Benjamin Kator is an artist working and living in Philadelphia. From his roots in New Jersey, he ended up in the Kensington neighborhood in Philly while dealing with addiction. There he found a road to recovery and a new lease on his life as a creator. For the past 5 years, he has built his life back up while building up a small art space named The Blockchain Gallery. The gallery became a beacon of light in the struggling community. Ben left the light of the space on throughout the night to offer something different than the cycle of struggle that so many walked through on the streets. For creatives, it became a place to show and see work. For those in the neighborhood struggling with substance abuse, homelessness, or poverty it became a safe space to experience community and culture. Blockchain Gallery gave Ben a place to create and share his creations, but building it into a not-for-profit entity also gave him a positive project to concentrate on while he worked out his life. Kator's portfolio, full of pen and ink illustrations of the musicians he loves and his experimentations with abstraction and digital art, developed in earnest as he was given back his love and drive to create. Follow his next ventures in life on Instagram @benkator1

Jessica Russo Scherr is an artist known for her large-scale paintings and social media videos that demystify art making. Her paintings intertwine her love of art history, travel, memory, and motherhood in a manner that often blends represented reality to such a degree that the visuals combine into plays of abstraction. Jessica is an International Baccalaureate Art Educator who challenges her students to create large-scale paintings and to understand their work in the context of art history. As a dedicated creator and as a teaching tool, she can't help but create her paintings in the same space as her students. Her media presence is full of honest experiences of succeeding and failing using materials like Gelli printmaking sheets or more traditional art-making methods. The Fulbright Grant she received earlier in her career set her on a track of international art education and art creation ventures that continue into her life now. Jessica lives with her two kids and her husband in Germany where she teaches at the Frankfurt International School and continues to influence and share her passion for art with others. Jessica's creative life can be followed at @bluelavaart.

Eteri Chkadua- From Soviet Control to a Life of Freedom and Art Making: Ep. 67 S3 (published 3/21/2024)

Eteri studied at the Academy of Arts in Tbilisi, Georgia where her professors taught her to avoid Soviet style Social Realism, with an embrace of abstract and impressionist styles, as a reaction against the oppressive state. Before she finished her time there she made a painting that contained figurative realism to bust the chops of her professors that surprised them so much that it propelled her into the art scene of her home country. She came to America in 1988 with an American Linguist who was studying the Georgian language and helped her leave a place where no one was allowed to leave. Since then, she has become known around the world as a figurative painter who explores serious topics with a sense of humor. Her paintings explore the content of her new life in America (from Rastafarians to new relationships) alongside references to her life back in Georgia or the weapons of war that oppress people around the world. Enjoy this conversation that taps into topics of her creative art-making to Russian control that still threatens today.

A conversation between four artists who juggle big families, lots of jobs, and sneak in more time than ever to make things. We discuss the joys and struggles of having it all- from artist tips when your life is full of taking care of the kids to humble entrepreneurial endeavors. Corey and Melissa Hardin, owners of The Art Studio in Highland Lakes, have four children, several jobs, two BFAs, and a passion for making and teaching art. Corey earned his BFA from Pratt and is a career-long Union Carpenter. Melissa earned her BFA from Ramapo College and is a dedicated art educator in her own art school, and marketing coordinator for Gym Guys. My wife Kristin Dalelio (aka Kitchen) and I have five kids, two BFAs, and a passion for making and teaching art as well. Kitch got her dual major degrees in Art and Religion from Felician University and is now a Cottage Food licensed baker. Dennis Dalelio earned his BFA from Mason Gross at Rutgers University, his MFA from William Paterson University, and has been a career-long art teacher (and host of this show.) Through years of alarm clocks or babies waking them up before dawn, ships passing each other in the night, learning how to be parents full of wisdom, and dedicated workers who earn their paychecks, all four have maintained a practice of creating and/or teaching art that makes them feel alive and to be who they each were created to be.

Paul Larsen grew up in the woods of West Milford Township in NJ, just up the road from Greenwood Lake and just a stroll away from the Appalachian Trail. Now, he is a cultured arts advocate and community builder who opened an art gallery on a wooded plot of land in the middle of Bergen County next to the flowing waters of the Saddle River. He credits his parents, who brought him to artisan communities throughout NY and NJ and the cultural centers of NYC, and his artistic peers who were always doing interesting things, as his inspiration for a life of collecting and supporting artists. His gallery, in Saddle River, NJ, has become a place to share and sell his collections, but also a place where known and unknown dedicated creators show their work, make new works, and build community. As he described it, "Our mission is to bring the community together through new exhibitions and opportunities to talk about and engage in fine art." Follow on instagram @paul_larsen_gallery or go visit him at the gallery in Saddle River, NJ

Enjoy this conversation with Will Brady, an artist and baker who graduated from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers in 2003. Will's work consists of daily records kept in notebooks that are turned into collages. He has exhibited at Montserrat Gallery in Chelsea, NYC from 2007 -2022. n 2006, he sold his complete collection of undergraduate school notebooks (weighing 300 lbs) to a collector from Japan when it was shown in the Pleiades Gallery in NYC. Will recently won first place for drawing at the Bergen County Art in the Park show in 2023.

By Day, Will has spent 18 years working in the baking industry. He was a delivery person for 13 years and more recently worked as a pastry chef for the past 5 years. His experience as a delivery driver allowed him to learn many North Jersey roads and landmarks that he now includes in his art. While creating his baked goods, he keeps a folded-up piece of computer paper in his back pocket to write down ideas and create drawings. He then turns those notes into framed collages. You can check out Will’s art on Instagram @wbradyart.

The Artist, Ricky Boscarino, has been creating "Luna Parc," his major work/home/museum/installation for the past 34 years, alongside a journey of forging a career in the arts. The experience he made, for those who have the privilege of touring this creation, is one that is unforgettable and overwhelming. Unforgettable, in that, there is something interesting for everyone- from a collection of his own paintings, metal works, or the architecture itself (that he both designed and built,) to a small box holding his personal collection of matchbox cars from his youth, to collections of instruments, nature, or other artists' creations. It is overwhelming, in that, every detail of the house is an expression of Ricky's vision for the space, and you will most likely miss something- from the sculpted nest and birds hidden inside a cement-formed tree in his gardens to the inlaid glass box surrounded by multi-colored wood pieces within one of the upper floors that is designed to (when the time comes) contain his own ashes for display. Ricky shares how he is another artisan in a long line of artisans in the Boscarino family. He offers advice on how to support yourself with the sale of your own creations. For him it has been the sale of his intricate jewelry and now his ceramic face pots/commissions/tours that have paid all the bills for both his life expenses, the creation of "Luna Parc," and the education-minded Luna Parc Foundation. In the end, he describes, "it takes a lot of time" and effort to be an artist who steals nearly every hour of the day to create something.

Brian O'Boyle is a dedicated Artist and Art Educator who taught for over a decade in Paterson, NJ, and is now working at Bogota High School. His entrance into public school art education was the artist's roundabout method into it all called the Alternate Route. Starting his working life as a Kean University-trained artist prior to getting certified to teach helped him to enter the teaching world as a working artist who consistently creates characters with found objects, paint, and his pure imagination combined. His portfolio consists of objects that are truly more relief sculptures than just simply paintings. His characters painted on skateboards, street signs, and old wood come to life as if his cartoon-like personas could not be constrained to only existing on a page or on a screen. He discusses how those who handed him the keys to his own creativity during his undergraduate and early career life have led him to be the one who hands the same type of keys to his students.