Gay Riseborough on Loving to Draw, Building an Art Career and more

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Evanston Artist, Public Art Advocate, Teacher and more, Gay Riseborough talks about loving drawing and making a life as an artist. Her upcoming exhibit at 1100 Florence Gallery, Go Home with a Nude features drawings & sketches done in the studio, priced to sell. Charcoal, conté crayon, graphite, watercolor, pastel on paper, ranging from (common) newsprint to Strathmore and watercolor paper. Join us for the Opening Party, 1100 Florence Ave, Jan. 4, 5-8p.

Artist Statement: For many years, Gay ran an Open Figure Studio for drop-in artists, both at 1121 and, then, 1123 Florence and, finally, at 1402 Greenleaf. Most of these works are studies from these sessions, both quick sketch and long pose. As a painter, primarily of figure and portrait, she felt it critical to keep up her observational, graphic skills. The sheer volume of displayable work here shows her passion for drawing.

Bio:

An illustrator by training (Washington University in St. Louis,) then a teacher for 36 years at the Evanston Art Center, the School of the Art Institute, and finally in her own studio, Gay (Riseborough) has done hundreds of portrait commissions, many of which hang in prestigious university collections. Represented by Portraits Chicago and Wood St. Gallery, where her non-portrait work was shown. Best known for her “Dark Times”, autobiographical narrative painting series. In 1986, she moved into a building on Florence which was already the origin of the arts neighborhood there. Has served on the Public Art Committee and, now, the Evanston Arts Council, where she is Chair of Public Art. Retired from visual art-making now, learning to play the cello.

Victoria Loeb Artist Talk at 1100 Florence Gallery

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We're hosting Friday morning artist talks at the gallery and providing a recording for anyone who cannot attend.

This record is of Victoria Loeb discussing her exhibit Phases on display at 1100 Florence Gallery through May 19, 2019. Photo of Victoria taken by Joerg Metzner at the opening reception of Phases.

Gallery hours; Wednesdays 5-8p, Fridays 5-8p and Sundays 12-5p. Learn more at 1100florence.com

The Lisa D Show podcast features interviews and conversations with creatives living and working in Evanston, IL. Recordings typically happen in the 1100 Florence Gallery. Learn more about host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow.blogspot.com

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1100 Florence Gallery exhibits artist Victoria Loeb this May. Join us for an opening reception May 4, 6-8p, as part of First Saturday Evanston Art Events.

Artist Talk: Friday, May 17, 10-11a

Gallery Hours; Sundays 12-5p, Wednesdays 5-8p, Fridays 5-8p OR by appointment, call 847-544-8205

Artist Statement for the show:

“Phases”

A distinct period or stage in a series of events, or a process of change or development. Exhibiting works made using acrylic, oil, charcoal, latex/enamel

Artist Bio: Victoria Loeb was born in 1980 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1992 she met Argentine Artist Alicia Maffei and began studying with her. In 1996 she became her Drawing Assistant and worked with her through 1999. During that time, she was accepted at the Fine Arts Institute Prilidiano Pueyrredon, where she studied until 2002.

She also studied under Argentine Artist Miguel Ángel Bengochea, and later attended the studio of contemporary Artist Eduardo Medici.

She moved to Chicago in 2003. After being represented by several galleries in the Chicago area, she moved her Studio to downtown Evanston and has worked on her Art since.

Leo Segedin is Still Painting!

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Leopold Segedin (Leo) is one of the most prolific painters living and working in Evanston. He is celebrating an incredibly busy fall with a new book “Leo Segedin: A Habit of Art", and two shows at Rare Nest Gallery and at the Madron Gallery in October. This is an incredibly busy schedule for a 91-year-old artist.

This interview focuses on Leo’s early career, all the way back to painting Chicago buildings on a porch as a 15 yo. Our conversation goes from Chicago to Maine to the Korean War, it's an amazing journey for one man, who practices as a painter his entire life. At 91, Leo tells the listeners that he is “still here”, with much gusto.

We are grateful to Leo’s son Paul for publishing such an important book of his father’s career and for setting up this interview.

 Leopold Segedin Retrospective
Saturday, September 15th, Opening Reception, 5 – 9 pm
With a career spanning more than 70 years, Leo Segedin is Rare Nest’s “senior artist” and indeed, is a beloved senior artist in the whole Chicago region.  Still painting every day at 91 years old, Leo is a prolific visionary and community-builder.  Many of his works from the last 20 years contain auto-biographical elements and self-portraits (“I’m a cheap model”) in dual poses juxtaposing youth and honest age.  The dream-like settings of Leo’s work evoke vernacular Chicago architecture - streetscapes and train stations of Chicago’s west side from the 1930’s to the present. In this major exhibition, enjoy over 40 works spanning 7 decades.
Rare Nest Gallery, 3433 N Kedvale, Chicago, IL 60641

Artist Statement
I’ve always felt that my own paintings should speak for themselves. Words can point to what you should look at and create a context for what you see, but I don’t think that anyone can really communicate in words what works of art communicate any more than they can create in words the taste of a good wine. The experiences of – say - a painted, translucent red - of delicate lines and bold shapes - of dramatic, metaphoric images - are like - well - the tang of garlic in a good, kosher hot dog - if we can imagine such experiences as being more serious - more profound - than pleasurable. They have to be ‘tasted’ to be known. It is not an intellectual process, although some art critics have made their careers trying to describe and explain it. The meaning – the significance - of a painting is in the work itself - in the personal responses to the aesthetic and metaphoric qualities of the image. This does not mean that paintings don’t embody meanings beyond such intrinsic qualities of the paintings. Although paintings can be about any personal experience, I believe that important paintings should be about something important - about life - the human condition - about the world we live in, or, in my case, the world we used to live in – even about art itself. There is something unique about artists who create with passion, who write - or paint - or compose works of art that express the intensely human experiences they share with others – of love and hate - of beauty and ugliness – of nature and society - of divinity and belief – of the imaginings of our mind - of memory - of loss - of mortality and death - all those corny, clichéd sentiments which just happened to be meaningful to us. And it may be that those visions are more true and real to us than the objective truths of science; at least, they touch us in ways that science never can. I would like to think that this is true about me.        
Visit leopoldsegedin.com   

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The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrating and elevating creatives, featuring 20-minute, unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, purposefully low tech. Contact host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

Tim Kazurinsky Built His Career Around Saying Yes! (Thank you Second City)

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This week we are mixing things up and recording The Lisa D Show podcast in front of a live audience; we interview Tim Kazurinsky at the Evanston Art Center.

In this bright and funny conversation, we quickly follow comic actors Tim Kazurinksy's long career from newspaper reporting, to Second City Improv, to SNL, to Wicked and more. Tim stresses the importance of making active choices in life ... saying yes, showing up and just doing it.

From timkazurinsky.net

Tim Kazurinsky is an American actor and screenwriter known for his tenure as both a writer and featured player on Saturday Night Live (1981-1984) and for his role as Officer Sweetchuck in the Police Academy film series.

On SNL, Kazurinsky played many recurring characters such as Dr. Jack Badofsky on Weekend Update, Madge the Chimp's husband in "I Married A Monkey", and Mr. Landlord opposite Eddie Murphy's "Mr. Robinson." His range of celebrity impersonations included everyone from Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler to Ozzy Osbourne and Billie Jean King.

Kazurinsky is a mainstay of the Chicago theatre scene, where he has twice been nominated for the prestegious Joseph Jefferson Award. In addition to his extensive work as a member of The Second City, Mr. Kazurinsky has appeared onstage in A Midsummer Night's Dream with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, in Hairspray at Drury Lane Theatre, and in Northlight Theatre's The Odd Couple and Funnyman.

Kazurinsky's many television credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm,  Early Edition, According to Jim,  Faerie Tale Theatre,  The Moochie Kalala Detectives Show,
Still Standing,  What About Joan, Married...With Children, Easy, and Chicago Justice. He has appeared in many films such as Somewhere in Time,  Neighbors, Continental Divide,  My Bodyguard,  Shakes the Clown,  Hot to Trot and Scrooge and Marley. As a voiceover artist, Mr. Kazurinsky's voice has been heard in animation,  hundreds of commercials and episodes of The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas.

Kazurinsky has shared the stage and screen with such luminaries as John Belushi, Eddie Murphy, Robin Williams, Drew Barrymore, Larry David, Bill Murray, Christopher Reeve, Mary Gross, Danny DeVito, George Wendt, Liza Minnelli, Jim Belushi, Lauren Bacall, Dan Aykroyd, Jeff Garlin, Jane Seymour, Bobcat Goldthwait, Michael Winslow, Sharon Stone, Joe Piscopo and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Among his screenwriting credits are About Last Night...,  Billions for Boris,  For Keeps? and The Cherokee Kid. His screenplay for Strange Relations earned him a Writer's Guild of America Award nomination for Original Long Form as well as a BAFTA nomination for Best Single Drama.

Kazurinsky performed as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the First National Touring Company of Wicked. He made his Broadway debut opposite Jim Parsons and Christopher Fitzgerald in David Javerbaum's comedy, An Act Of God directed by Joe Mantello. He is married to actress Marcia Lynn Watkins, with whom he has two children. Kazurinsky currently resides outside of Chicago with his family.


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The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrating creatives, featuring 20-minute, unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, low tech on purpose. Reach out to host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

Pam Daniels wants you to Get Intrigued, Try Stuff and Try Again!

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This morning we talk with designer and Pam Daniels, a Clinical Assistant Professor and Design Innovator in Residence at The Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University. Our conversation takes place in Studio 5, where we talk about Daniels' project MEASURE, the first measuring cups where the shape itself indicates the unit of measure. You can learn more about this project on Kickstarter at http://ow.ly/7ed130jQ4rr which has a funding deadline for May 18.

In this conversation we talk to Daniels about her passion for design and cultivating makers, of all ages, through the work she does at Welcome Industries at Northwestern University with Brandon Williams.

Background

Pam co-founded the not-for-profit DesignHouse Chicago, an organization dedicated to revitalizing local manufacturing through design, and most recently, she has established a design practice called Welcome Industries in partnership with Segal's Maker in Residence, Brandon Williams.  She is active in the League of Women Designers, serves as an adjunct faculty member at Archeworks, and is an advisor to Catalyze Chicago. She has been a speaker at Technori, Chicago Ideas Week, and The International Home & Housewares Show, and been featured in The Chicago Tribune, Core77, Business Week, Design Engine, Modern Luxury Interiors, and Phaidon.

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The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrating creatives, featuring 20-minute,  unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, low tech on  purpose. Reach out to host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow[at]gmail.com 

Artist Linda Lewis Kramer at Miishkooki Gallery

Linda Lewis Kramer has been making art for decades, starting on her dining room table and now out of her artist studio in Evanston, IL. Currently her work is on display in the Cosmic Characters group show featuring Kramer, Wayne Lent and Julie Murphy, at Miishkooki Gallery, 4517 Oakton Ave., in Skokie, thru. Jan. 13.

 
The ten drawings on display at Miishkooki by Kramer are from the series Plate Boy Bunny, Kramer's reaction of how women presented themselves in the eyes of Hugh Hefner, which she found horrifying. See the works on her website under 1972: Colored Pencil on Paper at lindalewiskramer.com

Kramer goes on to talk about her stance on overpopulation, her collection of work and her prolific career including installations and ceramics.

She also mentions the project, 70 Plus - Chicago Visual Artist Oral History Archive, which you can here online here.

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The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrating creatives, featuring 20-minute, unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, very low tech on purpose. Reach out to host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

Catherine Napper of Improv Bus

This episode of The Lisa D Show takes a deep dive into the childhood of Catherine Napper, growing up in Evanston, to look at how environment plays a role in fostering a creative life. Frank, honest, smart and funny, Catherine shares her journey through life all the way to the stage with her current role as an actor with Improv Bus. 

Upcoming Improv Bus performance dates; Theater WIP on September 27 and October 11.

Below is an edited version of Catherine's bio and Improv Bus background. 

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I am an artist and teacher raised and nurtured in South Evanston and a proud class of ‘81 Wildikit. I  am very proud to be living here, in my hometown, once again after many years living in McHenry County, Milwaukee and New York.

Evanston is  the place where I developed my artistic spirit. It surrounded me, a most awkward child, with people and places that inspired and nurtured me. As an introspective and introverted child, I was often by myself or with my sisters. I found it difficult to find friends, or to find a place where I fit in, and I was left to my own devices. I used my imagination to create these places for myself. This translated easily into art of all sorts, writing, painting, and most often, acting and pretending. My sisters and I spent hours and hours creating and producing plays and puppet shows in our basement (amidst the drying laundry) often inviting all the neighbors, and occasionally neglecting to tell my mother.

I found solace, strength and the ability to use my voice through the fine and performing arts and opportunities were everywhere when I began to look for them!  My greatest role models were the artists I was fortunate enough to have as my teachers, Gloria Bond Clunie, being the most prominent. I learned through her, how to use theater as a form of self-expression (and life skill!) Through the performing arts, I felt I had found acceptance from my peers and more importantly, myself. And I had found my tribe.

After High School I studied photography and theater at Columbia College in Chicago I developed and ran a theater program and arts camp for kids through the Ridgeville Park District and taught improv at various locations throughout the Chicagoland Area.  As a young adult I studied at the Second City in Chicago and performed sketch comedy for several years with an improv group named, “The Illegitimate” players directed by the infamous Second City writer and performer, Don DePollo.

I received my Master’s Degree in Teaching from National Louis University and spent many years teaching, raising my kids, taking improv classes with Jimmy Carrane and seeking opportunities to teach and direct youth theater. I directed and co-directed productions of Peter Pan and Our Town through Shakespeare’s Child Theater Company in the Northern suburbs.

After moving back to Evanston two and half years ago with my husband, Tom, I heightened my participation in the improv community by making a stronger commitment to learning new skills, taking classes and performing when I could find the opportunity. I continue to do so!

ImprovBus!

ImprovBus is a flexible improv group made up of 8-12 individuals who trained together with local writer, author, performer and director, Jimmy Carrane, the creator of “The Art of Slow Comedy,” and “Improv Nerd.”  Our performance goal as a team is to bring authentic improv to different types of venues around the city, making it accessible to everyone.

Through our ongoing training, we developed a strong sense of ensemble, growing and learning together with the intent of bringing the “real” back to comedy. This is the philosophy and pedagogy of our mentor/teacher/coach, Jimmy Carrane, and one which really resonated with us as performers.  Our members, who are of myriad ages and backgrounds, bring a wealth of real life talent and experiences to our work. Most of us have enjoyed meaningful careers outside of theater adding  valuable real world experience and variety to our scene work and on-stage relationships.  Our hope is to always let our humanity drive our scene work. We are less game-focused and less silly than many groups out there and rely instead on developing meaningful relationships in our stage work. We vary the show forms we present based on the available performers, the venue, the time and the audience. The result is a group of highly versatile, very, very funny people working together to make comedy relatable and fun. We focus on staying grounded in our work because real life is funny enough!

The name ImprovBus came to me in a strange, albeit well-timed dream, earlier this year.  I dreamed that our entire troupe, along with pets, costumes and musical instruments was tooling around Chicago neighborhoods in a decked out Winnebago-like Bus. Occasionally the side door would pop open and we’d roll out performing hilarious improv right on the spot. When pressed for a name for our troupe in early June, the name just popped out, and it stuck!

ImprovBus! has been very fortunate so far with finding performance opportunities around town (and in fact, they tend to find us!)  We have spent the summer performing very regularly as part of Caffeinated Improv hosted by Osmium Coffee House and Star Lounge. Additional Upcoming dates include a performance with Jamwich (opening for Part Dog) at the Crowd Theater in Chicago on September 9 and 3 performances at Theater WIP on September 13, September 27 and October 11.

We continue to play and learn together, experimenting with new ideas and forms each week and look forward to expanding our performances to include festivals, galleries, industrial work and wherever else the “bus” takes us!

P.S. Having an actual bus is just a long-term goal!

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"The Lisa D Show" is a podcast celebrating creatives, featuring 20-minute, unedited conversations that mimic the live-radio vibe, very low tech on purpose. Reach out to host Lisa Degliantoni at thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

The Lisa D Show with Bill Swislow

Bill Swislow, a founder and longtime executive at Cars.com, is now a digital media consultant, writer and art collector, and a lecturer at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. He also operates the cultural website interestingideas.com and sits on the board of Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art.

Today’s conversation covers Bill’s early pioneering days on the internet in the early 1990s at the Chicago Tribune and his personal interest as an outsider art fan.

You can hear Bill speak at his upcoming talk at the Skokie Public Library, March 23 at 7p.m., when he talks about the outsider artist Henry Darger 125th anniversary of his birth. 

His website interestingideas.com is about outsider art, roadside art and architecture, vernacular culture, occasional political despair and really weird store names.

From Bill: Some of the most powerful art of the last 100 years has happened beyond museum walls. This “Outsider Art” is now starting to seep inside as it gains increasing acceptance even in the most conservative bastions of the art world. Find out what’s so exciting about this “art that doesn’t know its name,” created by people with no formal training but often touched with creative genius, including Chicago’s own Henry Darger (creator of the image to the right). Learn about Chicago-based Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, one of the world’s leading institutions devoted to this work.

We talk about Bill’s works as a board member at Intuit Chicago, one of the premier museums in the world dedicated to presenting self-taught art, defined as the work of artists who demonstrate little influence from the mainstream art world and who instead are motivated by their unique personal visions.

We also discuss how you can become an active outsider art collector, which starts with a visit to Intuit on Milwaukee Ave. Learn more at www.art.org (great url!).

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The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrates creatives. Listen to 20 minute, unedited conversations with host Lisa D. and the creatives who make our world a more connected, interesting and beautiful place to live. Podcasts will be posted at https://thelisadshow.blogspot.com

This podcast is recorded at 1100 Florence, an art event space in West Evanston, IL, owned and operated by Lisa Degliantoni and Dave Ford. It is a former Polish Grocery store, probably not the BEST place to record a podcast (boomy to say the least) but we're new and it will get better. Reach out to thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

The Lisa D Show with Dana De Ano

Dana De Ano is a visual artist living and creating works in Evanston, IL. Her work hangs on walls, but has three dimensional elements, using domestic castaways sewn onto paper resulting in captivating and playful landscapes, always with a tiny house somewhere in the composition.

An alum of the Art Institute of Chicago, De Ano has always made room in her life to create art, is incredibly prolific, shows at galleries across the Midwest and has works in numerous personal and professional art collections. Recently De Ano’s work has undergone a change in both size (she’s stretching herself) and color, the results are fantastic, images below.

In this conversation we talk about De Ano’s creative routine, how domestic castaways like dryer lint inspire her and why size matters. 

 See her body of work at www.danadeano.com and reach out direct for a studio visit, De Ano welcomes the conversation and chance to engage around her work.

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 The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrates creatives. Listen to 20 minute, unedited conversations with host Lisa D. and the creatives who make our world a more connected, interesting and beautiful place to live. Podcasts will be posted at https://thelisadshow.blogspot.com

This podcast is recorded at 1100 Florence, an art event space in West Evanston, IL, owned and operated by Lisa Degliantoni and Dave Ford. It is a former Polish Grocery store, probably not the BEST place to record a podcast (boomy to say the least) but we're new and it will get better. Reach out to thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

The Lisa D Show with Shannon Downey, unedited

Shannon Downey is a Marketing Strategist, Educator, Digital Trainer, Mentor and Fiber Artist, but mostly she’s a Badass Woman Craftivist. (I am new to this word too!)

Depending on the online circles you hang in, you might recognize Shannon for the massive cross stitch protest sign she made “I’m so angry I stitched this just so I could stab something 3,000 times” for the Chicago Women’s March. Shannon’s sign went viral appearing in news outlets around the world.

But Shannon is more than just an angry white girl marching, she’s an organizer who gets IT done. In 2016, Shannon and  group of volunteers raised more than $5,000 as part of a Community Craftivism Project - #EndGunViolence. You can learn more at

www.badasscrossstitch.com. “I create art to inspire other people to create art.

Also the creator of the proejct Seriously Badass Women, a website featuring photographs and interviews with women Shannon finds seriously badass. See more at www.seriouslybadasswomen.com

In this interview we talk about how Shannon became a crafitivist, how you can join her and create free patterns to support causes or just help you lead a craftier life.

“I create art to inspire other people to create art.” Shannon Downey

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The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrates creatives. Listen to 20 minute, unedited conversations with host Lisa D. and the creatives who make our world a more connected, interesting and beautiful place to live. Podcasts will be posted on this blog and on Soundcloud.com

This podcast is recorded at 1100 Florence, an art event space in West Evanston, IL, owned and operated by Lisa Degliantoni and Dave Ford. It is a former Polish Grocery store, probably not the BEST place to record a podcast (boomy to say the least) but we're new and it will get better. Reach out to thelisadshow[at]gmail.com

The Lisa D Show with Cara Dawn, unedited

Cara Dawn is a Chicago native who has been singing since she was a child. After touring the United States, including an overseas USO tour, she returned to the states and began performing locally. She was a rising voice in the Chicago music scene when she stepped off stage to focus her time on raising her son. In 2011 Cara realized that she could no longer go without music in her life.

Her return to the stage has been well received, performing at various venues and events around the city. Cara has been working with a core group of musicians regularly for the last year and performs with them when not doing her solo projects or guest spots. She has been honing her songwriting skills and is currently working on her first solo album due out by the end of this year. Cara Dawn sings from her soul in every performance crafting a truly unique experience for the listener. 

This conversation follows Cara through the various stages of her singing career, examining how singing played a critical role in moments of personal “failure”, lifting her and giving her focus. And how the time off stage informed who she was as a singer in this new phase. 

I am grateful to Cara for sharing her journey with such openness and authenticity, so that others further down the ladder can she how truly you must climb the ladder rung by rung, no one starts on top.

Listen to Cara’s music online at  soundcloud.com/cara-dawn-3

Upcoming live performances in Chicago; 

• February 15,  6-8 p.m. at House of Blues
• March 1,  Chop Shop
• March 20, Promontory in Hyde Park

The Lisa D Show is a podcast celebrates creatives. Listen to 20 minute, unedited conversations with host Lisa D. and the creatives who make our world a more connected, interesting and beautiful place to live. Podcasts will be posted on this blog and on Soundcloud.com

This podcast is recorded at 1100 Florence, an art event space in West Evanston, IL, owned and operated by Lisa Degliantoni and Dave Ford. It is a former Polish Grocery store, probably not the BEST place to record a podcast (boomy to say the least) but we're new and it will get better. Reach out to thelisadshow[at]gmail.com