The Art Assignment

Artist and designer Ben Denzer shares an assignment to make an ATYPICAL BOOK. He’s made books from meat, toilet paper, ketchup packets, and lottery tickets, among much else. Your challenge: 1) Make a book that is atypical in terms of its form or material + 2) Share it on Instagram or Twitter with #youareanartist.

What is art? How do we define art? In this episode, we explore some of the many ways that artists and writers and thinkers have defined and understood this thing we call art.

Artists have abandoned artworks for many reasons throughout history. Guest host John Green shares some of his favorite unfinished artworks and explains why they resonate with him so deeply. Featuring work by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Edgar Degas, Alice Neel, Kerry James Marshall, and very many presidential portraits.

Cécile McLorin Salvant is a visual artist and Grammy Award-winning jazz singer, and she shares with us an art assignment on creating your own Theme and Variation Cut-Out.

Artist and educator Allison Smith shares her thoughts and library of books about art made in adverse circumstances. Featured are Vladimir Arkhipov's project Home-Made, archiving Russian artifacts made during Perestroika, and Trench Art, or art and objects made during armed conflict, highlighting works from Trench Art: An Illustrated History by Jane A Kimball.

What art that brings you comfort right now? What art do you want to be thinking about? In this episode, we make a book of art by Alec Soth, Miyoko Ito, Giorgio Morandi, Vija Celmins, Sam Gilliam, Sheila Hicks, and Wayne Thiebaud.

You don't need to be creative or inspired to make art, but you may need the advice of artists, and perhaps a prompt!

The artist Frida Kahlo is a larger-than-life icon, known for the masterful self-portraits she made during her turbulent life (1907 - 1954). We take a close look at her painting The Two Fridas (Las Dos Fridas), and consider what it tells us (and doesn't) about her as a person and her wider body of work.

What do we mean when we call an artwork a MASTERPIECE? Who decides which art becomes one? And what artists make them?

Video Games are fun, but are they art? Heck yes. We explore the history and present of video games and what sets them apart as a means of artistic expression.

Frank O'Hara is best known for his poetry, but in this Art Cooking we explore his life as a poet as well as an art curator at MoMA.

What is Art Therapy? How can you use aspects of it in your next art encounter? We explore these questions at the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art with art therapist Lauren Daugherty.