ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists
ARTMATTERS is an intimate, bi-weekly podcast featuring in-studio conversations between host Isaac Mann and professional
artists from around the world. Now in its second season with over 55 episodes, the show has become a vital resource for the
contemporary art community, exploring everything from technical practices and daily studio insights to career advice, creative
blocks, and the emotional realities of making art.
Host Isaac Mann brings both the perspective of a working artist and the curiosity of a thoughtful interviewer to each conversation,
creating a space where artists can discuss not just their techniques and influences, but also the vulnerable aspects of creative life-
hope, depression, expectation, success, and failure.
Whether exploring technical processes, relationship dynamics, or tips for a healthier practice, ARTMATTERS offers
both emerging and established artists a rare glimpse into the real experiences behind successful creative careers.
ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists
#68 with Fran Shalom
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Welcome back to ARTMATTERS: The Podcast for Artists
On this week’s episode I’m joined by New York artist Fran Shalom. Fran has exhibited widely throughout the United States, including a solo show at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and the Hunterdon Museum in New Jersey. She has been the recipient of a Pollock Krasner Artist Grant, a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, and an Art Omi Residency. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Rose Art Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.
Fran and I recorded this episode after hours at her solo exhibition at the Kathryn Markel Gallery in Chelsea, surrounded by her recent paintings.
In this conversation Fran discusses beginner's mind and call-and-response painting, how she builds trust in improvisation despite recurring doubts, and the many paintings buried beneath each finished surface. She tells me about getting rid of precious moments, loving the fiddly finishing bits, navigating flatness and why not everything in a painting needs to function, Finally we discuss Fran’s early-career transition from photography to self-taught painting, balancing her three practices (art, family, Zen), and why generosity matters more than networking.
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If you have an any questions you want answered, write in to artmatterspodcast@gmail.com
host: Isaac Mann
www.isaacmann.com
insta: @isaac.mann
guest: Fran Shalom
www.franshalom.com
insta: @fshalom64
Thank you as always to ARRN, the Detroit-based artist and instrumentalist, for the music.