By Joe Nolan
Brian Siskind and I started the Art Fight Podcast five years ago. Between 2017 and 2021 we curated nearly 120 interviews with contemporary artists, musicians, filmmakers, dancers, creatives and combatants of all stripes. We talked about the fight to make great art and the art in great fighting. Many of our guests were in the midst of releasing new music, or opening new exhibitions, but all of our Art Fight conversations were evergreen chats about the creative process, flow state, growth, and the obstacles along the way.
Nashville artist Amber Lelli visited our studio for our 67th episode to talk about the postmodern future of bronze casting, and the values that inform her sense of creative freedom. Lelli just opened a two-woman show with Decatur, Georgia-based painter and graphic designer, Michelle Armas at Modfellows Art Gallery’s Grassmere location in Nashville. In the Making includes Lelli’s surreal portrait sculptures which combine materials like blown glass, clay and cast bronze to create contrasting conversations between the past and the present, between fragile and forever materials, and between our centered senses of self and our perpetual potential personas.
Check out our chat with Lelli below. In the Making runs through May, 7