Exploring Cyanotype Printing and Mushrooms with Madge Evers
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
Release Date: 10/24/2025
Keep Painting: John Walker on a Life in the Studio
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
We’re revisiting one of my favorite conversations from the archive with painter John Walker, an episode that feels just as relevant now as when it first aired. In this conversation, John reflects on what it means to stay with the work over decades, how a painting practice evolves over time, and the quiet discipline required to keep showing up to the studio. We talk about the deeply meaningful realities of a life devoted to making art. As we move into a new year, this episode feels like the perfect reminder that sustainable creative lives aren’t built overnight they’re...
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Doing the Next Thing in Your Art Practice: Following What Lights You Up in the New Year
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
In this New Year episode of I Like Your Work, I talk about doing the next thing in your art practice by following what genuinely lights you up — even when it means making a change. I share why I chose to refocus my energy on teaching, creating courses, and building spaces for artists, and how that clarity led me to an exciting move to Patreon. This shift makes it easier for more artists to access professional practice support, classes, and conversations in a way that’s flexible, affordable, and rooted in real studio life. I Like Your Work Links: ...
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Do It Afraid — Creative Planning for Artists Starting the Year Strong
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
In this mini episode of I Like Your Work, I talk about why waiting to feel “ready” or confident keeps so many artists stuck and how planning your artistic year while feeling afraid can actually be the most honest place to start. This episode is for artists who: Feel overwhelmed when thinking about the year ahead Struggle with creative fear, doubt, or perfectionism Want to plan their art practice without burning out Are ready to make work even when clarity hasn’t arrived yet You don’t need to eliminate fear to move forward. You can do it afraid. I share simple,...
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Sculptor Lydia Musco on Finding Clarity in Your Studio Practice
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
Lydia Jenkins Musco’s work has been exhibited in galleries and public spaces throughout the United States. With an MFA from Boston University and a BA from Bennington College, her artistic practice has been shaped by international experiences, including stone carving studies in Italy and participation in art symposia in Norway, South Korea, and China. Musco’s work has earned recognition through awards including two Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants, a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, and an Edward F. Albee Residency Fellowship, among others. Her work has been featured in exhibitions...
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What’s Happening at Miami Art Week 2025: Artist Takeaways from Art Basel, NADA, Untitled & SCOPE
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
If you’ve been watching the Miami energy from afar and wondering what it all means for your studio practice, this episode gives you the trends, themes, and takeaways that actually matter for artists.In this episode, Erika covers: • The big-picture trends shaping Miami Art Week 2025: – Institutional validation and residencies becoming more influential – The shift toward sustainable careers and long-term practice – Experiential installations dominating many fairs – Latin American and Caribbean artists in the spotlight – The ongoing market...
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Italian Journey: Corot, Goethe & the Self We Discover
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
In this episode, Erika explores how observation, travel, and memory shape artistic practice, inspired by her upcoming class in Italy, The Symbolic Landscape. Drawing from Corot’s plein air studies and Goethe’s Italian Journey, she reflects on how artists discover themselves through what they see—whether in a distant landscape or a simple daily moment. The episode invites listeners to make space for beauty and reflection, wherever they are, and to see art as both a return to the world and a way to transcend it. Dates: May 10 - May 24 Early Registration Discount: A 20%...
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Understanding Your Experience with Painter Gail Spaien
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
Gail Spaien (b. 1958, Hartford, Connecticut) is an American artist and educator based in Maine. Her studio practice centers around the idea that a painting is a site of connection; an object that transmits emotion from one person to another. She is of a lineage of artists who think craft and beauty shape and build a more relational world. Spaien has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Ucross Foundation (2024), Varda Artist Residency Program, Djerassi Foundation Resident Artists Program, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture....
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Most Overlooked Area in Open Calls
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
In this episode, I'm diving into open calls including what jurors look for when reviewing applications, and why the description box is crucial for providing context about your artwork. I'm also sharing practical tips on how artists can use detailed descriptions to make their submissions stand out and highlighting resources for artists to improve their application process. I Like Your Work Links: Thank you to our sponsor, Sunlight Tax. Apply for our Winter Exhibition: Deadline is November 15: ...
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The Life of Objects with Painter Gwen Strahle
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
Gwen Strahle is a painter living and working in northeast CT. She teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. She shows her work at Nancy Devine Gallery in RI. Strahle has received several awards including the Connecticut Artist Fellowship, the Purchase Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Honorarium from the Drawing Center. Strahle earned her MFA from Yale University in 1983. "I have been making paintings of objects arranged on my studio table for over forty years. Many of the objects in my work have been with me for the entirety of that...
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Mystery and Philip Guston
I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists
In this episode, I touch on mystery in art—the space between knowing and not knowing that drives us to create and share Philip Guston’s essay “Faith, Hope, and Impossibility”. Faith, Hope, and Impossibility- Philip Guston “There are so many things in the world—in the cities—so much to see. Does art need to represent this variety and contribute to its proliferation? Can art be that free? The difficulties begin when you understand what it is that the soul will not permit the hand to make. To paint is always to start at the beginning again, yet being unable to avoid the...
info_outlineMadge Evers (b. 1961, Norwalk, CT) explores the transformative cycles of dormancy, decay, and ecstatic growth in plant life. Her work combines alternative photography, mushroom spores, and painting to depict landscape details and imagined flora.
Evers earned a BA from Suffolk University in Boston and an MA from the University of Rhode Island. Her work has been exhibited at the New Britain Museum of American Art (CT), Danforth Museum of Art (Framingham, MA), Brattleboro Museum and Art Center (VT), and the Zero Art Fair (New York, NY), among others. In 2024, she curated and exhibited in the group show *Biomorph* at Split Level Gallery (Northampton, MA) and presented her third solo show at ECA Gallery (Easthampton, MA).
Recent artist residencies include Chautauqua Arts (2024), Cill Rialaig (Kerry, Ireland, 2023), Oak Spring Garden Foundation (Upperville, VA, 2023), Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at UMass Amherst (2022), and Eastern Frontier Educational Foundation (Jonesport, ME, 2022). Evers was a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Finalist in Photography (2021) and made Photolucida Critical Mass top 200 (2019).
Evers currently lives and works in western Massachusetts. Her book about the cyanotype process will be published by Storey in 2026.
"My work features native and introduced flora foraged from different landscapes, along with imagined botanical elements. Working primarily on paper, I use various materials and processes, including mushroom spores, cyanotype, painting, collage, and book making. I began adapting and experimenting with mushroom spore prints as an art medium in 2015. The cyanotype—an alternative photographic process pioneered by botanist Anna Atkins in 1843 —provides flexibility for revision and repair in my practice. Spore printing and cyanotype photograms connect me to the cyclical transformations of plant life: growth, decay, and dormancy. I believe nature's interdependent systems offer a restorative framework for humans, and possibly humanity."
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Apply to the Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program: art.chq.org