Episode 378: Artist Camilla Taylor- "My House Burned Down"
Release Date: 08/09/2025
Episode 389: The Conversation presents: The Intrepid Artist, an Advice podcast- Episode 1, with co-host Arleene Correa Valencia
The Conversation Art Podcast
“To Post, or Not to Post….That is the Question” In this pilot episode of The Intrepid Artist, the main question asked by a listener is whether sharing (or even having) one’s social media plays an important role in grant and open call decisions. Arleene advocates for developing a thoughtful, engaging and empathetic feed, as opposed to one in which an artist is simply constantly sharing work. She wants a feed in which the artist shares who they really are, beyond the gallery setting; whether to use Stories vs. Posts, and the importance of sharing what you want to share, and how Arleene...
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Episode 388: Lauren O’Neill-Butler on Artist Activism, Artforum magazine and the seminal Project Row Houses in Houston
The Conversation Art Podcast
Hunter College professor and author of , talks about: Her 12 years at Artforum magazine, including its balance between advertising and hard-core art writing, and how her chapter on was written while at Artforum; the classes on Activism she’s taught at Hunter College, which were not to get students to become activists but to make them aware of its history and context; how teaching activism and writing the book were both ‘rage containers’ but also ways to inspire difference; how activisms ‘expire,’ including in the case of her colleague Carrie Moyer, whose hardcore activism...
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Episode 387: Peter Hujar and Paul Thek's "Wonderful World That Almost Was," with writer and Frieze editor Andrew Durbin
The Conversation Art Podcast
Writer and Frieze editor-in-chief talks about: His book tour for "The Wonderful World That Almost Was," which has been hectic; how he became familiar with Peter Hujar’s work initially, and why his and Paul Tek’s legacies really took off after their deaths; Peter’s persona and personality as someone who could be as charming and engaging as can be, but also someone who flew off the handle with a volatile anger at some in his life, and how he actually using photography to deal with some of that anger; how Paul Tek appeared to be thoroughly charming and quintessentially hippie-ish from the...
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Episode 386- James Delbourgo on the 'Noble Madness' of collectors- from Charles Foster Kane to Norman Bates and others, and what Freud had to say about all of them
The Conversation Art Podcast
James Delbourgo, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of , talks about: Why he’s written about contemporary art so extensively, as a history academic who’s very interested in the present, going to galleries and wondering who collectors are right now, raising a lot of questions about archetypes for what would become a big part of his book; how collectors can not only be defined as powerful, they can also be defined as weak, unhinged and deranged, among other things; how the profile of the collector, over time, is more a corkscrew than an arc, with the Freudian view of the...
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Episode 385- Useful Art explodes what your sense of Art with a capital "A" is and can be, with John Byrne, author of “Useful Art- How Activist Artists Can Change the World”
The Conversation Art Podcast
, author of “,” and professor of Useful Art at Liverpool John Moores University’s School of Art and Design, talks about: The city of Liverpool and its art community, with about 20 total galleries, and how he fits into it; where he’ll be book touring the book; a key framing in the book, being in a ‘neo-liberal occupation’ that we live under, which has a huge impact on the culture industries and means the financialization of essentially everything; the surprising pushback there’s been at conferences and other events where Useful Art is discussed, including a lot of resistance from...
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Episode 384: Boston artist and lifelong art school teacher on photography and teaching in art schools for 46 years
The Conversation Art Podcast
Boston-based photographer talks about: The Boston art community (which is often connected to the art school and universities) and why he’s lived there the great majority of his life (he lives in the house he grew up in); he’s a dedicated Mass-hole- there’s an edge to people there and you have break that edge; how he navigates random passersby when he’s photographing for long sessions with his wooden large-view camera (his exposures range from a second to 20 minutes), with people always around him (here’s a short video of a food stand guy singing tango where Jim was doing a shoot);...
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Episode 383- Sarah Khan: Documenting the Immigrant Experience
The Conversation Art Podcast
Hadley, Massachusetts and NYC artist talks about: How it’s a “little miracle” to have a studio (a former chick coop on a farm in the 5-college area of Mass.) after so many years working in kitchens and other spaces not dedicated to her work and where she can really spread out; her short films about the immigrant experience in New York via food trucks (particularly her series), and how she was originally motivated to work in this area in 2015 as a way to follow up on the fall-out from 9/11 among the immigrant community; the challenges she had getting street vendors and other food makers...
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Episode 382: Robbie Conal,from the studio to the streets--applying what you do best to what you care about most
The Conversation Art Podcast
Artist and legendary street artist talks about: His family history, including his two activist-and-politically inclined parents, his background in fighting the power; moving up to Los Osos (in San Luis Obispo County) as a permanent residence (back after the 2008 crash), but keeping a small place in L.A.; what he misses about not being in the city (he’s lived in NYC and SF as well as L.A.); his first big moment with public art, through postering, which was born out of caricature paintings he was making of Ronald Reagan’s cabinet, which he dubbed ‘Men with No Lips,’ and alighted...
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Episode 381- Arleene Correa Valencia: From rural Mexico to the Napa Valley and back, fulfilling a family dream
The Conversation Art Podcast
Napa, CA-based artist talks about: Why she lives in Napa, CA, and the two distinct versions of the town, for the wealthy and for the poor (“you’re either the owner of the vineyard, or you’re working the vineyard,” as she put it); how she’s the first generation to not be working the vineyards, his dad having worked the vineyard for a period before transitioning to hand-painting etched wine bottles for a winery (which he had to ultimately leave for lack of being paid enough because he didn’t have an MFA); her favorite wines by grape (Pinots and Cabs from Sonoma mainly), and more...
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Episode 380- London-based photographer and writer Michael Collins on the perils of photography, and art criticism, and why to give your viewers the benefit of the doubt
The Conversation Art Podcast
London-based photographer and writer talks about: The flat where he’s lived for 35 years, which is getting ‘Wallace & Gromit’ crowded; how he keeps film in his deep freeze (aka freezer) as opposed to anything edible, and how he’s happy to shop for the day, while he points out that Brits see American refrigerators and are overwhelmed by how large they are; and by the way, we’re also bludgeoned by advertising here, compared with the UK and Europe; how he sees our social media consumption as giving in to the impulsive at the expense of the rational, a battle he gives in to daily...
info_outlineCamilla Taylor, Los Angeles artist, and curator of “My House Burned Down” (at Track16 Gallery), talks about:
Her childhood with complicated religious origins, between her Mormon LDS father and her mother who branched off to start her own organization (some might say ‘cult,’ per Camilla), and how art, for her and many artists, can often fit the functions that people are often looking for in religions (including being part of something bigger than themselves); how she’s really good at compartmentalizing, seeing difficult experiences from her life as existing in rooms in a house, where she can shut the door to any given room; the epic story of experiencing her house burning down in the Eaton Fire in Altadena-- from her 16-hour drive home from the Sitka Center residency in Oregon, to seeing it when she approached her part of the San Gabriel Valley, to arriving home and having the wind lift her off her feet, to their belated evacuation; and subsequently how she found out her and her partner’s house, and her studio, had burned down, and that that process of mourning has been like; how trauma has manifested from losing her home and studio, and the range of reactions she’s received, including a lot of suggestions that are tone-deaf; what insurance will cover, and the studio spaces she’s been loaned/gifted for now, putting off the need for having to rent a studio for the first time (since studios have always been attached to her living spaces).
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In the 2nd/Patreon Bonus half of the conversation, Camilla talks about:
How, because of her visibility as an artist, she’s been more fortunate than many others who lost homes/studios in the fire by receiving a range of resources that artists less visible have not; the lawsuits against Southern California Edison, who allegedly started the Eaton fire; the group show she curated, ‘My House Burned Down,’ at Track 16 Gallery, which included four artists who lost their homes in the Eaton fire, and four artists who lost their homes in prior fires, and how the show addressed a commonality in losing one’s home as an artist, with an extra emphasis on materiality; how while she doesn’t know what the right reaction is, when people learn that her house (and studio) burned down in a fire, she knows that the reaction that she’s going to rise above it, like the phoenix from the ashes, is absolutely not the reaction to have, because it’s hurtful especially in its negating of what happened to her; and we have an extensive exchange about what I have long referred to as “the P-word,” as in ‘practice, as in ‘my art practice, a word Camilla also hates, and she talks about why language has become so important in art/the art world, including her take that artists overcompensate in art because, essentially, we/art is so unimportant to everyone else; and Camilla shares her favorite and least favorite art-speak words; and how in her teaching she’s honest with students about how their work affects her, as opposed to making art historical comparisons.