[00:00:13] Hello, I'm Rick Marshall of the Daily Gazette and this will likely be the final episode of the martial arts podcast.
[00:00:26] In the last episode I spoke to Brittany demarco Furman, Funeral Director at the Glenville Funeral Home, about the art of managing grief and death and the creative side of the mortuary business.
[00:00:37] It was a fitting interview to end on, as my time with the Daily Gazette will end the day after this episode goes live. Before I go though, I'd like to offer up a send off of sorts for the show and some appreciation for all the support the series has received.
[00:00:58] So there's one element of the martial arts podcast that always comes up in conversations about it the show's title. When I initially pitched the idea of a new podcast, the Daily Gazette had two active podcasts hosted by Gazette staff and several others that had gone dormant. All of them had titles that played on their hosts surnames. Sports editor Ken Schott's long running series is the Parting Shots podcast, while columnist Andrew Waite had a podcast titled Weighing In. Gazette editor Miles Reed's podcast was called Read between the Lines. You get the idea. I saw that the Gazette was missing an arts focused podcast, and since that conveniently fell right in my comfort zone as a journalist, I proposed the idea of an interview series that profiled local artists. While pitching it, I joked that the most difficult part of launching the show would be coming up with a title that played off my last name but wouldn't make people groan. So I probably shouldn't go with martial arts, right? I joked. It was that moment when I saw the reactions from everyone in the room that I knew the show was stuck with that title.
[00:02:01] So yes, the title of the series was my idea, but no, I did not actually intend to call it that. And yet it quickly became the one element of the series everyone wanted to talk to me about. So I grew to appreciate it over time, and I'm thankful my little joke turned out to be such a popular topic of conversation around the show.
[00:02:25] Moving on, over the course of the show's 15 interviews, I tried to cast as wide a net as possible with my guests and to expand how we define art and artists in our region. One of the rules I set for the show early on was to only profile local artists, people who live and work in our region, and shy away from artists who are just passing through the area with a show or an exhibit. I'm proud of how those guidelines shape the series. They allowed me to put a spotlight on the usual musicians and traditional artists, but also to bring more attention to forms of art and artistic expression the general public might not typically categorize as such. For example, I talked to cosplay artist Frank Gillan and drag queen Noelle diamond early in the series and learned a lot about their respective artistic outlets from both conversations.
[00:03:10] When it came time to run a Halloween episode of the show, I reached out to Britney to teach me about the creative elements of the mortuary business.
[00:03:17] In the end, I feel like they all added to the appeal of the show.
[00:03:27] Looking back at the Martial Arts podcast's interviews yields plenty of highlights and moments that surprised me too. I was thrilled to bring more attention to local muralist Quill Harrison, my youngest guest on the show, and have an honest, heartfelt conversation about the experiences that informed their work. Gearbox Software's Ben Green took me through the emotional rollercoaster of turning art into a career and what he learned from his own creative journey. The series also offered plenty of firsts for me as an interviewer. My interview with tattoo artist Bridget Punsalang was definitely the first and so far only time I've had an in depth discussion about the difficulty of rendering realistic nipples, for example. And my conversations with local musicians Aaron Harks and Buggy Jive sent me on an unexpectedly emotional journey through my own timeline.
[00:04:11] Those personal moments were important to include because I wanted the show to connect people. Along with introducing you to local artists and what they do, I wanted to connect listeners to each guest's story as much as their work and convey why those stories were special and hopefully relatable to all of us in one way or another.
[00:04:28] Art has so much power. When we're exposed to art, it can reflect not only how we feel in that moment, but also how we interpret our experiences and relate to everything that inspires and moves us. And whether we realize it or not, every time we put a little bit of ourselves into something we create, we become artists. And that means we share something in common with each of my guests. Realizing that is more important than ever these days. So I hope you enjoyed listening to the Martial Arts podcast as much as I enjoyed producing it. I also hope you'll continue to support local arts and local journalism.
[00:05:00] Please continue to follow the great work of the Daily Gazette team, and if you're interested in learning what I'm up to next, you can find more information and links to all of my social media
[email protected] thanks again for listening.
