Sculpting with Rhoda Sherbell (Smithsonian, MOMA Artist, "Aaron Copland," "Yogi Berra," "Casey Stengel") - 011
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Release Date: 03/17/2016
Sitcoms with Janae Bakken ("Scrubs") - 026
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Janae Bakken grew up in Minnesota - where she spent too many frozen winters on the cross-country ski team, and went to college in Chicago - where she rarely saw the sun, so she made her escape to Los Angeles soon after graduation. She worked on the production staffs of such shows as Mad About You, Caroline in the City, and Malcolm in the Middle before making the jump to writer, where she spent eight years writing on the critically-acclaimed Scrubs, rising from a Staff Writer to Co-Executive Producer. Janae was twice-nominated for an Emmy Award with the...
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How I Broke Into Writing with Taffy Brodesser-Akner (GQ, NY Times) - 025
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
is a writer who has contributed compelling non-fiction features to major publications such as the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Cosmopolitan, Los Angeles Times, SElf, and so many more. Taffy is also the author of the forthcoming Random House novel, Schrödinger's Marriage. Taffy has been a finalist for multiple awards, including the James Beard Award and the Mirror Award, and has won awards from the New York Press Club, the Los Angeles Press Club, Society of Feature Journalists. She also teaches a phenomenal writing class, but the class we discuss in this interview unfortunately sold out...
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How I Broke Into Photography with Jordan Matter ("Dancers Among Us") - 024
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Jordan Matter, a Manhattan portrait photographer, is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Dancers Among Us, a collection of photographs of dancers in everyday situations around the world, and his collection of photos of nudes in public places, Dancers After Dark, is a monumental achievement, in my humble opinion. He and his work have been featured on television, in print, online, and in exhibitions throughout the world, including Buzzfeed, ABC World News Tonight, Today, The Tyra Banks Show, the BBC, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, #1 on Reddit, Daily Mail U.K., O, The Oprah...
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Surf Art with Nelson Ruger, "Nelson Makes Art" - 023
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Nelson Ruger grew up along the beaches of southern New Jersey, finding his stomping grounds among Ocean City’s 7th Street and North Street beaches and boardwalks. Loving art from an early age, he dove into a career as a theatrical artist, designing scenery and lighting for stage productions up and down the eastern United States, lending his creative style from tiny one-room shows to huge regional theaters. In 1998, he fulfilled his dream of designing on Broadway. With this life goal achieved so young, Nelson began searching for new horizons and artistic possibilities. Nelson...
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Charity with Brad Broder, Kenya Education Fund - 022
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Bradley Broder is the founder and Executive Director of the . Bradley founded Kenya Education Fund as a means of supporting the children he befriended while serving in the US Peace Corps for two years (Kenya 1999-2001). Bradley has over 17 years experience working with Kenya and speaks fluent Kiswahili. His deep, personal connection with Kenya and knowledge of international development issues has led Bradley to focus KEF focus on keeping Kenyans in school to develop the country’s human capital and reduce dependency on foreign aid. Brad holds a BA in Spanish from SUNY...
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Chef Life with Chef Rossi, Anti-Caterer, "The Raging Skillet" - 021
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Chef Rossi, of the renowned Raging Skillet, is a master storyteller, and this episode doesn't disappoint. She is not your ordinary chef. She credits her success to everything from "kishka and grits" to marijuana munchies to the Hasidim in Crown Heights to foul-mouthed bar tending. Her stories are phenomenal, worthy of a Moth competition. Oh, and don't take my word for it: her cookbook (!)/memoir is being turned into a play and screenplay! Rossi, yes, she only has one name -– has been a writer for many publications, such as The Daily News, The New York Post, Time Out New...
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Circus Life with Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson (Ringling Bros. "Greatest Show on Earth") - 020
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson is the Voice of the Greatest Show on Earth. He began performing at age 11 with the world-famous Boys Choir of Harlem. For seven years, he was intensely trained in all forms of music including classical, jazz, hip hop and gospel. Johnathan experienced a string of unforgettable, inspiring moments as a member of the Boys Choir, which included being awarded the lead tenor role for the choir, singing at the intermission for Luciano Pavarotti's Concert in Central Park, performing in a live show on Broadway for two weeks and winning second place in the Lena Horne...
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Artisan Cheese with Adam Moskowitz, founder of the Cheesemonger Invitational - 019
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Adam Moskowitz is the wunderkind President of and , and he founded the Cheesemonger Invitational, an in-demand twice-a-year event that is considered the Olympics of cheese skills, an celebrates what are to cheese what sommeliers are to wine. The profits from the CMI, which Adam hosts as his alter-ego, "Mr. Moo," go towards The Barnyard Collective, an organization devoted to food education. Adam was responsible for the introduction of Challerhocker cheese to the U.S., just as his father was responsible for the introduction of cave-aged Gruyere to the U.S. But Adam bought out his own father's...
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Modern KidLit with Amy Ignatow ("The Popularity Papers, "Mighty Odds") - 018
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
Amy Ignatow is a writer and illustrator living in Philadelphia with her family. After graduating from Moore College of Art and Design she worked as a freelance illustrator, a stationery designer, an air-brush face and body painter, an art teacher, an SAT prep instructor, a reporter, a wedding singer, and a florist. Amy was not very good at working for other people. Or with other people. Or around other people. Now she happily works in a studio by herself. She is the author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed middle grade POPULARITY PAPERS series as well as the upcoming ODDS...
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Miracle Making with Hal Elrod, Author of "The Miracle Morning" - 017
How I Broke Into: Michael Prywes Interviews Artists and Entrepreneurs About Their Big Break
For most of my life, I was a night owl. Starting a little more than 5 years ago, I went through a series of transformations to better my life, and one of my greatest and most difficult transformations was going from a night owl to an early bird. When people heard what I was doing, many told me about this amazing book, The Miracle Morning, widely regarded as “one of the most life-changing books ever written”. I read it (and listened to the audio book), and I was inspired. When I started up my podcast, Hal Elrod was on the short list of people I just had to interview. Hal...
info_outlineRhoda Sherbell is an American sculptor whose work has been compared to Rodin's. She has been commissioned by the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY as well as private commissions from Yogi Berra, Casey Stengel, Aaron Copland, among a host of other celebrities. Her sculptures are in the permanent collections of twenty-five museums throughout the country, including the the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Jewish Museum, the State Museum of Connecticut, William Benton Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum. She is a member of the National Academy Museum, and is on the board of the Portrait Society of America. In 1960, Rhoda was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters alongside Philip Roth and Norman Mailer. In 2013, the National Association of Women Artists awarded Ms. Sherbell as Artist of the Year, an award previously bestowed upon such luminaries of the art world as Mary Cassatt and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.
Notes from the show:
She grew up going to Brooklyn Museum of Art; she didn't love Rembrandt's as her father had. She loved the Egyptian rooms; she would hug the giant cat sculptures.
Her father believed you weren't a complete person if you didn't have a fill exposure to the arts and literature.
Her parents wanted her to go to Cooper Union, but the artists she admired were all at the Arts Students League. She asked for, and received, a scholarship, and asked to study with Reginald Marsh and William Zorach.
She was by far the youngest student there in the 1950s, and Zorach took her under his wing and called her "Baby." He quickly asked MOMA to have her teach sculpting during Christmas break.
Rhoda works on a half-dozen to a dozen pieces at a time.
Her focus now is a series called "The Woman's Question."
She was not interested in portraiture until Zorach asked her to do a portrait of him and his wife Marguerite.
She was not and is not interested in commercialism and wonders if it is a fault. She is interested in exploring "truth."
It was tough to be a woman in sculpture in the 50s and 60s. But she became an academician very early.
"You never feel like you arrived. There's always another hill to climb."
Oronzio Maldarelli didn't want her to be in the American Academy of Arts and Letters because she was a woman, and it would be "a wasted vote."
The foundry with which she initially worked would ignore her and only take care of men. She eventually switched to "Roman Bronze."
The owner of the Portland Sea Dogs Boston Red Sox affiliate commissioned her to sculpt "American Baseball Family."
Zorach didn't use tools, but Rhoda likes tools--she will use anything that works.
Rhoda doesn't sketch, because then the sketch becomes the work of art, and she doesn't want to do a second version.
Rhoda would not take photographs of her subjects.
She recommends going to Shu Swamp Nature Preserve in Mill Neck, NY.
She sculpts from memory, sometimes in the near dark.
You should always strive for a "unity of opposites" in line and volume.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is her favorite museum.
Artists must acknowledge and try to connect with an audience.
She loves Pierre Puvis de Chavannes' paintings.
Her discovery that "Las Meninas" by Velasquez was painted impasto.
"Spirit of the Dance" killed William Zorach.
"Artists need a William Zorach in their life."
Rhoda always knows when to stop sculpting a certain piece.
Yogi Berra was lots of fun. His wife was fiercely protective of him. He wanted "Sherbell portrait" like Casey Stengel had.
Percy and Joanne Uris were Rhoda's Medici-like patrons.
The story of Aaron Copland's confused Great Dane.
The camaraderie of MacDowell's Artists Colony and Rhoda's decision to leave.
"To be an artist, you need to know who you are.""
"If you're a person of purpose, you have to say 'My time is valuable, I'm not going to live forever. Protect the time..."
This podcast hosted by New York attorney Michael Prywes was sponsored by Prywes Schwartz, PLLC, a law firm devoted to artists and entrepreneurs.
This podcast may contain attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee future outcomes.