Episodes
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What a ride! ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL's first season is coming to an end. It's been wild, adventurous, lovely and above all, very cozy. Join Svea and Jozefien in this season finale as they reminisce and relive all the crushes they've had so far. Which artist served the best snacks? What backstory surprised them the most? What was the most emotionally challenging interview and which one was the most physically demanding?
ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL will be back on August 31st with many more crushes - Ana Teresa Fernández (https://anateresafernandez.com/) is our first crush of season 2! - and CRUSHED VELVETS, in which we debunk misconceptions about artists and give Svea a chance to process her feelings.
Have a healthy, safe and lovable summer!
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Onward! To East Oakland where artist-physician-writer Lorraine Bonner sculpts clay in the house that was once her mother’s home. Lorraine shows us the space, now converted completely to a studio-gallery, and talks about growing up in Queens, moving to rural California in 1970, moving to Tanzania with her husband so they could have their baby in an African socialist country, and studying Medicine at Stanford with two small children at home. Bonner’s work addresses personal, societal, and environmental traumas including racism, abuse, and torture through figurines and abstract shapes. How does she navigate such heavy topics without buckling under their weight? Why doesn’t she want to be a doctor anymore? What does it mean to “redeem” the colour black?
All this and more. Plus cat.Lorraine Bonner's website: https://www.lorrainebonner.com/
Follow Lorraine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009601983966
Visual tour and transcript of this interview: https://artcrushinternational.com/lorraine-bonner.htmlLearn more about the East Bay Open Studios: https://eastbayopenstudios.com/
Our Beautiful Online Thing of the week: the Rhoda Kellog Child Art Collection: http://www.early-pictures.ch/kellogg/en/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
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Missing episodes?
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Jozefien and Svea are fed up with misconceptions about artists and in this series, called CRUSHED VELVET because it sounds good even if it makes no sense, they're setting the record straight. There's more to life than making art. There is, for example, trauma, sexism, capitalism, haikus, and other funny things.
THIS EPISODE'S VELVETEEN RABBITS:
When you were depressed, did you make better art?
Would it be worth it to be an artist if it meant you were necessarily depressed?
Have you known happy artists?
How does the idea of the tortured artist affect people (artists and the poor schmucks who love them)?
With what can we replace the idea of the tortured artist?
And they'd love to hear your feedback and experiences. Let us know on Instagram, at email, through our website...
Look up Svea's 'How Poems Work' project: http://howpoemswork.blogspot.com/Watch the documentary "The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography" on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/watch/80145699?tctx=0%2C1%2C%2C%2C%2C
Herman Van Rompuy is the former Belgian Prime Minister who writes haikus. This is the one he wrote in 2018 for the Engelenburcht in Tildonk, Belgium: "Als wapens zwijgen, hoor je in de stille tuin, de wind en de vogels".
Extremely Crushable Keats: “Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
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We climb and descend the hills of Potrero Hill in San Francisco - in high heels of course! - as we search for Sofia Shu's secluded studio. We're mesmerised by Sofia's meditative, spiritual, detailed abstract paintings and wall hangings. Sofia serves us a delicious vegan latte and talks about growing up walking through snow tunnels in Siberia, learning English by tending bar in NYC, ending up in the Bay Area, and meeting her sweetheart prince. We love her love story and you will, too.
Sofia Shu Studio online: https://www.sofiashu.com/
Sofia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sofiashustudio/
Pictures of Sofia's hometown Nefteyugansk: https://www.google.com/search?q=nefteyugansk&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALeKk037A7y-P3VanCUSJ5OgOymov5sMyQ:1624458540658&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiwhpLS-63xAhVvoosKHebMDc4Q_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1410&bih=792Beautiful Online Thing: the Norwegian Sexguiden: https://www.nrk.no/spesial/sexguide
ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Suggestions? [email protected]
Subscribe to our newsletter on https://artcrushinternational.com/ -
Hop into our car to East Oakland where we’ll meet textile artist Richard Jonathan Nelson at his friend and fellow artist Jamee Crusan’s place. Richard talks about being a black, queer man in the US, how his mother and aunts encouraged him to make textile art as a child and how language plays an important role in his life. What’s a hand baby and who brought the Kudzu? Richard tells us all.
Richard’s website: http://www.richard-jonathan-nelson.com/
Richard on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rich_nels/
Visual tour and transcript of the interview: https://artcrushinternational.com/richard-jonathan-nelson.htmlCheck out Jamee Crusan, artist and good friend of Richard Jonathan Nelson. Her work Black and Blue/Lack and Lure is our Beautiful Online Thing of the week: https://jameecrusan.com/new-index#/black-and-bluelack-and-lure/
Learn more about
the Gullah Geechee people: https://gullahgeecheecorridor.org/thegullahgeechee/
the South Carolina Lowcountry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina_LowcountryGet ready for our next crush, Ana Teresa Fernández: https://anateresafernandez.com/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
We’re on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA/featured
Send love letters to [email protected] -
Join us on a trip to the harbour of Ghent, Belgium, where we meet Linde Carrijn and Maxim Storms, the avant-garde performance-duo known as BRIK TU-TOK. At their light-filled studio in an old red-brick factory we marvel at BRIK TU-TOK's handmade fashionable costumes, colorful accessories and extraordinary DIY music instruments. What's the Giggle Gallery, and can we come? Welcome to our crushes' bizarre, but fascinating universe!
BRIK TU-TOK on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briktutok/
Watch BRIK TU-TOK's music videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_kFfBUcDuc91hHBISrM26A
All music during the interview is by BRIK TU-TOK. 'Worse' plays at 14'25", 'Cheap Trip' at 20'24" and 'Badass' at 26'40".
Visual tour & transcript of the interview: https://artcrushinternational.com/brik-tu-tokLook up atelier Pantserschip, the collective of makers that's now housed in the old red-brick factory of I. Mahy & ses fils: https://www.instagram.com/atelierpantserschip/
Beautiful Online Thing: NauticalWaters on Etsy - https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/NauticalWaters
Our next crush! Shirley Watts of Natural Discourse: https://naturaldiscourse.org/
ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Send your fan mail to: [email protected] -
We rush to visit Edith Hillinger at her garden studio inside the West Berkeley house she built in the 1990s. Hillinger is 88 years old and studied at New York’s Cooper Union College in the 1960s. She draws from her childhood experiences as a refugee in Ankara, Turkey, to create obscenely masterful full-scale collages and paintings. She quotes Rilke! She tells us about fleeing Nazi Germany, her marriage, the women’s movement (and how it helped her get a divorce), and what it’s like to be an accomplished female artist in her later years. We fête her.
Edith's website
Edith on Wikipedia
Edith on InstagramRead more about Edith's father, Franz Hillinger, on Wikipedia
About White Terror in Hungary
Take a look at the Women in the Arts Foundation
Find out more about the Bay Area Women Artists' Legacy Project here
Beautiful Online Thing: Dante's Divine Comedy
Music at 6'50" and 18' is from the album The Long Embrace by Vega Victoria
Our next crush! Ghent based performance duo BRIK TU-TOK
ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram
Visual tour and transcript of this interview at artcrushinternational.com
We love mail! [email protected] -
Join us on a trip to Oostakker, Belgium where we meet textile designer Leda Devoldere in the art studio she has in her parents' garden. Leda designs carpets, pillows and plaids in bright, vibrant colors and abstract shapes. She also has a lisp, which makes some English words hard to pronounce and her voice very easy to love. She knits almost all of her work by hand on her historic hand knitting machine, which makes every single object a real act of devotion. We are in full awe of all this beauty and high design coziness!
Leda online: ledadevoldere.com
Atelier Leda on Instagram
Visual tour of the interview on the ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL websiteBeautiful Online Thing: Taryn O'Gorman Designs
Read more about woollen Viking ship sails here
Our next crush: Edith Hillinger!
Contact Svea and Jozefien: [email protected]
Other crushes on our InstagramAll music during the interview with Leda is from the album Abel by Kabas, a Ghent-based jazz quartet, with Jan Daelman (flute), Elias Devoldere (drums) (Leda's brother!), Thijs Troch (piano/harmonium) (Jozefien's cousin!) and Nils Vermeulen (double bass).
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This episode is dedicated to Bay Area artist Gary Hackett, who died suddenly. He was a good friend of Alison OK Frost, and this episode was postponed out of respect for her. We are grateful for Hackett’s presence in the Bay Area: an artist precariously housed and studiously generous with his time and care. It’s a little less colourful now, with him gone.
We go with realist painter and arts educator Alison OK Frost to the Mosswood Park homeless encampment in Oakland, California. Frost is interested in humanity and creativity; she paints from photographs taken of homeless encampment citizen architecture (tents, tarps, wheelchairs, trees, mannequins, and other artefacts of ingenuity). It’s a hot day and Jozefien is feeling really woozy.* We help Frost deliver socks and bottles of water to camp residents, make friends with an artist named Rose, and find out why Frost wants her daughter and her students to learn more about the “two Bay Areas.”
*Jozefien is pregnant with her daughter, Rosie. She doesn’t know it yet!
Alison OK Frost's website: http://www.alisonokfrost.com
Alison OK Frost on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisonok
East Oakland Burrito Roll on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/east_oakland_burrito_rollWhat is Social Practice Art? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_practice_(art)
Beautiful Online Thing: the 'Flower Bae' exhibition at General Hardware Contemporary
For a visual tour and transcript of this interview, visit the ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL WEBSITE: https://artcrushinternational.com/alison-ok-frost.html
ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international -
Join us on conceptual/installation/social practice artist Michele Pred's red couch in her white-walled studio at Faultline Artspace in East Oakland, California. Pred is a Swedish-American artist who started the "Art of Equal Pay" movement to encourage female and non-binary artists to charge more. She's got a billboard in New York City all about it. With us, she talks about the "Power of the Purse" series, a collection of vintage purses that blink light-up political messages. Does your purse do that? Not yet. Her couch is from IKEA and her work is from the heart.
Browse Michele's website: https://michelepred.com/home.html
Michele on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelepredThe Art of Equal Pay: https://www.theartofequalpay.com
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/michele-pred.html
Share your thoughts! [email protected]
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_internationalBeautiful Online Thing: Immerse Yourself, a virtual reality art gallery featuring works by Alice Marinelli
Hear us talk to Marika Reisberg on the Sustaining Creativity podcast!
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What's the difference between jewellery and sculpture? The patriarchy, that's what.
Welcome to the cool, stone-walled studio of avant garde Stockholm jewellery designer Helena Johansson Lindell. We fall in love with her capacity to turn plastic toy bits (don't you have a box of plastic toy bits??) into smooth, multilayered wearable art. She's that genius who can look at a Lion King franchise Happy Meal toy and see the perfect oval pendant hiding within its soul. Svea's four-year-old daughter appreciates all aspects of this experience. Colours are discussed. Also, kardemummabulle!
Helena on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helenajohanssonlindell
Helena's website: http://www.helenajohanssonlindell.comVisual tour of this interview: https://artcrushinternational.com/helena-johansson-lindell.html
Write us letters! [email protected]
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_internationalBeautiful Online Thing: SLOW ROADS on Instagram
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We hop in our time machine and eat all the snacks at Kat Trataris' white-walled gallery and studio space in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco.* We talk drunk barbering, performing linguistic feats as a screaming punkrock diva, growing up in a Los Angeles exurb, tooth gems, and why their dad put a wall of chain link behind their white picket fence.
*It's called r/sf, which is perfect, because we're really debating the value of acronyms this episode.Kat is also a founding member of art handlxrs*, marginalized people who make the arts world actually happen. Check out their open call here.
Kat on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/domestic_daddy
Kat online: www.kattrataris.com
Art handlxrs*: https://www.instagram.com/arthandlxrs/?hl=enSee a transcript of this interview and a visual tour on our website! www.artcrushinternational.com
Send us pictures of your cats: [email protected]
See pictures of our cats (we don't have any cats): https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_internationalMusical interludes: "Amber Eyes" by Vega Victoria
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Tippet Rise, Montana: where two wealthy artists have invested in making ecstatic experiences for others. Would you like to be surrounded by rugged mountains, transported from one large-scale contemporary artwork to another in a free, solar-powered van while they charge your phone for you? How about being driven around by a sweet Frenchman who waxes poetic about his life’s work in a dusty pick-up truck? How about some gourmet locally-sourced food and a concert pianist? And some cows? This week, we’ve got it all.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/is-tippet-rise-a-religious-experience.html
Tippet Rise online: https://tippetrise.org/
Tippet Rise on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tippet.rise/This piece was inspired by an article by Rachel Syme: https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/tippet-rise-sculpture-park-montana/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: [email protected]
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vABeautiful Online Thing: Livecam of the International Wolf Center in Minnesota
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We find Angela Hennessy standing at a table of shiny metal objects at her studio in industrial Oakland. Jozefien calls it cozy, but that’s just because she’s a real European. Nothing hygge about this bright warehouse space in which a lot of hair is transformed into a lot of art. Hennessy talks growing up in Humboldt County, riding horses in the summer, Blackness, being a hospice doula, and avoids telling us who gave her the genuine actual coffin standing in the middle of the room.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/why-angela-hennessy-crochets-with-hair.html
Angela Hennessy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehouseofhennessy/
Angela’s website: http://www.angelahennessy.com/Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: [email protected]
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vABeautiful Online Thing: Chefchaouen on Flickr
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Get your boots and your coat, for this Canadian mischief. Join us as we desperately seek a quiet space to conduct an interview in Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Art with Palestinian-Canadian artist Samar Hejazi. Hejazi is game for anything, which is probably why she’s so good at conceptual, installation, and sculptural arts. Hejazi is working on a commission that involved making a live cast of someone’s face, stitching onto dissolvable fabric (and then dissolving it), and making abstract marks for literally no reason at all. We are besotted.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/samar-hejazi.html
Samar on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samarhejazi/?hl=en
Samar’s website: https://www.samarhejazi.com/
Akin, the arts organisation: https://www.akincollective.com/
Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto: https://moca.ca/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: contact@artcrushinternational
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA
Beautiful Online Thing: Rijksmuseum’s ‘Beleef de Nachtwacht’ (https://beleefdenachtwacht.nl/) -
Join us as Svea runs into the car in her pyjamas and Jozefien is forced to scrunch under a low wooden table. All in the name of art (and Wilson, also in the name of Wilson). Our art crush David Wilson shows us his pristine “garage”, bougainvillea, and tape recorder. He talks FaceBook artist residency, drawing, bringing people together to sing and eat, and what happened when he had to cut just a few extra pieces for the garage ceiling. It rains. That’s very romantic. We demand snail mail and access to his outdoor shower.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/david-wilson.html
David on Instagram: he doesn’t.
David’s website: http://www.davidwilsonandribbons.com/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: contact@artcrushinternational
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA
Beautiful Online Thing: Kasmin Gallery’s online listing for Ian Davenport (more like Davenpour!) https://www.kasmingallery.com/rooms, scroll down for Davenport -
We’re on our way to Belgium! Come eat quesadillas in Tramaine de Senna’s studio with us. She’s a mixed media artist with a background in architecture, proudly from Vallejo, California. Nowadays, she loves the light and space in the Antwerp studio she shares with her husband. It has a band saw and a paint dryer and a sewing machine and a huge jar of beads that’s great for looking at. De Senna talks love, absurdity, and the migration of forms. We can’t bring ourselves to leave.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/tramaine-de-senna.html
Tramaine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tramainedesenna/
Tramaine’s website: https://sites.google.com/site/tramainedesennamfa/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: contact@artcrushinternational
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA -
We visit Simon Tran in his small, art-covered bedroom, which also functions as his studio. Tran is a Vietnamese-American artist who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from UC Berkeley’s Fine Arts program as a painter. He gives us a tour of the old North Berkeley house he shares (built on top of a tunnel with a creek running through it), serves us strong coffee, and we huddle around the mics together, talking about how terrible his friends are (they’re all comedians), how much he admires architecture students, and how he is, in Svea’s words, ‘just a failed modernist’. We’re crazy about him.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/simon-tran.html
Simon Tran on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ghostghostteeth
Simon’s website: www.ghostghostteeth.com
Simon’s partner, Kari Simonsen, is extremely cool: https://www.karisimonsen.com/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: contact@artcrushinternational
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA
Beautiful Online Thing: With love, from Nowhere (https://www.withlove-nowhere.com/withlove-nowhere) -
Hop in crushers, we’re going to the Arctic. We take a walk through the woods with Sámi reindeer herder, choreographer, and filmmaker Elle Sofe Sara. The wind blows, the snow falls, the noses run, the hearts beat wild. She talks the importance of refuelling, travel, an old Sámi tradition called ‘ribadit’ where you grab your crush’s belt and walk around with them, and what it was like to move from the tundra to London at the age of 19. We are blessed to know her.
Some helpful vocab:
Sámi - Indigenous people of Northern Fenno-Scandinavia.
Sápmi - Traditional territory of Sámi people, spanning what are now considered four nations: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia.
Avži - the village in which Elle Sofe grew up, and of which her family still comprises half its residents.
Guovdageaidnu - the centre of Sámi culture, and where Elle Sofe and Svea both live.
Sámi Language - a Finno-Ugric language unrelated to Romance or Germanic languages.
Ribadit - ‘Pulling of the Belt’, a Sámi tradition and the title of a film and dance piece made by Elle Sofe Sara (https://ellesofe.com/portfolios/ribadit/)
Gákti - Sámi traditional dress: handmade, decorated, sacred, and very expensive.
Elle Sofe’s project ‘Vástádus eana’ (‘The Answer is Land’): https://ellesofe.com/portfolios/vastadus-eana-the-answer-is-land/
The poem by three Sámi artists of the same title: https://digitaltmuseum.no/021048772629/rajacumma-kiss-from-the-border-gazaldat-eana-vastadus-eana-papir
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/elle-sofe-sara.html
Elle Sofe on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellesofe/?hl=en
Elle Sofe’s website: https://ellesofe.com/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: contact@artcrushinternational
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA
Beautiful Online Thing: Art Lead (https://artlead.net/) -
Welcome to ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL! We take you to visit Mariam El Quessny in the Oakland apartment she shares with her husband and two small children. Quessny, originally from Egypt, has lived in California for five years and, despite being a graduate of the Pratt Institute’s School of Design, only recently begun to call herself an artist. She serves us dandelion tea, shows us the tightly packed studio corner she has carved out for herself, and tells us about ‘Motherhood Illustrated’, in which she transforms women’s photographs of gritty, unflattering motherhood experiences into lovingly detailed watercolour paintings. We make a fort in her kid’s bed.
Visual tour: https://artcrushinternational.com/mariam-el-quessny.html
Mariam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stay_at_home_artist_/
Mariam’s website: https://www.motherhoodillustrated.com/
Follow ART CRUSH INTERNATIONAL on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artcrush_international/
Love letters: contact@artcrushinternational
Website: https://artcrushinternational.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcIyQdD132sdIc23PO8k0vA
Beautiful Online Thing: The Museo Larco pre-Colombian Erotic Gallery https://www.museolarco.org/en/exhibition/erotic-room/ - Show more