Advertise on podcast: A Creative Excuse

In this episode with Thais, we talk about their solo exhibition, Miss Universe. Chopped up, mismatched, and set loose in a cosmic bloom of florals, the women in Miss Universe are equal parts beautiful and creepy, carrying Thais Mather's long look at femininity and creation from ancient myths of cosmic mothers to the pageant stage, from the void of space to the planet we keep trying to escape. Thais’ exhibition opens at Hecho Friday October 2, and is on view through November 1.

In this episode with Eliza Lutz, we talk about their solo exhibition, All the Lives Alive Inside Me and both the metaphorical and literal meanings of that title.  Merging embroidered prints on paper with quilted portraits assembled from loved ones' clothes, the works in this exhibition chronicle the giving and receiving of care in all its forms, from child rearing to elder care, from domestic arts to community organizing. Eliza’s exhibition opens at Hecho Saturday September 5 and is on view through September 27.

For years Daniel McCoy's work ran toward the surreal and humorous, full of recurring characters like Hot Sauce Man, a stand-in for the late-night regulars he remembers from New Mexico's Allsup's gas stations. More recently he has turned to the landscapes of Northern New Mexico, rendering the light, rock formations, and cloudscapes around his home with a slower, more observational eye while keeping a bit of cartooning alive in the line. Daniel returns to the podcast to talk about family, life in the high desert, and his newest exhibition, We Can Only Go Up From Here.

Zahra grew up in two deserts which vary drastically and have many similarities in culture. One close to the sea in Kuwait, the other close to the mountains in New Mexico. Working in watercolor and ink, her dreamlike paintings often begin with a sparse line of text, drawing on Arab poetry, family folklore, and the magic woven through everyday life to reflect both her cultural roots in Kuwait and her current life in New Mexico. In this episode we talk about pomegranates, cats in bags, hawk fledglings, and we go into the realities of how to navigate dark times with creativity.

Annalise Gratovich creates her finely crafted prints by hand from start to finish, carving wood, etching metal, dyeing paper, and using manual printing presses to create multiple originals. Each piece is printed on the finest archival papers using oil based inks and hand dyed papers she produces in her studio. Annalise operates as a self publisher out of Austin, Texas and travels frequently across the country as a visiting artist and speaker and to publish prints with esteemed print shops.  In this episode we talk about Annalise’s newest body of work, Carrying Things From Home, a series of 8 monumental woodcuts that are 13 years in the making. On view at Hecho now for the first time in their entirety.

Jaydan Moore grew up in the Bay Area inside a family that has sold tombstones for four generations, an early apprenticeship in how objects hold a whole life. He went to CCA at eighteen, found metals, and never really left. Fifteen years ago he picked up a silver-plated platter at a junk shop and has been working in that single material ever since. We talk nostalgia, tragedy versus comedy, and how he got to metal.

Kat Kinnick is back on A Creative Excuse for her third solo appearance, and we get into it. We talk process over product, how the animals in her paintings sit at the edge of cuteness and brutality, and how the desire to connect, to nature, to people, to the things we don't say, runs underneath all of it.

Haley Greenfeather English is an artist and educator born and raised in Tiwa territory. Their paternal family is from Red Lake Nation and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and their maternal family is of European/Irish descent. Their art is an extension of their love of storytelling. It is something that deeply connects them to being and understanding what it means to be human. Through collections of loose drawings, written journals, and sentimental random objects, English visually brings pieces of stories together. English incorporates portraits of their family, warped perspectives, historical narratives, Indigenous and medicinal plants, cigarette smoking spirits, insects and animals.

Kate Wood (voted most likely to have bangs for her entire life) is an interdisciplinary artist working predominantly in painting/illustration, and paper mache sculpture. Kate considers herself a play-based artist whose works explores themes of relationship, body language and communication, family, and the point at which personal experience transcends identity and becomes collective consciousness. The daughter of a school teacher and an archaeologist, story and artifact became loci for Kate’s experience of and orientation to the world beginning in early childhood. Using a cast of glyphs rooted in archetype and mythology, Kate constructs visual narratives that invite and encourage viewers to have fun finding and experiencing themselves within the work. Kate grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and currently lives with her family in a rural mountain village on the High road to Taos.

Juana Estrada Hernández is a Mexican artist and Assistant Professor of Printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design. Born in Luis Moya, Zacatecas, Mexico, she moved to the United States at the age of seven and grew up as an undocumented immigrant — an experience that became central to her artistic practice. She received her MFA in Printmaking from the University of New Mexico and her BFA in Printmaking from Fort Hays State University. Estrada Hernández's work draws on Mexican folklore, Hispanic cultural traditions, and her family's intergenerational migration stories, with a particular focus on the social and political realities facing Hispanic migrant communities. She is a DACA recipient and self-described "DACA-mented" artist, and her prints speak with both intimacy and urgency to the experience of living, creating, and belonging across borders. Her printmaking — primarily lithography and intaglio — is luminous, narrative, and dynamic, with a touch of the surreal. She has exhibited across the United States, Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Poland. Her work is held in several collections including the Janet Turner Print Museum, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, Zygote Press Archives, Laval University, and Engramme, National Library and Archives of Québec.

Printmaker and educator Julianna Kirwin presents a window installation combining hand-pulled prints with the woodblocks used to make them. Informed by her experiences along the Camino Real, the work highlights printmaking as a bridge between cultures, revealing process, lineage, and Pan-American identity through image and material.

Moira Garcia is a New Mexican-Chicana multidisciplinary artist, educator, and cultural practitioner whose work bridges ancestral knowledge and contemporary visual language. A native of New Mexico, she holds a BFA in Studio Arts with a focus in printmaking from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MA in Latin American Studies with concentrations in Art History and Indigenous Studies from the University of New Mexico. Garcia’s art draws deeply from Nahuatl language, Mesoamerican cosmologies, and personal experiences, using symbol, color, and metaphor to explore themes of identity, memory, and cultural continuity. Her practice moves fluidly across printmaking, painting, fiber art, and mixed media, creating multilayered narratives that honor ancient visual traditions while engaging present-day concerns. Recent work, including her exhibition Xochiyotl: Florescence at Hecho a Mano, probes the essence of floral life as a metaphor for transformation and resilience. Garcia also teaches, advocates for art as social change, and champions indigenous and borderland perspectives in contemporary art.

Sam Hawley and Oskar Petersen artists live and work in their hometown of Albuquerque. They describe their way of living as a process of constant collaboration: "We both end up living among our work, for better or worse, talking about it over dinner and coffee and as we watch TV," they write. "We are very fortunate to spend our time discussing whether or not a goose should have teeth in a painting or what a certain palette is evoking." Pearl Hesselden is the founder of the Ranch Residency in La Madera, NM. The Ranch Residency offers a distinctive opportunity for artists to immerse themselves in the unique landscape of the La Madera Mountain Range and their own art practices. "Our mission is to offer a respite where artists can explore, experiment, and devote time to their practice in a setting that is both inspiring and nurturing.” www.ranchresidency.com

Mirel Fraga and Alfonso Barrera are a creative couple based in Oaxaca whose practices intersect across drawing, printmaking, and independent publishing. Barrera, originally from Mexico City, works in graphite, charcoal, oil, and printmaking, weaving together human–nature relationships, art history, and fantastical imagery; his work has exhibited in Mexico, the U.S., and Japan. Fraga, from Puebla, moves fluidly between illustration, graphic arts, and mural painting, often centering nature, cosmos, and feminist themes. Together they co-founded Polvoh Press, an editorial project dedicated to small-edition artist books and printmaking, reflecting their shared commitment to experimentation, community, and the handmade.

Born and raised in the border city of El Paso, TX, George Rodriguez creates highly ornamented, figurative ceramic sculptures, often underlined by a connection to the sociopolitical issues the artist explores. Rodriguez holds a BFA from the University of Texas El Paso and an MFA in ceramics from the University of Washington, Seattle. His world curiosity grew as a recipient of a Bonderman Travel Fellowship where he traveled the world through most of 2010. George was featured on PBS Craft in America "Storytellers" episode and has created a large public sculpture for the new Kansas City Airport which opened March 2023. George currently resides in Philadelphia and teaches at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University.