Wait, am I recording? You are listening to Stuff About Things, an art history podcast. Alright, let's bango. Hello and welcome to Stuff About Things, an Art History Podcast. My name is Lindsay, and I have now been doing this podcast for over seven years. Long enough that I now have my PhD in art history. The episode that you are about to listen to is from the earlier years of the pod. If you enjoy it, and I hope that you do, you will probably like every other episode in the podcast catalog. And if you don't, I do hope that you'll consider giving some of the newer ones a listen. But for right now, I'm really glad that you're here, ready to learn some stuff about some things. Past Lindsay, take it away. Hello and welcome to the first episode of Stuff About Things, an Art History Podcast. My name is Lindsay, and I will be your host for this brand spankin' new podcast about art history. Exciting! For this first episode, it is only fitting that I introduce myself and the show before we jump into some more official content-based episodes. But for now, I am excited to be in your ear, and I thank you very much for clicking on this podcast. To begin, who the heck am I? Thanks for asking. As I said, my name is Lindsay, and I am ding ding ding, you guessed it, an art historian. Look at you using those context clues. I think we'll be friends. To get more specific, I am a current graduate student in art history at Washington University in St. Louis, known as Washiou, which is basically a pretentious way of saying that I grade papers in exchange for health insurance. And if I'm really lucky, sometimes, sometimes, I have time to do my own work on the side. Maybe even record a podcast or two. No, I'm just kidding. Like, literally, no one will tell you that grading papers is worth the health insurance that we get. In all seriousness, I do love being a graduate student, and for the record, I am very grateful to have health insurance. But what exactly do I do? That's a great question as well. I am a graduate student on the cusp. Ooh, that's a good word, cusp. On the cusp of writing her dissertation. My specialization is in the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods, and specifically in sculpture, though I've picked up my fair share of knowledge about art of other times and places as well. As a student, I also act as a teaching assistant, molding the minds of young students. I am also a student with a mind to be molded, though I am convinced that my mind is just moulding. And I am starting a podcast in conjunction with a course that I am currently enrolled in. Hi, digital art history people! I do hope though that the podcast extends well into the future, but we will see about that. Just a few notes about me. I was born and raised in the great state of Wisconsin. Go Badgers! And after listening back to this podcast numerous times, I am absolutely aware that my Wisconsin accent comes through loud and clear in some places. I also have never been so aware of how much I mouthbreathe, how nasally I sound, and my overuse of vocal fry. Ultimately, though, I am proud of where I come from and I am lucky to have a voice with which to speak. So please, dear God, do not comment on how my voice annoys you or try to give me tips on how to speak better. The only thing worse than telling me how to speak better is telling me to smile. My parents did not pay thousands of dollars for me to get braces, for me to go around flashing these pretty whites at just anyone. Did I just have my first rant? I think I did. And I'm not sorry. I am also a complete podcasting novice, so please excuse any technical issues. I will have those ironed out in the next few weeks. Months? Years? Ugh. This podcast, Stuff About Things, is going to be a place to talk about all the things and stuff related to the mystical and magical field of art history. First things first, let's address the elephant in the room. Art history and the visual arts in general are not the best topics to explore in a purely audio format. Noted, but I've always liked a challenge, and if there can be podcasts about movies and books, then why not about art? Which makes it sound like I'm doing something revolutionary, which I am absolutely not. There are plenty of excellent art-based podcasts out there, and I am sure that I am not reinventing the wheel. In all honesty, though, I have wanted to start a podcast for a long time. I spend most of my non-work time with a podcast on in the background and second to school, though I probably should not admit this. Podcasts are where I tend to get a lot of my news and information. Whether it be about world events or, God help us, politics. I also have a host of other podcasts that I listen to on the regular, whether they be about historical figures, the human brain, true crime, murder, cars, you know, the usual. This podcast is really a place for me and hopefully other people to talk about the things that we find fascinating and exciting and maybe even a little problematic. It is a place where I hope people will come, listen, and leave with a greater appreciation and knowledge of art history and why it is important. And this won't be any surprise, because I mean, come on, look at me. But I think art history is super important. Why else would I dedicate my life to this field of study? I don't know, because you're crazy? Well, you might have a point there. So, I am not here to do a survey of art history. There are plenty of other podcasts that do that and do it really well. Nor am I here to rehash some of the more famous individuals from art history, like say, Michelangelo or Caravaggio or Van Gogh. I'm not saying that I won't necessarily cover some aspect of those individuals, I almost certainly will, but if I do, and when I do, it will be a focused exploration of some facet of their work or life or afterlife, reputation, etc. The title of the podcast, Stuff About Things, is admittedly vague and silly, and maybe even a little lame. I'll admit that. I am all those things as well. As a matter of fact, the title of this podcast, Stuff About Things, initially started as a placeholder because I had no clue what to call this thing. And let's just face it, my brain cells were and continue to be constantly exhausted. At the end of the day, I decided to keep the title because it serves my purposes brilliantly, if I do say so myself. And I do. And the reason that the title is so brilliant, in my opinion, is because I want this podcast to be a place where I and other people can engage with all kinds of topics. We can talk about stuff and things and things and stuff and stuff about things. I will say though that the alternate title to this podcast was the $2000 podcast. Because the first time that I tried to record this episode, I spilled a certain, I don't know, grape substance on my computer. I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with vine. And I already know that you are good with context clues. So when I say that I spilled a certain grape substance on my computer and then wanted to call this the $2,000 Lindsay's a Clumsy Dodo podcast, you can figure it out. But it all turned out to be fine by some miracle. Thank you, Universe. And we can keep this title short and sweet, and most importantly, cheap. Stuff about things. And on a side note, I did find out this morning that there is another podcast entitled Stuff About Things, but they only posted a few episodes back in 2013, so I think that the title is Fair Game. So don't try and come for me, other Stuff About Things podcast people. The idea for this podcast started out because I come across so many amazing and fascinating and even creepy things in the course of my day-to-day existence as a graduate student. But I don't really have a reason to explore those things in any official capacity. And as a graduate student, you don't always have time to just sit down and read about something that fascinates you without feeling like you have to do something with that information. Otherwise, you might as well read something else related to what you are working on. Obviously, in an ideal world, we would all read about random stuff simply for the joy of doing so. But I happen to have a deep-seated guilt machine located, I don't know, somewhere behind my pancreas, that makes me constantly feel like I have to be doing something productive. And a podcast feels productive. It gives me an incentive to explore the weird stuff that I want to find out about. So for example, I recently found these crazy bejeweled skeletons known as the catacomb saints, and they are some of the coolest things that I have ever seen. There's also things like a festival that still happens in a very small city in southern Italy where people literally hunt snakes, drape those living snakes over a sculpture of Saint Dominic, and then proceed to parade a snake-covered statue around town. These are things that fascinate me, and I want to talk about them. And I want to talk about them with you. Now it doesn't hurt that I am a flaming introvert who really likes to talk. Riddle me that one, will you? What a better way to embrace both of those things than a podcast. I talk at you, you listen, and then you can, you know, troll me on Twitter. It's a modern friendship made in heaven. That being said, I am a graduate student who does have other commitments, and let's face it, I can barely manage to get more than six hours of sleep a night, so I don't know how regular this podcast will be. I'm going to start by trying to put out content-based episodes bi-weekly, which is to say every other week. I say content-based because the first two episodes that I have planned after this introduction are more foundational, so they'll be easier to write and produce than episodes that require research. Then again, I did somehow find two hours over spring break to Photoshop my dog's head onto famous works of art, so maybe I can scrounge up the time to record and produce regular episodes. A girl can dream. In my defense, though, one of those Photoshop projects ended up as the cover art for this podcast. So if my advisor asks any of you what I have been up to lately, you should tell him that I have been engaged in very intellectual and important work. You hear that, Professor Wallace? Very important work. I want to finish this first episode by introducing you to the podcast's mascot, my dog Gus. Gus lives in Green Bay with my parents, which breaks my cold, dead heart, but he is very happy and well fed there. Gus is a five-year-old yellow lab who weighs in at a modest 110 pounds. Which is, you know, just about what I weigh. Huh. Hint, it's not. And no, he is not overweight, thank you very much. Which probably leads you to think, holy crap, your dog must be massive. And he is. The last time that I was home, I hadn't seen his little face in person for almost two months. And when he greeted me, I had this moment of panic because for a split second, I thought that I was being pursued by a polar bear mountain lion hybrid of a beast. But it was just Gus. Gus will make frequent, if not constant, appearances in many of the visuals related to this podcast. You are welcome in advance. I hope that his little puppy face makes you smile as much as it makes me smile. With that, I am going to bring this inaugural episode to a close. I encourage you to tune back in periodically over the next two weeks for the second and third episodes of the show. The second episode will address the very important question: why is art history important? And the third episode will answer the question familiar to art history people everywhere. So, what are you going to do with that? But without further ado, I thank you so much for listening to this first episode. I hope that you enjoyed it. I encourage you to go to the podcast's website, which is stuffaboutthings podcast.com. There isn't much there at the moment, except for some glorious images of Gus as famous artists. But in the future, that will be the home to the visual components of the podcast. So please go check it out. Stuffaboutthingspodcast.com. Once again, thank you so much for listening. I I really appreciate you taking the time to make it to the end of the episode. I also want to extend my thanks to the Visual Resources Center at Washiu for buying a podcasting microphone for students to use, as well as two websites, freemusicarchive.org and hooksounds.com, which are the websites where I got the songs that brought us in and will lead us out of the episode. The first song that I used is a version of Box Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 by Kevin McLeod, and the second song is called Success Dream. Yes, the name was part of the reason that I picked the song. But a big thanks to FreemusicArchive.org and hooksounds.com for letting me use those songs for free. I hope that you all have a great rest of your day and that you take time to look at something beautiful today. And always remember to keep your friends close and your wine away from the computer. Until the next time, friends. Bye.