In this extended trailer, please join Austin Tichenor, Aline Smithson, Joe Harjo, Vincent Valdez, Jay Tolson, Alicia Olatuja, and Jim Lavilla-Havelin in discovering the importance of stories, the language of our humanity, and the transformative power of art. Artists Telling Stories Podcasts draw out human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of our shared humanity, bringing all of us closer together. Join us for a new season in 2024!

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Jim Lavilla-Havelin has written six collections of poetry, with several more in the works. His work has been anthologized widely, and he has been nominated for Poet Laureate of Texas, where he has lived for the last few decades. This episode of Studio Aesculapius is different. Jim reads three poems and has a wide-ranging discussion with co-host, Eddie Dupuy: about the poems, about poetry, about art and activism, about language and knowing and finding patterns, about the human desire to make marks and the attempt to make meaning.

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Joe Harjo says he didn’t have “access to seeing ‘artist as profession,’” while he was growing up in Oklahoma as a member of the Muscogee (Creek) nation. When he told a guidance counselor in high school that he wanted to teach, the counselor rebuffed him. When he said he wanted to be an artist, he got a similar response. Now he’s both artist and teacher, and his work tries to counter misrepresentations of Native peoples in popular culture. After a particularly difficult year of isolation, an injured knee, the resurgence of racial strife, and Covid, Harjo discovered his origins anew, both as an artist and as a Native person. He felt “lifted” and “carried through” by histories, his own and that of his ancestors, and he shared that discovery in a series of prints. It’s one of the mysteries of art that you will find something of yourself in his story as well.

See Joe Harjo's art at Studio Aesculapius.com and JoeHarjo.com.

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Aline Smithson was always drawing as a child growing up in Los Angeles. After a stint as a large format painter, Smithson went to New York for 10 years, working in fashion. She returned to LA, took a class in photography and realized she “could use the camera to make art.” She had found her “visual voice,” and now, as a teacher for more than 20 years, savors the moments she sees that voice arise in her students. Smithson is one of the most recognized names in photography, not only because of her work developing LENSCRATCH, an online resource for and community of photographers, but also because of her own significant body of work, which elevates the everyday world into something more. You will enjoy our conversation with her because of the individuality and universality, the humanity, she shares with us.

Visit Aline's website AlineSmithson.com, and enjoy her publication LENSCRATCH.com.

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Adriana Corral credits both sides of her family for her interest in art. Her father's side had several physicians who invited her to see their work of healing and who gave her a strong sense of the body. On her mother's side were an aunt and uncle who opened to her ideas of social justice. Like her place between her father’s and mother’s families, Corral sees between spaces as “where vital content exists.” She invites those who view her installations to do so “bodily.” Looking up, looking down, being aware of where they are in space. The spaces she creates are meditative or contemplative, dealing with heavy subjects that pull her viewers in (like gravity) while still giving them space to experience the work uniquely. Her conversation with us is no less weighty, drawing listeners to her thoughtful reflections on her life and work.

See Adriana Corral's art at StudioAeaculapius.com and AdrianaCorral.com.

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Paul Elie (from the Berkley Center at Georgetown University) talks about his two books, The Life You Save May be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (2003) and Reinventing Bach (2012), especially the “hard won” pilgrimages of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy.  Elie goes on to speak of his own pilgrimage in and around the Catholic Church, his struggle to remain within its story while writing about some “awful things”—such as the sexual abuse crisis.  He speaks of Bach’s unique place as religious artist and, finally, of his work on the American Pilgrimage Project, where he has discovered the healing power of a diversity of American religious experience beyond even his broadest expectations.

We are grateful for Elie’s own “hard won” pilgrimages in his books and his story. You will be too. You can also find his many contributions at NewYorker.com. 

Take a little time to browse StudioAesculapius.com, here you may find something fresh in what may have been stale. 

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Jay Tolson says, following T.S. Eliot, that "in my beginning is my end." And what an end, one that has led him to see art's power to connect us to one another through a shared reality.

He began as an undergraduate studying cultural and intellectual history and after a long career in journalism at US News and World Report, the Wilson Quarterly, and Radio Free Europe, he was asked by the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture to serve as editor of The Hedgehog Review. Although he has returned to his origins, his work at The Hedgehog Review brings cultural study to a markedly higher (and sane) level.

Jay discusses with us his meeting Peter Pomerantsev, author of Nothing Is True and Everything is Possible, and This is Not Propaganda, two books that recount the author's exposure to the fabricated reality that has become the Putin regime in Russia, but which has also spread across the globe, notably in the West, and into U.S. politics.

For Tolson and Pomerantsev, the destabilizing information sector (as opposed to journalism, a discipline that strives to reveal truth), creates a culture that proclaims private or alternate "truths" and seeks to undermine the very idea that truth exists. Hence, the labeling as "fake news" organizations that once could be trusted as seeking truth in reporting. Such destabilization, exacerbated by social media monopolies and app designers, makes it impossible to create norms for what can be considered civil or hateful discourse. A pursuit of truth, then, gives way to the entertaining endorphin highs that social media creates.

Tolson goes on to discuss his work on Walker Percy, not only his award-winning biography, Pilgrim in the Ruins, but Percy's work as an ironist, an irreducible and mysterious human characteristic. As a man of faith and an ironist, Percy followed his philosophical mentor, Soren Kierkegaard, who joins faith and doubt, the inescapable existential predicament of any person of faith, even Mother Theresa!

But it's Percy's idea of connection through symbols that most excites Tolson, not only the everyday symbols that we share in language, but also the symbols of art, science, poetry, and novels. Art connects us to one another in an awareness that we are not alone, that we share (an often difficult and sad) reality, but a reality that exists beyond each of us and is itself capable of sharing. In this way, artists, scientists, and, yes, journalists move toward a better approximation of truth and reality. Clearly, this endeavor is itself hopeful.

A journalist, editor, author, and critic, Jay Tolson covered religion, culture and ideas for U. S. News & World Report after working for more than decade as the literary editor and editor of the Wilson Quarterly. He served as the news director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Prague, Czech Republic, directed the French to Africa service of the Voice of America, and launched the Global News Network for

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.

Austin Tichenor loves his work, and it certainly comes through when you speak to him. He's funny, "I've always loved telling stories...and I have an irreverent sense of humor." He also lives in dread of taking himself too seriously. The arts tend to foster that, but he avoids it like the plague.

He says he's forever grateful to his father for telling that he would "hate law school" and that he shouldn't go. So he went into theatre, acting, and writing instead. He's been with the Reduced Shakespeare Company for 30 years. When asked "Why reduction?" he says it forces you to get to the point, again avoiding "gas bags," and those who take themselves too seriously.

On the arts, Austin says we don't give them enough attention: "We all draw as kids and we make up stories, but we stop because we think they're not important....We all have the impulse....And we have to craft stories all the time, for dates, for jobs, but we have to tell our story to ourselves first."

Shakespeare, of course knew that, and he crafted stories that speak to us in our divided times, in our fear of plague, and during this time of war. In many ways Shakespeare's work centered on plague: he wrote amidst the plague, in its wake, and in dread of the anticipation of a next plague. In that way he tells stories of losing one's station (pivoting, if you will) and we respond to the existential fears he addresses, asking ourselves "What is normal?"

Nothing is normal about Austin's career, but his love of what he does allows him to suggest that although we often question whether we should be doing something different from what we are doing, particularly during our troubled times, what the arts help us see is that whatever you're doing now is what you're supposed to be doing.

Austin Tichenor is the Artistic Director of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, the host of The Shakespeareance, and co-author of nine plays, including William Shakespeare's Long Lost First Play (abridged), which premiered at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Austin has acted off-Broadway, in London's West End, at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, on PBS with The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), with the LA Philharmonic, and in venues around the world. Austin’s television credits include recurring roles on Alias, Ally McBeal, and Felicity; and guest starring roles on The West Wing, Gilmore Girls, ER, and The X-Files.

He is also the author of the creative illustrated book Pop-Up Shakespeare, the irreverent reference book Reduced Shakespeare: The Complete Guide for the Attention-Impaired (abridged), and the comic memoir How The Bible Changed Our Lives (Mostly for the Better). And Austin produces and hosts the weekly Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast.

Artists Telling Stories Podcasts feature the stories of artists and the art of stories. We seek the personal stories of artists—their journeys—and the impact of their art on their own well-being and on those who encounter their work.

As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.

Hosts Edward Dupuy and Gene Beyt draw out our human stories in the hope that in their telling, artists will offer a new story of humanity for you, the listener.

Learn more at StudioAesculapius.com.