Bad at Sports

This episode on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, and Brian Andrews sit down with artist, organizer, and Door County Contemporary co-founder Shane Walsh at the close of another sunny and slightly delirious weekend in Door County.
The conversation ranges from the growth of the Door County Contemporary fair, the peculiar magic of creating a temporary art community in Wisconsin, and the challenge of building an audience for contemporary art outside major metropolitan centers. Along the way, Shane discusses his own abstract painting practice, the virtues of Detroit-style pizza, and why a successful art fair might really just be "arts summer camp."
Shane talks about the evolution of Door County Contemporary from its inaugural edition into a larger and more ambitious event, reflecting on how local partnerships, community engagement, and a relaxed atmosphere have helped make the fair feel distinct from the larger art-world circuit.
The crew also dives into Shane's own painting practice: lush, unhinged abstractions informed equally by modernist painting histories and the visual language of 1990s punk culture. The result is a conversation about painting, community, and finding ways to make art experiences feel meaningful, generous, and fun.
Name Drops and Links:
Shane Walsh – https://shanewalshpaintings.com/home.html

Door County Contemporary – https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/

Pen Art School of Door County – https://peninsulaschoolofart.org/

OS Projects – https://www.osprojects.art/

Willem de Kooning – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_de_Kooning

Helen Frankenthaler – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Frankenthaler

Johnny Carson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Carson

This week Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller head north to the Door County Contemporary Art Fair to sit down with artist, curator, writer, gallerist, and all-around art evangelist Shane McAdams.
Broadcasting from a gazebo in Door County, Wisconsin, the conversation ranges from the weather, custard, and pontoon boats to larger questions about why contemporary art struggles to reach broader publics, why the Midwest needs more artist-run infrastructure, and how we might create healthier cultural ecosystems.
McAdams makes the case for a bigger, messier, more porous art world—one where commercial galleries, nonprofits, academia, collectors, artists, and curious newcomers all coexist. 
This is a conversation about building bridges: between Chicago and Minneapolis, between contemporary art and regional audiences, between artists and the merely art-curious. It is also a reminder that art remains one of the few places where genuine meaning-making and community formation can still occur.
Name Drops
Shane McAdams
https://www.shanemcadams.com/
Door County Contemporary Art Fair
https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/
Real Tinsel Gallery
https://www.realtinsel.com/
Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel
https://www.saintkatearts.com/
Peninsula School of Art
https://www.peninsulaschoolofart.org/
Claire Ashley
https://clairehelenashley.com/
David Letterman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman
Marcel Duchamp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp
Robert Ryman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ryman
James Audubon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_James_Audubon
Mark Glimcher / Pace Gallery
https://www.pacegallery.com/
Peter Buggenhout
https://www.axel-vervoordt.com/gallery/artists/peter-buggenhout
University of Chicago
https://www.uchicago.edu/
University of Georgia Lamar Dodd School of Art
https://art.uga.edu/
Trainspotting
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117951/
Miami Art Week
https://www.miamiartweek.org/

This week Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with artist and educator Rafael Salas for a wide-ranging conversation about rural Wisconsin, magical realism, county fairs, country music, identity, and the contested landscapes of contemporary America.
Salas discusses growing up in rural Wisconsin, returning to the Midwest after years in New York, and how his paintings inhabit a space between celebration and unease. The conversation moves from the influence of Wisconsin Death Trip to the political symbolism of county fairs, mixed-race identity, landscape painting traditions, and the challenge of making meaningful contemporary art from outside major art centers.
Name Drops and links: 
Rafael Salas – https://www.rafaelsalas.com/

Door County Contemporary - https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/
Ripon College – https://www.ripon.edu/

Museum of Wisconsin Art – https://wisconsinart.org/

Newcity – https://www.newcity.com/

Michael Lesy (Wisconsin Death Trip) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lesy

Wisconsin Death Trip – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Death_Trip

Charles Van Schaick – https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/record/image/W0128W2

Mark Tansey – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Tansey

Grant Wood – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Wood

Cormac McCarthy – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormac_McCarthy

Caspar David Friedrich – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_David_Friedrich

Johnny Cash – https://www.johnnycash.com/

Dolly Parton – https://dollyparton.com/

Willie Nelson – https://willienelson.com/

Hank Williams – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Williams

Woody Guthrie – https://www.woodyguthrie.org/

Neil Young – https://neilyoungarchives.com/

Marquette University – https://www.marquette.edu/

John McCain – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain

Sarah Palin – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin

Barack Obama – https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/

Recorded live at Door County Contemporary, Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller finally correct a seventeen-year oversight and sit down with Chicago gallerist Andrew Rafacz. From the Bucket Rider days in Pilsen to twenty-five years of building a gallery practice rooted in friendship, advocacy, and weird Midwestern generosity, Rafacz reflects on Chicago's changing art scene, the pressures of art fairs, the realities of representation, and why artists shouldn't mistake social media attention for support. Along the way: the Spray Show, shower beers, Cody Hudson, Pace Gallery's roster cuts, and the strange beauty of making things nobody asked for.
Name Drops & Links
Andrew Rafacz Gallery — https://andrewrafacz.com

Cody Hudson — https://www.struggleinc.com/

Michelle Grabner — michellegrabner.com

Mark Bloch — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bloch_(artist)

Shane McAdams — https://www.shanemcadams.com

Cindy Sherman — https://www.moma.org/artists/5392

Robert Rauschenberg — https://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org

Roger Brown — https://www.richardgraygallery.com/artists/estate-of-roger-brown

Nancy Spero — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Spero

Leon Golub — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Golub

Christina Ramberg — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Ramberg

Griffin Goodman — https://www.griffingoodman.com

Door County Contemporary — https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com

EXPO Chicago — https://www.expochicago.com

One After 909 Gallery —https://oneafter909.org/

Foxy Production — https://www.foxyproduction.com

The Art Institute of Chicago — https://www.artic.edu

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — https://mcachicago.org

Pace Gallery — https://www.pacegallery.com

Gilles Deleuze — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Deleuze

This week on Bad at Sports, Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller sit down with Milwaukee-based artist, curator, musician, and all-around multi-hyphenate Phoenix Brown. The conversation begins with Phoenix's drawings in the Portrait Society exhibition and quickly expands into vulnerability, symbolism, self-healing, lizards from Italy, Midwestern art communities, music, curatorial practice, and the challenges of balancing multiple creative lives.
Phoenix discusses how personal experiences become encoded into a visual language of recurring symbols—flowers, fire, rivers, and tailless lizards—while reflecting on trust, disclosure, and the ways artists reveal themselves through their work without always saying everything outright. 
Phoenix also shares details about their work as curator at the Bronzeville Center for the Arts, efforts to build Milwaukee's first museum dedicated to artists of the African diaspora, and their band Home Going.
Links
Phoenix Brown: https://phoenixbrown.format.com/

Bronzeville Center for the Arts: https://bcamke.org/

Portrait Society Gallery: https://www.portraitsocietygallery.com/

Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD): https://www.miad.edu/

Milwaukee Art Museum: https://mam.org/

Cincinnati Art Museum: https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/

Sculpture Milwaukee: https://www.sculpturemilwaukee.com/

Martine Syms: https://www.martinesyms.com/

CK Ledesma: https://bcamke.org/event/ck-ledesma-if-you-put-your-ear-to-it-you-can-hear-the-waves/

Door County Contemporary https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/