Life Changes Show, June 8, 2015
Life Changes Show with Filippo Voltaggio and cohost Mark Laisure
Healing, Uplifting and Inspiring Through Art with Guest, Award-Winning Painter and Sculpture Artis Lane and Musical Guest Obinna Eze-Ajoku.
Guest, Artis Lane
GUEST: ARTIS LANE
Artis Lane was born in North Buxton in southern Ontario, Canada, on May 14, 1927. When she was two years old, Lane’s family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Lane attended school and began to distinguish herself as an artist. By the age of fifteen, she was painting portraits of her classmates, and after graduating from high school, she was awarded a scholarship to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. After graduating, she married journalist Bill Lane and moved with him to Detroit, where the Urban League, Detroit Chapter, played an instrumental role in Lane’s being the first woman to be admitted to Cranbrook Art Academy. Lane used her artistic talent to help support her family by painting portraits of auto industry executives and then Governor of Michigan George Romney.
Lane met actress Diahann Carroll shortly afterwards, and moved to New York City, where she continued to paint portraits while becoming a member of Portraits Incorporated. She soon moved to Los Angeles and began working with Universal Studios. There, she met actor Cary Grant, and the two became close friends. Over the ensuing decades, she was commissioned to paint such notables as President John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Barbara Bush, Rosa Parks, Michael Jordan and Aretha Franklin, among others. In addition to her portraitures, Lane created bronze sculptures for the National Council of Negro Women’s Dorothy Height and Mary McLeod Bethune.
Lane has created bronze sculptures for the Soul Train Awards and has designed book covers and the original logo for the Dance Theatre of Harlem. Lane has held exhibitions throughout the United States and Canada. Her works can be seen in the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Missouri Library, AT&T’s corporate collection, the offices of Motown Records and numerous private galleries.
Lane is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Women of Excellence Award from the Chatham-Kent Family YMCA in Canada, the Museum of African American Art Award in Los Angeles, and the Women for Women Award from the Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital Foundation. In 2004, Lane continued to live and work in Los Angeles.
Guest, Obinna Eze-Ajoku
Obinna Eze-Ajoku
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Obinna grew up a pianist and an arranger. He spent some time in Nairobi, Kenya where he sang classical tenor for about a year at the age of 12. He returned to Nigeria where he developed his piano talents, playing and arranging music in churches as a teenager.
From the age of 19, he began to sing a lot more, going on to record original songs that were played on radio stations around Africa. He and his songs would feature on song charts, a BBC TV series, documentaries and huge concerts.
After a few years also doubled as a daily radio talk show host where he would speak with people who shared live stories and sought counseling and advise on the air. Every now and then, the show would also delve into political issues, however the main content of the show was Family and Relationships.
In 2013 he attended Full Sail University, Orlando Florida, graduating as Overall Best Student in the Recordings Arts Program for the year. During the time, working as an audio engineer and technician with companies such as ESPN, WWE and composing for productions done for non-profit organizations and the FBI.
Presently Obinna is working as an audio engineer with EA Sports, a video game company. When he’s not creating sounds or scripting, he is playing the piano, arranging or composing for himself, another singer or a church.
Life Changes Show
Come and join the conversation about what's going on and what we can do together about it, with it, and for it. We have the choice, we have the power. We can do magic if we just believe!
A show about the changes going on in us, to us, around us, and because of us. Therefore, it's technically a show about "Everything," only with a how to make it better, see it better, be better.
In the show, there is talk about, and with, people who have either been through major changes, are helping others with major changes, or people who are changing the world for the better in a major way.
The show is a one-hour talk show format with a monologue by the host, a 30 minute interview with a guest of note, capped by a "Producer's Wrap" segment, in which Filippo and Co-Host Mark Laisure, and sometimes surprise guests, bring it all home for the listeners in a sometimes humorous and sometimes touching, but always entertaining conversation.
