The Lonely Palette

In this special episode of The Lonely Palette, I’m sharing the episode I made for the PRX limited-run podcast series "Monumental," which interrogates the state of monuments across the greater U.S. and what their future says about where we are now and where we’re going. This was the concluding episode, exploring how some monuments are larger than life, dwarfing us, making us feel small relative to the grandness of history. But what if a monument was human-scaled? What if it made us aware of our bodies in space? We don’t often think about the design choices that go into making a monument, but more and more, a new generation of artists and designers are reimagining what a monument can look and feel like, and the kinds of stories they can hold. This episode takes us to Montgomery, Alabama to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, to Shreveport, Louisiana, to the South Side of Chicago, to Navajo Nation in Arizona. It explores how many American monuments to slavery took inspiration from Holocaust memorials

The Lonely Palette, as you've heard so often, is an enormously proud founding member of the Hub & Spoke Audio Collective, a group of fiercely independent, story-driven, mind-expanding podcasts. Since 2017, we've supported each other while forging our own paths, prioritizing craft and humane storytelling above all else. Now, if you haven't noticed, media in general, and podcasting in particular, is in a space some may generously call post-apocalyptic. But an incredible silver lining is that the industry is now recognizing how important independence is. We've been here all along, and with your support, we're not going anywhere. Please enjoy a bonus episode of the Hub & Spoke Radio Hour, a tasty sampler of a few of our shows in a dapper audio package. Today's theme is love. As the philosopher Haddaway once asked, what is love? It turns out, love can be anything that stirs the heart: passion, grief, affection, kin. The desire to consume; the poignancy of memory. Here at Hub & Spoke, we want to stretch our ar

Since her arrival on the art scene in the 1960s, legendary art writer Lucy Lippard’s work - searing, novelistic, crisp, and endlessly curious - as well as her insights, activism, entrenchment in the art world, and friendships have secured her role as one of the most important minds in art criticism of her generation. Now, at 86 years old, all of the stuff that she’s collected along the way – photographs, drawings, relationships, grandchildren – is the subject of her new memoir, or, actually, what she calls “Stuff (Instead of a Memoir).” She joined me to talk about the book, but also more than 60 years of writing about art in the way that centered life. After all, “art,” she often quotes, “is what makes life more interesting than art.” Art is the artists, the world they inhabit, their shared cultural references, their shared understanding of the art world and art history. Their human experiences rendered in paint. The stuff they leave behind. Music Used: The Blue Dot Sessions, “Lacquer Groove,” “Hardwoo

In the 1950s and 60s, Coenties Slip—an obscure street on the lower tip of Manhattan overlooking the East River—was home to some of the most iconic artists in history, and who would define American Art during their time there: Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Delphine Seyrig, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. As friends and inspirations to one another, these artists created a unique community for unbridled creative expression and experimentation. Prudence Peiffer is the kind of art historian who understands the importance of context and place, and her book, “The Slip: The New York City Street that Changed American Art Forever” provides the kind of rich context and human detail that textbooks could only dream of. She joined me to discuss the history of these artists, why we have such a hard time seeing artists as people, the friction between accessible artists and their inaccessible art, why watching Robert Indiana eat a mushroom for 39 minutes is actually totally beautiful,

Taking a break from writing about astronauts, Tom Wolfe donned his white suit and strolled to the art museums of New York City, letting the incomprehensible literary works of the movement wash over him like a warm bath of clam broth, and producing what, in the words of art critic Rosalind Krauss, "hit the art world like a really bad, MSG-headache-producing, Chinese lunch." For you, dear listeners, here is the headache-inducing introduction to "The Painted Word," read aloud, as was always intended. This free preview is available to all listeners, but the full chapter, and all future chapters, will be going to $2 (and above) per episode patrons, so pledge that support to find out just what in the heck Wolfe defines as an "apache dance." It's so not what you think it is that it might just be what you think it is. The next chapter will be released on Tuesday, October 17. Don't miss a word, painted or otherwise, by becoming a patron. www.patreon.com/lonelypalette Music used: Glenn Miller, “Tuxedo Junction

Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) may have gone down in history as the very first Western art historian, but he is also a messy bench who loves drama, and we are here for it. Listen to his take on Sandro Botticelli from “The Lives of the Artists” (Bondanella trans., 1991), particularly his practical jokes, from which no friend or neighbor escaped unscathed. This is a free edition of The Lonely Palette Reads, a perk that will be going out exclusively to Patreon patrons in the future. To become a patron, go to patreon.com/lonelypalette and sign up at any level of support. Thank you! Got suggestions for other intimidating-until-read-aloud-texts for future episodes of The Lonely Palette Reads? Email the show at tamar@thelonelypalette.com. Music used: Glenn Miller, “Tuxedo Junction” The Blue Dot Sessions, “Belle Anette” Our website: www.thelonelypalette.com Support the show: www.patreon.com/lonelypalette

The neoplatonic ideal of beauty, the girl on the half-shell, the naked chick riding a clam. Her tilted head and fluttery hair are recognized by everyone and their grandma, but no one - experts included - can explain just why in the heck this painting is so iconic. Shell we take on the challenge? See the images: https://bit.ly/3LeIwxu Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” Joan Baez, “Diamonds and Rust” The Blue Dot Sessions, “TwoPound,” “Coulis Coulis,” “Delmendra,” “No Smoking,” “Belle Anette,” “Rue Severine,” “Ranch Hand,” “Pastel de Nata,” “Khfett” Lady Gaga, “Venus” Episode sponsor: https://www.artofcrimepodcast.com/ Support the show: www.patreon.com/lonelypalette

In April 1989, Barbara Kruger - an artist, activist, and former magazine layout editor - created a flyer for a pro-choice women’s march in Washington, DC to protest the Supreme Court’s potential overturning of Roe vs. Wade. This flyer, though, was never meant to be a picket sign. Instead, it has become a timeless artwork all its own: directly addressing any viewer from any era, demanding they confront their own politics, and drawing the battle lines between all the external - and internal - tensions that exist not only within the parameters of the abortion debate, but within women themselves. See the images: https://bit.ly/45wNrSb Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Blue Dot Sessions, “Thread Indigo,” “Monder,” “Tall Journey,” “Stephi,” “Morning Glare” Helen Reddy, “I Am Woman” (performed at the Mobilize for Women's Lives Rally in Washington in 1989) Support the show: www.patreon.com/lonelypalette Episode sponsors: Jay Handy Financial Services (for artists!) https://www.signalpointinvest.

Whether for his critics, his friends (...?), or his canvases, the Victorian-era, Gilded-age Aesthetic ex-pat painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler had one motto: float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. See the Images: https://bit.ly/3PMpK3o Music Used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Slate Tracker,” “Laser Focus,” “The Griffiths,” “Crumbtown,” “Discovery Harbor,” “Leave the TV On,” “Pickers,” “Caraval, “Lady Marie” Support Hub & Spoke's Independence Fundraiser: www.hubspokeaudio.org/july4

Splotches, spills, and stains. They can evoke shapes, moods, energy, even music. Yet no one seemed to appreciate their very beauty with the same intuitive, delicate flair as Helen Frankenthaler, who created something fiercely new "between cocktails and dinner," or, more accurately, between the broad shoulders of a relentlessly masculine movement. Not bad for a saddle-shoed girl a year out of Bennington. See the images: https://bit.ly/3ChhuAE Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Bedroll,” “A Common Pause,” “Palms Down,” “Desmontes,” “Delamine,” “Greylock,” “Angel Tooth,” “Dear Myrtle” Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees" Episode sponsor: The Art of Colour: The History of Art in 39 Pigments: https://bit.ly/43Qp1SJ Support the show! www.patreon.com/lonelypalette Register for our Hub & Spoke live show in Woodstock, VT on June 15: https://normanwilliams.org/events/podcasts-a-listening-event/

The new season of The Lonely Palette is achingly close to starting up on Wednesday, June 7, but in the meantime, this week and next we're giving our feed over to some fellow Hub & Spoke shows that might pique your eardrums. Hub & Spoke, as you know, is our mighty audio collective of proudly independent podcasts. We aim to expand minds, viewpoints, knowledge, understanding. We have zero corporate interests or expectations, which means we are offbeat, unexpected, formidable, and really poor, so please take a listen to our shows and, if you like what we do, join our mailing list and consider supporting the collective: www.hubspokeaudio.org Link to our live event in at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, VT on Thursday, June 15: https://normanwilliams.org/events/podcasts-a-listening-event/ *** Today's episode: "The Museum of Everyday Life" by Rumble Strip The mission of The Museum of Everyday Life is "a heroic, slow-motion cataloguing of the quotidian–a detailed, theatrical expression of gratitu

The new season of The Lonely Palette is achingly close to starting up on Wednesday, June 7, but in the meantime, this week and next we're giving our feed over to some fellow Hub & Spoke shows that might pique your eardrums. Hub & Spoke, as you know, is our mighty audio collective of proudly independent podcasts. We aim to expand minds, viewpoints, knowledge, understanding. We have zero corporate interests or expectations, which means we are offbeat, unexpected, formidable, and really poor, so please take a listen to our shows and, if you like what we do, join our mailing list and consider supporting the collective: www.hubspokeaudio.org Link to our live event in at the Norman Williams Public Library in Woodstock, VT on Thursday, June 15: https://normanwilliams.org/events/podcasts-a-listening-event/ *** Today's episode: "Rekindling Hope" by Out There Carolyn McDonald was struggling — hard. The depression had gotten so bad that she couldn’t see a way forward. Then, one day, she went to the beach. Story

Happy 7th birthday, The Lonely Palette! We're ringing in our itch with an quick update on next season, which starts in June, and a recording of our live show at On Air Fest, which was held in Brooklyn this past February. Please enjoy this revamped and refreshed episode of Mary Kelly's "Post-Partum Document," smash that subscribe button, and we'll see you next month. See the episode images: https://bit.ly/411KA0F Support the show: www.patreon.com/lonelypalette

WE'RE IN THE HOME STRETCH of our Patreon Listener Challenge! This is indeed the time to pull up your socks and start supporting the show, all to the dulcet tones of a re-release of our second and most lauded Patreon listener-supported episode from 2019 on the Ecce Homo restoration fiasco, wherein a well-intentioned, though, uh, untrained parishioner in a small Spanish town decided to take it upon herself restore a crumbling fresco and inadvertently birthed the meme of our young century. And if you're so moved, please consider making us happy little trees by becoming a Patreon patron at any level, and we'll do you one better with an episode on your favorite soothing soft-voiced paint-dabby PBS mainstay and mine, Bob Ross. See the images: http://www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/2019/1/25/episode-36-behold-the-monkey-the-ecce-homo-restoration Music used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Sylvestor”, “Mute Steps”, “Mr. Graves”, “Lobo Lobo”, “Lumber Down”, “Cloudy Cider” T

Our Patreon Listener Challenge is ongoing! And if you're on the fence about supporting the show, why not sit back with a re-release of our first-ever Patreon listener-supported episode from 2018 on C.M. Coolidge's "Dogs Playing Poker," where we dive into the trials and tribulations of kitsch, the battle between the Sams and Dianes of the world, and what it means to appreciate art at a frequency that we all can hear. And if you're so moved, please consider making us happy little trees by becoming a Patreon patron at any level, and we'll do you one better with an episode on your favorite soothing soft-voiced paint-dabby PBS mainstay and mine, Bob Ross. See the images: www.thelonelypalette.com/episodes/201…g-poker-1903 Music used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, "Rose Ornamental," "Flattered," "Arizona Moon," "Laser Focus," "Alchemical," "Two in the Back," "Maisie Dreamer," "Gullwing Sailor," "Maldoc" Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees" Support the show! www.patreon.com/lon

A number of years ago, my Twitter pinged. Then it pinged again. All of a sudden, a whole host of people were following the show, and when I giddily found the source, it was the soulful and stylish Avery Trufelman, longtime 99% Invisible producer, currently of Articles of Interest, and fashionista tastemaker, who had pronounced The Lonely Palette her favorite art history podcast. Bestill my heart! It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, a kinship between co-founders of a mutual admiration society where the stories of stuff - art, objects, design, things, everything they say you can’t put on the radio - reigned supreme. Avery and I popped into our respective closets to chat about writing, audio, art, fashion, the trappings of podcast success, storytelling in a heated political climate, trusting your voice, that infamous cerulean blue scene in The Devil Wears Prada, ranking the heroes of epic poetry, and much more. Episode webpage: https://bit.ly/3jtcOBl Music used: The Blue Dot Sessions, “Swapp

They say that those who can do and those who can’t teach. But “they” don’t seem to have ever met a proper teacher. In honor of the Norwegian town of Bodø’s recognition as a 2024 European Capital of Culture, we dive into Bodø’s most famous artist, Adelsteen Normann, the teacher you’ve never heard of, the picture-postcard modernist who introduced us to the scream that is Edvard Munch, and, eclipsed though he may have been, the painter who illuminated both the town he loved and the students he nurtured with the warmth of a sun that never sets. This episode was produced in partnership with Bodø2024: European Capital of Culture. See the images: https://bit.ly/3FX0S3H Music used: The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" The Blue Dot Sessions, “Lerennis,” “Lissa,” “Ice Tumbler,” “Mr. Graves,” “Throughput,” “A Rush of Clear Water,” “Pinky,” “The Green Room” Vivaldi, “Summer” Support our year-end fundraiser! bit.ly/3An5jSd

Light and dark. Frozen action. Angels with dirty faces. Infamously both a hothead punk and one of the most extraordinarily potent and virtuosic painters in the canon, Caravaggio is nothing if not a man of contrasts. See the images: https://bit.ly/3iNqpTY Music used: Django Reinhardt, “Django’s Tiger” The Andrews Sisters, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" Charles Daab, “Irish and Scotch melodies (take 2)” The Blue Dot Sessions, “Highway 430,” “Angel Tooth,” “Di Breun,” “Rainy Day Drone,” “No Smoking,” “Cornicob,” “Tarte Tatin,” “Vernouillet,” “Thread of Clouds,” “Set the Tip Jar,” “Homin Brer” Joe Dassin, “Les Champs-Elysees" Support our year-end fundraiser! https://bit.ly/3An5jSd Episode sponsor: www.visualartspassage.com/palette

Dar Williams has been described by The New Yorker as “one of America’s very best singer-songwriters,” but to thirteen-year-old Tamar she was, quite simply, a personal hero: a songwriter whose poetry, poignancy, and humor could capture at once the authentic voices of an inner child, a searching young adult, and a wizened sage. We met in person in 2013 at Dar’s songwriting retreat, and our friendship has been evolving ever since, exploring together the rigors of writing and storytelling through sound and song, and what it means to dip in and out of a creative space as a way of simply getting through the day. Dar has recently published a book about songwriting that is chock full of philosophical wisdom and applicable nuggets, many of which borne from a decade of retreats. We sat down together to talk about songwriting, art museums, the art of writing songs about art, and specifically her evocative, ambivalent "Mark Rothko Song," which tackles it all head-on. [2:05] Dar’s relationship with museums and creating

Hello, friends to art podcasts! I'm giving my feed over today to a preview of a new podcast from Pushkin Industries, Somethin’ Else, and Sony Music Entertainment: "Death of an Artist". The show examines a tragedy in the art world. For more than 35 years, accusations of murder shrouded one of the art world’s most storied couples: was the famous sculptor Carl Andre involved in the death of his up-and-coming artist wife Ana Mendieta? Host Helen Molesworth revisits Mendieta’s death, taking a closer look at how she might have fallen out of the window of Carl’s 34th floor New York apartment, and the following trial which has divided the art world since 1985. Hear more from "Death of an Artist" at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/artist?sid=palette.