Bad at Sports

Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist Claire Ashley at the Door County Contemporary Art Fair for a conversation that wanders from broken-down minivans to Scottish standing stones, from inflatable sculpture to protest aesthetics, and from the economics of artistic survival to the philosophy of color.
Ashley discusses nearly two decades of building monumental inflatable sculptures that refuse to stay still—works that exist somewhere between architecture, bodies, creatures, performance, and public intervention. They explore why artists should embrace experimentation, why humor can be politically powerful, and how softness, absurdity, and vulnerability can become serious sculptural strategies.
Links
Claire Ashley — https://clairehelenashley.com/

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

Lee Bontecou — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Bontecou

Nick Cave — https://nickcaveart.com/Main/Intro.html

Paul McCarthy —https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCarthy

José Lerma — https://kavigupta.com/artists/42-jose-lerma/

Weisman Art Museum — https://wam.umn.edu/

Cameron Art Museum — https://cameronartmuseum.org/

Saint Kate – The Arts Hotel — https://www.saintkatearts.com/

Callanish Standing Stones — https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/calanais-standing-stones/

Isle of Lewis — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isle_of_Lewis

Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist, curator, arts administrator, and Door County Contemporary co-founder Jaymee Harvey Willms for an unexpectedly personal and funny conversation.
What begins as a discussion about goats unfolds into an exploration of grief, religious deconstruction, contemporary art, and the rituals we create to survive profound loss.
Once a painter immersed in saturated color, Jaymee found herself unable to tolerate color at all, turning instead toward broken ceramics, white paint, damaged objects, and sculptures that ask what it means for something broken to continue functioning.



Links
Jaymee Harvey Willms
http://www.jaymeeharveywillms.com/
Door County Contemporary
https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/
Familiar (Milwaukee)
https://www.familiarmke.com/
Walker Art Center
https://walkerart.org/
Mary Gabriel — Ninth Street Women
https://www.joanmitchellfoundation.org/joan-mitchell/citations/ninth-street-women
Lee Krasner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Krasner
Jackson Pollock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Pollock
JoAnne Carson
https://joannecarson.com
Adam Frelin
https://adamfrelin.com
Hair + Nails
https://hairandnailsart.com

Duncan MacKenzie, Ryan Peter Miller, and Brian Andrews are joined by painter Jenal Dolson for a conversation recorded live from the Door County Contemporary Art Fair in Wisconsin. Dolson discusses her vividly textured paintings, her installation practice, and the role of touch, memory, and sensory experience in shaping the visual language of her work.
The conversation ranges from tactile abstraction and flocked wallpaper to popcorn ceilings, raccoon vision, painting directly onto gallery walls, collaboration, titling artworks, and why artists continue making work in the first place. 



Links
Jenal Dolson
https://jenaldolson.com/home.html

Andrew Rafacz Gallery
https://andrewrafacz.com/

65GRAND
https://65grand.com/

Good Naked Gallery
https://www.goodnakedgallery.com/

Door County Contemporary
https://doorcountycontemporary.com/

Deb Sokolow
https://www.debsokolow.com/

Trish Tillman
https://www.trishtillman.com/

Rebecca Morris
https://www.byrebeccamorris.com/

Chris Cran
http://chriscran.com/

Duncan MacKenzie and Ryan Peter Miller finally welcome painter, educator, and perennial instigator Tyson Reeder to Bad at Sports.
Recorded during Door County Contemporary Art Fair, the discussion wanders through the history of Milwaukee's DIY art scene, the legendary Dark Fair, artist-run culture, teaching, painting, collaboration, and the productive tension between sincerity and absurdity.
Reeder reflects on organizing exhibitions as artistic experiments rather than scholarly declarations, describing curating as "a speculative mindset" where the question is always what if? 
The conversation also explores painting's unique solitude, collaborative work with his brother Scott Reeder, the role of humor in contemporary art, regional artistic identity, materiality after the pandemic, why artists still need to stand in front of paintings, and how drawing together can become an antidote to digital isolation.
 
Links
Tyson Reeder
https://canadanewyork.com/artists/tyson-reeder
Scott Reeder
https://canadanewyork.com/artists/scott-reeder
Canada Gallery
https://canadanewyork.com/
Door County Contemporary Art Fair
https://www.doorcountycontemporary.com/
Process Print Shop
https://process-process.com/
Swiss Institute
https://www.swissinstitute.net/
White Columns
https://whitecolumns.org/
Threewalls
https://three-walls.org/
Green Gallery
http://www.thegreengallery.biz/
Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture
https://www.skowheganart.org/

This week Duncan MacKenzie and Brian Andrews sit down with artist Sophia Chai at the Door County Contemporary Art Fair to discuss photography that insists on becoming something else. Working between painting, sculpture, installation, and large-format analog photography, Chai creates images that challenge our assumptions about perspective, representation, and the mechanics of seeing itself. 
The conversation moves from camera obscuras and four-by-five view cameras to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, cave painting, Korean language, immigration, and the colonial language embedded within photographic practice. Chai reflects on transforming her graduate studio into a walk-in camera obscura after September 11th, collaborating with architectural space rather than simply depicting it, and asks whether photography might become a practice of witnessing rather than capturing.
Name Drops & Links
Sophia Chai – https://www.sophiachai.com

Hair + Nails – https://hairandnailsart.com/

University of Illinois Chicago School of Art & Art History – https://artandarthistory.uic.edu/

Kerry James Marshall – https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/kerry-james-marshall

Judith Kirshner – https://stories.mcachicago.org/speaker/judith-kirshner/

Plato – https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/

Camera Obscura – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

Plato's Allegory of the Cave – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave

Jeff Wall – https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/jeff-wall

Barbara Kasten – https://barbarakasten.net/

Johannes Vermeer – https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/johannes-vermeer

Peter Jackson – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Jackson

The Lord of the Rings – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_(film_series)