7 With Kevin Live!

​On Thursday, June 11, Quad City Arts executive director Kevin Maynard introduced a new video feature, “Seven With Kevin Live.” To be streamed on the nonprofit’s YouTube channel and Facebook page, the episodes (of 30 minutes or less) get their name from Maynard’s monthly e-mail newsletter, sent on the first Monday each month.
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The purpose of “Seven with Kevin Live” is to have a fun, conversational interview with artists that are in some way connected to Quad City Arts. Through all of our programs, we work with hundreds of artists throughout the year and our community is impacted by these artists through their performances, public art installations, and gallery exhibitions.
 
Our team has the added benefit of getting to work closer with these artists, which gives us the opportunity to learn more about them and their art. We want to share that with our audience. “Seven with Kevin Live” is meant to take a look behind the curtain and offer a deeper connection with the art being displayed and presented in our community.
 
We also aim to carry a bit of the flame lit by the late Bruce Carter, a local arts institution who was the longtime host of “Art Talks” on WVIK-FM.
 
The monthly Quad City Arts newsletter highlights seven things that are coming up, we are working on, or sometimes that Maynard just wants to talk about. “It can be random, fun, and hopefully thought-provoking,” he says. “Using that same style, we came up with seven questions that will end each interview.”
 
In each “Seven With Kevin” video (expected to be introduced every other Thursday night), Maynard will ask these “lightning round” questions of his guests:

• What are you currently watching on TV or Netflix?
• “Star Wars” or “Star Trek”?
• Where is the best pizza in the Quad Cities?
• What is your favorite book?
• Where is your go-to place for inspiration?
• What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
• If you could have a drink with any artist living or dead who would it be?

 
The first June 11 video featured an interview with photographer Ken Urban, of Durant, Iowa, who with painter Margaret Ertz of Burlington, Iowa, are the featured artists in the Rock Island gallery through June 19. Maynard spoke with Quad City Arts visual arts director Dawn Wohlford-Metallo about Ertz’s work.
Be sure to tune in with Kevin – it’s heaven!!