Nitty Gritty is on tour with me while I move around Europe and this week I'm in London with oil painter Adam Baker.

In his practice, Adam focuses on intimate, imagined snapshots of queer life and love, drawing on personal experience to build fictionalised narratives that speak to the emotional complexity of contemporary queer identity.

Baker often investigates the contradictions of connection — how queer spaces can feel electric with possibility yet, simultaneously, deeply isolating. Through merging figures, geometric structures and atmospheric environments, he subverts traditional depictions of masculinity, revealing the vulnerability, strength and fluidity inherent within queer relationships.

Both being emotional lil human beans, we talked about the woes and throws of allowing feeling to drive your creative practice. When art from the heart becomes something slowly killing you — substance abuse and pain as a necessary medium — what happens to you as a person? Do we need all of this suffering to make good work, or is just being human enough?

Find Adam on Instagram here and on his website here!

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Bella McGoldrick and Tyler Rogers built a thriving art business by breaking every rule the traditional art world swears by.

As the duo behind Looks Pretty Good, Bella is a coloured pencil artist producing hyperrealistic works inspired by mementos from the places she's lived, and Ty, with a background in design and tech, keeps the wheels of their art business turning behind the scenes.

Ty's decision to join full-time only came about a few years ago, and since then the pair have doubled down harder than ever, stepping away from gallery representation to do it all themselves. Fiercely independent and headstrong, Bella and Ty are building a new way of working that challenges the traditional landscape of the art world.

In one of the most honest conversations we've had on Nitty Gritty, they laid it all on the table. From content strategy experiments and hard-won hypotheses about actually selling art, to the power imbalances and flat-out incompetence they encountered with galleries, and how that gave them the confidence that they could do a better job themselves.

Dollar signs, hot takes, and niche references. This one's for every working artist trying to figure out if the traditional path is really the only one.

Find Bella on instagram here and the Looks Pretty Good studio here

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Creativity thrives inside structure, and Lauren and Kass of Crossing Threads are proof.

This week, I sat down with the Sydney-based sisters behind one of Australia's most distinctive fibre art practices. Together, they use weaving as a way of exploring emotion, memory and connection through texture and form — describing their creative practice as "breathing through their hands."

This episode tackles the business of being a working artist - how to optimise workflow, efficiency and creative output while still prioritising time for one another and family. From contracts and workflows to platforms, tools and processes, Lauren and Kass get into the nitty gritty of how they've optimised their art business without sacrificing the slow, intuitive nature of their craft.

Type A listeners will love every minute. Type B's should bring a pen... so many goodies!

Find Crossing Threads online here, and on Instagram here.

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