Being An Artist With Tom Judd

Jeremiah Zagar: Everyone's Life Is an Epic Story

Filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar is interested in telling stories, and getting personal. Known for both his intimate documentaries such as "In a Dream", a film about his father, and his Hollywood feature films "We the Animals" and "Hustle", he has put together a career in filmmaking that is independent, authentic and original. His work has won major awards at Sundance, Doville, and South by Southwest, to name a few. "In A Dream" was shortlisted for an Academy Award and received two 2010 Emmy nominations, including Best Documentary. His latest success is the gritty HBO American crime drama "Task", where he was Executive Producer and Director of several of the episodes. He is in the process of finishing his latest film, "The Painted Bride" starring Jeremy Allen White, Mandy Patinkin, and Isabella Rossellini that is due out next year. 

Larry Spaid: Exploration and Travel

Philadelphia artist Larry Spaid has spent over 12 years of his artistic life travelling the planet,living and teaching in different countries and experiencing different cultures. His expansive output of art includes painting, printing and various experiments with mixed media. He taught at the Tyler School of Art, Temple University for thirty-seven years. This included teaching in Rome, Italy and Tokyo, Japan, for seven years, and was awarded three major sabbaticals allowing him to return and travel extensively in South East Asia. He retired in 2010 as Professor Emeritus. He has exhibited in galleries and museums extensively in the US and internationally including the United Kingdom, Italy, and Guatemala. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections including the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and The Museum of Fine Arts in Tokyo Japan.  

Adebunmi Gbadebo: Exploration of Heritage

Gbadebo's use of materials centers on her family history of enslavement in the American South, while her ceramics draw inspiration from traditional African pottery techniques, calling on her Nigerian ancestry. Fueled by research and a commitment to the archival record, Gbadebo's multidisciplinary approach investigates the complex relationships between land, matter, and memory.Grounded in historically and culturally significant materials such as indigo dye, human hair collected throughout the African diaspora and soil hand-dug from the True Blue plantation grounds in South Carolina, Gbadebo's practice is an exploration of heritage. She lives and works in Philadelphia. She received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a certification in Creative Place Keeping at The New Jersey Institute of Technology.  In 2023, she was the recipient of the Maxwell and Hanrahan Craft Fellowship and the Keynote speaker for the American Ceramic Circle annual conference. In 2022, she was a Pew Fellow at the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. She has exhibited her work across the US and internationally in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Odili Donald Odita - Songs Of Life

Nigerian born but living in America since the age of one, Odili Donald Odita's work explores color on the grand scale and his hard-edge large paintings and mural installations have redefined abstract painting in the context of sociopolitical concerns. Most of Odita's work is inspired by the vibrant textiles of his home country, Nigeria, mixed with patterns from Western modernity. He has exhibited his work prolifically in important museums and galleries around the world including a recent large installation at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He has also been an important critic, writer, and lecturer at major institutions including Yale University and his present position as Professor of Painting at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University in Philadelphia.

Phyllis Bramson. The Ornate and Theatrical

A Chicago painter with an endless amount of surprises that unfold inside her landscapes of the Rococo and fantastical. Her work represents a continuation of the Chicago Imagists of the 60's with an interest in combining eccentric figuration with abstraction. "Bramson incorporates the passionate complexity of eastern mythology, the sexual innuendos of soap operas, and sometimes the happy endings of cartoons" said critic Miranda McClintic She has shown her work prolifically in prestigious galleries and Museums internationally and her work is included in over 100 major collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago ,The national museum of American Art in Washington DC and many more. She also was a professor of art at the University of Illinois at Chicago and then a visiting artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago …. totaling over 40 years of being a teaching Artist.