A lot of words describe Satya Wimbish. Patient isn’t one of them.
Perched on a cobalt-colored plastic chair inside the gallery at 1400 Dallas St. in Aurora, the manager of The Collection Gallery skillfully dismembers a Golden Oreo cookie as she describes how she wound up with an amateur recording set up on the creaky floor next to her.
“Even though we were still trying to get the kinks out, I felt I had to do something, because if I was stagnant, it was not getting done,” she says matter-of-factly. “So I looked up ways to host your own online stuff.”
That unswerving attitude has been the driving force behind one of the most prominent figures in the arts district starting her own radio show. Well, quasi-radio show.
On March 27, Wimbish aired the first episode of “Trash as Art Radio,” a self-produced and recorded podcast that aims to highlight local Aurora Cultural Arts District artists and shed light on their respective creative processes. The name “Trash as Art” comes from Wimbish’s nearby art studio and business of the same name, which upcycles discarded items and turns them into galleried art pieces.
The notion of starting her own program is one that Wimbish says she has been ruminating on for years, but the impetus for what is now “Trash as Art Radio” came last year while she was pursuing the Internet’s most eclectic bazaar: Craigslist.
“I was probably looking at the gigs section for calls for artists or modeling,” she recalls.
But amid the cacophony of Craigslist peddlers, Wimbish stumbled upon a listing from RadioYo.com, a media startup, calling for radio DJs. She responded to the ad and was eventually selected to host some sort of art-centric radio show, though the website became mired in technical glitches during beta testing, so logistical details were never quite finalized. Undeterred, Wimbish discovered Mixlr — a podcast application that allows users to record free online broadcasts — and she took the project on herself. Following a call to artist friends on Facebook, “Trash as Art Radio” was born.
“The purpose of the show is to basically help other artists get exposure,” Wimbish said. “I don’t know of any artist talk shows where it’s just listening to them talk or anything like that, so this could be something different.”
So far, Wimbish’s first two interviews have featured artists who she knows personally — Susan M. Gibbons and Karen Trueblood. In her interview with Trueblood, the two friends of nearly 15 years laughed with a familiarity that only decades-old friends share, and the topics of conversation ranged from the business of art to pieces that lead to breakthroughs.
“If you go out there just to make money, your art is going to ring false,” Trueblood, who also leads guided art museum tours, said. “The art of creativity is something we all have, and it’s an impulse that we should all try to express.”
Going forward, Wimbish said that she plans on having hosts, more interviews per week and possibly splitting the show into sections that feature different genres of art such as fashion, photography and theater. She also plans to soon feature artists whom she doesn’t know personally.
One way in which Wimbish is planning on broadening her pool of potential interviewees is through a charity fashion show she is founding, hosting and coordinating later this summer. The show is tentatively slated to take place in an ACAD venue and feature Wimbish-designed screen prints. Artists who agree to participate in the show will automatically earn a radio spot on “Trash as Art Radio,” and 50 percent of all proceeds will go toward art scholarships at the Community College of Aurora.
Wimbish said she is currently in the process of setting up a GoFundMe crowd-sourcing page for the fashion show and is firming up details with officials from Community College of Aurora, though the school has already said it is onboard.
“I’m taking it little by little right now,” she said.