Peachy Keen met up with Christina Renfer Vogel in her Chattanooga studio to talk shop about her painting, teaching and curatorial projects. Originally from Pennsylvania, Vogel has been in Chattanooga for the past 6 years. We discussed her interim time in Nebraska working at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, how she turned her office into an alternative exhibition space and the lingering benefits of going unplugged for a two-week summer residency at the Hambidge center.

Although working from life is a very traditional form of painting, Vogel explains how it remains new— energizing and surprising in its ability to slow us down. We talk about her artistic influences, her embrace of the heavy relationship painting has to art history and get some technical insights into her process as she prepares for two upcoming exhibitions.

In the spirit of the podcast, we blow up some hierarchies associated with painting beautiful, colorful still lifes. Painting flowers can be its own kind of bomb.