I Like Your Work: Conversations with Artists

Welcome to Season Nine of I Like Your Work!
In this opening episode, I'm reflecting on something I've been thinking about a lot lately: artists need other artists. So much of our work happens alone in the studio, but getting out into the world, seeing work in person, traveling, learning together, and having conversations with other artists can have a huge impact on our practices.
I share some thoughts from my recent experience teaching The Symbolic Landscape in Italy and why in-person experiences like this can be so important—not only for making work, but for building relationships and seeing your practice in a new way. I'm excited to be returning to Italy to teach the course again, and I'll be sharing more information soon for anyone interested in joining me.
I also talk about what's ahead for I Like Your Work this season, including our upcoming exhibition at Eckert Art Gallery at Millersville University, guest curated by Heidi Leitzke.
As we begin our ninth season, thank you for continuing to listen, share the podcast, support the artists we feature, and be part of this community. I'm so excited for the conversations and opportunities ahead.
In this episode:
Creating meaningful in-person experiences

Reflections on teaching and making art in Italy

Returning to Italy for The Symbolic Landscape

Our upcoming exhibition at Millersville University

What's ahead for Season Nine

Learn more about I Like Your Work, upcoming opportunities, and ways to support the podcast at ilikeyourworkpodcast.com.
 
I Like Your Work Links:

https://www.patreon.com/cw/ILikeYourWork/home
 

The Symbolic Landscape- Erika b Hess at Umbria Contemporary Arts May 30- June 13, 2027
https://www.umbriacontemporaryarts.com/product-page/the-symbolic-landscape-instructor
 

https://www.millersville.edu/eckertartgallery/current-season/
 

Watch our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ilikeyourworkpodcast

Submit Your Work
Check out our Catalogs!
Exhibitions
Studio Visit Artist Interviews
I Like Your Work Podcast
Say "hi" on Instagram

Lisa Solomon is a studio artist that moonlights as a college professor and illustrator/graphic designer. Profoundly interested in the idea of hybridization (sparked from her Hapa heritage), Solomon's mixed-media works and large installations revolve thematically around domesticity, craft, and personal histories. She often fuses "wrong" things together--recontextualizing their original purposes, and incorporating materials that question the line between ART and CRAFT. She also is focused on bridging the gaps between being creative, living creatively, and making a living as a creative.She received her BA in art from UC Berkeley and her MFA from Mills College. She has exhibited and works with galleries both nationally and internationally, is in numerous private and public collections, and is continually tweeking artworks in her backyard studio. She resides in Oakland, California with her husband, a teenager, two kitties, a three legged pit-bull, a dachshund mutt and many, many spools of thread. She is the author of - A Field Guide To Color - a workshop work-a-long watercolor journal on color theory and the follow up The Color Meditation Deck, a historical book on Crayola crayons, Knot Thread Stitch, the Illustrator for 20 Ways to Draw a Chair and Draw 500 Everyday Things. Her latest book is Art, Craft, Color is published by HardieGrant. She is also an instructor on CreativeBug.
 
 LINKS:

www.lisasolomon.com












 




















@lisasolomon



 
















 






























 
Artist Shoutout: 
publisher @hardiegrantusa https://publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-us
Bridget Watson Payne * @watsonpayne https://bridgetwatsonpayne.com
Christine Buckton Tillman * @christinebucktontillman www.christinebucktontillman.com
Libby Black * @libblack www.libbyblack.com
Jen Hewett * @jenhewett www.jenhewett.com
Risa Iwasaki Culbertson * @Risa_Iwasaki_Culbertson
Ana Bianchi * @analovescolor www.analovescolor.com
Sonya Philip * www.100actsofsewing.com
Robert J. Bosscher * @rjbosscher www.risaculbertson.com
Jen Duffin / Nova Mercury Design * @novamercury Robert Mahar * @robert_mahar www.robert-mahar.com
Crystal Bodven / Crystallized Cookies @CrystallizedCookies www.crystallizedcookies.com
Dana Williams-Johnson @callmedwj www.yardsofhappiness.com
Kanako Abe * @abemanatee www.kanakoabe.art
Rashida Coleman-Hale * @iamrashidacolemanhale www.rashidacolemanhale.com
Twinkie Chan * @twinkiechan www.twinkiechan.com
Courtney Cerruti * @ccerruti www.courtneycerruti.com e bond * @eisroughdraft www.ebondwork.com
Kim Nguyễn * @blackslipbabes
Carissa Potter Carlson* @peopleiveloved www.carissapotter.com
Jenifer Lake * @jenifer_lake www.jeniferlake.com
Anne Weil * @flaxandtwine www.flaxandtwine.com
 
 
Thank You to our Sponsor Rise and Repaint: 
riseandrepaint.com/ilyw
 
Thank you to our sponsor Creativity Matters Coaching: The Brave Creator Project
https://www.creativitymatterscoaching.com/brave-creator-project




 


 





I Like Your Work Links:
Apply to the Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program: art.chq.org
Join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/ILikeYourWork
 
Apply to be a Studio Visit Artist: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/submitwork
 
Pre-order our catalog: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/resources
 
Have a question you want Erika to discuss in a mini episode? Email it to ilikeyourworkpodcast@gmail.com with the subject "mini eps" 
 
 
Join Erika in Italy at Umbria Contemporary Arts this Summer:
https://www.umbriacontemporaryarts.com/product-page/the-symbolic-landscape-instructor






Watch our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ilikeyourworkpodcast

Submit Your Work
Check out our Catalogs!
Exhibitions
Studio Visit Artist Interviews
I Like Your Work Podcast
Say "hi" on Instagram

Kyle Hackett's paintings explore race, class, and social standing through approaches to self-representation and the constructed image. Hackett (b. Still Pond, MD) earned his MFA from the LeRoy E. Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art and his BFA in Fine Arts from the University of Delaware. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship, the Civil Society Institute Fellowship at the Vermont Studio Center Residency, the Ruth Katzman Scholarship at The League Residency in New York, and Best in Show at the 2014 Bethesda Painting Awards Exhibition. His work has been featured in publications such as New American Paintings, The Washington Post, HuffPost, Aesthetica Magazine (UK) and is published in the British Library.
Hackett received a Mayoral Salute from the City of Baltimore for his solo exhibition "Rate of Contingency." Recent exhibitions include The Ruth Borchard 2025 Self Portrait Prize (UK); The Herbert Smith Freehills 2024 Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (London, UK); "Revisit/Reimagine" at the Banneker-Douglass-Tubman Museum (Annapolis, MD) and "Circular Narratives" at Vinegar Projects (Birmingham, AL). Hackett's work is represented by Goya Contemporary Gallery (Baltimore, MD). His work is part of collections at Ethan Cohen Gallery (New York) the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Capital One Lounge at Washington Dulles International Airport, the Soho House Art Collection, among others. Hackett is Assistant Professor and co-director of the MFA Studio Art Program at American University (Washington, DC).
"My work explores race, class, and social standing through approaches to self-representation and the constructed image. Inspired by nineteenth- and twentieth-century portraiture and precarious modes of depiction, I deconstruct ideas of secure identity and fixed painting techniques through subtexts of the staged, self-aware portrait. Referencing contraptions, braces, or postures from early photography that might objectify and hold a sitter in place, I relate image-making, inflection, and fixedness to concepts of double consciousness. A connected body of work involves vanitas still-life paintings created from discarded self-portrait reference photographs. Quickly compressed, twisted, fixed, bound, doubled, and hung, the discarded images take on new forms. Meanwhile, the slower process of making each painting becomes a living record and reflection on the initial need to discard the reference. Within this process, my work combines the power dynamic and politic of the picture plane. I examine how authenticity, self-referential source materials and painting methods can articulate systems of identity, representation, and contemporary power structures within and against the conventions of historical genres, such as portrait painting. I highlight how constructing images can construct new relations to serve as a framework for institutional and personal identity-making. Often using indirect glazing to layer an image, I consider how content exists in between spaces, subjects, and beneath painted surfaces. How can slowing down the viewing process challenge the conditions between the image, surface, and material? At the same time, how can this reveal insights into the painter's psychological state and the painting? By emphasizing conflicts between inner and outer, I hope to foster simultaneous ways of being understood beyond position and as human."
 
 LINKS:
kylehackettstudio.com
 
@kylehackettstudio



 




















 










 






























 
Artist Shoutout: 
Charles Mason III: www.cmason3.com
@tarem3 
Tim Doud: www.timdoud.net
@timdoud_art
 
Thank You to our Sponsor Rise and Repaint: 
riseandrepaint.com/ilyw


 





I Like Your Work Links:
Apply to the Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program: art.chq.org
Join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/ILikeYourWork
 
Apply to be a Studio Visit Artist: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/submitwork
 
Pre-order our catalog: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/resources
 
Have a question you want Erika to discuss in a mini episode? Email it to ilikeyourworkpodcast@gmail.com with the subject "mini eps" 
 
 
Join Erika in Italy at Umbria Contemporary Arts this Summer:
https://www.umbriacontemporaryarts.com/product-page/the-symbolic-landscape-instructor
 





Join the Works Membership! https://theworksmembership.com/

Watch our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ilikeyourworkpodcast

Submit Your Work
Check out our Catalogs!
Exhibitions
Studio Visit Artist Interviews
I Like Your Work Podcast
Say "hi" on Instagram

Beck Lowry (New Haven, Connecticut, 1980) is a mixed-media artist whose intricate, wall-hung abstractions explore themes of protection, labor, and lineage. Lowry's work has been exhibited at Yossi Milo and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY; Elijah Wheat Showroom, Newburgh, NY; Headstone Gallery, Kingston, NY; Fred Giampietro Gallery and Ely Center for Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; and Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE. Lowry was a 2024-25 resident of the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, Brooklyn, NY; and has participated in residencies at Interlude, Kingston, NY; and Millay Arts, Austerlitz, NY. Their work has been covered in Artforum, New American Paintings, Maake Magazine, Art Speil, Galerie, and Two Coats of Paint. Works by Lowry are held in the public collections of Southern Connecticut State College, New Haven, CT, and Gateway Community College, New Haven, CT. Lowry holds a Bachelor's Degree in Economics and a Certificate in African Studies from Smith College, Northampton, MA. The artist lives and works in Connecticut.
Installation of a large sculpture with Deanna Evans Projects for Main Window Dumbo. On view 24/7 from the sidewalk until March 22nd at Main Window Dumbo, 1 Main Street, Brooklyn. Closing Reception: Sunday, March 22 from 1-3pm.-- NADA NYC with Morgan Lehman Gallery (May 13–17) -- The Aldrich Decennial (large group show of Connecticut artists) at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, June 7, 2026 to January 10, 2027
 LINKS:
 

 
becklowry.com












 


















 













@becklowry



 





I Like Your Work Links:
Apply to the Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program: art.chq.org
Join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/ILikeYourWork
 
Apply to be a Studio Visit Artist: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/submitwork
 
Pre-order our catalog: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/resources
 
Have a question you want Erika to discuss in a mini episode? Email it to ilikeyourworkpodcast@gmail.com with the subject "mini eps" 
 
 
Join Erika in Italy at Umbria Contemporary Arts this Summer:
https://www.umbriacontemporaryarts.com/product-page/the-symbolic-landscape-instructor
 





Join the Works Membership! https://theworksmembership.com/

Watch our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ilikeyourworkpodcast

Submit Your Work
Check out our Catalogs!
Exhibitions
Studio Visit Artist Interviews
I Like Your Work Podcast
Say "hi" on Instagram

Richard Raiselis is a Boston-based painter known for his perceptive urban landscapes that explore the act of seeing within everyday environments. His work frequently focuses on the city of Boston—its rooftops, streets, power lines, clouds, and architecture—often viewed from unusual vantage points such as high windows or rooftops. Through careful observation and subtle shifts in perspective, Raiselis transforms ordinary scenes into meditations on light, structure, and visual perception.
Raiselis is Associate Professor Emeritus at the Boston University College of Fine Arts, where he taught painting for over three decades before retiring in 2025.  His long tenure at Boston University shaped generations of artists while allowing him to develop a studio practice deeply rooted in observation of the surrounding city.
His paintings have been exhibited widely and are included in exhibitions at institutions such as the National Academy of Design in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Butler Institute of American Art, and the New Britain Museum of American Art, among others.
Working primarily in oil on linen, Raiselis approaches painting as a form of visual reporting, capturing the subtle drama of light, weather, and shifting urban space. His work demonstrates how sustained attention to ordinary places can reveal unexpected complexity and beauty.
 LINKS:
 

 

gallerynaga.com
 
@rraiselis



 



















 














 
I Like Your Work Links:
Apply to the Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program: art.chq.org
Join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/ILikeYourWork
 
Apply to be a Studio Visit Artist: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/submitwork
 
Pre-order our catalog: https://www.ilikeyourworkpodcast.com/resources
 
Have a question you want Erika to discuss in a mini episode? Email it to ilikeyourworkpodcast@gmail.com with the subject "mini eps" 
 
 
Join Erika in Italy at Umbria Contemporary Arts this Summer:
https://www.umbriacontemporaryarts.com/product-page/the-symbolic-landscape-instructor
 





Join the Works Membership! https://theworksmembership.com/

Watch our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ilikeyourworkpodcast

Submit Your Work
Check out our Catalogs!
Exhibitions
Studio Visit Artist Interviews
I Like Your Work Podcast
Say "hi" on Instagram