Person Place Thing is an interview show based on this idea: people are particularly engaging when they speak not directly about themselves but about something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that are important to them. The result? Surprising stories from great speakers. Host Randy Cohen interviewed sculptor Vinnie Bagwell.
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Vinnie Bagwell began sculpting in 1993. Currently, Bagwell is leading the conception and development of “The Enslaved Africans’ Rain Garden”–an urban-heritage public-art project for the City of Yonkers, New York, to commemorate the legacy of the first enslaved Africans to be manumitted by law in the United States, 64 years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Bagwell’s first commission: “The First Lady of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald” was commissioned by the City of Yonkers in 1996. It was the first sculpture of a contemporary African-American woman to be commissioned by a municipality in the United States. Other commissions include “Legacies” at Chickasaw Heritage Park to honor the Chickasaw Native Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans; and “Frederick Douglass Circle” which is a 24” high sculpture of Frederick Douglass. Bagwell is the winner of a $1 million commission to sculpt a statue that honors enslaved women who were experimented upon. It’s called “Victory: Beyond Sims.”
For twelve years Randy Cohen wrote “The Ethicist,” a weekly column for the The New York Times Magazine. His first television work was writing for Late Night with David Letterman for which he won three Emmy awards. This live show is also taped and broadcast at a later date on public radio throughout the Northeast (WNYE, 91.5 FM in NYC).