This podcast is really a "part two" podcast in the sense that Billy Schenck and I have been working over two years on his 55-Year Retrospective show. We released a podcast that was recorded a year before this one, where we were discussing the planning process and that conversation continues in this episode as we approach the opening reception.

It takes a lot of time and energy to pull off a show of this magnitude. The show opens February 6, 2026 and it was very interesting to attack it in this way, knowing we're in the process of making history. What we're talking about and how it's going to be looked at by future by historians, stuff like that.

We filmed this at Billy's house which is a really beautiful place. It is filled with all the things that creatives need to be inspired. You see, his entire house will ultimately become a museum (It's part of his nonprofit organization) so we're kind of living through real history. It's amazing.

I fully expect that this podcast will be played in the museum sometime in the future, as a point of reference of this moment in time when he had this monumental retrospective featuring so much work.

Anyways, it was a wonderful interview. Even if you can't make the retrospective, you can listen to this podcast and get a feel for the important contribution that Billy Schenck has made to the art world.

There's a book that we did on the this show as well, which is available on our website if you want to take the show home with you. I hope you enjoy. This is Pop Western art icon Billy Schenck on the Art Dealer Diaries Podcast.

One of the things I love about doing this podcast is that I get a variety of people that come through my life. In this case it's Bill Healey, who I've known probably 25 plus years. His role, his part of the art ecosystem is different than many of the other people I've had on, and that is of a collector. He's a true collector who has this unique history, which I went into and I found very, interesting.

How he went from economics, to commercial development, to then retiring and devoting his life to art. First Western art, Russells, Remingtons, etc., followed by an epiphany when he was at the Heard Museum, seeing images of the Native American boarding schools. I remember that exhibit very well. I have one of these images in my own collection hanging in my own office. I look at it all the time just to help keep me grounded. Well, that image really set him off on a new odyssey to understand Native art and history in a different way. He then sold off the majority of this Western material, and focused on collecting Indigenous American art.

Bill has built this huge collection, part of which he donated to the Saint Louis Art Museum. They did a beautiful book on the collection and he's going to continue to give away pieces that he's collected to museum institutions to help tell the story of indigenous artists ranging from 1920 to today.

It's a fun ride of through his life and over 60 years of collecting. I think it's a real gift that Bill shared it with us.

You know, one of the great things about going to an artist's studio is you get an inside look at how they make art, how they create, how they see their world. With Maeve's work in her studio, you really get a glimpse of that process.

If you ever get the opportunity to go to an artist's studio, take it for sure, because it allows you to feel that what they feel, how they get to where they get artistically.

Maeve's studio is quite remarkable. The way that she has things set up, and how she visually transfers things from paper to the acrylic that she works on. It's just so complex and impressive to see in person.

So I highly recommend this podcast if you can watch it on YouTube, just because you'll get to live inside the studio for 40 or so minutes. It's brings it all to life. How she creates, how her world comes to be. For me, that's a real gift.