The Light Grey Art Lab Podcast

This week's podcast is the first a series of interviews with creative couples. First, we talk with Mike Yamada and Victoria Ying, two visual development artists from Disney Animation Studios who also run their own business, Extracurricular Activities. Then we talk with Llew Mejia and Alyssa Nassner, two product designers/illustrators/full-time hustlers. In both cases, these dynamic duos spend all their time living, working and creating side-by-side and we talk to them about how they work together, drive each other artistically, and how they deal with things like strange quirks and competitive tendencies.

This week Sam Wolfe Connelly visited Light Grey Art Lab to lead a weekend workshop; Studio Self Indulgence. To kick off the weekend, we partnered with Minneapolis College of Art and Design to hold a public artist talk, where Sam talked about his thoughts on creation and creativity, his process, and his experiences as a working illustrator and successful gallery artist.

With the Great Personality exhibition launching this week, we've got romance on the brain. On this week's podcast, Lindsay, Jenny, Francesca and Chris talk about some of the less glamorous aspects of dating and courtship. From cheesy pick-up lines, (possibly) sexy bodily odors, kissing the hand of a stranger, and societal clues to let people know you're looking for action, we share our thoughts on it all. Even our positions on spitting on you loved one's food.

Our sexy dating-sim exhibition, Great Personality, is quickly approaching! On this week's podcast, Lindsay, Chris, Jenny, and Francesca talk about one of the main themes behind Great Personality: the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. We talk about the research that went into the show, how personality applies to dating and relationships, and we even share a few stories from our own romantic past. Stay tuned to the very end for a special gameshow-style Lightning Round with Jesse Riggle. Jesse is an artist and friend who has helped us out at Light Grey since the start. Now he's leaving the frozen tundra of Minneapolis behind for a brand new adventure in Vienna, Austria.

Happy New Year! Hooray! 2013 was a crazy year at Light Grey Art Lab! This episode marks the one year anniversary of our podcast, and Lindsay, Jenny, Chris and Francesca share a few of our favorite moments from the past year. Then we take a look back at the very first, poorly recorded episode of our show, when we declared our ambitious resolutions for 2013, and we see just how many we followed through on. Finally, we make a few more for 2014!

On this week's podcast, we speak with new professionals (and current art-school students) Josh Olson, Jared Tuttle and Amanda Richie. All three have joined us for past Light Grey Art Lab exhibitions and have accomplished incredible things while still in school. We asked them some hard questions - what do they plan on doing in 2014, and how would a person work toward accomplishing something big (wether it be next year, or in a lifetime?). We were surprised by the answers. As we talk, Lindsay and Jenny have a chance to reflect and see how their vision of their future creative lives differ with people just starting out.

On this week's podcast we talk to Andy Krueger, co-founder of two of the Twin Cities most beloved craft fairs - St. Paul's Craftstravaganza and Minneapolis' Craft'za. For nearly a decade, Andy's been busy assembling creative talent, curating a great collection of work year after year, and facilitating a lively place for creators to come together with an appreciative audience of art-lovers and consumers. There's a strong parallel with what we do here at Light Grey Art Lab, so we wanted to sit down with Andy to chat about how he decided to become a creative facilitator, the choice of initiating over participating, and maintaining momentum and growing over the course of ten years.

On this week's show, Lindsay and Francesca team up for audio journey through their version of "Memory Lane" (otherwise known as Minneapolis's Whittier and Uptown neighborhoods). Join them as they introduce you to our home town, and all of the memories, magic and magnificence that comes with Minneapolis.

It's the end of the year and the pressure is on to make the last few weeks of 2013 as productive, meaningful and energizing as possible. With unending to-do lists and plenty of confusion, Jenny, Chris, Francesca and Lindsay talk about procrastination, juggling priorities, and feeling fulfilled while clearing our plates so we can start the new year fresh.

Our newest exhibition 6 Degrees opens in just 5 days! 6 Degrees is all about hometown pride and sharing where you're from, and on this week's podcast Jenny, Chris, Francesca and Lindsay are joined by Uptown Tattoo's Nic Skrade to talk about the defining memories of our hometowns, why it's important to love where you are, and the creative importance of unplugging from the world wide web and staying local every once in a while.

With Thanksgiving and other seasonal festivities right around the corner, Jenny, Chris, Lindsay and Francesca sit down for a chat before the holiday. Everyone has their own social quirks, and we share some of our own. From flat-out avoidance to mail-sniffing, it's all there. And we'll never be invited to a party again.

With new, exciting (and possibly frightening) projects on the horizon and the Great Personality show in it's early stages, Lindsay, Francesca, Chris and Jenny talk about their own personality types and how they switch things up, whether they know it or not.

This week's podcast takes a left turn or two as Lindsay, Francesca, Chris, and Jenny have a series of on-air personal crises and revelations. We discuss the importance of incubation, thinking on projects, online identity, patience, perseverance, and live Tarot readings.

Microsoft Studios Associate Production Designer Claire Hummel and Associate Art Director Colin Foran visited Minneapolis this week to host our weekend workshop dedicated to world building in video games. To kick off the event, we hosted a public artist talk where Claire and Colin spoke about how they approach the challenging work of visual development for triple-A video games, what it's like to work on a high-caliber team of talent like Microsoft Studios, where they started as artists, and how they got to where they are now. And of course, lots, lots more. Claire and Colin are incredibly talented and knowledgeable (and super nice, too!) so we thought it would be a great conversation to share on the podcast!

It's Halloween! Boo! With the Rolemodels opening reception in the rearview, Chris, Lindsay, Jenny and Francesca kick back and chat about the spookiest day of the year (Halloween). We talk about the best costumes, how to shoot low-budget horror films, our deepest, darkest fears and lots more.