Welcome to another bonus episode of How Art is Born Season, continuing our reflection on some highlights from season 2. We had ten amazing, insightful, and inspiring guests on our show this season that we wanted to relive some of those moments. In this episode of How Art is born we’re revisiting some highlights from the last five episodes of season 2 with guests, Cami Galofre, Sofie Birkin, Maia Ruth Lee, Finnegan Shannon, and Eric See. We hope you love listening back to these moments as much as we did.

Welcome to another bonus episode of How Art is Born Season 2. Reflecting on this season of the podcast we had so many wonderful, passionate, and talented guests on our show that we wanted to relive some of those moments. In this episode of How Art is born revisit some highlights from the first five episodes of season 2 with guests, AJ Haynes (00:00:35), Blake Jackson (00:15:00), Sebastian Jones (00:29:18), Diego Gerard Morrison and Lucia Hinojosa (00:40:43), and Wes Watkins (01:00:32). We hope you love listening back to these moments as much as we did. 

R. Alan Brooks is Denver-based writer, artist, and professor. He teaches graphic novel writing for Regis University’s MFA program, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop. He’s the author of the graphic novels “The Burning Metronome” and “Anguish Garden”, and his award-winning weekly comic for The Colorado Sun, “What’d I Miss?” has been praised for its direct engagement with social issues. His viral TED Talk on the importance of art has nearly 2.5M views. Alan also has graphic novel work featured in the Denver Art Museum's recently renovated Western exhibit.In this special bonus episode of How Art is Born season 2, R. Alan Brooks and guest host and MCA Denver Digital Producer, Dele Johnson, discuss Alan's love for comics, his time as a hip hop artist, his decision to close down his insurance agency to pursue his dream, and more! 

Eric See is a New Mexican-born and raised chef, living in Brooklyn, NY. In 2020, he opened the popular and award winning New Mexican-inspired cafe, Ursula, where he has worked to support and celebrate his intersectional queer and New Mexican-Hispanic identities. His restaurant was a 2022 top 10 nominee for Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation and a 2021 Bon Appetit Heads of The Table honoree for his work within the queer food community.In this episode of How Art is Born season 2, Eric See and host, R. Alan Brooks, discuss Eric’s love of hospitality, his journey to becoming a pastry chef and eventually opening his own restaurant, activism and supporting his LGBTQ+ community in New York and beyond, and much more! 

Project-based Shannon Finnegan experiments with forms of access that intervene in ableist structures using humor, earnestness, rage, and delight. Some of their recent work includes Alt Text as Poetry, a collaboration with Bojana Coklyat that explores the expressive potential of image description. Shannon has done projects with MoCA Cleveland, Queens Museum, the High Line, MMK Frankfurt, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, and Nook Gallery.In this episode of How Art is Born season 2, Shannon Finnegan and host, R. Alan Brooks, discuss the intersections of disability, accessibility, and art, and centering marginalized communities in their work to influence change.  

Maia Ruth Lee is an award winning multidisciplinary artist based in Salida, Colorado. Lee's works have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Aspen Art Museum, MCA Denver, and other select galleries around New York City and Los Angeles. In this episode of How Art is Born season 2, Maia Ruth Lee and host, R. Alan Brooks, discuss her early exposure to art through Nepali culture, her formal art education in Korea, sustaining a career in art, maintaining a playfulness in her creative process through experimentation, and more. 

Sofie Birkin is a queer British artist currently living in Denver. Her work explores transhistorical narratives of femininity and queerness, focusing heavily on themes of fantasy, community, intimacy and empowerment, in dynamic scenes and vivid color. She’s been commissioned by companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Planned Parenthood, Nike and The New York Times. Sofie has published work available both domestically and internationally including a permanent installation at Meow Wolf’s Denver location, Convergence Station.In this episode of How Art is Born season 2 Sofie and host, R. Alan Brooks discuss her journey to becoming a professional illustrator (and all her stops along the way), her interest in the narrative around domestic labor, her creative process, and more. 

Cami Galofre is a Colombian contemporary visual artist and educator based in Denver, CO with a national and international exhibition record, including a permanent installation in Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station. She holds a Bachelors degrees in Studio Art and Environmental Science from Colorado College and a Masters of Fine Art from Arizona State University. In addition to her work as an artist, Galofre currently teaches at the Community College of Denver and El Museo de las Americas. In this episode of How Art is Born Season 2, host R. Alan Brooks and Cami Galofre discuss creating art from a place of positivity and passing that energy along through her art, creating for her own satisfaction and taking commissions to create artwork for others, and more. 

Wes Watkins is a Denver-based musician and “cosmos crusader”, formerly houseless, and constantly countering systems of indoctrinated oppression. Wes strives to be everything he imagines the world could be, perfect in imperfection and constantly seeking to be better. His music will make you dance, think, cry and (he hopes), strive to be better. In this episode of How Art is Born Season 2, host R. Alan Brooks and Wes Watkins recall their history of performing and collaborating together on stage, discuss who their favorite orators are, why they both make music, self-discovery, and more. We hope you enjoy this fifth episode of How Art is Born. There are only five more episodes left in Season 2.

Diego Gerard Morrison is a writer and translator working in the intersections between appropriation, plagiarism and co-writing. He is the author of the play The Wait, and the novel Myth of Pterygium. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Brooklyn Rail, The River Rail, Boiler House Press, The Poetry Project and Shifter among others. Lucía Hinojosa Gaxiola is an artist, experimental poet and editor whose work explores the materiality of language, memory, sound ecology, elements of chance and archive. Her conceptual art/poetry book The Telaraña Circuit (Tender Buttons Press) is forthcoming and her album REZO (Insect Poem) was released in 2021. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, museums and art spaces in Mexico and abroad. Diego and Lucía are co-founders of diSONARE, an editorial platform based in Mexico City.In this episode of Season 2 of How Art is born, Diego and Lucía join host R. Alan Brooks to discuss the nuance and power of language, how being bilingual can impact one’s perception and approach to language, and so much more.