This week on Art on the Air features books, brushes, and bands for education. Founder Michelle Golden and Communications Development Manager Ian Bundridge discussing this mission and its upcoming events. Next, South Shore Arts Neighbors exhibit artist Ashley January discussing her deeply personal art journey. Our spotlight is on the Family Folklore's play about the 1933 homes of tomorrow coming to the dunes. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart.
You're in the know with Esther and Larry, Art on the Air today. They're in the know with Larry and Esther, Art on the Air our way. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. Express yourself you art, and show the world your heart. Welcome. You're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, WVLP 103.1 FM, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. I'm Larry Breckner of New Perspectives Photography right alongside here with Esther Golden of The Nest in Michigan City.
Aloha everyone. We're your hosts for Art on the Air. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art on the Air is heard every Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Also heard on Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP, 103.1 FM, streaming live at WVLP.org, and Tuesdays at 4 p.m.
on WDSO, 88.3 FM. Our spotlight interviews are also heard Wednesdays on Lakeshore Public Media. Information about Art on the Air is available at our website, breck.com, slash A-O-T-A. That includes a complete show archive, spotlight interviews, plus our show is available on multiple podcast platforms, including NPR One. Please like us on Facebook, Art on the Air, WVLP, for information about upcoming shows and interviews. We'd like to welcome back to Art on the Air Spotlight. She's been with us before about the wonderful things they do with the Family Folklore Foundation, and she has an event coming up, Meg, to make us, and it's the 1933 World's Fair Fairytales, If Buildings Could Talk, and it's going to be a radio show presentation at IUN Mainstage Friday, April 19th at 11 a.m.
It's available for all, and we'll talk more about that. Meg, welcome back to Art on the Air Spotlight. Thank you. I'm glad to be back. I'm glad that the pandemic is easing up a little bit, and we can have you again. True. It's always nice to see you, Meg. Thank you. Nice to see you, too. So give us a little background. I think a lot of people know about the homes there that are now part of the National Park on the Dunes, but tell us a little bit about the history of that and then how this is going to become a radio play.
Okay. So in 1933, we had the second Chicago World's Fair. One of the best exhibits there, most popular, was the Houses of the Future, the Century of Progress homes, and we've been fortunate in Indiana to have almost 20 of them brought over to Beverly Shores. We have about five that are left standing. And so people take tours once a year. It's like getting into a Taylor Swift concert. You get the tickets. You know, it's very popular.
And so we thought, you know, there's a lot of World's Fair buffs out there, and a lot of people around here like to go see those houses. They wonder about them. So we thought it would be a good topic to study. So tell us a story about how they got from where they were in Chicago over to our lakeshore, and what was the purpose of doing that? So Robert Bartlett, he and his brother had the biggest realty agency in Chicago, and he thought it would be nice to have a place in Indiana where the people from Chicago, because this was before air conditioning, they used to take the train up to Michigan.
And he's like, why not have them stop off in Indiana? So they purchased some land, and actually Beverly Shores is named after his daughter, Beverly. I found that out. And once this fair gets taken down, those buildings are going to be kind of inexpensive, you know, because they've got to take them down fast, almost like a circus tent. And he was able to purchase quite a few of them, not very expensive. And then he brought them across to Indiana.
Most of them came by truck, but four of them came on a barge, one at a time with a tugboat pushing the barge. And that's how they got over, and it was 34 miles. So they have a long, long history being here. Yes, they were only supposed to last three months, you know, for the fair. And the economy boosted so much, kind of like a Taylor Swift concert, that when Roosevelt got elected in 1934, he talked the fair people into running it one extra year.
And it was one of the few fairs that actually made money. You know, it's like the Olympics. You have the Olympics in your town. You usually aren't going to make money. But they made money, and they came out $8 million ahead. So that was after two years. They had 40 million people that came, 40 million. And then they paid 50 cents a ticket. As we were talking about that, so they got over here. Was the purpose of having them here to develop Beverly Shores as a real estate option then? Yes.
And so Robert Bartlett would bring people over from Hyde Park. I mean, that's where they were. They were over there by the Science and Industry Museum. And the people all around there knew about them, and so he kind of tapped into that audience, and he brought them over on the train or by car or whatever, and he'd serve them lunch, and they'd take a tour, and those were the people that actually bought. They were teachers and professors and people from there.
Even though it was in the Depression, that was the problem, is this was in the 30s, and so it didn't take off the way they wanted, but they're still there. So with the five houses that are here, can you go through the names and what's special about each house? Okay. And I have to say something that we wondered about is why did the Indiana Dunes National Park even want to buy them? Well, it wasn't that. It was they were there, you know, so then they thought, well, we better take care of them.
So that's how that happened, and the Indiana Landmark came in, and they helped with propriety too. There's five houses. One is a log cabin made out of cypress, and it has lasted very well, but the problem with cypress is it's an endangered plant so that you can't build with cypress anymore, so it's really good to go there and see how great it still looks after 90 years. Another house that they have is what we call the local Barbie doll house.
It's the Florida house. It's flamingo pink. It's speckled, you know, and it was very heavy. In fact, two of the houses, the ones that are closer to the lake, that's the Florida house, which was paid for by the state of Florida, and then the Ross Stone House, which was made out of steel with a composite stone, which you could make it any color. It was rose colored. And they're on the lakeside of Lakeshore Drive. They weighed more than the space shuttle, both of them did, so that they were very, very heavy.
And then across the street, they built a dune there, and that's where they've got the Cypress House, the House of Tomorrow, and the Arco Ferro House. The Arco Ferro House is made out of steel. It came over as one piece, and it was covered with enamel, which seemed like a great idea, except the cliffs that held it together were made out of iron. They rusted, and the whole place fell apart. So the radio play, we're very excited.
It's going to be in the new Arts and Science building over at IUN, which is right across from the library. There's free parking. It's in the main stage theater, which seats 500. And the play has a beautiful background of color. Every member in our group is preparing monologues. The five houses, they are actually children's nylon tents that represent each house. Once they get over here, we have them speaking from the point of view of the houses.
We need to let our audience know it's going to be a library play, IUN main stage, Friday, April 19th, 11 a.m. Ticket information at Family Folklore Foundation, Inc. Tickets are available at the door, $3 per student, $5 for a non-student. And for $10, the 1933 Chicago World Fair, Why Tariel's Books Could Talk. Thank you so much for coming on Art in the Air Spotlight, Meg. Thank you. Thank you, Meg. Art in the Air Spotlight and the complete one-hour program on Lakeshore Public Media is brought to you by Macaulay Real Estate in Valparaiso, Olga Patrician, Senior Broker.
And as a reminder, if you'd like to have your event on Art in the Air Spotlight or have a longer feature interview, email us at aotaatbrek.com. That's aotaatbrek, B-R-E-C-H, dot com. This is Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence, and you're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, and on WVLP, 103.1 FM. We would like to welcome Michelle Golden and Ian Brundage to Art on the Air. Michelle is the founder and board president of Books, Brushes, and Bands for Education, as well as the owner of Golden Studio.
Ian Brundage is the communications development manager for Books, Brushes, and Bands for Education. BBB4E was formed to enhance the fine arts education for children in literacy, visual, and musical arts, and serves students ages 5 through 18. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome to both of you. Thank you for joining us, Michelle and Ian. Thank you for having us. Good morning to both of you. Well, first of all, Michelle, since you are the founding member of the whole organization, and I heard the story before because we had you on several years ago, but I think our audience would love to hear it again.
First of all, your personal story a little bit about how you got from where you were to where you are now, and what caused you to form this organization because of something that was lacking in your community, and then Ian will do much the same thing with you, kind of do an introduction about you. Michelle, tell us about how you got from where you were to where you are now. So part of, I guess you would say, the birth of BBB4E was that we all know that nonprofits are generally formed and come from deficits.
You know, we have reasons why there's something that we want to put in place, and at the time in the year 2000, being a very young mother, I was diligently working in my studio, creating a lot of awards for people like Chicago Medical School, Northwestern, not too many Northwest Indiana clients, but mostly in Chicago. And at the same time, my kids were in school, and I was starting to realize that things just were not the way I wanted to see them.
And being a professional artist, I took some ideas to the principal, and they said to me, well, this is the way it is. And anytime anybody says anything to me like that, it's just, it's not enough. So my husband and I were at the place where our second son was getting to be older, and we were thinking about starting and having maybe another child, a third child. I have two sons. And we made the choice, consciously made the choice, to start Books, Brushes, and Bands for Education instead of having a third child, that this would be what we would do, and into retirement, work on the organization.
So that's the short answer of that. Well, maybe just a little bit more about your background, growing up and everything, in terms of how arts and music and those types of things, where you grew up, and how that was an early part of your life. So I'm a lifelong Hammond resident. My father was a professional musician. He had his own orchestra in the late 50s, early 60s, and very early 60s. And my mom was a stay-at-home mom.
She was a consummate domestic. She knew how to make something out of nothing every day. And I have three younger brothers that were very rambunctious and busy and needed her full attention as much as possible. And I learned to be incredibly resourceful, and I spent a lot of time drawing and painting and making things. She taught me how to sew and cook and can and do all sorts of things like that. But I had a very quiet, meaning not a lot of friends in my childhood.
But I had the opportunity to learn about language from my grandparents and the time that I spent with family members that really cared about me. They listened to me. I had lots of people reading to me. And so that was very important, and I did that same thing with my kids. And later on, when I went away to college, my background is in painting, drawing, and printmaking. And so when I left Purdue downstate and came to the world of work, I started in an engrossing studio in Chicago and learned firsthand.
I apprenticed to understand what manuscript documents were about and literally worked in a studio understanding what that meant, grinding ink, working with a T-square, all of which I still do today. But I've expanded that practice to do a lot of things related to fine art and bookbinding, canvas painting that I'm getting back to now. And so because that was so much a part of me, I wanted that for my kids, and to the extent that it was excellent, that it wasn't just cut and paste, that it wasn't just working with manila paper.
And I couldn't find it. I couldn't find what I was looking for for my children, and that's where BBB4E came from. So after being read to all that time, were you, as a child, do you remember being a voracious reader? Did you watch your parents read? That's a really good question. And the answer would be no, because my dad was a business person. I didn't see him read so much. I watched him type. I listened to his typewriter, to his Underwoods.
My grandmother was all about language. She used to keep me busy. She would have me make lists of words, like all the three-letter words I could think of, all the four-letter words, all the five-letter words, all the six-letter words. And I was big into playing Scrabble. So that love of language and rhyming and just understanding where words go, how they're placed, was always very important to me. And from that also came correspondence etiquette, which my father taught me.
It was very important to him because he was writing letters all the time. I actually remember writing letters when I was five and having him give me a lesson on how to place the stamp on an envelope because it had to be a certain way. So a lot of particulars, peculiarities, I guess, that I have that were rooted from childhood. But many of those etiquette pieces are missing today with people just not knowing how to say thank you, just generally in words, let alone writing them.
Or how responding to email, even an acknowledgment, I find that one of my frustrating things. You send an email, and even if someone sends something to me, I usually, unless it's something that obviously doesn't need a response, I say thank you or okay or something. Yeah, that's some of that. So, yeah. And we'll talk more about your art practice. Well, Ian, we're just going to go through the same thing. We want to really know about how, you know, your childhood.
My family is from East Chicago, and I moved to Hammond when I was about four or five. So Hammond is very much where I grew up, right on Holman Avenue. I went to the Montessori Children's Schoolhouse that's still there. And looking back on that, I started to realize how big of an influence even just that building that that school is in. It's in what used to be an insurance building built in the 1920s, and it has stained glass windows inside, a chandelier, marble floors.
It's a really decadent building for an elementary school to be in. And I've learned that I love all of those details of life, like Michelle's talking about. After that, I went to Wilbright Middle School in Munster, and then Munster High School, and on to college at DePauw University down in Greencastle, Indiana. And I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I just knew that I was interested in art. Throughout high school, I participated in journalism.
So that is where I really started developing a love for writing and an appreciation for words, like Michelle talks about. But for me, it's sort of been more practical in terms of helping my fellow students, helping my community understand the things that are happening in the world, the challenges, the successes, really being able to share all those things through journalism. As I continued in college, I realized journalism is a lot of work. It's a lot of long hours, long days, never-ending deadlines, and that isn't really what I was interested in.
I also had a passion for visual art, painting, drawing, and those things didn't really fit into a newsroom that well. So I shifted and started studying museum studies, which I realized is a passion that has been in the background of my life since Montessori. So I took a lot of art history classes, actual museum design classes, thinking about the layout of a space, how different artworks talk to each other, and the educational materials that are paired with all of that.
That's what I did in college, and I came back to Hammond after graduating. I graduated on a Sunday, and the BBB spring concert was on a Wednesday night that next week. So I said, I'll go see what they're up to. I didn't even mention that my one outlet to musical arts when I was younger was books, brushes, and bands. My mom saw the flyer at the library and signed us up, signed my older sister and myself up.
I was pretty hesitant to it. I did not love the idea of performing and being sort of the spotlight of attention. I always liked to be more behind the canvas or behind the computer out of the spotlight. But through the Midwest Youth Choir, I really met new friends and learned how to open up in a whole new way that I wouldn't have in school or at my drawing classes or journalism classes. So that's why I decided to go back to visit that concert after graduating.
And I brought my camera because journalism, that's what I was used to doing. And I just started taking pictures. Michelle saw me there and remembered me from when I was a student and years volunteering through College Found and things like that. And the ball just sort of rolled from there. I've been working part time with BBB since then, helping plan events, do social media, all those things that keep the ball rolling. So that's like beyond serendipity.
Right. Like, it's so beautiful. So what is your personal practice? Like journalism is one thing, but did you do you write stories? Do you write poetry? I mean, how or do you paint? So how do you express yourself beyond BBB? So my personal practice, I would say I'm a sculptural painter. That's the most outcome of my work. Paintings that have these 3D elements or sculptures that have painting elements. I am very concerned with the environment, like I think many young people are nowadays.
So that is constantly what I'm thinking about when I'm choosing to make work or not make work. And the materials I'm using, I really try to use things that are found objects, things that I have just came across in life or it's trash that maybe I find on the street or walking along the beach and try to incorporate those things into my work to give them a second life. I feel very guilty about the environment, even though like I'm not responsible for all of it.
But I want to do my part to reduce consumption, reduce waste, and hopefully through my artwork inspire other people to do that as well. What a story. I fully agree with that. I mean, I do too. My children actually don't like my collection of found objects because they're not all pretty, you know. Yep. I know early in my life, my older daughter was all about recycling. This was before they had curbside pickup. So we would live with recycling for a few weeks at a time before we had to drive it to the recycling place.
So yeah, I'm all about that. So what a great story and what a great find there, Michelle. We'll get back to Michelle for a little bit. And maybe, Ian, you can jump in whenever necessary. Yeah. Tell us about the programs in general. You know, like you see BBBE and Guyanoweno, but what actually do you offer for students to do? And how do they find out about it? In the library. Yeah. I mean, that definitely, you don't know what you're going to find at the library.
Like you just don't. It's a great resource. But. There's treasures in our communities. Mm-hmm. One of the, I guess, most important pieces of Ian coming on board is that we have been maybe the best kept secret for a very long time. And we do work with kids from any zip code. So it's not limited to Hammond students. That happens to be where our office is. We're kicking off a project in Hammond because we are here. But that doesn't mean that we're not open to working in other places.
We started with projects in the schools before No Child Left Behind and the whole world was different 24 years ago. But what we are, how people find out about us now is a great question because we don't have a huge marketing budget. We're trying to use social media as much as possible. But I think one of the ways people find out about us is through referral, specifically for the music portion. But doing some of these more expansive and now explosive projects, which Ian can talk a little bit more about, is how we're trying to broaden our view for people to find out about who we are and the breadth of what we do.
Yeah, Michelle, what is your capacity for serving the community? Approximately how many people can you have in a program at a time? It really depends on the program. We're doing something very small called One Night Two Stories in March, which would serve about 20 families. And the reading project that we're going to be embarking on in about 750 second graders that we're going to be serving. So it really depends on the scale, the scope, the events.
It's really different. It just depends. I'll add to that. To set back a little bit, answering the services that we offer and the things that we do, if you think about our name, Books, Brushes, and Bands, we really try to offer things in each of those areas. So the musical, the literary, the visual. The musical is definitely one of the most regular programs with the Midwest Youth Choir, which meets weekly during the school year and summer.
And so that group is divided by age into two different choir levels. So there's the younger students, who are age 5 to 7, and then the older group of 8 all the way up to 18. And they meet weekly. We have performances at the end of each semester at least once, so summer, spring, winter. But then we also go into the community, and the students are able to see the world and perform in spaces that you wouldn't necessarily expect.
In the summer, we'll be doing a project called Summer Serenade, which we did last summer as well, where the students actually go out and perform at businesses. Last year we performed at Hammond City Hall and the WJLB radio station. So really getting them out into the world and also offering a little musical break, a performance break for the people who are at their everyday job, just living their life to have a little smile. With the brushes and the books, those programs happen a little bit more, not as weekly, but they're still very important.
With the books, we have the Book Brigade, which is our sort of flagship book program. And we actually go out into communities, neighborhoods, walking store to door with volunteers and students from our choir program, knocking on people's doors, just giving away free books. We have Red Wagon, so you'll always recognize it when you see us out. We've been doing this since 2013, and we're super excited to get back into the community, back into the streets. We had to pause, obviously, during COVID for a number of reasons.
But as of last fall, we've started planning routes again, and we're looking to expand outside of Hammond with this project for the first time, going into East Chicago, Gary, making sure that we have a wider impact similar to our music program that's open to students from any zip code. And do you look for volunteers? Obviously, it sounds like from the breadth of what you're doing, how would people do that, and how would they join? What kind of volunteership are you looking for? Yeah, definitely.
Volunteers are a big part of what make what we do possible, especially the Book Brigade. You can find out more information at bbb4e.org backslash volunteer. And those opportunities consist of actually walking with us on the route, knocking on people's doors, having conversations. Or if you're not as social or maybe not as mobile, then we also need people to help put stickers in books. We have a Book Brigade sticker that marks each book that goes through our collection.
We're also looking for people to help donate books, people to help sort our growing book collection. Just yesterday, we got another donation of four boxes that we have to collect. So it's really a large growing project. There's also opportunities for volunteers to help at, like, the concerts, whether it's ushering or giving away the free books at events like that as well. Well, we just have a couple minutes, but I want to also give you an opportunity to talk about your own art practice.
I assume you're still kind of actively doing something, but maybe with this, it's taking up your time. I know, like, doing the radio show, my art practice gets kind of back-burner, but tell us briefly about that. My art practice is definitely there. During COVID, I went back to painting in a very different way. I carry my sketchbook with me, particularly on the weekends, and working on thumbnails for larger pieces all the time. So that, I would say, has been reborn in a different way.
But my art practice is really I am finding, aside from the awards and the custom pieces that I do that are commissioned specifically, the work is very much assemblage-driven. A lot of times, there are books half-bound into pieces that are usually behind glass. I'll use found objects as a part of that, but being a calligrapher, a lot of the copy, the language itself becomes its own graphic. So the pieces can be large, they can be small.
I've just recently got a piece back from the state of Indiana that was in the Hoosier Women's Art Salon before COVID. It took that long to get it back. And it was specifically a piece about women's suffrage movement, and it was designed for the theme of that. So it really depends. Sometimes a private client will come to me, or I'll do something, and it'll get into the salon show in Munster. But I want to be able to return to that, because the work that I'm doing there, a lot of it is statement-making.
And I think that that's a great way to have a conversation, in a sense, because you finish a piece, you put it behind glass, and that's it. You're done. And you move on. And your thoughts and words are there for others to see. And it balances out what you spend so many other hours doing. You need that personal practice. Yes. Yes. Well, this will air in April, April 5th. But, Ian or Michelle, why don't you tell us about a few of the upcoming events in our last minute here, and also, once again, how people can get in touch with your organization.
Definitely. I can take this. So, in April, we have our largest fundraiser for the year. All proceeds from the annual Spring Tea support our music programs and other art education programs. This is going to take place Sunday, April 28th at the Halls of St. George in Cherville. Tickets are on sale right now at BBB4E.org backslash events. So, you can find everything at BBB4E.org backslash events. 219-932-3232. That's 219-932-3232. And this is a great fundraiser. It's the sixth annual one of this event.
There will be a family-style lunch, tea service, and performances from the Midwest Youth Choirs. As well as this year, our theme is blossoming community literacy. So, really emphasizing the book part, the literacy. We'll be highlighting the Book Brigade and all the work that it does, as well as the reading project that we completed back in March. So, it'll be a great event. Michelle, would you like to talk about the Spring Concert briefly? That will be May 13th at 630 at Hammond Central.
And we will be showcasing all the work that we've done this year, not only musically, but also that to include the How to Be a Lion with Ed Veer, the story that we will be reading to about 800 second-graders. And the art that will be created there will be on display at the high school. That's excellent. Well, we appreciate you coming on Art in the Air. That's books, brushes, and bands for education. Michelle Golden, who's the founder and board president, Ian Bunbridge.
He's the Communications Development Manager. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing about your wonderful organization. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's an excellent organization. This is Clay Jenkinson for Listening to America. And you are listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM and WVLP 103.1 FM. We would like to welcome Ashley January to Art on the Air. Ashley creates contemporary paintings that are informed by her maternal experience, exploring themes of preeclampsia, premature birth, and birth trauma.
Her newest body of work continues to address the black maternal mortality and morbidity crisis in America through painting and multimedia. Ashley was an exhibiting artist in the group show Neighbors at South Shore Gallery in Munster, Indiana. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Ashley. It's really, really wonderful to meet you. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It's really great to be here. And Ashley, we're glad to have you.
And our audience always wants to know, like, your origin story. I always like to say how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us all about yourself. Sure. So I was born in Illinois, and I grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago, specifically Flossmoor. And I went to Homewood Flossmoor High School. And there, they have a wonderful art program. And so I was able to take a lot of art classes there, which really started my curiosity into the arts.
So I was able to take, like, photography class, drawing, yearbook. And I specifically had a really cool teacher who I was an assistant to, a teacher's assistant to, in yearbook class. And she noticed that I was actually pretty talented in drawing portraits for my drawing class. And she mentioned to me that I should maybe think about starting a business in commissioning portrait drawings. And I was like, oh, wow, that's a neat idea. I wouldn't even know where to start.
And she was like, well, how about you create a brochure first? And so she helped me create a brochure. She helped me to create the advertisement and market my work. And I had started my little business in high school of drawing commissioned works of people. What a wonderful teacher. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, she was incredible. And so that kind of really propelled me to start thinking about art as a career. And I even started participating in some of the shows at HF.
They had this really cool bagel show program at the Great American Bagels around the corner that I participated in a few times. And then they had a show at the Prairie State College, which I actually won, like, best in show for the first time. And then I started to be kind of recruited by art schools, but I didn't really know, you know, what I would major in. I didn't really have that mentor to kind of look up to as far as how to become a professional artist other than, like, teaching.
And I was kind of intimidated by teaching. And so I was trying to figure out what I was going to study in school. Needless to say, I ended up choosing a major where I thought I could secure a more steady income, I guess, after I graduated so I could support myself. So I chose communications and advertising because I thought I could do some creativity there as well. But I minored in studio art. So I was able to take some classes in college, too, at Bradley University.
And then I chose to study abroad my junior – spring semester of my junior year in Florence, Italy, where I got to take more classes, more art classes. And so it was – the art was always there, but I didn't really start to take it seriously until later on. After I graduated college, I moved back home because it was during the recession in 2009. And, you know, I was trying to get that job, and I ended up landing a job full-time with benefits in marketing, PR, event planning, that type of thing.
But I was doing some graphic design work with newsletters and all that, too, at the job. And I did that for a couple of years, and I realized, you know what, I'm really missing the art. I want to get back into it. I want to take some more art classes. So I found this atelier up north called the Truvian Fine Arts Studio. And a husband and wife team, Mindy and David, teach there. And I was there for two and a half years and developed my portfolio.
And then I kind of got to a point where I had learned all my fundamental skills there of drawing and painting and, you know, color theory, working from live models, still life, that type of thing. And I wanted to really push it and take it to the next level. So they advised that I, you know, apply to grad school. And so, you know, I had never really gone to art school because I had gotten my degree in communication.
So I was a little intimidated by that. But they were very encouraging and very supportive. So they both graduated from New York Academy. So they recommended that school or Laguna College of Art and Design. And so my husband and I decided to go out west. So I ended up getting into LCAD out there and got my MFA and graduated in 2017. And being from Chicago, we knew we were going to move back because our family's here and everything.
So 2017, I graduated and I've been working full time ever since. What a great story. You know, like, it's just it's so amazing how one person who intervened, that teacher, really started this whole course for you. And I just so applaud that involved teacher. How wonderful. Was there any other earlier things prior to high school? We sort of went from, you know, that any art experiences at all that you experienced or not? I mean, other things that you did prior to high school? I mean, prior to high school, I was always really interested in arts and crafts and drawing and painting and stuff.
And I had my little Polaroid camera. So photography has always been there, too, and encouraged by my parents. But I didn't really take it seriously until I think I got to high school when I started, you know, choose to take these classes on my own and really kind of pursue my little business, you know, that my yearbook teacher showed me how to do. So the art had always been there since I was little. You know, it just kind of evolved into a bigger thing when I was in high school.
So, Ashley, is your family creative? It sounds like they certainly supported whatever direction you wanted to to follow, which is excellent. So my family, they are very enthusiastic about education. You know, but neither of them are artists. But I do have a family of singers. Both of my grandmothers were singers. Actually, my mom, she sang in the choir when she was in college, too. And so we have that side of art, the music side. And I grew up in elementary school.
I did have to choose an instrument. And I chose to play the viola. So I played the viola from fourth grade, actually, until my sophomore year in high school. But then I got to a point where I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to become a professional, you know, player when I get older. This is a great skill to have on the side. But I really I would like to dedicate my time and I, you know, to the art and drawing and photography and stuff like that.
So I told my mom, you know, I'm going to quit orchestra and I'm going to take drawing and painting. So thank you for introducing that to me. But I think it's time for me to kind of segue to something else. So as you were talking about the atelier that you studied at in grad school, when was it that you started? So with your portfolio, was that a variety of things or were you starting to work on a series of work? When did that happen for you, that you developed a body of specific work? That happened in grad school.
So at the atelier, I was really learning more of the fundamentals and mastering how to draw, how to paint, you know, how to apply color, how to mix color, how to paint from life, how to put together still lifes, all that. And I got pretty good at that after two and a half years. But I really wanted to investigate more of the conceptual side and figure out what are the themes that I'm interested in? What are the stories that I want to tell? What do I want the viewer to experience when they walk into a space and see my work, you know, in communication all together at once? And so that's when I realized, you know, I really need to take it to the next level and get this MFA so that I can learn how to put together a cohesive body of work, which is what I what I learned how to do for the first time at LCAD.
And what was that first body of work? So the first body of work was specifically about the investigation into the self and my ancestry, lineage, heritage, you know, my identity, where I came from. And I had always been curious about it. And I had heard stories, you know, from my parents, my grandparents about them migrating from the South, you know, the great migration. But I didn't really, you know, go to those places. I didn't really I couldn't I didn't never saw it for myself.
You know, my mom went to school in Mississippi. Same school my grandmother went to. And she's from Clarksdale, Mississippi. At Russ College, which is a historically black college. And I'd always heard of Russ College. And that's where both of them sang in the choir. But I had never been there. So during my thesis research, I went to Mississippi, Clarksdale, and I saw, you know, I went to Russ College and I saw it for myself. And, you know, took a lot of photographs of my journey.
And then my husband was with me. And we ended up going on a trip to investigate his ancestry, too. He's Creole. And so we went to Louisiana and actually found a cousin that he had never met, a distant cousin. And she we came over to her house and she made us gumbo. And, you know, we talked with her, took some photographs. And, you know, so it really informed this whole ancestry and lineage investigation that I was curious about.
And I wanted to kind of take a step further. I even took the ancestry DNA test to see where in my origin story, you know, kind of started, not just in the United States, but, you know, the diaspora. Right. You know, one thing that strikes me, and it's like the first image on your website is, of course, it's kind of a self portrait with Quinn. And when you do you incorporate a lot of yourself in work, when you do that, first of all, do you work from a picture of yourself? Because, you know, it's kind of difficult to kind of do that.
How does that process work when you're working with you as part of the subject? Right. So, you know, my work is, I would consider to be autobiographical. And I am doing a lot of self reflection. Photography is a part of it. It's a big part of it. I've taken a few classes in it. So, you know, it's always been there. I always use it as reference material. But I don't consider my paintings to be photorealistic, because the photographs are more like, you know, a type of study, in a sense.
I do like to make smaller studies in paint. But I also, you know, go back and I comb through all the photographs that I've taken. And then I pick out the ones that really stand out to me. And I'll print out a few of them and put them next to the smaller study on the wall. And then kind of take from each photograph and put that, apply that in the smaller study. So, I call it kind of like a paint collaging that kind of happens with a smaller study.
And the photographs are a point of departure where I can take from a few of them as sources and then apply them and create a whole new image, you know, on a smaller scale. And then kind of blow that up and even take from the study and improvise new things onto a larger scale. But when I am depicting myself, yes, they do come from some photography. Sometimes I'll paint from life, too. And I'll, you know, put a mirror up there next to me.
And if there's details that I missed from the photograph, then I'll have to go into the mirror and then, you know, figure those out, work through those. You're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM on WVLP, 103.1 FM. It's really like the scale of that painting. You know, we see, you know, when an artist shows their portfolio page and the dimensions are on there, it's sometimes hard to really capture the enormity of some of the large work.
And your Instagram was valuable to me in that respect. Just like right now, you know, seeing you with the paintings behind you. And I've seen them on your portfolio page and I didn't have a sense of the scale as I'm looking at it. Even though I, of course, can intellectually know what X times X equals, you know, but the visual is just amazing. So what was that like, painting so large for you? And, you know, when you have something in your mind, do you know what size you want to do? Or is that like, does that come out in your sketches or some of these other processes you were just talking about? Right.
I think I have an idea of how many large scale works I want to include in the series and how much realistically I can get done. When I'm looking, when I'm setting a deadline for myself to complete the series, which typically is around four or five really large scale paintings. So it's like seven foot paintings, six or seven foot paintings. And then, you know, I worked in a range of scale, so I have got the smaller studies, too.
And then I've got, you know, medium sized paintings as well in the entire body of work. So I'm thinking about all these things and how they're in conversation with each other. And typically, like the larger scale works will depict the participants and their family members specifically, whether it be the mother birthing person with their child or now it's kind of evolved into the mother, their partner, and then a child or, you know, all of their children together.
So it's like a family unit. And I'm really interested in depicting on a larger scale in the environment. And yeah, I so it kind of evolved as I'm as I'm thinking about the entire project. But I but initially when starting it, I have an idea in my mind of how many I can get through for the series, how many I'm happy with, you know. But I'm usually working on around three or four paintings at a time.
And I have two studios. I have my home studio and then I have my studio downtown at Mana Contemporary. It's so interesting. So when you're painting a series, do you have do you already have the idea of what gallery or do you know what gallery or institution it's going into? Or do you start out just going, OK, this is the theme I want to explore and this is how many paintings I'm going to do. Or it's probably a combination of both.
But yeah, it is a combination of both. There are so many valuable things that I learned while in grad school. You know, one of my mentors, Luis Serrano, he taught me to think about putting together the body of work and how they would be in a space curating the space as I go. Actually, when I'm creating the body of work and physically laying it out and organizing it, you know, in documents and stuff. And so that's how I think about it now.
And I might not have that destination of the institution where it's going to, you know, live for a while at that moment. But I'm confident that, you know, it will land in a place and I will, you know, whether it be through applications that I might have to do. And now I'm really excited because I have a new gallery representation with Cynthia Corbett Gallery. So I'm working with her to get the work shown in different fairs that she participates in throughout the year.
And we're in talks of bringing the work in a space, one of the perhaps her alma mater, which is in Boston. And I forget the name of it. I can't remember. But we're in talks about bringing this new body of work there now. So we're trying to work through it, but I'm not completely done with this new body of work. I think I'll be done in September. So I'm curious on the Neighbors exhibit, how you hooked up with Tom and Linda and in how your work fit in with the overall theme of Neighbors.
Right. So very interesting. I had never really I didn't know about Tom and Linda. I asked Linda to send me an email and explaining, you know, the concept of the show exhibition and she wanted to include me in an invitation. And then when I met her in person, I asked her, oh, OK, how did you hear about me? How did you find my work? And she said that she found it through the New American Paintings catalog.
So that's how she she found me and wanted to include me, which was amazing. You know, it's such a, you know, an honor to be a part of this exhibition. And it's such a great show. The Neighbors exhibition and the artists participating are, you know, incredible. Yeah, incredible. So I love the theme of Neighbors. You know, I think it's very timely and I think my work fits in well because the people that I'm depicting are everyday normal people, you know, that you see walking down the street.
But they all have these tremendous stories that really need to be heard. And they're bravely sharing with the world. And it's an honor that I could bring it to the South Shore Art Center for people to not only see the paintings in person, but also listen to the audio narratives that are installed with the portraits. Tell us about maybe what future work you're, you sort of touched on this, but like future work you're working on and maybe future exhibits you're looking at.
Sure. So I mentioned that I now have representation with Cynthia Corbett Gallery and we're going to be participating in Expo Chicago this year, which starts April 11th and runs through the 14th at Navy Pier. So I'm really excited about that. First time participating in Expo. Yeah, Expo's fabulous. Yeah, so exciting. And I'll be debuting my new body of work, which is titled Environments of a Heavy Joy. And then I'm currently participating in this auction that's actually based in the UK called Art on a Postcard, War Child UK.
And that goes on, that actually started today, goes live and runs through March. And I actually had to create these three little tiny postcard paintings for that auction. And I think they're going to exhibit them at the, I think it's called the Bomb Factory Foundation too in the UK. So I'm excited about that. And then I have a new group exhibition coming up called Mama's Need a Raise, which opens on March 24th and runs through May.
Curated by Catherine Gressel and it's going to be at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, New York. And I'll have three works in that show. And then I will be featured in another podcast called Postpartum Production Podcast. We'll be recording that at the end of March. And then for Black History Month, I was also contacted by another organization called Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association, where they wanted to highlight an artist on their website. And I have one more show coming up in June.
It's called Human Head and it's actually curated by my mentor, Luis Serrano at Art Division in Los Angeles. And that opens up in June 8th. You know, we're just getting to about one minute left here. I want to give you a chance to tell us how people can find you, if you do commission work, things like that. So your website, Instagram, all those types of things, Ashley. Sure. So my website is ashleyjan.com. And you can find more information about my work on my Instagram at ashleyjanart.
And you can actually, if you wanted to purchase work, you can go to my gallery's website, which is thecynthiacorbettgallery.com. Or you can email me and I can put you in contact with Cynthia at art at ashleyjan.com. Sounds great. We appreciate you coming on Art in the Air and sharing your art journey and being in the South Shore Arts Neighbor Show, which unfortunately, by the time this airs, is closed. But that's Ashley January. And you can see her work at ashleyjan.com and all the other sites.
Ashley, thank you so much for coming on Art on the Air. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much, Ashley. Thank you. We'd like to thank our guests this week on Art on the Air, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. Art on the Air is heard Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org, and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast.
Art on the Air is also heard Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP, 103.1 FM, streaming live at wvlp.org. If you have a smart speaker like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple Siri, just tell to play Art on the Air to hear the latest episode. Our spotlight interviews are heard every Wednesday on Lakeshore Public Media. Thanks to Tom Maloney, vice president of radio operation for Lakeshore Public Media, and Greg Kovach, WVLP's station manager.
Our theme music is by Billy Foster with a vocal by Renee Foster. Art on the Air is supported by the Indiana Arts Commission, Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. We'd like to thank our current underwriters for Lakeshore Public Media, Macaulay Real Estate and Valparaiso, Quota Patrician, Senior Broker. And for WVLP, Walt Redinger of Paragon Investments. So we may continue to bring you Art on the Air. We rely on you, our listeners and underwriters, for ongoing financial support.
If you're looking to support Art on the Air, we have information on our website at breck.com slash aota, where you can find out how to become a supporter or underwriter of our program in whatever amount you are able. And like I say every week, don't give till it hurts. Give till it feels good. You'll feel so good about supporting Art on the Air. If you're interested in being a guest or send us information about your arts, arts-related event or exhibit, please email us at aota at breck.com.
That's aota at breck, B-R-E-C-H dot com. Or contact us through our Facebook page. Your hosts were Larry Breckner and Esther Golden. And we invite you back next week for another episode of Art on the Air. Aloha, everyone. Have a splendid week. Express yourself through art and show the world your heart. Express yourself through art and show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, Art on the Air today. Stay in the know with Larry and Esther, Art on the Air our way.
Express yourself through art and show the world your heart. Express yourself through art and show the world your heart. Express yourself through art.
