www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=share&v=58keJoudu2I<\/a><\/p>\n In the new release of the program, Andrei Zrozhevsky will try himself as a real artist, and Oleg Shevchuk will get acquainted with the Old Believers! (Kind of a Ukrainian “Dirty Jobs” program. In Russian and\u00a0Ukrainian)<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/a-matter-of-choice-mastectomies-without-reconstruction\/<\/a><\/p>\n For women who\u2019ve had mastectomies, what to do next is, increasingly, a matter of choice. And what some women are choosing to do may surprise you. Erin Moriarty of \u201c48 Hours\u201d takes a candid look.<\/p>\n https:\/\/goo.gl\/3RxVo4<\/a><\/p>\n Artist Thedra Cullar-Ledford is super out-there and fabulous as is her work, but I’ll bet she wasn’t prepared to elaborate on her sex life in front of her 15-year old son, Sage. Check out Thedra’s work and you’ll get a taste of why this mother\/son relationship is not like the ones you see on TV.<\/p>\n http:\/\/theleadernews.com\/breast-cancer-support-groups-can-provide-significant-help\/<\/a><\/p>\n Celebrated Heights artist Thedra Cullar-Ledford is not only a breast cancer survivor, but the challenge has motivated her remarkable artwork. Some of her conceptual art is funny, some is angry, but most of it is about being a woman which includes strong statements about \u201cwomen\u2019s boobs, both having them and losing them,\u201d she states.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.tmc.edu\/news\/2016\/09\/breasts-display-lady-part-follies\/<\/a><\/p>\n Breasts. Several shapes, sizes and colors are on display in Lady Part Follies at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Thedra Cullar-Ledford\u2019s mixed media works examine this touchstone of female beauty, leading viewers on her personal journey through anger, vanity and new-found freedom.<\/p>\n In 2013, Cullar-Ledford was ready to donate a kidney to a dear friend when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital performed a double mastectomy and removed all of the cancer.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.houstonchronicle.com\/entertainment\/article\/Show-of-force-CAMH-spotlights-hometown-trio-in-9187232.php<\/a><\/p>\n The curators call it the “whiplash effect.”<\/p>\n “Right Here, Right Now: Houston, Volume 2” is a trio of smallish mini-retrospectives by artists who appear to have little in common aside from being strong, mature Houstonians. Because the three shows are displayed equitably, visitors entering the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston quickly face a decision: Where to start?<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.papercitymag.com\/arts\/powerful-houston-women-contemporary-arts-museum-houston-right-here-right-now\/<\/a><\/p>\n As part of an increasing emphasis on hometown talent, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston follows up on 2014\u2019s well-received solos for Debra Barrera, Nathaniel Donnett and Carrie Marie Schneider in \u201cRight Here, Right Now\u201d and the mammoth survey of Mark Flood\u2019s painting practice and film-making (anti)prowess. Late summer, CAMH is rolling out the second iteration of \u201cRight Here, Right Now,\u201d an aptly titled triple play presenting three single-person exhibitions in the museum\u2019s expansive first-floor Brown Foundation Gallery (no longer are Houston artists relegated to the basement).<\/p>\n Each of the curators \u2014 museum staff director Bill Arning, senior curator Valerie Cassel Oliver and curator Dean Daderko \u2014 homes in on one artist \u2014 and this fall, they are all female. (Guerrilla Girls will be pleased.)<\/p>\n Arning organizes a sprawling exhibition for Thedra Cullar-Ledford, the Oxford-educated Texas-born painter\/performer\/breast cancer survivor\/feminist known as much for her brash, warm personality as for being a den mother at the Independence Heights Studios (co-owned with her husband, artist Stephen Cullar-Ledford), where pot-luck suppers, unscripted salon dialogues and poetry readings happen around a fire pit. Watch for Cullar-Ledford\u2019s brazen take on Barbie dolls and breast cancer.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.artinamericamagazine.com\/news-features\/magazine\/up-close-houston-loves-eccentrics\/<\/a><\/p>\n I arrived in Texas in 2009 to direct the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston after a lifetime on the East Coast, and the first lesson I learned was that Houston loves eccentrics. It is, in fact, something of a tradition and likely why I have been able to thrive as a museum director here.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found Houston to be a progressive and intellectual city\u2014a bright blue dot in a massive field of red. We have had an arts-friendly, out-lesbian mayor for the last six years. There are more artists\u2019 talks, lectures, performances, film screenings, and concerts than one could ever attend. This makes it easy to forget the regressive elements of the political machine working against equality and sanity in the state. But despite the truly heinous political realities\u2014especially around guns and reproductive rights\u2014there is broad bipartisan support for the arts. Even the conservative community brags about the city\u2019s openness to controversial art.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/theleadernews.com\/women-embrace-being-flat-and-fabulous\/<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFlat and Fabulous has been wonderful and empowering,\u201d said celebrated Heights artist and married mom of two, Thedra Cullar-Ledford who was diagnosed at 43. \u201cI have many friends across the world now, and so much support from them. We laugh and cry together. I may still be adjusting, but I have never felt less feminine without my breasts, not even for one second.\u201d<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/wsimag.com\/art\/17380-powerful-babies<\/a><\/p>\n Powerful Babies: Keith Haring\u2019s Impact on Artists Today brings together a diverse group of contemporary artists from across the United States and Northern Europe to celebrate the legacy of Keith Haring on the 25th anniversary of the artist\u2019s death. Curated by Bill Arning, Director of Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and Rick Herron, New York-based independent curator, the exhibition reconsiders Haring\u2019s career and achievements through new commissions, recent work, performances and events to highlight the ubiquitous influence Haring has had on contemporary artists working today.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.houstonpress.com\/calendar\/thedra-cullar-ledford-drawing-the-eye-to-nothingness-7402700<\/a><\/p>\n Technically, \u201cThedra Cullar-Ledford: Drawing the Eye to Nothingness\u201d <\/b>is an art exhibit. Actually, it\u2019s more of a visual intervention-slash-street brawl-slash-party. With a mammogram truck and nipple cupcakes thrown in for good measure. In just 12 short months, Cullar-Ledford (the street brawler) found out she had breast cancer and had her breasts removed. (Actually, breasts remind Cullar-Ledford of chickens, so she uses the term boobs.) She started and then stopped reconstruction surgery, and became an outspoken advocate for Flat and Fabulous, a group supporting reconstruction alternatives. All the while she produced an enormous amount of artwork focusing on boobs (nipples, in particular).<\/p>\n read more…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.houstonpress.com\/arts\/boobs-breasts-and-tits-socially-conscious-cancer-survivor-fights-back-with-body-mind-and-art-6372584<\/p>\n Upon receiving a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer, as 1 of every 8 women in the United States will, it is natural to want to fight the disease with every arsenal in the medical toolbox. Thedra Cullar-Ledford, in her Drawing the Eye to Nothingness exhibit at G Gallery, has launched a full-scale attack against what she refers to as tit cancer, but her weapons of choice are her body, her mind and her creativity.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/grungecake.com\/thedra-cullar-ledford-perfect-with-or-without-a-bra\/articles\/9535<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cCancer is a cunt.\u201d I\u2019ll tell you why.<\/p>\n The valuable and undated lessons I\u2019ve learned from Thedra during courses in Fundamentals of Design and Colour Theory are what helped me to understand the importance of composition within the realms of design and communication, the importance of visual perceptual properties: tones, hues and shades, and how each hue affects the human brain, emotionally. In a roundabout way, I believe it is why GrungeCake looks the way it does now.<\/p>\n read more…<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.chron.com\/heights\/news\/article\/Artists-developers-create-niche-for-studios-4157968.php<\/a><\/p>\n Houston has no shortage of working artists, and providing studio space for them has proven to be successful business ventures for a few visionaries, among them some artists who needed supplemental income and a developer with a soft spot for the arts. read more…<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThedra Cullar-Ledford featured in “A Matter of Choice: Mastectomies Without Reconstruction”<\/h2>\n
By Erin Moriarty, CBS Sunday Morning<\/em>\u00a0on CBS,\u00a0March 12, 2017<\/h3>\n
\nDr. Lisa asks artist Thedra Cullar-Ledford inappropriate questions in front of her teen-age son.<\/h2>\n
By Lisa Levy, Dr. Lisa Gives a Shit<\/em> on Radio Free Brooklyn,\u00a0January, 2017<\/h3>\n
\nBreast cancer support groups can provide significant help<\/h2>\n
By Kim Hogstrom, The Leader<\/em>, October 8, 2016<\/h3>\n
\nBreasts on display in \u2018Lady Part Follies\u2019<\/h2>\n
By Britni Riley, Texas Medical Center News<\/em>, September 29, 2016<\/h3>\n
\nShow of force: CAMH spotlights hometown trio in solo retrospectives:\u00a0Contemporary Arts Museum Houston spotlights hometown trio in solo retrospectives<\/h2>\n
By Molly Glentzer, Houston Chronicle,<\/em> August 26, 2016<\/h3>\n
\nThree Powerful Women Rebels are Spotlighted in Houston, Proving Hometown Talent Rules<\/h2>\n
by Catherine D. Anspon, Paper City Magazine<\/em>,\u00a0August 15, 2016<\/h3>\n
\nUp Close: Houston Loves Eccentrics<\/h2>\n
by Bill Arning, Art in America<\/em>, May 1, 2016<\/h3>\n
\nWomen embrace being \u2018Flat and Fabulous\u2019<\/h2>\n
By Kim Hogstrom, The Leader<\/em>, October 13, 2015<\/h3>\n
\nPowerful Babies<\/h2>\n
25 Sep 2015\u2009\u2014\u20093 Apr 2016 at Spritmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden<\/h3>\n
Wall Street International, <\/em>September 7, 2015<\/h3>\n
\nThedra Cullar-Ledford: Drawing the Eye to Nothingness<\/h2>\n
by Olivia Flores Alvarez, Houston Press,<\/em> April\u00a023, 2015<\/h3>\n
\nBoobs, Breasts and Tits: Socially Conscious Cancer Survivor Fights Back With Body, Mind and Art<\/h2>\n
by Susie Tommaney, Houston Press<\/em>, April\u00a06, 2015<\/h3>\n
\nThedra Cullar-Ledford: Perfect, With or Without a Bra<\/h2>\n
by Richardine Bartee, GrungeCake.com, November 13, 2014<\/h3>\n
\nAt the end of September, I interviewed my former college instructor. I know they say you\u2019re not supposed to express \u201cfavouritism\u201d but Thedra was my favourite college professor and I was one of her favourite students in New York City, and perhaps, that\u2019s why I\u2019ve had such a hard time putting this piece together.<\/p>\n
\nArtists, developers create niche for studios:\u00a0Studio landlords seek to fill needs, sometimes with off-beat properties<\/h2>\n
By Lindsay Peyton, Houston Chronicle<\/em>,\u00a0December 31, 2012<\/h3>\n
\nThe business model is not new, said Jon Deal, owner of the Deal Company Developments and Investments.
\n“Art studios have been around in Houston forever,” Deal said. “They generally were just more underground.”<\/p>\n
\nREVIEW; Courtly Bow to Tradition And Those Who Revere It<\/h2>\n
By Ken Johnson, The New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0April 10, 1998<\/h3>\n