Podcast #19 – Urban Sketching with Ken and Roberta Avidor

Ken Avidor’s sketches from the MN State Fair.

The podcast this week is a conversation with Ken and Roberta Avidor about urban sketching. The Avidors are local pen and brush artists, who are both part of the self-described cult of urban sketching, each making beautiful drawings in their journals of people, buildings, and urban landscapes that they encounter on their trips through the Twin Cities and the larger country. Ken runs the Urban Sketchers Twin Cities blog, and they both participate in regular meetups with the larger sketching community. After twenty plus years living in Minneapolis, Ken and Roberta recently moved to a condo in the newly remodeled Union Depot in lowertown St Paul. I met them there this week, and we sat down over a cup of herbal tea to talk about how sketching affects the pace of city life, how the light in St Paul differs from the light in Minneapolis, what its like to live in a 1920s era train station, and how to get around the Twin Cities without a car. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Link to the audio is here! You cansubscribe on iTunes here.

Bill Lindeke

About Bill Lindeke

Pronouns: he/him

Bill Lindeke has writing blogging about sidewalks and cities since 2005, ever since he read Jane Jacobs. He is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota Geography Department, the Cityscape columnist at Minnpost, and has written multiple books on local urban history. He was born in Minneapolis, but has spent most of his time in St Paul. Check out Twitter @BillLindeke or on Facebook.