at University of Memphis in 2019-2020. Since that time, he has continued to create artwork, much of it only in his head but some also in his continuing Hapax and Counters series.

Laurie Nye (b. 1972, Memphis, Tennessee) received her BFA from the Memphis College of Art, (1995, Memphis, Tenn.), and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2002, Valencia, California). Nye’s work was the subject of a recent solo exhibition “My River Runs to Thee,” at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, California). Her solo exhibition, “It Wasn’t A Dream It Was A Flood,” at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, California) was an Artforum Best of Year 2021 feature. Nye’s group shows include, “A Particular Kind of Heaven,” Parrasch Heijnen (Los Angeles, California); “The Moth & The Thunderclap,” Stuart Shave Modern Art (London, UK, 2023); “Encounter,” Rachel Uffner (New York, New York, 2022); “BodyLand,” Galerie Max Hetzler (Berlin, Germany, 2022); and “Unnatural Nature: Post-Pop Landscapes,” Acquavella (New York, New York, 2022). Laurie Nye’s artist project, “Chickasaw Moon,” at Odd Ark (Los Angeles, California) was an Artforum Critic’s Pick. Laurie Nye’s work has recently been the subject of solo and group exhibitions at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, California); Rachel Uffner (New York, New York); Bozomag (Los Angeles); Van Doren Waxter (New York, New Yorl); Harper’s (Hamptons); Bark Berlin Gallery (Berlin, Germany); The Pit (Glendale, California), Blake and Vargas, (Berlin, Germany); Day and Night Gallery (Atlanta, Georgia). Nye has work in the OZ Art Northwest Arkansas, (Bentonville, Arkansas) collection. Her work has been reviewed in such publications as Artillery, Los Angeles Times, Artforum (Print), FAD Magazine and LA Weekly. Nye splits her time between Los Angeles, California where she lives and works and her hometown Memphis, Tennessee.

This interview with Dr. Earnestine Jenkins was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on July 6, 2022.

Dr. Earnestine Lovelle Jenkins is an Full Professor of Art History in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Memphis, where her scholarship focuses on the visual cultural history of the African Diaspora. The objectives of her research, publications and teaching supports scholarly arts education in the growing area of African American and African Diaspora art histories. Dr. Jenkins was named among the top five Black women to know in the art world by Forbes magazine (October 2020).

Dr. Jenkins is interested in the centuries of exchange throughout the African Diaspora across regions, cultures, and histories. Having trained in the fine arts, art history, and history my methods-theories of analysis are comparative and interdisciplinary. Specific research Interests encompass American art & culture; researching African American artist of the 20^th century; 19^th and 20^th century African American photography and photographic culture; the relationship between the arts-politics-leadership, including 19th – early 20th century Ethiopia, and Black visual culture studies of the urban south.

Dr. Jenkins received her BFA in Painting from Spelman College in 1979. Later she went on to receive her PhD in History from Michigan State University in 1997.  Her secondary areas of study include West African History, African Art History, African American History, Comparative Black/African Diaspora Studies, and Gender Studies.

Her many recent publications include “Reckoning with Nobosodru Mangbetu Woman: Chronicling Black Women’s Histories in Carrie Mae Weems’ From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,” in the book Black Artists in America that she edited for Dixon Galleries and Gardens in association with Yale University Press, to be released in 2026 and the Afterword in Douglass Family Lives: The Anna Murray and Frederick Douglass Family Collected Works and Biography Books 1-6,  (Edinburgh University Press) as well as Douglass Family Lives: An Anthology, (Edinburgh University Press and Duke University Press), editor, Celeste Bernier, 2025.  Additionally she wrote  “The American Negro Artist Looks at Africa: The Art Historian James A. Porter and African Diaspora Art Histories,” in Black Artists in America: from Civil Rights to the Bicentennial, editor. Dixon Galleries and Gardens in association with Yale University Press, 2024 and James Little: Homecoming, catalogue for the exhibition ‘James Little: Homecoming,’ Dixon Galleries and Gardens, April 17, 2022 – July 10, 2022, Memphis, TN. Dixon Galleries and Gardens: Memphis, Tennessee, 2022.

The Drowned in History podcast with Dr. Jenkins is mentioned several times.

This interview with Veda Reed was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on June 29, 2022.

Veda Reed is revered for her long career of creating sublime, luminous, large-scale paintings of skies, cloudscapes, and the cycles of the sun and moon. Inspired by her childhood in wide-open spaces of Oklahoma, her works represent moments of warmth and comfort experienced while witnessing nature. Working in isolation and silence, her studio practice reflects the flow of the atmospheres she depicts. She reduces images to their essential forms and then amplifies their presence through selective composition, brilliant palettes, and a painstaking process of layering pigment and glaze. Her incredibly smooth, seamless surfaces create perceptual effects ranging from a subtle, vibrating glow to pure radiance. For Reed, the act of painting is a spiritual journey toward truth and beauty and a celebration of cycles of renewal.

Veda Reed has lived and worked in Memphis since 1952. She received a BFA from the Memphis College of Art and studied at Siena College in Memphis and the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Amidst her long tenure as faculty member and dean at MCA, she has participated in numerous exhibitions in museums and galleries across the U.S. and has received many awards and honors, including the 1996 Tennessee Governor’s Award in the Arts. The Memphis Brooks Museum of Art mounted a large-scale retrospective exhibition of her work in 2017. She is featured in the collections of Baker Donelson, Memphis; Boyle Investment Company, Memphis; Bracewell & Patterson, Washington, DC; First Tennessee Bank, Memphis; Independent Bank, Memphis; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis; Memphis Cancer Center, Memphis; Memphis College of Art, Memphis; Memphis University School, Memphis; Opryland Hotel, Nashville; Rhodes College, Memphis; Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; State University of New York at Binghampton, Binghampton, NY; The State of Tennessee Fine Arts Collection, Nashville; Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson; and the Urban Arts Commission, Memphis, among others.

This interview with Greely Myatt was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab at the Crosstown Concourse on June 15, 2022.

Greely Myatt is widely recognized for his whimsical sculptural objects and monumental installations made from found materials. Engaging with surrealism, pop, folk and outsider art, he has developed a compelling visual language of truly reimagined but recognizable forms. His works provoke a dialogue with the viewer around a plethora of relationships, connections, and effects among genre and style, form and content, scale and site, identity and place, time and space, art and its history, and concepts of art and craft. Myatt explores these exchanges through continuous reinterpretations of literal motifs— like the comic strip and speech bubbles— and other more conceptual frameworks. His choice of materials create initial accessibility and personal connection for the viewer. Found objects such as flooring, neon lights, metal scraps, discarded signage, and cookie tins feel familiar, but enigmatic. Elements like plants, quilts, and rugs reference his Mississippi childhood, while abstract elements such as light, air, negative space – even movement – function as tangible content. Throughout a broad diversity of works, his materials and themes play multiple roles as subject, concept, form, method and/or media. Within these intersections and re-arrangements, we experience honest conversation with seemingly infinite limits.

Greely Myatt was born in Mississippi, teaches in Memphis, and lives and works in West Memphis, AR. He received an MFA from the University of Mississippi and a BFA from Delta State University, Cleveland, MS, and is a long-time professor of art at The University of Memphis. He has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Europe and Japan. He has received grants and fellowships from the Tennessee Arts Commission, The University of Memphis, The University of Georgia, Alternate Roots, Atlanta, and received the Mississippi Arts and Letters Visual Arts Award in 1994. In 2009, a twenty-year retrospective of his works was exhibited across Memphis in nine museum and gallery venues. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, ArtNews, Sculpture Magazine, ArtForum, Art Papers, Number, Juxtapoz and American Quilter. His work is in numerous private collections and the following public collections, including: City of Memphis; City of Portland, ME; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Memphis Cook Convention Center; Mississipi Museum of Art, Jackson; Tennessee State Museum, Nashville; Tennessee Brewery, Memphis; Tennessee Interstate Sculpture Project, Hartford; and Urban Art Commission, Memphis.

This interview with Beth Edwards was recorded at the Memphis Listening Lab on April 27, 2022.

Beth Edwards was born in Alabama and lives and works in Memphis. She received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and an MFA from Indiana University. Edwards has had an active 33-year career painting, exhibiting and teaching. She taught painting at the University of Memphis for 21 years and the University of Dayton for 12 years. Recent awards and honors include the Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship; Distinguished Research Award from The University of Memphis; Arts Accelerator Grant, ArtsMemphis; Alumni Association Distinguished Achievement in the Creative Arts Award, University of Memphis; and the Emmett O’Ryan Award for Artistic Inspiration from ArtsMemphis. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in galleries, museums, institutions and organizations across the United States, including the Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL; the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis; the Contemporary Art Workshop, Chicago; Springfield Museum of Art, Springfield, OH; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock; and the San Francisco International Fine Arts Exposition. She has had artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. She is represented by the David Lusk Gallery in Memphis and the Heidell Brooks Gallery in Charlotte.

This interview with Peter Sohngen took place at the Memphis Listening Lab on June 10, 2022.

Peter Sohngen was the ceramics professor at the Memphis Art Academy (that later became the Memphis College of Art) from 1969 to 2002.

From the description on the  Tennessee Arts Commission page written by Aiden Layer:

“Peter Sohngen was working towards a PhD in English literature at Claremont Graduate University when he became fascinated with the ceramic work that the art students were doing at the time. Later, he went to Istanbul, Turkey, as an English teacher, but decided while he was there that he needed a change and decided to do something else. He met a man who made and sold flower pots at the local bazaar, and learned how to use a potter’s wheel and make simple forms. From there, Sohngen traveled to a German salt-firing district, where he got a job as a potter, which he enjoyed very much. Deciding to switch careers, he went back to school at Alfred University in New York to get his M.F.A. in clay. After graduating, he took up a job as a professor at the Memphis Academy of Art in 1969.”

While he taught at the Memphis College of Art Sohngen was a part of a legendary cohort of instructors that included Dolph Smith, Veda Reed, Murray Riss, and others.

After retiring from the Memphis College of Art in 2022 he was a full time potter and tended to the garden with his wife, Judith.

While he retired from making pots years ago he continues to be an influential potter and revered maker in the city’s clay community.

This interview was done when Peter was 85, shortly before Sohngen and his wife, Judith, entered a memory care facility.  There are a number of long pauses where Sohngen gathers his thoughts.

This interview with Pinkney Herbert is the second of two interviews recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab.  This interview was conducted on June 29, 2022

Pinkney Herbert was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1954. He received his BA from Rhodes College and his MFA from the University of Memphis. Mr. Herbert is the recipient of Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and USIA-Arts America. He has participated in numerous art exhibitions throughout the US, Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia. His art is in the permanent collections of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Memphis Brooks Museum, the Arkansas Arts Center, and the Allentown Art Museum. He is represented by David Lusk Gallery, Memphis/Nashville, TN; Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA; and Greg Thompson Fine Arts, Little Rock, AR. He is a fellow and board member of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), Amherst, VA, and VCCA-France, Auvillar, France. He is the founder and director of Marshall Arts, an alternative gallery established in 1992 in Memphis, TN. He maintains studios in Memphis and New York. For 2013 – 2014, he was awarded a year-long studio as part of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation’s Space Program, Brooklyn, NY. In 2018, he became a member of AAA, American Abstract Artists. In December 2018, Herbert was a fellow at MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH.

In the Fall of 2012, Pinkney Herbert taught painting and drawing at the University of Georgia Study Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy. He has taught at the University of Tennessee, the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts, Penland School of Crafts, Arrowmont School, the University of Memphis, and the Memphis College of Art. He has been a visiting artist at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, Hanoi University of Fine Arts, and the Oberfalzer Kuntzlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany.

Episode thumbnail is a detail of Pinkney Herbert’s painting Tipping Point, Oil and mixed media on wood, 8×10″, 2015.

This interview with Pinkney Herbert was recorded in the Memphis Listening Lab on June 1, 2022

Pinkney Herbert was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1954. He received his BA from Rhodes College and his MFA from the University of Memphis. Mr. Herbert is the recipient of Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and USIA-Arts America. He has participated in numerous art exhibitions throughout the US, Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia. His art is in the permanent collections of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, Memphis Brooks Museum, the Arkansas Arts Center, and the Allentown Art Museum. He is represented by David Lusk Gallery, Memphis/Nashville, TN; Sandler Hudson Gallery, Atlanta, GA; and Greg Thompson Fine Arts, Little Rock, AR. He is a fellow and board member of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), Amherst, VA, and VCCA-France, Auvillar, France. He is the founder and director of Marshall Arts, an alternative gallery established in 1992 in Memphis, TN. He maintains studios in Memphis and New York. For 2013 – 2014, he was awarded a year-long studio as part of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation’s Space Program, Brooklyn, NY. In 2018, he became a member of AAA, American Abstract Artists. In December 2018, Herbert was a fellow at MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH.

In the Fall of 2012, Pinkney Herbert taught painting and drawing at the University of Georgia Study Abroad Program in Cortona, Italy. He has taught at the University of Tennessee, the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts, Penland School of Crafts, Arrowmont School, the University of Memphis, and the Memphis College of Art. He has been a visiting artist at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts, Hanoi University of Fine Arts, and the Oberfalzer Kuntzlerhaus, Schwandorf, Germany.

Episode image of the artist by Ania Fedisz.

Memphis-native Chuck Johnson received his Bachelor of Art in Painting and Drawing from Memphis State University in 1975. Thereafter, Johnson served in the Army, stationed in Germany; he later returned to Memphis to earn his Masters in Painting and Art History from Memphis State University. Following his jobs as Curator of Education at Brooks Art Gallery and a temporary teacher at Rhodes College early in his career, Johnson determined to move to Washington, D.C., where he was employed as a Visual Information Specialist at the Pentagon.

Though busy with this career, Johnson continued to devote time to creating art, renting studios and spare rooms in the city while also pursuing involvement in artistic communities. During his time in D.C., Johnson received honors including a Grant for Painting from the District of Columbia Arts Commission in 1995. After spending over two decades at the Pentagon, Johnson moved back to Memphis in 2003 to follow his ambitions of working as an artist full-time. Since his return to his hometown, Johnson has taught courses at Memphis College of Art and the University of Memphis, from where he has recently retired, to dedicate his time to his creations, art collections, bonsai garden, and friendships.

An artist for all his life, Johnson, has evolved and modified his style, gradually transitioning from neo-expressionism to botanical and geometric abstractions. Regarding his process and perspective, Chuck explains: “I am interested in an approach to art making that explores the often-conflicted relationship between the decorative traditions in geometric patterns found in other cultures and western modernism. However, the recent paintings avoid culturally specific subject matter in favor of a more elusive pictorial terrain of contemporary abstraction, inasmuch, my attempts to reflect a broader generational curiosity where the familiar and unfamiliar converge. There is a view about art that seems intractably fixed in tradition and history. However, counter to this view is another mindset that understands art very differently. This way of seeing works of contemporary art is not so much new as simply different. As a catalyst for imagination, speculation and unscripted modes of knowing, I find art to be extremely useful and necessary to the health and well-being of society. However, as we know, health is a relative term based on whether we experience it ourselves as good, moderate or failing. The relationship between our spiritual well-being, physical bodies and our state of mind is paramount – so it should be with our approach to art.”

Welcome to Memphis Material, an oral history project celebrating the personal histories, the intimate stories, and the studio practices of some of the people who have helped shape the creative landscape of the city.