Artist-in-residence

at the end of it i pointed out that um Just in Googling and fact-checking things, I saw that Roxane Gay was speaking at a panel at the Harvard Medical School.

Because she is... an artist in residence at the Harvard Medical School for the year 2026, 2027.

Shouldn't he, like, be able to paint? Yeah, she's not a writer in residence.

She's an artist

But it is in our institution's Harvard Medical School.

has this panel, right? And it's not even that they just have this panel.

They have this panel with somebody who they are paying some, presumably some stipend for the year to be an artist in residence.

First of all, why the fuck does Harvard Medical School need an artist in residence?

It was kind of like my schedule was just blocking me from doing any of that.

I did a program called Artists in Residence, which is at a school district here.

So they hire different artists to come in and you go into the classrooms and you do... art projects.

And it's just kind of like an enrichment program, different than your normal art class.

Hello, welcome to Radio Woodfordia with me, your host, Harley Breen.

Today's episode, we have artist in residence for Woodfordia Inc, Gavin Ryan.

This is the guy that designs the poster each and every year since 2015, I think you said.

It's my second chat, second episode with Gavin, but the first one...

Yeah, yeah, you won't be able to pull the wool over.

I'm like, no, no, you can't.

But for those who don't know, you are the artist in residence at the Woodford Folk Festival.

Yep.

And I think we sort of talked a little bit about the experience.

I remember not last year, the year before, seeing our MOA advertising expressions of interest for the AIR program, so the Artists in Residence program, I remember seeing it, going through all the paperwork and reading it, and having this feeling of, I really want to do this, this would be an absolute goal, I don't think I'm ready for it, and holding off on applying.

And that year was the year I think I had done an exhibition with another local artist at another local gallery, Fig Tree Galleries, Linda Whedon.

So I had done this massive six-week exhibition with her.

She later completed a master's in glass at the University College of Arts in Farnham, where she began developing the bodies of work, recycling narratives and whispering sweet nothings.

Returning as an artist in residence, her research explored materiality and the transformative potential of recycled glass, laying the foundations for a practice that continues to investigate the relationship between object, memory, and cultural heritage.

Gibson's work has received international recognition, including the Award of Excellence at Habitat Detroit in 2024, first prize in the Glass Art Society's Trace and Exploration of Sustainable Glass Art in 2023, being shortlisted for the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass in 2022, and being highly commended in the Glass Prize in both 2021 and 2022.

Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Wadsworth Athenium Museum of Art, the Imagine Museum, the National Liberty Museum, and the Royal Scottish Academy, as well as at Sofa Chicago, Collect, Pan Amsterdam, the British Glass Biennale, Habitat Detroit Fine Art, Habitat North Carolina, the ATN Gallery, Gallery 10, and London Glassblowing.

Before we do, you, you also embrace celebrity or talent in your work.

You created the Artist in Residence program, which saw Amex partner with creators like Martin Scorsese and Annie Leibovitz, Ellen DeGeneres, Wes Anderson, Tina Fey, Pharrell, among others.

And for a financial services company, that probably was a hard sell in certain corners of the company, I would imagine.

Was it? Was it hard to get the organization to buy into prominent usage of talent in its advertising efforts?

We're looking for things.

There's no doubt, but we also think this can be accretive to you, and this is before we get into what are we gonna pay you to do this.

Let's talk about where is the exchange of value? And that's how we built that whole Artist in Residence program.

In fact- We had folks working with us that never appeared in an ad.

Tina is an Alaskan Yupik bead artist and educator whose work is much more about creating community and connection, more so even than her beautiful beadwork.

Tina was selected as a Sheldon Jackson Artist-in-Residence, and she's taught bead weaving throughout Alaska, working with school districts, including the Lower Kuskokwim School District, as well as Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Alaska.

Her teaching has also taken her beyond Alaska.

She shared bead weaving with college students at both Stanford University and the University of Washington.

He was a artist, um, he was a part of a band called Chester French.

At, you know, post that band, he was one of the people who helped bring Spotify to the US and he created the Artists in Residence program, which is now what we call Spotify...

It's the whole ecosystem of what we see as Spotify for artists and labels and manager services and all that stuff.

And they had to go around and convince people to wanna get their music on Spotify.