My conversation with award winning artist Brett Cook

Brett Cook is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who uses storytelling to distill complex ideas and creative practices to transform outer and inner worlds of being. Using inquiry-based approaches he designs inclusive processes and products that promote awareness and embody the complexity of loving communities.

Cook’s elaborate installations feature painting, drawing, and photography to tell pluralistic stories with broad representation. His public projects typically involve community workshops featuring arts-integrated pedagogy and contemplative strategies—along with music, performance, and food—to create a fluid boundary between art making, daily life, and healing. 

Cook has received numerous awards, including the Lehman Brady Visiting Professorship at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Richard Diebenkorn Teaching Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute. Recognized for a history of socially relevant, community-engaged projects he was selected as cultural ambassador to Nigeria as part of the U.S. Department of State’s 2012 smARTpower initiative. His work is in private and public collections including the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the Walker Art Center, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Harvard University. He is a trustee of A Blade of Grass, an arts nonprofit dedicated to social engagement. 

In this episode we discuss Brett’s early life in San Diego and the strong support he got from his parents to become the artist he is today.

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A LONG WAY FROM THE BLOCK PODCAST

This show gives me the opportunity to share with listeners one of my greatest interests, which is people and the great stories of their lives. Growing up in San Diego I came across all types of folks who had some type of influence over me. As I became older and stretched to see outside my city limits either through conversation, books, music or traveling, I gained a different perspective on the importance of culture, art, wisdom and what it means to be "educated." I have had the the good fortune to come across amazing artists from various walks of life such as painters, poets, writers, chefs, and more. You might hear a few more stories about jazz musicians, athletes, coaches and martial artists as those areas are near and dear to me. What I hope to achieve through this podcasts is to preserve the valuable information of those who have paved the way for me. The show focuses on their foundations, what was their childhood and family life like? What were the lines they knew not to cross? What were the unexpected lessons that they took with them? Through a conversational dialogue, listeners hear where they came from, who their early influences were and the tools and skills they developed along the way. I hope people enjoy these stories as much as I have.

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