Leon Waller and Wendell Walker Guest On “If These Walls Could Talk” With Hosts Wendy Stuart and Tym Moss Wednesday 7/20/22

Who else but hosts Wendy Stuart and Tym Moss could “spill the tea”  on their weekly show “If These Walls Could Talk” live from Pangea Restaurant on the Lower Eastside of NYC, with their unique style of honest, and emotional interviews, sharing the fascinating backstory of celebrities, entertainers, recording artists, writers and artists and bringing their audience along for a fantastic  ride.   

Leon Waller and Wendell Walker will be featured guests on “If These Walls Could Talk” with hosts Wendy Stuart and Tym Moss on Wednesday, July 20th, 2022 at 2 PM ET live from the infamous Pangea Restaurant. 

Wendy Stuart is an author, celebrity interviewer, model, filmmaker and hosts “Pandemic Cooking With Wendy,” a popular Youtube comedic cooking show born in the era of Covid-19, and TriVersity Talk, a weekly web series with featured guests discussing their lives, activism and pressing issues in the LGBTQ Community. 

Tym Moss is a popular NYC singer, actor, and radio/tv host who recently starred in the hit indie film “JUNK” to critical acclaim. 

Leon Waller:

I was born in King William County Virginia in 1949. I graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1975 with a B.S. Degree in Education, and my primary interest was art and museum education. My first museum work was at The Valentine Museum and The Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, where I got involved in theater and dance through the Museum’s education department. That was followed by a move to New York City in the late 70s and an era working at The Strand Book Store, followed by a position as Education Associate at NYC Board of Education, where I Conducted Youth Employment and Training workshops for teenagers. 

I joined the staff of The Center for African Art which was at that time was a new museum, opening in 1984. I assisted with the grand opening and then served there in various capacities, including education, for 4 years. That was followed by 8 years as an Educator and intern coordinator at The Brooklyn Museum, a 2-year return to my previous employer, now Museum for African Art, as Director of Education, and then another 10 years at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum where I served as Senior Project Developer for the Collections Department. 

Alongside my museum work I have served as an Adjunct Instructor at Parsons School of Design, The New School, and at New York City College of Technology. I also served as a Smithsonian Institution Lecturer for a Smithsonian/Crystal Cruise Line 3-week journey up the Atlantic African coast from Cape Town to Las Palmas in 2001. I am also a writer and was honored to have provided the libretto to Stephen Cronin’s song cycle “House Songs” which won the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize in Australia in 1991. 

The visual arts have always had an important part of my life. My art making has both inspired and been inspired by my years working in museums, in education, and through stories and storytelling. I am happy that my work is in the permanent collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York University, and the National Urban League, as well as the collections of several other public and corporate institutions, and several private collections. I am particularly grateful to those individuals who have followed the development of my work over the years, and have supported, critiqued and encouraged me. The journey continues.

Wendell Walker 

With more than 45 years experience (37 in museum staff positions) in exhibition design and building operations, Walker has a unique experience base not only in making beautiful and engaging experiences, but also in assuring that the infrastructure supporting the design is solid and appropriate for the specific application. From addressing concerns regarding access, both physical and conceptual, to concerns around fundraising, budgeting, marketing, security, and conservation quality climate control—he has done it all. He has also managed and advised on major construction, expansion, and renovation projects at several museums.

Walker played a major role in the daily operations of Museum of the Moving Image over the last 30 years, serving as an exhibition design consultant on and off between 1989 and 2001, and then joining the Museum as a Deputy Director for Exhibitions in August 2001. Within the first two years of deputy director service his responsibilities were expanded to include all design and building operations, and he played a major role the Museum’s overall $68M expansion and renovation, resulting in a grand reopening in January 2011. This was quickly followed by overseeing the design and construction of the dedicated Jim Henson gallery that opened in 2017. In addition to directing building’s daily operations, including security, engineering, maintenance, and visitor experience, Walker continued overseeing all the Museum’s exhibitions, from conception, through development and installation, then through the daily run of the exhibition, and ending with closing and safe return of the content. 

Walker’s background in exhibition design and management is extensive, starting in the early 1980’s organizing exhibitions in alternative spaces such as The First Women’s Bank, at 57th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan, and the Arch at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. Walker’s first museum-based exhibition design position was at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 1984, and he went on from there to direct a broad range of design and installation projects for many different museums in both the US and internationally. These projects included the 1^st prize-winning official U.S. exhibition of works by Martin Puryear at the 20th São Paulo Bienal (1989);  Richard Yarde’s The Savoy Ballroom installation in Paris, on behalf of The Studio Museum in Harlem, as part of the centennial celebrations of the Statue of Liberty (1986); the Grey Art Gallery’s Success is a Job in New York: The Early Art and Business of Andy Warhol, including management of the very successful international tour with guest curator Donna DeSalvo (1989-90). Walker also designed DeSalvo’s unique exhibition A Museum Looks at Itself: Mapping Past & Present at the Parrish, 1897-1992 for the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, NY (1992); he directed a team from Ralph Applebaum Associates on the design and installation of The Duke and Duchess of Windsor exhibition at Sotheby’s NY (1997) and the very special installation of the T-Rex Sue, now a major feature of the Field Museum in Chicago; he designed the multi-museum installations of Traditions Tensions, Contemporary Art in Asia (1996-7) and InsideOut: New Chinese Art (1997-8) for The Asia Society, and oversaw the installation at The Asia Society, The Queens Museum, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, and Grey Art Gallery/NYU; and was responsible for the overall management (with the full MoMA/PS1 curatorial team) and design of the first Greater New York exhibition (2000), which also celebrated the initial joining of what was P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center and MoMA into what is now MoMA/PS1.

Walker’s exhibitions at Museum of the Moving Image have included a broad range of topics and moving image content and formats, ranging from the original physical installation of The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-1992 that Walker designed as a consultant in 1992–which is now an ongoing, online, exhibition that gets updated with each presidential election cycle—to blockbusters exhibitions such as Mathew Weiner’s Mad Men; Martin Scorsese; What’s Up Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones; How Cats Took Over the Internet; Walkers: Hollywood Afterlives in Art and Artifact; and Jim Campbell: Rhythms of Perception.

Watch Leon Weller and Wendell Walker on “If These Walls Could Talk” with hosts Wendy Stuart and Tym Moss on YouTube here:

Subscribe and listen to “If These Walls Could Talk” on Apple Podcasts/iTunes here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/if-these-walls-could-talk/id1561221158