The Art Box

Our friends Diane Alexanian and Jill Waters combined their super Hollywood powers to bring us acclaimed director and all around nice guy Shelley Jensen for a rousing hour interview.  
This is a great listen. Catch you in an hour when you can drop us a line at artboxvv@gmail.com to tell us how much you loved this episode. 
We loved his quote: "Life is a fun ride and it’s really up to the individual to enjoy it"
A bit about Shelley.
Shelley Jensen is an American television director and producer.
He has directed episodes for a number of notable television series including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Friends, Amen, What I Like About You, The Drew Carey Show, Webster, The Suite Life on Deck, Sonny with a Chance, I'm in the Band, Good Luck Charlie, Austin & Ally and other series.
Jensen won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1996 for his directing work on Disney Channel's Adventures in Wonderland winning alongside David Grossman and Gary Halvorson.
CREDITS
Television Director
Series; Multiple Episodes
Brothers, Showtime, 1984-89
Amen, NBC, 1989-90
The Royal Family, CBS, 1991-92
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, NBC, 1992-96
First Time Out (also known as Jackie Guerra), The WB, beginning 1995
Too Something (also known as New York Daze), Fox, beginning1995
The Wayans Bros., The WB, beginning 1995
Suddenly Susan, NBC, 1996-99
The Jamie Foxx Show, The WB, 1996-2001
Friends, NBC, 1997-99
Veronica's Closet, NBC, 1998-2000
For Your Love, The WB, 1998-2002
Jesse, NBC, 1999-2000
The Norm Show (also known as Norm), ABC, 1999-2001
Nikki, The WB, 2000-2002
Off Centre, The WB, 2001-2002
The Drew Carey Show, ABC, 2001-2004
What I Like about You, The WB, 2002-2004
I'm with Her, ABC, 2003-2004
Specials
Hamlet, 1964
Associate director, Mouseketeers at Walt Disney World, 1977
First assistant director, John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, ABC, 1979
Also affiliated with broadcasts of The Kennedy Center Honors: A Celebration of the Performing Arts, 1979 and 1980.
Episodic
"Captain Justice," Hard Knocks, 1987
"What Becomes a Legend Most," Hard Knocks, 1987
Marblehead Manor, NBC and syndicated, 1987
"Seoul Shake," Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, ABC, 1993
"Pros and Convicts," Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, ABC, 1994
"An Embarrassment of Teapots," Hope & Gloria, NBC, 1995
"Misery on 34th Street," Bless This House, CBS, 1995
"Poppa Was a Rolling Stone," The Parent 'Hood, The WB, 1995
"A Star Is Reborn," Hope & Gloria, NBC, 1995
"A Charming Tale," Party Girl, Fox, 1996
"Educating Nick," Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, The WB, 1996
"Me and Mrs. Hale," Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, The WB, 1996
"Natural Born Parents," Bless This House, CBS, 1996
"Sisters in Sex Triangle with Gazillionaire!," The Naked Truth (also known as Wilde Again), ABC, 1996
"We Don't Need Another Hero," The Parent 'Hood, The WB, 1996
"After Midnight," Men Behaving Badly (also known as It's a Man's World), NBC, 1997
"Caroline and the Bitter Beast," Caroline in the City (also knownas Caroline), NBC, 1997
"Dial M for Muffin," Life with Roger, The WB, 1997
"Gerald R. Fraud," Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher, The WB, 1997
"Caroline and the Marriage Counselor: Parts 1 & 2," Caroline in the City (also known as Caroline), NBC, 1998
"Caroline and the Sandwich," Caroline in the City (also known as Caroline), NBC, 1998
"The Closure," The Closer, CBS, 1998
"The Hand That Rocks the Office," The Closer, CBS, 1998
"Caroline and the Firing Squad," Caroline in the City (also knownas Caroline), NBC, 1999
"After You've Gone," Ladies Man, CBS, 2000
"Decent Proposal," Ladies Man, CBS, 2000
"Discrimination," The Michael Richards Show, NBC, 2000
"The Return of Katherine Twigg," DAG, NBC, 2000
"Bo Diddley," According to Jim, ABC, 2003
"The Smell of Success," According to Jim, ABC, 2003
"Tom Makes a Friend," Married to the Kellys, ABC, 2003
"Bobby's Bully," Like Family, The WB, 2004
"Ladies' Night," Like Family, The WB, 2004
Also directed episodes of Built to Last, NBC; Three Sisters, NBC; and (as Shelley R. Jensen) Wanda at Large, Fox.
Pilots
The Royal Family, CBS, 1991
Home, Fox, 1996
Secret Service Guy, Fox, 1996
Flavor, The WB, 1998
Good as Gold, CBS, 2000
Men's Room, NBC, 2004
Television Producer
Series
Brothers, Showtime, 1984-89
Joanna, ABC, beginning 1985
Supervising producer, Amen, NBC, 1986-91
Line producer, The Royal Family, CBS, 1991-92
Pilots
Slickers, NBC, 1987
Married to the Mob, CBS, 1989
Five Up, Two Down, CBS, 1991
Film Work
Stage manager, The Sound of Murder, Warner Bros., 1982
Director, The Third Wish, Newmark/Echelon Entertainment Group, 2004
WRITINGS
Teleplays
Episodic
"Norm vs. Dad," The Norm Show (also known as Norm), ABC, 2001

Linda and Steve sit down with Mesquite Women's History and Culture Center founder Jean Watkins and General Manager Carol Saldivar for a heartwarming and enlightening interview. You will be inspired.
"Bloom where you're planted"
Learn more about these local heroes making impacts nationally.
https://whccmesquitenv.org/

This was a Sunday recording episode to beat all, meet Alex Harper, Community and Education Chair for the Red Rock Audubon Society. Linda and Steve could have talked/learned from Alex for hours, but alas he needed to get home to Las Vegas. 
Avian field work brought Alex from South Florida to Las Vegas in 2015, and he has been finding rarities in the desert ever since. He first began guiding as a volunteer trip leader for the Audubon chapter in Miami as a teenager and took visiting birders around the city for specialties while in high school. His college education is in Environmental Science and he has done subsequent avian field work in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, California, the Florida Keys and Nevada. Alex is the flightiest of our team, as he heads up to Alaska every summer to guide, returning to Vegas for the fall, winter and spring. Alex is a registered Emergency Medical Technician and Wilderness First Responder. He began serving on the state records committee beginning in 2019.
We loved these quotes.
'The scientific and analytical side help me make sense help me make sense of the world and the artist side helps me make sense of myself.'
'The desert just has a different way of operating.'
You can watch Alex presenting at a TEDx seminar. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVK9vt9QTGI
The Silver State of Birding podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/silverstatebirding
 
 

Oh my goodness Linda and Steve got their luck on this week when we interviewed Oakland based artist Rachelle Reichart, this is an interview we did not want to end, but alas it was Friday and Rachelle needed to go help her daughter pick some Kale for dinner.
Rachelle Reichert lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. She creates drawings, mixed media works, sculptures and art books to consider the materiality of landscape and its representation to explore landscapes permanently altered by climate change and industrialization. 
Select exhibitions include the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Center for Contemporary Art at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Anglim Gilbert Gallery, German Consulate in New York City, San Diego Art Institute, and Mills College Art Museum. Artwork and research is included in many public and private collections, including the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Archive, the  School of the Art Institute of Chicago Library, Meta Headquarters, and Adobe, Inc. Her artwork was presented at the California Climate Change Symposium, San Francisco State of the Estuary Conference, and the American Geophysical Union Meeting and published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Make: Magazine, California Home and Design, and New American Paintings. 
Rachelle Reichert Studio
www.rachellereichert.com
@rachelle_reichert
 
Current:
Modern Desert Markings: An Homage to Las Vegas Land Art
Marjorie Barrick Museum, Las Vegas, NV
 
Women of Northern California: Making Meaning for Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
John Natsoulas Center for the Arts, Davis, CA
 
Upcoming:
On Land 
Marin MOCA, Navato, CA
 
The Space Program Artist Residency, Fall 2023
San Francisco, CA 

Sue McPherson and Randy Bauman discuss the Mesquite Fine Art's Center Photographic Society May exhibition "Through the Photographer's Eyes" in this Ten Minutes With podcast. 

Diane Alexanian super guest recruiter and now podcast co-host brought us long time friend and famous Hollywood Stuntman Chuck Waters for our 92nd episode. This is a MUST listen! 
The picture is Chuck on the set of High Plains Drifter from 1972.
Chuck Waters is an American stuntman and actor who has worked on more than 130 films. Waters was born on September 14, 1934, in Libertyville, Illinois and grew up in Waukegan, Illinois. Even as a child, he was known for his adventurous nature: as early as five years old, he could be found climbing on the roof of his house and jumping to a nearby tree to get down. In high school, Waters could often be found scaling fire escapes or hopping trains. At 17, Waters and a friend hitchhiked to California and back, then Waters hitchhiked to New Jersey and back on his own, just for the adventure of it.
After high school, Waters joined the Marine Corps for a short tour of duty. When he returned from the military, Waters enrolled in a plumbing apprenticeship school and spent 10 years in the plumbing business. In 1955, Waters married his first wife, Carol. The couple had four children.
Waters decided to move to Hollywood in the early 1960s. Shortly after arriving in California, he read an article about stuntmen in the TV Guide. He found the challenges and excitement of a stuntman's career appealing and decided to try and make a name for himself in the stunt industry. Waters eventually connected with well-known stuntman, Paul Stader, who owned a boxing gym in Santa Monica where he trained up and coming stuntmen. Chuck began training with Stader and in 1965, after only 9 months of training, was recommended to take Stader's place on a job as a scuba diver on the TV series Honey West starring Ann Francis.
In the 1970s, Waters' career took off. He performed stunts in major films such as High Plains Drifter, The Exorcist(crashing through a window and down 75 steps as Jason Miller's stunt double), The Deer Hunter, and Apocalypse Now. In 1973, on the set of the Clint Eastwood film Thunderbolt and Lightfoot , Waters met his second wife, Charlotte Peterson. The two were married in 1975. In the 1980s, Waters began receiving jobs as a stunt coordinator and he has alternated between orchestrating the stunts and performing them ever since. All of the stunts that Waters has performed have been live action stunts and have not been computerized in any way.
Over the course of his career, Waters has worked with many of the top names in Hollywood, including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola and noted 2nd Unit Director Micky Moore. He has worked with actors such as Harrison Ford, Martin Sheen, Sean Penn, Robert De Niro, and Sean Connery. One of his longest working relationships is with actor/director Clint Eastwood, with whom Waters has done 13 films. Additional movies Waters has worked on include: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Flubber, Every Which Way But Loose, Flags of Our Fathers, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Waters has been a member of the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures and Television since 1966 and in 2001, received a Lifetime Member Award.
 
 
 

Doreen Kinkade
Doreen entered the art world in 1974 when she signed up for adult art education classes at Chaffey College in Ontario, California. Her very talented teacher, Dee Cole, opened Doreen's world. She learned Batik, off-loom weaving, fabric collage, and slab pottery in three short years.
After being transferred to Kentucky, she taught Macrame and off-loom weaving. A year later, they were again moved, this time to Iowa. Doreen became seriously involved in teaching crafts. She had a very successful Christmas Bazaar in her home for nine years. Doreen made fabric Santas, snowmen, and other items. As a team, she and John also made wood items.
In 1991, while her husband was in Desert Storm, she took a class in reed basket weaving from Sue Little at Ankeny High School adult classes. She is now teaching those basket-weaving skills to others and belongs to the Iowa Basket Weaving Guild.
Doreen and John moved to Mesquite in 2003, where she learned of the Virgin Valley Artists' Association at a sidewalk sale held under the "then shed" next to the gallery. Having been acquainted with clay work, she took a class at the VVAA pottery studio on wheel throwing from Kathleen and Harlo Birkholz. Doreen sold her work at the Mesquite Fine Arts Gallery, the Lost City Museum, and the Great Mesquite Chili and Arts Festival. She is an active potter and can be found frequently at the VVAA pottery studio as a volunteer and as an experienced potter.
Around 2008 Doreen became interested in quilting. In 2019 she found a new love in making small Art Quilts using different fabrics and embellishments, thanks to her "wonderful" teacher Margaret Abramshe. She has entered many exhibitions at the Mesquite Fine Arts Gallery and has won many ribbons.
Doreen's favorite thing to do now is teaching Basket-weaving to a great group of ladies three Mondays a month at the Pottery Studio. Each Monday is a different level of weaving. Doreen feels it is gratifying to teach someone who thinks they have no talent and have them walk out with a beautiful, finished basket.
If the name rings a bell, Doreen's husband is a shirt-tail relative of the famous artist Thomas Kinkade.
 

Please let your heart and soul enjoy a poem written by Ms. AyeVee during one of our artist visits to the Jean Dry Lake Bed for the Modern Desert Markings exhibition. 
Ms. AyeVee is an award-winning poet and curator from Las Vegas. Her work has been published by Zeitgeist Press, Red Rock Review, Nevada Humanities, and Las Vegas Review-Journal, to name a few. She also curates poetry workshops, events, and features for Poetry Promise, Nevada Humanities, and the City of Henderson. During the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, she founded Beyond the Neon Poetry Slam.
 
 

The best thing about Hikmet's interview with us was that I got to edit it and listen to it again about another twenty times. 
You may know her as Katie Hoffman's co_curator for the Modern Desert Markings exhibit at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, we know her as the consummate art professional and friend that we could have talked to for days.
Born and raised on the east coast, Hikmet Sidney Loe fell in love with the Great Basin's deserts and the environs of Great Salt Lake. She is an author, curator, and educator whose work examines the changeable nature of the earth and addresses our perceptual and cultural constructs of the land. She draws inspiration from the smaller patterns found in the larger environment and from the changeable nature of land, water, and sky. She is the author of the award winning book The Spiral Jetty Encyclo: Exploring Robert Smithson's Earthwork through Time and Place (2017), the first book in a new series devoted to our cultural and regional understanding of Land art from the 1960s and 1970s.In 2021 she was named as a Research Fellow with Holt/Smithson Foundation; her work centered on organizing the artist Nancy Holt's extensive library for research purposes.
https://www.hikmetsidneyloe.com/
 

Emily Budd
Linda and Steve were ever so privileged to sit with Emily at her metal shop @ UNLV for a wide ranging interview on all things art, paleontology, desert trash and Rhyolite. If it wasn't for schedules, parking fines and the need for humans to nourish themselves with food we would likely still be there.  Listen in to a great interview. More about Emily.
Emily is a queer artist specializing in time travel through mold-making. Drawing from a background in bronze-casting and paleontology, her work speculates on our own futurity and fossilization. Reformative monuments, memorials, and artifacts become an act of queer place-making while contemplating human sustainability when facing imminent change. Pulling from experiences as a foundry craftsperson and metalworker allows her to navigate between structure and experimentation within a queer context, exploring the possibilities of a separated difference.
Budd has been awarded various inspiring artist residencies including PLAYA Summer Lake, the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences, Vermont Studio Center and Recology San Francisco, the latter at which she spent four months developing a body of work made from materials gleaned archaeologically at the city dump. Budd earned an MFA at California College of the Arts where she received a Cadogan scholarship from the San Francisco Foundation, and a BFA in Sculpture at Miami University. Budd has exhibited throughout the US including at SOMArts Cultural Center and Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco, Site:Brooklyn, the Barrick Museum of Art in Las Vegas, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and SEED Lab at the Anchorage Museum. Currently serving as Visiting Assistant Professor of Sculpture at UNLV, both her personal practice and teaching philosophy consider how we define equitable futures and renew transforming worlds.
https://emilybudd.com/home.html