Interview with Franke James: Environmental Artist (part the first)

My conversation with artist Franke James, a unique and exciting voice in Canadian environmentalism who creates Visual Essays that are informative, spirited and fun! She combines playful and somewhat cheeky artwork with her photographs, well researched science to present her point of view in a series of Visual Essays that are notable for their surprising optimism.

For Franke environmental activism begins at home where she advocates 'doing the hard thing first.' This for her included giving up her SUV in Toronto, all newsprint, fighting City Hall to make her driveway a green space, searching for sustainable clothing and much more. For me, the best thing about her essays is her straightforward story telling style that always rises above the tendentious when dealing with controversial issues and leaves you to to make up your own mind - you really should go see and read them at FrankeJames.com.

The interview is the last 25 minutes (somewhere around the 1:08:00 mark) of the podcast. Before that it's the regular morning broadcast which featured some jazz, punk music and mostly Canadian politics, not necessarily in that order.