Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Erin Dunn, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia. Since 2014, Erin has organized exhibitions including Watershed: Contemporary Landscape Photography, Feels Like Freedom: Phillip J. Hampton, and Frank Stewart's Nexus: An American Photographer's Journey. She also leads the #art912 initiative, a program dedicated to supporting artists working in Savannah.

Her most recent exhibition, Off the Coast of Paradise: Artists and Ossabaw Island, 1961–Now, co-curated with Beryl Gilothwest, is the first major show to explore the influence of Ossabaw Island on American artists. The exhibition spans 26,000 undeveloped acres off the Georgia coast and highlights the legacy of two groundbreaking residency programs, featuring work by internationally renowned artists including Harry Bertoia, Agnes Denes, Sally Mann, Anne Truitt, and a new commission by Allison Janae Hamilton.

In this conversation, we explore Erin’s early life and the path that led her into curatorial work, the process behind building Off the Coast of Paradise, and the challenges of representing complex and layered histories. She also shares candid advice for emerging artists looking to connect with institutions.

Learn more: Telfair.org | @telfairmuseums | @erindunn_art

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

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Kevin Kirkwood is joined by Ivy Laurel Anderson, a fiber artist and sculptor based in Savannah, Georgia. Using a knitting machine as her primary tool, Ivy wraps discarded everyday objects in elastic knitted membranes that stretch, sag, and conform to whatever lies beneath. Her ongoing series, Somethings, transforms castaway materials into forms that are by turns humorous, unsettling, and oddly moving.

Her work has been recognized by the International Design Awards, the Red Dot Design Awards, and ArtPrize, and her practice has taken her from Japan to Italy through residencies and exhibitions across the country.

In this conversation, we explore her path from fashion to fiber sculpture, her relationship with the knitting machine, and what it means to find beauty in the overlooked and forgotten.

Learn more: ivylaurelanderson.com | @ivylaurelanderson

Follow the host: kevin-kirkwood.com | @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

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Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Italian American figurative painter and writer Melinda Borysevicz, whose work recently moved from the hilltop villages of southern Italy to the marshes of Savannah, Georgia.

After years immersed in Savannah's vibrant creative community, Melinda traveled in 2015 to a small village near her ancestral home in southern Italy. What began as a short stay became several years of living, painting, and writing in Padula, Italy.

Most recently, Melinda found her way back to Savannah, where she threw herself into one of the most ambitious projects of her career. Through two consecutive residencies, first at ArtsSoutheast, then at the Savannah College of Art and Design, she brought “Savannah Procession” to life: a two-panel oil painting, six feet tall and fifteen feet long. The work grew out of town hall gatherings in her own studio, where community members came together to share their lives, their struggles, and their hopes.

In this episode, we explore her journey between continents, the making of Savannah Procession, and what happens when an artist opens her studio to a community.

Learn more:

melindaborysevicz.com @melinbz

artssoutheast.org @artssoutheast

Follow the host:

kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint or @strandpodcast

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Portrait by Natalino Russo @natalinorusso

Kevin Kirkwood sits down with Ben Tollefson, a painter and curator based in Savannah whose studio practice examines performance, identity, and the illusions we construct around the self.

Working primarily in figurative oil painting, Ben explores artifice and the social constructions of masculinity and femininity. His boldly hued, psychologically charged compositions inject a camp sensibility into traditional painting, balancing technical rigor with flamboyance and theatricality. Raised within a religious environment shaped by strict binary gender roles, his work reclaims qualities once considered forbidden: frivolity, excess, ornament, and reframes them as sites of power and inquiry.

Since earning his M.F.A. from SCAD in 2014, Ben has shown work across the country, from Laney Contemporary in Savannah to the Spring Break Art Show in New York, and been featured in IMPACT and Burnaway Magazine. As Curator at the SCAD Museum of Art, he has organized exhibitions by Zanele Muholi, Nina Chanel Abney, Marcel Dzama, Roxy Paine, and others.

In this episode, we trace the turning points, formative experiences, and personal history that have shaped his practice and explore what keeps pulling him back to the canvas.

Learn more:

bentollefson.com @bentollefson

Follow the host:

kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint or @strandpodcast

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Kevin Kirkwood shared a conversation with lé dieguê, a Venezuelan-born artist now living and working in Savannah, Georgia. His work is layered with rhythm, symbolism, and bold chromatic intensity, drawing from migration, cultural memory, and personal resilience. Through color and pattern, he builds visual worlds that speak to identity, displacement, and transformation.

In this conversation, they discuss lé dieguê’s journey from Venezuela to the United States, and how the current political administration is affecting not only his own life, but the people he loves and the broader immigrant community around him. They also explore how those pressures and uncertainties are shaping his creative output; how art becomes both refuge and response in moments of adversity.

This is a thoughtful, honest conversation about art, identity, and making work in complicated times.

Learn more:

lediegue.com @ledieguearte

latinoartsinc.org @latinoartsinc

@hugopahd

Follow the host:

kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint or at @strandpodcast

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Kevin Kirkwood travels to Orlando, Florida to reconnect with Benoit Glazer; musician, designer, and founder of the Timucua Arts Foundation. Benoit is also renowned for his work as musical director for Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba, bringing a world-class performance perspective to his own creative projects.

Timucua is a multi-disciplinary arts and education nonprofit, blending music, visual art, festivals, and live performance in an intimate, community-centered setting. More than a venue, it’s a hub built on the belief that the arts belong to everyone.

Kevin’s connection to Timucua is endearing. It was painter and graphic novelist Michael Broom who first introduced him to Benoit, an introduction that led to Kevin’s very first art show and marked a turning point in his career. He still recalls that opening night when Charlie DeChant, saxophonist for Daryl Hall & John Oates, performed live during the exhibit; a moment that set a high standard for what an art event could be.

In this conversation, Kevin and Benoit explore the importance of building creative communities and why supporting the arts matters now more than ever.

Learn more: timucua.com Follow Kevin on Instagram: @kevinwillpaint | @strandpodcast

Documentaries on Timucua:

• 2014 – Steve Radley & Restless Films: Watch

@restless_realm

• 2025 – Adrenaline Films: Watch

@adrenalinefilms

Artist Statement: Benoit Glazer grew up in Québec’s Laurentian Mountains and earned degrees in music performance and conducting. By 21, he was teaching jazz at McGill University while touring and recording for millions worldwide. From 1998–2017, he conducted La Nouba for Cirque du Soleil. In 2000, he founded Timucua Arts Foundation, where he remains Artistic and Technical Director, championing music, visual arts, and community-centered performance. A frequent speaker and advisor, Benoit has been recognized for his achievements as both musician and philanthropist.

Portrait courtesy of Benoit Glazer

Kevin Kirkwood travels to Decatur, Georgia, to sit down with artist Tori Tinsley for a conversation about process and vulnerability.

Born in 1980, Tori Tinsley is an Atlanta-based artist whose practice navigates memory, labor, and lived experience. She earned her BFA from the University of Michigan’s Stamps School of Art & Design, a Master of Arts in Art Therapy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA from Georgia State University. Her work has been featured in Art Papers, Oxford American, and New American Paintings, and she is a recipient of a Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, the City of Atlanta Emerging Artist Award, and an Idea Capital Grant. Tinsley is currently a Studio Artist at Atlanta Contemporary and is represented by Laney Contemporary and Co-op Art Atlanta.

In this episode, we discuss her current body of work, now on view at Laney Contemporary in Savannah through January 10.

Learn more: toritinsley.com laneycontemporary.com

Follow the host: Instagram: @kevinwillpaint Instagram: @strandpodcast kevin-kirkwood.com

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Kevin Kirkwood shared a conversation with Anila Quayyum Agha. She is an internationally recognized artist born in Lahore, Pakistan and currently based in the US. Anila creates immersive installations that explore global and environmental issues, culture, and social and gender roles.

Using Islamic geometric patterns, light, shadow, and steel cut with delicate designs, her work transforms spaces, inviting viewers to reflect while becoming part of the installation. Her projects explore boundaries, balance, and the connections between people, cultures, and ideas, encouraging viewers to notice both harmony and difference in the world around us.

Anila earned her BFA from the National College of Arts, Lahore, and an MFA from the University of North Texas. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Kew Gardens (London), Museum of Oriental Art (Italy), and major U.S. museums such as the Crow Museum (Dallas), Bruce Museum (Greenwich), and Cummer Museum (Jacksonville). She participated in the 2019 Venice Biennale collateral event She Persists and has received numerous awards, including the NEA for her 2024 traveling retrospective Interwoven, the Joan Mitchell Award, and multiple DeHaan Artist of Distinction honors. Agha has held the Morris Eminent Scholar Chair at Augusta University and received a Smithsonian Fellowship, collaborating with SAAM and AAA. Her work is collected by prominent institutions and private collectors worldwide.

ANILA QUAYYUM AGHA

anilaagha.com

Instagram: @anilaquayyumagha

Produced by KEVIN KIRKWOOD

kevin-kirkwood.com @kevinwillpaint @strandpodcast

Listen to The Strand via all major platforms. Including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and Amazon.