♪♪
-Hi, there, and welcome to the show.
I'm Nancy Guppy, coming to you from Kucera Gallery
where I am standing in the midst of
"The Space Between Things,"
an exquisite collection of new paintings
by artist Norman Lundin.
This exhibit continues Norman's exploration of visual detail
through imagined still lifes,
studio views and landscape vistas.
And I love how Norman describes
what the title of the show means.
Quote, As a painter, many things get my attention,
but what interests me most is the space between things.
My work incorporates content
that has little or no emotional association.
The objects I paint are ubiquitous in our daily lives
and are essentially psychologically neutral.
This is intended, as it then allows
the light and volume of space
to become what is most important.
The objects are not there to be described;
they are there to describe the space.
"The Space Between Things" runs now through Saturday, April 1.
Hours and location are at gregkucera.com.
We've got a great lineup for you,
including an homage to Seattle's neon art.
Eva Abram on the power of telling stories.
-The king of the sky is giving a feast.
Help spread the word!
-And music from Appaloosa.
-♪ All right then ♪
♪ Forget it ♪
♪ I'm out ♪
-And we'll begin with Willow Bader,
a painter who finds inspiration in the world of Argentine tango.
-I always took art seriously.
I always knew I would be an artist.
♪♪
In high school, I started looking at what my options
would be for art school -- I knew I wanted to go,
and I found the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
in Philadelphia,
and they are the oldest art school
in the United States
and they are one of the few still teaching
a very traditional education.
The only things they teach are drawing, painting,
printmaking and sculpture.
I discovered encaustic
in my last couple of years of art school,
I would go to the First Friday art walks
and certain artworks would catch my eye.
I would see that there was --
there was a different surface
with more texture, more three dimensionality
and kind of a luminous look to it.
It was always really appealing to me.
And with those artworks that caught my eye,
I would always look at the tag
that would be next to the artwork on the wall,
and the tag would always say, "Encaustic."
The simplest way I can describe what encaustic is,
is that it's hot wax with resin
and pigment added to it to give it its color.
And I apply the paint with a brush and I scrape with a tool
and I use a propane torch.
[ Ignites, flame roars ]
When I walk into the studio at the beginning of a painting day,
the first thing I do is turn on my griddles.
I need my paint to be hot in order to paint with it.
What I really love about the process of encaustic
is the immediacy.
There is no waiting.
It's very direct.
Once I pick up my brush full of paint,
I have about three seconds
to get it on the painting
where I want it, how I want it.
I think the encaustic lends itself
particularly well to my interest.
I have a love of movement in my paintings
and when you're forced to work quickly
because your paint dries so quickly,
I think it makes for a good partnership.
The mirror in my studio is actually a tool
to help me see what my work looks like.
It adds distance as if I've walked across the room,
but it also flips the image around
so I get a fresh perspective hat can help.
♪♪
My first tango classes were in Philadelphia.
She was just teaching it by herself.
And I thought, okay, I think I can do this.
This is not very comfortable, but I think I can do this.
And then on I think the third lesson,
her dance partner came
and they did a little demo
in the middle of the room for us to see,
and I just about gulped and ran for the door.
At the time to even be that close with a man
and that intimate and moving together
was not an easy thing for me to do.
If I'd known what I was getting into,
I never would have made it to that first class.
So good thing I didn't know.
I met my partner dancing.
These days, we get out dancing
usually one to three times a week.
And when we travel, we always pack our dance shoes.
Just about any large city in the world
has a community of Argentine tango dancers.
You don't have to speak the local language.
All you need to know is how to dance.
It's a -- it's a language of bodies.
One of my new friends said, "Why don't you paint tango?"
And I'm like, "Yes, I think this makes really good sense."
It has the human figure.
It's in motion, it's romantic.
And so now I've been painting Argentine Tango
for like 18 years.
And every once in a while I take a break,
but I always come back to it again.
♪♪
I enjoy bringing people together to share food and wine,
and my partner also loves that.
I would say my ideal day
actually is painting and gardening and cooking.
Have a dinner party at the end of the day
and then go out dancing.
♪♪
I paint what I know.
My painting is not separate from myself,
and I don't feel myself if I'm not getting to paint.
It's okay if a few days go by sometimes,
but I feel so much better
and myself when I'm in the studio,
and it gives me something to look forward
to getting in the studio to see what it looks like today.
Some panels have quite a history actually,
of a number of paintings have been on them
before I finally settle on the painting that stays there.
And sometimes those remnants of color end up
being what makes the next painting really work.
And whether it's my dining room table
or a friend's dining room table,
a holiday meal,
or a certain place I traveled to and danced,
they do have memories attached to them very much.
♪♪
-Willow is part of "Nocturne,"
a group show at Cole Gallery in Edmonds,
running now through April 3.
And you can see Willow's work
at Edward Montgomery Fine Art
in Carmel, California.
More information is at willowbader.com
Our musical guest this week
is the super fun band Appaloosa,
featuring Erica Brunner on vocals and guitar,
Rachel Barrett on vocals and bass,
Leif Larson on guitar, and Ian Thomas on drums,
performing "No Hope For the Kids."
♪♪
♪ What's up now? ♪
♪ All right then ♪
♪ Forget it ♪
♪ I'm out ♪
♪ Trying to figure out ♪
♪ Where to go after the show ♪
♪ Nights, lights so bright ♪
♪ Gonna illuminate a bike ♪
♪ Won't stop now ♪
♪ All right, then ♪
♪ Forget it ♪
♪ I'm out ♪
♪ Walkin' down an empty street ♪
♪ All I hear's the beat of my feet ♪
♪ Beat, beat, beat of my feet ♪
♪ More of morphine ♪
♪ No hope this time ♪
♪♪
♪ No hope for the kids ♪
♪♪
♪ Won't stop now ♪
♪ All right then ♪
♪ Forget it ♪
♪ I'm out ♪
♪ Got, got, the night ♪
♪ I am ready for the fight ♪
♪♪
♪ It's my night, it's my life ♪
♪ It's almost time ♪
♪ No hope this time ♪
♪ No hope for the kids ♪
♪♪
[ Vocalizing ]
♪♪
♪ No hope this time ♪
♪ No hope for the kids ♪
♪♪
-"No Hope For the Kids" is on
Appaloosa's self-titled seven inch,
available digitally and in hardcopy from Bandcamp.
And catch the band live Saturday, March 11,
at Lucky Liquor in Tukwila;
Saturday, April 1, at the Windjammer
in Queens, New York;
and April 14 through 16
at the Rx FEST at Nii Modo in downtown Seattle.
Next up, the art, the craft,
and the power of spoken narrative
from master storyteller Eva Abram.
[ Birdsong ]
-Have you ever noticed the birds flying in the sky?
-Yeah! -Yeah!
And they look so beautiful!
When people come together to listen to stories...
Because there was a king, the king of the sky...
Something unspoken happens.
Human connection that nobody has to put a word to.
Those birds... We are recognizing
our humanity together.
Every day they bring me joy.
They make pictures in the sky.
They fly around.
My name is Eva Abram.
I am a storyteller.
Because from the time I was a child,
the importance of the vote had been etched into my brain.
But it was about 20 years ago, I would guess --
I literally woke up in the middle of the night
and said, "Storyteller."
When I actually met Susan B Anthony...
I read the story and then I just see what attracts me to it.
I knew that her family had been abolitionist...
What message it carries, and how the story flows.
-...for the birds.
-The King of the sky is giving a feast.
[ All ] Help spread the word!
Once I find the story, then I have to write it.
I have to rewrite it so that it works for me.
Finding your delivery style is something you have to find.
You have to practice
and discover things about yourself.
Anansi the spider happened to be around the corner
behind a rock.
Anansi heard about this feast,
and if there's anything he loves, is a feast.
Storytelling is much more fluid.
I don't have to say the same thing exactly the same way.
But there is a problem.
As long as the messages get across...
-He can't fly. -Anansi can't...
-[All] Fly!
-Yes, Anansi can't fly!
But Anansi would not let a little thing like
not being able to fly keep him from going to a feast.
It helps us organize information.
Tap, tap, tap, think, think, think.
He didn't think of anything, but...
Continuing and recognizing customs and traditions.
-A bird flew over, it was Bluebird.
Bluebird flew over and one of her feathers
floated down
and landed right at Anansi's foot.
Anansi picked up that feather,
"I know! I know what I'm going to do!"
The pictures are created by the young people's imagination.
They create what the setting looks like,
they add the sounds and maybe even the smells of the setting.
Storytelling addresses many different areas of study.
All of these birds were so generous.
They gave him a bunch of feathers...
Performance, drama, literature, writing.
Well, Anansi collected some sap from the tree,
and sap is just like glue.
Science and math and geography.
He dipped a feather in the glue and...
[ Children murmuring ]
He dipped the feather in the glue
and stuck it on his body.
They're learning about --
about values.
And they are also learning
perhaps about what kind of person they want to be
because, well,
stories have all kinds of characters.
When I'm working on a story about a character from history,
that process involves a lot of research.
You're dealing with a real person.
I have been at this
for a long time.
I try to put myself in that person's shoes.
I try to to to imagine myself as that person.
It helps get into that character.
It helps make them even more real,
it's another tool that you have
to get you in the right mindset.
Some of you may not know me. I am Mary McLeod Bethune.
And sometimes fighting injustice
is like trying to roll against a torrent
with only your hands for a paddle.
And he was a-flapping and a-flapping and, ooh!
He was so flying! Yes!
Anansi joined all the other birds
and they flew to the king of the sky's house.
Since the beginning of time, since before we had languages,
we were telling stories.
I am pigeon, I am crow.
...to teach those values, those social expectations.
Anansi's a spider. He's not supposed to be there.
Right? I'm robin. I'm thrush.
I'm swallow. I'm wren.
He got it!
He said, "I know what to say!"
And when it got to be his turn,
he said, "I... I am all of you,"
because he had feathers from all of those birds.
Because it reminds us to...
Kind of come away a little bit from our individuality
that we lose ourselves in
most of the time as we go through life.
He tried to squeeze in,
but he couldn't get into the food,
so he stepped back, he said, "Wait!"
And realize that we all are human
and we need to work for the good of all human beings.
And the birds stopped eating and looked up.
He said, "Who is this feast for?"
And the king said, "Well, this feast is for all of you."
That's what storytelling does for me --
and hopefully all of my audiences.
Oral storytelling is not a thing of the past.
Oral storytelling will be with us
as long as human beings can talk.
I thank you all for coming, listening.
♪♪
Learn more about Eva at:
We want to give a shout out
to author and photographer Matt Hucke
on the publication of his new book, "Seattle Neon."
This gorgeous, large scale book
features over 425 full color images
of historic and contemporary neon signs
from Seattle neighborhoods.
Here's how Matt responded when I asked
why he wanted to immortalize Seattle's neon landscape.
"Seattle's neon signs are a link to the Seattle of decades past,
surviving in an era where everything old
is torn down in the name of profit.
On our wet and dreary winter nights,
the brilliant glow of neon stands out,
beckoning the traveler to places of warmth and comfort.
In creating Seattle Neon,
I sought to capture the best remaining pieces of neon art
and to tell the stories of the fascinating individuals
who sponsored and designed these unique landmarks."
Get your copy of "Seattle Neon" from seattleneonbook.com
And that's a wrap.
Big thanks to Kucera Gallery for hosting us.
And a reminder that Norman Lundin's show,
"The Space Between Things" runs now through April 1.
So you want to plan your visit soon.
And thanks to you for tuning in.
Have a great week and we'll see you soon.
♪♪