Sculptor Lydia Musco on Finding Clarity in Your Studio Practice

I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists

Release Date: 12/12/2025

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...

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: ...

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,...

Sculptor Lydia Musco on Finding Clarity in Your Studio Practice

I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists

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...

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%...

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....

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: ...

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...

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...

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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 including the 43rd Annual Peace Exhibition in Nagasaki, Japan, the International Print Center in New York, and numerous outdoor sculpture exhibitions nationwide. Musco has contributed to the art community through academic roles, serving as a lecturer in sculpture at Boston University and a visiting assistant professor at Davidson College. Musco lives and works in Royalston, Massachusetts.

"I interpret the world into a vocabulary of objects with weight and mass that can be viewed from all sides, that help me explore the connections and intersections of elements. Basic construction materials like concrete and wood — ubiquitous and often used in humble ways we take for granted — offer me a path to honesty through their fundamental simplicity. Two groups of work are currently in progress, Logarithmus and Unconformity. The Unconformity series began as an investigation into perception and place, a reflection of the landscape of the woodlands of Massachusetts. In geology, an unconformity refers to a break in time, a boundary between rocks caused by erosion or a pause in sediment accumulation. Investigating the environmental changes accumulating in the landscape over the course of a year, each sculpture is an unconformity, a break in time, capturing a moment, holding it still, and documenting the changing color, light, and forms of a single place. The Logarithmus series explores navigation, inspired by the Chip Log, an early nautical instrument for gauging speed. The form of these sculptures is derived from the geometry of a circle's quadrant. The resulting shape, somewhat vulnerable due to its accessible interior, becomes an exploration of pathfinding, with all its inherent hope and uncertainties. With the guarantee of detours and missteps, my goal is to keep moving forward with curiosity. These objects are built from the ground up, echoing the process of memory or landscape formation. Like geological strata, each layer both influences and is influenced by those adjacent to it, above and below, side by side. Bound by gravity only, they are built in movable sections that can be dismantled and reconstructed. Each reassembly tells a new story, revealing how intention and environment reshape our understanding, making the familiar strange and the static dynamic."

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