Clever with Amy Devers

Artist and designer Dennis Maher has spent decades exploring the life cycles of buildings. After studying architecture at Cornell, he moved to Buffalo, New York—where a job in demolition introduced him to the visceral reality of the built environment constantly breaking down and rebuilding itself.
That experience sparked a practice rooted in salvaged materials, forgotten objects, and the imaginative transformation of ordinary spaces. Maher’s work now spans sculptural installations, living environments, and his most ambitious project: The Assembly House, an evolving artwork housed inside a historic church that also serves as a training ground for the building arts.
Part immersive artwork, part cultural attraction, part educational engine, The Assembly House teaches people to build while reconnecting them to the tactile, communal experience of craft. Through what he calls “architectural dream worlds,” Maher explores how memory, materials, and imagination reshape the way we understand the spaces we inhabit—and the role we play in building them.
Images and more from Dennis Maher on our website!

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Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

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Oscar-winning costume designer Deborah L. Scott grew up sewing doll clothes, puppets, and getting swept up by the stories at the cinema. At 21 she went to work costuming show girls on the Vegas strip. Once in film, her adaptability, imagination, and resourcefulness carved a path that led to projects with Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, and onto sets of the biggest films of our time.

Images, links and more from Deborah on cleverpodcast.com!

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Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Rich Stroffolino, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers

Apply to participate in Emerging Designers Spotlight LIVE

Special thanks to our sponsors!
Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Public artist Michael Townsend grew up in a military family that relocated often—at least ten times during his childhood. He learned early how to explore new locales and seek out new friends before moving on to the next temporary hometown. His final relocation was to study art at RISD, when he chose Providence as home—and began quietly reshaping it. He founded the Tape Art movement in 1989 and built a thriving practice rooted in ephemeral public murals, deeply personal underground installations, and highly clandestine collaborations, including the now-legendary Secret Mall Apartment.
For more than 30 years, he has created hundreds of temporary murals and collaborative public works around the world, including the 9/11 Hope Project and the invention of the BOOM! Projector. Now, with the success of the Secret Mall Apartment documentary on Netflix, it’s clear that he and his collaborators were deeply intentional about incubating that narrative until it was ready to be heard.
Moving fluidly in and out of the shadows—showing up, making an impression, then dissolving underground only to emerge again—turns out Michael himself may be a work of ephemeral art.
Images and more from Michael Townsend on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor! Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers
Apply to participate in Emerging Designers Spotlight LIVE

Special thanks to our sponsors!
Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When her life collided with a high-profile murder trial, longtime true-crime devotee Stephanie Tinsley found an unexpected path into creative agency and advocacy. After a career in sales and private equity, everything shifted when her husband, attorney Mark Tinsley, was thrust into the spotlight during the Murdaugh murder trials. In this episode, she and Amy discuss the making of Everything They Missed, the inner resources she had to marshal to tell the story well, and why centering human dignity is her driving force in true-crime storytelling.

Images and more from Stephanie Tinsley on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor: Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers

Apply to participate in Emerging Designers Spotlight LIVE

Special thanks to our sponsors!
Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Designer, craftsman, artist and educator, Norman Teague, grew up in Chicago absorbing the sounds, colors, textures and vibes of his “hood,” fancy cars, and Auntie Aretha’s painting. A highschool Drafting elective was his first real step into the design field, which he then traversed with aplomb through an MFA at SAIC, to the Venice Architecture Biennale, to MoMA, to the design team of the Obama Presidential Center. At the helm of his namesake design studio, he’s built a storied, critically acclaimed career, and a powerful legacy of challenging the design canon, cultural storytelling, and educating generations of future designers.

Images and more from Norman Teague on our website!

Special thanks to our sponsor: Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.

Clever is hosted & produced by Amy Devers, with editing by Mark Zurawinski, production assistance from Ilana Nevins and Anouchka Stephan, and music by El Ten Eleven.

SUBSCRIBE - listen to Clever on any podcast app!
SIGN UP - for our Substack for news, bonus content, new episode alerts
VISIT - cleverpodcast.com for transcripts, images, and 200+ more episodes
SAY HI! - on Instagram & LinkedIn @cleverpodcast @amydevers

Apply to participate in Emerging Designers Spotlight LIVE

Special thanks to our sponsors!
Wix Studio is a platform built for all web creators to design, develop, and manage exceptional web projects at scale.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.