Frank Bramblett grew up in a small town in rural Alabama where he played in the Alabama mud as a child. He also had an imaginary friend, Graham, who talked to him constantly. Frank’s large abstract paintings spring from his love of materials and from his need to experiment like an alchemist. You can see several marvelous paintings of his in the exhibit Elemental: Nature as Language now on view at Woodmere Art Museum (to April 22).
Frank taught at Tyler School of art for many years and had a huge impact on many students. When he retired in 2010 his former students organized an exhibition in his honor called “Thanks, Frank.” We were fortunate to co-teach a class at Tyler with Frank in 2006. In this episode Frank reveals his secret friend Graham to us and talks about truth.
And right below is the YouTube slide version of this podcast.
This episode is edited by Peter Crimmins. The music is by Eric Biondo. The slide show is edited by artblog Intern Alison McMenamin. Thanks to the Knight Foundation for helping us get the ball rolling on this project. Thanks also to J-Lab‘s Enterprise Reporting Fund and William Penn Foundation for additional support and to our partner WHYY NewsWorks for their ongoing support and for sharing artblog radio episodes on the arts & culture page of their community news site NewsWorks.org. You can subscribe to artblog radio on iTunes.
