Lucia LaVilla-Havelin’s Family Stories

Makeba Kedem-DuBose: In the Red

Cilla Sheehan: May the Bluebird of Happiness Make a Nest in Your Hair

Donna Dodson and the Match of the Matriarchs

The Child, the Dove, and Jerry Saltz

Rooms of Their Own: Jerry Russo's Artist Studio Project

Carole Groenke and "Her Water, Her Future"

Dayna Talbot: Taking Hold of Right Now

What I Wish I’d Said

Positive Defiance: Abiu Daniel Benavides

Welcome to artYOP!, a place where artists tell their stories about their work, their practice, their experiences, and everything else. The mission of this blog is to talk to the interesting people who are driven to create visual art and let our readers know more about what makes these artists tick, what motivates their work, how and why they gravitate toward certain media or processes, and what it all means to them.  

The title is inspired by two "yops." Walt Whitman's "barbaric yawp" (Song of Myself) is untranslatable, the artist's call that is beyond language yet communicates everything. In Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss, young Jojo's "Yopp!" puts it over the top, making audible the cries of all the other Whos who are desperate to have the larger world know "We are here! We are here! We are here! We are here!"

Blog entries include editorials (me talking about what I think) and interviews with artists whose work interests me. I have pretty eclectic taste, so I'll be talking to artists of all ages and backgrounds, in different locations, and with very different viewpoints. I can't wait to hear all their stories and share them with you!
​