Art Lovers Forum Podcast

Gabrielle Vitollo, better known as Gabo, takes us on the adventures of being an up-and-coming artist. She talks about her everyday life and what it takes creating art that an artist can be proud of. At the present time Gabo is most famous for her tabletop sculptures. Art collectors love them because they are completely different from anything they have ever owned. 
The sculptures make a very daring statement every-time you see them. They also reflect the collector’s confidence to own something that is very different than everyone else. Gabo says the three-dimensional metal sculptures question the viewer's conventional definitions of space, architecture, and form to challenge the status quo.  Gabo also focuses on abstract painting, sculpture, printmaking, and collage to “create a multi-dimensional experience that resists categorization and breaks boundaries.”
She received her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art (2012) and her MFA in Studio Art from New York University Steinhardt (2017) where Gabo studied multi-disciplinary techniques that hybridized traditional and digital media. In 2018, Gabo relocated to Berlin, Germany on a Fulbright Research Grant for Painting & Printmaking to research Albrecht Dürer’s dynamic printmaking compositions for their paintings. In 2022, Gabo returned to Brooklyn, NY.
Gabo’s recent awards also include a DAAD Scholarship, a Martin Wong Scholarship, two YoungArts Microgrants, and two Elizabeth Greenshields Grants. Vitollo’s work has been exhibited at Fredericks & Freiser, Friedhof Museum Berlin, the Knockdown Center, 80WSE Gallery, Miami’s Margulies Collection, Kunstpunkt Berlin, and Iceland’s Listasafn Arnesinga Art Museum. Public works include a sculpture which was installed at Walt M. Shammel Community Garden in Brooklyn, NY and made possible through NYC Parks. Vitollo was an artist in residence at Yaddo, Baccarat Crystal Factory, Fountainhead, and the YoungARTS Olafur Eliasson Workshop filmed by HBO. 
Gabo is also an adjunct painting and drawing faculty member at Montclair State University and Pratt Institute.

Welcome to Art Lovers Forum.  If you want to start collecting art, or you want to know what collectors have learned over the years, put aside one hour to listen to the advice of Jane Wesman. You will not find a better master class anywhere that will give you the ins and outs of collecting. I was very fortunate to secure this interview.
 
Jane has been successfully collecting art since the 1980s when New York’s East Village art world was in full swing.  Artists like Jeff Koons, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, and many others were making waves and launching their careers. And Jane was part of the scene.
 
Today, Jane and her husband, Donald Savelson, continue to be deeply engaged in the world of contemporary art. 
 
They are supporters of many non-profit art organizations and avid collectors of work by new and emerging artists. They believe there is much more to art than its monetary value. Art is an immersive experience. As Jane says, “Art is about everything. It opens up new ways of thinking about the human condition and what is meaningful in life.” 
 
In addition to underwriting a program at Simmons University for students seeking careers in arts management as well as helping to fund various museum exhibitions and the Miami-based artists residency Fountainhead Arts, Jane is passionate about introducing people to the world of collecting new and emerging artists. 
 
Aside from her enthusiasm for art, Jane is an expert in public relations and marketing. She is the president of the New York-based PR agency that bears her name, Jane Wesman Public Relations, Inc. a leader in book promotion. She is a determined, career-focused woman who has served as president of the New York City chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners and as program director of ArtTable. She is currently an active Board member of the Women’s Media Group, overseeing the organization’s programming.  She and her husband divide their time between New York and Miami.

If your art collecting has been focused on paintings and drawings, please don’t miss this episode of Art Lovers Forum with Artist Robin Schwalb. Robin is a quilt maker who introduced textile art into the world of pop culture. Her creations make you stop, stare and think “I would like to look at that every day.”
 
That is exactly why Robin has become so popular. She loves combining her graphically compelling quilts with the digital realm of manipulated photography. She then adds  the extremely analog craft of stenciling, screen-printing, patchwork, appliqué and quilting. She also explores the rich variety of the written word, balancing an appreciation of their abstract beauty with the desire to include the "found art" of relevant texts. Subject matter might be drawn from her travels; the urban environment; film and/or video technology; or even mannequins.
 
Schwalb's quilts have been widely shown in both juried and invitational exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Japan including The Gold Standard of Fiber and Textile Art (2020); “Deeds Not Words”: Celebrating 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage (2020); Semper Tedium: The Slow Art of Quiltmaking (2015); Art Quilt Elements (2012); Outside/Inside the Box (2012); Crossing Lines: The Many Faces of Fiber (2011); Talking Quilts (2004); Language Arts: Text as Imagery (2003); Six Continents of Quilts: The American Craft Museum Collection (2002); Seeing Yellow (1999); 9 x 9 x 3; Edge to Edge: Selections from Studio Art Quilt Associates (1998); Visions: Quilt San Diego (1996); Five Perspectives: American Art Quilts in Moscow (1996); Artists + Language (1993); and eleven Quilt Nationals, from 1987 to 2017. She was a juror for Art Quilt Elements 2010 and 2020. She curated the 1991 Manhattanville College exhibition Essences and Presences: Art Quilts and wrote the catalog for this six-artist show.  Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including American Craft; The New York Times; Canadian Surfacing Journal; Fiberarts; The Detroit News; and Patchwork Quilt Tsushin.  The artist received the Quilts Japan Prize from Quilt National '05, the Award of Excellence from Quilt National '89 and Jurors' Choice from Tactile Architecture 1992.  She was awarded a grant by the Empire State Crafts Alliance in 1989.
 
A native of New York City, Schwalb studied painting at the State University of New York at Binghamton, receiving her BA in 1974.
 
Today Robin is going to tell us what we need to know about textile art and why we should pay more attention to it. Robin thank you so much for taking time to speak to us today.
 
 

 
Welcome to Art Lovers Forum.  Today I am speaking to Benjamin Sack, a one-of-a kind, creative artist, who draws composites of imaginary cities with pen and on paper. You have never seen anything like this. I saw Ben’s work 10 years ago, and knew immediately, that I had to own one of his masterpieces. It doesn’t matter what other pieces of art a collector has in his, or her, home, visitors will be immediately drawn to Ben’s work.
 
It’s fascinating, it’s inspiring, it’s so captivating. It’s also complicated, secretive and mysterious. So who is this person who can create these unimaginably intricate cityscapes with complex spatial arrangements? I love that they have been branded "abstract urbanism."
 
Ben is an American artist who received his BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011.
 
Ben has often said he draws a majority of his inspiration from art history and classical music. He is also influenced by historical cartography, symphonic orchestration, architectural drawing and extensive travel.
 
Let meet this most unusual artist and find out what makes him tick. 

Welcome to Art Lovers Forum. 
 
 
Today I will be speaking to Doug Garr, a friend of mine who has spent 40-plus years as a journalist, editor, author, blogger, ghostwriter and speechwriter.  Doug is the guy who helped New York Governor Mario Cuomo sound so good at the mic. If that’s not astonishing enough, Doug is also an active skydiver with an expert license rating of 2,200 jumps. 
 
One day I will interview Doug about his life as a dare devil. Today I want him to tell us all about his connection to art. 
 
He was married for nearly 42 years to the late Meg Perlman, a prominent art curator. Everyone in the art world knew her. Most knew Doug too because he accompanied Meg to art events around the world. Meg was the founding director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton, N.Y. She also worked at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Meg was the director of the James Brooks and Charlotte Parks Brooks Foundation.  Meg also served as the curator of a number of important private art collections, including those of William A.M. Burden, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III, Sandra Rockefeller Ferry, Senator and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV, and the Pierre Noel Matisse Trust, among others.