Explore every episode of the podcast Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring: The Painting That's Not a Portrait | 02 Nov 2026 | 00:16:38 | |
She turns, meets our eyes, and seems ready to speak. For centuries, viewers have wondered who she wasābut Vermeerās most famous āportraitā may not be a portrait at all. James explores how Girl with a Pearl Earring fits the Dutch tradition of the tronie: a study of expression, costume, and character rather than the likeness of a named sitter. Along the way, discover why her enormous pearl may not be a pearl, how her familiar black background was once a green curtain, and what modern conservation uncovered beneath centuries of aging and artistic assumptions. We may never know her name, what she heard, or what she was about to sayāand that unanswered possibility may be precisely why we cannot stop looking. Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History is presented by J-Squared Atelier. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Mexican Muralism: Revolution Painted on the Walls | 26 Oct 2026 | 00:12:29 | |
After the Mexican Revolution, the country needed a new way to tell its story. The answer was impossible to ignore: hand artists enormous walls and tell them to paint the revolution. James explores how Diego Rivera, JosĆ© Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueirosāthe celebrated āBig Threeā of Mexican Muralismātransformed public buildings into monumental arguments about workers, Indigenous history, capitalism, violence, and national identity. They shared a belief in artās public power, but their competing politics and personalities ensured they rarely agreed on what the revolution actually meant. From Riveraās ill-fated Rockefeller Center commission to murals that shaped public art, Chicano muralism, and street art around the world, discover how these artists took history out of the museum and put it where everyone could see it. The revolution didnāt stay in the streetsāit got painted on the wall. Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History is presented by J-Squared Atelier. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Winged Victory of Samothrace: The Mystery of the Missing Head | 19 Oct 2026 | 00:11:59 | |
Walk into the Louvre, turn toward the grand Daru staircase, and there she is: wings spread, marble drapery whipped by an invisible sea wind, standing triumphantly on the prow of a ship. The Winged Victory of SamothraceāLa Victoire de Samothraceāis one of the most recognizable sculptures in the world. There is just one fairly significant problem: she doesnāt have a head, and nobody knows where it is. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, presented by J-Squared Atelier, James investigates the disappearance of Victoryās face. Follow the sculpture from its creation in ancient Greece through its discovery in more than a hundred fragments, Charles Champoiseauās unsuccessful return expedition, and the remarkable recovery of pieces from the goddessās missing hand. Yes, archaeologists found part of one finger, waited seventy-five years, and found another piece of the same finger. But the entire marble head? Nothing. What might Victoryās missing face have revealedāand what would happen if it were discovered tomorrow? More than 160 years after the sculpture arrived at the Louvre, its absence has become part of its identity. Without a face, the wings become her expression, the drapery becomes emotion, and the goddess becomes something larger than an individual figure. Perhaps the missing piece is part of the reason we cannot stop looking. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Edvard Munch's The Scream: What if the Figure Isn't Screaming? | 12 Oct 2026 | 00:11:49 | |
You know the face: hands pressed against the head, eyes wide, mouth open, and a blood-red sky twisting behind it. Edvard Munchās The Scream has been parodied, memed, printed on mugs, and transformed into the international symbol for āI am not handling this well.ā But what if the figure isnāt screaming? In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, presented by J-Squared Atelier, James looks beyond the famous face to uncover what makes The Scream so unsettling. The figure may be covering its earsāoverwhelmed by what Munch described as an enormous scream passing through nature itself. Explore Munchās experiences with grief, illness, anxiety, and isolation; the multiple versions of his masterpiece; and the revolutionary way he transformed color, line, landscape, and distortion into pure psychological emotion. There is no visible monster or attacker. Instead, the entire world seems to be having a breakdown. Munch didnāt simply paint what fear looks like. He painted what it feels like when anxiety escapes the bodyāand infects the entire universe. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Francisco Goya: When The Lights Went Out | 05 Oct 2026 | 00:13:20 | |
Francisco Goya painted kings, queens, duchesses, and children dressed in silk. He became one of Spainās most celebrated royal court painters. Then he painted witches, executions, war crimes, mutilated bodiesāand Saturn devouring his own child. So what happened? In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, presented by J-Squared Atelier, James follows Goyaās extraordinary journey from cheerful tapestry designs and glittering royal portraits to Los Caprichos, The Disasters of War, The Third of May 1808, and the haunting Black Paintings he created on the walls of his own home. Along the way, Goya survived a life-altering illness, lost his hearing, witnessed Napoleonās brutal invasion of Spain, and watched reason, power, and political order collapse around him. His art stopped flattering humanity and began exposing what it was capable ofāsuperstition, cruelty, organized violence, and monsters that did not always need wings. Was Goya losing faith in humanity, or was he simply one of the first artists willing to show us what humanity really looked like? Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Amber Room: The Eighth Wonder that Vanished | 28 Sep 2026 | 00:12:37 | |
How do you lose an entire room? Not just any room, either. The Amber Room was an eighteenth-century masterpiece made from tons of carved amber, gold, mirrors, and mosaicsāa glittering royal treasure so spectacular it became known as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Then the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. German troops stripped the room from the Catherine Palace in roughly thirty-six hours, packed it into twenty-seven crates, and carried it away. After being reassembled and displayed in Kƶnigsberg Castle, the Amber Room vanished during the final chaos of World War II. Did it burn? Was it buried inside a secret bunker? Hidden beneath a ruined castle? Or loaded onto a ship now resting at the bottom of the Baltic Sea? In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James follows one of historyās greatest missing-art mysteries through royal extravagance, Nazi cultural looting, treasure hunters, shipwrecks, and decades of tantalizing theories. He also steps inside the extraordinary reconstruction that now stands in the Catherine Palaceāand asks whether rebuilding a masterpiece can ever truly replace what war destroyed. Sponsored by J2 Atelier. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The 1913 Armory Show: Modern Art Scandalizes the United States | 21 Sep 2026 | 00:13:48 | |
In February 1913, Americans paid twenty-five cents to enter a New York military armory and discover that art had apparently lost its mind. The women were blue, the bodies were geometric, perspective was broken, and Marcel Duchamp had sent a nude down a staircaseāalthough no one could find the nude or, for that matter, the staircase. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James explores the 1913 Armory Show, the exhibition that introduced a massive American audience to European modernism. Encounter the radical colors of Henri Matisse, the fractured figures of Cubism, and Duchampās notorious Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2āthe painting America mocked, parodied, condemned, and lined up to see. Former President Theodore Roosevelt called the movement a ālunatic fringe,ā newspapers treated modern art like a national emergency, and curious crowds kept buying tickets. Somewhere along the way, the outrage backfired: collectors started buying, artists discovered new possibilities, and modernism became impossible to ignore. The Armory Show didnāt make the people of the United States love modern art. It did something far more disruptiveāit kicked open the door to everything that came next. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills: The Movies That Don't Exist | 14 Sep 2026 | 00:12:37 | |
A nervous woman glances over her shoulder. A lonely figure stares through a window. A young ingĆ©nue arrives in the city with a suitcaseāand somehow, you already think you know what happens next. Between 1977 and 1980, Cindy Sherman created 69 black-and-white photographs inspired by the visual language of classic cinema. But these arenāt stills from real movies, and Sherman isnāt playing actual characters. She gives us costumes, poses, and familiar stereotypesāthen lets our own cultural programming write the plots. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James explores how Untitled Film Stills turns the camera on Hollywoodās portrayals of women, the male gaze, and the audience itself. Sherman serves as photographer, director, stylist, performer, and subjectāappearing in every image while somehow disappearing behind every role. Long before Instagram taught us to pose, crop, filter, and manufacture our identities, Sherman understood that photographs donāt simply show us who people are. They can teach us who we expect them to be. Cindy Sherman didnāt make the movies. She proved weād already seen them. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Constructivism: Art Builds a New World | 07 Sep 2026 | 00:11:39 | |
A revolution has overturned the government, the economy, and nearly every reliable plan for next Tuesday. The old world is gone. Now someone has to design the new one. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James explores Russian Constructivismāthe radical movement that wanted art to leave the museum, enter everyday life, and get a job. Its artists traded precious masterpieces for industrial materials, photography, posters, clothing, theater sets, furniture, and the ambitious belief that design could help build a new society. Meet Vladimir Tatlin and his spectacularly impractical rotating tower; Aleksandr Rodchenko, who declared painting finished and began photographing the world from startling new angles; and Liubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova, whose groundbreaking work brought Constructivism into theater, textiles, fashion, and mass production. Itās a story of revolutionary optimism, bold graphics, impossible architecture, and the dangerous moment when artists who set out to serve a revolution discover that the revolution gets to decide what āserviceā means. The Constructivists never built their perfect worldābut they gave modernity one of its loudest visual identities. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Marcel Duchamp: The Man Who Broke Art | 31 Aug 2026 | 00:12:08 | |
Marcel Duchamp could paint. He understood perspective, composition, Cubism, and the rules of art historyāand then he decided those rules were optional. Inspired by MoMAās sweeping Duchamp retrospective, James explores nearly six decades of work by one of modern artās most disruptive figures. The exhibition moves from Duchampās early paintings and drawings through readymades, mechanical contraptions, optical experiments, wordplay, alter egos, and the mysterious installation he constructed in secret for roughly twenty years. Together, these works reveal that the infamous urinal was never the whole story. Duchampās real masterpiece may have been the question he left behind: What makes something artāand who gets to decide? Along the way, we encounter Nude Descending a Staircase, a bicycle wheel, Mona Lisaās mustache, the cracked and complicated Large Glass, Rrose SĆ©lavy, chess, chance, desire, a unrinal, and an artist who made refusing expectations into an art form of its own. If you want to spend more time with the urinal, be sure to listen to Season 1, Episode 13, our deep dive into Duchampās Fountain. You can follow this link: Marcel Duchamp The Fountain. And, if youāve ever stood in a museum and asked, āWhy is that art?ā congratulations: Marcel Duchamp is still messing with you. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Gardner Museum Heist: Cops, Canvases, and a Very Bad Night | 24 Aug 2026 | 00:11:46 | |
In the early hours of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers walked into Bostonās Isabella Stewart Gardner Museumāand walked out with thirteen works of art worth an estimated $500 million. The haul included a Vermeer, three Rembrandts, five works by Degas, a Manet, and, because apparently priceless masterpieces werenāt enough, the decorative top of a Napoleonic flagpole. More than three decades later, the art is still missing. No one has been charged. And the empty frames still hang on the museum walls, waiting for paintings that mayāor may notāever come home. In this episode of Art Happens, we unravel the largest art heist in American history: fake cops, restrained guards, 81 very strange minutes inside the museum, mob connections, dead ends, questionable suspects, and one enormous unanswered question: Where the hell are the paintings? Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History is produced by J-Squared Atelier, where art history gets a little messyāand thatās usually when things get interesting. All photographic images are courtesy of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Ana Mendieta: Earth, Body, Exile, and Absence | 17 Aug 2026 | 00:10:35 | |
Ana Mendieta didnāt simply place the body in natureāshe let it disappear into it. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore explores how Ana Mendieta transformed earth, fire, water, blood, flowers, photography, and film into a deeply personal language of exile, memory, ritual, and belonging. From her childhood departure from Cuba and years in Iowa to the haunting Silueta works that fused body and landscape, we trace the experiences that shaped one of the most distinctive practices of the 1970s. Weāll look at the influence of Afro-Cuban, Catholic, and Indigenous traditions on her work, examine why documentation became essential to art designed to vanish, and confront the questions surrounding her 1985 death and the legacy that still shadows discussions of her career. Mendietaās work reminds us that a body can disappear and still leave a markāand sometimes absence is the thing we see most clearly. Presented by J-Squared Atelier. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Night Watch - The Rembrandt That Got "Trimmed" | 10 Aug 2026 | 00:10:41 | |
In 1715, Amsterdam officials faced a decorating dilemma: Rembrandtās monumental masterpiece The Night Watch didnāt fit between two doors. Their solution? Cut it down to size. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James explores how Rembrandt transformed a conventional militia portrait into a scene bursting with light, movement, muskets, and one mysteriously glowing girlāonly for later generations to trim away figures, architecture, and nearly two feet of canvas. Discover how a small seventeenth-century copy preserved evidence of the original composition, and how the Rijksmuseum used advanced imaging and artificial intelligence to reconstruct what the missing sections may have looked like. Itās a story about artistic intention, changing attitudes toward preservation, and the expensive lesson Amsterdam learned three centuries too late: when a masterpiece doesnāt fit the room, the masterpiece isnāt the furnishing problem. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Futurism - Speed, Machines, Violence, and Very Bad Decisions | 03 Aug 2026 | 00:12:08 | |
Futurism wanted art to move at the speed of modern lifeāand it wasnāt interested in asking permission. In this episode, James follows Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the Italian Futurists as they transform speeding cars, factories, electric lights, experimental typography, and industrial noise into a new artistic language. Along the way, paintings learn to move, words escape their sentences, orchestras become factories, and performances erupt into confrontations. But Futurismās obsession with youth, aggression, destruction, and war carried it toward increasingly dangerous politics. Its artists helped reinvent modern art while confusing speed with progressāand innovation with wisdom. Start your engines. Hide the museum collection. And perhaps take away Marinettiās keys. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Alexander Calder - The Art That Learned to Dance | 27 Jul 2026 | 00:10:52 | |
Alexander Calder didnāt just make sculpture moveāhe taught it how to dance. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore explores how a mechanically minded artist transformed gravity, air, balance, and motion into artistic materials. From Calderās miniature, five-suitcase circus and his wire ādrawings in spaceā to the encounter with Piet Mondrian that helped set abstraction in motion, we follow the experiments that led to his revolutionary mobiles and stabiles. Weāll meet the avant-garde artists who helped name Calderās inventions, discover why he abandoned predictable motors for the commitment-challenged behavior of air, and examine the careful engineering concealed inside sculptures that seem wonderfully effortless. Calderās work proves that playfulness can be rigorous, joy can be profound, and even gravity can earn a creative credit. Presented by J-Squared Atelier. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Case of the Missing Caravaggio | 20 Jul 2026 | 00:11:54 | |
On a stormy night in Palermo in 1969, thieves entered the Oratory of San Lorenzo and sliced a priceless Caravaggio masterpiece from its frame. Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence hasnāt been seen since. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James follows the painting from Caravaggioās turbulent life and revolutionary use of light and shadow into a decades-long mystery filled with Mafia informants, black-market collectors, contradictory confessions, and rumors of a masterpiece destroyed by rats and pigs. Was the missing Caravaggio hidden, sold, buriedāor lost forever? Explore how a sacred painting became criminal currency, why its disappearance continues to haunt the art world, and what we truly lose when a masterpiece vanishes. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Birth of the Museum Blockbuster | 13 Jul 2026 | 00:11:10 | |
Museums, spectacle, velvet ropes, and the moment art became an event. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James looks at how museums went from quiet temples of culture to full-blown engines of anticipation, crowds, merch, timed tickets, and ālimited engagementā panic. From the King Tut exhibition craze to Van Gogh posters, immersive rooms, gift-shop snow globes, and blockbuster shows marketed like superhero movies, this episode asks what happens when art history becomes an event experience. Blockbusters brought millions of people into museums, sometimes for the first time. They created unforgettable encounters with masterpieces, expanded access, and made art feel exciting and public. But they also changed what museums value, what gets funded, and which artists get pushed aside when exhibitions have to sell tickets. Because yes, art can be scholarly, moving, complicated, and transformative. It can also apparently come with a forty-eight-dollar tote bag. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Americans - Robert Frank's Road Trip | 06 Jul 2026 | 00:12:34 | |
Robert Frankās The Americans looks like a road trip, but it feels more like a cracked mirror held up to postwar America. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore follows Frank across the highways, diners, jukeboxes, parades, cemeteries, sidewalks, and lonely rooms of 1950s America. Published in 1958 in France and 1959 in the United States, The Americans challenged the glossy national story of prosperity, confidence, and cheerful conformity. Instead of photographing the country as it wanted to see itself, Frank photographed the tension underneath the shine. As a Swiss immigrant traveling through the United States, Frank brought an outsiderās eye to the myths of American success. His pictures reveal a country full of motion but also isolation, patriotism but also unease, abundance but also exclusion. From flags and cars to jukeboxes and segregated spaces, The Americans asks what gets left out when a nation becomes too busy believing its own mythology. It is a photography book, a road trip, a cultural critique, and one of the most influential visual statements of the twentieth century. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Leonora Carrington - Surrealism's Wildest Escape Artist | 29 Jun 2026 | 00:11:08 | |
In this episode of Art Happens, we step into the strange, rebellious, magical world of Leonora Carrington: painter, writer, Surrealist, mythmaker, and professional refuser of being decorative. Born into wealth in England, Carrington was expected to become obedient, polished, marriageable, and socially useful. Naturally, she chose horses, hyenas, witches, alchemy, Celtic myth, feminist rebellion, and a lifelong commitment to making reality behave badly. Weāll follow Carrington from her debutante beginnings to the chaos of Surrealist Paris, her relationship with Max Ernst, the trauma of war and institutionalization, and her eventual reinvention in Mexico, where her work fully transformed into a world of hybrid creatures, powerful women, ritual kitchens, dream logic, and absolute refusal. Because Carrington was never interested in being someoneās muse. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Who Should Own the Parthenon Marbles? | 22 Jun 2026 | 00:11:18 | |
Did one of the worldās greatest cultural treasures get rescuedā¦ or stolen? In this episode of Art Happens, we climb the Acropolis and unravel one of the art worldās longest-running controversies: the Parthenon Marbles. Carved nearly 2,500 years ago for the Parthenon in ancient Athens, these remarkable sculptures have spent more than two centuries in London after being removed by Lord Elgin during the days of the Ottoman Empire. But who should own them today? Join James William Moore as he explores the history of the Parthenon, the rise and fall of empires, the role of museums, and the passionate arguments on both sides of the debate. Were the marbles legally acquired? Does the British Museumserve as a steward of world culture, or should the sculptures be reunited with the monument they were created for in Athens? Along the way, weāll follow the marbles through their surprising journeyāfrom temple to church, church to mosque, gunpowder magazine to museum centerpieceāand discover why this centuries-old dispute continues to shape conversations about cultural heritage, restitution, and who gets to tell the story of the past. Because sometimes the biggest mysteries in art history arenāt about who made the artātheyāre about who gets to keep it. Ā #ArtPodcast #ArtHistory #ParthenonMarbles #NotYourStuffyArtClass #Art Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider): Modernism Needed a Tuning Fork | 15 Jun 2026 | 00:12:12 | |
What if color could make soundāand a blue horse could tell the truth? In this Movement in About 10 Minutes episode, James gallops into Der Blaue Reiter, the short-lived but revolutionary movement led by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc. Discover how these artists broke color free from reality, treated painting like music, and searched for spiritual meaning through abstraction, animals, symbols, and emotion. From Kandinskyās belief that a canvas could behave like an orchestra to Marcās spiritually charged blue horses, The Blue Rider transformed what modern painting could express. James also explores the groupās influential almanac and the devastating impact of World War I on its artists and ambitions. Itās modernism on horseback, spirituality in color, and abstraction with a pulse. Ā #ArtHistory #ArtEducation #BlueRider #WassilyKandinsky #BlaueReiter Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Migrant Mother - The Face of the Great Depression | 08 Jun 2026 | 00:11:13 | |
Masterpiece Moment: Migrant Mother Dorothea Langeās Migrant Mother became one of the defining images of the Great Depression ā a photograph of poverty, endurance, and uneasy compassion. But behind the symbol was Florence Owens Thompson, a real woman whose life was far more complex than the image America came to know. In this episode, we look at how one photograph shaped public memory, what it reveals about documentary photography, and what happens when a person becomes an icon. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Lee Miller: From Vogue to Hitlerās Bathtub | 01 Jun 2026 | 00:11:55 | |
What happens when a woman once framed by the fashion world turns her camera toward historyās darkest moments? James explores the extraordinary life of Lee Millerāa celebrated model who stepped behind the camera, became a daring Surrealist photographer, and ultimately emerged as one of World War IIās most important visual witnesses. From her complicated collaboration with Man Ray and experiments with solarization to her photographs of the London Blitz, the liberation of Dachau, and the collapse of Nazi Germany, Miller refused to observe history from a safe distance. At the center of the episode is the unforgettable photograph of Miller bathing in Hitlerās private bathtub, her mud-covered boots resting on the bathmat after returning from Dachau. It is an image filled with exhaustion, defiance, trauma, and the impossible weight of bearing witness. Discover the artist who escaped the role of muse, walked directly into history, and refused to look away. Ā Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Hilma af Klint: Before Abstraction Had a Name | 11 May 2026 | 00:11:13 | |
Before Kandinsky, Mondrian, and the accepted birth of abstraction, Hilma af Klint was already painting the futureātowering canvases filled with spirals, symbols, vivid colors, and ideas the art world would take decades to understand. In this episode, James explores the spiritual practices that shaped af Klintās work, her mysterious series The Paintings for the Temple, and her extraordinary decision to keep much of it hidden until after her death. When the paintings finally emerged, they challenged one of modern artās most familiar stories and revealed an artist working years ahead of history. She trusted the future more than her own timeāand eventually, the art world caught up. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Masterpiece Moment: Guernica | 04 May 2026 | 00:13:58 | |
There are paintings you admire. And then there are paintings that refuse to let you look away. In this Masterpiece Moment, James William Moore dives into Guernica by Pablo Picassoāa work that doesnāt document war so much as detonate it across the surface of the canvas. Created in response to the 1937 bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, this monumental painting rejects tidy storytelling in favor of fracture, distortion, and emotional truth. There are no heroes here. No victories. No clean endings. Instead, Picasso gives us something harder to face: In this episode, we unpack how scale turns the painting into confrontation, how fragmentation becomes a moral language, and why its stark black-and-white palette feels less like art and more like evidence. We explore the horse, the bull, the grieving motherānot as fixed symbols, but as unstable forms that refuse easy interpretation. Because Guernica doesnāt ask you to understand war. It asks you to witness what it does to people. Nearly a century later, it still functions as a sirenāechoing across classrooms, protests, and memoryāreminding us that when violence lands on civilians, the damage doesnāt stay contained in history. It reshapes what it means to be human. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Movement in about 10 Minutes: Minimalism (audio) | 27 Apr 2026 | 00:11:48 | |
In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore steps into the pristine white room of Minimalism and asks the question so many viewers have thought: Waitā¦ this is art? From boxes, slabs, and fluorescent lights to the radical quiet of Agnes Martin, this episode unpacks how Minimalism stripped art down to form, repetition, material, and spaceāand in doing so, shifted the focus from the object alone to the viewerās encounter with it. Along the way, James explores Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, and the movementās chilly brilliance, its philosophical bite, and the delicious irony of how an anti-dramatic art movement became a visual language of luxury, taste, and modern sophistication. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Behind the Brush: Michelangelo vs The Ceiling Part 2 (audio) | 20 Apr 2026 | 00:11:13 | |
In Part Two of Behind the Brush: Michelangelo vs. the Ceiling, James William Moore looks past the glory of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and into the grind that made it possible. This episode explores the power of Pope Julius II, the politics of patronage, the physical misery of fresco painting, and the psychological pressure of making something monumental under scrutiny. The result is a masterpiece that does not feel effortless, but wrestled into being. Beneath the beauty is strain, ambition, damage, and enduranceāand that may be part of why the ceiling still hits so hard. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Behind the Brush: Michelangelo vs The Ceiling Part 1 (audio) | 13 Apr 2026 | 00:09:33 | |
Before the Sistine Chapel ceiling became a legend, it was a gamble. In Part One of Behind the Brush: Michelangelo vs. the Ceiling, James William Moore looks up into the artistry, ambition, and sheer audacity of one of the most famous ceilings in the world. This episode explores Michelangelo the sculptor, the brutal demands of fresco, the visual genius of the ceiling as a total system, and why The Creation of Adam still holds so much power. Less polished myth, more divine messāthis is the Sistine ceiling as pressure, performance, and masterpiece in the making. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Lee Krasner: The Artist Who Refused to Be a Footnote | 06 Apr 2026 | 00:17:02 | |
They called her Jackson Pollockās wife. Art history treated her like a footnote. Lee Krasner was neither. In this Artist Spotlight episode, James explores the life and work of a fiercely ambitious painter who helped shape Abstract Expressionism while refusing to be confined by its mythology. Long before Pollock entered the picture, Krasner was a trained, working artist with a restless creative vision of her own. Discover how Krasner navigated the gender politics of the New York art world, supported and protected Pollockās legacy, and continued reinventing her own work through grief, dismissal, and decades of critical neglect. From her early modernist training to the muscular intensity of the Umber paintings and the commanding color of her later work, Krasner painted with discipline, volatility, and force. She was never an accessory to genius. She was an artist who refused to remain in the marginsāand history is finally catching up. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Art History Mystery: Gustav Klimt's The Golden Lady | 30 Mar 2026 | 00:14:59 | |
When is a masterpiece more than a masterpiece? In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore follows the glittering, complicated trail behind Gustav Klimtās famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer Iāoften called Woman in Gold. What begins as a story of beauty, luxury, and Viennese modernism becomes something much deeper: a story of Nazi theft, museum power, historical memory, and the long fight for restitution. James unpacks how this dazzling portrait became both a cultural icon and a legal battleground, tracing the Bloch-Bauer familyās loss, Austriaās decades-long claim over the painting, and Maria Altmannās extraordinary fight to recover what had been taken. Along the way, this episode asks unsettling but necessary questions about museums, ownership, and what it really means to tell the truth about art. Because sometimes a painting doesnāt just hang on the wall. Sometimes it testifies. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Movement in about 10 Minutes: The Harlem Renaissance | 23 Mar 2026 | 00:06:38 | |
In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore dives into the Harlem Renaissanceāone of the most powerful cultural movements in American history. More than a moment, it was a declaration: that modern Black culture belonged at the center of modern American life. From the Great Migration to the creative fire of Harlemās streets, this episode explores how artists, writers, and musicians transformed visibility into power and redefined what modernity could look and sound like. James looks at the work of figures like Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and the musicians who made jazz an engine of change. Along the way, he unpacks the contradictions of the era, including the brilliance of Black artistry flourishing within segregated spaces like the Cotton Club. The result is a portrait of the Harlem Renaissance as bold, complex, electric, and still deeply alive in the culture we inherit today. If youāve ever wanted art history with rhythm, tension, and something real at stake, this oneās for you. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Masterpiece Moment: Hokusai's The Great Wave - The Print that Ate the World | 16 Mar 2026 | 00:08:32 | |
Hokusaiās Great Wave may be one of the most recognizable images in art historyābut it didnāt begin as a rare treasure meant for palace walls. It began as a print: reproducible, portable, and built to circulate. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James William Moore dives into the image that became a global symbol, tracing how one dramatic woodblock print turned into an artistic phenomenon, a design icon, and one of the most successful visual āvirusesā the world has ever seen. Along the way, we look closely at what makes The Great Wave so powerful: the bracing boats, the claw-like foam, the tiny stillness of Mount Fuji, and the tension between human effort and forces far beyond our control. We also explore the collaborative world of ukiyo-e printmaking, the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, and the way Japanese prints helped reshape European art, graphic design, fashion, and visual culture at large. This is the story of how a single image became timelessānot because it stayed still, but because it kept moving. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Movement in about 10 Minutes: DADA (audio) | 09 Mar 2026 | 00:08:30 | |
In this Movement in about 10 Minutes episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History (presented by J-Squared Atelier), James William Moore dives headfirst into Dadaāthe āanti-artā movement that didnāt politely critique the worldā¦ it heckled it. Born out of the chaos of World War I, Dada looked at ārationalā modern societyāits progress, its logic, its grand speechesāand basically said: If this is what your system produces, why should we keep following its rules? Cue the noise poems, nonsense chanting, cut-up performances, and the kind of art that behaves like a fire alarm. From Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich to Berlinās razor-edged photomontage, Dada weaponized absurdity: collage as cultural evidence, chaos as strategy, and the readymade as a full-blown philosophical grenade (yes, Duchampās Fountain). If youāve ever heard someone say, āThatās not art,ā Dadaās answer is simple: Perfect. Frame it. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Artist Spotlight: Caravaggio (audio) | 02 Mar 2026 | 00:10:29 | |
Rome, around 1600āalleyway Rome. Knife-in-the-boot Rome. A city where debts are loud, tempers are louder, and the shadows feel like theyāve got teeth. In this Artist Snapshot of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History (presented by J-Squared Atelier), host James William Moore dives into the life and lighting of Caravaggioāthe volatile genius who didnāt paint saints like polished iconsā¦ but like real people dragged straight out of the messy human world. Weāll break down the signature punch of chiaroscuroāthat brutal slash of illumination that doesnāt comfort, it accuses. Caravaggioās light isnāt a spotlight. Itās evidence. His darkness isnāt atmosphere. Itās consequence. But this isnāt just about style. Itās about stakes. Because while Caravaggio was reinventing the sacred as something sweaty, bruised, and uncomfortably closeā¦ he was also racking up arrests, carrying weapons, starting fightsāuntil one moment tipped into a death, and the most electrifying painter in Rome became a fugitive. And he kept painting. From hiding. From borrowed rooms. From the road. With urgency in the brushwork and paranoia in the compositionsālike time itself was closing the door. Why does he matter? Because he changed the rules. He made realism feel like revelation, turned light into psychology, and built a visual language we still speak todayāin film noir, stage lighting, portrait photography, and even music videos. Caravaggio: not a gentle genius. A storm with a brush. And a reminder that art history isnāt cleanā¦ itās a crime scene with a halo. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Marcel Duchamp: The Fountain (audio) | 23 Feb 2026 | 00:11:08 | |
Imagine walking into a gallery in 1917 and seeingā¦ a urinal. Not in a restroom. Not in a hardware store. In the sacred, echoing temple of ātaste.ā The label reads: The Fountain. The artist: R. Mutt. And suddenly the art world makes that same sound you make when you bite into something that should not be crunchy. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History (presented by J-Squared Atelier), host James William Moore dives into Marcel Duchampās Fountaināthe artwork that didnāt just start argumentsā¦ it industrialized them. Duchampās prank wasnāt really a prank. It was a trap: a philosophical tripwire that exposes how art is shaped by context, permission, and power. Because if a show claims āno jury, no gatekeeping,ā why does the moment a porcelain urinal appearsā¦ a bouncer suddenly materialize? We unpack the birth of the readymade, the meaning behind the pseudonym R. Mutt, and the deliciously inconvenient truth that the āartworkā isnāt only the objectāitās the decision, the framing, and the argument it produces. Along the way, we follow the ripple effect across Dada, conceptual art, performance, installation, and basically the entire contemporary art world. And by the end, youāll be left with one uncomfortable, beautiful question: If the world is full of framesā¦ who controls the frame controls the meaning. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Frida Kahlo: The Two Fridas (audio) | 16 Feb 2026 | 00:10:38 | |
In this Masterpiece Moment, we step into the storm-lit space of Frida Kahloās The Two Fridas (1939)āa double self-portrait painted in the emotional aftermath of her divorce from Diego Rivera. Two nearly identical Fridas sit hand-in-hand beneath a heavy sky, dressed in opposing identities: European white lace on one side, Tehuana tradition on the other. Their hearts are exposed. A single vein connects them. And one of them is bleeding. This episode is an intimate, lyrical close-look at how Kahlo turns the body into biographyāwhere heartbreak isnāt metaphor, itās anatomy. We trace the paintingās visual logic: the portrait of Rivera, the medical clamp, the stained dress, the shared artery that feels like the last thread of love. Along the way, we unpack duality as lived experienceāheritage, belonging, rejection, survivalāand why Kahlo refused to be boxed in as a Surrealist when she insisted she was painting her reality. With heartbeat sound cues, rustling fabric, and a faint guitar underscoring the tension, this is a quiet, emotional witness to a painting that doesnāt āresolve.ā It simply tells the truth: sometimes you are more than one self at the same timeāand sometimes the bravest thing you can do is keep holding your own hand. Final Stroke: āFrida didnāt paint portraits ā she painted her own truth.ā Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Movement in about 10 Minutes: Pop Art (audio) | 09 Feb 2026 | 00:11:11 | |
Pop Art is everywhereāon soup cans, comic panels, billboards, and celebrity faces. But this episode isnāt asking, āIs it beautiful?ā Itās asking, āWho sold this to youā¦ and why did you buy it?ā In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, host James William Moore dives into the movement that dragged advertising, packaging, and fame onto the gallery wallāand made it impossible to unsee the machinery underneath. From Andy Warholās silkscreen assembly line of Campbellās Soup and Marilyn, to Roy Lichtensteinās Ben-Day dot melodramas that turn emotion into a product, Pop Art reveals a culture built on repetition, recognition, and desire. We also rewind to British Popās sharper, more ironic edge with Richard Hamiltonās iconic collageāJust what is it that makes todayās homes so different, so appealing?āa showroom of modern life where everything is ānew,ā āimproved,ā and quietly selling you a dream. Because Pop Art doesnāt land cleanly as celebration or critique. Itās complicitāand thatās the point. Itās a mirror. And the mirror isā¦ extremely high definition. Final Stroke: Pop Art didnāt celebrate fame ā it exposed the factory behind it. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| David Hockney: Pools, Polaroids, & iPads (audio) | 02 Feb 2026 | 00:07:25 | |
A splash is the fastest thing in the worldāblink-and-itās-gone. So how did David Hockney turn a half-second event into an entire philosophy of looking? In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, James dives into Hockneyās lifelong obsession with vision: not āHow accurate is it?ā but āHow does seeing feel?ā We start with āA Bigger Splashā (1967)āthat calm modern pool interrupted by a frozen white explosionānow in Tate Britain. Ā From there, we jump to Hockneyās 1980s Polaroid ājoiners,ā where a scene becomes a stitched-together experienceāmore like memory than a single authoritative snapshot. Ā Then we zoom out to Hockneyās bigger provocation: perspective isnāt a law, itās a habit. In Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, he argues that optics may have shaped how Old Masters built realismāand whether you buy every claim or not, the creative takeaway is liberating: if the tool stops helping you see, change the tool. Ā Finally, Hockney picks up the iPhone and iPad and does what heās always doneāmakes new tech feel handmade. We visit Fleurs fraĆ®ches in Paris at Fondation Pierre BergĆ© ā Yves Saint Laurent (Oct 20, 2010āJan 30, 2011): glowing digital flowers presented in their original device format, like pocket-sized stained glass. Ā If youāve ever worried about doing it the ārightā way, this is your permission slip to ask a better question: Is this helping me see? And for more creative fuel, hop over to Lattes & Art after this episode. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| When Art Gets Political (audio) | 26 Jan 2026 | 00:09:35 | |
In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History (presented by J-Squared Atelier), host James William Moore pulls back the curtain on the myth that art is āabove politics.ā Because history doesnāt back that upāwhen the world catches fire, artists donāt always whisper. Sometimes they make images so loud you canāt unsee them. In Behind the Brush: When Art Gets Political, we follow political art as witness, protest, and pressureāstarting with Francisco Goyaās The Third of May 1808, a painting that refuses to romanticize war and instead stares brutality straight in the face. Then we jump to the 1980s, where the Guerrilla Girls weaponize anonymity, humor, and hard data to expose inequality inside the museum itselfāturning visibility into a battleground. This episode breaks down what makes art political (hint: itās not the styleāitās the intent), why institutions are never truly āneutral,ā and how images can outlive their moment to ensure future generations canāt claim, āI didnāt know.ā Because the point isnāt to be approved. The point is to be seen. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Arnolfini Portrait: Secrets in the Mirror | 19 Jan 2026 | 00:09:41 | |
A portrait that refuses to sit still. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, host James William Moore opens the case file on Jan van Eyckās Arnolfini Portrait (1434)āa painting where the real plot twist isnāt the coupleā¦ itās the mirror. A convex glass āeyeā on the back wall reflects two unexpected figures in the doorway, pulling us into the room and turning a simple portrait into a staged moment, a legal-looking document, and a psychological trap. We examine the paintingās most suspicious ācluesāāthe single burning candle, abandoned shoes, watchful dog, expensive oranges, prayer beads, and the mirror ringed with tiny Passion scenesāthen follow the scholarly debate: wedding scene, betrothal, memorial, status flexā¦ or a deliberate mash-up designed to multiply meaning. Van Eyckās famous inscriptionāāJan van Eyck was hereāālands less like a signature and more like witness testimony. And once you notice that, the painting stops being something you look atā¦ and becomes something that looks back. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Surrealism: Dreams, Freud, and Lobsters on Telephones | 12 Jan 2026 | 00:09:28 | |
In this episode, we drop straight into Surrealismāwhere logic takes a back seat and the subconscious grabs the wheel. If youāve ever seen a lobster perched on a telephone and thought, āYepā¦ that tracks,ā you already understand the vibe. Born in the 1920s after World War I, Surrealism wasnāt ārandom for randomās sakeāāit was a rebellion against the idea that reason alone could explain (or prevent) catastrophe. Guided by AndrĆ© Bretonās manifesto and supercharged by Sigmund Freudās dream theories, Surrealists chased the hidden forces underneath everyday life: desire, fear, memory, obsessionāeverything we pretend isnāt running the show. We break down the movementās signature tacticsāautomatism, chance-based games like Exquisite Corpse, and juxtapositionāthen step into the worlds of three iconic Surrealists: Salvador DalĆ, with melting clocks and the famously unsettling Lobster Telephone; RenĆ© Magritte, quietly sabotaging reality with razor-clean images and mind-bending statements; and Leonora Carrington, expanding Surrealism into myth, transformation, and a symbolic language that refuses to shrink womenās inner worlds into someone elseās fantasy. Surrealism endures because it tells a truth we donāt love admitting: weāre not as rational as we think. This episode is your invitation to let the weird outānot to escape reality, but to expose what itās hiding. āThey painted dreams not to escape reality ā but to expose it.ā If Surrealism lit a spark, pour another shot with Lattes & Artāwhere we talk to artists about how the magic actually gets made. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Poet in Paint | 05 Jan 2026 | 00:07:44 | |
In this Artist Snapshot episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History (presented by J-Squared Atelier), host James William Moore traces Jean-Michel Basquiatās rise from the SAMOĀ© tag on late-1970s Manhattan streets to the early-1980s gallery scene. The episode breaks down how Basquiat āsamplesā language and imageryāusing words, cross-outs, repetition, crowns, skulls, and anatomyāto build paintings that feel like the city itself. Youāll hear key milestones, including his first New York solo show at Annina Nosei Gallery (March 6āApril 1, 1982) and the cultural collision captured by the 1985 New York Times Magazine āNew Art, New Moneyā cover. The episode also highlights Basquiatās direct engagement with race, power, and policing through āDefacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)ā (1983), and reflects on his death in 1988 and how his legacy grew alongside the art marketās obsession with him. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Behind the Brush: Photography vs. Painting | 29 Dec 2025 | 00:07:16 | |
When the camera arrived in the 1800s, it didnāt just introduce a new gadget ā it triggered a full-blown identity crisis for painters. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, host James William Moore digs into the moment photography ākicks the door in,ā forcing painting to choose: compete on realismā¦ or reinvent itself. Weāll travel from the ghostly early daguerreotype to Realismās unfiltered truth-telling, then into Impressionismās radical pivot toward light, atmosphere, and the feeling of seeing. The twist? Photography didnāt kill painting ā it freed it, cracking open the path to experimentation, abstraction, and the modern art world as we know it. Final Stroke: When painting met photography, it didnāt dieāit evolved. Presented by J-Squared Atelier. And if you want more creative origin stories, check out Lattes & Art. Ā Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Sunset Set That Refused to Stay Lost | 22 Dec 2025 | 00:07:22 | |
A ālostā Van Gogh wasnāt stolen. It wasnāt destroyed. It was simply dismissedāand then left to gather dust in an attic beside Christmas ornaments and broken lamps for more than a century. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, host James William Moore unpacks the real-life mystery of Sunset at Montmajour: a painting Van Gogh described to Theo in 1888, then seemingly vanished from the record. We follow the trail from early 1900s misidentification (no signature, āstyle feels off,ā no documentation) to the ultimate forensic-style investigationāpigment analysis, UV testing, wood panel study, and letter comparisonsāthat finally led the Van Gogh Museum to confirm the truth in 2013: it was Vincent all along. And behind the authentication is the deeper story: a fragile peak in Van Goghās life, sunlight painted with unease, and the haunting irony that he kept fighting to be seenālong after he was gone. Ā Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Impressionism: Rebels with a Soft Focus | 15 Dec 2025 | 00:09:05 | |
Step into the buzzing streets of 19th-century Paris, where bright new boulevards and a rapidly modernizing world were transforming everythingāexcept the art establishment. In this episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, host James William Moore unpacks the dazzling rebellion that erupted when a group of young painters refused to play by the AcadĆ©mieās rigid rulesĀ . From Monet dragging his easel into the sunlight, to Renoir painting pure joy, to Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt reshaping art through the eyes of women, these artists dared to paint life as it truly appeared: fleeting, imperfect, luminous. When the Salon rejected them en masse, the uproar led to the birth of the Salon des RefusĆ©s, a showcase of the ārefusedā that accidentally sparked a revolutionĀ . With humor, insight, and a healthy dose of chaos, this episode reveals how a group of outsiders changed art forever by painting not the world itself, but how it felt to see itĀ . Rebels. Rule-breakers. Soft-focus revolutionaries. This is the story of Impressionism ā and the permission it still gives us today. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Artemisia Gentileschi: The Woman Who Fought Back | 08 Dec 2025 | 00:15:38 | |
In this fierce and empowering Artist Snapshot, Art Happens dives into the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, the Baroque painter who shattered expectations and refused to be silenced. From a brutal trial that tried to break her to the creation of her electrifying masterpiece Judith Slaying Holofernes, Artemisia transformed trauma into artistic rebellion. Her canvases didnāt just depict women ā they armed them with strength, agency, and fire. Ā Join us as we explore how Artemisia fought back against a male-dominated art world, reclaimed her story through paint, and became a timeless symbol of resilience and creative power. Ā Final Stroke: Artemisia painted survival ā and made vengeance beautiful. Ā Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| The Day the Mona Lisa Went Missing | 01 Dec 2025 | 00:08:46 | |
When Leonardo da Vinci painted The Mona Lisa in the early 1500s, he couldnāt have guessed her fame would come not from her smile ā but her disappearance. In this premiere episode of Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, host James William Moore uncovers the wild true story behind the 1911 theft that turned a quiet Renaissance portrait into the most famous painting in the world. Meet Vincenzo Peruggia ā the handyman-turned-art-thief who stole a masterpiece, baffled Paris, and accidentally made art history. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||
| Welcome to Art Happens | 08 Nov 2025 | 00:01:03 | |
You think art history is boring? Think again. This isnāt your dusty museum lecture. This is Art Happens ā where masterpieces meet messes, and the Divine gets delightfully chaotic. Each week, we dive into the wild, weird, and wonderful stories behind the worldās most iconic art. The heists, the heartbreaks, the happy accidents ā the moments that made artā¦ happen. From Da Vinci to Duchamp, from scandal to sensation ā weāre serving up bite-sized art history with a splash of wit, a dash of drama, and a whole lot of āwait, that really happened?ā Because perfectionās overrated, and the best art stories? Theyāre gloriously messy. Subscribe now to Art Happens: The Divine Mess of Art History, presented by J-Squared Atelier ā and get ready to fall in love with artā¦ one delightful disaster at a time. Season 1 begins December 1st. Send us a Note! Let us know what you think! J-Squared Atelier, LLCfor the love of art Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Don't miss the video podcast version on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify!!! Follow & Subscribe to Art Happens Connect with Us: Catch Lattes & Art, our sister podcastācoffee-fueled conversations with artists about process, inspiration, and the beautiful mess behind the work. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, ... | |||