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Today, an encore episode of last fall’s talk with Kenny Martin, a teacher and artist who lives on the edge. Not only do his high school students wield blowtorches to do metalwork, but Kenny’s hobby is undersea diving – while holding his breath. The images below are from an exhibit of his drawings based on his breath holding free dives that had a good run at Real Art Ways in Hartford. Oh, and Kenny’s also been a boxer, and most recently founded a Fight Club for teens; he’s convincing in making it sound therapeutic. Back when Kenny taught elementary school, he had his students bury tuna carcasses, a lesson in composting. So do I need to tell you Kenny’s an interesting guy? He says he also gives a great haircut.  This is the interview that convinced me I need to have more people from Brooklyn in my life. And btw, where else are you going to find conversations like this but on WESU? Please, during this spring pledge drive, do your part to support community radio by going to wesufm.org/pledge and giving what you can. Or I’ll have Kenny punch you in the nose.

Upper left, Ken with the first of his breath-hold-dive drawings, done from memory for artist Peter Waite’s “Monster Drawing” class in Wesleyan’s Graduate Liberal Study Program several years ago.

Below, two views of the art cart Ken, then a K-5 teacher, created when he lost his classroom. It was paid for in part with crowd-funding.

At the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA thru May 30

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Art about war. Weirdly coincidentally, the Clark Art Institute in the Berkshires was in the process of putting together an exhibit on that very subject when, boom, Russia invaded Ukraine. And so it is that the show, “As They Saw It: Artists Witnessing War,” on view, appropriately, through Memorial Day, packs an extra emotional punch. It’s an exhibit of prints, drawings, and photographs of conflicts going back four centuries, all of them from the Clark’s permanent collection, works by such heavy hitters as Degas, Manet, and Goya, and many less familiar names whose work is no less powerful. I saw it a week ago and certain images still stick in my mind. We visit with curator Anne Leonard.

A selection of images from the show:

Top row: Pierre-Georges Jeanniot, The Survivors of a Massacre Used as Gravediggers (1915); Auguste Raffet, Military Uniform Study, Artillery (1837)

2nd row: After Winslow Homer, The War for the Union, 1862, A Cavalry Charge; Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet, A French Soldier of the Ancien Regime, 1842

3rd row: Hieronymus Hopfer, After Raphael, Combat of Cavaliers and Foot Soldiers, 1520-50; top right: Theophile Alexandre Steinlen, East Wind, 1916; bottom right: Goya, Que valor! (What valor!) from The Disasters of War, 1810-20

4th row: Goya, Yo Lo Vie (I Saw It) from The Disasters of War, 1810-20; Unknown, Portrait of a Civil War Veteran Wearing a Grand Army of the Republic Medal, 1866-70

Goya’s complete The Disasters of War portfolio and other images from the exhibition can be found here.