My Graphic Ear episode is up!

Way Out, Right Here

Hello, friends! It seems like I haven’t written here in forever, but in reality it’s only been about two weeks. It’s just been a very full two weeks.

Since November 30th, I’ve been busy with tons of video/photoshoots (9?); designing, writing, and getting my school district’s December newsletter to print (16 pages); I went out for First Friday on December 1st and to the Flower City Arts Center Wintercraft show on December 9th, followed by being a bit under the weather. There were a couple other creative things going on I’ll keep under wraps for now. And that’s just the “arty” stuff!

But two weeks is about the amount of time I’d imagine I can reasonably keep this blog up, on average, so when I got the message the other night that my Graphic Ear episode was available online, I knew that would be the perfect post.

Driving through the country yesterday listening to my episode in my new (to me) car! It's really nice to have a fully functioning stereo again. In my old car, when the light in my stereo would flicker out, I used to hit it like The Fonz with Arnold's jukebox to get it to come on again. It worked! But this is much better. Though I see it already needs a dusting....

First, a very easy and enjoyable assignment

Before I tell you where you can listen to the show, if you want to truly get into the headspace of the episode, start off by listening to the first song – “I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time” – off of André 3000’s new ambient flute album “New Blue Sun.” Why? Because in-studio we actually did start the show with that song before the official start time of Graphic Ear (Thursdays, 5:30-7PM ET)! But when you listen to my recorded episode, the track is not included – though we do back-announce it within the first few minutes of the show. So I would suggest listening to the track now to get into the groove of how things went live. It's just over 12 minutes long but very much worth it:

Now for the show: it’s available on Mixcloud!

Official Show Description: “Listen to the archive edition of Renée Heininger's episode on Graphic Ear from November 30, 2023 on WAYO 104.3 FM. We chat about the great designs she's created for WAYO fundraisers - and yes, you can still donate! Then there's her adventures in new-to-her media, like riso printing & film photography. She gets to put all these skills into play at her BOCES job - but also with her partner's band (King Buffalo), DaisyGirlScouts, and, of course, her own art. Speaking of bands, being part of a creative couple has its perks - including Burning Man and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Somehow, we make time for the most important topic, Cooper the super pup!”

About that WAYO fundraiser: it seems that as of the writing of this blog post, the donation portal is still live and you can still donate to get my sticker (part of the Sticker Pack) and/or other fabulous merch. At some point I have plans to blog more about the process of making the sticker – perhaps when it’s printed in the new year and I have one in my hands! Stay tuned. Overall, being on the show was really fun! In addition to playing André 3000, we also listened to Bobby McFerrin, Moonlight Benjamin, King Buffalo, and Sufjan Stevens. I also had 5 other songs ready to go if we had time, but we just had so much to talk about, it was hard to squeeze everything in. I’ll have to get back on the show before another 8 years passes, that’s for sure. Thanks to everyone who listened live and/or watched live. For the record, I had no idea people could see us until the show was over halfway through! Hah. Special shout-outs to Kyra and Chad who texted into the show with questions, and to my Mom who also texted in just after we wrapped to say how great it was. If you’re a Rochester visual artist friend who is interested in being on Graphic Ear, let me know and I can help connect you with those fine feline folks. Speaking of them, super huge thanks to Sabra, Clifton, Beckett, and Thatcher for having me on the show and all of the hard work that goes into that. Many thanks! Have a great weekend, everyone 😊 p.s. Man, the layout of this blog is driving me batty. Does anyone else notice it? The leading and line breaks are all over the place, for instance, even though I've done the exact same things between paragraphs. UGH. If anything about this blog is going to be the end of me, it's that. And I cannot find anywhere on this back-end to review the HTML and get the junk out of there. Anyway, I'm gonna let my perfectionist tendencies go for now (since I've already tried to lay out this blog post TWICE), and just send it. Don't @ me! (Unless you want to tell me it's great and I'm worrying too much).