About Art

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with Diane Brown, founder of RxART.For more than twenty-five years, Diane has worked at the intersection of contemporary art and healthcare, commissioning leading artists to create projects for hospitals and medical facilities across the United States. Through RxART, artists including Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Rashid Johnson, Laura Owens, Rob Pruitt, Will Cotton, Mickalene Thomas, and many others have transformed clinical environments into spaces that support healing, imagination, and human connection.In this conversation, they discuss the origins of RxART, the relationship between art and healthcare, public engagement, philanthropy, empathy, access, and the growing body of research demonstrating the positive impact of art on physical and emotional well-being.They also explore childhood, fear, resilience, collaboration, neuroplasticity, the role of environment in shaping experience, and the ways artists help us navigate uncertainty through creativity, beauty, and wonder.At the heart of the conversation is a simple but profound idea: art is not separate from life. It has the capacity to comfort, connect, transform, and change how we experience the world around us.A thoughtful and inspiring conversation about healing, imagination, and why art matters.

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with Susan Taylor, Director of the New Orleans Museum of Art.Since 2010, Susan has led NOMA through a period of transformation, growth, and institutional reflection, expanding the museum’s engagement with artists, audiences, education, and community while helping shape conversations around what museums can and should be today.In this conversation, they discuss leadership, cultural stewardship, community, resilience, contemporary art, public trust, education, New Orleans, nature, and the evolving role of museums in contemporary society.Together they explore the balance between tradition and innovation, the importance of local culture within global conversations, intergenerational engagement, the relationship between art and public space, and the idea that museums should be transformational rather than transactional.The conversation also touches on Hurricane Katrina, COVID, the NOMA sculpture garden, creative aging, spirit photography, Louisiana landscape painting, and the ways institutions can create spaces for connection, reflection, and belonging.A thoughtful and expansive conversation about museums, leadership, and the role art plays in shaping civic and cultural life.

This week on About Art, Heidi Zuckerman answers questions submitted by listeners.Together, the questions became a conversation about creativity, collecting, burnout, beauty, confidence, museums, meaning, and how to live a more artful life.Some questions are practical. Some are philosophical. Some are deeply personal.This episode reflects the curiosity, thoughtfulness, and emotional intelligence of the About Art community — and the many ways art shapes how we see, feel, connect, and move through the world.

Jewel is a multi-platinum singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist whose work has reached millions. Over the course of her career, she has continually expanded her creative practice—moving between music, writing, and visual art, with a focus on authenticity, emotional truth, and self-expression.In this conversation, we move beyond any single medium. We talk about what it means to make something honestly—and what happens when you follow that impulse without needing it to make sense.We discuss creativity as a form of inquiry, art as a way of holding and processing experience, and how personal expression can become something shared. We also talk about intuition, storytelling, motherhood, and the role of art as a tool for healing.For Jewel, art began as—and continues to be—something personal, something necessary.This is a conversation about listening closely: to yourself, to your instincts, and to what wants to be made.

What does it take to shape a brand that resonates with an entire generation? Brieane Olson, CEO of Pacsun, joins Heidi Zuckerman to discuss creativity, cultural relevance, and values-driven leadership at one of the most influential youth lifestyle retailers in the world.From strategic partnerships with icons like A$AP Rocky and Kendall Jenner to a $5M investment in Inglewood schools, Brieane shares how she blends purpose with performance. With nearly two decades at Pacsun and a career spanning merchandising, marketing, and digital transformation, her approach is both bold and deeply human.In this episode, Brieane and Heidi explore:•The art of building authentic collaborations•Why community investment isn’t a strategy, it’s a responsibility•Leading with empathy, innovation, and intention•What Gen Z and Gen Alpha expect from brands today—and how art plays a roleThis conversation is about more than retail. It’s about culture, connection, and leadership in a rapidly changing world.

Reinvention isn’t about starting over. It’s about listening—closely—to who you’re becoming.In this episode of About Art, I speak with Lora Jakobsen about leadership before titles, creativity beyond the arts, and how community shapes both personal growth and professional impact. From her early background in the performing arts to her current work in climate tech at ZeroNorth, Lora’s journey is a powerful reminder that the skills we develop in one chapter often become the foundation for the next. We talk about:•Reinvention as an ongoing practice• Why art should never feel intimidating• Leadership rooted in presence, curiosity, and care• The role of community in shaping meaningful work• Creativity as a transferable life skillThis conversation is for anyone navigating change—and wondering what might be possible on the other side. Lora is Heidi Zuckerman’s sister.

A 20-year veteran of leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA), Joel Lubin is a Managing Director and Co-Head of the Motion Picture Group. Lubin represents many of the world’s most acclaimed talent, including Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes, Carey Mulligan, Chris Evans, Mahershala Ali, Vanessa Kirby, David Oyelowo, Jude Law, Andrew Garfield, Mark Rylance, Jon Bernthal, Charlize Theron, Sebastian Stan, Josh Brolin, Michelle Williams, Matthew Goode, James Corden, Hilary Swank, and Jeremy Renner, among others. An avid art collector, Lubin currently serves on the Board of Overseers for the Hammer Museum and the Board of Directors of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.In this conversation, Lubin and Zuckerman discuss how careers are built over time; the role of trust, risk, and intuition in representation; and what it means to advocate for artists at the highest level while navigating an industry shaped by scale, power, and change. They reflect on creative partnership, long-term thinking, and the parallels between collecting art and stewarding talent—both rooted in conviction, patience, and belief.

How can abstraction carry emotion, identity, and lived experience?In this episode of About Art, Heidi Zuckerman speaks with painter Katherine Bradford, whose luminous work bridges the personal, mythic, and communal. Bradford moved from Maine to New York in the 1980s as a single mother raising school-age twins and became part of the first wave of artists to shape the Williamsburg art community. After more than a decade navigating the Manhattan gallery world, her work has since been recognized internationally and is held in major museum collections.Their conversation spans Bradford’s five-decade painting career, abstraction and figuration, color and process, studio practice, and the challenge of representing human emotion. They also discuss community, motherhood, the evolving art world, and why creativity remains fundamental to how we understand ourselves and one another.This is a conversation about painting as a lifelong practice—and art as a deeply human act.