I recently visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the 2025 Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale. They have this event every year in June and it's a wonderful gathering of some of the very finest Western and Native American Artists. It's basically all sculpture and paintings, and you have very traditional art, but you also have very contemporary art as well.

I interviewed five different individuals for the podcast while I was there. They were all very gracious to give me their time to talk about their paintings and what they're currently doing. So it's a little less in-depth on the journey, but much more heavy on the process, which I like. It's interesting for me because that's usually not my thing as much as trying to figure out why individuals create art the way they do.

So there's, a group of these podcasts and I'm going to have them come out once a week. This episode features legendary cowboy artist, Howard Post.

I recently visited the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the 2025 Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition & Sale. They have this event every year in June and it's a wonderful gathering of some of the very finest Western and Native American Artists. It's basically all sculpture and paintings, and you have very traditional art, but you also have very contemporary art as well.

I interviewed five different individuals for the podcast while I was there. They were all very gracious to give me their time to talk about their paintings and what they're currently doing. So it's a little less in-depth on the journey, but much more heavy on the process, which I like. It's interesting for me because that's usually not my thing as much as trying to figure out why individuals create art the way they do.

So there's, a group of these podcasts and I'm going to have them come out once a week. The first episode in the series features Eric Bowman and Brett Allen Johnson. I hope you enjoy.

This episode features (in order of appearance) artists Amery Bohling, Barbara Van Cleve, Donna Howell-Sickles, and a lecture snippet from Maynard Dixon's American West by Dr. Mark Sublette.

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I'm going to be doing some podcasts on the road and I thought that for the next couple of weeks I’d republish parts of some of the favorite podcasts that I've done over the last eight years.

With 351 podcasts so far, I have plenty of individuals to choose from. These people that have come into my life that I find interesting, those that are really important to what I do, and to how I see the world.

So I hope you enjoy these next few highlight episodes of the Art Dealer Diaries Podcast.

This episode features (in order of appearance) artists William Haskell, Whitney Gardner, Mathieu Nozieres, and Jon Flaming.

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I'm going to be doing some podcasts on the road and I thought that for the next couple of weeks I’d republish parts of some of the favorite podcasts that I've done over the last eight years.

With 350 podcasts so far, I have plenty of individuals to choose from. These people that have come into my life that I find interesting, those that are really important to what I do, and to how I see the world.

So I hope you enjoy these next few highlight episodes of the Art Dealer Diaries Podcast.

Every once in a while, you get the honor of doing a podcast with someone who you know is an important part of history. That's what I got to do today with Abe Jacob. Now, Abe is a sound designer. If you don't know what that is, well, I didn't really know either, but he's actually known as "The Godfather of Sound."

He's had this remarkable life and career starting with his first gig that he did when he's right out of college at 22 years old in that 1966-1967 timeframe. This job ends up being The Beatles' last live concert. Shortly after he gets a job working with a band called The Mamas and the Papas. He tours with them and Peter, Paul and Mary, even winding up at the Capitol during a huge Vietnam protest concert. His list of accomplishments just goes on and on and on, having worked intimately with Jimi Hendrix until his death.

What's so interesting is that Abe works with all of these legends, but he doesn't earn his nickname until he moves to theater. He is critically important to all the major plays of this time, including Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Pippin', and he does A Chorus Line and Chicago at the same time. I mean, he works with legendary choreographer Bob Fosse. He becomes great friends with legendary actress Lauren Bacall. He has had an amazing and very interesting life.

You can see why I'm excited having Abe do my podcast. It's exactly what I'm looking to accomplish. To document these important voices in art and Abe is most definitely an artist. Quite frankly, I would pay to interview Abe. He was that good.

So I hope you enjoy. This is the Godfather of Sound, Abe Jacob, on Art Dealer Diaries Podcast episode 350.

This podcast is a little different because it's actually an artist panel that I recorded at Scottsdale Ferrari Art Week, a show that I was a part of back in March 2025. It was such an important presentation that I thought it needed to be captured and preserved. It's all about contemporary Indigenous art and where it stands today.

The moderator of this panel is David Roche, Executive Director of the Heard Museum, and it features three incredible Native American artists. You have multimedia artist Tony Abeyta (Diné), weaver Melissa Cody (Diné), and finally, Phoenix based muralist Thomas "Breeze" Marcus (O'odham/ Ponca).

I have talked to Abeyta and Breeze on previous podcasts so you can listen to those episodes if you would like to go deeper into their backgrounds and I hope to have Melissa and David on someday as well.

So I hope you like it. I think it's a really important group and something that I'm beyond happy we were able to record and now publish for everybody that loves Indigenous art.

I had Thomas "Breeze" Marcus on the podcast today. He goes by Breeze and in fact, his name is really kind of synonymous to the type of imagery that he does in his fine art paintings.

This guy is just so unique. I had such a fun time with this podcast because it was one of those where it's a full conversation, not just an artist's biography. It made me think about where we're going and about things that I may never have even thought about in regard to art and when that happens I find it extremely enjoyable.

It just scratches that itch, you know? The itch that I get when trying to understand someone as complex as Breeze. From being a graffiti artist and what that entails and where that world catapulted him, to doing murals for big cities and big museums. He did one for Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West that is tremendous. I recommend people go and visit this mural as its an ode to his people (O'odham) but also a tribute to Ed Mell, who he respected and was mentored by.

This podcast that might change the way you look at graffiti art and murals and even Native art as a whole. Breeze is a very unique person, an important artist, and you'll be hearing a lot more about his work in the future.